An Exaltation of Larks

by Suanne Laqueur

  Albacete had made the street go silence once. Alex thought she could make his head go silent. She failed him. Blood poured down his arm but the noise between his ears didn’t stop.

  He shuddered now, remembering how weak and worthless he’d felt that day. Dizzy from blood loss. Half in shock. Cruising on pure adrenaline. Blinking up in the light of the opened closet door and whispering to his wife, I think something’s wrong with me.

  “What’s wrong with me?” he whispered to Val.

  “Nothing, Alejandro.”

  “I wasn’t on the island that day and nobody called me to say goodbye.”

  “You had a Nine-Eleven,” she said. “You had a terrible experience. You didn’t remember how terrible it was until it happened the second time.”

  “I know,” he said, burying his face in her hair. “I know, but I forget.”

  “This isn’t you,” Val said. “This doesn’t define you and it’s not who you are to me.”

  His teeth chattered. “I love you.”

  Her arm arced back to hold his head. “You’re strong. You’re brave and you’re resilient. You’re a survivor.”

  He held her tighter. “God, he called from the plane.”

  “I know,” she said. “It’s no wonder you’re upset.” She ran her hand down his forearm and twined her fingers with his.

  The shaking stopped. For a split second all was tranquil—It’s no wonder—then the quaking started once more.

  “Do that again,” Alex said.

  “What?”

  “The way you ran your hand down my arm…”

  She did it again, her palm warm and dry along his skin, her wedding band clicking against his as she wove their fingers together.

  “Something about that is soothing,” he said. “Do it again.”

  Over and over, she caressed his arm and squeezed his fingers.

  “You’re all right. You’re with me and everything’s all right.”

  Sheba laid her head on Alex’s hip. Alex glanced through his eyelashes, and the dog’s black silhouette morphed into a man’s head.

  It fucked me up too, Jav said. Couldn’t get out of bed. Couldn’t stop crying. I changed.

  Jav was here. Hiding behind him. Peeking around Alex’s side. Afraid to go into the tunnel.

  Alex reached behind and closed his hand around Sheba’s paw. He found Jav’s hand in his mind, twined their fingers and squeezed.

  Calmate, hermano.

  His focus shifted. The dragons roared in protest, hating to be ignored. Alex imagined thrusting a torch into their fiery breath, lighting it up bright. Holding it to the tunnel entrance and squeezing Jav’s hand behind him.

  We both have maps on us. Come this way. Follow me. We have to walk this walk.

  Val squeezed his hand. “I’m right here. Stay with me.”

  Alex moved forward into her solid presence and pressed back against Jav’s imaginary one. Safe between. The way they’d hugged him outside the embassy gate in Santiago. Everything made circles. Tattoos and dates and coordinates. A predestined map.

  It’s no wonder we found each other.

  Into the tunnel, one foot in front of the other. A strange desire gripped him from behind. A tongue of flame and a reptilian roar. He squeezed Val’s fingers. He held onto Jav, guiding him through. He relaxed into the imagery. The panic released its chokehold, slowly dispersed and let him alone.

  “Alejandro,” Val whispered. “All right?”

  Estás bien, hermano?

  “Si,” he said.

  “Just rest.”

  He could see the light up ahead. They were almost out the other side. They’d made it. It was a wonder.

  No. It’s no wonder…

  He didn’t usually dream on Xanax, but that night he dreamed of many things.

  He was a boy in Chile, behind the gates of the American embassy. Watching his father walk away but this time Alejo fought to follow. Wormed his feet and fingers through the iron bars and began to climb, calling for Eduardo. Calling out group names of animals in an attempt to prove himself, prove he could do this job.

  Hands seized him from behind and pulled him down. He kicked and writhed, screamed for his father. A pair of arms closed about him, strong and powerful, drawing Alejo’s shoulders against a broad, hard chest.

  Calmate, hermano, Jav whispered. The forearm with the ship’s wheel lay across Alejo’s collarbones. The other curved about his head, cradling him in the crook of a bleeding elbow. The embrace pulled tight like a knot, gathered Alejo close, rocked him in arms. The solid pressure all along his spine understood how terrible everything was. And it was so sorry.

  Disculpa, Jav whispered. Lo siento, Alejo. Lo siento mucho…

  All at once the gates of the embassy were flung open. A stabbing burst of sunlight off water and it wasn’t a gateway to a street, but an open door of an airplane. Over the roar of the engine, the soldiers were pushing the women out. The women were screaming. Alejo was screaming. He tried to get to his mother but he was caught fast in the powerful embrace from behind. This time, a palm slid to cover his eyes.

  Don’t look, Jav said. You mustn’t look. You mustn’t think about this.

  Mamí, Alejo screamed into the dark of Jav’s hand. He didn’t like the dark.

  She’s gone, Jav said. She’s gone and Flip’s gone. We have the map now and we have to walk this walk.

  Jav’s tall, strong body curved like a comma over Alejo, hiding him. Protecting him. It’ll be over soon, Jav whispered. Hold onto me. We found each other and we have to walk together. Come on now. Into the closet.

  Jav flung open the door and they darted inside.

  It’s like Narnia, Alejo said, flinging aside coats and shirts. He seized two cardigans and pulled them on. Jav wore a hat and a rucksack. Snow crunched underfoot. They were on skis. The wind gusted. The Andes punched out of the ground like fists.

  Go now, Jav yelled over the gales. I’m right behind you. Until the end.

  This way, Alejo said. His voice was changing. Deepening into Alex’s voice as they pushed off the mountain, carving turns through the powder and shooting into the tunnel. A screaming rush through a pillowy, inky blackness. A million dogs barking. Gunshots and helicopter rotors. Then out the other side and Val was there. Her belly big and curved, the Unisphere tattooed over that magnificent arc. Her hair soaked with ocean water. Tatters of rope around her wrists. She was a piece of expensive chocolate saved for a rainy day. Delicious in Alex’s mouth as he kissed her. Ate and swallowed and consumed her.

  Jav came up behind, slid hands along Alex’s forearms and twined their fingers. His skin was inked all over with coordinates. He was the map of the world. He used it to find Alex. He’d never leave.

  You know, he said against Alex’s neck. That’s why I’m telling you.

  The dream fell horizontal, tumbling down on the day bed in the back of Muriel’s dress shop. Jav’s gorgeous force pressed into Alex’s shoulders, back and legs. Pinning him down, both commanding and loving. While at the same time, all along his front side, Alex was buried in the hot velvet of Val’s body. Aggressive and passive. Crushing her while being crushed.

  I love you, Val said.

  You crush me, Jav said.

  Alex woke the next morning feeling he’d returned from a long journey as a changed man. He held out his hands, looking for tattoos he didn’t have. Twice he glanced back over his shoulder, expecting to see something. Or someone.

  Driving to work, he ran his left palm down his right forearm, slid his fingers together and squeezed the wheel.

  “We’re so alike, you and I,” he said to the windshield.

  His hand down his forearm, over and over. Linking fingers.

  It’s no wonder we kept finding each other.

  Every day, Deane’s love broke down the walls of self-conscious uncertainty and showed Ari what he could be. She freed him from his own body. They were taking the wet clay of their sexuality and throwing into the center of a potter’s wheel.
Together they shaped it into a beautiful bowl. Coaxed the sides up, curved and strong. Fired it hard with trust. Glazed the outside the dark brown of his hair and colored the inside with the silvers and greens of her eyes. Into this vessel they put their secret selves, until very little was left deemed too private to share.

  He figured their first sex would be in the car. But the planets aligned and gifted them a weeknight evening with Jav in the city and the Lark-Pendas at a concert at Vassar. So their first time was in Ari’s bed.

  “Let me put this on?” Deane asked, opening the condom.

  “Sure,” Ari said, swallowing hard above his thudding heart.

  “Can I be on top?”

  “You can be wherever you want,” he said, barely able to get the words out.

  The braid of her hair swung past her shoulder as she kneeled over his thighs, guided him inside a little, then lowered her hips down.

  Ari exhaled as she closed like a tight fist around him. She arced over his chest like the sky, taking hold of his head and kissing him. The St. Bernard’s medal touched his skin, cool and smooth. Her legs flexed and she pulled up along the length of him, then sank down again.

  “Oh my God, Deane,” Ari whispered in her mouth.

  “Feels so good.” Her mouth sweet and deep as she slid him in and out of that swollen, squeezing heat. His fingers peeled the elastic off the end of her braid and combed the tresses out long, letting it fall like a curtain around their heads.

  “Sit up,” she said. “Come here.” She pulled him up and unfolded her legs, wrapping them around him. “Hold me like this.”

  They wound their limbs around each other tight. “Are you all right?” he whispered, hands fisted in her hair.

  “Yes.”

  “It feels all right?”

  “It feels…big?”

  “Um…” He gasped a laugh. “Thank you?”

  “You’re welcome?” She burrowed her giggling face into his shoulder. “I couldn’t think of another word.”

  “No, big is good. This is good. Don’t…change a thing.”

  They laughed, sniffed, clutched at each other. Then Deane fell back on her hands, pressed her toes to the headboard and moved on him. Holding her hips, he watched himself disappear up into her body, then reappear again like a miracle.

  “Ari, it’s so much.”

  “I know. I had an idea it… No, never mind, I had no idea. This is the first idea I’ve ever had.”

  Her head fell back as she laughed. He didn’t know you could make love and laugh at the same time. That sex could put a lump in your throat even as it made your body writhe and scream. That a girl could be beautiful when you looked at her through a thin haze of tears. He didn’t know it could be this way. He didn’t know he could be this way.

  It was like tearing off a too-tight garment and flinging it aside. His body, lean and strong and healthy, returned to him. The world could call him a kid but in his heart, he was a lover. Deane’s lover. Confident and conscientious. Able to roll her down and rise up over her. Move her legs here, turn her body there. Ask for what he wanted and give her what she needed.

  “I’m so in love with you,” he said, the words tumbling out fearlessly. He loved their shape in his mouth. Loved when they splashed into the icy sea of her eyes. He loved the diamond her bent legs made when they opened to him, loved the push of her hips against his hand and the hungry pull of her mouth. He loved knowing she liked to be kissed like this and touched like that. He loved her wanting him. He peeled off his skin, unlocked his heart and showed her everything he had.

  Jav knew right away.

  It wasn’t that his nephew looked any different. Or acted any different. It was a new way he occupied space. The way space made way for him as he walked around the apartment. A small but significant rearrangement in his atoms. Jav looked at the confident set of Ari’s shoulders and he knew.

  Oh yeah, he’s banging her.

  Jav thumped his chest in contrition. It was a crass way to put it when clearly the kid was in love.

  Good for you, sobrino, he thought. You deserve it.

  He struggled with whether or not to have a casual talk with his nephew about the perils and responsibilities of being sexually active. Sperm and eggs, STDs, blah de fucking blah. Jav was the legal guardian here. Still, he felt caught up in a delicate dance of how much Ari already knew, partnered with how much counseling Jav was obligated to provide. And how it would be received. The kid was eighteen, after all, and hell, nobody counseled Jav at eighteen.

  Then again, the kid was eighteen.

  And nobody counseled Jav…

  …after all.

  Not long after, a day came when he was in CVS and he pinged his nephew: Need anything while I’m here?

  Ari texted back: Razors, shaving cream, toothpaste. Gum.

  Jav hesitated, seeing an opening. Need condoms?

  No reply for a minute, then: Yeah, actually.

  Preferences?

  Durex Extra Sensitive. If they don’t have, then LifeStyles THYN. The blue box.

  Jav raised his eyebrows at the specifics. Kid knew his rubbers. He replied: U want these with or w/out the man-2-man chat?

  LOL. W/out. Thx.

  Well. Not bad for an overture. Jav went around collecting items. Though he’d been a longtime Trojan man, he got an extra box of the Durexes for himself.

  While Jav was standing on line, Ari pinged again: Actually, I do have a M2M question…?

  KLK, Jav replied.

  It’s kind of embarrassing. Don’t laugh.

  Shoot.

  OK… The condom goes on ME, right?

  Jav burst out laughing so loud, the woman in front of him turned around. He waved her off, kept chuckling as he texted back. Yes. On U, smartass. Every time.

  Thanks. I was pretty sure, but…

  That means a DIFFERENT one every time.

  Got it. Wait. Different one with a different girl? Or different one even if the same girl?

  We’re having that chat.

  Can’t wait. Can I invite some friends? Do we have a cucumber in the fridge?

  Jav was still shaking his head and laughing under his breath as he walked to his car. He turned the ignition and put a hand on the gearshift, but then fell into stillness a moment, the smile curled halfway up his face. A distinct sense of done-the-right-thing-ness filled his chest. Along with something that felt a lot like love.

  May 2007

  The champagne cork hit the ceiling and a froth of bubbles erupted from the bottle. Cheers and whistles as Alex poured around the circle of raised flutes, even for Ari and Deane. It was their celebration, after all. Decisions had been made and offers accepted: Deane was going to UVM in the fall, and Ari to New Paltz.

  “Arriba,” Alex said, raising his glass and leading the toast. “Abajo. Al centro. Aldentro.” A final clink over the kitchen island and everyone drank.

  “I for to be so proud for you,” Val said, hugging Deane tight to her side.

  Jav had an arm hooked around Ari as well, his heart so full he was on the verge of bawling. Your mother would be so proud, he thought. He wanted to say it but he didn’t trust the lump in his throat with anything but some glib humor.

  “College makes your ass look fabulous,” he said, touching his glass to Ari’s.

  “My ass is always fabulous.” Ari took a generous sip and chewed on it a moment, his nose wrinkling before he swallowed.

  “It’s an acquired taste, Schnozz,” Roger said.

  Rog was home for Lark House’s annual spring fundraiser. The next day, a huge outdoor festival was staged on the bluff and the community turned out in full force, running vendor booths and games, with local entertainment acts throughout the weekend.

  Jav strode around the fair, browsing, visiting and socializing. He arrived at the little pavilion where Celeste’s Bookstore and Café had its satellite setup, with Deane, Stella and Trelawney serving coffee and baked goods.

  “How’s business?” he said.


  “Little slow,” Trelawney said. “Hard to compete with the wine bar.”

  “You own the wine bar,” Stella said. “You’re competing with yourself.”

  Trelawney smiled. “Celeste’s is my baby. I like to see her win.”

  The day was soft and cool. More like fall than spring, and Jav remembered another autumn day when business was slow.

  “I can help you guys out,” he said. “I need some cardboard.”

  He made two signs: FREE HUG WITH ANY PURCHASE and HUG WITH NO PURCHASE, $2.

  “Oh my God, Mr. Landes,” Stella said over his shoulder. “I think I love you.”

  “You can’t love me unless you call me Jav.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Holy crap, this is going to be epic.”

  By late afternoon, Roger had joined the campaign, holding up a sign: HALE, HEARTY HANDSHAKE, $3.

  Ari, who was running a meet-and-greet with the animal shelter, took a turn. HUG WITH PUPPY $5. FREE HUGS FOR LIFE WITH ADOPTION.

  One nerdy teenager hung out a shingle: AWKWARD EYE CONTACT WITH MUMBLED COMPLIMENT, $4.62 (EXACT CHANGE ONLY, PLEASE).

  He was outdone by a man with multiple facial tattoos and piercings: AVOID ME ENTIRELY, $20.

  Even the priest of St. Augustine’s Church did his part. INDULGENCES, 50¢.

  At the end of the day, the coffee booth had raised close to $750 in perks.

  “Last call,” Trelawney cried.

  “Last hug.” Jav turned in a slow circle with his sign. He caught sight of Alex and yelled, “Alejito, come on, don’t leave me hanging.”

  Alex reached in his pocket and counted off some bills. “What does forty bucks get me?”

  “Hug and an ass grab.”

  “How about sixty?”

  “All of the above with fifteen-second makeout.”

  To wild catcalls and hoots, Alex dropped the cash into the booth’s collection jar and advanced on Jav, miming a Binaca spray into his mouth before going in for the clinch.

  “Get ready to be ruined,” he said in Spanish. His hands reached toward Jav’s head and for a moment, the universe ceased. The laughing cheers of the crowd stretched out long, like a record slowed down. Faces blurred into one face. The wicked grey-green of Alex’s eyes and the bright, clean outdoor smell coming off his clothes. Muscle and bone, white teeth within the red of his smile.