The General and the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari Read online

  “So you’ve been pretending to be a homeless Arab street musician, and you’ve been taping the responses in different cities. This is part of Kim’s MFA show?”

  “Yeah,” said Abdullah. “The weird thing is, and this is what we weren’t expecting, is people were bigger assholes when I was playing the cello! I mean, how weird is that? It’s not like Bach has been driving people mad for centuries, you know? To really draw some conclusions, though, we need people of different ethnicities, all about the same age, all playing the same pieces, and then we can evaluate differences in response without wondering about confounding variables. It might not be anything at all to do with ethnicity. My theory is people in America associate Bach with wealth, because it’s commonly used in TV commercials about mutual funds, and that’s where the hostility comes from. It’s the economy.”

  John caught himself rolling his eyes. “That’s the second time today I’ve heard the economy being used as an excuse for idiotic behavior.” Clearly Abdullah was a willing participant in whatever social experiment Kim was fomenting.

  “The other thing is, I don’t think most people even recognized I was Arab American. I was just dark, you know? I mean, I was in Reno and this guy spoke to me in Italian. That’s when I decided to grow the beard and let my hair get a little bit longer.”

  Gabriel turned to the back seat. “So you were trying to look like a wanted poster or Jesus Christ wandering in the desert? Son, didn’t you two think it might be a little dangerous?”

  Abdullah shrugged. “Well, sure, but sometimes you have to hold a mirror up to the world, Uncle Gabriel. Change isn’t easy. The other homeless guys, they were really nice. Especially the vets. They’re all older, like in their sixties and seventies, but they were all like, ‘Son, you need some help?’ ‘You know where to get food?’ ‘Don’t sleep by the underpass, that’s too dangerous.’ I really liked them. It was like they were the guardians for Underground America.”

  John felt his heart seize up a bit at “Don’t sleep by the underpass,” but he wasn’t going to say anything else. Not until he had some time to think.

  The sky had darkened to black and blue by the time they pulled into the driveway. Abdullah had slept most of the ride back, after they had stopped for some baby wipes so he could clean the blood off his cello case. Kim came out to the car to meet them, pulled open the back door, and stared in at him while Abdullah stirred and blinked open his eyes. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

  Abdullah shook his head, handed the cello out the back door of the car. John studied Kim, but didn’t say anything. He looked like he was holding it together with spit and a shoestring. “Where’s Billy?”

  “The kitchen. He’s making salad for supper.”

  Gabriel sighed and studied the sky. Billy had taken to fixing them main-dish salads when it was his turn to cook. He looked at John over the top of the car. “I knew we should have stopped at that Whataburger.”

  John felt the sudden tightness across his lower back, some weariness that reminded him he was fifty-two and had just driven nearly eight hours to Winslow and back. “Come for a walk with me? We can let them have their fight in private.”

  “Yeah, I’ll walk with you. Looks like a pretty night.”

  John stuck his head in the kitchen door. Billy was reading on his Kindle, the ingredients of the salad spread all over the kitchen. He looked like a deconstructed still life and seemed pleased when John told him this. “Gabriel and me are going for a walk. You want to come with?”

  Billy shook his head. “I think something exciting is about to happen,” he said, gesturing with the Kindle. “I’m going to make corn muffins to go with the salad.”

  “Sounds good. Where did they go?”

  “Out to the garage,” Billy said. “They took the cello. I hear nothing, I see nothing.”

  Their neighborhood was mostly small, older houses, with a few four-plexes that served as student housing for the university. John thought the home values were elevated a bit from the location, in walking distance to the funky Nob Hill neighborhood that seemed to be the strangely beating heart of the university.

  The night was cool and dark, perfect for walking, and Gabriel stretched his shoulders a bit.

  “I have to stop running pretty soon,” Gabriel said. “My knee’s getting worse. And the more my knee hurts, the more I want pie. I’ll be packing on the pounds, and then I’ll get diabetes, like my mother.”

  John studied the flat belly, the long, lanky frame next to him. “We could let Billy have another day cooking. I don’t mind the salads so much. It’s good practice to go to bed hungry.” He reached over, slid his palm low over Gabriel’s belly. “Man, I love to do that. Always have.”

  Gabriel reached down, captured his hand and held it against his warm skin. “This is how you touched me for the first time. And I could tell by your face you were trying hard to resist me. That’s why I peeled out of my flight suit right in front of you. I wanted to give you every assistance.”

  “It was appreciated. I thought you peeled out of your flight suit because you were bleeding.”

  “Getting shot was all part of my plan to seduce you.”

  John laughed, wondering what he had ever done to deserve this man in his life. They’d been running for the chopper. Gabriel had a rifle in one hand, his other arm around John’s back, his fist wrapped tightly around John’s belt, like he would lift him up and carry him if he didn’t run fast enough. John had needed no encouragement, since they could hear the shouts and the heavy thud of feet in combat boots behind them. John twisted a bit to loosen the .45 from the holster, and he heard the high whine, felt Gabriel jerk beside him. “Keep going, Colonel Mitchel,” he’d said, and tightened his grip. When they’d reached the chopper, John grabbed the rifle, laid down a pattern of fire that gave Gabriel time to get the bird in the air. The punks had waited until the chopper was circling before they stuck their weapons around the broken concrete corner of the building and fired again. John was waiting for them with his eye pressed to the scope.

  Back at the airfield he’d pulled Gabriel into the command tent, secured the weapon and tossed it onto his cot. Gabriel’s flight suit had a small, bloody tear about waist level. Gabriel twisted around, clapped his hand over the bullet wound. “Ouch. Those little shits.”

  “Are you bleeding? Let me see.”

  “I’m fine, Colonel.”

  “That wasn’t a request.” John was tearing through his field kit, pulled out a thick pad of Kerlix gauze. “Don’t be shy. What, have you got a tattoo you don’t want me to see?”

  Gabriel stared at him, then he reached up and pulled down the zipper on the front of his flight suit. John reached out with the gauze, ready to slap it on, but Gabriel was moving slowly, doing a tough guy pilot striptease, dark eyes blazing with heat.

  “Knock it off, Sanchez.”

  “Sorry, sir,” he’d said, not looking sorry at all. “You’re gonna have to help me with this.” He shrugged one shoulder out of the flight suit. “Just pull it down.”

  John pulled it off his other shoulder, left it bunched around his waist.

  His tee shirt was bloody and torn, but there was no blood oozing between his fingers. Gabriel lifted his hand, let John press the gauze in place, then he pulled the tee shirt over his head. No tattoos, just warm brown skin and lush black hair that disappeared like an arrow into the waist of the flight suit. Then he grabbed John’s other hand, held it across his belly, slid it down into warm, damp skin, past the waistband of his boxers, down into the heat, and darkness. “Hold it just a little bit harder, sir.”

  “Sanchez, what are you doing?”

  “Nearly there, Colonel. Just a little bit further, there, there, don’t move, don’t move… keep holding me….” and when John had lifted his head, heat flushing across his skin, his mouth falling open, Gabriel had reached down and kissed him.

  “I KNOW where we can get some pie,” John said.

  “Mannie’s?”

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p; John nodded. “They use lard in the crust, along with butter. I wish I didn’t know that, but now I do I can taste why they have the best piecrust outside of Navajo land. One of the cooks is Navajo. She told me if I wanted a piece of real fry bread, she’d drop a piece for me into bubbling lard. That’s how she said it, too, drop it into bubbling lard, and for some reason it sounded good, fry bread cooked in lard.”

  “We both need to get our cholesterol checked,” Gabriel said and took his hand. “We split one piece of pie, now I know about the lard, then back home to our salads. I remember when I was a kid, watching my grandmother make tortillas with corn masa and warm water and a little bit of lard. She cooked them on a big, flat griddle, and every time she slid a batch of cooked tortillas off the grill, she’d slide one to me.”

  The neighborhood was quiet. The houses seemed lit against the darkness by squares and rectangles of yellow light, the occasional blue shadows of TVs and computer screens. When they got to Central Avenue, the lights and the noise of the kids on the street looked like a carnival.

  “Grey lives down here,” Gabriel said, pointing to some new high-rise condos. “I know those things start at about $450,000. Trust fund baby,” Gabriel said, smiling down at John. “He’s got a very limited experience of the world. He wears blinders made out of American money. I think in his heart he wants to be a fashion designer and wear outfits with fuchsia feathers and kitten heels in the privacy of his own high-dollar condo, but being gay was the only thing he could expect his family to swallow with grace. They embraced his being gay, as long as he still was planning to go to law school. That’s how he saw it, anyway.”

  “He never thought about the service?”

  Gabriel shook his head. “No one in his family served, as far as he knows. Besides, he says the uniforms are ‘too butch.’ Which is okay to hang with, but not if you have to wear one, too.”

  John felt himself grinning, and he reached down, slid his hand over Gabriel’s fine, curvy ass. “Oh, yeah, very butch. Maybe one day we can take Grey to see the Army Rangers. I have a feeling he will reevaluate his definition of ‘butch’.”

  “That would be fun. But not quite yet, John.” Gabriel slid an arm over John’s shoulder. “I’m getting a lot of work out of him at the moment. If he realized I’m not the meanest bastard in the jungle, he’d probably defect. As it is, he thinks he’s being very eye spy and is having ladies lunches with my wife.”

  “With Martha? Really? What’s that about?”

  “I think she’s wondering when we’re going broke, and is pumping him for information about the firm. She doesn’t want to ask me, but she’s worried about money. He likes to gossip and doesn’t realize she’s playing him. He may be a trust-fund baby, but he’s not as bright as Martha.”

  “She must have heard me say that information is a critical tool for the warrior-philosopher.”

  “She roped him into lunch with a different tool. A Coach tote bag in lemon-yellow leather, with a silk scarf tied to the handles that he actually squealed over. She propped it up on his desk when she came into the office. It was a bit of a fuck-you to me, since I told her we needed to stop buying Coach handbags and pay off the credit cards. She said it was her divorce bag, the last decent bag she would be able to afford for years to come, and then she asked if I was going to stop buying hot air balloons. And, I mean, she had a point. So I dropped it.”

  “Women have handbags for different occasions? Not just to match their outfits?”

  Gabriel slid him a look, a slow grin. “Yeah. They do.”

  “How’s the practice?”

  “Running on empty. The lawyers, the bank account, but mostly the clients. Everyone hanging on by their fingernails. I blame the economy.”

  “Who doesn’t? That seems to be the refrain of the day. Is this what you want to do, Gabriel?”

  “For now. Maybe not forever. I can’t say I enjoy watching every penny so close.”

  “You’re worried about money, Martha’s worried about money. Are you and I going to talk about money?”

  Gabriel wrapped an arm around John’s shoulder. “John, I’m doing the best I can.”

  “I know, Gabriel. We’re sharing a bed, and we’re sharing a bathroom, and I wouldn’t hesitate to share your toothbrush, but neither one of us has mentioned sharing a checking account. Are there still some things we can’t talk about?”

  “It’s….” Gabriel hesitated. “I admit that is harder than I anticipated. I don’t know why.”

  “We’ll need to address this at some point, I suppose,” John said, “if we want to move forward.”

  “Move forward?”

  John pulled him around so he could look into Gabriel’s dark eyes. “So we can move from being lovers to being a family. If that’s what you wanted. Maybe you already have a family, and you don’t want another one and you need to keep it simple. I don’t know, Gabriel. I’m feeling my way blind here. But we seem to be dancing around money a little bit.”

  “I’m not paying anything for my share of the house. I only pay for groceries when I go to the store. It makes me feel a little uncomfortable,” Gabriel said. “I don’t want to feel like I’m freeloading.”

  “I’m thinking we ought to pool our resources so we can take care of our big extended family together, and you’re thinking about giving me half of the electric bill. We’re not quite in the same place in our thinking on this. I hate organizing the money. I was hoping I could turn over the entire thing to you to manage. A little added benefit of having you in my bed in the morning, sex and financial management rolled into one hot pilot.”

  “What, you want me to manage your investments and everything?”

  “I’m not really into investments. I do have a savings account.”

  “John, where’s all your money? Do you… I mean, you have been keeping some back all these years, right? For a rainy day?”

  “Well, I assume the federal government is not going to stop pay to retirees anytime soon, and I do have the savings, and some is set aside for Kim.”

  Gabriel was studying him, a frown between his eyes. “John….”

  “Money was never important to me, Gabriel. I can’t get excited about it. And, if I’m being honest, I assumed I would always be able to work, that I’d be getting a paycheck. How did I end up at fifty-two, unemployed? But a warrior lives a simple life, right? I mean, how much do we need?”

  “Yeah, you need me to take over the money. We’ll work it out, boss. I feel like my plate’s overflowing right now.” He pulled John close. “Thanks for giving me some time. And some space.”

  When they got home, they ate supper with Billy in their cheerful tangerine kitchen. After dinner, Gabriel took his phone to the back porch to talk to Juan. The magazine had been out for a couple of days. Billy had asked at dinner if Juan had seen it yet. Neither of them knew. Gabriel was out on the porch for a long time, and when he came in, he went straight to the shower, stood under the hot water for a long time.

  Before he went to bed, John stuck his head into the garage to check on Kim and Abdullah. Neither of them had eaten. The lights were out, and the room was lit by a couple of thick squat candles the color of beeswax. The candles cast a warm sweet light over the room and the boy lying asleep in the bed. Kim was naked, the sheet tangled and low over his hips, and in his sleep he had reached out, put his hand on Abdullah’s leg. Abdullah was sitting on a chair next to the bed, the cello between his knees. He was playing a song for Kim, something quiet and lovely, maybe Bach. The candlelight flickered and warmed his face, left his broad shoulders in darkness. John closed the door again as quietly as he could.

  Gabriel was already in bed, his caramel skin warm against the white of the pillowcase. “Are they okay?”

  “I think so. How’s Juan?”

  “He’s seen the cover. He didn’t read the article. He said his mother did, and then she took a Valium and went to bed. He had to fix dinner for himself and Martie. Mac and cheese.”

  Chapter 5
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  JOHN received a couple of interesting e-mails the next morning. Gabriel was up and gone early, with plans to stop by his house and have breakfast with the kids. The first e-mail was from an old colleague and fellow retired brigadier general, David Painter. John didn’t particularly like the man. They had worked together several times in the past. Painter was good, had what John would call episodic brilliance, but his work tended to be sloppy. He didn’t always put in the time and research that John felt was needed for their work to bring about lasting change. He also tended to be sloppy in his dress, in his personal manner, as if his wild and original mind meant the same rules didn’t apply to him. But they knew each other well, both strengths and weaknesses. John winced at the name on the e-mail, thinking Painter was exactly the sort of man he did not want to discuss his coming out with in any detail. Not that he had much choice, since he’d splashed every bit of privacy he’d ever had across the cover of Out magazine.

  The second e-mail was from Abdullah, a very polite thank you note to himself and Gabriel for rescuing him yesterday. John looked at it for a moment, appreciating Abdullah’s good manners, and then he replied: Are you sending me an e-mail from the garage? Or have you skipped town already?

  The answer came moments later: I’m in the garage.

  If you would like, you can come into the kitchen and speak to me in person.

  Abdullah wrote back: I’m about to climb into the shower. See you in a few minutes.

  John shook his head at the screen for a long moment and wondered if Abdullah and Kim e-mailed each other from the bathroom. No, e-mail was dead, he’d read that somewhere. Instant messaging? Texting, that was it. So much easier than speech, apparently. Maybe they would evolve right out of their vocal cords and human communications would consist exclusively of written messages and a few grunts and gentle hoots, like the great apes.