Dreams and Clipped Wings - 3. Chapter 3

3:Spreading Wings
: edited by viv :


Cinnamon raisin, or was it onion; blueberry or plain? He couldn’t remember. At one time Cody had told him which was the best bagel Saul made, but now, as he stared at the dozen or so varieties, all he drew was a blank. They all looked good, he knew that much; the large berries, which marred its glossy surface, and lavender hue of the blueberry. The visible dark swirls of exotic cinnamon on the cinnamon raisin. Even the one labeled Yorkshire looked intriguing with its deep beige coloring. Oddly enough, that bagel reminded Damon of an egg noodle soaked in the juice of a perfectly grilled steak.

“What’ll it be?” Damon started at the question, stepping backwards as he straightened his frame.

“J-just looking,” Damon fumbled, avoiding eye contact with the dark haired girl behind the counter.

Sizing the young man up, she named his bagel of choice. “Cinnamon Raisin,” she announced confidently as she made to reach into the basket.

Cinnamon raisin, it didn’t sound right. “No,” Damon said. “I mean, I don’t think that’s the one,” he corrected himself as he chanced looking at her, noticing for the first time the shocking pink strips of hair that led from her temples back into a high pony tail. The small silver ball, sparkling from its nest on her right nostril, stole his attention from her average brown eyes. A name tag on her right breast read ‘Stacy’ followed by a yellow smiley-face sticker that had a pink mohawk.

Damon shoved his hands into his pockets, balling them into fists as he rocked up on his toes attempting to peer over the girls shoulder, trying to see if he could see the person he was really looking for.

The action was not lost on Stacy, as she glanced over her shoulder, looking in the direction Damon was peering. Looking back with an arched eyebrow she asked. “Are you looking for someone?”

Damon’s gaze snapped back to Stacy. “Uh is… is Cody working?” he fumbled, embarrassed at being caught.

A slow smirk drizzled Stacy’s lips. “You must be the puppy,” she answered.

“Puppy?” Damon asked, feeling the color blanch from his face, as confusion added to the awkwardness he was already feeling.

“Never mind,” Stacy piped growing instantly cheery, too cheery for Damon’s already waning comfort. “I know what you’re looking for,” she said with a wink. “It’ll be right up.”

Damon tried to fumble out a response, but only ended up tripping over whatever it was he thought he was going to say. The worst part of it was, the girl didn’t even answer his question. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was the whole puppy nonsense. What did she mean by that anyhow? Was he that obvious? Damon thought back, trying to remember when he’d last been inside the shop. Two weeks ago? The day after Cody had helped him with the dizzying array of letters and symbols that he couldn’t make heads or tails of.

Two weeks, and their fourteen endless nights plagued with Cody’s smile; nights that led to countless and ever-evolving fantasies. Fantasies that led to... Damon’s cheeks colored as he looked at his feet. Stupid, that’s what this whole thing was, stupid. Stupid to believe there was anything behind that alluring smile. Stupid to think Cody could ever be interested in him.

“Yo D, c’mon,” Damon’s friend Brandon shouted, leaning into the bagelry as he held the heavy door to The Old Goat wide open.

“I’ll be right out,” Damon hollered back, trying to keep what remained of his attention on Stacy and what she was doing.

“One Yorkshire, toasted with cream cheese,” Stacy announced knowingly as she set a brown sack on the counter and began typing rapid-fire on the antique-appearing register. “Dollar sixty-five.”

Rattled by her speed, Damon shuffled forward, fumbling with the bills in his pocket. Producing two singles he laid them on the counter, shunning her waiting palm as he offered a weak smile, being careful to avoid direct eye contact.

The action was not lost on Stacy, as her vision narrowed on the youth. Snatching the two bills off the counter and producing his change she asked, “You’re on the wrestling team over at Embarcadero, aren’t you?”

Damon’s head snapped to attention as he tried to read the expression she wore which was somewhere between neutral and knowing. He’d thought he had the thunder in his chest under control until the moment of that question. Now, as he struggled to place her, the painful muscle buried in his chest redoubled its efforts. He tried to answer her, but in the moment, he couldn’t find the words.

He didn’t need to answer her, his reaction was all the response Stacey needed, not that she doubted her recognition anyhow. “Thought so,” she smiled. “My brother is on the freshmen team. I recognized you from a meet.”

“Thanks,” Damon muttered, taking the bag as he kept a tight rein on the string of expletives and frustrated thoughts that raced through his mind. Of course there had to be something to screw it all up, not that there was much to screw up... It was more the thought, the possibility, and how a simple act of recognition snuffed it out before he had a chance to feel it out.

With slumped shoulders, Damon retreated from the frontlines, sulking back out into the crisp air of morning. He said nothing as he passed Brandon, who was propped up against a tree. Damon paused long enough to look down at the bag in his hand before he dumped it into the trash can.

“So?” Brandon asked, though he pretty much knew the answer from his friend’s body language.

Damon shook his head, answering with the most pathetic expression Brandon had ever seen him wear. Brandon met the expression with determination.

“Don’t worry, Bro,” Brandon said with a wink, his hand landing on Damon’s neck, as he pulled him forward so their foreheads rested against one another. “We’ll get him.”

His words brought a wry smile to Damon’s lips. More than that, Brandon’s words renewed his fire of determination. With the smile achieved, Brandon relaxed his grip and let his arm slide comfortably across Damon’s shoulder, as they began down the street.

Julie rushed down the walkway, shoving her notebook into the messenger bag she carried around campus. Thanks to an impromptu meeting with one of her professors, she found herself fifteen minutes late in meeting up with another pre-law student, and good friend, to go over notes.

“Hey,” Julie shouted with a smile as she stepped through the coffeehouse door, spotting her friend sitting at a small table with her laptop open in front of her. “Sorry I’m late,” she continued, taking a seat. “Professors,” she offered as an excuse, rolling her eyes for effect.

Valerie knew the story all too well. She, too, had been caught in an unexpected intelligent conversation a time or two. “No problem, I don’t have anywhere to be for an hour and a half still.”

Julie nodded away Valerie’s statement. “You mind if I go grab a coffee before we start?” she asked, rummaging around in her messenger bag.

“No problem,” Valerie shrugged, minimizing the email she was in the middle of writing before closing her laptop altogether. By the time she had retrieved her own notes, Julie was back and sipping cautiously on the same caramel and coffee concoction she always ordered when drinking coffee.

“What are you doing tonight?” Julie asked, trying to catch up with her friend before they got bogged down by the semantics of studying. It had been too long since they last had a chance to go out and light the town on fire, and Julie was itching for a release from the sameness she felt was ready to smother her.

Valerie thought for a second before she replied. “Nothing, I was just gonna study and maybe call some friends back home.”

“Wanna go out? Hit a club or something?” Julie asked.

“Sure,” Valerie smiled, thankful for the opportunity to blow off steam. “Joe coming along?” she asked, having met Joe on occasion in the past.

Julie sighed somewhat. “I kind of want it to be a girls only thing,” Julie confessed, receiving an arched brow from the brown haired young woman who sat opposite. “I love Joe, I do, it’s just that, I dunno. He’s all I know. At one point, I knew, this is the guy I’m going to marry. Now when I fantasize about the future, I don’t see him there.”

“Wow,” Valerie answered, not knowing what else to say to Julie’s immediate offer of information.

“I know, bad right?” Julie asked.

“Not bad,” Valerie answered, choosing her words with care. “Just... if you want something else why don’t you just break up with him?”

“I can’t. He moved down here for me, and he’s comfortable, you know? I know I will eventually, just not right now. I don’t want to crush him,” Julie answered, feeling guilty for her plans of stringing Joe along until she was ready to be done with him. She doubted he would notice though, he was usually busy with other things. He hadn’t even noticed that she had been coming by the apartment less and less lately.

“Honestly,” Valerie offered, “I’m surprised you’re still with him. Most high school relationships don’t last that long after college.”

“If he hadn’t moved down here, I doubt I would be,” Julie confessed, even though she didn’t like the sound of the words as they left her mouth or the bad taste they left behind. Choosing to be done with her intentions regarding Joe, Julie deflected to Valerie. “So what about you? Find a guy yet?”

Valerie chuckled at Julie’s change of topic, but she figured she would run with it anyway. “Maybe,” she answered, flipping a page in the spiral notebook that lay open before her. “Just a guy I know back home, so nothing serious, but he makes me laugh, and always sacrifices his cookie for me.”

“Awww,” Julie gushed, collapsing onto her notes spread on the table, as she smiled at Valerie, “See, I want a guy that will sacrifice his cookies for me.”

“It’s nothing serious,” Valerie repeated with a shrug, sounding as if she was trying to quell her own hopes. “He’s still in high school.”

“Cradle-robber,” Julie giggled, intent on using this information to pick on her friend.

Valerie laughed. “Nah, he’s just a breath of air. All the guys up here are either too serious, or more concerned with the next kegger than anything else, and if they don’t fall into those two categories, they’re tree huggers and vegans who have no reason polluting the gene pool with their contributions.”

Julie enjoyed a good laugh at her friend’s blanket characterizations.

“I guess that isn’t altogether fair,” Valerie conceded. “It’s just... his biggest aspiration is to have a decent job and provide for his family. He’s just simple and uncomplicated.”

The uncomplicated reason sent the gears and cogs of Julie’s mind to work. On the surface Joe wasn’t complicated, but there was always more to Joe than what he let the world see, and while she found his internalizing of problems admirable to a point, she also found the same mechanism the death of any future she had once planned for them.

The relentless pounding on the door had rousted Cody from his mid-morning nap. The nap was a standard thing for him when he worked the split shift at The Old Goat. He had tried unsuccessfully to wake up at three in the morning to cook bagels, only to stay up until midnight with his own personal pursuits. That schedule, however, was unsustainable as he began shutting down due to fatigue at the worst possible moments.

Clad in only a pair of cotton boxers, Cody yanked open the door only to find Stacy standing on the other side, her apron smudged with a streak of dried cream cheese. Offering her a lazy smile, he leaned against the door frame and greeted her in the usual manner. “You’ve got something on the side of your nose.”

Stacy rolled her eyes as she rubbed at the small silver piercing. She remembered the first time she had been introduced to Cody, he had said exactly the same thing and she, being used to the piercing, had forgotten it was there. He’d spent the entire shift telling her she’d missed it and it was still there. She only realized later, as she was washing the makeup off, what he was talking about.

“So, can I come in?” she asked.

Cody laughed and stepped to the side, watching as Stacy strolled confidently in and crossed the small room to the couch where she tossed a dark-colored, thin nylon jacket out of the way before she sat down. As his coworker was making herself comfortable, Cody ducked into his room and retrieved a pair of pants, which he was still buttoning as he strolled into the main room and sat on the couch, abandoning the remaining two buttons, paying no attention to the jacket for his new job.

“What brings you all the way up here?” Cody asked with a suspicious smile.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Stacy offered with a casual shrug, “Plus I’d rather spend my break somewhere besides the back room downstairs.”

Cody nodded, he doubted he would want to waste time in the backroom either, but he rarely worked regular shifts at the bagelry any longer. Mostly he went in at three am to help Saul cook the bagels and left soon after they were finished with that gargantuan task. However, it was not out of the ordinary for Saul to give him a call and ask for him to help out when other people couldn’t make it in.

“A customer was asking about you this morning,” Stacy commented offhand as she rummaged around the small cluttered end table and retrieved an old copy of the Rolling Stone magazine. She appraised the cover before she flipped it open. “God, I could fucking eat him alive,” she lustfully sighed. “Look at his fucking chest.”

He chuckled, noticing the well perused magazine she was reading. “Who?” Cody asked.

“Brandon Wolfe,” she admonished, lowering the magazine long enough to give Cody an incredulous look, before raising it again to drool over the pictures inside and pay no attention to the words. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed him either.”

Cody chuckled again, “I was talking about the customer, and besides, the bass player is way better looking anyhow.”

Not taking Cody’s word for it, Stacy started reading the captions on the photo’s trying to find which of the four played the bass. Not finding the info she wanted there, Stacy did a quick skim of the article until she saw the magic words, ‘… while the middle brother, Eric, plays bass.’ with a name to go with the pictures, she closed the magazine. “Nice,” she admitted. “I usually like my guys a little more hard-core, but they sure are easy on the eyes, the whole bunch of them.”

“Only one has a starring role in my fantasies,” Cody winked. “You can have the rest.”

“Ewww,” Stacy shrieked, dropping the magazine as if it had suddenly scorched her fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me I was looking at your spank material?”

Her reaction elicited a roar of laughter from Cody as he picked the magazine up from where it had fallen to the floor. “It’s your fault for assuming it was safe,” he offered as he leafed through the flimsy periodical. “I never claimed I bought it for the articles.”

“Still,” Stacy complained wiping her hands in earnest on her apron. “Normal guys keep that stuff in a nightstand or under the mattress.”

“Welcome to my place,” Cody replied with a grin.

Stacy rolled her eyes at Cody’s retort. “You have got to be the only guy I know that wanks using Rolling Stone.”

Laughing, Cody tossed the magazine on the ground. “I never said I used it for wanking, I just get some source material from the pictures. Besides, there are enough pictures of him running around in a pair of white Speedos on the net now.”

“They are playing at Candlestick in a few weeks,” Stacy mentioned.

“I know,” Cody said, still smiling, glad for the laugh Stacy had caused.

“Chris and I have an extra ticket that his friend was supposed to use if you want,” she offered.

“That would be great,” Cody answered, “but I’m working both nights they are performing.”

“That sucks,” Stacy offered, scrunching up her face, as if Cody’s statement left a foul smell in the room. Cody shrugged at her statement; sure it sucked, but the money would make it worth it as far as he figured.

“Now, about this customer,” he asked, curious, until the thought of Jonathan causing a scene raced across his mind causing him to blanch visibly. “Christ, it wasn’t Jonathan being a little queen was it?”

Stacy laughed. “Relax,” she commented shoving Cody’s shoulder. “No, it wasn’t Jonathan,” she answered as Cody sighed in relief.

“I swear if he ever pulls that shit again…” Cody was saying, as he got cut off by Stacy.

“It was the puppy,” she said, using the nickname that Saul had taken to using for the young man that he mentioned would stop by twice daily look around and then leave. “He actually ordered a bagel today, and asked about you.”

Cody didn’t necessarily care for the nickname they had given Damon, but he liked being questioned about the kid even less. “Oh,” he offered in a tone Stacy read accurately as his not wanting to discuss it.

“I think it’s cute; he’s got a crush on you,” Stacy said, a genuine smile blooming across her face..

Cody smiled in return. “I think your break is over,” he said, watching as her smile eroded. Stacy was sure she still had another fifteen minutes left, and a glance at a clock would have proven her case. Unfortunately, the clock on the VCR sitting on top of the TV only flashed 12:00 repeatedly. Cody smiled, but his eyes were shadowed as he watched her get off the couch and cross the distance to the door.

“I don’t mean to pry into your life, Cody,” Stacy offered, turning to face Cody, who was still seated on the couch as she grasped the door handle. “It’s just you better do something about him, cause he isn’t interested in bagels, and if Saul catches him tossing his bagels in the trash, I fear for his safety… and yours,” she finished with a weak smile that lacked her normal confidence.

Stealing a moment for himself, Joe wandered off to someplace far away where the constant hammering faded into a distant backbeat to the music of San Francisco at mid-day. Pulling the phone from his pocket, he navigated the menu until he got to the text messenger. Typing up a quick note asking about dinner plans he sent it off to Julie.

“Studying :-(,” came her reply quickly, almost as she had been waiting for his text in the first place. Joe shrugged that nagging thought off, figuring it was probably for the best as he really didn’t feel like seeing her tonight anyhow. He would much rather grab a couple pizzas and a twelve-pack and veg-out watching Sportscenter with Cody.

After Stacy left, Cody picked up the copy of Rolling Stone, intent on tossing it back in the pile on the side table. He was just about to toss it down when he noticed the lavender envelope he had tried so hard to forget. Picking up the envelope, he laid the magazine down in its place with a sigh. He knew that sooner or later he was going to have to open it and find out what she wanted.

He’d recognize the billowy, flowing script of his mother’s hand anywhere, same with the lilac stationary. They used to grace his packed lunches, little notes of encouragement and love written in his mother’s hand, tucked in the sack between the box of apple juice and the Twinkie. Momentous and profound, the notes were not. Just a simple ‘Have a great day’, or ‘Ace the test’, and always signed with a single word, ‘Love’.

It was always the same; Cody would read the note, failing as he tried not to smile. Always, he’d trace the airy billow and dip of her perfect cursive L with his index finger. No matter what the day had given him, no matter what the world said, the contours of that one perfect letter could make everything better.

It seemed like a lifetime since one of her L’s had been able to make everything okay, and as Cody read the contents of this latest letter, he was sure, it would be another lifetime before they ever would again.

Cody,

First, I would like to take the time and point out how disappointed I am in the fact that I had to get your current living arrangements from your grandmother. However, we both would agree that doing so is a waste of time, as you have repeatedly proven that you care little for my thoughts or feelings on the matter, and I long ago gave up on trying to shape you into the man I once thought you could be. We both know that eventuality was thrown out the window with your choosing to be involved with that boy. I tried to fix what that incident did to our family, to our reputation. In the end, you selfishly chose to hold on to some juvenile fantasy, leaving me to clean up the emotional wreckage and fallout…

He wanted to scream as he read the letter. He wanted to shout all sorts of lucid profanities at the innocuous piece of lilac stationary after reading it again. In reality he couldn’t, he could scarcely manage the shallow, labored breaths flooding out of him as he held the letter. His eyes stung, as if they were threatening to water. Had the letter been from anyone else maybe he would have, but Cody long ago decided never to shed another tear for the woman who could change his whole day with one billowy, beautiful, cursive L.

In the end, he simply held the piece of lilac stationary up to his nose and inhaled the sweet gum scent of its cotton fiber, as he closed his eyes to concentrate on just that single sense. The scent was far from the mellow floral and chlorophyll of lilacs, or the warm floral scent of his mother’s perfume, but her hand had moved across this leaf of paper. In his mind, he could smell her there.

Intoxicated with the phantom scent, and indignation, Cody let the piece of stationary slip from his fingers. He didn’t watch as it fluttered softly to the carpet at his bare feet, though he did take pains to ensure he stepped over it, and not on it.

Cody wanted a drink, a stiff drink. Bourbon or tequila, it didn’t matter, as long as it was followed quickly by another, and another, until the lilac tendrils squeezing the life out of his heart succumbed to the amber liquid. For that, he would have to wait for Joe to get home. He didn’t want to wait, and that gave way to a more destructive vice he flirted with on occasion.

Making his way numbly across the apartment to his room, Cody booted up his computer. He thought about backing out as it loaded, but he couldn’t. There were only two choices, drown the feeling away, or this, and this is what he had available to him.

The site wasn’t bookmarked, it didn’t need to be, the address of the list site was short enough and easy to remember. A definite bonus was the fact that it loaded up to the Bay Area by default. A couple clicks later and he was where he wanted to be, ignoring the majority of the ads.

As he was clicking his way around, an instant message popped up from his brother Benjamin. As much as he wanted to take a minute and chat with him, somewhere he partially blamed Benny for the letter as well. He knew it was wrong and selfish, and the feeling only reinforced his mother’s words. Cody simply typed ‘not now benny’, into the box and minimized the window, ignoring how it changed, flashing orange, indicating a reply.

A lot of the ads had their own prerequisites; must host, 420, bottoms only, etc. Cody just had the one, and it took good hour of searching but he found what he was looking for. A few short emails back and forth spread over the next few hours and everything was arranged.

Cody threw on a hooded sweatshirt, and pulled a beanie over his head as he rushed out of the apartment. On his way down the steps he ran into Joe, who was carrying two pizza boxes and a twelve-pack.

“Where you headed?” Joe asked, and his brow knit as something about Cody’s face seemed horribly off.

“Nowhere,” Cody replied, avoiding any eye contact with Joe as he brushed by him and continued his decent.

“Dude,” Joe said in effort to halt what he saw as Cody’s escape in the way he was rushing out the door. “What’s wrong?” Joe asked.

The question halted Cody, as he struggled with the urge to turn around and climb the stairs again. Make an attempt to deal with his problems in a different way. “Nothing,” Cody lied, as he threw his hand in the air in a feeble attempt to wave goodbye, before he was out the door and jogging down the street.

Joe stood in the staircase for several minutes; he knew Cody wouldn’t be back anytime soon. That didn’t stop the deep seated feeling in his gut that longed for Cody to come back through the door. Giving up, Joe turned back towards the top of the steps and trudged the rest of the way up, wondering if Cody would ever share more than a rented apartment with him.

The air was unseasonably cold, as cold as Cody had ever remembered it recently, biting at his earlobes that stuck out of the black knit beanie he wore, and sending a chill racing down his spine. Cody huddled into the hooded sweatshirt he wore, watching as his breath billowed out in translucent clouds of condensation.

Thirty minutes, they agreed on twenty, and each new set of headlights that washed over him as he stood at the corner of Polk and Chestnut drew his anxious attention. It wasn’t him. Cody decided on the obvious, as the white of that set of headlights drove passed, and turned into red fading into the distance.

A white minivan he had seen drive by slowly some fifteen minutes earlier passed again, and pulled to a stop along the curb some fifteen feet ahead. A small smile curled Cody’s lips as he rushed up to the passenger window as it rolled down.

“You Mike?” the driver asked cautiously.

Glancing at the gold wedding band on the man’s hand, assuring his one requirement was met, he nodded his head. “Yeah.”

“Take off the beanie,” the older guy requested.

“It’s fuckin’ cold out here,” Cody countered.

The man shrugged indicating that the temperature was not his problem. “Take off the beanie,” he repeated.

With a huff, Cody pulled the knit skull cap off.

“Nice,” the man nodded in compliment.

“Where do we do this?” Cody asked, growing impatient now that the man seemed to be satisfied with who he happened upon.

“Get in,” he said as he pressed a button on the driver-side door unlocking the doors. Cody didn’t wait for a second invite as he quickly lifted up the handle and climbed in.

Joe walked into the apartment and set the pizzas and beer on the counter before he ripped into the twelve-pack. Twisting the top on the brown bottle he retrieved, he tossed the cap into the trash can before he headed out to the living room carrying one of the large pizzas.

Noticing the letter Cody had abandoned to the floor, Joe set the pizza box down before picking the letter up and reading it.

Cody,

First, I would like to take the time and point out how disappointed I am in the fact that I had to get your current living arrangements from your grandmother. However, we both would agree that doing so is a waste of time, as you have repeatedly proven that you care little for my thoughts, or feelings, on the matter, and I long ago gave up on trying to shape you into the man I once thought you could be. We both know that eventuality was thrown out the window with your choosing to be involved with that boy. I tried to fix what that incident did to our family, to our reputation. In the end, you selfishly chose to hold on to some juvenile fantasy, leaving me to clean up the emotional wreckage and fallout.

That said, your father and I are sending this letter to inform you not to be expecting the money we had saved for your college education. We think it would be in the best interests of our family to transfer that money into the account we set up for Benjamin.

Benjamin, you would agree, has a better chance of benefiting positively from its influence. He is already maintaining a better grade point average in his studies than you ever were able to maintain. The fact that he is able to do this with the constant rumors he has to put up with due to your “show” is sentiment to the type of fortitude he possesses; fortitude that is regrettably, severely lacking in your character. He shows a profound willingness to do whatever it takes, whatever is asked of him, to ensure those he loves are happy and content. If only you can demonstrate the same capacity, there still may be hope for you yet.

We are both aware that half of the money you made through afterschool and summer jobs is in that account as well as our own generous contributions over the years. I am positive you will be willing to contribute those funds towards your brother’s education. To that end, we have transferred the money and closed the account already.

Benjamin sends his love; forgive him, he knows no better. As for your father and I, we sincerely hope that someday, when you have rid yourself of this rebellious phase, you will turn out to be a decent man in spite of your horrific choices.

Regards,