Handsome Cookie Boy
Barty Crouch Junior spent all morning skating in the park. Summer almost came to an end and soon enough, his shitty school life would start again. Although he rarely went to class, it was always in the back of his mind that he was supposed to be somewhere else. And what he was doing was wrong. Not in a way that he felt bad skipping, more in a frustrating kind of way. He wanted to be free from his academic duties so he could laze around all day and live a real life.
So that’s what he did this morning, he skated in the park, befriended people he would never see again, and ticked off the wrong people, the ones that he would eventually see again, let it be a week or a year later.
It was a routine, in which Barty always came out injured in some way. They would find him skating, of course, call him out like a dog, snicker with their dumb friends, one would tell the rest to wait in the back while he walked up to the boy that insulted them a while back, throw the first punch, and Barty would beat the shit out of that cocky son of a bitch while their friends joined the brawl and it would soon become something like a five on one.
Barty left the skating park to go home. He was lucky his dad was renting a house in the middle of the city, right next to a skating park, a local store, and an el train if he ever felt like ending his miserable life. Which he hadn’t felt like, by the way.
He jogged up the first set of stairs that led to the el train and followed the rails on his skateboard, putting a foot down to push himself forward from time to time, pacing himself.
When he reached the second set of stairs leading him down the street, he stopped skating only to back up, giving himself enough space between him and the stairs, and jumped on his skateboard again, pushing himself against the wind, kicked the back of his skate and landed on the banister, which he slid down, unbalanced.
When he reached the sidewalk at the end in one piece, he sneered cockily at the move he just pulled off.
“Hey brat!” Barty stopped in his tracks when he came face to face with his landlord.
Technically it was his father’s landlord, since he was the one renting the place legally. But since the old man had long gone out of his mind and now spent his days rotting on the couch, Barty had taken over financially. Doing jobs here and there, pickpocketing men in suits, he had even come to the lengths of shaking vending machines. Unfortunately, it also came with the responsibility of telling off the landlord when he was short on rent. Which was every month.
“Old man,” he saluted, “y’came to bother a teenager some more?”
“Well if your father would pay his rent in time, we wouldn’t be here.” Barty could see the particles of spit flying out of the man’s mouth, landing on the ground in between. He probably had some on his shoes too now.
“He’s sick.” Sick in the head.
“I was sick the day my wife left me, the cunt left with everything and left me with a dog only good at sticking his nose up other dogs’ asses, and yet I still paid up my rent and taxes in time. Your father ain’t got any good excuse, come back to me when only ashes are left of him and I might leave you alone. For a day or two.” And with that inspiring speech, he left, not without shouting another demand with his grating voice
“I better see the money at the end of the week!”
Barty shook his head incredulously and jumped up the steps of the porch. When he closed the door behind him, finally away from society, his father spoke to him from the living room.
“Who were you talking to.” He asked the question but it sounded like an order.
“Landlord. We’re late on rent.”
“That fucker, can’t let me live peacefully, no, he has to bother me every week about his rent. I ain’t made of money, do I look like I can afford it in this dump?” He was now yelling and gesturing, beer in hand, eyes stuck to the TV.
“As much as I’d love to see his head on a stick, you should get yours out of your ass once in a while and contribute around, because that “fucker” is right.” That would earn him a smack in the head later.
“I dare you to say that again over here! You’ve always been an ungrateful brat, I can’t even call you my son without earning myself a laugh from my friends.” He drowned more insults into a mouthful of his beer.
As Barty was walking up the stairs leading to his room where he would hide all night knowing his dad would soon be too wasted to be able to climb, the doorbell rang. He bitterly turned back on his steps. He was already short on his nerves when he opened the door, expecting a lousy neighbor or even the landlord again.
But to his surprise, he was met with a handsome blond boy with a sharp jaw, tanned skin and blue eyes that pierced his soul. Barty immediately loosened his expression.
“Oh. Hello there, handsome. What brings you here?” He leaned on the doorframe, smirking, though the blond boy kept the same bored scowl.
“I’m selling cookies, you want some?” That would’ve been enough for Barty to really fall in love. What can he say, he was really fond of handsome boys and cookies, and both were presented to him at that moment.
Barty’s attention was drawn by the cookies and he stepped outside, hence closer to the boy. The latter didn’t flinch nor stepped back at the proximity. Instead, he dug in his backpack strapped on his chest and got out three boxes of different brands.
“I got molasses, oatmeal raisin and whatever these are” He showed Barty the box, but to his disappointment, “whatever these are” were not chocolate chips.
“You don’t have any normal cookies?”
“Nah, my dad has weird taste.”
“Your dad? You’re selling your dad’s cookies? Are they some kind of contraband?” Barty mocked. The boy shrugged and changed subject, which only helped Barty’s curiosity grow.
“So, are you gonna buy some? 20 bucks a box.”
“20? Dude there’s like 7 cookies in there!” Once again, the boy shrugged, leaving Barty incredulous.
“Inflation,” was the only answer he procured, and it did not satisfy him. That boy really was a man of few words.
“I’m not paying 2.85 bucks for a cookie, let alone a molasses cookie!” Now it was the other boy’s turn to look incredulous, Barty could even see a glint of amazement in his blue eyes.
“What?”
“What, what?”
“How the fuck did you get to 2.85?” Barty smiled, since he knocked on his door the boy seemed annoyed by Barty, and it took math for him to completely change his attitude. He even seemed to take interest in the brunette for the first time during their conversation.
“I’m good at math, it’s one of my many talents. Y’know, why don’t you come inside so I can show you what else I can do,” Barty let unspoken words linger in the air as he stepped aside to let him in. The boy looked deadpan at Barty, then rolled his eyes and proceeded to enter the house, Barty following him shortly after, grinning.
When the blond boy turned around looking for directions, Barty pointed upstairs.
“Who is it?” His father yelled from the living room where he sat still.
“My sugar daddy,” Barty yelled back to piss off his dad. He assumed his father wouldn’t be happy with the idea of his son spending time with an older man, and he was right. Hell, he had even made his father move from his couch, now on his feet and red of either anger or embarrassment. Probably both.
Barty risked a glance at the boy walking up the stairs, but he hadn’t even stopped in his tracks and gave Barty a weird look, or rushed out of the house. He was now at the top of the stairs looking at hung pictures on the wall, waiting for Barty to follow.
With another quick glance in the living room, he judged his father’s stance wobbly enough that the only coming and going he would be able to do for the rest of the day would be from the couch to the bathroom. He left his father cursing and stomping downstairs.
Once in his room, he closed the door behind to drown the noises downstairs. He turned around and stood face to face with the blond boy. He took a daring step closer, his eyes fixated on the boy’s tight lipped mouth, only to be pushed back on the bed. It was a gentle push he could have easily protested.
“No.”
“No?” Barty looked at the boy, confused.
“You have the money?”
“You want me to pay you?” He was now more confused than ever.
“For the cookies.” The blond said as he sat at Barty’s desk. The latter sat up and raised his eyebrows, scoffing.
“Like I said, I’m not paying 20 bucks for boring cookies. I’d consider it if you had chocolate chips.”
They both sat in silence for what felt to Barty like half an hour, but his alarm-clock indicated it hadn’t been enough time for the last digit to change. Barty was playing the drums with his fingers while the other boy was looking around the room as if searching for something interesting. When he found the room to be basically empty except for the box of vinyl records collecting dust without a player to make them useful, he broke the silence.
“Who are the people in the frames hanging in the hallway?”
“I don’t know, they came with it.” The blond looked expectantly at Barty, waiting for him to tell him it was a joke, but that explanation never came.
“They came with the frame?”
“Yeah, my mom bought it before I was born and planned on changing the pictures with ones of my father, her and me, but she left before we could ever pose as a family. And my dad doesn’t give a fuck about family pictures, memories or anything that has to do with my mom. He forgot about it and I got used to seeing it in the hallway.”
“Oh, that’s unfortunate. You’re mom leaving, I mean. And everything else.” Barty nodded, so they were both bad at talking feelings apparently. He got up from his bed and walked to his window. When he opened it, it was all but fresh air that filled the room. He fished out from the back pocket of his jeans a pack of cigarettes and lit one.
“Want one?” He offered the pack to the boy. It only now hit him that they still didn’t know each other’s names.
The boy, Handsome Cookie Boy, he resolved to call him, got up from the desk, but instead of taking a cigarette from the pack Barty was offering him, he took the one already lit between his fingers and put it to his mouth. He let the smoke out of the window he was now leaning on and for the next five minutes, they passed each other the cigarette back and forth in silence. It was the only kind of silence Barty could tolerate without fidgeting or ending up filling it.
When the cigarette quickly decreased in size and soon only the butt would be left, Handsome Cookie Boy straightened up and started leaving.
“Next time, I’ll have chocolate chips. And you better have money.” He went to take another step out the door of the bedroom, but stopped himself, forgetting a piece of information.
“I live down the street, at the second intersection, on the third floor. Come find me.” And with that, he left.
Barty finished the butt of the cigarette and once he was done, threw it out. He took a mental note of where to find Handsome Cookie Boy, and promised the ghost of the boy’s presence in the room he would stop by his home one day soon.