“Coop, something’s wrong with me.”
“Well blinding flash of the obvious, Fredo. With what you eat every day—a diet straight from hell, man—what do you expect? You think you’ll be thirty years old forever? You’ll feel young and invincible the rest of your life?”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means that your old fairy godmother over here,” he thumbed at his own chest, “is telling you you’re gonna die if you don’t start watching what you eat. I make jokes about it all the time.”
“Tell me about it.” Fredo wouldn’t look at him. He noticed a couple of high school hotties intent on landing a nice SEAL enter the bar with barely anything on. This also wasn’t like him, but this morning, he checked out every luscious detail. He had the most beautiful wife on the Teams, not Coop. Mia, the Puerto Rican bad girl bombshell had become his sex kitten and wife, totally devoted to him, totally loving doing all kinds of nasty things to him that blew his mind on a regular basis. Why in the world would he be looking elsewhere? But today, he was.
Coop noticed. “You’re an asshole, Fredo. You guys have a fight? Am I here to give you an alibi so you can go fuck some frog hog? That it?”
Fredo stood to lean over the table, toppling his beer and trying to grab Cooper’s polo shirt. Coop, too quick for him, backed up two steps. He returned a gaze Fredo was ashamed to admit made him feel terrible.
Coop threw down five dollars and turned to leave.
“Wait.” Fredo was hyperventilating. “I need some help.”
“Fuckin’ A you do, Fredo. Is it your time of the month? Or did Mia cut you off? What the hell’s going on?”
Fredo looked at the mess on the table. “I need to get out of here. Let’s go.”
“Sure.”
Just before he ducked going through the doorframe out to the Strand and the bright street in Coronado, Coop added, “We gonna hold hands now and make up?”
Fredo kicked him in the butt and followed behind. They ambled down the block, then crossed the street and headed toward the neighborhoods at the approach to the beach. Cooper was taking his lead from him, searching everywhere else but not looking his way, which Fredo was grateful for. The two close friends knew each other well. Coop knew Fredo would eventually come out with it. Problem was, Fredo didn’t know how to put words to what he was feeling.
A block away from the sand, Fredo found his voice. “I had a bad dream.”
“Really.” Coop stopped, putting his hands on his hips, and stared back at his best friend. “This is all about a bad dream?”
Fredo sighed. “Yes. I think so. Maybe something is wrong with me, but this dream was a total nightmare. I just don’t know how to explain it.”
“Just fuckin’ breathe, asshole. And try. I need to get back to Libby. I’d much rather be there, but I’m here for you, man, as long as you don’t take too much time.”
They approached the sand, which was already warm. Fredo’s flip flops allowed the white grains to calm his toes. At least that part of his body was soothed.
“I’m dreaming about babies.”
“Now I’ve heard it all,” Coop said as he sat down abruptly. “You. Dreaming about babies.”
“Yes, my babies. Lots of babies.”
“So where’s the nightmare aspect of this? You’ve been obsessed with babies ever since you had that fuckin’ doctor’s visit. I told you it was unhealthy to look at your own sperm. A man should never do that.”
“I know, Coop. This has nothing to do with that.”
“Oh, yea? I imagine Mia dreams about babies, too. What’s the matter with that? Maybe it’s God’s way of telling you that you need to come clean with her, let her know the truth. You guys are young and healthy. You should look for kids to adopt that need a loving home like yours.”
“Well, maybe I’m not so healthy after all.”
“Now, there’s no fuckin’ surprise there.”
“Maybe it’s up here.” He pointed to his temple.
“Like you’re going batshit crazy, Fredo? That what you mean?”
“Or something like that.” He shrugged and sifted the sand with his fingers. He liked the warmth on his butt. Now his fingers were warm, too. Being here was helping. It was making it easier to tell Coop the impossible details of the dream. Or so he thought.
“I’ve never had this dream I had last night. It started out okay. I’d just come home from deployment, and Mia and I were—you know the routine.”
“I sure do. Best part of being a SEAL, in my opinion.”
“Right. Me, too.”
“And?”
“Well, we were making love, and the next thing I knew, her belly was getting big right under me. I was pumping her up like over-inflating a bicycle tire? A balloon.”
Coop looked at him like he’d looked at the camel spider they’d dug out of the garbage on one mission overseas. “I can’t say as I’ve ever had that image before, Fredo. I’ve fucked my pregnant wife plenty of times. It’s not a nightmare. It’s a fuckin’ beautiful thing. Seeing her big belly and all.”
“No, when I was—she wasn’t pregnant. But right in the middle of it, her belly became distended, and she began to have a baby.”
“While you were having sex? I can’t see how that’s possible.”
“Not while, well, I pulled out, I guess. I—I just watched as she delivered a baby, but then she delivered another, and another and—”
“Excuse me. This is not making sense, Fredo.”
“It makes no sense to me, Coop. My house was suddenly filled with toddlers.”
“Like zombies? Day of the Dead sort of thing?”
“Oh no! They were beautiful children, all smiling, curly haired.”
“Boys or girls?”
“What the fuck difference does it make?”
“I thought maybe it could be a Freudian thing, you know.” Coop’s turn to shrug. “Libby’s dad could help with this, you know.”
“I have no idea. I wasn’t looking at their sex, man.”
“Hard to miss that one. But you’re right, that’s a fucked up dream all right.”
“It was like that Disney movie where he kept getting the buckets of water and they wouldn’t stop. You know that one?”
“Fantasia?”
“Yeah. The kids kept coming. Right in front of me, they grew to walking size. They started talking.”
“What did they say?”
Fredo looked hard at his best friend. “Hi, Papa.”
“You mean like in Dracula?”
“Fuck no. Like a little kid would say to his daddy.” Fredo noted the worried look on Coop’s face deepened. “You do believe me?”
“Of course I do. That sounds exactly like the kind of dream I could see you having. With all the shit you put into your body, no wonder you dream about birthing babies. I’m surprised you don’t see tamales with little arms and legs running around your house and beans and tortillas floating through the air. Your diet, man, sucks.”
“It’s gotten better. I’m trying to eat vegetables.”
“Um hum. Don’t lie to me, Fredo.”
“No tofu. I refuse to eat tofu. The traditional Mexican diet is healthy.”
“Lard. Corn meal. Cooked goat. Sure.”
“Haven’t you ever studied anything about cultural anthropology, Coop? Our traditional diet is actually healthy.”
“Fuck, Fredo, your ancestors were eating human sacrifice.”
“And yours were eating Englishmen and fucking their wives. Those Viking assholes smelled like fish all the time. Something major wrong with that.”
“They conquered the known world with their kippers, Fredo. They battled the cold, each other, the rough seas, pirates. And yes, they ate fish.”
“And drank like hell, too.”
“That they did. But just what does this have to do with your dream?”
“I’m saying we each eat what we are culturally predisposed to eat. What’s natural for you isn’t natural
for me.”
“Except your diet gives you sperm with dented heads.”
“I don’t think that has anything to do with it. Just the way I was made.”
“So if you’re so perfect, why don’t you tell her, asshole?”
Fredo didn’t have an answer for that one.
Chapter 2
‡
GUNNY’S GYM WAS crowded today. Timmons was doing a circuit training for several of the “silver foxes” as Fredo called the former SEALs and lifers from Marines and regular Navy. Older gents with beer bellies and huge arms covered with tons of tats—more so than the younger military men. Used to be full sleeves were the norm, but now it was somewhat discouraged. BUD/S instructors made life hell for the new recruits who came loaded up.
Grunts, groans, and loud expulsions of air were common during these sessions. Timmons could bark just as effectively as he did when he communicated what the Head Shed had in mind for SEAL Team 3 back when he was the Team liaison. In his retirement, he found new love and a purpose in life, but he could slip back into ordering everyone around like he used to. The more he drilled fitness into the older guys, the more he began to sound like Gunny, Amornpan’s first husband who had passed some three years prior. He’d even taken on the role of being father to the half-Thai youth and only offspring Gunny knew about, Sanouk.
As Fredo began his own PT, he noted how everyone in the community had a place. No two men on the Teams were alike, nor were they supposed to be. They all came from different cultures and backgrounds. Some grew up privileged, but most of them came dirt poor with nothing else agenda-wise but becoming an expert killing machine. It was a coat of armor that was common to all of them, forged from resentment and their upbringing. Every one of the Team Guys was completely and nearly religiously comfortable with it.
The difficulties came when the Teams were home, so intense PT was required. Routine travel to specialized trainings often broke up the long weeks between deployments, which was especially helpful if some of them were having trouble adjusting to “normal” life. But life was anything but “normal” when they came back, based on what they’d seen.
Single guys found it hard to keep up with their ladies and often lost them while on deployment. Married men struggled, too. The SEAL Community came first in all respects. They blended their families into the community, not the other way around. Some wives, like Lucas’ ex-wife, Connie, went completely nuts over the rotation. Her world wobbled and eventually tilted, sending her completely away from the whole scene. But Lucas had demanded and eventually got custody of his three kids.
Fredo was raising another man’s son, little Ricardo, Mia’s baby born to a gangbanger now serving time. And he still mentored Julio, the at-risk teen who helped them weed out a predatory gang intent on keeping the community park project stymied. One of their other Team Guys, Danny Begay, was also fathering a little orphaned Iraqi boy, Ali, whom they rescued on their last mission. Their little community was becoming quite international.
Julio, Old Blue Eyes as he was teased, was now fifteen and had successfully stayed out of the San Diego gangs. The Center project was completing the rebuild, with classes starting again, and Julio was considered to be Fredo’s eyes and ears to the neighborhood, his right-hand man. Ephron, Julio’s older brother, had nearly made it to the Teams as a first rate medic before his murder. Fredo and other volunteers from Kyle’s SEAL Team 3 felt they owed a debt to Ephron’s family, as well as his whole neighborhood. It was working. Fredo was proud that the violence was dropping and more and more kids were showing up at the after-school center, instead of wandering the streets and getting snared by trouble.
Amornpan, Sanouk’s mother, came up to Fredo as he was dropping his hand weights.
“Mr. Fredo, Chief says I should talk to you about starting a dance class at the Center. You think the girls would be interested?”
Fredo found her charming, quiet demeanor very alluring, although she was old enough to be his mother. She cowed her eyes as her mother no doubt taught her growing up. Fredo knew this is what had snagged Gunny’s heart and also kept Timmons a very satisfied retired Master Chief.
“Dancing, as in the Thai dancing your group does?”
“Yes. I can get donations for the costumes from the Thai community. If I have the girls who want to learn. Do you think it would be…appropriate?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Well, they know nothing about my culture, my language. Not sure they even know where my country is.” Her pretty eyelashes covered in tiny silver specs fluttered demurely like a young girl’s. “But I can teach them to dance. Give them something to think about outside of what they see every day.” She angled her head to the side, like one of her dance moves and unpeeled her palm, her fingers with long white fingernails curving up to heaven. Her graceful motions were part of the way the woman moved every day. And it was downright distracting. More than one gruff SEAL had dropped a weight on his foot due to his lack of focus.
Fredo examined his fingers, opening and closing them slowly before he looked up at the exotic beauty in front of him. “You will need Timmons to come with you, or one or two of the SEALs. Still a little dangerous there. Not a good idea to have you there at night, either.”
“But that’s when they’ll be free to dance. Daytime, girls are in school. At least that’s what I want. I want them to learn. Sanouk said he’d help me as well.”
Fredo suspected Sanouk had his own reasons for wanting to be down at the youth center, and he suspected it had more to do with the young Latina girls than anything else. Fredo and other Team Guys devoted a fair amount of time to raising funds for the Center’s computers and some first-rate tutors. It was one of the most popular classes and was jammed with participants, especially the young girls.
The lines between language and culture were blurring more and more every day, he thought, warmly. The transgression Gunny had in Thailand and the birth of his son, Sanouk, was now bearing fruit thousands of miles away in a community reeling from an oppressive culture that wasn’t giving the neighborhood a chance. In a way, Gunny’s seed had begun to liberate children halfway around the globe, which was as it should be, he thought.
“If you can get adequate backup, I say, why not?” Fredo grinned and noticed how Amornpan’s face glowed with joy.
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Fredo!” She grabbed him in a bear hug before he could discreetly step aside. Her exuberant displays of affection erupted often and without much warning. She did remind him of his wife, Mia, in that way.
“Can I ask you something?” Fredo whispered after she released him.
“Sure. What is it?” She glanced over at Timmons who was scowling, having caught a peek at the bear hug.
“Is Julio okay? Has Sanouk said anything about him to you?”
“Sanouk doesn’t talk much about him. I just know he’s interested in the computers.”
Fredo was careful with his words. “I’d love to see those two become closer. I think it would be good for Julio. Sanouk can be an older brother type to him.”
“I agree. I will ask him. May I tell him you suggested he try to work more closely with Julio? He thinks so much of you.”
This tickled Fredo a bit. He hadn’t noticed it in his dealings with the polite young man who wanted to become a SEAL one day. And because Sanouk was Gunny’s flesh and blood, the Team was going to do everything possible to get him ready for a tryout at some future date.
Fredo knew he needed to spend more time at the Center, but with Mia on the mission to get pregnant, he was somewhat hampered for time. He would have enjoyed it more if he knew he could give her more than just a good time in bed. He wanted to give her a child and could not.
Thinking of his dream, he shuddered.
“You are not feeling well, Mr. Fredo?”
“No. I’m fine. Just a little tired.” At least part of that was the truth.
Her wide and knowing smile decorated her pretty face. Almost as if she knew what had
been keeping him up late nights.
A bell rang at the top of the front door. Cooper’s massive frame hesitated for a second, drowning out the sunlight, then came over to Fredo and the Thai woman. “Yo, Amornpan. I see Fredo’s got you distracting him so he can cut corners on his workout today.”
“Always my fault, see?” Fredo said to her. “I never catch a break.”
“We were talking about Center things. I think it was a worthwhile conversation,” she said in her heavy accent. “I approached him about teaching a dance class there.”
Coop’s eyebrows rose. “Fredo. You Thai dance?” he said as he rolled his neck around and juggled his arms and hands at right angles, like they’d seen beautiful Amornpan do during several recitals.
She laughed easily. “Coop. You so funny! Such a funny SEAL.”
She abruptly whirled around and wafted away from the two SEALs mesmerized by her graceful movements. Everything the woman did looked like a dance to Fredo.
“Now that will be something to watch. Seeing those little Latinas doing all those dances with the anklets and finger cymbals.”
“Christy and Libby will want to join in. You ready for that?”
“And not Mia?”
“Well, she dances all day long with Ricardo. She dances when she does housework.”
He smiled and picked up his hand weights again. Cooper fell in beside him and after a brief warm-up, the two of them began alternating on the equipment.
Cooper hung his head so he could speak more in private. “You tell her yet?”
“Tell her what?”
“Fuck sake, Fredo. You know what the fuck I’m talking about.”
“I just told you yesterday, no. No. I’m not going to say anything. It’s our secret.” He peered into his friend’s blue eyes. “Fuck better stay that way too.”
“I feel you. It won’t come from me. But Fredo, she’s gotta find out some day.”
“I’m not ready.”
“You are having sex, right?”
“Shut up, Cooper.”
Fredo’s voice carried louder than he’d intended. Several of the silver set looked up from their concentration, frowning.
Fredo's Dream: SEAL Brotherhood: Fredo Page 2