Dreams and Clipped Wings - 1. Chapter 1

1:#29 - The Grounded Raptor
: edited by viv :


“Sex,” Cody mouthed his mantra as he entered the locker room for the first time since he’d returned to school. It was the same mantra he had been repeating to himself every day for the past two weeks, the same one he was repeating to himself now at 3:40 when he approached the doors. "it was just sex…”

To an extent, it was, yet that mantra didn’t account for the hollow in Cody’s chest every time he thought he saw Jacob peeking around the corner just ahead of him, taunting him. It was as if he wanted Jacob to be there, but then... then it wasn't just sex, was it? Not when the guilt it bred in him each time he said it, clawed at him as a reminder that things didn't have to be this way, but it was a monster of his own creation.

“Just sex…,” he mouthed again, wincing with the notion as he exorcised it from his mind. ‘Keep telling yourself that Kid....’ A bitter smile marred Cody’s stoic face as the small thought breeched the barriers he had been trying so hard to reinforce.

At first, it was the smell. A certain something, comprised of mixed flavors of musk with dank undertones, that thing which made all the girls crinkle their noses in disdain when they passed the locker room. Cody didn’t mind it, in some ways he relished the salty-fleshiness of the locker room. The noise however, the clatter of metal doors, a cacophony of voices in a myriad of octaves, all trying to out-speak one another, the noise he could do without. Today was no different, as the constant din of the energetic room drowned out the memories that where attempting to take shape in his mind.

Rhythmic drips echoing from a distant shower head, an excited whisper pleading with a heat more adamant than the humidity of the empty room. Jacob was unsure of Cody’s pleas. “Too public,” he whispered, but his eyes wanted it more than he let on. All Cody had to do was curl his fingers along the slickness of Jacob’s skin, rub his thumb over the silk of Jacob’s lips. Jacob folded, his trembling hands reaching for the ties of Cody’s mesh practice shorts. For as hot as the air of the locker room felt on Cody’s cheeks, it rushed cold, curling around his balls tantalizingly, as Jacob hooked his compression shorts underneath them.

The memory was a phantom in his mind, a tingle in his groin, a ruddy blush on his cheeks, as Cody entered the locker room proper. The smell, that scent, hit Cody full force after being away from it for seventeen days, and as it hit him he knew; girls lie. There was no way that it didn’t at least appeal to some base animal instinct buried within them all. There was no way they didn’t thrill at the intoxication of it.

As soon as the thrill, the tingles, manifested, they dissolved under the unabashed stares that only his peers could provide. All eyes settling on him, Cody’s practiced swagger lost its step. This was the moment. In the three-hundred and twenty some odd hours of dread he’d imagined, the anticipation of this moment had caused the least of that dread, yet this was the challenge he could face. The rest of it, well the rest of it would have to wait.

Cody was more than prepared to disown everything. Some part of him was willing to walk away from all of this. All he needed was reinforcement of the idea, that it was the right thing to do, in what was probably the wrong way. Cody spent his forced vacation mulling the reactions of his team mates. They would make it clear that he wasn’t welcome, that he wasn’t wanted.

The reaction he expected didn’t come. After a second or so of silent gawking, the perennial ruckus of the locker room returned. His team mates greeted him as he made his way to his locker with the patented head nod. He was surrounded by smiles. Smiles that lied, as some of his team mates went out of their way to obscure that which they used to flaunt shamelessly.

For the most part, he ignored it; a little modesty was very different from the all-out homophobia his imagination had prompted him to expect. Besides, there were too many other things gnawing at him to let such a fundamental change in the locker room’s atmosphere effect him.

The football team were the only ones to have a locker room to themselves. It wasn’t a separate building or anything fancy. Their locker room was segregated from the main boys’ locker room by a poured concrete wall with two doorways on either side that were sealed with chain link gates during normal PE classes.

Inside the football subdivision, showers were off to the left. Lockers, which at one point in antiquity had a pristine coat of deep blue paint, lined the other three walls, leaving the center of the room open. The wall opposing the entrances had a large painting above its row of lockers. It was a menacing looking eagle, wings outstretched, as it swooped in on its prey. In the Raptor’s left talon, was clutched a football. Above the large bird of prey was painted ‘East River’ and ‘Home of the’ in standard block. Between that text, and the school mascot, the word ‘RAPTORS’ was painted in a stylized font that matched the attitude of the football team and dominated the mural as it stood out aggressively.

Cody strode to his locker beneath the mural, pausing only long enough to bump fists with a few of his team mates. He toyed with the notion of this experience being easy as he appraised the wide strip of masking tape on the front of his locker. ‘29 - Williams’ was scrawled across it in black permanent ink, and easy it would have been, if he had just kept his eyes on his own locker.

Nothing worth doing is ever easy, or so Cody had heard a number of times from his grandmother over the years, yet with the constant attention the locker next to his demanded, Cody wasn’t so sure this was worth it anymore. He knew what should have been there; he also had accepted that it wasn’t. Even knowing that it was missing, some part of him wouldn’t believe until his eyes saw it, and as he gazed at the tacky residue where Jacob’s name and number used to be, Cody knew what piece of him couldn’t accept it, even now that he had seen it.

Cody didn’t know how long he stood there staring; feeling like some intrinsic piece of his being was missing. A piece, which felt as if it were growing larger the longer he stared, causing his chest to feel like it was about to collapse inward. By the time the vibrating echo of a locker pulled him out of the daze he was in, all he did know was emptiness, and the dull ache in his jaw.

On the field of battle, all of Cody’s personal issues melted away as he focused on the obliteration of his enemy. He didn’t have to think of what had been lost, and in a round about way, found, in the grains slipping through the hourglass of his life in the past week. Getting the ball to the end zone by any means necessary had little to do with what he was fixing to tell his parents that night over dinner, and consequently, any plans he made for the night had no business in this battle, even if the opponent he sought to crush that day were his fellow team mates.

Jacob always wondered why Cody was second string, and during the practice as he was wiping the field with the first string, Cody found himself wondering the same thing. Some of the guys in the past had ventured far enough to ask Coach Brenner why, only to be told that he was the coach; not to question his choices. It probably didn’t hurt much that the first string quarterback, Mike Brummond, was practically the coach’s stepson.

Cody figured his job, his place on the team, was to be his team’s worst opponent. If they faced him in practice, they would be better prepared to face the rest of the schools in the conference. That could have been the real reason behind his position on the second string, or it could be that he was just compensating for his place, making his position more superior then it was in reality.

On the field he was their equal, hell, some even considered his skill superior. The pads were his armor on the field, every scrape, every gouge, that marred the smooth surface of his helmet was a scar left from a victory. Back in the locker room, after practice, stripped of the protection, the status his gear afforded him; it was again evident that Cody was not the same person as the warrior who wore his uniform.

The realization hurt, and as much as he wanted to claim he was ready for it, the idea that these guys, his friends, his brothers, could so easily turn, left scars behind where he had no armor. They had been brazen in the past, but today, as they stripped and showered, they watched him while trying not to watch him. They made sure his eyes were not sweeping into realms less comfortable as they shucked various articles of their practice gear.

“I’m not going to,” Cody mentioned to Aaron Hill as he tossed his beaten gold practice jersey onto the bench. In truth, Cody didn’t have to look, he already knew his team mates. Aaron’s appendectomy scar was just as striking when Cody closed his eyes. He didn’t dare look at it now, focusing instead on Aaron’s face, and its boyish qualities that still held attraction well beyond the nose that had been broken too many times. “It was….” Cody started, but ended up only shaking his head, somehow unable to perpetuate false reasoning.

Aaron smiled, but it wasn’t a smile of reassurance, more a smile of reluctance as he hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his shorts and dragged them down, turning away from Cody as he did.

“Just a way to get off, right?” Adrian Mire mentioned, slapping a freshly showered hand on Cody’s shoulder, daring to broach the subject none of the others had the balls to bring up. The statement sounded so much cruder than it did in the privacy of Cody’s mind, and far too vile to be spilling from the lips of a kicker who had no right looking as good as he did in that moment. A towel wrapped around his hips, while the V of his abdomen and bare sinewy torso glistened temptingly, from the shower he had just exited.

Cody didn’t have a chance to answer. Adrian’s singular comment had, in some mysterious way, busted the dam that had been holding the collective machismo at bay.

“He used to suck me off every Saturday,” Mike bragged, looking as smug as he could with a cocky grin and pockmarked face. Mike’s acne wasn’t relegated to his face alone, but also grazed across the young man’s shoulders, and trickled downward forming constellations of red blemishes down his spine. A few other voices in the din joined in, Cody couldn’t tell whose they were; he didn’t want to know anyway. Adrian’s claim of ‘just getting off’ was one thing, and utterly separate from Mike’s claims. Furthermore, the lurch in his stomach didn’t feel right as Mike continued, saying to someone else, “A mouth is a mouth, no matter who it’s connected to.”

Cody didn’t have to wonder who good old Mike was referring to. ‘He’ went from their teammate and friend, to their tool and fuck-buddy. Standing there, Cody barely nodded his head to the comment, intent on dressing and leaving the locker room behind him.

“He was good wasn’t he?” Mike continued, amidst a series of cat calls, rubbing parts of his anatomy that Cody was sure Jacob had never touched, as he bumped his shoulder into Cody’s. “I wish he was still around. I could use him right about now.”

“I sucked his cock, too,” Cody snapped, slamming the door to his locker.

“What was that?”

The stale smell of sweat dissolved like fog in the mid-morning sun, as the busy bustle of the locker room faded into a comfortable, quiet office. Cody’s cheeks rushed with crimson realizing what he must have said aloud. He tried desperately to divert his eyes from the balding Dr. Jimenez, and his steady, un-judging gaze.

“I said, ‘I sucked his cock, too’,” Cody repeated, his voice falling to a whisper as he felt the same pressure on his chest that he’d felt in the locker room three years prior.

“And you said this to,” Dr. Jimenez paused, check the notes on his pad, “to Mike? To everyone?”

The pressure doubled as Cody slumped back in the supple leather chair he was sitting in, feeling the man’s steadfast gaze as he began to regretfully shake his head. “No, I agreed...”

“You agreed?” the doctor asked arching a brow.

Why did he have to make talking so difficult? It was bad enough Cody had to play through events he would rather forget, and now he wanted every sordid detail, too. Delaying the inevitable of spelling out just what he agreed to, Cody mused if the Doc would want to know about the Lego set he stole when he was nine.

“I agreed with what they were saying,” Cody finally admitted. “I swallowed the nasty taste in my mouth, smiled, and agreed to everything they said.”

Dr Jimenez nodded setting back in his chair, his expression blank, leaving any judgments unperceivable to Cody. “How did agreeing like that make you feel?” he asked, the look on his face telling Cody that he already knew how he would answer.

“Like shit,” Cody answered looking the psychologist in the eyes. “Like I had taken the best thing in my life and thrown it away. I may as well have spat in his face and called him a worthless faggot for the way I didn’t defend him.” Cody fidgeted in his seat a moment before he continued, “But I should have said that, I should’ve shouted it. I should’ve looked at all of those bastards that claimed to be his friend, and said it.”

“You claimed to be his friend,” Dr. Jimenez pointed out, leaning forward, placing his elbows on his desk and lacing his fingers together. “You claimed to be more, maybe not to him, but you claimed more for yourself, and when the chips fell, you walked away. If that’s what you wanted to say, then why didn’t you?”

“You see those commercials on TV? Two kids, a dog, the new minivan?” Cody asked dodging the doctor’s question.

“Yes.”

“You ever wonder what happens to those families when the cameras aren’t there?” Cody continued.

Dr. Jimenez seemed to think about the question for a moment, “No, I realize that those families aren’t real, Cody. When the cameras stop, each of those actors goes back to their own place, their real life.”

“My family was just like that,” Cody spoke over the doctor. Hearing what he said, but disregarding it. “Living the American lie, and when everyone stopped looking, their caring smiles faded into unfeeling.” Flashes of his mother’s ambivalence crossed Cody’s mind as he spoke, the recollections a blur of contemptuous glares, and thin-lipped frowns, the stoic silence that persevered on her end after his indiscretions were thrust out of the closet.

“How so?” the doctor asked, taking more interest in this revelation than writing notes on his endless page.

“The morning I was caught with Jacob, Mom made breakfast, just like she did every morning. The next morning, there was a pack of Pop-Tarts next to an unplugged toaster, and she had gone off to my aunt’s house. When she did come home, all I saw when she looked at me was disappointment and disgust.”

“Could you have just been projecting your own disappointment, your own disgust, onto her? Using her as a mirror of your own self worth?” Dr. Jimenez probed.

Cody emitted a bitter laugh. “Yeah, like I canceled my internet account and cell phone, and decided I wasn’t going to use the house phone, or check the mailbox. I dropped him like the plague.”

“Well, you certainly didn’t defend Jacob outside the bubble your parents created around your home life,” the doctor observed, having gone down this road with Cody in the past.

“Are we done for today?” Cody asked, setting his jaw, not liking the awfulness of the accusing truth.

Dr. Jimenez sighed, and tossed his glasses onto his desktop as he began to rub his temples in a semblance of exasperation. “You were sixteen, Cody. Where were you going to go? What could you have done? You may have seen yourself as a man, as a budding adult, but beyond the protection and shelter they offered, what were your other options?”

“I would have figured something out,” Cody rebuffed, figuring he could have, if he’d had the balls to do it.

“Life isn’t T.V. If you ran away, your parents would have come after you, Cody. Do you honestly think a benevolent stranger would take you in off the street? Do you think Jacob’s parents would have, facing that?”

Cody stood abruptly. Gathering his zip-up hoodie, he turned towards the office door. He was well aware of the walls he put up to keep people out. He knew they were, in some ways, as pointless as all the what-if scenarios that played through his head after too many beers. Still, he hated to be called on it.

“Cody,” Dr Jimenez called after him. “I want to help you, I honestly do, but I can’t do that when all you do is choose to fight me.”

Cody gave the doctor a curt nod, in his own way, accepting everything the doctor was saying. “I’ll see you in two weeks, maybe then…” he trailed off, loosing his train of thought while making the empty promise. Instead of continuing, Cody opened the door and walked out. A defeated gait carried Cody out of the doctor’s office, instead of the determined, angry stride he had wished to use.

In the parking lot, Cody fished the cell phone out of his back pocket and glanced at the small screen. Seven missed calls, three text messages, and two voicemails. Cody didn’t need to see who all the calls and messages were from, there was only one person he knew who was naive enough to buy into the mantra, ‘If at first you don’t succeed; try, try again’.

Jonathan.

Jonathan wasn’t particularly attractive, with his stringy brown hair, and flat green eyes that refused to sparkle no matter what the occasion. Moreover, the relationship he and Cody shared was, at best, strained, and at worst, caustic, depending on Jonathan’s mood, which was about as stable as the second hand on the face of a clock. Yet, in all the uncertainty of their pairing there was one shining quality that Cody needed; he was there.

Skipping the text messages from Jonathan, Cody pressed the button to retrieve his voicemails, and lifted the phone to his ear just as the first recording began to play.

“Where are you?” Jonathan asked, “I’ve called you, like… twenty times, and you’re not answering. Well, give me a call when you get this; let me know you’re alright.”

The tinge of concern at the end brought a smile to Cody’s face, not that he lavished in the feeling of making people worry needlessly, but he found the emotion behind the concern comforting as the next message played.

“You know what? Never mind... you’re a fuck,” Jonathan shouted, concern no longer apparent in his voice, only anger and agitation. “With shit like this, it’s no wonder you fear being alone.”

The message ended abruptly as a dulcet female voice announced there were no more new messages. Cody wondered how he was going to clean up this mess, and just why Jonathan decided to pull that when he had a general idea of where Cody was this morning. Ending the call, Cody scrolled through the meager phone book entries, selected Jonathan, and pressed the call option.

Used to the game, Cody wasn't surprised when his call went straight to Jonathan's voicemail.

“Hey Babe,” Cody sighed, running a hand through his hair as he crouched down to sit on the curb outside of the doctors office. “I’m sorry; I should have answered when you called. I… uh, yeah, sorry, give me a call later. Please?”

Cody didn’t have long to dwell on the phone call, or the likely implications it had on their relationship. He was still staring at the small device when a public transit Muni bus rumbled to a stop on the opposite end of the parking lot. He was up from his crouch on the curb and hustling across the lot before the pneumatic hiss of the bus’s air brakes sounded.

Bristling past the few passengers getting off to go wherever their lives would take them, Cody fumbled through his pockets looking for his pass, making certain to keep one hand securely clamped on the assist handles.

Cody had learned quickly to always hold onto the passenger rails on Muni buses, even before the recorded voice urged him, “Please hold on.” He hadn’t had time to heed the recording’s advice the first time he climbed onto one of the buses. He had barely finished depositing his fare into the machine when the driver pressed on the gas, nearly causing him to go flying into the lap of an eighty-year-old woman.

The bus ride was a short one for Cody, only fourteen blocks, and what seemed like twenty stops that jarred him, along with all the other passengers aboard. He even got to play the Good Samaritan, and catch a woman, preventing her from flying to the back of the bus. His efforts did not go unrewarded, as she gave him one of the best smiles he’d seen in a long time. A smile, which lit up not only her whole face, but also the entire confines of the dingy metro bus they were sharing.

It was odd, Cody mused, as he jumped off the bus when it had come to an abrupt halt at his stop, how something as simple as a smile from a complete stranger could put things in perspective. Not that he needed to see things from a different perspective. It was just a small reward in a world of big consequences.

Cody barely spared a look at the narrow, family owned bagelry whose store front was on the ground floor. Intent, instead, on slipping through the unassuming side door unnoticed, and saving himself, and old Mr. Braunstein, a long winded lecture on the merits of paying the rent on time.

“Cody,” Mr. Braunstein hollered through the side door, as Cody made his way up the narrow staircase. Despite his best attempts, there was scantly a moment when the older man failed to notice the comings and goings of his tenants, at least when his shop was open.

“I’ll be right down, Mr. B. I have to go get Joe’s half,” Cody called to the staircase in front of him, not missing a step, as he thundered upwards.

“Who was that boy you were sneaking out of here the other morning?” Mr. Braunstein called with a frown, not willing to be outmaneuvered by his young tenant. Receiving no response from Cody, he huffed off with a scowl before letting the door close.

The apartment, for what it was, had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, and a small kitchen, and was sparsely decorated with hand-me-down and thrift store furniture. Posters of their favorite bands and sports stars dotted the walls along with standard-sized photographs scotch-taped to the plaster.

Cody stopped to look at one such picture, Joe’s chin nestled into the crook of his girlfriend Julie’s neck, one of the large international-orange towers of the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. The sun was hitting the two of them at just the right angle, casting the pair in a golden aura. Together, in the moment, they looked happy, and that was the cause of Cody’s conflicted feelings on the photograph. He wanted that, and he wasn’t sure if he was jealous of the two of them, or just Julie.

He remembered the day he took the picture every time he looked at it. Joe and he had spent the morning helping Julie move into her dorm room at Berkley. With moving her in completed, the trio explored San Francisco, and sailed around the bay. Within the month, Joe suggested he and Cody move to San Francisco. It wasn’t as much a seat of the pants decision as it had sounded. Joe’s uncle was in the restoration business and had offered him a job. It took some wrangling, but Joe’s uncle eventually extended the job offer to Cody as well. Only on a part time basis, not the full time, plus benefits, that Joe enjoyed.

Joe lay chest down on the couch, napping in his boxers, as scenes from the X-games played on the TV. Cody smiled as he spied his friend, and casually wandered across the small room. He plopped down on Joe’s lower legs as he thought of slapping his ass with the remote that lay abandoned on the floor.

“Thanks,” Joe murmured into the upholstery, twisting his body around. “My legs were getting cold.”

“No problem,” Cody smiled, squirming his hips a bit.

“Your ass is boney though,” Joe said, pulling his legs from under Cody.

“You know you like it,” Cody laughed as he retrieved the remote from the floor.

“I like the front better,” Joe commented in passing, causing a smoldering grin to burn across Cody’s face. The look prompted Joe to chuckle at his own word choice before playfully knocking his shoulder into Cody’s, “That’s not what I meant,” he said, his cheeks flushing slightly. “Mr. Braunstein was asking about Jonathan,” Joe mentioned. “He was grilling me on who it was hanging around the bagelry and asking him when you were working again.”

Cody rolled his eyes in response to the statement. Hanging around the shop was something that seemed very likely suited to Jonathan’s character. If Mr. Braunstein was asking Joe about the same person that he had asked Cody about minutes ago; he wasn’t asking about Jonathan.

Leaning into, and bumping shoulders with Joe, Cody’s smile broadened. “I’ll let you in on a secret,” Cody whispered loudly after a play at checking to make sure they were alone. “That wasn’t Jonathan.”

Joe chuckled slightly as he pushed Cody away. “You’re such a whore.”

Cody thought about the accusation, and winked “Jealous?” he asked, ignoring the sounds of cheering coming from the TV.

Joe didn’t know how to respond, though he was sure the warmth and tingle, in his cheeks was responding more than he meant to anyhow. “So how did your interview go?” he finally decided on asking after chewing on his bottom lip for a moment.

The playful grin on Cody’s face remained, but the sparkle faltered from his eyes as he answered at first with a non-descript shrug while looking away. “It went alright; I don’t think I got it though.”

“Damn, that sucks,” Joe commented, his gaze lingering on Cody for a moment before he turned his attention to the television, and the out-takes of some guy biting snow as he fumbled his run on the half pipe. He wanted to say more, wanted to mention the phone call yesterday confirming Cody’s appointment this morning. Like so many things, when it came to the secrets Cody kept, Joe just shrugged the urge off for the time being. “The rent is on the counter,” Joe finally decided on saying as he snatched the remote from Cody’s hand and changed the channel.