“Motherfucker, what is going on,” Jude mumbled, thumbs busy over the keyboard.
I know you read that. Are you all right? Talk to me. What’s going on?
He jumped in his skin and nearly dropped the phone when it rang. “Hey,” he said. “Where are you?”
A rush of noise.
“Tej?”
“Hi.”
“Where are you?”
“Walking home.” His voice was utterly monotone, as if Siri were transposing for him.
“What’s wrong,” Jude said gently. “Talk to me.”
“Did you see the news?”
“What news? The accident in Houghton?”
“Yeah. I took the call.”
“What call?”
“From the passenger car. The brakes seized up. Or something. They were out of control. They couldn’t stop the car. It was accelerating without them.”
“Oh my God.”
“I took the call.”
“Where are you? Come here. Come home.”
“They neared that intersection, they were screaming. ‘We got a baby with us. We have an infant in the backseat.’”
“Where are y—”
“They couldn’t stop the car.”
“Tej…”
“They didn’t hang up. I couldn’t do anything. I heard them go through the light.”
“Come here. Come here right now. Or stay there, I’ll come get you. Just tell me where you are.”
“No one in that car is alive. They found the baby’s car seat fifty feet away.”
“Tim, where are you?”
“They never hung up. The audio will be out there soon.” A string of shrill chuckles. “There’s my fifteen minutes of fame, huh? A nine-one-one soundbite on Facebook.”
“Hey.”
“No one in that car is alive.”
Jude picked up his voice and sliced it through the maniacal laughter. “Hey. Tell me where you are.”
A long beat of confused silence.
“I’m standing outside?”
Jude strode to the window, pushed aside the curtain. Tej stood across the street, shoulders stooped in his trench coat, phone pressed to his ear.
“What the…?” Jude walked out into the rain, his own phone absurdly at his ear as he crossed the street. He shoved it in his pocket as he stepped onto the curb. “Babe, come here.”
Tej stared back at him. “They couldn’t stop,” he said into his phone.
“It’s all right.” Jude took the device out of Tej’s hand, hung up and put it in his pocket as well. “Come inside now.”
He took Tej’s hand.
“Come on now. Come inside with me.”
His arm stretched out as he began to walk. For a moment it seemed Tej wouldn’t follow. But then he did. Stunned and docile.
“Come inside,” Jude said, getting an arm around him now. “Today’s done. You don’t have to do anything anymore.”
Once inside, he swiftly turned off the oven, silenced the TV and dimmed the lights. He put Tej in his bed, then made him tea. It went cold on the bedside table as they lay together, Tej shaking uncontrollably in Jude’s arms. Teeth chattering, muscles quaking, his fingers in a death grip on Jude’s shirt.
“This one got me bad,” he whispered.
“I know, I’ve never seen you like this. Hold onto me.”
“I can’t stop hearing it. The way they screamed they had a baby.”
“Just hold onto me, I got you.”
“I couldn’t hang up. They were driving into death, they had no choice. I had to stay. I owed it to them.”
“You’re incredible. I would’ve hung up and hid. I could never do what you do.”
One of Tej’s hands made a clawing motion at his ear. “It’s like I keep reaching to pull off the headset. I keep trying to shut it off and I can’t stop hearing it.”
Jude took the hand and tucked it between them. “I got you.”
“I feel like I’ll never get it out of my mind.”
“You will. Turn your head, put your ear on my chest. Like that. Listen to my heart. Okay?”
“I can’t.”
“Listen to my heart. Focus on the beats. Tap them on my body. Do it.”
Tej’s fingertips began to drum on Jude’s side. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.
“Listen to me breathe,” Jude said. “Listen only to my heart.”
Lub-dub. Lub-dub.
He inhaled and exhaled slowly, consciously keeping his pulse calm and countable. Pulling Tej into sync with him. Little by little, Tej’s body softened and the fingers on Jude’s arm went limp.
“I got you,” Jude said, rubbing his head. “You’re in my house now.”
Tej ran his wet face along Jude’s shirt and nodded. Jude held him tight, pressing kisses in his hair.
“You’re in my house now,” he said. “Nothing’s allowed to touch you anymore. All that pain is outside, and it’ll have to come through me to get to you now.”
Tej kept nodding.
“The day’s done,” Jude said, kissing him. “You can do no more. You’re in my house and I take care of you now.”
Tej exhaled. “Keep talking to me.”
“I don’t know anyone better than you,” Jude said, wrapping his arms around Tej’s head. “You’re like a fucking angel out there.”
“I feel so bad.”
Jude flipped the comforter over them like a giant wing. “Ángel,” he murmured into Tej’s hair, the Spanish word a downy exhale with no hard edges. “Ángel, estás en casa. Estás en mi casa.”
This angel wasn’t a cherub with a halo but a seraphim with a sword. An avenger. Fighting for people’s lives, then coming home broken and bruised, singed feathers dripping behind. Too tired and used-up to even fold his wings back down.
Jude ran a hand down Tej’s spine, smoothing invisible feathers. Tucking them back within because today was done and there’d be no more flying or fighting.
You’re in my house now.
This was the dogma within the religion of hospitality. It wasn’t about food. It was about sanctuary. The haven within a home.
“You’re the best person I know,” he said. “You don’t have to do this day anymore. You just stay here with me.”
Curled in Jude’s arms, Tej fell into a short sleep. He woke up hungry but didn’t want to cook. Jude made him an omelet. Tej ate it quietly. He didn’t want to talk. His eyes were shadowed and every line in his body drooped with exhaustion. He fell back into bed, folding Jude’s arms around him from behind.
He twitched violently in his sleep once. Mumbled something that sounded like, “It’s the color darker than black.”
“What, babe?” Jude said.
But Tej was asleep again.
Jude held him all night, his arms moving through the years of Tej’s life, starting with the little boy in the pitch-dark bomb shelter. The child who transformed his sister’s dismembered body into a dog he could hold. The teenager mistrustful of anything good in his life, quick to sabotage before anyone or anything else could. The young adult thrown out of his home, into the color darker than black, unable to judge the sound of joy from the sound of terror, only the absolute value removed from normal.
Jude fell asleep holding this man who wouldn’t be silenced. Who wouldn’t show up empty-handed. Who answered the calls for help and refused to abandon a family driving straight into death. The man who poured a glass of water if you dropped by for six seconds because you are welcome here wasn’t lip service.
He woke in the wee hours, his arms still holding all of Tej’s life, all his facets and fears, knowing now he never wanted to let it go.
This is what I want.
This is my house and when he’s in it, it’s a home.
This is my story and he’s par
t of it.
This is me, who is better because of him.
“Timothée?”
He was soft and still, his breath a whisper on Jude’s chest.
“Tim?”
Tej’s chin tilted up. His lips faintly smiled when Jude’s fingertips touched them. “Yeah, babe?”
In his sleep-filled voice, it sounded like yahbay. The first word of their invented language.
“I love you,” Jude said.
A long moment passed.
“I love you.” He ran a thumb along Tej’s cheekbone. “I’m so in love with you.”
The moment clasped its hands, squeezed them in a tight fist of longing. It trembled, vulnerable and humble.
“See,” Jude said, and swallowed hard, scared to death. “See, this is where I hope you love me too.”
Tej said nothing.
“Because I know I make it hard, but I really, really want you to love me too.”
Tej drew in a breath and let it out in a whispered rush. “Holy shit I love you too.”
Jude went limp. The world collapsed and died as they pressed foreheads and palms together. “Whenever you tell me I’m good, it makes me want to be better. Not make it so hard.”
“It’s easy,” Tej said. “So much other shit is hard but baby, this is so easy.”
“You’re the best person I know.”
They were in each other’s arms then, hands crawling through their clothes and sliding along their skin. It was a fast, fierce loving. Savagely tender and when Jude came, he arrived. Burst forth into his life with a mighty I am here.
This is my house.
You are my home.
Holding Tej tight, Jude shivered into stillness, feathery yellow patterns swirling behind his closed eyes. “Estás en mi casa.”
“Eres tan bueno.” His arms crossed over Jude’s back, hands in his hair. They rolled down and curled into each other again, drowsy chuckles softening into sighs.
“Promise me something,” Jude said.
“Anything.”
“When you have another day like this, and you will, you come home to me. Or you tell me where you are and I’ll come get you. All right?”
“All right.”
“I don’t just want to be your lover. I want to be your home. Your nine-one-one. I’m your call now. You make it and I will answer.”
Tej’s lips brushed his one more time. “Where am I again?”
Jude held his hands. “You’re in my house.”
When Jude trudged into the bathroom the next morning, two Post-its were stuck on the mirror.
“At first I did not love you, Jude; that I own”
—Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure
“At last I do love your ass, Jude; that I also own.”
—Tej the Out There
Tej stood behind Jude at the dresser mirror, reaching arms around to fix his bow tie. “Nervous?” he asked.
Jude’s shirt collar fit perfectly but he still felt like he was choking. “Yes.”
“You’re going to kill it.”
“If I don’t drop dead first.”
“Look at my boo. Making his world premiere.”
Jude exhaled slowly, trying to calm his heart. After months of Giosué making jokes about knowing people in the bad sushi business, he’d finally called in a favor: the undefeated Dae-Hyun Cho was felled by a vicious stomach bug. Jude was going on in his place. He’d be playing in the pit for Ballet Imperial and Raymonda Variations, then he’d be onstage for Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering.
He better not fuck this up.
“You are nineteen kinds of gorgeous,” Tej said, brushing his hands out along Jude’s shoulders and down his arms. “When this tux is on the floor tonight, you’ll be twenty kinds.”
Blushing, Jude bumped back against him. “My folks will meet you in the lobby. The tickets are under your name at the box office.” He exhaled a final time and put on his glasses.
Tej handed him his spare specs. “Keep these nearby. Don’t take any chances.”
“Thanks.”
“Do not break a leg. And do not think about me sitting in the audience commando.”
Rocketing through the pre-show jitters, Jude tried not to think of anything but the music. Filing into the pit with the other musicians, he tried not to second-guess himself. He adjusted the stand and his reading light, checked to make sure the TV monitor showing the stage was perfectly in his field of vision. For most of Ballet Imperial, he’d be watching the screen, not the conductor, shaping the music to the principal dancers. Someone might be ahead of the music with adrenaline. Someone else might be lagging behind from an injury, or just having an off night. They might misjudge their spacing or timing and need a phrase stretched a few beats to cover. Jude knew how. He knew these scores. He knew these dancers. He knew what to do.
And there would be zero chance of him falling backward off a platform.
The conductor entered the pit to generous applause. He bowed his head in thanks before turning to the orchestra. Just before giving the downbeat, his gaze caught Jude’s and he winked.
Jude’s nerves were stretched and screaming right until he reached the first solo passage of Ballet Imperial. Then, as happened once before, on a long-ago night against a chain link fence, he left himself. But instead of his mind fleeing the scene, his body quietly stepped aside and got out of the way. His hands, arms and feet disappeared. His entire consciousness narrowed to the distance between the piano stand and the monitor, framed by the dark edges of his glasses. Notes and dancers. Music and movement.
Time and place slid out of context. When the ballet ended and applause filled the theater, Jude stared down at his fingers still on the keys, wondering who the hell had been playing for the past half hour.
The gorgeous Hungarian piano solo in Raymonda Variations came out of his hands like a gypsy lament. The female principal smiled at Jude in the monitor and though he knew it was a trick of the eye, he smiled back, making the solo into a pas de deux. The ballerina took three curtain calls and during intermission, found Jude backstage and kissed him.
Then it was Dances at a Gathering, and from his seat at the onstage Steinway piano, Jude slipped back in time to parties from his youth, when he created instant, smiling community from a single pop tune. He played eighteen Chopin pieces now, composed and confident among friends singing along with their bodies. Halfway through the ballet, a piece of his sheet music floated to the floor. A smile stretched his face as his hands played on from memory.
“Let it go,” he whispered to his page turner.
Something had to fall down tonight.
And it wasn’t me.
The cast took bow after bow, then the dancers beckoned Jude onstage to bow with them. Ushers walked out with flowers, including a bouquet for Jude. He scanned the auditorium and its ovation but couldn’t pick out his people.
They were obscured.
But he knew they were there.
After a whirlwind of kissing and hugging and congratulations, Jude and Tej went out for a late supper and drinks at the bar where they met the first time. Coasting on the glory, Jude got thoroughly plowed.
Puh-LOUD.
He pulled Tej outside to the brick wall so they could recreate their first kiss.
“I love you so fucking much,” he said into Tej’s neck.
Tej, only slightly less wrecked, laughed into Jude’s hair. “You are so in my house right now.”
They went home, had disgustingly great sex and passed out. Jude woke up hungover and parched, but satisfied with the previous night’s accomplishments and smug about how good his tux looked on the floor. Tej made him a giant bloody Mary. He sucked it down, chased it with two Advil and a liter of water, then went back to bed and slept the day away.
“Get up,” Tej called around three o’
clock. “Otherwise you’ll be bouncing off the walls at midnight.”
“Stop talking.”
“Want another bloody?”
“I said, stop talking.”
Tej opened the drapes. “Why don’t you get up and go to the gym. You’ll feel better.”
Jude opened one eye. “Why don’t you go scrub your ass so I can eat it?”
Tej laughed and left the bedroom. “I’m going food shopping. Try to find your humanity before I get back.”
“Hey.” Jude sat up. “You’re going to waste that line? That was a great line.”
“One of your best, babe,” Tej called as the front door closed.
He lay back down, hurt. “Scrub your ass so I can eat it. That was a fantastic line, I can’t believe he didn’t hop on that line…”
He hoisted himself vertical, eyeballs clanging. He pulled on gym clothes and went to work out as gently as possible. After sweating out the last of the alcohol and showering off the sweat, he walked back into his kitchen a presentable human. And a hungry one.
“Don’t go snacking,” Tej said from the stove. “This will be ready in half an hour.”
“I just need a little something-something,” Jude said, ravenous. “I’m about to eat my arm off.”
“I got those almonds you like. They should be right behind the bag of prunes.”
“Prunes?” He took the bag out of the cabinet and waved it teasingly.
“What?”
“Who eats prunes willingly?”
“I do. Prunes are the bomb.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“You have to look beyond that aspect. They’re an extremely elegant delicacy.”
“They’re a broom.”
“Take the fucking almonds and get out of my kitchen.”
Jude went upstairs to practice. Slowly the townhouse began to smell rather delicious. A heady, spiced aroma beckoned coyly from around corners, refusing to be identified or ignored.
“Dude, are you baking something?” Jude called down the stairwell.
“No.”
“What smells so good?”
“You’ll find out.”
They ate on the coffee table. After the plates were cleared, Tej came back to the couch with a little dish. He held it mysteriously out of sight and said, “Open your mouth and close your eyes.”
A Scarcity of Condors Page 30
