Harlan's Race

tossed a bit of glass into the water. The nearest gull thought it was a tidbit, and lunged toward it.
    “Poor Jacques,” I said.
    “I can’t believe he’s dead,” Betsy said. “Marian told me a little. What’s the story?”
    ‘Well... Eileen left Jacques after they found out they were both positive,” I said. “At first she hated him, hated gays ... So she took Ana and went home to Michigan. Her parents punished Jacques by paying for treatment only for Eileen ... Jacques had no money. Finally Eileen was turned off by the attitudes, and she came and found us in L.A.”
    “And her parents are still trying to get custody of Ana,” John growled. “On grounds that Eileen is an unfit mother because she has AIDS. My firm is handling the case. And Ana’s negative.”
    “So what happened to Jacques?” Betsy asked.
    “After Eileen left,” I said, “he stayed at his field camp on Maui, working. Vince and I paid for his treatment. Finally, we hadn’t heard from him in a while, so I flew to Maui. I’ll never forget it — this dying man laying in his filthy tent ... brilliant-colored birds everywhere in the forest around him... the sound of their calls. His assistants had left, scared. I brought him back to L.A. He’d wanted to do something for the Earth, and he felt like he’d FUBARed everything. I spent three weeks trying to help him forgive himself. He was in a lot of pain, so the doctor put him on a morphine drip, and he went to sleep in my arms.”
    My eyes welled, remembering.
    “His Hawaiian assistant, Eric, wrote up the study,” Michael added. “He presented it at the next IUCN conference.”
    “How’s Eileen doing?” Betsy asked.
    “Hanging in there. She’s gotten tight with us. Ana is a great kid. She’s Falcon’s age,” I said.
    Sixteen years ago, three lost boys had come winging to me for help. Two of them had died in my arms. In time, the third one might die in my arms as well. Where was the wisdom and beauty in this? Whatever it was, it was making me hard. So hard that their swords would break in half over my shoulders.
    We lost Harry,” Chino said sadly. He tossed a
    V V bit of glass in the water.
    “And Russell,” John added. “Too bad you didn’t know him.”
    “Doctor Jacobs,” Vince put in. “Died of the thing he tried to warn us about.”
    “I knew about Joe,” said Betsy. “I read the obit.” Marian gently tossed a bit over the side.
    “I still miss him,” she said softly.
    Astarte, silently dreaming with the baby inside her, took Marian’s hand.
    Without speaking, I let another wild gem slide in the water.
    Billy, you’re not such a young bird any more. You’ve grown old lingering here with me. Time for you to fly.
    And one more beach diamond — the last.
    Chris, I’ll give you one more thing. Freedom from my judgment. I don’t have time to be angry or sad anymore. There’s more important things to do.
    The glass sank out of sight.
    My palm was still full of wild jewels. Precious lives to be guarded, precious days to be spent together. Wisdom and beauty to be shared. Wars to be fought. Races to run.
    ‘Well,” Vince said dryly, “I’m too fucking busy to die.”
    Betsy smiled crookedly, her arm around Vince’s neck. They were sitting close now, like two teenagers on a campus lawn, talking homework. She tweaked Vince’s nose.
    “None of us,” she said, “believed you and the Neanderthal would last the summer.”
    As Vince slid me a loving look out of the corners of his narrowed eyes, a passing speedboat flushed the gulls into the humid sky. All those wings caught the light, as they lofted higher and higher.
    Clearly remembering Marla, Betsy bit her lips. We all caught her emotion.
    “Feels like you’ve run that 100-miler,” I said to her.
    “I hope I have a friend waiting at the finish,” she retorted.
    After hesitating, Betsy put out her tiny hand — a hummingbird’s talon. I put some of the beach glass in her palm, and closed her fingers around it. Right away, she put a gem in the water for Marla.
    “How do you know I’m not about to blister you with my kick?” I asked.
    Betsy tossed me a grim little grin.
    “Because,” she said, “I already reeled you in, ten miles back.”
    Moving with one mind, that galaxy of wings made a stately rotation above the marina, commanding the entire horizon. They dwarfed even the distant towers of Manhattan, far out of sight beyond the sulphurous wall of smog to the west. Now and then, each gull