Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 10:25:55 -0800 (PST)
From: Zane Green <ZaneG7@excite.com>
Subject: Jaded 9

JADED By: Zane Hunter Green
Chapter Nine: Birds of a feather


The copyright of this story belongs to the author. This is a piece of
fiction not based on any real person. This story is for a mature audience as
it has adult material. Let me know what you think of it. Please send E-mails
to ZaneG7@Excite.com

Ty:

 For Anton every day was a new holiday, just from having Jaden around. They
were working as a team. After the two of them drummed out of me the story of
seeing the street kid that Jaden had spent a night with, back on the street,
Perry I think his name was, they made the decision that I would return and
help him out. In fact I was supposed to find a way to set up a fund from our
business to directly assist more of those kids. You would think that Jaden
was happy to be away from that kind of life, but he was a younger version of
his uncle. He felt badly that Perry didn't know that he was all right now.
He also wanted to visit Jackson again.

 I started to wonder if Anton looked like his fair' nephew when he was
young. I thought about writing a story about a dying man whom entices a
young boy to live with him so they can exchange bodies. I was starting to
plot other literary fantasies of how to get Jaden out of our life, although
that was by far my favorite one. In others I would send him away to Boarding
school for the next fifty years, or fill him with helium and have him float
away from us, my fantasies went from the possible to the fantastic.  I knew
at the bottom of it all was my attraction to him. It wasn't him, really that
I wanted to be rid of. He was light, and happiness. I had never met a boy
who was more agreeable. It was those feelings I had for him that stalked my
mind. I could deal with jealousy, but the more I fought against my yearning
for him, the more I obsessed about him.

To make it worse I think Anton,(which meant Jaden as well) knew how I felt.
It really is hard to live with others. They make you face yourself.

And knowing my luck, if I wrote something about my feelings for Jaden, no
matter how well I disguised them, they would surely discover what I wrote
and find it delightfully entertaining.  I would be mortified. Well....I had
too much work to do to write down more than a grocery list. I had so much to
worry about now. Besides our business, there was Anton's health. The cancer
seemed to be in remission, but he had a heart condition as well that they
had detected when he was in the hospital. That's why he had been on the
telemetry floor. That meant I couldn't let him get excited. Our sex life, so
rich once before was nil. I think Anton felt guilty about it. I had no idea
that he would discuss it with Jaden. They were thick as thieves about
everything; it was as if they knew each other their entire life.

Several days after I brought Jaden back here I had walked him over to the
local secondary school and got him enrolled. He seemed to fit right into the
community. The only thing he complained about was several of the girls had
crushes on him, and let him know it. Being the new kid in a small town made
him the center of interest for awhile. I laughed, but he told me that he was
just like his uncle, inferring that he liked boys. He also wanted to earn
money. He said he saw a book of poetry from someone he meet while he was
wandering around LA in our town's decent bookstore-coffee shop, (thanks to
Michael who owned it) and he wanted to buy it for Anton. I remembered that
kids got allowance, but he said that that was too much like a handout for
doing nothing.

 We decided that we would start to raise our own fowl, saving us money in
the long run. I had planned on Saturday to drive the pickup truck over to
San Joaquin Valley and buy some young turkeys, a few chickens, and a goose
or two. Things were going to get not only noisy but also busy, We could use
Jaden's help, and he could earn money by taking care of the birds. Jaden was
going with me. Jaden shimmied up in the pickup truck his lean arms wrapped
around the standing bar while I went to get some used birdcages we had been
storing.  I hosted them up, and he neatly arranged them in the truck bed.

I tried to stop staring at him. : Do you have to be so visible? I thought to
myself. When he was done he hopped down and got into the passenger seat
beside me. He was wearing summer clothes, and he looked so young. I started
the engine and forced myself to concentrate on the road ahead.

 We got into Fresno around lunchtime. I had packed a meal so we drove down
to the San Joaquin River near the Northern Burlington/Santa Fe Bridge to
eat. The bluffs were behind us, and the river was close to the grassy bank
we sat on to have our lunch.

After Jaden unwrapped his sandwich the plastic bag started to fly toward the
river.

"You are so careless!" I said. "You know that gets in the water, and can
suffocate a fish if it swallows it!"

"I'm sorry."

I went over to get it before it ended up in the river. "Never mind, just
next time throw your wrappers away!" I snapped at him.

Jaden looked crestfallen, "Do you hate me Ty? I've been nothing but trouble
to you"

"No of course I don't hate you! I guess I over-reacted, but you know Jaden.
Our lively hood relates to keeping the streams healthy."

I sat down beside him and he leaned against me. "Ty. I get the idea that I'm
kind of budding in. It's like you and my Uncle tiptoe around like you're
afraid that I should know two men could love each other? Do you want me to
go?"

"No, of course not, if anyone should go it would be me."

"Why would you go, it's your home?"

"Actually it's your uncle's and then by all rights yours. I was just a going
nowhere kid when your uncle took me in, didn't he tell you."

"I'm glad he did. I really like you Ty."

"Jaden, I haven't been very nice to you."

"Yes you have. You spent all that time looking for me."

"Yeah, well you scared the shit out of me that I would never find you. Anton
ordered me to find you."

"He really cared didn't he?"

"Yes"

Jaden laid back, his blonde hair too tempting not to stroke. I reached out
and ran it's silky wonder through my fingers. Oh that he could be so lean
and fine at the same time. I wanted to touch his cheek, and then the arch of
his neck. But I knew it was wrong...it was time to leave...before...

"Come-on Jaden, we have birds to buy."

Jaden cleaned up after us making sure that I saw him put all our trash into
a canister.

As we drove I taught him the color of rooster feathers, grizzly white,
brown, black, ginger, dun, cream, cree, olive, blue. And then I thought to
myself" White like your teeth, brown like the space I longed to explore
inside of you, black like your lashes, ginger like your cheeks, olive like
the Jade ring you now wore, that Anton had gave you: blue like your eyes,
cream like your skin, and cree like the shorts you are wearing that I long
to place my hand upon.


We got to the farm, and I selected a few bronze turkey poults and an
assortment of roosters and hens. Jaden asked all the right questions, about
feed, and the right temperature to keep the birdhouse we built. He also
wanted to make sure his roosters wouldn't fight and hurt each other.
Actually they would be kept separately, and we would start raising out own
chickens, I was wondering after we loaded the last one on the truck why we
didn't just keep buying all our feathers in bulk. The geese were not going
to be much fun, but at least we had the pond for them.

Jaden talked all the way home, but I could hardly hear him with the birds
protesting my driving. I should have been glad when I rounded the driveway
but I had to admit that the day with Jaden had been fun.

We unloaded the birds in their new homes, and I went upstairs to check on
Anton. He was asleep. He looked so frail to me, almost bird-like. I sat down
beside him in the bed and watched him sleep. Slowly as to not awaken I bent
down to kiss his cheek. He was so cool. When I looked up I saw a shadow pass
by the doorway and then it disappeared.