The General and the Horse-Lord (3 page)

“Hello, Gabriel.” John reached up, traced his fingers along Gabriel’s strong jawline, across a mouth that had always curved into a smile at his touch. Gabriel moved his hand down into the curly brown hair that covered John’s belly and chest, still mostly brown, with just a few notes of silver. Gabriel said the silver looked good, matched the color of his eyes.

Chapter 2

G
ABRIEL
stayed longer than usual, drowsing against John’s shoulder, touching his skin. When he’d left, late enough he’d have to come up with a good excuse for Martha, he’d pressed John’s palm to his mouth, his eyes closed, like he was imprinting the feel of John’s skin in his memory. John did that too. He thought sometimes his secret life gave him a strength he wouldn’t have had otherwise. His memories, his time with Gabriel, seemed colored like autumn leaves, a quiet, golden joy that sat near his heart and sustained his spirit.

He was thinking about something Gabriel had said, about how hard it was to find anything real in the world. John had felt this too. Was it the changing times or the changes in them as they got older? The warrior’s life was simple, basic, but very real. Reality focused your mind until it was as sharp as a spear. But when old warriors retired, their armor started falling away, and the noise of the world crowded in.

The door from the garage flew open, and Kim danced into the kitchen, waving something that looked like pieces of a science experiment. Kim never just walked into a room. Since he was a toddler, he’d burst or danced or flew. The art of a dramatic entrance was in his back pocket. “How’s my favorite uncle this morning? I would have brought this over last night but I saw you had the Horse-Lord in for some evening coffee. He stayed late, huh? You confirmed bachelors must have had a lot to talk about?”

“He’s not a confirmed bachelor, Kim. He’s married and has a family.” John felt a little irritated at his darling nephew. “Don’t be an ass. We’ve been friends since Beirut.”

That got him a flash of disapproving black eyes. Kim unloaded his armful of glass beakers onto the cabinet and started assembling them. “What is it with you military guys? You don’t talk in years. You talk in events, like you were there.
We’ve been friends since Beirut.
Oh! Wait a minute! You
were
in Beirut!”

John didn’t need to say anything. Kim would act whether he had an audience or not, like his life was one long comic monologue.

“Ta da! How do you like this? Isn’t it a beauty? Where’s that Kona coffee?”

What was that thing? It was a collection of glass beakers and bulbous jars hooked together by spirals of glass pipette. “Kim, have you made an illegal still? Please don’t blow up the garage.”

“It’s not a still! But you’re very close. It’s a coffee pot. But that’s like saying the space shuttle is just a big airplane. This baby brings a whole new level of science to the art of coffee brewing.”

“Does the art of coffee brewing need new science? I thought you said the French press was the pinnacle…. Never mind. Okay, so how does this work?”

Kim was filling the top glass bulb with water filtered through the Brita pitcher. He fitted a black rubber stopper in the bottom and attached a length of glass pipette to a hole in the rubber. He poured coffee grounds into another glass ball and fitted the pieces back together. “This baby is worth grinding fresh beans.”

They both stared at the coffee machine. John thought he noticed a structural problem. “Kim, I don’t see how the water will ever come in contact with the coffee.” The two elements were separated by several lengths of curly glass tubing.

“Oh, it does! Just one drop at a time.”

“One drop at a time,” John repeated. “And so this one drop falls into the coffee? One drop at a time? So how long does it take to brew a… bulbful? And how does it stay hot until you drink it?”

“See, it’s not designed for a quick morning cuppa. It’s an all-day-long affair, this coffee. And you don’t drink it hot. You drink it cold.” Kim was giving him a look now, daring him to say anything. John had long experience with this nephew, though, and his projects, so he moved to the French press and poured himself a cup.

Kim studied his contraption and John studied him. He was dressed in a black tee shirt that said Ho Ho’s on the front, decorated with a graphic that appeared to be a huge, yawning mouth, with teeth and tongue, and a pair of old camo pants that had belonged to John back when they were still wearing camo for the jungle, not the desert. “Are you going to work? You don’t have any classes?”

“I’ve got a class at eleven. I’m going in to do the lunch prep. I’ve got to work tonight, though, so don’t wait up for me.”

John stared at the back of his head until Kim whirled around, setting the pale blue braid near his left eye whirling. “What?”

John had been thinking about the group of reference books on his desk and a nephew who was too smart for his own good. A nephew with a peculiar sense of humor. “Read anything by W.E.B. Du Bois lately?”

Kim widened his eyes, a look of such innocence John knew he had him. “What in the hell were you thinking? I nearly flunked the entire class. I made them do an oral defense of their papers. I should have known. You’re the only person who knew I had just reread
The Souls of Black
Folks
.”

Now Kim was genuinely shocked. “An oral defense? Are you kidding me? Holy shit! But why the whole class? I only wrote five of them. You’re pretty slow on the uptake, Uncle John. I thought you would have figured it out by the first paper.”

“I estimate one out of twelve students actually wrote their own paper.” He sat down at the table. Kim did not look the least guilty or sorry. He looked like he had pulled off a huge prank. “Kim, can you please just….” He didn’t know what to say. So what was new? Kim had been rendering him speechless for years.

Kim swooped down and landed a kiss on his forehead. “Not to worry, Uncle dear. I have a career plan, I promise I do. I made two hundred and seventy-five bucks off the papers, but that’s just chump change, and it gave me a chance to stretch my brain. I’ve got bigger plans. I’m going to be a drag queen!”

K
IM
had been the darling of his tiny Catholic orphanage in Seoul. There was no question, from the moment he had crawled delightedly into John’s sister’s arms, which baby they were going to take home. John’s sister and her husband had stayed with him on base while they worked through the lengthy system for foreign adoption. The Koreans required a six-month wait between the initial application, done in person, and the final award of adoption. When they had gone back to the States for their six-month wait, John had walked the two miles from his quarters to the orphanage nearly every evening to check on Kim. Kim would see him from across the tiny playroom and climb over the furniture and any playmates in his way to get to his big uncle. The boy would reach his leg, and then tug on the cuff of his pants. Two tugs, and John would reach down and pick him up. It was their secret signal. Kim still did it, though John couldn’t believe he remembered that far back. When he was in trouble, when he’d been so outrageous he scared himself, he would curl up next to John and give his sleeve a couple of tugs. And John knew it meant his baby needed to be picked up, lifted high above the scary world.

I
T
HAD
been a long and dull week, and John was happy to hear Gabriel’s voice. “I’d like to see General Mitchel if he’s available.”

John listened from his office. His shared admin, Cynthia, had been in a snit for two days. “We have a
Dr.
Mitchel here. Is that who you mean?”

Gabriel didn’t say anything. A firm, upright posture, calm face, and silence, left most of the world rethinking what they’d just said, and scrambling to readjust.

“Just wait a minute. I’ll see if he’s free.”

“No need, thank you, Cynthia.” John was at the door, held out his hand to Gabriel.

“Sir, do you have a few minutes?”

“Yes, of course. Come on in.” John looked at Cynthia, didn’t say anything until she broke eye contact and started searching her desktop. “Will you hold my calls, please?”

“Yes, of course, General. I mean, Dr. Mitchel.” Her face was shading to red now. She was the kind of woman who seemed to attract little cloudbursts of drama and disaster. John did not give her the attention her behavior usually garnered from older male faculty members, and he was wondering what she would do next to punish him.

John closed the door. “Hi, Gabriel. You got time for coffee?”

“Sure.”

“This pot of coffee took over twelve hours to brew. Kim’s rigged up some contraption that’s taken over the kitchen. I set it up at night and pour two smallish cups into a thermos in the morning. He instructed me to drink it cold but I believe in the power of microwaves.”

“That’s one of those cold coffee brewers?” John looked at him in surprise. “I’ve seen one. Martha showed me in the store. Seems to me if you want cold coffee, you can brew a pot in five minutes and then let it sit around until it gets cold.”

“Or you can dump some coffee grounds in a pot and pour in the water and let it sit until you’ve got thirty seconds to drink it. I’ve had coffee like that lots of times. With you, if I recall correctly.”

“It was pretty damn good at the time.”

“So, did Martha buy one?”

Gabriel shook his head. “I said something like ‘the Emperor has no goddamn clothes on,’ and she got embarrassed and called me an asshole and left me in the store.”

John poured two cups and put them in the microwave to heat. “Family okay?”

Gabriel shrugged and sat down in one of the chairs facing John’s desk. “Families are really hard work some days. No, not some days, most days.” He turned to John, ran both hands back through his dark hair. “You remember when we were in Bahrain? And we went downtown and ate at that place that had the good tandoori?”

“The place with the donkey walking in a circle next to the well?”

“Yes, exactly. I think that donkey walked in circles for his entire life, around and around and around, pumping the water. That was his life. If he slowed down, the old man hit him with a switch. They let him loose when he dropped dead. Today I feel like that donkey.” He was speaking very carefully. Men like them, they gave up a lot to have families. Peace of mind, mostly. Free time. All of their money. “We should have kicked that old man down the well and busted the donkey loose. He wouldn’t have made it very many days, running wild in the souk, but he would have died free.”

“You’re such an American.”

Gabriel looked good. He was wearing a pair of charcoal-gray trousers with a nice military crease and a pale blue button-down. His tie was an elegant red with pale blue stripes. John enjoyed looking at a well-groomed man, one who took pride in himself and his appearance. He handed Gabriel a cup when the bell rang on the microwave. His skin was the warm brown of coffee with lots of cream. Not that either of them indulged in cream, not at their age. John took the other chair facing his desk and set his coffee down. “How do you like it?”

“Tastes good. Fancy,” he added. “Rich berry notes, as Kim would say. You can count on the kids to take something utterly simple and make it more complicated than it needs to be. I think they’re bored. Did you see that kid cooking empanadas with a solar oven down on Central?” John nodded. “I tasted one. Pretty good.”

“First time I saw his truck, I thought he was trying to contact aliens with that thing. Send a beacon into space. And it didn’t strike me as the least bit odd he would be doing that in front of the university.”

Gabriel set his coffee cup down on the edge of the desk. “Have you seen Kim the last couple of days?”

“No. I’ve heard him come in from work but he’s usually still asleep when I leave in the morning.”

“I went into Ho Ho’s at lunch today.” He shook his head slowly. “That is the most dysfunctional excuse for a restaurant I have ever seen. I saw two women get into a food fight, screaming and throwing pot stickers at each other’s heads. After it was all over, they got out a push broom and swept everything up.”

“Two students?”

“No! Two of the women behind the counter! The ones serving food!”

John was laughing now. “Oh, God. That sort of place would hold a magnetic attraction for Kim.” He studied Gabriel’s face, saw some lingering trouble. “What’s wrong?”

“Somebody took a punch at his pretty face. He’s got a fat lip and what looks like a little mouse under his right eye.” He held up a hand, and John realized he’d stood, pushed his chair back. “Hold on, partner. Let’s think for a minute. Don’t go in without backup.”

John sat back down, felt his face shading dark with embarrassment. “Did you have a trial today? You’re looking very lawyerly.”

Gabriel nodded. “Mock trial at the law school. One of my old profs asked me to help out. The rest of the crew struck a blow for freedom of expression and wore hoodies. I blew them out of the water before the game started by reminding them of their grandfathers. They were distracted and off their game from the moment I walked in the room.”