LOST

California, June 28, 2013.

At first glance, the Bakersfield Californian’s headline failed to grab John’s attention. He was too busy stirring the sugar stuck to the bottom of his coffee cup. Then he sat up--so suddenly the coffee splashed over the words, “California Approves Gay Marriage!” He grabbed his cell and punched in the message: “did you see the headline? gay marriage oked. can’t believe it! we’ve got to celebrate tonight!”

Pablo’s response was lightning fast, “yes! yes! yes! rubio’s at 8.”

That night they sat on bar stools at their favorite counter-top, eating fish tacos and wiping dribbles of salsa from their lips between exclamations of disbelief. While holding an engorged tortilla, John spoke between swallows. Childlike sparks danced in his eyes as he rubbed his shoulder against Pablo’s in foreplay. They sat there planning how to celebrate the new law.

Pablo swallowed the last of his meal, let the remaining mouthful of lemonade slide down his throat, and twisted his lips into a pout. He slipped a hand under the table and placed it on John’s leg, giving it a squeeze: “We’ve got to find a place away from here where we can really celebrate together without your parents giving you a bad time. It’s hard to really celebrate around here and keep the truth of us from your family.”

“Exactly! I feel the same,” said John. “And I’ve got an idea. Right now there are really cheap airline flights to Puerto Rico. Let’s go there for a week.”

Pablo lifted his head, removed his hand from John’s leg, and let his words escape--painted in doubt, “What about your parents? Your mom won’t want you to be alone with me for a week. She’ll try to dissuade you with stories of hurricanes and other disasters.”

“I’ll tell them the cost is so low that I can’t afford to miss the opportunity. They’ll appreciate the fact I want to save money and that I wouldn’t be traveling alone. Even if it is with you. I think I can sell the idea.”

“Well, okay. If you can do it, I’m all for it, but, damn, your folks have a way of keeping us apart.”

As Fate would have it, thirty days later, with only carry-ons in hand, Pablo and John hopped a flight to the island. Their plane touched down at the Luis Marin international airport in San Juan where they were whisked away by taxi to their hotel in the historic part of the city. Their third-story window was graced with a panoramic view. To their left lay the inland bay and cruise ship docking area. To their right, the Atlantic’s ink blue waves undulated endlessly toward them from the horizon line.

Pedro flopped down on the king-sized bed and stretched his six-foot frame into a cross. His coffee-colored eyes focused on the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of the ceiling fan and mesmerized him into sleep. As he drifted away, the deepest of breaths inflated his lungs and remained there for a fleeting moment, then returned to the room through his barely parted lips as if escaping the tiniest puncture in a balloon. Without a sound, John removed Pedro’s shoes and his own, then cozied down next to his lover. As he did so, he moved aside one arm of the human “cross” and rested his hand in Pedro’s.

The next morning the weather man made a bad call. He forecast a typically sunny day. Instead, when Pedro pushed aside the sheet that had covered their unclothed bodies for the night, staggered sleepy-eyed to the window, and whipped open the black-out drapes, it wasn’t sunlight that greeted him.

No. It was a sulking maleficent sky. Where yesterday there had been white pop corn dancing against the blue, only murky patches of moist air snaked across the heavens, threatening rain.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Pedro, pulling on his briefs, spoke first: “Well, that’s not what I expected today. Are you still willing to be a tourist and trot around this five-hundred year old town with me?”

“You bet! I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I can hardly wait to walk inside the old El Morro fortress. I got a glimpse of it yesterday from our cab. It’s a monster of a place, high on that point of land, and almost completely surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. And this town…blue paved streets, three-story buildings, shade drenched corner parks, quaint cafes, and pigeons galore. God! What a place! And everything on a hillside! I’m ready to see it all—regardless of a little rain.”

During the morning, Pedro and John trapse the streets of the historic town, peer down its narrow Callejones (alleyways), visit the denizens of pigeon park, and peruse the multitude of colorful tourist shops. By noontime, the sky becomes gloomy. They pause midday on the hilltop above the old city to relax at a table in a canopied café called La Buena Vista (The Good View). In the distance, behind El Morro, the surface of the now black Atlantic contorts itself in restless swirls and convulsive waves. Like the cape of one of Disney’s venomous sorcerers, the sky threatens to tent the city in darkness.

John folds his hands together in front of him, allows a quirky smile to cross his face, and speaks: Just look at that view of El Morro!

“I’m so glad we’re here. It's the most wonderful place I've ever seen. I just love this spot,” John says as he lowers his head and stares into Pedro’s wanting eyes and whispers, “I love you. ”Pedro shoves the menu aside, reaches across the table, and rests his hand on John’s laced fingers. “I love you too, Babe,” he says without hesitating. If it weren’t for this damn weather, we could see past the cruise ships and into the Caribbean Sea as well as far across the Atlantic. Maybe tomorrow things will improve.”

Off in the distance, lightning etches its way along the brooding horizon. Its glint lines thrust deep into the angry waters.

As the men begin their meal, the stench of rotting seaweed and molted seagull feathers waft across the open eating area. Pedro and John comment about the smell of ozone as it begins to taint the air, but neither of them recognize it as the harbinger of things to come. Thickening clouds continue their advance toward El Morro.

Near the cruise ships, brooding seagulls hunker down along the docks and stare out to sea, swaying in the wind. Their claws clutch dockside mooring ropes. Their wings tuck tight against them in the restless wind.

Fitful bursts of dank air lift flurries of dung-splattered sand from nearby rookery dunes and pepper faces of citizens as they hunchback along cobblestone streets and dart helter-skelter into slivered doorways.

Perched high on its rocky crest and overlooking the hillside’s twisting streets, the fortress waits--windows shuttered, doors barred. Its presence taunts the sea.

Thunder rumbles over the town and its inhabitants.

Violent winds and rain wrench leaves from stems, crush branches against trunks of trees, and ram raging water through red clay aqueducts and hillside drainage ditches.

Salt spray congeals. It mats hair and pastes clothing to those who scurry along sidewalks. Torrents of water ravage and plunder store fronts and shops. Storm drains plug with bicycles, poultry cages, and animal carcasses. Sewage spews into the streets.

Plunging from fortress bulwarks and ramparts into town, the deluge sloughs away retaining walls, surges over sidewalks, pries open window frames, crushes sills and thresholds, streams through cracks in wood-plank doors, races across courtyard terraces, and hangs in sheets, mucus-like, from window screens.

From their hilltop lookout, Pedro and John stare at the mayhem taking place before them. Suddenly, a waterfall of rain pours down from the canvas canopy and blocks their view. They move their chairs together and hold hands, unaware of the rivers of soil now leaving the tunnels and channels and storm drains under them… unaware of the settling and shifting earth below them… unaware of the widening hairline cracks appearing in the buildings around them.

A sudden burst of thunder and the lights in La Buena Vista flicker and die. Pedro puts his arm around John.

At the base of the hill, runoff water batters its way into homes and shops. The ravage tantrums from room to room. It rages along tile-covered floors, beneath cotton curtain hem lines, and drum rolls its way from sagging ceilings into tin buckets on the floors.

The maelstrom flails the air with its deafening cadence as it yanks away inner walls and pulverizes its way through windows. It rips, smashes, tears, and flushes away.

The canopy of La Buena Vista sags. Rain crawls across the quarry tile floor and under the tables. It seeps beneath the shoes of the two men still sitting there. John grabs Pedro’s hand, “We’ll get wet, but we’ve got to get out of here NOW!”

Hand in hand they race into the curtain of water as La Buena Vista’s canopy sags to the ground, its canvas fabric vanishes into the open pit forming where the young men’s table had been.

Across the crest of the hill they run, John leading away from the fortress toward the entrance to old town. His hand grips Pedro’s. They run. They race toward safety.

The rifle crack of snapping rock sounds behind them. The earth trembles. They race and race and race. The plateau where they ate snaps and breaks apart. It slips away and drifts downhill on a batter of broken chairs and tables and sinks and toilets.

Panting, their lungs on fire, their clothing a second skin, Pedro and John reach the outskirts of safety. They turn and face El Morro and the old city.

Fatigue is written on their faces as they lean against each other’s shoulder and watch. Their fingers find refuge in each other's hands.

The fortress quivers. Its massive ramparts moan into the wind and crumble. The towering, roiling, viscous rubble slips ever downward, scouring its way through the town, splintering wooden store fronts, crushing stucco cottage walls, and suffocating everything in its path. It fills lungs with liquid, and mouths with mud, smothering brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers in its descent.

The town grows quiet.

All is encased...silent...lost.