A Scarcity of Condors

by Suanne Laqueur

  My man settled soft on Jude’s ears.

  “I like we,” he said.

  Tej and Jude came to spend a Saturday at Alki Beach. Cleon took them kayaking on the Sound, he in his single craft and the boys in the double-seater.

  The boys, Penny thought. I’m doing it again, aren’t I?

  They fell asleep on the couch, their heads in one corner, Walter curled between. Penny wanted to put blankets over them, smooth Jude’s hair and bask in his contentment. She made an apple pie instead, filling the house with spice.

  Now Tej was moving around her kitchen as if he’d been born there, laughing and joking as they cooked and filling Penny with a wistful nostalgia. Two ends of a circle joined. Her home again harboring young, hungry lovers.

  Jude sat at the kitchen table with his laptop, ankles crossed on a neighboring chair. His hair wind- and sleep-tousled, his cheekbones a little sunburned. The picture of health, but Penny noticed he kept Walter in his lap, repeatedly picking up the dog and rubbing his face against the soft fur, sighing heavily. Cleon sat across, reading the paper and glancing up at each heavy exhale.

  “¿Qué onda, hueón?” he finally asked

  Eyes on the screen, Jude pulled at his bottom lip. “Nada.”

  “You still thinking about that dream you had?”

  Now his head bobbled back and forth, his gaze circling the ceiling in admission. “I can’t shake it off.”

  The night before, he’d had a vivid, disturbing nightmare of a locker room. Tiled shower walls splashed with blood, vibrating against the echo of women screaming and babies crying.

  “I don’t ever remember a dream where I could smell something,” he said. “But the scent of chlorine was all in my nose and mouth. My eyes were watering from it.”

  He woke up thrashing and yelling, one of his flung hands whacking Tej in the face.

  “I can’t get it out of my mind. I keep stopping and sniffing, like I can still sense the chlorine.” As if to block out the remembered stench, he lifted Walter up to his face again.

  “It was pretty intense,” Tej said, coming to the table and refilling everyone’s wine glass.

  “More than intense, it felt like a memory.” Jude put up a hand. “Yes, we all know I have an active imagination. I’m highly impressionable. My subconscious is always working overtime. True. Still…”

  “It was disturbing,” Penny said. “It felt personal.”

  “It felt like yours,” Cleon said.

  Jude’s smile was wry above Walter’s domed head. “I want to say it felt like a memory, which is so freakin’ dumb.”

  “Look out,” Tej called. “Coming in hot.”

  He heaved the big stockpot off the stove and carried it to the sink, where Penny was set up with a second stockpot and a cheesecloth-lined colander. A cloud of savory steam dampened her face as Tej poured, straining the onions, celery, carrots, garlic and fish bones. Leaving behind a gorgeous golden broth.

  “Look at that,” Penny said.

  “Smell that,” Tej said.

  “I want to eat that,” Cleon said. “Is it done?”

  “Not yet,” Tej said. “Pen, what’s next?”

  Penny dropped her glasses on her nose and consulted the recipe for Venetian fish soup. “Sauté the minced garlic and parsley. Add pepper flakes if using.”

  “We are using.”

  “Add the grated ginger if you want that North African-inspired Livornese touch.”

  “Oh, we want it.”

  “Add the white wine and saffron, if using.”

  “Who doesn’t use white wine and saffron?”

  “Tej,” Jude said. “Check it out, I just got an email from that woman. The one I found on the Chilean forum.”

  “The one whose mother was in the Estadio?” Penny said.

  “Yeah. She wants to call me.”

  “Right now?” Tej asked.

  Jude looked at Penny. “Would that be okay?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Why wouldn’t it?” Cleon said.

  “Well…”

  Cleon folded the paper and put it down. “You know, we’re just as eager as you to get to the bottom of this. You don’t have to hide the looking or the finding from us.”

  “You’re not going to offend us if you get curious,” Penny said. “Or even consumed.”

  He looked at them, transparent and torn. Trying to balance every step forward on this strange journey with a look behind that said, I haven’t forgotten you. This doesn’t mean I don’t love you. How could Penny blame him, when she herself was generous with encouragement while her hands wrung anxiously, wanting and waiting for those backward glances. Needing them. Thinking, Go find your people but please, don’t forget where your home is.

  Jude’s phone rang. His eyes made a nervous circuit around the table and Penny nodded.

  “Answer it, querido.”

  He put it on speaker. “Diga.”

  “¿Es Jude Tholet?”

  “Sí.”

  “It’s Roberta Cáceres. How are you?”

  “Good, thanks so much for calling me.” Jude held the dog against his chest and put the phone down on the table.

  “Can you hear me all right? I’m at my son’s soccer game, the cell service is kind of sketchy.”

  “I can hear you fine,” Jude said, looking over at Tej. “But would you mind speaking English? Someone’s listening who doesn’t speak Spanish.”

  “Sure. So, I’ll apologize up front that I don’t think I can be much help to you. My mother died five years ago.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “She didn’t talk much about what happened to her during the coup.”

  “Did she ever say the name of that woman who gave birth in the locker room?”

  “No. My God, we never even thought to ask.”

  “I was born in November. When was your mother detained?”

  Roberta gave bitter laugh-sigh. “She was picked up off the street on September eleventh. Day one. She was in the stadium from September to December. She was out of the country by Christmas, I know that for a fact.”

  “I see.”

  “She would tell the story about the pregnant woman only to a point, and then stop and shake her head, saying, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She’d even put her hand over her mouth, like the words were just too terrible.”

  Across the table, Cleon was nodding. Minute twitches in his jaw and cheeks, his eyes never leaving Jude.

  You have no idea, Jude, Penny thought. You won’t ever fully know the depths of how he adores you. What it meant when he set you like the moon in a diamond sky. He doesn’t love you more than he loves Serena and Aiden. He just loves you differently.

  “She had a tough time when I was born,” Roberta was saying. “It was a long, drawn-out labor that wouldn’t progress. She’d give up right in the middle of pushing. Or even refuse to push. Like she was afraid to give birth, you know? Afraid to let me out into the world, she was so haunted by what she’d seen in the locker room.”

  Penny folded her hands around her mouth and nose, the hair standing up on her forearms and nape. Knowing with every fiber of her being that Roberta’s mother carried that fear until the day she died.

  My baby’s going to be born so afraid.

  The thought was quick and keen, like the flick of a scalpel. Darting across her mind and skipping away. Elusive and tantalizing, not quite hers. Like the fragment of a song lyric or poem.

  Who said that? My baby’s going to be born afraid. What’s that from?

  “Anyway, that’s all I can really tell you,” Roberta said. “I’m so sorry I can’t be more help.”

  “No, no, I appreciate you taking the time,” Jude said.

  “I haven’t thought about this in a while. When did I post that message,
a year ago? Maybe now that it’s in my head again and I’ve talked to you, some little detail will come to the forefront. If it does, I’ll call you right away.”

  After thanking her, Jude hung up. They all sighed. Tej brought over bowls of the Venetian fish soup, each garnished with a toasted round of bread topped with a dollop of pesto.

  “Soul food for four,” he said. “And we need it.”

  Penny smiled at him as she took her bowl, thinking, My baby’s going to be born so afraid.

  Each bent a head toward the feast and inhaled the fragrant steam. Jude to smother the scent of chlorine. Cleon to feed a father’s love. Penny to coax a fleeting thought into coming back. Tej because he loved good food.

  A backhand across your face reminds you you’re not gone yet. Captain Villarroel empties six bullets from his revolver onto the table, puts one back and points the muzzle at your head. “What do you know about the weapons?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The revolver clicks. No bullet.

  “Where are the guns?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They insist you have knowledge of Plan Zeta, a plot to kidnap the family members of military personnel.

  “What are the plans?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Click. No bullet.

  “We know Plan Zeta is the signal for the counter coup. When is it being implemented?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Click. No bullet.

  “Where are the weapons for Plan Zeta stashed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Click. No bullet.

  You have two chances left.

  (I’m going to die, Lucy.)

  The captain puts the revolver on the table and snaps his fingers at two lieutenants. They haul you out of your seat and drag you to La Grilla—the metal bedspring leaning against the wall.

  Your hands and feet are bound. The electrodes are placed.

  Villarroel holsters his gun and smiles. “When I get through, you’ll wish I’d shot you.”

  You’re ready though.

  The room is ready.

  Three drumbeat taps of your fingers on your palm.

  …

  …

  …

  And you’re gone.

  Jude threw back his head and came, then dropped his brow on Tej’s nape and came harder. Tej bucked and writhed in the circle of his arms, hands going to fists on the wall above the headboard, his speech dissolving into babble.

  “God, you’re so good. Jude, you’re so good. Baby, you don’t know how good you are…”

  Jude hung onto him, falling into the swirling patterns beneath his clenched eyes. Rocking their bodies through wave after wave. Mouth sucking a circle on Tej’s skin. Salty and sweet. Burning hot on his tongue even as his body shivered into cool stillness. Their slick, sticky fingers wove together, holding on tight.

  “Jude. Man…”

  “I got you.” Jude locked his trembling knees as Tej’s body shivered one last time. His damp head tilted back, lolling on Jude’s shoulder.

  “I can’t feel me anymore.”

  “I got you,” Jude whispered. “Let it go.”

  “Christ. My legs.”

  “I got you. Easy now.” Jude turned Tej around and lay him down on his back. “You okay?”

  “I’m okay. You are insane.”

  “Be right back.” Light-headed, Jude had to grab the edge of the dresser until the fuzziness passed. He stumbled toward the bathroom, tied off the condom and chucked it, then pulled a towel off the rack.

  Tej sprawled on the bed, golden and magnificent, forearms flopped over his face. One knee bent up, the other leg long. Ribs rising and falling in deep breaths. His nipples beaded tight and the hair on his chest and stomach sleek with sweat.

  Jude ran the towel along Tej’s skin. “You are fucking beautiful, man.”

  Tej garbled something incoherent, his voice blissed-out and slurry.

  “You want to try that again in English?”

  Another mosh of sound and the crossed arms opened. Jude crawled up and fitted his body alongside. A leg across Tej’s thigh, an arm over his chest. Their fingers twined again. They both sighed.

  “I don’t know why you gave me that bullshit about sucking as a top,” Tej said.

  “Because I do suck at it.”

  “If that’s sucking, I’m a dead man if you improve.” He slid fingers into Jude’s hair and gave his head a shake. “God, baby, you did that so good…”

  The fuck is this? Jude thought through the humming buzz in his brain. I don’t like being called baby. I don’t like being petted and told I’m a good boy. I don’t need praise and encouragement in bed like it’s a new skill I’m learning…

  Now Tej’s hand moved soft and slow along Jude’s brow and temples. “So good.”

  But with him, I fucking love it.

  “Say that in French,” he asked.

  “You’re so good? Tu est si bon.”

  “What about in Arabic?”

  “Anta jayyedun jiddan is the literal translation. To a lover you’d say enta betjannen.”

  “Enta bet… Wait, what?”

  “Forget it, you’ll hurt yourself. Say it in Spanish.”

  “Eres tan bueno.”

  “Tan bueno. I like how that sounds. Tan bueno for the win.”

  “Bueno.” As his mouth released the word, Jude’s soul shook with a strange desire, wanting to be good—to be better, to be the best.

  “Let’s do this all night,” he said. “I want to keep doing this. All fucking night.”

  Tej licked his lips slowly. His mouth opened and shut. When it parted again, the words were tiny, tight and shy. “I love making love with you.”

  “I love that you love it.”

  Tej slid his hand into the damp hair at the back of Jude’s neck. Ran his lips across Jude’s crown. Hooked his heel around the back of Jude’s calf and pulled him close.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s just keep doing this.”

  Jude was enormous with feeling. Exploding at his fingernails and eyelashes, clamoring for a way out.

  “You know what else I love?” Tej said.

  “Tell me.”

  “When you call my name, looking for me.”

  “Hm?”

  “If I’m in another room and you call out because you have a question or you need something, you call Tim. You only do it when you’re looking around for me. But like you’re not even thinking about it.”

  “I don’t even remember when I started doing that.”

  “It’s a little dopey thing but I just dig it. Tim belongs to long ago. Not many people call me Tim these days. I like you being one of them.”

  “I like when I call for you and you answer, ‘Yeah, babe?’ You make it sound like one word. Yahbay.”

  “Yahbay.” Tej chuckled. “We’re inventing a new language. Tejuleon.”

  “Judantej.”

  They were laughing together, but all the feeling inside Jude was too small for his skin. Emotion rushed for the easy egress of his throat. He was choking with it. “Something I want to tell you.”

  “Mm?”

  “It’s going to sound weird. It’s going to sound insulting, but I swear it’s not.”

  A loopy chuckle in Tej’s chest. “Okay.”

  “Sometimes when I’m with you, I feel like crying.”

  He surfed up and down on Tej’s deep, expectant breath.

  “It’s nothing you’re doing. It’s not the way I feel about you or us. It’s…”

  “Take your time.”

  “It’s… See… After my leg was broken, I stopped talking. I stopped… I stopped. I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t angry. I didn’t cry. I didn’t rage. I didn’t act out. I stopped feelin
g everything. Just shut down.”

  He twirled a bit of Tej’s chest hair into a tuft, twisted it tight. Tej gentled the fidgeting fingers and said, “Keep telling me.”

  “After a while I thawed out. Turned back on. I found my voice. I found my anger and my rage and I acted out a shit-ton. But I didn’t cry. I still don’t cry. So when I say I feel like crying when I’m with you, it’s because I can.”

  Tej wormed from beneath and rolled to face him. Jude rolled too, and they lay for a long quiet minute, breathing and staring. Tej’s hand on Jude’s face, thumb moving beneath his dry eyes. Jude held still and let himself feel like crying. The feeling was what mattered. The actual tears were beside the point.

  “A lot of things in my life are stressful and confusing right now,” he said. “But you’re not one of them. I’m going around not knowing who I am, but when I’m with you, I feel the most like myself.”

  They rested in each other’s gazes, Tej stroking Jude’s face. “You’re so good.”

  “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Yes you are.”

  They dozed with the bedside lamp still on. Kneecaps touching, forearms in a pile, resting in the breeze of each other’s long breaths. Their hands woke first, lazily touching. The caressing woke up and became kissing. Soft and slow, then harder and insistent.

  “I’m doing you this time,” Tej said, kicking the covers away.

  “You think?”

  “Yeah.”

  The wave began to crest again as they kissed like thieves. They rolled this way and that, touching and rubbing, limb piling on top of limb. Co-captains of the SS Chasingforty Euphoria.

  Flinging himself against Tej’s straining body, Jude had no more nostalgia for back seats of cars and ghosts of 80s pop songs. Handprints on steamed windows had nothing on Tej’s fingerprints in his skin. His body wanted this bed. His ears wanted Tej’s edgy soundtrack with its bass riff so down in tenderness and trust, the words could be filthy and Jude wouldn’t stop singing along.

  “Whatever’s making you smile like that,” Tej said. “Whatever’s making you this way tonight, don’t even think about stopping.”

  Jude pushed Tej on his back and reached long for the bedside table drawer. “You ever top from the bottom?”