An Exaltation of Larks

by Suanne Laqueur

  By Monday afternoon, Jav couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Come over,” he told Flip on the phone. “I want to talk about it now.”

  “Fuck, man, I can’t. I got eight thousand things to do…” Flip had no accent, no Jamaican mannerism. He never lapsed into patois unless he was mimicking someone anecdotally. But every now and then, when he was agitated or tired, his soft “th” hardened and his hard “t” disappeared: he had eigh’ tousand tings to do.

  Make it eigh’ tousand one tings, Jav thought.

  Flip sighed. “I’ll… Let me think. Maybe I can later. All right? You’ll be around?”

  “I’m going nowhere. I’m writing.”

  “About me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hm. All right, let me do some shit and I’ll call you.”

  But the evening went by and no call. Jav went to the store to get a few groceries. When he came back, Flip was sitting on his stoop.

  “I knew the minute I left, you’d show up,” Jav said, happiness doing cannonballs in his chest.

  “Like a bad penny.”

  Jav put his hand down. Flip slapped his opposite palm against it and let Jav haul him to his feet. He followed upstairs, saying, “I can’t stay long. Have to be up at asscrack of dawn.”

  “Where you flying out of?”

  “Newark.” Inside, he leaned on the kitchen counter, watching Jav put things away. The silence loitered like a third wheel. Now that he had Flip alone in his apartment, Jav didn’t know what to do.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said, fingers curled on two cabinet handles, holding the doors open as if searching for his life within.

  “I’m kind of missing you already.”

  Jav shut the cabinets slowly and looked back over his shoulder. “I kind of wish you weren’t going.”

  Flip hitched up to sit on the counter. He took off his porkpie hat and set it down beside him.

  “Come here, Javier,” he said, a hand reaching.

  Jav went. He hesitated only a second before stepping between Flip’s calves. He set his hands on the counter, one on either side, and with an exhale, let his head fall on Flip’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  “Shut up.” Flip didn’t hug him. Only set his palms at the sides of Jav’s arms. Jav could feel all ten fingers pressing into his muscles. The scent coming off Flip’s clothes was green and watery, salt-soaked at the edges.

  “How old are you?” Flip asked.

  “Thirty-eight. Why?”

  “I couldn’t tell. I can’t get any kind of bead on you.”

  Head still down, Jav touched the beaded bracelets on Flip’s wrist, wanting to take one and keep it.

  Flip’s hands moved up and down Jav’s arms. “This feel all right?”

  “Yes.”

  Flip shrugged his shoulder, caught Jav’s head in his hands and brought their eyebrows together. Jav could feel him tremble as he asked, “This all right?”

  Jav nodded.

  They shared breath, poised on a shared edge, shaking all their separate pieces into one.

  Flip brushed Jav’s mouth with his. Pressed into him a little. Then a little more. Sitting on the counter, he was taller than Jav. Jav always looked down into his client’s faces. He’d never looked up to be kissed.

  Flip kissed him.

  “All right?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” Jav said.

  Jesus, yes.

  He’d never turned inside-out like this when kissing his clients. Peeled apart, folded back and drifting in a thick sea of desire. Vulnerable, electric and wanting. Wide open to his bones, conscious of himself. A lovee instead of a lover. Thinking of his own pleasure in a way he never did when he was working. So selfish, it was selfless.

  Don’t you want somebody to love?

  He leaned a little further into the attraction. Tested it with one foot. Then the other. Gingerly sat on it, then stretched out. Fingertips to toes. Taut and trusting. His mouth opened. His tongue reached. His hands pulled Flip down from the counter to stand. When Jav opened his eyes, they looked straight into Trueblood’s.

  Yes, he thought. I do.

  “God, man,” Flip said. “This is large.” His arms wound around Jav’s waist and pulled him in tight.

  “I take it large is good where you come from,” Jav said. “Or are you just happy to see me?” He could feel Flip against him, turned on, shaking with excitement. Jav had never been so hard in his life. Never this dialed into a physical situation. Inside-out with craving because he wasn’t doing an excellent job, he was simply being an excellent human.

  “Jesus Christ.” Flip put their foreheads together again. “We are definitely talking about this when I get back.”

  Through talking, Jav went after Flip’s mouth again. Flip’s palm slid down Jav’s throat and ran in slow circles around his heart.

  “Feels so good,” Jav said, lolling in revelation: these huge, powerful, masculine hands on him made him feel just as huge and powerful. His masculinity mirrored. Twinned. Doubled in size.

  Large.

  “I’m telling you,” Flip said. “I’ve never felt this way.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Man, you took your shirt off yesterday and I lost my mind.”

  Jav pulled his shirt off. Flip stared a long, smiling moment, shaking his head.

  “Rude.” He yanked his shirt off and pulled Jav against him. “Rude is good where I come from.”

  Skin on skin. Muscle and bone, hearts and mouths. Jav leaned into the immaculately beautiful moment. Everything was so strong and steady and immutable. And soft. It was the velvet embrace of a summer night. It was perfectly brewed mamajuana. A winning lottery ticket. A $500 check from Cricket magazine. A call from Universal Studios.

  Hey. It’s me.

  I’m home.

  A fire ignited in his veins. An aching desire to grab this with both hands and guard it. His palm made circles on Flip’s hard chest, then glided down his stomach.

  “Oh God,” Flip said, looking up at the ceiling. His smile from this angle was an incredible thing.

  Jav held his breath and slid his hand along the front of Flip’s jeans. Felt what was there and wanted it.

  Flip took Jav’s head and kissed him. Harder this time, setting something in stone. “Open your pants for me, rude bwoy,” he said, running his thumb along Jav’s bottom lip.

  Jav pulled at his button and zipper tab. Flip did the same but then he took Jav’s wrists and made him set his hands down, flat to the counter on either side of Flip.

  “Don’t move,” he said. “Stay still and feel this.”

  Shirtless, pants open, pressed against Flip, Jav held still and died.

  “Right here,” Flip said. “On the edge like this. The door open but not yet coming in. You feel it, Jav?”

  “I feel everything.”

  “Feel it and want it.”

  “I want it so fucking bad.”

  “This is what we’re talking about when I get back.”

  “No,” Jav said, laughing softly. “No, don’t. You can’t do this to me.”

  Flip gently pushed him away. “It’s going to be large.” He zipped, buttoned and pulled his shirt on.

  “You’re killing me.”

  “Good.” He kissed Jav, his teeth falling slow off Jav’s bottom lip. “I’ll see myself out.”

  “That’s my line,” Jav said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Have a good trip.”

  Flip laughed. “I’ll try.” From the door he looked back, touched a hand to his brow as if to say something.

  “What?” Jav said.

  Flip shook his head. “Nothing. I’ll see you Sunday.”

  “Wait, you forgot your hat…”

  The mariner smiled as the door to the apartment closed.

  Flip called from Newark Airport at seven the next morning. “Did I wake you?”

  “No, I’m up. Was about to go for a run.”

  “I needed to see
if you were all right.”

  “I’m good. You?”

  “Yeah. I feel good. I mean, whatever happens. You. Me. Whatever. I feel good about it so far.”

  Jav took a deep breath. “Me too.”

  “I was about to say something when I was leaving your place. Waant aal, lose aal.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Jamaican proverb. Basically means if you’re greedy for everything, you have more to lose in the end.”

  “True.”

  “Anyway, I wanted… You know. But I left before I could get greedy.”

  “Funny how I appreciate that you did and hate your guts at the same time.”

  “Same. For the record, I can still taste you.”

  “For the record, your voice gives me a hard-on.”

  Flip chuckled and let his Jamaican accent off the leash. “Tanks, rude bwoy. My hard buddy real gwine be agony on the iron bird.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you on Sunday. Show you, rather.”

  Jav ran his six miles, did his pushups and situps, showered and dressed. Filling his coffee cup in the kitchen, his eyes fell on Flip’s porkpie hat still on the counter. He put it on.

  By 8:30, he was sitting at his computer with his game face. The flow was good today, but only twenty minutes in, Russ called him.

  “Dude, turn on the news. A plane fucking hit the World Trade Center or some shit.”

  One thing Jav didn’t suffer gracefully was having the flow interrupted. Annoyance huffed out his lungs at being forced to get up and click on the TV.

  He didn’t return to his desk. Along with an entire nation, he watched, slack-jawed and horrified as the smoke rose from lower Manhattan. The morning slowed into timelessness as events unfolded with increasing horror and rapidity.

  A little after nine, a second jet hit the World Trade Center. Another column of smoke rose above Battery Park and Jav rose as well, standing up and thinking it might be a good idea to get the hell off the island.

  He sat down again. And watched. All over the country, flights were being grounded and diverted to other airports, clearing the skies. Jav kept glancing to his phone, expecting Flip would be calling him soon. Stranded somewhere ridiculous like Kansas.

  Little by little, it emerged that one, no, two more jets had ceased transmitting, turned their flight paths around and were heading suspiciously off-course.

  Jav’s phone rang at 9:30. He heard a crackling whoosh of air, then the line disconnected.

  His heart swelled larger in his chest and began to beat hard. The hand still closed around the receiver grew damp.

  The phone rang again at 9:36. “Hello?”

  “Jav.”

  “Flip?”

  “Jav, listen to me. My flight’s been hijacked—”

  Jav was on his feet. “What?”

  “Listen to me. Three men. They have knives. They say they have a bomb. One might have it strapped to him.”

  Jav strode to the window and looked out, as if he could see Flip’s plane from here. “Holy fucking Christ…”

  “We don’t know the demands or what they… Wait… What?”

  “Flip?”

  “Hold on.” A crunching scrape and Flip’s voice muffled. “The pilot? Where? Shit.”

  “Flip,” Jav said. “Stay with me. What’s happening?”

  Ambiguous, muffled noise in Jav’s ear as his breath squeezed through his throat and open mouth. On the TV, the towers burned. The ticker beneath was reporting a plane crash in Arlington County. The cemetery. No, the Pentagon. From the open apartment window came the sound of sirens, a Doppler wail from north to south.

  “Jav?”

  “I’m right here.”

  “What are you hearing? They say other planes are—”

  “Yes,” Jav said. “Two hit the World Trade Center. Another just went down in DC. Jesus Christ, we’re under attack.”

  “Oh fuck, man, this isn’t a… This is a plan. There are no demands here. Fuck.”

  A wave of nausea crashed into Jav’s stomach, reached up to seize his throat.

  He’s going to die.

  “Flip.”

  “Fuck goddammit.”

  The room swayed. Jav crouched down, then rolled onto his kneecaps, breathing hard.

  He’s going to die. They’re going to fly that plane into another building and…

  “Jav… Jav, what do I do?”

  Jump, Jav immediately thought, actually wondering for a wild moment if a seat flotation device could double as a parachute.

  “Jav, are you there?”

  Get out. Let him off. Please, God, get him off the plane.

  “Jav?”

  He had to yank the words out of his own throat. “I’m here. I’m right here. Talk to me, tell me what’s happening.”

  “I don’t know, I… Listen to me. I’ve been trying to call my brother but he won’t pick up. My cousins aren’t picking up either. I don’t want to break this line, it’s all I got.”

  “No, don’t hang up, you stay with me.”

  “Listen to me. You tell them you talked to me. If this goes down—”

  “Oh Christ.”

  Get him off that plane. He can’t die. We’re having a conversation on Sunday. He’s coming back and we’re talking about it.

  “—You tell them I love them. Tell my brother I love him, do you understand? He’s my soul mate, he is the truth of my blood. You tell him that.”

  “Yes.” Calmed by having a job, Jav’s hand grabbed for a pencil, then yanked a sheet of paper off a pad.

  He loves you.

  Talin: my soul mate. Truth of my blood.

  “And tell my father… Oh God…”

  “Tell me, Flip. Put it in my ear. Give it to me.”

  I can do this. I am excellent at this.

  I will do this, and you will give him back to me.

  “Tell my father,” Flip said. “He is everything, everything to me. And I’m sorry I… No. No, don’t say I’m sorry for anything. No regrets. You tell him I loved my life and he made me the man I am. And tell him I’ll be with Mummy and it will be all right.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Jav said, writing as fast as he could. Everything to me. No regrets, I loved my life. You made me the man I am. I’ll be with Mummy. It will be all right.

  “My cousins. They are my life and my songs. You tell them.”

  “I will, Flip. I swear.”

  My cousins.

  My life.

  My songs.

  Aunt Vonnie. Aunt Ramerra. Uncle Desmond. Jav wrote the names and the words. Captain Trueblood’s last will and testament from the ocean above.

  “And Jade,” Flip said. “Tell her…I’m sorry. Just that. Tell Jade I’m sorry. She’ll know.”

  “I have it, Flip. I have it all.”

  “All right. Oh Jesus God. All right. Wait… What? Hold on—”

  The line went dead.

  “No,” Jav said, getting up. “Flip? Flip? No, don’t. Don’t…”

  Clutching the phone and cursing, he paced to the window, back to the TV. He headed into his bedroom, forgot why, turned and went back to the living room. He looked at the TV and couldn’t recognize the world. Couldn’t make sense of the smoke and fire rising into the sky, knowing Flip was up there somewhere, part of it all.

  He went to run a hand through his hair and knocked the porkpie hat to the floor. He picked it up, held it over his chest, as if shielding his heart or singing the national anthem. He went back to the window and looked up at the skies over northern Manhattan.

  “Give him back to me,” he said through the wall of his teeth. “You don’t get any more. You took my youth. You took my father. You took my five-hundred dollar prize check. I let you have it all. Not this time. You fucking better give him back to me or I swear—”

  The phone rang.

  “Jav?”

  “I’m here,” he said, right as the tilted top of the south tower crumbled to dust and began to sink in a volca
nic grey cloud. “Oh my God, there it fucking goes. Jesus Christ.”

  “Jav, we got no more time.”

  “Flip, the fucking World Trade Center just fell down,” Jav whispered. His eyes bulged so far from their sockets, his vision was beginning to tunnel.

  “Jav. We think they got a plan to take this plane down somewhere big. The passengers are talking. We’re going to try to do something. Jav, are you listening?”

  He’s going to die.

  “I’m here,” Jav said. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “You tell my brother, all right? You tell all of them.”

  “I will. I swear I will. I promise.”

  “Jesus God. Listen to me, Jav. You’re all I got now. You have to get me down from here.”

  Jav was on his knees now, an elbow on the coffee table with his head sunk into its crook, the phone pressed tight to his ear. Flip’s hat upside-down before him. “I got you,” he said, his throat choking him. “I got you in my hands.”

  I had him in my hands and I let him go. Why did I let him go?

  “You have to get me down… Oh God, talk to me. Anything. Get me down.”

  “Hold onto me,” Jav said. “Just hold on.” His fists clenched tight, hating themselves for staying flat and obedient on the counter last night when he could’ve taken hold of Flip and not let go.

  “My name,” Flip said. “Say my name.”

  “Trueblood.”

  “Tell me what you wrote. Give me a story to get me down.”

  Jav didn’t need to consult notebooks or screens to tell him. The words were burned in his heart. “First time I ever saw you I thought, He was a man of the world. His was the face everyone loved to see come into harbor, and they’d call his name in joy. They’d shout it to the sea and the skies: Trueblood.”

  “Yes.”

  “His was the face they cried to see leaving port and they’d wail his name as the silhouette of the masts and rigging disappeared from view: Trueblood.”

  “Yes.”

  “His was the name in gold letters on the side of the ship, heralding his presence on the seas, shouting a warning: Trueblood. A desire-filled voice in the ship’s cabin, calling his name softly to the velvet dark: Trueblood…”

  Flip was crying. “Write it. Write me. Tell the story and don’t let it be forgotten.”