Angel Board

by Rufty, Kristopher

  YES. The eye dashed across letters, spelling. It was hard to follow the pace, but David kept up the best he could.

  D-A-V-I-D.

  He laughed. It wasn’t funny, but he didn’t have any other way to respond. And he didn’t know what else to say. Luckily, she wasn’t over-anxious to keep the words coming.

  P-R-O-T-E-C-T.

  David soundlessly mouthed each syllable as she spelled them. “Protect? What? Me?”

  YES.

  “From what?”

  The pointer hesitated briefly before sliding to one letter. U. Then stopped.

  Waiting for it to continue, he began to understand that was all she had intended on spelling. “U?” He thought it over for a moment. Didn’t take him long to figure it out. “You mean, me. As in y-o-u.” He felt that guilt again. “As in me.”

  YES.

  She has to protect me from myself. It made sense. He’d tried offing himself once before. She must have felt that it was her right to do it since he couldn’t do it himself. Realizing that made him feel small—not just that, diminutive. Of one thing David was certain, he never wanted to return to that void, or as Mom had called it: The interface.

  It was lonely there, frightening, total quiescence, and the feeling of total abandonment. He felt himself wanting to cry just thinking about it.

  “Why do you protect me?” David’s voice was soft, sated with emotion.

  The pointer slowly scanned each letter, making sure he understood what she was trying to say.

  L-O-V-E.

  “Love?”

  It hovered to the letter, U. Pulled back and continued. A-L-W-A-Y-S-U.

  David’s cheeks felt as if they were burning. His chest felt heavy, but without the shame or guilt. This was different. She’d only signified two words, but they’d told him everything. She wasn’t there for him because she had to be.

  She loved him.

  “Is it a love like someone would feel for a pet?” He raised an eyebrow. Waited.

  NO.

  “What kind of love is it?”

  T-R-U-E.

  A tear welled in his eye, escaped, and streamed down his cheek. It caught on the fresh batch of whiskers at his jawline a moment before dripping onto his sleeve. He didn’t notice.

  “Are you in love with me?”

  There was that hesitation again. Then, carefully, the indicator eased its way to YES. David sighed, not in annoyance, but in reprieve. It pulled away from YES and wrote out, D-E-E-P-L-Y.

  Wow. How can this be? How could she really love me? This can’t be real. There must be so kind of trick to this.

  He thought about asking a random question, something that couldn’t have been preinstalled with a generic answer to his generic questions. As much as he wanted to believe, he still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t some kind of voice recognition cabaret, a premeditated hoax.

  An off-the-wall question just happened to come up.

  “So, do you watch me?”

  YES.

  “All the time?”

  YES.

  Here it goes: “Even when I’m in the shower?”

  The pointer pulled away from the YES, and shot back again. YES.

  Was that enough proof for him? Almost. He decided to go all or nothing with this next one.

  “Do you like what you see?”

  The pointer circled the board twice, swiftly, before spelling out the answer.

  I-W-A-N-T-B-E-W-I-T-H-U.

  David’s heart lurched.

  “Did you say you wanted to be in the shower with me?”

  YES. A-N-D-U.

  The flowing current soared through him again. This time much more fiercely. Commencing in his fingertips, it traveled up his arms, to his neck, and into his head. There was a flash behind his eyes, blinding. He couldn’t see anything in front of him but white. It was bright. It hurt his eyes. Then he saw her. The one from the bathroom, the one who had saved him. The stinging in his eyes vanished. He saw her eyes, her form. It was hard to distinguish much about her features, but he saw enough to know she was so beautiful that he was blessed to be looking at her. Another flash and her eyes were closer. They were curved, slanted up at the corners, an Asian-like quality about them, but deeper. Milky white in color, and pure. Everything about her was pure, chaste. Her skin the color of snow, firm and solid.

  Another flash and it was all gone. He was back in the living room. His body soaked in sweat, his clothes clinging to his skin as if he’d emerged from a lake wearing them.

  He began to sob. He leaned up and set the board on the coffee table. David was drained, exhausted. His body felt worn out, as if he’d used every muscle he had to its peak. All he wanted to do was sleep.

  S-L-E-E-P.

  “Yeah…good idea.”

  And as if turned to off, he succumbed to sleep.

  For the first time in years, he slept without waking. When he woke the next morning, he didn’t feel groggy, or cruddy, his hand didn’t punch the snooze button when the alarm went off. The bags that had heckled him under his eyes for so many years were gone. Even his smile seemed heartier. His skin glowed with a restored radiance he thought was long lost.

  Dressing for work, he contemplated taking the board with him, but quickly decided against it. How would he explain to his workers what it was, or why he had it? Leaving it here would be best, plus it gave him something to look forward to when he came home.

  The end of his ten-hour shift seemed miles away, but he wasn’t dreading it. For some reason, he had a feeling today was going to be miraculous.

  Chapter Seven

  David arrived at the store fifteen minutes early. The parking lot was empty except for the few cars of other employees. George, Brad, Martin, Stephanie, Shaley, and Michelle had all arrived.

  Not that many people here.

  Considering it would be a hellacious day, he’d assumed there would be more staff on hand. The day after Christmas could be just as bad, if not worse, than Black Friday. David decided to take this last calm moment before the storm of his day to smoke a cigarette. This was a routine of his. If he arrived at work early enough, he’d sit in the car, smoke, and mentally prepare himself to go inside. However, today, he didn’t really want a cigarette. He looked at the pack next to him on the seat and felt a little nauseated.

  David didn’t want that cigarette after all.

  He looked back at the store and groaned. Being a manager at Office Warehouse wasn’t something David was incredibly proud of. It was a terrible job with decent pay. Nothing more than that. The work was tiring and degrading. He could go back to school, but who really had the time for that? It had been years since he’d attended Basalt Quarry’s community college, and had been regretting dropping out with each waking breath and thump of the snooze button.

  Thanks to his high school years, focusing on college had been agonizingly hard. Constantly being picked on and ridiculed wounded him and made him unable to handle the daily grind of classes. He’d enjoyed them, but hated the people who attended. Sometimes, he even hated the instructors. Feeling he was smarter than most of them made it hard to respect them. Plus, most of them acted as if they’d rather be somewhere else.

  He’d been tempted many times to just quit Office Warehouse. But if he did, then what? It was a risk he was too scared to take, but desperately wanted to.

  He glanced at the clock in the dash, saw he had ten more minutes to go, and decided to head on inside.

  When he closed the store’s main doors behind him and relocked the bolt, he spotted Martin pushing a cardboard display rack of holiday stationery to the front. His face was red and sopping with sweat. The short hair on his head was doused flat. He saw David coming, stopped, and balanced the rack against his hip. “You’re in early.”

  “Yeah,” answered David. “I thought I’d go on and come in. I’m sure you could use the help.”

  “No doubt. But be warned, George is on the warpath this morning.
”

  Great. When was George not on a warpath? Since David returned to work, George had taken it upon himself to make life even more difficult for him at the store. George wouldn’t share the credit, or take any of the blame for David’s motives in doing what he’d done. The man was known as a Bible thumper. Before church on Sundays, he was sure to stop by the store to ream any employees on the clock and make the day even more stressful for whatever manager happened to be stuck on duty.

  David despised him for everything that he was.

  Martin wiped his brow with his forearm. “Sorry I couldn’t make it to your mom’s for dinner last night. We got held up at Sheena’s parents’. All her family wanted to spend time with the baby. We hardly got the kid out of there in one piece.”

  “That’s understandable. It’s his first Christmas. That’s a big deal.”

  “Did I miss much?”

  Did you ever.

  David momentarily considered telling Martin about the angel board, but stopped himself. It was a secret he wanted all for himself. He’d share it later if he felt like it.

  He opted for, “Nah, just that Amber had too much to drink and—”

  Martin threw his hand up. “I got it. I bet it wasn’t so bad that I didn’t see that.”

  David was glad Martin had missed Amber’s outbursts, but he really wished he could have been there. It would have helped having his back-up when Amber had gotten out of hand.

  Martin started working at Office Warehouse last year and had quickly become David’s best friend. He was younger than David by six years, but they were alike in so many ways, and both seemingly traveling the same, loutish path in life. Martin had dropped out of college to take care of his girlfriend when he discovered she was pregnant. Ever since, David had taken it upon himself to make sure Martin achieved everything in life that David had neglected himself. Starting with college. Knowing Martin would just keep putting it off because of little Matthew, David was very vocal about him going back to school in the spring, even agreeing to accompany him to class registration in March. Perhaps, he’d register also.

  “Well, get back to work, man, I don’t want to bring George’s wrath on you.”

  Martin laughed. “It’s cool, I’m not worried about fatback.”

  “Fatback?” David laughed. “That’s a new one.”

  “Yeah, at dinner last night, Sheena’s mom made a pot of green beans and she put some fatback in it. The way it looked after it boiled reminded me of the back of George’s neck. Fat, pudgy, and wrinkled.”

  “That’s good, I like that.”

  “I thought you would.” Martin grabbed the sides of the display, tilted it back. “I’ll give you a call one day this week, we’ll hang out.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Catch you in a little bit.” Martin pulled the display to the front and disappeared into the lobby, David assumed, to search for a place to dump it near the holiday clearance marked seventy-five percent off. Martin was a hard worker, yet highly underpaid. There was a brief pang of regret in his gut. He couldn’t place why, but he suddenly missed him.

  David marched for the back, sneaking into the empty break room, and clocked in. Put his wallet and cell phone in his locker. Then marched with the stealth of an assassin to the rear stockroom. Entering through a side door, he found the cavern-like area eerily quiet. He’d expected to find George back here, clipboard in hand and barking orders at anyone unlucky enough to cross his path. He’d planned to get the morning criticism out of the way.

  Instead, he found the shelves had been neatly stacked with the furniture back-stock, lined up by the manufacturer and part numbers. As he strolled by, he observed the tidiness and effort put into each section. Someone had worked really hard in organizing them. He wondered if it had been Martin.

  David stepped around the corner and saw the door to the trash chute was standing ajar. Around the corner on the sidewall was where they kept the cardboard baler. Brad, his co-manager, was breaking down boxes that had been left in a provisional pile on the dusty floor.

  Now he knew who’d done all that work on the furniture.

  Brad, a man nearing fifty, was bent over the cardboard, chucking pieces over his shoulder into the baler. With the flick of a wrist, he whipped the box cutter blade down the bottom and sides in such a quick motion, you’d never notice what he’d done until the box collapsed into a straight sheet. It was pretty impressive, really.

  Brad’s hair was nearly completely gray. When he’d signed on to full time there were only a few erratic streaks in his full, black hair. Each workday, Brad would appear to have lost another pound or two of weight. David worried about the man’s health.

  Approaching Brad, he said, “Good morning.”

  Brad glanced up, smiled. “Good morning, David. How was your Christmas?” He dropped a recently cut box into the baler’s opened mouth.

  “Pretty good. Went to Mom’s for dinner. Ate with her, Amber, and Sam. It wasn’t too bad.”

  “Sam was there? I’m so glad to hear it. I’m happy for you. The two of you working things out?”

  David politely smiled. “Not hardly.” He realized he hadn’t thought once about Sam since leaving his mother’s last night. He was surprised to find that this didn’t bother him. “I didn’t invite her, Mom did that.”

  “Well, she must know what I know, and that’s you two are a match.”

  “You think so?”

  Brad frowned, nodded. “It takes time. No need to rush it. Let it come naturally, and you’ll see that the road will lead you where you need to be.”

  Quickly changing the subject, David said, “So, how have things been working out this morning?”

  Brad groaned. “It’s just been the pits.” That was Brad’s refined way of saying he hated his job. “I’ve been here since six, and George has had me back here reorganizing.”

  “Looks good.”

  “Thank you.” Brad took a deep breath to let the compliment settle before continuing. “We’ve had two call-ins already this morning, I’m sure more are coming.”

  “That would explain why the parking lot looked more empty than normal.”

  Nodding, Brad continued. “We’ve got a novel of markdowns for the after Christmas sale. Plus, when I came back here, I noticed that no one bothered to break down the boxes and dump them. So I’ve been doing that.”

  Examining the baler, David sighed. “And from the looks of it, we have to make a bale. She looks pretty full.”

  Brad peeked inside, took a deep breath, and slowly let it exhale. The air hissed between his teeth. “That just beats it all.”

  David laughed. “No worries, I’ll help you. Let’s do this first, then we can just toss the rest inside the baler. Hell with breaking them down.”

  “Sounds fine to me.” Brad scratched his chin with his hairy hand. For a guy his age, he was drenched with hair. Hands, ears, and nose were thick with it.

  As they began to work, David asked, “How was your Christmas?”

  “Wonderful, thanks for asking. Had all the kids and grandchildren over. I got a special edition of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers on Blu-Ray. You should come by and watch it.”

  One of the many things David liked about Brad was their shared devotion for old, black and white sci-fi movies. Sometimes David found it unbelievable Brad had stayed married to the same woman for so long. Especially after Brad informed him that he slept in Star Trek pajamas. Takes one hell of a woman to put up with that.

  David gripped the metal wheel on the gate and turned it to unlock the baler door. It squealed as it turned. When it wouldn’t turn anymore, David heaved it open. Inside was crammed full, packed tightly to the top with mangled cardboard. Lucky for them it hadn’t jammed yet.

  “When was the last time someone made a bale?” Brad asked.

  “Looks like too damn long.”

  “I agree. Sometimes I wonder if we’re the only ones that ever do.”

 
“You might be right.” David groaned. “I’m gonna go and grab the wires. You wanna get a pallet?”

  “Sure. I need to warn you though, we’re out of the good wires. All that’s left are the cheap ones.”

  David stopped walking halfway and turned around. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Wish I was, pal. George never ordered any.”

  “Wait, I put in an order myself two weeks ago on the supply list. They never got ordered?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Perfect. We’re going to kill ourselves doing this.”

  “Hey, you’re preaching to the choir, kid. I almost lost an eye one time, remember?”

  David did remember. It was a scary sight. The wires were used to strap down the cardboard into a giant block. One of the cheap ones had snapped, slicing Brad just shy of his eye. David rushed him to the emergency room where Brad had six stitches put in. But apparently, Brad’s injury hadn’t been enough cause to spend a little extra of the store’s budget for the good wires.

  “Let’s just be extra careful,” said Brad. While he pulled a wooden pallet from a stack near the trash chute, David walked to the opposite wall of the baler where a round tube was installed on the wall. Dozens of cheap, flimsy wires dangled loosely out of each end. He removed eight. They wobbled uncontrollably in his grip. He met Brad at the baler as he was dropping the pallet in front of it.

  It echoed thunderously in the outsized stockroom.

  Keeping four wires for himself, he handed the rest to Brad. “I’ll go around back. Let me know when they start coming through.”

  “Got it.”

  David vanished behind the baler as if finding a secret passage hidden behind the machine. A moment later came a sound like a rat chewing through sheetrock as David began feeding the wire through the slot. “You see it yet?” asked David.

  “Nope. Almost there though, I can hear it.” His voice muffled behind the baler.

  “Well, keep back, I don’t want to stab you.”

  Laughing, Brad said, “You’re fine.”