“What do you mean?”
“You sound Argentinian.”
Aiden’s smile unfolded. All the more beautiful for its rarity. “My project manager is from Buenos Aires. I must be picking it up from him. Are you all right? With everything?”
“I don’t know what right means,” Cleon said. “So I don’t know if I’m all of it. I’m just worried about Jude.”
Aiden reached up for the mug of tea Inez brought. “When are you not worried, Pa?”
“I worry about all of you, it’s my job.”
“My mother had a saying about parenthood,” Inez said. “You’re only as happy as your least happy child.”
The elephant in the room, of course, was that if anyone’s DNA wasn’t Tholet or Cambie, it ought to have been Aiden’s. He wasn’t the least happy child, but he often seemed the least familiar.
“Where did he come from?” Both Penny and Cleon wondered at this oyster of a boy. His solitary, guarded nature frustrated them to distraction, until he unexpectedly popped open and showed the shimmering pearls within.
As a baby, he was happiest when swaddled up like a burrito. The movement of his own arms and legs startled him to tears. The first sight of his reflection nearly traumatized the poor infant. You couldn’t drag Jude and Serena away from a mirror, but Aiden avoided them with a vampire’s aversion. Even as an adult, he often did a double take at his own reflection, as if he forgot he was there.
As the years of parenthood went by, Penny found Aiden’s introverted manner a respite from her other children. Jude and Serena flung their love onto her, which meant they flung their troubles, their woes, their drama and pain into her arms as well, often with no regard for what already occupied them. Aiden kept the world against his chest. Penny had to watch him carefully, studying his manner and nuances like a map. She had to put more work into cultivating this difficult younger child. Take more time to understand him, delve more deeply beneath his unreadable surface. Aiden wrung the most effort from Penny, but when he came to her, leaned on her, put a problem into her palms or spontaneously embraced her, it rang a bell of maternal satisfaction and fulfillment seldom chimed by Serena or Jude. They ding-donged all the livelong day while Aiden stood apart like a church tower manned by a solitary monk, tolling his feelings on only the most momentous occasions.
“Where did you come from,” Penny murmured on her knees at Aiden’s bedside, watching him sleep. “You little fat thing.”
She didn’t smooth his hair or cheek. His sleep was sacrosanct and not to be disturbed. Aiden didn’t so much get into bed as lie in state, always on his back, neat as a pin with ankle bones pressed together and hands folded on his chest. In the morning, you wouldn’t know he’d been there.
It was easy to forget he was there. Jude needed this, Serena needed that. Jude and Serena. Serena and Jude. Born a few decades later, they would’ve been a social media trend and gleefully adopted one of those cutesy hashtag names given to celebrity couples. #Judena. #Serude.
To their credit, it would quickly occur to their generous hearts that their brother shouldn’t be excluded.
#AndAiden.
Born a few decades later, perhaps Aiden would’ve been diagnosed as on the spectrum. Possibly. Penny doubted it. No label ever stuck to Aiden Tholet. Slim and sparse, walking between raindrops, he was simply their cosito gordo.
Their little fat thing.
Imagine yourself.
An interrogation room with a metal bunkbed. You and another man tied to the side of the frame, a third man tied to the top bunk. The DINA is interrogating all three of you, taking turns to electrocute you one after the other.
This goes on through the night to the next morning.
No time to build a house and the stories of your life are slipping through your burned fingers.
(Lucy, Lucy…)
Stop that. Pick up the pieces. Start again because thou shalt survive.
Imagine yourself.
You’re in a four-square-meter cell with six other men. You take turns sitting and lying down. Take turns using the corner designated as a toilet. The smell is unbearable. The cold is unbearable. The hunger is unbearable. The sound of screaming and moaning in the damp dark is unbearable. The thought of your wife—round, ripe, pregnant like a strawberry—not knowing where you are is unbearable.
But of course, that’s bullshit. It’s perfectly bearable compared to when they come for you and call your name.
(Lucy, my love.)
Then it’s truly unbearable.
They beat you with their bare fists, their brass-knuckled fists. They beat you with batons. With chains. With things you can’t even guess at when you’re blindfolded and beaten. You’re hanged by your feet and beaten. Hanged by your hands and beaten.
But the worst is the electricity.
It’s like painting your skin with oil and then lighting a match. It’s like staring into the sun. It’s like swallowing the sun.
It’s like nothing you can survive.
But you must. You have a mandate.
Start again.
Imagine yourself.
You’re thrown back in your cell. Once the door clangs shut, you feel footsteps and soft hands.
(Lucy?)
Your compañeros hold you, take your blindfold off. You’re streaming sweat. The thirst is a beast. Water on your lips and then, dear God, you’re helped to lie down and the filthy floor is so cool.
Your compañeros help you. You help them when they return from the torture. But you don’t bond your forces with theirs to create a community within which to endure.
Uncle Louis’s way cannot be your way.
You begin to build a new palace.
It has one floor, one wing and one room. No furniture. Only pure white space. A blank canvas.
No stories live in this palace. Only one song.
The password is not stell dir vor—imagine yourself.
Of course not. You’ve been a fool. You’ve translated it wrong all this time.
(I’m sorry, Lucy.)
To enter the fortress, to endure and survive, you must picture yourself.
You roll up your sleeves. You’ll have to hurry before they call your name again.
(I’m coming, Lucy…)
Jude’s stomach growled, loud enough to make Tej pick up his head.
“You hungry?”
“Nah.” Then his stomach growled again, calling him a liar. He’d skipped dinner, hot-tailed from work to Tej’s place and fell straight into the sack.
Eating’s overrated, he thought, as his belly complained a third time.
Tej laughed. “Come on. I’ll make you a sandwich.”
“I’m fine.”
“No lover of mine goes hungry.”
The house was cold compared to the oven of the bed. Tej loaned Jude sweats and a fleece. In the kitchen, he poured out two lowballs of whiskey and made a poor man’s reuben.
“Were you out in high school?” Jude asked.
“Not at all. And you know, I could’ve been. I had a great high school experience. I had amazing friends and I could’ve told any one of them I was gay. I had a posse of big, wide-open beautiful hearts and minds, and I trusted none of them.”
Jude nodded. “I hear you.”
“Not that they were untrustworthy. But people are human. I lived in a small, insular community. Everyone knew everyone and if a word, a hint, a whiff got back to my family, I was toast. Fear of my family kept me from being honest with my friends. I still get bummed thinking about it. All that time wasted on hiding. The potential for a deeper bond wasted.” Tej turned from the stove, spatula pointing. “You should know up front that waste drives me batshit crazy.”
“You’re saying I should chuck all the ancient take-out containers before I let you see the inside of my fridge?”
“I think we should get tested before you go showing me your fridge. That’s a big step.”
A taut pause.
“Oh dear, are we having The Talk?” Tej said.
“My doc always runs a full STD screen at my physicals,” Jude says. “I had one a couple months ago. If you want to see my results.”
Tej had no end of snarky comebacks, but they never came when Jude expected them. Like right now. Instead of a zinger, Tej only gave a slow, considering smile that turned all the air in the kitchen soft and dreamy.
“You’re so good,” he said.
“Me?”
“No, the other guy I’m making a sandwich for.”
Jude laughed. “I’m not doing anything.”
“Yes, you are.” Tej set the plate with the crispy reuben down. “Stick the results on your fridge door. I’ll give them a glance. You want mine?”
“Leave them on your pillow in the morning.”
“You plan on being here?”
“If you’ll have me.”
“Little late for that. Stop blushing and eat your sandwich.”
Jude took a bite, his teeth sinking through soft ham and melted cheese and crisp, tangy pickles. It was, he reflected, the best damn sandwich he’d had in his life. And tonight was sneaking into his top five best nights.
“How are you with trusting people now?” he asked.
A roar of steam as Tej ran cold water into the hot skillet. “Better. I guess. Old habits die hard and I racked up way more years sabotaging the good shit in my life than I have trusting it. Little by little the balance tips. I hope.”
“My habit is flight,” Jude said. “I’m hardwired like a refugee, with a bag packed and a foot out the door. First sign of trouble, I head for the border.”
Why am I telling him this?
If Phil had been in the room, his eyebrows would be on the nape of his neck.
“How are things with your parents?” Tej said, refilling their glasses.
“They’re better,” Jude said through a mouthful. “Thank you for asking. And I kind of want to talk about anything but them right now. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“Translation: I want to talk about you.”
Tej sighed. “Oh please let’s not talk about me, said no gay man ever.”
“Ever sleep with a woman?”
“Yes. Disastrously. But she was kind about it.”
“Did you have any boyfriends in high school?”
“A few secret, terrified, experimental hookups. Luckily those guys were also kind about it.”
“What about in college. Where did you go again?”
“Stanford.”
Jude coughed mid-swallow. “For real?”
“Kidding. UC Santa Barbara. It was amazing. Even better than high school. I could be out with a capital O. Openly gay. I vividly remember the first time I said it in a group conversation. Just as a segue to another topic. ‘Well, I’m gay, so the way I see it…’ And my mouth goes on talking but I’m thinking to myself, Holy shit, nobody blinked. That was like nothing. The sky is blue, water is wet and I’m gay.
“So life was just incredible. Campus was full of LGB awareness and activism. AIDS fundraisers. Protesting Colin Powell coming to make a speech because he supported Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Road tripping to San Francisco Pride and marching with my people. I could hook up with guys without fearing for my life. I finally did have a boyfriend. I got to experience first love and making love. I got to obsess about a relationship instead of wasting time and effort obsessing about being outed.” He scooped up a blob of mustard from Jude’s plate and ate it. “I get particularly irritated at wasted obsession, by the way.”
“What happened with that guy?”
Tej leaned back in his chair with a wide-elbowed stretch, fists at his ears and biceps popping. “He wanted to come home and meet my family. I said no offense, but no fucking way was I bringing a boyfriend home. He took offense and gave an ultimatum. Come out or we break up.”
“Well, that’s all kinds of unreasonable.”
“Yeah. But here’s the thing. I was in love. With him and with my life. I was in a place where I had it all. This is friendship. This is acceptance. This is inclusivity and tolerance and greater understanding. This is amazing sex and this is love. The world was a big, bright, beautiful ball of sunshiny rainbows and glittering unicorns, right in my hands. And I looked at it and thought…”
The legs of his chair came down, his elbows went on the table and his chin lowered into the cradle of his palms. “Can you guess what I thought?”
“You thought, I better sabotage this myself before someone or something else can.”
Tej extended a fist across the table. Jude bumped it.
“Exactamundo,” Tej said. “I said to him, ‘All right, come home with me, be my lover and wingman. We’re coming out together.’ And off we went.”
“I already know it doesn’t end well.”
“Nope. Next thing you know, he’s helping me box up my stuff and move out. Me being all I told you so. I hope you’re happy now. He felt terrible but of course, now I was in full sabotage mode and making him the convenient villain. We were broken up within weeks. Because burn it all with fire. That’ll show ‘em.”
“What did you do?”
“I couch-surfed where I could. Worked three jobs until I could go in on a shitty apartment with three other people. Hustled and survived. Drank whatever money was left over. Had meaningless sex because it was the only entertainment I could afford.”
“You didn’t go back to school?”
Tej shook his head. “Not to be Dickensian but dear old Dad cut me off without a shilling. After rent and food, I couldn’t even afford community college.”
“Jesus,” Jude said.
At least I ran away from Canada with a matching set of luggage. I got compensated for my pain.
Penny put an invisible hand on his shoulder, reminding him pain was not a competition and Tej’s story didn’t diminish or dismiss what happened in Vancouver.
“Whatever you’re smiling about,” Tej said, “don’t stop.”
“What brought you to Seattle?”
“Followed a guy. As one does. Didn’t work out but I liked the feel of the city. Plus I landed a tech job with benefits, which I liked even better. I could exhale. I joined the volunteer fire department. That led to EMT training. Which led to dispatch certification. Things just started falling into good places.” He reached under the table, scooped up Jude’s calves and put them in his lap. “Obviously the universe was preparing me to cross your path.”
A cozy bit of time passed, during which Jude finished his sandwich, Tej rubbed his feet and the night easily slipped from the number five slot to number four.
“This is nice,” Jude said. Softly. Not wanting to jostle the moment.
Tej pushed the sweats up Jude’s left leg and his fingers ran along the scar. “Does it still hurt?”
“The scar?”
“The bone.”
“Only when I’m upset or anxious.”
Keep them eyebrows raised, Phil, he thought. I got no filter on my quirks tonight. No idea why.
“Weird how trauma literally gets into your marrow,” Tej said. “Like all those triggers your father still has.”
“Mm.”
“So. I’ll share that thunderstorms freak me out. I’m not a fan of fireworks, either. They remind me of the bombings. Remind my body, I should say.”
“If I may understate, it must’ve been horrible.”
“I don’t have many clear memories of that time, but any loud booming noise instantly puts me into a mild panic.”
“What about the dark?”
“The dark is not a friend of mine. Inside the bomb shelters, it was pitch. So black, your brain didn’t know what to do
. You would think you were seeing shapes and shadows, reach out a hand and touch nothing. It was a color darker than black. I didn’t even know that was possible.”
“What else?”
“Like your Dad, I don’t do well at spectator sports or concerts. For me, it’s not the venue, it’s the event itself. All that heightened emotion and people screaming. Too many decibels. My body doesn’t know the difference between terrified screaming and joyful screaming. It just knows the absolute value removed from a neutral tone of voice, recognizes it as abnormal and goes into survival mode.”
“I’ll remember that when Fourth of July rolls around.”
“You plan on being here?”
“If you’ll have me.”
“I just want you to know that given the choice between going out to party and staying home with the door open, I stay home.”
“That’s cool. My clubbing days are behind me anyway.”
“Glad we had this little middle-aged chat.” Tej’s big hands moved along Jude’s leg, kneading and caressing. “How did the Condor find out about you and Feño? How did he track you down that night?”
“I’m not exactly sure. Maybe we got careless. Or he got suspicious and started following us around. Or a combination of the two. I really don’t know. We came out of the woods one night and he was there with two of his posse.” He shivered. “God, the feeling in my gut when I saw them standing in the parking lot. Like my entire life fell out my asshole.”
Tej shuddered and held out a forearm. “Look. My hair is sticking up just thinking about it.”
“Feño kind of mumbled to me, ‘Run, Jude. I’ll handle this. Get out of here.’ But I didn’t. Instead I took his hand. He startled a little, like he was going to pull away and run. But then he settled and squeezed it tight and we were in it together. Our Thelma & Louise moment. Instead of driving off a cliff, we stood there holding hands.”
“Then what happened? After the attack, I mean. Don’t tell me about your leg being broken, I’ll have nightmares. Fast-forward.”
Jude glanced at him. “You don’t mind me talking about my ex?”
“My dude, I measure a slight difference between the ex you’re friends with on Facebook and your tragically deceased first love.” He leaned and pushed a fingertip into one of Jude’s dimples. “I find little I mind you talking about, so spill it.”
A Scarcity of Condors Page 20
