Prologue

Last updated Feb 12, 2019

It was three years earlier the 21st night of November when they met on the Battery. The moon was full, and a half-dozen boys partially swaddled in unsuitable summer coats shivered against the seawall looking for Mr. Right. Abel Erikson was one of those Mr. Rights looking to meet none of them save a well-hung black boy capable of making him scream “Jesus”, “Yes, Lord…”

“Do you have a light?” he said with a cigarette cocked at the corner of his mouth as he approached the one black boy there with an overstuffed backpack by his feet.

“Sure,” the boy said striking a match and, in the flame, he saw that Abel's eyes were hazel like the color of algae murky pond water. He shook the firelight out and backed up.

Abel stared at the boy who wasn’t necessarily skinny but full-bodied like a strong field hand.  He carried himself well in cheap baggy clothes Abel prayed were surely just baggy but undeniably dirt cheap.  No, he didn't look fat at all. “Cold out, don't you think?" he said as smoke billowed from his mouth.

“Yes,” the boy said mashing his cig butt out with the tip of his boot and, studying his boot, the boy blushed recalling his used boots as they were had seen better days.

“What are you looking for?” Abel said.

“I’m looking for you,” the boy said.

“My car is parked up the street. Would you like to go there and warm up?”

“What kind of car?”

“A Mercedes. A dusty kind of red with soft leather seats. Very comfortable.”

"Of course," the boy smiled.

Inside the car, the boy offered a stale can of malt liquor beer pulled from his backpack, and they shared it along with one cigarette. As the moon rose higher in the black sky changing into a dazzling white, Abel leaned over and kissed the boy on the mouth and felt himself sinking, slipping into the torn leather seat, losing control and wanting it.

​This kiss, the helpless way it made him feel, captivated him so, leaving him no hint of the dark machinations yet to come, no hint of the relentless downhill spiral  . . .

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2