Angels Unaware

by Lisa Deangelis

  They quarreled about Leon’s drinking, or as Leon preferred to call it, his “love of the grape.” Leon made his own wine and brandy and drank it faster than he could make it. And when in his cups, he would recite verse at length; we girls were an appreciative audience to his recitations, but Norma would just role her eyes and call him Count Shit-in-the-Sink.

  The worldly hope men set their hearts upon turns ashes—or it prospers; and anon, like snow upon the desert’s dusty face lighting a little hour or two—is gone. This he read from a book he frequently kept under his arm like ministers did the bible.

  When I asked his advice about how to become a successful innkeeper, he told me:

  Into this universe, and why not knowing, nor whence, like water willy-nilly flowing: and out of it, as wind along the waste, I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing, which wasn’t really helpful.

  A year after their arrival, I had to ask them to leave. I hated to see them go. But their fights had reached a pitch where Mrs. Hennessy, across the way, was calling the sheriff several times a week, and my aversion to the police was greater than my liking for Leon and Norma.

  On the day they left, Leon drew me aside. “I don’t have no money to pay you, Darcy,” he told me regretfully, “and I’m the sorrier for it. But there are three things I am gonna leave you that are better than money. One is the truck.”

  Leon had patiently taught me how to drive the rusted-out heap that he and Norma had arrived in. Grateful, I nonetheless wondered if his leaving it had anything to do with the fact that he’d been unable to get it started for the past month.

  “The other thing I’m leaving you is this.” He picked up his shotgun, the one I’d always been afraid he’d one day use on Norma.

  “What’re you leaving that for?” I asked dubiously.

  “Oh, you’ll understand what to do with it when the time comes.”

  “How will I understand?”

  He spread his arms wide and looked up at the sky and I knew I was in for another recitation.

  Then to the rolling heaven itself I cried, asking, ‘What lamp had destiny to guide her little children stumbling in the dark? ‘A blind understanding!’ heaven replied.

  “ Here,” he added, handing me a leatherbound tome. “Everyone should have a book of Persian poetry.”

  RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM was etched in gild leaf across the tattered cover.

  “Who’s Omar Khayyam?”

  “Some smart old Persian guy.”

  After a while, he turned back to me and said, “You know, when I was a young man living in New York City, I used to love to go to the theater. And it seems to me when you think about it long enough, we’re all just actors in one another’s plays. We each have our part to perform, whether we want to or not. Maybe your part in my play was to help me and Norma out while we was down on our luck. And maybe my part in your play is to give you this gun. I got a feeling someday you’ll have a use for it.”

  2.

  A Checkerboard of Nights and Days

  In those days, my only ambition, modest as it may seem, was to avert disaster, and being in the hospitality profession made this pretty hard. Inviting strangers into your house is a surefire way to leave yourself wide open to the ever-present dangers that lurk all around just out of sight. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t convinced that one of those strangers who mysteriously divined their way to our door would be our undoing, and for years, I waited, without realizing I waited, looking down the road that led up to the Inn, waiting for the one to come who would change things forever. Yet strange enough, when he came that summer, the fourteenth summer of my life, he passed unrecognized.

  I never liked Jesse James, but I certainly never feared him. He seemed too ridiculous a person to fear. Take his name. I didn’t need anybody to tell me that Jesse James wasn’t his real name. (Later, I would discover that his real name was Wistar Paist.) He roared into our lives on a motorcycle, disturbing the dust in the road, wearing a black helmet and a black leather coat. To me, he was comical. Younger than Jewel, with dirty blond hair and opaque gray eyes, he stood not more than five and a half feet tall, with a build so slight and wiry, and a chest so slender and narrow it was almost concave. And he called himself Jesse James! I couldn’t waittill Jewel heard that one. She always laughed at people who put on airs, and I was betting she’d wet her pants when she got a look at Mr. James, so it came as a real surprise when she didn’t think he was funny at all. Looking back, I suppose it was their shared adventures in nomenclature that kept her from appreciating the humor of such a skinny little guy taking the name of a famous outlaw. I guess Margaret Mary Willickers wasn’t about to call the kettle black.

  Anyhow, they hit it off right away, and so discreet was Jewel that it took a full week for me to realize they were sleeping together. Oh, they were subtle all right. Going to bed at different times. Stretching and yawning dramatically and then retiring to separate rooms. But I knew. The girls, not being as watchful as me, never suspected anything. But I saw the way he looked at her and the way she looked back.

  Jesse never talked about himself much. He told us that somebody he’d met in a bar on the turnpike had told him about our establishment. His only luggage was a duffel bag that bore some kind of navy insignia. I searched it while he was sleeping one night but found nothing interesting, except identification that revealed his real name. One night while Jewel was cooking dinner—she’d overcome her fear of ovens and taken to cooking since Jesse had arrived, no doubt wanting to impress him with her domestic skills—I asked him about his bag.

  “Oh, that?” he said, pointing to his duffel. “That’s left over from my Navy days.”

  “What’d you do in the Navy?”

  “Why? You writin’ a book or something, Darcy?” he asked, amused.

  “No. But I make it a point of finding out about anybody who’s sleeping under my roof and in my mother’s bed.”

  “I get the feeling you don’t like me much, Darcy,” he said, with a laugh, “and that you don’t like me staying at the inn. Am I right?”

  I glared at him. “Makes no difference to me if you stay or go. The sun’ll rise and set tomorrow either way.”

  He lit up one of the Camels he was always taking from Jewel. “Then if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll stay,” he said, exhaling a steady stream of smoke. “I kind of like it here.”

  “I bet you do. You’ve made yourself right at home.”

  “Can’t blame me for that. I’m just doing what your mother told me to do. Why the very first day I came, she says, ‘Jesse, now make yourself comfortable because my house is your house.’”

  “Is that so? Well, her house is also my house and just because she’s weak minded, doesn’t give you the right to take advantage of her. Don’t you ever intend to pay for anything? Or you planning to live off us forever?”

  With the cockiness of a man who knows he’s got the law on his side, Wistar Paist leaned back, blew a smoke ring, and said, “Forever is a long, long time. I don’t quite look at things the way you do, Darcy. You look at me and see some man who rode in here with empty pockets looking for a handout. But the way I see it, I’m providing a service to your mother, a very valuable service that she’s been wanting and waiting for a long time. And like all services, it’s got to get paid for one way or another. I choose another.”

  I clenched my teeth to keep from spitting. “You’re a pig!” I exclaimed heatedly. “And even saying that, I’m insulting the pig!”

  Jesse stood up suddenly, his face gone red, and for a moment I thought he would hit me. I hoped he would, because hitting one of her daughters was something Jewel would never have stood for. But he recovered himself quickly enough and sat back down. “I guess I’m just going to have to live with the fact that you don’t like me, Darcy.”

  Next day, I asked Jewel to make him leave.

  �
�But why?” she said, looking woebegone. “He hasn’t done anything.”

  “Not yet,” I said, “but he will.”

  “Oh, you’re always planning for the flood and seeing the worst in everybody. Jesse is just down on his luck, that’s all. I don’t see why you’re all the time picking on him.”

  “I don’t trust him. He’s got shifty eyes.”

  “You don’t trust anybody.”

  “That’s right, and if we’re going to survive in this world, you’d better not either.”

  “I won’t listen to anymore,” she said, childishly covering both ears with her hands. “He’s our guest, and I couldn’t possibly ask him to leave. It’d be unkind.”

  I was smart enough to know when I was beat, and sharp enough to salvage what I could. “All right, Jewel. But promise me you’ll never tell him about the justice’s money. Not where it’s hid, not even that it exists.”

  “Of course, I won’t,” she said with irritable exasperation. “Honestly, I wonder sometimes just how dumb you think I am.”

  “I don’t think you’re dumb. I just think you’re…well, a bit silly when it comes to the lowlifes who wander our way.”

  “What do you mean, silly?”

  “Well, just look at the way you go riding all around the neighborhood on the back of his motorcycle, wearing his helmet. Mrs. Hennessey must be in her glory, watching you make such a fool of yourself. And with a man half your age, no less.”

  Jewel stared at me, piqued. “It may surprise you, missy, to learn that Jesse is twenty-seven and I am thirty-one, which doesn’t exactly qualify me to be his grandma.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, “but it should qualify you to be a decent mother and show some sense, instead of acting like you were still in the throes of puberty.”

  Then Jewel did something that she had never done before in my life. She slapped me, a slap that seemed to surprise her more than me, for immediately, she started to cry.

  Now completely bewildered, I said, “What are you crying for?”

  “Because I hit you,” she cried, between sobs. “I never did that before, not even when you were bad and expected me to!”

  “Well, there’s no need to cry about it. It didn’t hurt,” I consoled her.

  “Oh, Darcy,” she said softly. “I know that I’m being a fool. But I haven’t had much fun in my life. It’s not that I’m complaining. I know I’ve been real fortunate having you and the girls with me, but being with your children, no matter how much you love them, is different from being with a man. These last few years, I’ve felt so old. And when Jesse came, it was like he brought youth and fun into my life. I don’t suppose he’ll stay forever, probably just until he gets enough money to go, or gets tired of me. But while he’s here, let me enjoy him. Please. Someday you’ll understand what it’s like to want a man. Fate is kind and I got a feeling that destiny has picked out someone real special for you.”

  I looked down at my feet, suddenly ashamed. “You don’t have to say more,” I mumbled. “I’ll try to be nice to him from now on.” And I did try, and largely succeeded, though I never could bring myself to feel anything but ill will toward him.

  The year that Jesse arrived was a black one all around. It was in September of that same year that Aaron Hamilton first tried to rape me. He’d always been strange, but puberty had made him unbearable. He was forever bothering the girls at school, which in itself wasn’t all that odd. Most of the boys were feeling some stirrings of maleness that year, and they all teased the girls. Except for me. No one but Aaron ever teased me or conspired to brush up against me in the coat closet. Early on, I’d accepted that I wasn’t pretty. Nor did I possess whatever quality it was that made boys act silly, and I didn’t much care. But knowing my shortcomings all too well, I couldn’t understand Aaron’s pestering after me all the time.

  I was stacking wood out back when I heard something rustling in the bushes nearby. Jewel was out, busy making a fool of herself riding on a motorcycle with the famous outlaw. The girls had stayed late at school to help with decorations for the annual Harvest Moon Dance. While they were too young to go, they were allowed to help decorate, so I was at home alone.

  At first, I didn’t pay much attention to the rustling. In the country sounds like those are always to be heard, and it’s never anything but a raccoon or a squirrel come to see what you’re up to. They spy on you for a while, and when they’re satisfied that it’s just the usual human shenanigans, they go away again. But it wasn’t a raccoon this time. This time, it was something more beastly. Aaron came out of the bushes, looking me up and down, as if I’d had on one of Jewel’s satin nightgowns instead of dirty coveralls.

  “Long time, no see,” he muttered and sat down on a tree stump. “You haven’t been to school all week. How come?”

  “Got things to do,” I said, and went on stacking.

  “Better watch out for the truant officer.”

  “Truant officer knows better than to—” And all of a sudden, he was right behind me, his arms locked around me, dragging me backward toward the barn. “Come inside with me,” he whispered.

  Aaron had the body of a boy, not a man, and under different circumstances, I’d have been more than a match for him. But he had surprise on his side. Even so, I managed to twist away and make a run for it. He charged me from behind like a bull, his thick head slamming into my back, knocking the wind out of me. He grabbed my legs and dragged me across the dirt into the barn, where he pinned me to the ground with his weight. He was having a hell of a time getting my overalls off, with me kicking and clawing at him. I didn’t bother screaming, knowing that nobody was around to hear, and I was never one for wasted effort. Eventually Aaron decided to delay taking my clothes off in favor of removing his own, which were a great deal easier. When he paused to unbutton his trousers, I managed to wrench my arms free, thinking all the while that Aaron Hamilton was about to get the best of me, and I would have to continue to live in Galen, a humiliated, pitiful creature for the rest of my natural life. And then, my hand closed over the handle of a sickle hanging on the barn wall behind me. Blindly, I hurled the sickle forward, into Aaron’s back. With a guttural scream, he collapsed upon me; I felt his warm blood seep through my overalls. I rolled out from under him and staggered away to the far side of the barn.

  Aaron lay motionless in a pool of blood—too much for me to see just how long or deep the gash was, but it looked bad. Moving slightly, Aaron moaned, and I started to get scared. What if he bled to death right there in our barn? Murderers got the electric chair in the state of Pennyslvania. The thought propelled me out of the barn and down the road. By the time I got to Doctor Lynch’s house, I was so out of breath, I could hardly tell what had happened. Somehow, he pieced it together and followed me back to the barn.

  It turned out the cut wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked and within half an hour, the doctor had Aaron tended to and taken him home.

  I didn’t say a word at dinner that night and supper passed as usual with Wistar Paist and Jewel making eyes at each other, and Caroline and Jolene fighting and pinching each other under the table, for no better reason than it had become our tradition.

  Just as we were finishing the meal, the knocking started; righteous knocking it was, and sure enough when Jewel opened the door, Reverend Hamilton stormed in, followed by the sheriff.

  “This time that girl of yours has done it!” Hamilton roared, advancing menacingly toward Jewel. “She almost killed my boy this afternoon, nearly cut him in two.”

  Jewel’s eyes got as big as saucers and she turned to me in disbelief. “Is that true, Darcy?”

  I glanced from her to the reverend and back again. If I told about what Aaron had tried to do to me, it wouldn’t have made any difference. They would do whatever it was they had come to do. And telling would just make Jewel feel bad, when it hadn’t really had anything to do with her. Or maybe it
really hadn’t had anything to do with Aaron and me, but really only to do with Jewel and the Reverend. It was all so dark and subterranean— anyway, I consoled myself, at fifteen, I was probably too young for the electric chair.

  So I said, “Yep, I tried to kill him.”

  “Do you hear that?” The reverend pounced on my confession. “The girl doesn’t even show remorse! She’s a menace. I’ve already sent my boys away to stay with their cousins in Easton. But she’ll just turn herself to enticing other boys and leading them to trouble. Just like her ma.”

  “What are you saying?” Jewel demanded, her mouth trembling as she put her arm around my shoulders.

  “I’m saying she belongs in reform school. She’s long been a truant, and today she proved herself a murderess in the making. Perhaps reform school can straighten her out.”

  “No!” Jewel hugged me to her. “I won’t let you take my child out of this house.” She looked to Jesse for support; he looked away, jamming his hands in his pockets.

  “Suit yourself,” Reverend Hamilton said. “But I intend to sign a complaint that she assaulted my boy and they will take her from you forcibly, if necessary.”

  Jewel burst into tears, but I knew crying wouldn’t do any good. So I told her not to worry, that I’d be all right and would come home again real soon.

  The next morning, I left. I stood for a moment at the top of the road—at the very last point where you can still see the inn, before it was lost to view—and turned back to look once more at the house. Jewel stood on the porch, alone. She waved, slow and sad, when she saw me turn, and I was struck by the notion that when I again stood on this very spot, everything would be somehow changed. The Hospitality Inn would not be the place I remembered, and Jewel would be very different from the woman I’d left. Threaded through this peculiar certainty was the feeling that something was about to be lost that would never be gotten back again. Jewel put a lot of credence in feelings. I didn’t. I just turned and walked on.