Do They Know I'm Running

One

ROQUE SAT UP IN THE PREDAWN STILLNESS, STARTLED AWAKE BY a wicked dream: menacing dog, desolate twilight, the sticky dampness of blood and a sense he was carrying some kind of treasure, something he’d have to fight to keep. Rising on one elbow, he glanced past Mariko toward the bedside clock. Three-thirty, the hour of ghosts. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he told himself it was time to go.

Gently, he tugged the sheet from her sleep-warm shoulder. She’d want to be wakened before he gathered his clothes and slipped out. “This kind of thing isn’t known for its shelf life,” she’d told him once. “I want to make the most of my chances.”

Twenty years separated them-practically a crime, given he was eighteen. He realized there were probably clinical terms to explain the thing, especially since he was motherless. In his own heart, though, it felt simple-they both were lonely, he liked her a lot, she seemed to like him back and he enjoyed getting his ashes hauled, an inclination she happily, at times rabidly indulged. The sex was always instructive, seldom routine, often kinky, especially once she cracked open that second bottle of wine. If any of that’s a problem, he thought, let somebody else worry about it. Every important connection he’d ever had was with someone older than he was-musicians, librarians, a cop here and there-why should this be any different?

She had her back to him, sleeping on her side, pillow balled tight beneath her chin as she snored. The dim glow of the clock reddened her shoulder, and he traced the back of his fingers across her arm, caressed her hip, the skin tight and smooth, then guided his thumb along the little trough of muscle in the small of her back, moving on from there to cup one plump cheek of her culo with his palm. She stirred finally, burrowing her face into the pillow to stifle a yawn. Lifting her head, she whispered over her shoulder, eyes glistening with sleep: “It’s you.”

He took a moment to study her profile in the dim light, the distinctive shape of her eye, the girlish lashes, the pudgy nose. “You were expecting…?”

She blinked herself awake, moaned and barked a raspy cough into her fist. “Hope springs eternal.”

Roque waited. “Oh yeah?”

“Tell you what-do me a favor, before you go?” She wiggled her can.

The musk from their earlier lovemaking still lingered, mixed with the vaguely floral tang of cold wax from a dozen tea candles scattered across the hardwood floor, their flames spent. “Just go back to sleep,” he said, recalling the scene from earlier, tiny tongues of fire all around as they thrashed and rocked and cried out, shadows quivering high up the bare white walls. Mariko, a Buddhist, had a flair for the ceremonial.

“No, I mean it.” Her voice was fogged with drowsiness and she writhed luxuriously in a kind of half stretch, burying another yawn in the pillow. “It’s okay.”

“It feels, I dunno, wrong. You half asleep, I mean.”

“For God’s sake, Roque, it’s all wrong. That’s what makes it so delicious.”

Sure, of course, that’s what this is. Wrong. He shook it off. “You know what I’m saying.”

She flipped over, finger-parting the tousled black hair framing her boxy face. “There. Awake. Better?”

“Don’t be mad.”

“Who says I’m mad?”

“I just-”

“Shush. Kiss me.”

He leaned down, instantly hard at the touch of her mouth, even with her breath sour and hot from the wine. It scared him sometimes, the intensity, the need. She wasn’t what any of the guys he knew would call a cosota linda, a looker, and with that a song lyric ghosted up:

So make your mark for your friends to see

But when you need more than company…

They’d met back in May during Carnaval, San Francisco’s biggest Latino celebration outside El Dia de los Muertos, with samba dancers shimmying through the Mission in feathered headdresses and Bahia skirts while drum brigades hammered out a nonstop batucada. Bands of all kinds and every level of smack played hour-long sets throughout the weekend: ranchera, salsa, bachata, calypso, charanga, cumbia, reggaeton. It was Roque’s maiden gig with Los Patojos, a salsa-funk outfit in the Azteca/Malo/Santana mold but with a jazzier edge, and when Lalo called him onto the stage near the end of the set he introduced him as “The best young guitarist I’ve heard in a long, long time-Roque Montalvo!” They ran through three numbers to wrap up the hour, a reggae-inflected tune-up of Tito Puente’s “Mambo Gallego,” a timba reworking of War’s “Ballero,” and the finale, a double-time cumbia vamp on an old Byrds tune:

Don’t forget what you are

You’re a rock ’n’ roll star

“Hey!” Her rough hands locked at his nape and she tugged at his shoulder-length hair. “Where’d you go?”

He shook off the memory, busted. “Sorry, I-”

“You’ll make an old lady self-conscious.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Oh please.”

“I mean it. Really-”

She cut him off with another kiss, lingering, a nibble here and there, a swipe with her tongue. Refocused, he reached down, probed gently with his fingers, parting the feathery lips to get at the warmth inside, already moist. She moaned, a deep soft purr from the back of her throat, encouraging him, guiding him. He’d been such a wack lover when they’d met, all the usual young slob faults-the selfishness, the fumbling, the rush. Except for two girls he’d met at gigs, his pre-Mariko love life had been limited to pumping the muscle and wishful thinking, and the two exceptions had been disasters of opposite kind, the one girl just lying there in sweet-natured panic, the other thrashing around in such unconvincing bliss he’d almost stopped mid-fuck to ask if she was having a seizure. Mariko had taught him to relax, focus, think of it as dancing. Not the best analogy, perhaps, musicians being such clueless dancers, but he’d come around.

She said, “I want you inside.”

“So quick?”

“I didn’t say quick. I said inside.”

She guided him in. As always, he shuddered-so perfect, that feeling, like finding home.

“Just that,” she whispered. “Don’t move. Okay?”

She hooked her legs around his, locking their bodies tight, nuzzling her hips against his before returning to her kisses, deeper now. Another moan, this one longer, rose in the pit of her throat, followed by a tremor quivering up her spine.

Despite himself, Roque’s eye strayed toward the bedside clock. Three forty-five now. Soon Tio Faustino would be out of bed, getting ready to leave for the Port of Oakland where he worked hauling drayage. Tia Lucha would be preparing breakfast and getting ready for her shift at Food 4 Less. Godo would be stirring too, if he’d slept at all.

Drawing back his glance, his eyes met hers. She broke off the kiss, unwrapped her legs. “I know you have to go.”

“It’s just, you know-”

She cupped his face in her palm. “It’s all right.”

Godo was his half brother, back from the war. He spent his nights lurching around in bed, popping painkillers and antidepressants, chasing them with beer, unable to muster more than a few minutes’ sleep at a time. Better the insomnia, though, than the nightmares. It was why Roque couldn’t share the room anymore. No telling who or what Godo might mistake him for when he bolted awake, screaming.

“Sorry,” he said, thinking: You’re saying that a lot.

“Don’t be.” She brushed his face with her fingers. “It’s been lovely. It always is, Rocky.”