Dreams and Clipped Wings - 6. Chapter 6

6:How the Mockingbird Sings
: edited by viv :


The easy, knowing, smile that had graced Cody's face for his whole trip home melted under the heat of Joe's tone. Suddenly, all fantasies of the bassist, along with all hopes of a wrestler dissolved into the air of the San Francisco night as he stood on the sidewalk looking at a steely face he had never seen on Joe before.

"What's up?" Cody asked as he made his way to the door which led up the steps to the apartments above the darkened bagelry.

"We just need to talk," Joe repeated, leading the way through the exterior door and thundering heavily up the stairs as if the stairs were the sole outlet for whatever aggression he was harboring.

The heavy cadence of Joe's steps continued down the short hall and into their darkened apartment. There was something in the manner in which Joe walked, the belligerent pounding stride that set Cody on alert.

"Dude," Cody said once the door to their apartment was shut. "What the hell crawled up your ass?"

"What crawled up my ass?" Joe repeated. "Well let's see, you're always busy, Julie is always busy, so I'm always here alone on the weekends watching crappy re-runs or stale editions of Sports Center alone," Joe frowned. "Now she's all bent outta shape over whatever you said to her on the stairs the other day."

"I didn't say anything," Cody rushed to say, perhaps a little too quickly, as Joe arched his brow in a challenge. "Okay, I may have said something about her not being around as much as she used to be, that's all," Cody relented without much of a fight. "But that's the truth, so I don't see why she's getting her thong in a twist anyhow."

Joe chuckled, "There's probably more to it," he mentioned looking at his feet. "She kinda walked in a few times, when I was expecting you."

"Really?" Cody asked with an amused smile. He could only imagine some of the things Joe had spouted off thinking it was him, and not Julie.

"Yeah," Joe offered. "She kinda got in the middle of the whole shower thing the other day, asked if she should be worried."

Cody gave up the chuckle for full on laughter. "Why in the world would she think she should be worried?" Cody asked with an amused smile.

The smile Cody's laughter had elicited on Joe's lips faded, but more so, the playful twinkle in his eyes fled into the dark. "This," he answered, indicating nothing physical at all. "It's just a game right? All the talk, we're just messing about?" The words fell out of Joe's mouth, a jumbled mess of nervous seriousness.

"Oh, you'd know if I wasn't playing," Cody assured before a small smile curved the corner of his mouth as his half-lidded eyes sparkled.

There it was again, the fascinating tingling warmth; it started deep in his chest and bloomed to the surface where it crept like ivy up Joe's neck before blooming in a flush on his cheeks. Joe reveled in the vulnerability of it, something he was never allowed to feel with Julie.

Scratching the side of his head, Joe looked to the floor beside where he stood, wondering what he could say to combat what Cody had said, or more importantly, all the things he failed to; the same things his eyes spoke in silent eloquence.

"What's with Jonathan?" Joe finally decided to ask, even if the question was delivered with a grimace.

Cody rolled his eyes. "Dunno, I haven't heard from him in a few weeks," he answered with an easy shrug.

"I don't like him," Joe observed. "Never did really..." he continued, earning a curious look from Cody in the process. "You don't matter to him," Joe continued. "He only cares about himself."

Cody shrugged, wondering if mentioning that was exactly why he found Jonathan agreeable would be helpful. "He's easy," Cody said, feeling far too out of place with the conversation's direction, but willing to give Joe just a little more than he had before. "With him, I don't have to worry about a few things. Sometimes he gets all... whatever, and leaves for a week or two."

"So you're waiting for him to pop in again?" Joe asked with a knit brow and tight expression.

Cody shook his head with a bemused smile that masked his knee-jerk reaction to mention Joe had little to say in the waiting department. "I don't wait for anybody," Cody stated clearly. "Jonathan may trick himself into believing there is more between us than there is; I don't suffer that fantasy."

Joe looked confused, as if he didn't understand the concept Cody had just laid out before him. "If he's not..." he couldn't say the word, plus he picked up on the fact that Cody would readily fight the notion. "Then what is he?"

"He's not my hand," Cody grinned. "But what does Jonathan have to do with anything?"

Cody's answer felt disturbing in a small way, but Joe liked it anyhow. "Well, 'not your hand' has called like fifteen times tonight," Joe said.

Cody let out a single, bitter, chuckle. "Really? What did he have to say?"

"On the phone," Joe stated, "nothing, but when he showed up it was all... 'I love Cody, I'm so sorry I left...', 'He loves me...' blah, blah, blah...'"

Cody's frown deepened as he listened to Joe recount the conversation, and as he did, he wondered if the earlier statement about Jonathan being easy had been a bad statement. "I told you he was deluded," Cody said, wanting to end any talk about Jonathan and whatever scene he'd caused tonight.

"Yeah," Joe mentioned. "Well, he wants you to call him, so you guys can work things out."

"There's nothing to work out," Cody mentioned, "though this does explain why you were outside when I got here."

"You mean other then my nightly stroll down the block in my boxers?" Joe quipped, thinking Cody should have caught on to something being amiss long before now.

Cody took a moment to look Joe over from head to toe and back again, appreciating the view no matter how many times he got to drink it in. "I thought you were out there waiting on me," he said with a mock pout.

Joe chuckled as he fidgeted under Cody's steely gaze. "I don't know... sometimes," Joe stammered, rubbing the back of his head. "If it's a game or not," Joe confessed, feeling, to his delight, his cheeks burn again.

"I know," Cody smiled with a wink. "But, either way... you always play," he finished, before walking away, surprised that he had said as much as he did, but not expecting Joe to coming running after him.

Joe didn't go running after Cody, part of him wanted to spin Cody around and demand clarification, but it was about as big as another part that wanted to spin Cody around and... do things he couldn't think about. Instead, Joe exhaled as his head fell against the wall. Exhaled the tension he felt swirling around in his gut. Exhaled another pebble of his resistance, another chunk of the life he'd expected before Cody.

The room was silent, the bed stiff, but strangely comfortable, as memories of booming bass reverberated off the walls of her mind. The night had been a blur, much like the diffused light wafting into the musky smelling room Julie found herself in.

The music had been loud, too loud; forcing people into one another's space to carry on a conversation. Forcing people to discern the subtle trace of cologne or perfume from the overpowering aroma of beer that seemed to never end.

That is how she'd met him, even though she currently didn't remember his name. She did, however, remember how he felt. The way his arms were around her, the way the hairs on his thighs tickled the inside of her thighs, the way his lips felt, and tasted. Lying there, deathly afraid to move, for it might give more credence to what happened, Julie could even smell him; on the bed sheets, on the pillow cases. The scent of him even lingered, intoxicatingly, on her skin.

That is about all of him that there was; Julie noticed the startling emptiness of the bed beside her as she stretched. Confused, the events replayed in her mind again. She didn't know how she should feel about this vacancy. She didn't know if she had any right to feel anything at all. What she did know, however, was that she didn't like the sudden feeling of cold that descended upon her.

Chilled and empty, Julie pulled herself upright, keeping her chest securely wrapped in the sheet, as she looked around the room, gathering her bearings and wondering where in the hell her panties had gone. As she gazed around the empty, shabby, room, more fragments flirted with her. What's-his-name materializing in bits and pieces, but never a substantial whole; a flirtatious grin here, a devious wink there; the image of her hand crawling achingly up his torso.

Somewhere, she wished it had been one large vivid dream, the hazy memory of him crawling down, feasting on her body. However, the dull ache in her head and throb in her thighs, coupled with the alien surroundings told her it had been so much more than a dream. The encounter had been a lurid actuality that brought this current nightmare of reality on its heels.

What in the hell did she do? Julie franticly wondered. What was she going to do now? How would she escape four walls that were, at once, a haven and a prison? The last thought that raced through her panicked mind was whether or not she should tell Joe. She didn't want to lie to him, but she didn't want to hurt him either.

She wouldn't, she decided as she located her red panties lying on the floor next to a pair of dark blue boxers. Dark blue boxers which she realized didn't belong to Joe. That realization hit her like a solid kick to her gut. As analytical as Julie was, she mocked herself for wanting to cry over something as trite as a pair of dark blue boxers.

Smoothing her soft brown hair back and over her shoulder, Julie quelled the urge to dissolve into hysterics. She would, she knew, just not here, in a strange room. Not now. Loosing that control was best left for a place no one would be able to see.

Clutching the sheet to her torso, Julie bent over and retrieved her skimpy, red, undergarment. The ritual of dressing was nowhere near as frantic as undressing had been in the wee hours of the morning. There was no alcohol now to aid the process. No groping fingers to urge her on, as she followed the bread-crumb trail of mixed clothing to the room's doorway.

The deep-red, Asian-print, silk blouse was the last article of clothing she retrieved, right after the heap of her jeans and bra, and just before the bedroom door. As she pulled it on, she was nudged with the faint smell of day-old beer and the scent of cologne that she had found alluring last night and comforting when she first woke up some fifteen minutes prior. Now though, she found no solace in the smell at all, only the added burden of how she would escape this with her head held high.

The obvious answer was, she wouldn't. That should have been painfully present as she opened the bedroom door only to find her purse hanging on the other side of the handle. Julie was still obstinate in the face of this. Snatching the purse up, Julie clutched it to her chest as she made her way through the house, walking as softly as she could.

The trek through the house she had been dreading only moments before, turned out uneventful. Most of the souls who remained were too busy sleeping off the reverie of the night before to notice her escape.

Noticing movement in her peripheral vision Julie stopped, as a flurry of panic coursed through her veins. Was it him? Julie didn't know, and she was afraid to look to find out if it was or not.

"Bout time."

The voice came, soft and more casual than Julie would have expected. Looking up, she realized it wasn't the guy from the night before, not that she could remember, nor was this anyone she could place offhand in recent memory.

Setting the milk container down, this new stranger peered around the room, taking note of the four or five bodies that were oblivious to his, and her, presence. "Must have been some party," he smirked, sliding a red Dixie cup aside so he could set the small bottle of milk he'd been drinking down before he looked back at Julie. "I kinda let myself in. I hope they don't have a problem with that."

"Do I know you?" Julie asked, confused and uneasy.

He smiled knowingly; she had been three sheets to the wind when Valerie introduced them the night before. "We met last night, Valerie introduced us."

"You're..." Julie started, but couldn't finish as the name escaped her.

"Yeah," he chuckled, pushing himself from the easy chair he had claimed. "Anyhow, she figured you might need a ride this morning, so I volunteered."

"That would be nice," Julie confessed with a sigh. She still held reservations about running off with this person, however, leaving with him would be better than being seen leaving this house alone. The house had a reputation; wild parties and walks of shame. The first had drawn her in, only to leave her to suffer the second.

"Let's go, if you've got everything," he said.

"I'm good," Julie said, double checking her clothes and her purse.

Outside, the sun was more garish than Julie was led to believe by the soft coloring of the house's interior. So overbearing was it, she had to pause on the front stoop to dig around for her sunglasses.

"You'll need this," the guy's voice broke the attention Julie focused on rummaging through the small purse that seemed to defy the laws of physics by containing more than it could possibly hold. Looking up, she saw that him holding out a helmet in her direction as he stood next to a blue and black Yamaha motorcycle.

Julie accepted the helmet with a measure of trepidation, "What was your name again?"

"Jacob," he smiled warmly as he pulled on his own helmet, straddled the bike and fired it into life before looking at her expectantly.

One of Saul's famous Yorkshire bagels sat half-eaten on a plate to Cody's left. It had been prepared just the way he liked it, toasted and smothered with copious amounts of velvety cream cheese. Cody's first thought of the bagel was to twist his face in disgust. It wasn't the apple-cinnamon, blueberry, or plain variety of his youth, and seemed tame compared to the jalapeno-cheddar that had caught his fancy the first several months he had worked for Saul.

The fact that the egg bagel with a dash of beef stock even sold as well as it did confounded him to no end. That was, until Cody gave into Saul's repeated requests that he, "Give it a try."

Actually, Cody had not given in to the request, so much as lost a bet with Saul. That first bagel had been toasted to perfection; Saul served it still hot with a generous spattering of cream cheese. Ever since, when Cody had opted to get a bagel, it was always the Yorkshire, prepared in the same way.
The bagel, nor the bet that seemed like a lifetime ago, rather than the ten or so months it had been, was the last thing on Cody's mind as he flipped the newsprint page and scanned the latest grainy black and white images for a bike that looked great, yet held a reasonable price.

"I told you you'd like it," Saul said as he laid his hand on Cody's shoulder and gave it a gentle reassuring squeeze. The action pulled Cody from the magazine he was looking at, directing his attention instead at Saul, who he gave a friendly smile as he watched the man claim the chair on the other side of the table.

"You always say that," Cody said.

Saul shrugged. "I need to keep my victories fresh in your mind," he said eliciting a light chuckle from Cody in response. "So how's everything been?" Saul asked using the bar towel tossed over his shoulder to wipe his hands more out of habit then need. "Landlord hassles still? Boss being a prick?"

The smile ebbed from Cody's face as his brow knit in seriousness. "Yeah," he answered. "My landlord keeps kicking a portion of my rent back to me and my boss pays me ridiculously well for the four or so hours I work in the mornings for him. I think they're both going a little senile in their old age."

The comment elicited a wry smirk from Saul. His eyes however continued to sparkle as he raised his hand in a mock threat of using it upside Cody's head. "How about the other crazy in your life?" Saul asked, lowering his hand to a neutral position on the tabletop.

Cody didn't need to ask for clarification; Saul had never minced words when it came to his distaste for Jonathan, both as a person, and as a boyfriend. Cody didn't answer at first, preferring to shake his head and look down at the green cover of the Cycle Trader he had been looking at before Saul had sat down, thinking that Joe had said something.

"You heard about that, huh?" Cody asked, as he looked up at Saul, knowing he already had or he wouldn't have brought the subject up.

"He wasn't exactly quiet last night," Saul said as he nodded his head with regret. "Mrs. Black had mentioned she wanted to call the cops."

Cody winced; his initial thought was that Joe had mentioned something to someone. However, Mrs. Black's apartment did look out over the street and no matter what the weather, she always slept with a window open.

"I'll deal with him," Cody promised, looking sorry that he had ever brought Jonathan around in the first place.

Saul sighed; Cody dealing with Jonathan was the last thing he wanted. Dealing only meant talking, and even if Cody rebuffed any of Jonathans advances this time, there would be talk of friendship and staying in contact. Such a thing Jonathan would only use to get what he wanted again.

"I don't think you should," Saul said leaning back in his chair. "You shouldn't have to, that crazy little... He should understand when something isn't healthy. So should you," Saul finished throwing an accusing stare at Cody.

"You would have made a good father," Cody observed, side stepping the statement. "You've got that 'you know better' dad stare down pat."

"Cody," Saul intoned, pushing that he was being serious and didn't have time for the verbal dance Cody had perfected.

"To be honest," Cody said, looking down at the Cycle Trader before looking Saul in the eye again. "I don't want anything to do with him anymore. I've tried to tell him there is no 'us', but he doesn't listen."

"Just ignore him," Saul advised. "Don't answer his calls, don't answer the door when he shows up drunk out of his better judgment," Saul frowned. "Not that he ever had any," Saul added with an easy smile.

"It's a shame, too," Cody mused with a wistful smile. "That boy could suck a steel marble through a crazy straw."

The relaxed smile on Saul's face eroded slowly as his brow crinkled into an accordion, baffle scrunched between a pair of wild white eyebrows. "Why would anyone want to suck a marble through a straw?" Saul asked in all seriousness.

"You're joking right?" Cody smirked in disbelief. His question was answered by the devious twinkle in Saul's eye which preceded the grin that erupted on his face as if it were a chrysanthemum mortar erupting in the night sky. "Thought so," Cody grinned, relieved that he didn't have to explain the embarrassing mechanics of the metaphor.

"Why Jonathan?" Saul ventured to question. "Out of all the men in San Francisco; why him?" Saul clarified, combating the blank uneasy stare Cody had taken on with the four syllables.

Cody thought about evading Saul's honest question by giving him the run around. However, a piece of him wanted to answer the question. A piece which grew ever larger and more demanding as the silence of his non-response wore on.

"Honestly?" Cody asked, vying for the second it would allow him to formulate an agreeable answer.

"No," Saul retorted, the corner of his mouth curled upwards in a wry smile as he replied. "Lie to me."

A single chuckle escaped Cody's lungs. The sound held no mirth; any hint of joy was drowned by the rush of exasperation that quickly followed the lone chuckle.

"He was the only one that ever came back," Cody answered. "He wasn't the same features with a different name." he continued, letting his attention drift from Saul to the street outside and a parade of guys he'd known and never seen again. The same parade that always formed in the darker places of his mind, and the roll call was always, always, led by his first.

"I could text him," Cody mused, clenching his eyes against the faces he saw on the other side of the plate glass window, "or whatever, and he'd always come running. It was just better being with somebody, than a bunch of nobodies..."

"Cody," Saul said gently, as he slid a hand over Cody's bare forearm. "You're a good kid; you don't need another person to be able to tell yourself that."

Cody turned his attention back to Saul, revealing the emotion that was threatening to spill out of his red eyes. "But I do," Cody said drawing a ragged breath.

Saul had waited so long, tried so hard to get the boy before him to open up; now faced with what he had tried so hard to achieve, he wasn't sure the pursuit was just. He had always known Cody to be vulnerable somewhere beneath the armor he wore. However, the harsh reality of what was hidden beyond Cody's defenses appeared so pitiful, so broken, that Saul didn't know if he wanted to face the fruits of his effort.

Casting a quick glance over his shoulder at the nearly empty bagelry, Saul stood and slipped his hand between Cody's torso and upper arm; gently tugged his boy upwards. "C'mon," Saul cooed gently, guiding Cody with out any resistance. Saul maneuvered them through the small dining room, behind the service counter, and back into the kitchen before Cody spoke again.

"I'm tired of feeling hollow," Cody mumbled. "It felt like he carved a hole in my chest when he disappeared. Like he took something he had no right in taking." The words spilled from Cody's lips as effortlessly as the saline running down his cheeks.

Saul didn't know what to say to soothe the statement and ease the pain he found on the other side of Cody's wall. Cody's tears, while shocking, were not what disturbed Saul the most. The way Cody was looking right at him, right through him, is what unsettled Saul the most.

"I blamed him for that, blamed him for stealing part of me," Cody continued, oblivious to the concern smeared over Saul's face. "Then I figured out he didn't take anything, he just let me know something was missing..."

"Who, Cody?" Saul asked. His brow knit tight with worry, fearing the answer was Jonathan, though he was almost certain it was not.

"Cody?" Stacey echoed, halting at the doorway to the kitchen, her hand absently still clutching the white towel she had just tossed onto her shoulder.

With the sound of Stacey's voice, the heady smell of musk dissolved from Cody's nostrils; replaced by the tang of yeast masked slightly by the bleach used to clean the kitchen. He noticed, for the first time, the dampness on his cheeks, felt the trickle of sweat tickling its way down the side of his torso.

Cody sucked in a breath of air, puffing his chest and straightening his frame, as he rubbed the moisture from his face. Saul paid no attention to Stacey's intrusion; instead, he watched as the wilted boy tried his best at playing a man.

Joe shut off the TV, bored with the same regurgitated programming every half-hour. Plucking up his cell phone off the coffee table, Joe decided to call Julie and see if she was up to hanging out. Her number was easy enough to find, and as Joe scrolled through his meager address book entries he idly thought that he need to meet some new people as he pressed send, That way he wasn't left to his own devices when the two central people in his social circle were otherwise busy.

Clinging to the back of Jacob, Julie didn't hear the shrill cry of the cell phone stashed securely in her purse, and after the fifth ring, a recording of her voice answered.

"Hey, I'm busy right now, but leave a message and I'll get back at ya."

Joe frowned as he listened to a recording he had been hearing far too many times lately. "Hey, just calling to see what you were up to today. I was figuring maybe we could hang out... spend some time together. Ya know, if you're not too busy... studying, or whatever. Call me." Dejected, Joe dropped the phone to his side on the couch and figured instead of waiting for a response from his 'supposed' girlfriend, he'd take a walk.