Sweet Children Come Out And Play

Cody stood looking closely into her compact mirror. She could not understand what had happened today. Out of the blue, there was this group of people who acted like they cared. She had tagged along with them for a good few hours. But they did not even know who she was, or what she had done. They didn’t know anything. They were so innocent, and happy. That must be it, they’re innocent. They didn’t know what it was like.

Cody took a half empty pack of cigarettes out of her side pocket. She put one of the white sticks tipped brown between her lips without looking and lit the end. Puffing the smoke out between a thin gap in her lips, she sighed at the familiar taste and smell, knowing soon she would calm down just a bit. She wasn’t a very heavy smoker. Just five or so a day. The smoking was far from the problem. Smoking was something she could fall back on.

It wasn’t that anything in her life was that bad right now. In fact, this was the best it had ever been since she could remember. Her grandmother had told her to get away, so she did. That is why she ended up here. She had a job to pay a crummy rent and some nice people at work, but for the most part, she kept to herself. She’d hurt too many people in her life already. Why should she take the chance to hurt more? No one would want her for long anyway, even if they truly did now. And then she would just be hurt again. No, she could not let that happen.

Why had she talked to those girls today? Looking for fun? Perhaps. No, it was that one girl. Delphine, that was her name. She was so pretty and childlike looking. It was in her face. Her face looked at least two years younger. And she had talked so freely to these girls until it surprised even her. Cody was good at that. She could make you believe anything if she wanted too, but usually, she just didn’t talk. Talking just got her into trouble in the past.

Cody pressed the last remaining ashes of the cigarette into the cement. She stood up and walked to the bar. The bar she always went to. That’s because she worked there. She would have liked to say that she was a bartender, but that would not be true.

She stepped into the back room like she did every night. She stared back at the pretty face with the blank expression in the mirror. Then she changed her expression with the makeup she pulled out of her purse, carefully re-curving her brows, curling her lashes with black liquid, eye liner and the lipstick she reapplied every night. And she would have to reapply every night from now on as far as she could see. What other choice was there?
~
It’s funny how you can meet people and within the blink of an eye you are friends and it seems that you have known the person all of your life. Cody was that way. She was 19, their age. It turned out Cody only lived ten minutes away, so they met up again. She was even able to come to the next gig. And she did. How do things like that fall in line so easily?

“You like?” Tre asked for the fifteenth time after another show.

“I said I always love it!” Cody said exasperated.

“Who was the best?”

“You were Tre.”

“That’s right. And who sucked?”

“Everyone else,” she rolled her eyes.

Billie ran past with Delphine by one arm, “Will you stop rubbing it in, Tre!” Then Tre went off to chase him. Delphine was five months pregnant then. You could see now that her belly was growing. Delphine found it strange that she didn’t mind it. Oh, well. You would think she would not want to stay up late so many nights like this. And she’d get too tired. However, she, and everybody else, also got the luxury of sleeping in…almost everyday now.

After a few minutes, Billie ran back. Delphine was laughing and being pulled by one hand and a guy was on the other. He found Cody again standing in the middle of the crowd by the stage. “Hey, Cody! Here, meet Jason!” he called. When they reached each other, Jason and Cody collided in the middle of the moshing people. The next band was playing now, one called RSD. Then they both lost Delphine and Billie all together. Or maybe they had slipped away on purpose.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Jason had to yell.

“It’s fine! I’m Cody!”

“Nice to meet you! Umm...want to go find the other guys?"

“Sure! OH! I see Mike over there!” she pointed across the room to what looked like the back of Mike. As they both reached the man, Cody tapped on his shoulder. What should have been Mike turned around to reveal someone she had never seen before. “Oh, sorry, looking for someone.”

“It's fine,” he shrugged. Where the hell did they go?

Then someone called her name, “Cody!”

“Tre! There you are!”

Tre was waving his hands around wildly. She ran over, looking back over her shoulder to make sure Jason was still following. He smiled at her. As she made her way to the real Mike’s side, she could not help thinking he was pretty cute. When they all got outside of the club and back in their group, Cody turned back to Jason. “Hey, sorry, bad place to meet,” he said. “Can’t hear a thing in there.”

“No,” she smiled, a little more girlishly than she had hoped for. Billie swung his arm over Jason’s shoulder.

“This is Jason White! He’s been our friend since…like, forever!” he shouted. Delphine laughed; he’d had a few beers. “He’s from Arkansas and he plays some kick ass guitar too.”

“Cool.”

“I’m actually playing with a band called Pinhead Gunpowder right now. Don’t know if I’ll stick with that forever though.”

“Not only that! But he has this awesome shirt! See! Jack…I mean, Jason, you should come out and play with us. You know, jam. You too Cody. You should all come!”

“Dude Billie, calm down, and lay off the boothze,” Mike slurred.

“What, no, I’m really not that drunk.” Billie straightened up. “I was just hyper or something. That was a kick ass show!”

“You would know if he was really drunk,” Delphine said.

“I really can’t tell the difference,” Jason shrugged. He was all around pretty cute guy with his tight pants, long red striped shirt with a classic Led Zeppelin black t-shirt over the top.

“That’s a useful act,” Tre said. “You should show me how to do it.”

“OK! Here, take this beer!”

“OK!”

“You see! You are a beautiful man now. Hooray Beer!” he shouted like the Red Stripe commercials.

“Hooray Beer!”

“So, Jason, where’s you’re girlfriend?” Mike said off topic.

“Oh, she’s at home. She’s at her mom’s house for a few days.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Ah, yeah, her mom broke her arm last week so she was helping around the house and stuff. But, um, yeah, it’s ok.” He didn’t quite sound like he meant it.

“Oh, man, we better get home. They’re closing the bar and it’s like three in the morning!” Delphine said as she hopped into the driver’s seat. She was pretty much always the “designated driver” now. “All right, everyone get in! Yes, you too Tre, you are not getting lost. Again.”

“Aww!”

“Bye Jason!” they all shouted as Cody was about to climb in the van. Jason had his own car.

“Bye…hey, Cody, you going home with them?”

“Yeah, I was just going to sleep at their house again.”

“Do you want me to drive you home?”

Cody thought about it for a second. She should really go home. “Sure,” she smiled.

“UUHH!” Tre cooed and made kissing sounds from the back seat.

“Shut-up Tre!” Richelle yelled at him.

Cody blushed. “I’ll see you guys later,” Cody waved and crawled in beside Jason in his little car. She watched Delphine drive away before putting her gaze back to Jason. The car was a pretty shit-box car, but it worked. On the seat was a gray sweatshirt. A girl’s. She moved it aside.

“Oh, sorry about that.” Jason grabbed the sweater and tossed it in the back. “I have to give that back to Laurie.”

“Oh. She’s you’re girlfriend. Right?” Cody said coolly. Jason felt a little embarrassed but she did not notice at all.

“Yeah, well, sort of…not anymore.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, um, we actually broke up.” He was looking rather embarrassed. “I just didn’t want to get into that right now with all the guys.”

“I’m sorry.” Usually she hated talking to strangers, but he was nice enough; sweet to take her home.

“No, it’s fine. We were just too different in the end. Among other things.”
“What happened?”

Jason was pulling out of the parking lot, “My girlfriend, my dumb donut, went out to a party just the other night. Three hours later and seven shots of jager, she was in the bedroom with another guy. I really just don’t want to hear anymore about it. My friends just won’t shut the hell up about it. I’m not the one who’s acting like a hoe, why must I be the one who has to know every detail about it?” He was looking really depressed now. “I just feel so dumb that I could ever trust her. Someone else fucked her and I walked away.”

“Oh, I see. I know how you feel.” Jason shrugged. “Telling you that sucks isn’t goanna really help. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Really,” he gave her a thankful glance. “Sorry, I’ll just stop talking now.”

“No, that’s ok.”

She really didn’t seem to care and didn’t give him anymore sympathetic glances or anything that all of his friends had done. Finally, someone. “So, where do you live?”

Cody gave him directions. They were really messed up directions, but eventually they made it back. “Sorry! I can get home. I just can’t tell you how to. It’s like opening a lock and you don’t know what the combo is.”

Jason laughed, “Ha! I know what you mean.”

“So I will see you later?”

“Yeah, love to. Good night.”

“Good night!”

As Jason drove home, he thought some more about that girl in his car. What was her name again? Oh, he was terrible with names. He could know a person for a year and not know their name because it never came up in the conversation. Cody! That was it. Cody. It’s sort of a boy’s name so he should remember that. She was different. She was nice. And she didn’t get all mushy like everyone always did when he had a break-up. He always seemed to have the worst of luck when it came to girls. The only other girls he ever knew, that he would date, and never actually dated were Delphine, Billie’s girl ever since he had known her, and maybe Brites. Same thing – Mike’s girl. And maybe Richelle. But they all went together. Well, at least Cody didn’t have a boyfriend. Wait, did she? Dammit.
~
“She have a boyfriend?” Jason asked nonchalantly. He was hanging out at the studio at Lookout! Records with Mike, Tre and Billie again. They were talking about Cody. Mostly how she was quiet, though pretty hot…along with some stuff about Pamela Anderson’s boobs.

“I say they’re just too big. It’s not natural.” Billie interrupted.

“Don’t be stupid. There is no such thing as too big!” Tre whined.

“Wait, does Cody have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend or something?” Mike asked again, wondering to himself.

Billie caught it that time, “Nope! Delphine said so.”

Jason heard. No boyfriend, eh? This brings new thoughts to mind.

“Dude, Jason, are you coming tomorrow to the Adeline gig?”

“Um, yeah, I think so. Man, I spend more time with other people’s bands than I do my own.”

“Well, that’s just because you’re so damn popular,” Tre said in a teenage girly fashion.

“So, will Cody be coming again?” Perhaps that was too forward. He blushed a little bit. That was a curse of his. It just gave things away. But he didn’t think that anyone saw.

“I think she is,” Billie said. He saw the blush, but didn’t say anything about that. Mike and Tre were to busy tackling each other on the floor to notice.

~
Delphine sat on the floor of the shower. This was always the place where she could be alone. She learned that in high school. She touched her belly. She was getting to be pretty noticeably pregnant through her shirt, and especially now when her belly was bare. Usually, when she took out time to sit on the floor of the shower, she was sad. There was something to cry about, but now there really wasn’t anything. She used to cry all the time. It never really was anything in particular though that she cried about. It was just everything.

But right now it was neither something or nothing. She wasn’t sad, just
confused. She had hoped Cody had a good time last night. It was the day after now. No one was awake. She and Billie had slept over at the old place. For awhile now, she thought a lot about Cody. More than she should have. This sort of thing has happened before though. Little crushes here and there before she met Billie, but always in love with her middle school love and trying desperately to forget. But Billie changed that. Not like she should be worried. She liked Cody. Maybe she even wanted her, but she loved Billie.

Delphine smiled to herself. It was not wrong to feel a twinge of heat for Cody, but she doubted that it would be replied to if Cody knew. It really didn’t matter anyway. She loved Billie. And for once, she knew that was certain.

Delphine squeezed the shampoo bottle and some of the pearly soapy liquid slowly poured out into her hand. She washed it though her hair, thinking, and watched as the blue tinted bubbles and water washed down the drain. The bubbles used to wash out red when she had cherry dyed hair. It used to look like blood. Now it was just blue. But Cody’s would wash out red. Her dreads were so pretty on her.