by Sarah Black
Gabriel shoved the tee shirt back at Juan, who put it in the bag. He showed a grin full of braces. “So, I can tell Mom you’re okay with it?”
“Take it back and exchange it for something else. Like, right now.” Gabriel stared at Juan the entire way down the aisle before he turned back to John. “That little wiseass.”
John handed over his beer. “The look on your face reminded me of that time, where were we, Ivory Coast? You remember? You caught that mechanic sitting on his ass, puffing on a cigar and talking to his girl back home when he was supposed to be doing maintenance on your chopper.”
“I might not have kicked his ass so hard but he was smoking that piece of shit cigar in my hanger.” He looked over at John, took a long pull on his beer. “Okay, well, I would have kicked his ass regardless. He was begging for it. Seems like just yesterday, but that was ’90, right? ’91?”
“Must have been ’89. We were in the Middle East in ’90. Well, time goes by.”
“You got that right, brother.” They clicked their beer bottles together, a quiet salute to the times. “So, what did Kim have to say? He wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone. Said you had the details. He was very charming in his apology, by the way. I assume you chewed him a new one?”
“That I did. He has been dating an abusive professor.”
“What, you mean one of his grad school profs? He’s doing an MFA in the arts, right?”
“Last time I checked it was photography. I talked to the department head, who did not seem surprised—either about the allegations of dating a student or the allegations of abusive behavior. I got the feeling that, as both student and instructor are gay men, this was somehow swept under the rug in a way it would not have been if the student had been a young woman. Like the rules are different based on gender. Is it still so embarrassing to be gay in New Mexico? I wouldn’t have thought so. It was ridiculous, the man seemed unable to think in any manner that would lead to a decision! I can’t imagine how he runs a committee meeting, much less a graduate department at the university level. So I went to the dean of students and the vice president, let them both know if this matter wasn’t handled to my satisfaction within two weeks, I would take further action. The dean actually asked me what further action I had in mind.”
“Oh, man, that was a piss-poor move.”
“You would think a basic understanding of the nature of strategy and tactics would be required study for any leader in this day and age, much less the leaders of an institution of higher learning, but apparently not. Linear thinking gets a bad rap for not being creative, but at some point decisions need to be made. Conclusions drawn. The entire world can’t stop work to brainstorm with their dicks in their hands, fun as that might be.”
Gabriel toyed with his bottle, shoved the tiny wedge of lime down into the neck of the beer. “Maybe a deposition, so you can go to the police without having to drag Kim along.”
“Who needs to do a deposition? Does it have to be a lawyer?”
“I can take the deposition. We really need photos, but I can’t see Kim announcing to the world he’s a victim. A lawsuit might be worth considering, or just the threat of a lawsuit. We might use the media, as well. Nasty story, that.”
They fell silent, listening to the ladies in the purple shirts sing an old-fashioned barbershop song, “Down by the Old Mill Stream,” then John Fogerty took over the loudspeakers, singing put me in, Coach, I’m ready to play.
Gabriel drained the bottle of beer and put the empty in the seat holder. “One of his professors. What in the hell is wrong with people, they think they can do anything and get away with it? Everyone seems to understand the nature of free choice but no one understands consequences.”
John stared out across the field, watched the ball players line up, their caps over their hearts. “I am going to make sure this little prick understands clearly the consequences before he touches another young man.”
“DEAN FOX! We don’t see you in this building nearly often enough!” John could tell Cynthia was beaming.
“Cynthia, you are like a ray of sunshine this morning. Do you suppose I could speak to the general for a moment?”
“Yes, of course! I’ll just see if he’s available.”
John stayed behind his desk when Cynthia brought Dean Fox in, but rose to offer a silent handshake.
“So, John, how is your graduate seminar? Theory of Political Leadership, isn’t it?”
“Something like that. What can I do for you?”
The dean leaned back in his chair, folded his hands over his belly. “I wonder if you’ve had a chance to rethink your position vis-à-vis this unfortunate….”
“The episode of physical assault by a professor toward a student? Rethink in what way, Dean?”
“When we spoke last, I recommended you consider the political realities of this situation. That’s your field, after all. I mean, no one understands politics the way you do without understanding the art of the compromise.”
“Actually, I’m here to teach leadership theory. Leadership, not politics. Unfortunately, they no longer appear to be quite the same thing.” John leaned forward, his arms on his desk. “But you’re correct. That was your suggestion, and I have done some thinking. I think we will involve the criminal justice system at this point and let them do a proper investigation.”
“Now, John, that way, it’s never easy on the victims, is it?”
“As opposed to… what? The option would be not becoming victims in the first place?”
“John, the challenge for me is that this particular instructor is the son of a member of the board of supervisors for the university system here in New Mexico. Very powerful man, old school, you know? Long years of developing relationships, especially among the senior leadership at this university. He never forgets an enemy, and he keeps a tight hold of the fiscal reins.”
“Ah. I see.” John sat back, studied the other man. “And do you suppose this old-school man knows what his son is doing in Albuquerque?”
The dean studied the view out John’s window. “Nice office, this. They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”
“You could say that about my nephew as well. He’s much more like me than anyone realizes.” The alarm on the dean’s face at this statement was all John could have wished.
JOHN had no intention of calling the police. He couldn’t without Kim’s consent, and if he was sure of anything, it was that Kim did not want the police involved. But the threat was a decent diversion, and it also made a reasonable backup plan.
“One could say that self-portraiture is a form of meditation.” Kim slid a piece of toast and egg onto John’s plate. “There you go. Toad in a Hole.”
“Self-portraits are a form of meditation? Maybe a form of psychotherapy. I would hesitate to suggest self-indulgence.” The egg was fried into a missing round of the toast, the whole slathered with butter. A grilled tomato joined the Toad on his plate.
“Maybe meditation is too strong a word. I guess what I mean is photography can be used to learn about yourself. I just think that all the creative arts have a great potential for healing. And people really should be stepping up to the plate and trying to heal themselves.” Kim took a bite of his Toad in the Hole. “Hey, that’s good. Speaking of stepping up to the plate, how was the ball game?”
“Decent. Not their best effort, and they seemed to be tired by the seventh. They’ve been on the road for a week. Also, Juan was along and he made it his business to torture his father.”
“Oh, I wish I could have seen that! The Horse-Lord brought to his knees!”
John gave him a sharp look. “Not to his knees. Let’s call it a draw. But it certainly appeared to exhaust them both.”
“What is he, twelve?”
“Fourteen.”
“Well, no wonder, then. Hormones are raging! All you want to do when you’re fourteen is snatch up a broadsword and hack something to pieces, then find a big r
ock and fuck it to death.”
“Good God.” John finished his Toad and pushed his plate back. Kim had made them beans on toast yesterday. Was he about to enter a British phase? John didn’t think he could take it if Kim started speaking with a British accent. He picked up the photograph Kim had brought to the table. He’d printed a double self-portrait, the camera covering his left eye and then his right. In one picture, the black eye and busted lip were plainly visible, and in the other, it was covered with his camera.
“You see the difference?”
“Tell me,” John said.
“Look at the expression in the eyes. You see how I’m looking at myself, when I can see the damage? When it’s visible to the world? I look like a cringing dog, afraid to get hit. But the other one, where the damage is hidden, my eyes look different. Stronger. Maybe cooler. My filters are intact.”
“What filters?”
“Everyone looks at the world through filters, Uncle John. Usually identity, but it could be culture too, or language or some other form of self-identification. I usually have a gay filter up, and always an artist filter, and a ‘being your nephew’ filter, that one’s in my bones.”
John studied the photo. He couldn’t see much of a difference in the look in Kim’s eyes between the two pictures, but maybe that was because he felt his hands knot into fists and his heart start to pound in his throat when he saw the marks on Kim’s face. All he could think of was snatching up a broadsword and hacking something to pieces.
“Okay, so what’s your plan?” he asked. “You’re going to do a series of self-portraits, showing the abuse on your face, and submit that portfolio to the asshole professor who did the damage?”
Kim was shaking his head. “That would be a subtle punishment for a subtle man, but he’s an ape. He’d probably enjoy looking at them. No, I’m not thinking about him. He’s out of my head. I’m just keeping the colors bright in my own soul.”
Kim smiled at him from across the table, and John remembered a summer’s day in the park when Kim was four or five. He’d come whirling across the green grass, his arms outstretched like wings, and he’d announced his soul looked like a butterfly and was full of beautiful colors.
“You know for sure he’s done it before?”
Kim nodded. “But don’t ask me to break a confidence, Uncle John.”
“Of course not. You remember Gabriel’s meeting you after lunch today?”
“At Ho Ho’s, right? Is he bringing Juan?”
“Not that I know.”
“Maybe I’ll call him and see if he can come. I’ll put him to work bussing tables. Or he can put some pot stickers together.” John watched him, a question on his face. “All you want when you’re fourteen is to have the opportunity to not be a fool in front of your dad,” Kim said.
“And that thing with the big rock.”
“Yes, that thing with the big rock.”
Chapter 4
JOHN decided to drop in and see how the deposition was coming. Even the strongest men sometimes needed backup. Gabriel was a kick-ass chopper pilot. He’d flown into the middle of hornets’ nests without blinking in Somalia, Kuwait, Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan. John had seen him drop quiet as smoke into an LZ the size of a dishtowel to pick up a medevac, drop off water and ammunition to troops under fire. When Gabriel was in the zone, he was a rock. But even a rock could be worn down by the relentless drip-drip-drip of water that was quality time with the kids.
Ho Ho’s was late-afternoon quiet. A table near the women’s rest room held a young girl, crying silently, wiping her nose on her sleeve, typing into her phone, then crying again. Juan was wearing a black apron with Ho Ho’s on the front, along with their signature logo of an open, hungry mouth. He was wiping down tables and keeping an alarmed eye on the crying girl. Another table along the back wall held the remains of a lunch special. The man sitting there had put his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, one hand holding the Styrofoam container with his food so no one could take it away. He looked unbearably weary.
Kim was sitting with Gabriel, pouring tea like he was entertaining at Buckingham Palace. Gabriel looked like he was drawing on reserves of patience, but his shirt was still crisp white, and he wore it with a red-and-gray tie and charcoal-gray suit pants. John felt a thump in his gut, a little twist of lust, seeing him looking so fine, face smoothly shaven, eyes dark and as deep as the night sky. Gabriel looked a question at him, because John usually guarded the way he looked at Gabriel in public. Sometimes it was just more than he could do, though, wearing his mask, his professional face, cool as an ice cube, and Gabriel could see it on him. His eyes went soft for one long look, color creeping up his neck, and then he cleared his throat and turned back to Kim.
Kim’s eyes were big, and he was grinning and fanning himself with both hands. “Is it just me, or did it suddenly get hot in here?”
“Knock it off.” John looked closer. “What have you got on your face?”
One half of Kim’s face was decorated with a series of stripes and jagged lines in black and white greasepaint, with one small zigzag of bright yellow cutting across the black and white. “Juan helped me do it. Isn’t it hot? Do I look ferocious? Do I look like a Cheyenne Dog Soldier?”
John closed his mouth, bit down hard on his tongue. Kim’s eyes were too bright, and there was a line of damp along his hairline. John thought Kim looked like he was trying too hard to cover up the marks on his face from a man’s fist. He thought Kim looked like he was about to cry.
“I’ve decided I’m not going to be a drag queen. I can’t bear the thought of this greasepaint all the time.”
Gabriel handed John a cup of tea. “I think that’s a good decision, Kim. Your face is plenty interesting without the paint. And you don’t look like a Dog Soldier,” Gabriel said. “That looks like the face paint Crazy Horse used to wear into battle. He was Oglala Sioux, not Cheyenne. I like the yellow zigzag. Like you’re a lightning bolt.”
“Or a lightning rod.” John pulled up a chair. “How’s the deposition going?”
Gabriel sighed and studied the ceiling, and Juan came over to the table to join them. “Kim, can I help make the pot stickers now?”
“Sure. Let me take you back to the kitchen. These two old ladies, they only speak Vietnamese, but just watch what they do and they’ll show you. Can you cut up some green onions really small?”
“Sure! Can you stay too?”
Kim gave Gabriel a long look, trying not to grin, biting his lip. “Of course! I’m the king of pot stickers at Ho Ho’s.”
John drank his cup of tea, watched their retreating backs. Gabriel’s eyes were travelling over his face, down his neck and across his shoulders, down to his flat belly. John had a brief image of himself crawling across the plastic tabletop, scattering noodles and chopsticks, tackling Gabriel to the sticky linoleum floor. What was it Kim had said? When you were fourteen you wanted to find a big rock and fuck it to death? When you were fifty-two, you didn’t go looking for a rock.
“I could eat a steak.”
John looked up, met Gabriel’s eyes. The heat in his eyes seemed to scorch the air. “Yep. Me too.”
The door opened, and Martha came into Ho Ho’s. She looked carefully at the crying student and the sleeping homeless guy as if they were alien life forms; she studied the linoleum and the greasy handprints on the glass serving counter and the teacups on the little table.
Martha Sanchez was a proud, reserved woman. Perfect posture, her hair gathered into a shiny dark bun at the back of her neck, rosy nails perfectly manicured. She looked at Gabriel like he was somehow to blame for the seedy restaurant, maybe for the decline of the Western world, and when her eyes fell on John, they went cold. “General Mitchel.” She held out her hand, and he took it. “How nice to see you.” She tilted her head. “You know, Gabriel just told me recently he named our son after you. I never realized your given name was John. What was it, shared combat? Did you save his life, and I never knew? For some reas
on I thought it was a family name. Naturally I agreed. It’s the father’s prerogative to name his son, after all.” She studied the surprise on his face. “You didn’t know either? How interesting.”
She dropped his hand and turned to Gabriel. “I’ve come to get Juan. Will I see you tonight?”
“Don’t you always?”
“I meant for dinner.” Her smile was sharp as a razor, but she kept her voice calm.
“No. I won’t be home for dinner.”
John cleared his throat. “Excuse me. I’ll get Juan.” He wasn’t really sure what was going on, but Mrs. Sanchez had a couple of major thorns in her backside, and he suspected his name was on one of them. Gabriel had stayed late the last time they’d been together. Did Mrs. Sanchez wonder why they had taken so long to eat a couple of sirloins and talk about the glory days? Was that what this was about? No, couldn’t be. Gabriel spent a lot of late nights working with clients or in the law library. Something else? Had Gabriel really named Juan after him? Well, Gabriel would tell him if he wanted him to know. Men had the right to some privacy. From their wives and from their lovers.
Juan looked worried when his mother pulled him out of Ho Ho’s, her lips a thin line, and Kim looked worried when Gabriel carefully packed his briefcase, his face as tight as a mask. “Let’s go.”
John didn’t ask where they were going. “You want me to drive?”
“Please.” Gabriel put his seat belt on carefully.
“Let’s go to my house. I’ve got a bottle of tequila.”
“Fine,” Gabriel said. “Good.”
“You okay?”
He looked over then. “Not really.” He hesitated. “We’re having some trouble. Not your problem.” He stared out the front windshield.
“You’re my friend. I’m always ready to listen to a friend.”
“Is that what we are? Friends? Are we more than friends?”