“Getting ready for Passover,” Micah said. “This is nothing, though. Week before, when we’re running around delivering fifty shank bones and a hundred dozen eggs? It’s crazy. Then some of the real orthodox ones box up and sell me all their leavened items.” He made air quotes around sell. “I hold the boxes a week and then they buy it all back. It’s a charade but it makes the rabbis happy.”
As they moved in and out of apartments and duplexes and houses, Geno noticed Micah could converse in several languages.
“It’s what I did after the war,” Micah said.
“What?”
“Translate for the British.”
“Where?”
“Bergen-Belsen.”
“Oh.”
The day passed quickly. Geno relished long, deep breaths into the bottom of his stomach and the wide-open tunnel of his chest. How for once, his thoughts didn’t rest in a snarly tangle in his head, but moved aside to let other people’s problems take priority. Or even let absolutely nothing have a turn.
“Volunteering is like soul food,” Micah said. “Sometimes you need to do selfless things for a selfish reason. But everyone wins, so no harm, no foul.”
Back in Manhattan, Micah checked the van in and took Geno to the Bake & Bagel for a late lunch.
“House special,” Stavroula said, setting down two paper plates. “Grilled cheese and tomato on the bacon bagel.”
“Holy crap,” Geno said.
“Reward for a job well done,” Micah said, taking an enormous bite with a grunt of pleasure.
“You don’t keep kosher?” Geno asked.
“I’m not Jewish,” Micah said behind his fist.
“Oh. I thought because you were in the camps…”
Still shielded behind his hand, Micah shook his head. “My father was a top gun in the Greek Resistance. Nazis arrested me and my mother and my siblings trying to flush him out.”
“No shit.”
“We wore green triangles. Not yellow stars.”
“And they sent you to Belsen?”
“Haidari first. Mean little camp outside Athens. My mother died there. Then we were sent to Auschwitz. When the Reds were advancing, the Germans evacuated the camp and marched us west. The British liberated us from Belsen.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
Geno smiled weakly. “My mother died too but it doesn’t really compare.”
“Why not?”
“Well, she didn’t die in a concentration camp.”
“How did she die?”
“Cancer. When I was fifteen.”
“Same age as me, then. Your mother is your mother. Whether she’s snatched away from you by disease or violence, you’re never the same.”
“It’s kind of like the end of the world.”
Micah nodded and wiped off his mustache. “For me, though, the world had already ended. When the Nazis came and then the famine, the world I knew was over. When my mother and older brother died at Haidari, I was already numb. I was sad, but the sadness was detached. It wasn’t a priority. It required too much energy.”
“Like your brain noted it on a clipboard,” Geno said. “The human is sad. This is unfortunate. We will address it later.”
Micah’s finger raised off his coffee cup. “Exactly.”
“Like you made all the feeling and emotion happen to someone else.”
The old man’s eyes were steady on him, the chin continuing to nod. “You speak like one who knows.”
“Did anyone from your family survive?”
“No.”
“You’re the only one left?”
“Yes.”
“Same with me.”
But that wasn’t quite true. And later that night, he called Zoe.
“Oh my God,” she said. “I was just about to call you. Tom and I read the news in the paper. The FBI arrested Anthony Fox. Geno, they got him.”
“They got him.”
“It was right in Manhattan.” Her voice was raised, shaking a little. “I mean he was right there, close to where you’re living.”
“I know,” Geno said, and told her what happened at the bar.
“Oh my God. Geno, thank God. Holy shit, you must’ve been terrified.”
“I was but it was so surreal, it feels like a dream now.”
“Still, the relief…”
“I’m still taking it in.”
“I’m so happy for you. Does happy sound weird? Should I be saying something else?”
“No,” Geno said, laughing. “Happy for me works fine. But actually, I wanted to ask you something else. Totally unrelated.”
“Fire away.”
“Do you know where Dad’s relatives lived in Europe?”
“Oh God, no. Dad was third-generation, his great-grandparents came here in the eighteen-nineties. They were from somewhere in Germany. Why?”
“I was talking to a man today who was in the camps. I wondered if we had family who were caught up in that whole thing.”
“Well, I don’t doubt some Caan ancestors and relations were caught up in it, but I couldn’t say who.”
“I was just wondering.”
“It might be an interesting project. I’m always seeing commercials for ancestry websites and it gets me thinking about my roots.”
“Yeah. Well. How is everyone?”
“Good. Matthew still misses you.”
“I miss him too,” Geno said. “Anyway, I wanted to say hi.”
“I’m so glad you called,” Zoe said, sounding exactly like Nathan. “And I’m so weirdly happy for you about everything.”
He laughed. “Me too.”
Spring, when a young man’s fancy turned to thoughts of…
“Go away,” Jav mumbled.
“Rise and shine,” Stef said, looking for some action.
“I’m sleeping.”
“You’re hard.”
“This is morning wood, it doesn’t count.”
Stef got out of bed and pressed his palm to the cold window. Held it a count of twenty and then burrowed under the covers again. “The hand of death is coming for the Gil deSoto family jewels.”
“Dude, I will kill you if— Jesus.” Jav let out a laughing yell. “You bastard.”
“Shh,” Stef said. “Don’t struggle.”
“Goddammit, Finch,” Jav said, shivering, but not moving out of Stef’s icy grip.
Stef bit the back of Jav’s neck. “You’re so my bitch.”
“Get off me. You suck.”
“I fucking love you.”
“I know and I want to sleep.”
He didn’t put up too big a fight. Stef made it up to him by taking the long trek up to Inwood for breakfast, to a joint Jav insisted had the best Dominican food on the island. It was a tiny, homey place, where all the old waitresses knew Jav on sight, flirted and fussed over him.
“Hola, Javi.” An older female voice spoke quietly next to their table.
Both men looked up. A woman in her late sixties, maybe early seventies. A tiny thing, silver-haired but traces of what was once a great beauty.
Stef glanced at Jav, expecting an introduction.
None came.
The woman’s face was soft as she looked down at Jav. He stared back, jaw tight, expression murderous. His hands had gone to fists on the table. Stef’s eyes volleyed between like a tennis match before he decided to go invisible. Under the table, he gathered Jav’s ankles between his own.
Finally, a long exhale from Jav. “Tía, este es mi novio. Stef, this is my Aunt Mercedes.”
“Hi,” Stef said. Even with his limited White New Yorker Spanish, he knew novio meant boyfriend. He also knew what a giant gauntlet it was to throw in front of Jav’s Dominican aunt. The woman’s eyes turned to him, bl
inked once, then crinkled at the corners. Her hand extended. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Stef nodded, shaking her hand.
“You’re looking well, Javito,” Mercedes said.
“Thanks, so are you.”
“I’m older.”
“We all are.”
She smiled. The silence shuffled its feet on the floor.
“How’s Kiko?” Jav asked.
“He passed away two years ago.”
“I see.”
Stef noted the unextended condolences and resisted the urge to clear his throat.
“It’s been wonderful to see all your success,” Mercedes said, a slight tremor in her voice now. “I recognized you as I was leaving and I wanted to say hello. It’s been a long time.”
Jav nodded. “Twenty-eight years.”
“Well,” she said, drawing a deep breath. “It’s good to see you. And so nice to meet you, Stef.”
“Likewise,” Stef said, smiling up and pressing down with his feet.
“Vale. Adiós, sobrino.”
Head held high, purse clutched tight, Mercedes walked away.
Jav’s eyes followed her out of the restaurant, then he exhaled like a hurricane. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“That was Nesto’s mother?”
“Mm.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” Jav rubbed the back of his hand between his eyebrows. “Just thrown off.” His feet were still tucked between Stef’s and one of them was shaking.
“What was your relationship with her like?” Stef asked. “Before everything went down, I mean.”
“Like a second mother, combination of love and nagging. But she was my aunt, and my aunt by marriage. So more love than nagging.”
“I see.”
Jav sighed and roughly shook his head. “Sorry. I’ll snap out of this in a bit.”
“Take your time. It was a shock.”
“I love you,” Jav said, looking out the window.
“I love you too.” Stef wiped his mouth and crumpled his napkin. “What do you want to do today?”
“Truth?”
“Yeah.”
“I went to your bridge once. Will you come to mine?”
The sun threw handfuls of diamonds on the Hudson River. Boats cut precise wakes through the water as the wind buffeted through the geometric girders of the George Washington Bridge.
“I almost asked her if he left a note,” Jav said, leaning on the railing. “I always wondered.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I’m not sure what I want the answer to be. I mean, really I’m asking if he left a note for me. If he didn’t, that’s heartbreaking. If he did, what happened to it? If it’s around somewhere, do I want to see it?”
“Do you?”
“Jesus, I don’t know.”
“Yeah. I couldn’t say if that would be closure or open-sure.”
Jav ran fingers through his hair. “I should warn you, I’m gonna be in a really weird mood the rest of the day,” he said.
Stef laughed. “Uh, yeah, I figured.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Thanks for asking me to come.”
Jav slid a hand around the back of Stef’s neck, bringing their foreheads together. “You’re my best friend.”
Stef smiled, giving Jav’s wrist a squeeze.
“I mean it,” Jav said. “When I die, I want to be buried next to you.”
“Oh my God, man, stop,” Stef said, laughing again.
True to his word, Jav was moody and distracted the rest of the day. A thousand-yard stare into the past. A lot of sighing and restless pacing around the apartment. Gazing out the window for long stretches. He wasn’t hungry. He went for a run late in the afternoon, by himself. Came back and showered and dressed, but he didn’t seem transformed or less troubled. Wearing Stef’s Skidmore hoodie, he sat sideways on the wide windowsill and stared outside.
“I keep coming back to me and Ari being the only ones left,” he said.
Stef looked up from his sketchpad and nodded. “Yeah, that’s a tough one.”
“God, I…” Jav let his breath out and seemed to deflate. “See, I had this crazy idea he was alive all this time.”
“Nesto?”
“Yeah. Like him jumping was just a story Kiko told me to be a dick. A story to cover up their own estrangement. I had this nugget of hope in the back of my mind that maybe Nesto was out there somewhere. We’d meet again and we could talk about it. Tell our stories. I could find out why.”
Stef put his pad aside and got up. “This really haunted you.”
“I didn’t know it did.” Jav ran fingertips along his temple. “He was…” His shoulders rose and fell with a few chuckles. “Shit, man, I don’t even know what I’m saying. I don’t know what any of this is.”
He was laughing. When Stef put hands on his shoulders, Jav was still laughing.
“I didn’t know and I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll never know.”
He laughed as his head touched Stef’s ribs. Laughed when Stef slid arms around him.
“He was a Trueblood,” Stef said. “Your cousin and your best friend. Your shadow. You told me if he wasn’t following you somewhere, it felt like you were missing a sock.”
God, I feel like I’m talking to Geno. It’s the same betrayal. Why didn’t I see it before?
“I don’t understand,” Jav said. “I never will.”
“I know.”
“Everyone just leaves,” Jav said. “I don’t get to say goodbye to anyone. I don’t get a say at all. They leave and I just sit around making up stories to explain why. They pass me on the street and say nothing. Did I ever tell you that? I passed her and Kiko on the street once and they wouldn’t even look at me. Now she sidles up to my fucking table, calls me Javito and tells me she wishes me well? What the fuck is that about? ‘It’s been so wonderful to see all your success.’ Really? Where was the wonder when your brother- and sister-in-law were beating the shit out of me for a five-hundred-dollar check I won? Where was the well-wishing for that success?
“Where were you when my mother shut me out and cut me off? When your son ambushed me at school? Where were you when I couldn’t walk from here to there without getting beat up? When I was getting kicked to death in bathrooms and locker rooms and my own fucking kitchen? Class fag. The neighborhood punching bag. The family disgrace. Where the fuck were you I was living in one room with my life savings in a coffee can? When my uncle staked out my apartment and took a day’s work out of my pocket, saying I should suck enough dick to make the next payment? When your own husband told me to pay him back or he’d leave a hole in my ass so big, I could fuck two men at once?”
He wasn’t laughing anymore.
“Oh sure, you recognize me in a restaurant now. You got no problem approaching me now. But not back then. You didn’t recognize what all of them were doing to me back then. You didn’t know I’d end up fucking for a living. Making me waste twenty years of my life when I could’ve been something to somebody…”
Then he was crying.
Stef pulled him in tight and stood still against the storm, his hand running in slow circles between Jav’s trembling shoulders. “You’re something to me,” he said. “You’re everything to me.”
“They can’t just throw me away and expect…”
“No,” Stef said. “They can’t. Not anymore. Not while I’m here.”
He set his teeth together, breathing in the scent of Jav’s skin.
I’ve got one of the last Gil deSotos. I’m not throwing it away. I’ll never leave without saying goodbye. If this comes to an end, I’ll give him a reason. He’ll get a goodbye. I won’t leave him to sit around and make up a story to explain.
His arms tightened and he laid his cheek
on top of Jav’s head. But I don’t want to leave. I want to stay and watch you write our story. I want to go to all your bridges. Because I recognize what they did to you then. And I recognize who you are now.
“Sorry,” Jav said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.
“Shut up,” Stef said. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”
Jav leaned his head against the window panes. The light turned his dark gaze to amber and reflected off the bits of silver in his beard growth.
“Listen,” Stef said. “I decided I’m not your novio.”
Now Jav looked at him, blinking. “No?”
“I’m your curator. How do you say that in Spanish?”
Half a laugh, and another swipe of Jav’s face against his sleeve. “Jesus.”
“I mean it,” Stef said. “It’s corny as shit but I don’t care. Anyone can be a boyfriend. I’m your curator. Your mate.” His fingers eased down the back of Jav’s collar, caressing inked letters and numbers. “And your Trueblood.”
Jav’s gaze melted again. He swung his legs off the sill and Stef moved between his knees. He held Jav’s head to his heart and stood tall, gazing around the room as if assessing a threat.
“Fuck all of them, man. They’ll have to come through me to get to you this time.”
New York City was never completely silent. Nor completely dark. When Jav woke in the middle of that tender night, the city outside the window breathed with a quiet, nocturnal rhythm. Enough streetlight filtered through the curtains that he could see the silhouette of Stef’s body. Sprawled on his side like a mountain range, hulking and majestic. Sound asleep. Quieter than the city.
Are you there?
Jav’s fingertips gently touched the center of Stef’s back, where the Saggitarius was inked between his shoulder blades.
Man is a centaur,
a tangle of flesh and mind,
divine inspiration and dust.
Jav rolled more on his side, wincing a little. He was still sore. Stef said it would be fine in the morning and Jav believed him. He believed everything Stef told him now.
Tonight their bedroom overflowed with magnificent sex. Death by sex. Grandiose, over-the-top sex. They were making love like architects of the universe. Fucking like mathematicians. Multiplying, dividing, canceling each other out and starting from zero.
A Charm of Finches Page 43