The Angels' Share

by Garfield Ellis

  . . . (will) the challenge of the space in my soul

  be filled by the shape I become.

  And now it is not the poet I am hearing; the words I read are resonating something else, each verse, each line, each syllable, each uncertain question unveils to me the travails that haunt my father.

  I was wondering if I could find myself,

  all that I am in all I could be

  The book almost falls from my trembling hand as I read the poem again. After the third read, I snap it shut and place it quietly on the table. I get it now, I get it now. In this one moment, I have completed my picture of my father.

  Laughter erupts from the pool.

  I find Angela’s drink and bring it to her. But even as I sit, I realize that something has just changed in me. Angela senses this and looks at me strangely. “You all right?”

  “Yes, for the first time now, I am sure I am all right.”

  “For the first time?”

  “No, not so, I mean . . . but yes, I’m fine.”

  “You look different.”

  And I am, because I have a greater sense of what my father is about, I have a new angle on him. I know I should have seen it before, for God knows the signs were there: that evening at his house some weeks ago when a bottle of wine exploded and I saw his loneliness, his pleadings for me to come with him; his excessive sympathy for the old man at the mud lake and his anger and trembling at his death, nobody care about old people; his maverick behavior and tolerance for weed on his land and his gesticulating like a king when telling me the land is mine—all of these I should have picked up as signs of his searching.

  The strength of my heart were enough . . . All that I am in all that I could be . . .

  He has summed up all he is and the answer frightened him and sent him on a wild goose chase. And as I watch him smiling from face to face, making jokes and passing around his pimento wine, I realize that this is a man who is tying up loose ends. He is reaching backward into his life to make sure it is complete. That is why he wanted this trip and that is why he wants to meet this woman after thirty-five years.

  Like those brewers at Appleton, having filled the cask with rum and left it to age, returning twenty years later to find that the contents are short because of evaporation over time, Father has made a sum of his life and has found it less than full.

  Will my father ever find those lost moments, will he ever be able to right all those wrongs, fill his life back with all those things that went with his aging? And what will he do when he discovers that, like aging rum, some of life is irretrievably gone? What will he do when he discovers that perhaps we will never be a hundred percent of what we can be . . . that some of our dreams and possibilities will evaporate—be taken by the angels—by the decisions and ravages of life . . . that maybe we all must give up that angels’ share.

  There is a roar. Everyone is laughing and looking at me. Glasses are being raised. Well, it must have to do with my jumping from the hill or my marble playing, so I salute and laugh with them. “A good son!” my father yells across the pool deck.

  The beautiful Tara smiles and reaches across Angela to pat my leg. “Is a nice thing you doing taking round your father.”

  “Thank you,” I tell her. “Thank you!” I shout across the space, and raise a bottle that is close to me. The cheer and drink and the chatter go on. Then I feel Angela’s hands tightening on mine for a lingering squeeze. This time when I look into her face, there is no shyness there, and her eyes are dazzling with mischief.

  From the moment I met her standing there on the brow of the Spur Tree Hill, I haven’t been able to get my head around her. She has awakened passions in me with a force I have not felt since my teenage years. Yet when she gave me herself, placed herself at my mercy, gave me an opportunity to experience the passions I dreamed of, I hesitated . . . did not have a handle on myself.

  I did not know it would be so hard to tell her goodbye.

  I look deep into her eyes and there is fire and promise burning there. Everything in that stare is telling me that if I wish, the next moments could be the greatest of my life. And that is the thing. With her I see the present, I feel the power of the next moment, but I cannot see the future. There is an uncertainty about her, a vagueness of things beyond the day. With Audrey, I know. I can tell exactly how tomorrow will be and what we will be in ten years. There is a certainty there and whatever decision I make about us is based on the ability to predict and understand the future and where and how we will be together.

  But with this woman I cannot tell. I do not know what she wants from me. I know what I want for my life and my future. But I do not know that she will fit. And I do not want to hurt her. I know that now: I do not want to hurt this woman.

  You goin’ hate me now, don’t it? You goin’ scorn me now, don’t it?

  I do not want to hurt her. I do not want to . . .

  Her eyes have all the wisdom of a woman forty years her senior. And the sharp passion of a moment ago has flattened to a warm knowing look. Somewhere on the edge of it, on the softer part of that gaze, is a hint of pain . . . water brims near the edges, and her eyes begin to shine like freshly washed jewels.

  While I worry about what my actions may cause, my hesitation may have already torn something inside her . . . I can see as I struggle to pull my gaze away that goodbye has already been received and accepted in her eyes.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  There is a presence in my room, a blend of complicated oils that stirs me from a light nap before we leave. It is Angela. She is like a shadow on the open space of the doorway to the bathroom that joins the other guest room to mine.

  I have been with models, I have been with gorgeous women, but I have never seen a beauty such as hers. I cannot describe it, for it is not a physical thing, though the space of the doorway in which she pauses frames and outlines every sexy curve she has.

  But her beauty is a complex thing. It is in the fullness in that frame, the dimensions of it, enhanced by the dusty light coming through my half-open window that sheens the oils that coat her. It is in the glow around her, an aura of sexual energy that charges the space as she moves. Then there is her sureness, her confidence, her force and magic.

  I sense the softness in her face, but I do not see her eyes clearly, I do not know what they are telling me. Her hands are the softest silk against my skin as she urges me onto my stomach. I do not question, I merely obey.

  She is in command and there is no doubt about it. Every movement is deliberate yet not harsh. She is an expert caregiver and I am a baby in her hands. Oil, warm liquid, runs down the center of my back and settles in my spinal groove. Slippery hands begin to massage it into me, starting at my shoulders then slowly moving in a circular motion down my back. Her touch is not as deep as a massage, but firm and probing, just enough for me to feel it below my skin. She does not seem interested in muscles but in nerve endings and the quickening of my senses. Her hands are sure, not aggressive yet not overtly gentle, and as she strokes and oils me from my shoulders to my feet, I am in a stupor, a place of comfort, bliss.

  She massages my feet for a while. Then there is a pause and the coolness of the room bristles the hairs on my body and stands them on end.

  Her hard nipples are on my heels and begin moving slowly up my legs. I imagine her lowering her body onto mine, but it does not come. I do not feel her weight on me, but I feel her breasts caressing, sliding on the oil, making their way along the back of my legs upward. As they get to my ass, I feel them rotate lightly, teasing, creating an unbearable level of anticipation. And as her breasts make their way up my body, I feel the gentle coarseness of her pubic hair begin to follow. Now that is all that touches me. No hands, no stomach, just breasts and pubic hair for the most tantalizing of moments, filling me with a desperate expectation, and a desire for a touch of the rest of her, for her to turn around so I may dive into her.

  I find that I am wriggling on the bed. Suddenly, I have begun to gyrate. Ju
st as I cannot take any more, even as I make to desperately spin her, I feel her weight settle on me. Her breasts crush against my back and her pubic hair rests in the rise of my buttocks.

  She is now as still as a shadow on a memory. And I am panting as if I have just run a mile.

  Slowly she stills me with her lips against my ear and her body merging with the oil on my body and her hands on top of mine, outstretched on the pillow ahead of me.

  Now she rises slowly and gently wraps her fingers along my hand, pulling them in tightly against me and I feel her breasts beginning to descend down my body, retracing the path they have just taken. But this time her hands, though gentle, are cupped slightly and her nails are raking my body as she moves down.

  By the time her fingers touch my shoulders I am panting again, and as her nails graze my skin I find that I am wriggling like a horse beneath the force of a ride that threatens to break its will. For even as I writhe, she has positioned herself to limit my movements and keep my body in line as if she knows I am about to buck.

  She pauses and gives me time to catch my breath, playing her fingers up and down the slippery slopes of my spinal groove, building the weight of the touch with each movement till I can feel her nails again and my body is quickening in ways I cannot control.

  Then she rakes her nails along my back, along my sides, dancing in the oil there. She gets to my buttocks, pauses, her fingers pirouetting there, grating my ass, and each movement, each pull of her hand, lifts me from the bed with a high-pitched groan. Now she covers me with her body from the side so I may not move freely and walks her nails slowly on the insides of my legs till I am practically screaming and every muscle in my scrotum is as tight as a drum and I am so convulsed, it is as if the cells of my body are all on fire. And all the time, while her hands play in one part, her breasts trail along at another venue. Like a game of good cop/bad cop, slow soft hard nipples take orders from the contours of my form while further down her urgent expert hands demand and extract passion I never knew I had.

  Suddenly I have been turned over and I am lying panting, opened, and without shame to her.

  I do not know where she is, for I am in a stupor. Her hands, though, I feel for they are working oil into my body from a reservoir created on my stomach. And the glow of it spreads warmly to my groin and the tissues of my upper thigh. As she works the oil into my body, I crave a fuller touch. I crave the weight of her on me as I did just seconds ago while on my stomach. But again it does not come. All I have are these warm rotating slippery palms sliding over my body, lifting the temperature of my skin, heightening the sensations in my skin till the smallest of touch brings a kind of shock like static electricity.

  And here comes the nails again, this time not over my body but on my penis, dragging along the veins, making furrows into the mass of pubic hair, traveling with spiked surefootedness to the softest, most delicate parts of me.

  I am screaming without shame. I am hoisting myself without control. And though her palm presses my stomach to hold me down, I am kicking and fighting like a bull out of control.

  I feel her now trying to mount me, to hold me down. But I do not care anymore. I want her. I want her so badly I feel pain shooting through my temples. I swing my arm. I find her. I drag her down. I fight to turn her over. But she still has the better of me.

  Now she is on top of me and she is cooing into my ear and I am slowly settling back. But not for long, for she spreads upon me and her pubic hair is on my rockhard penis, as she begins to slowly gyrate back and forth up and down against me.

  I am two raging bulls.

  I twist and I turn and I hump for the penetration, but I cannot find it. I bite for her neck but it slips away. I want to kiss her, suck her whole mouth into mine, but her lips are on my nose and playing circles on my forehead. I squeeze her to me. I am a crazy man. I am a crying, panting, wild being. I have no control and I do not care anymore. Every nerve in my body is alive. Every place she touches is like fire burning there, every gyration of her crotch upon me has the sensation of a thousand needle pricks. I am over the edge; in my back, in my spine, in my groin there is a gathering storm. Now I am a bursting river, flooding, hoisting from the bed, kicking and screaming and gushing.

  And she stays there on top of me, holding me even as I pant and thrash about—working me down from frenzy. Quieting my screams, my spasms, keeping me gently in place, massaging me to a calm, rubbing oil into me, kneading me into me, filling me with a levitated sense of peace.

  Now there is no life in me. My mouth is dry. My eyes are tearing. I snuggle into her, pushing my face against her naked breasts to smother the groans, to dry the tears, to quiet the sobs.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  We are in Montego Bay and it cannot be too soon. We have been driving for nearly two hours through the hills and I am tired. Father wants us to go straight to the hotel where he expects to meet his Hope tomorrow. But that is another hour and a half around the western end of the island and the journey does not appeal to me now. So I offer to treat him to a night in an all-inclusive hotel. He does not need much convincing.

  We find a sprawling property a mile east of the airport called Sea Shell. It takes the price of the air ticket to the US Open to give us access for the night. But who cares; that trip was doomed the moment I ran from my office to find my father.

  Another fifteen minutes of signing papers and we are given rooms on the tenth floor with a panoramic view of the sea and the northwestern coastline. The view across the water is so clear and unhindered I swear I can see Cuba glittering in the distance.

  After freshening up, we finally find ourselves in a cozy little restaurant at the northern end of the main building. Though enclosed, one side is made of dark one-way glass that gives a view of the property’s beach and some of the park-like grounds. It is good to be sitting in a comfortable chair with a drink in my hand.

  My father orders a filet mignon. I figure, what the hell, and ask the waiter to bring us two.

  Light jazz floats from hidden speakers and gradually conversation eases into the space between us and we are laughing at jokes of the past week. After a while I lean across to him and smile. “You know, old man, there are a few holes in your story.”

  “Holes in my story? How you mean?”

  “Here, for instance.” I point to the dim interior of the restaurant with its low lights, its pictures of a subdued Bob Marley on the wall. “Here, why are we here and not in St. Elizabeth? You plan for thirty years to meet a person in a certain place. She does not come and the next week it is another place.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “You don’t see anything wrong with that?”

  “No.”

  “And then why this secrecy? Why she never talk to you directly, why this secrecy through Tara? It just does not jibe.”

  “Jibe? What is that? I know what it means!” He waves me silent. “Jibe—everything must make sense to you? Everything must be perfect?”

  “Not really, but everything should have a logical sequence. This is a time of cell phones and faxes and e-mails. Why so cloak-and-dagger?”

  “Jibe, eeh? Okay, how is this for an explanation? Tara got the wrong date and the wrong flight. Or who said Tara was in Montego Bay to pick her up in the first place?”

  “You are making fun of me.”

  “No more than you are trying to make fun of me. I tell you about faith already. All you have to do is believe the old man and all things will be revealed, okay?”

  “And I must just travel the island with you in faith?”

  “Okay, she lives in Germany.”

  “Germany?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought it was the States.”

  “Ah, the first problem with you, always assuming.”

  “So she lives in Germany.”

  “Yes. We made the plans about six months ago. And Tara was to get her and bring her to St. Elizabeth for us to meet because she is only coming for two days.”
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  “She’s leaving from Germany to see you and only coming for two days?”

  “No, she is in Miami with relatives and she is stealing away.”

  “I see. So Tara missed the date. And why you never pick her up? Why Tara?”

  “That is how we planned it, all right? So we planned it.”

  “So you changed the venue because she missed the date.”

  “No, Tara misunderstood the message.”

  “So it was a simple mistake?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s certainly round and round like some le Carré spy story. Why are we here again and not in St. Elizabeth?”

  “Tara’s memory goes and comes, she has terrible handwriting that she herself cannot read sometimes. It jibe now?”

  It does not, but who cares? I have already committed myself, and as he told me, why worry about things that are out of my control? He has his journey that he must take, and I will go with him and hope that if and when reality jolts him, I will be there.

  “Okay, Everton, now I have a something to ask you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Your story is full of holes.”

  “My story?”

  “Yes. For instance, here, what are you doing here and not in St. Elizabeth?”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, here with me tonight.”

  So he wants to play a game. “I am spending time with my father. I am staying with him like a good son, so he may meet his lost lover of thirty-five years.”

  “When you have a sexy woman, the most beautiful woman in St. Elizabeth, at home waiting for you and ready for you as the summer does for the rain?” But he is not laughing. He has that serious look of the instructor about him.

  I pause with the food halfway to my mouth. “What do you mean by that? You know why I am here with you. You asked me. Don’t do this, Daddy. You know why I am here.”