Into This River I Drown

by T. J. Klune

  He’s said this before. “Because you’re an angel?” I ask, unsure if that’s a stupid question or not.

  He shakes his head above me. “No. Because I know you, Benji.”

  “You say that,” I say slowly. “You say you’ve watched me for I don’t know how long and—”

  “Since you arrived here,” Cal interrupts, pressing harder against my back. I almost arch into it.

  “What?”

  “I’ve watched you since you were born,” he says. “You were mine from the beginning, just like the rest of the people in Roseland. The moment you crossed back into the town after coming home from the hospital, you were mine. That was a good day.”

  I swallow past the lump in my throat. “It was?”

  “Yes. I was very happy that day. But you haven’t answered my question. Why were you up at that house?”

  “That was the night I was looking for you,” I say guiltily. “Griggs had come by the house and made those stupid threats, and I thought….”

  “You thought what?”

  Now I do try to pull away, but he doesn’t let me go. In fact, he pulls me back down to him and tightens his grip on my back. I put my face in his neck and inhale his earth scent. “I thought you might have gone up to his house. I thought you might try to send him away.”

  “To where?”

  “The black.”

  Cal tenses beneath me. “So you thought I was going to attack him because of what he said?”

  “I didn’t… I don’t know, Cal.” Like I don’t know anything about you. “You were pretty scary when you said that to him.”

  A sharp intake of breath. “Do I scare you?” He sounds scared himself.

  Does he scare me? If he does, it’s only because of the unknown, which I hate to admit makes up a big part of who he is. I tell myself I wouldn’t have just slept with him if I had feared him, but something inside me disagrees, telling me I probably would have done so regardless. He’s kinetic, dynamic, a moving storm over an open plain. He’s dry lightning, ozone-sharp and devastating. If there is fear there, it’s so wrapped up in everything else I don’t know how to separate it.

  But I’ve waited too long to answer and he’s starting to breathe heavier underneath me. I prop myself up so I can look into his eyes. He’s wary, but doesn’t look away. “Should I be scared of you?” I ask him.

  He opens his mouth and closes it again almost immediately. He furrows his brow and frowns. “I don’t want you to be,” he says finally. “But maybe you should be. Regardless, you shouldn’t have gone to his house, Benji. He could have hurt you. You need to stay away from him.” This seems like a slip on his part and he winces.

  “Why do you say that?” I ask him, refusing to ignore it.

  “He’s not a good man, I think.”

  “You think? Or you know?”

  He looks away and I can’t stop myself from leaning down and brushing my lips against his rough cheek. “I’ve been trying,” he mutters, leaning into my lips.

  “Trying what?” I say against his face.

  “There’s this… knot… in my head. I’m trying to untangle it, but the more I pull, the tighter it gets. I can remember certain things. I can remember many things. I remember Roseland becoming mine, only seven people here. I remember watching it grow. The buildings. The houses. The people. Many were good. Some were not. But it didn’t matter, because they were mine. I wasn’t made to judge. That is not my job. I was made to assist them, because sometimes, people need a little help. Just a nudge.” He shakes his head. “You think that God is some all-powerful being, and maybe he is. But I don’t understand. If he’s supposed to be, then why is there a need for someone such as me? Why is there need for other guardians? Or why is there need for any angels at all?

  “If he really wanted it, nothing bad would ever have to happen. There would be no need for someone such as me. The threads are knotted in my head and chest and I want them to separate, but I don’t know what that would make me. What is God doing? Why do I exist, Benji? Why must I follow these threads? Why do I have control over certain things, but can’t stop others?”

  He’s getting worked up, his chest rising rapidly, his heart thumping wildly under my fingers. I try to quiet him down, to tell him it’s all okay, but he shakes his head angrily. “You want to know, don’t you? What happened to Big Eddie? You want to know so bad, don’t you?”

  Yes. Yes, I want to know more than anything. I shake my head. “No, Cal, I don’t need to—”

  “It’s there, Benji,” he says angrily, knocking his hand against his head sharply. “It’s all in there somewhere. The threads. The pieces. I just can’t find them. I don’t know how to start. I don’t know where to begin. I am not Death. I cannot control it, but I am aware of it. There’s a difference between what I do and the inevitable.”

  “Like the Wallaces? The fire?”

  A short bark of harsh laughter. “You knew?”

  “You smelled like smoke.”

  “You were smelling me?” he asks, surprised and pleased.

  “Uh… sure. The fire?”

  He nods. “Sometimes, Death can be avoided. The thread isn’t completely black, though it’s getting there. It still pulses with life, but time is short. Only when I find a thread of complete black do I know there’s nothing I can do. The Wallace family still had color. Greens and reds and little Emily was this bright pink, so alive. It wasn’t their time.”

  “But… my father?”

  “I can’t remember,” he says hoarsely. “Benji, you have to believe me. I wouldn’t keep this from you. I promise you I wouldn’t.”

  A dark part of me wonders at this, wanting to berate him, poke him further until he cracks. It seems awfully convenient, this dark part says, that of course he wouldn’t remember. An angel fell from the sky and couldn’t remember the people he was supposed to protect? What are the chances of that?

  I try to push the doubt away, but it’s latched on and wants to burrow. “What do you remember?”

  He closes his eyes with a heavy sigh. “I remember… On High. It’s beautiful, Benji. Beautiful like you wouldn’t believe. It’s warm and bright. It was supposed to have been made by God himself during the seven days of Creation. It’s a lovely place. But it’s also a lonely place. We rarely interact with each other, the guardians. The other angels. Decades could go by without seeing another one. Whenever one of my people traveled away, they would be watched by whoever’s jurisdiction they fell into, and vice versa. If an outsider comes here, I must protect him or her as if they are my own. There was never a need for me to speak with another guardian, so time would pass. I remember being busy. All the time. There was always something to do, some thread to be followed. But since I’ve been down here, it hasn’t been like that. There’ve been times I’ve been called, but not as much as I was used to.

  “Your father is in here,” Cal says, pointing to his head and chest. “Tangled in this knot. I don’t know how to pull him out. I can’t remember that day. I can’t remember many of the days that followed. It’s there, somewhere, but I can’t find out how to fix it. I want to fix it so bad, but I’m scared to see it too. I’m scared of what it will show me.”

  “Why, Cal?” I ask, not knowing if I want the answer or not.

  He reaches up and cups my face, lifting his head to kiss me sweetly. I feel blind against him. “Because,” he says as he pulls away. “Because if I untangle it, I’ll see what really happened. I’ll see why I couldn’t save Big Eddie. I’ll see what I did wrong and why I didn’t do more to try and stop it. I’ll see the truth, and you’ll hate me for it. Out of everything I can remember, it is you I see the most, Benji. The day Big Eddie left is gone. It’s in the black. But after? Oh, the day after and every day that follows, there are pieces I can touch, things I remember and it’s all you. I hurt because you hurt. All I wanted to do was make it all better, to make it all go away, to wrap you up so you wouldn’t hurt anymore. You carried the weight of the world on your shoulde
rs, and I just wanted the burden to be easier for you, to help you carry it so you would realize that you weren’t alone.”

  “Stop,” I croak, my eyes burning. “Just… don’t.” I don’t want to hear this. I can’t hear this.

  He ignores me, kissing me again. “I broke the rules, I think. I would come partway down, just so I could touch you, just so I could take some of your pain away. But it wasn’t enough. You were sinking further and further into the river, and I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let you drown. So I….”

  Like you let my father drown? I think before I can stop myself.

  I press my head against his chest. “So you what?” I say, my voice muffled. I’m trying to regain some of my composure, but it’s a losing battle.

  “I don’t know,” he whispers. “It’s there, in the knot. I remember you calling for me, and not just the night I fell. Even before that, I could hear your aching, because it was too much like my own. I was lonely up there. I was lonely without you and I had to come down. You finally called for me. You screamed for me. I had to come. I… I just don’t remember how.”

  “You bastard,” I mutter weakly. “You bastard.”

  “I’m sorry, Benji. I don’t know… I don’t know what else there is.”

  He looks miserable when I raise my head from his chest. I am angry, yes, but I don’t know if it’s at him. I’m trying to believe him about what he can and can’t remember, but it seems to be too much of a coincidence. The one person who can answer every question I’ve had about that day also happens to be the one person who can’t remember any of it?

  “What about Griggs?” I push. “What about him? Or Mayor Walken? Or the smoker? The smoker who—” I stop. The name. What was his—

  Memories, rising.

  Walken: You seem to forget, Traynor, that you are operating in my town, with my permission, which makes me your boss.

  The gunman: All I wanted was a fucking hit, man! Traynor told me I could get it, that fucking bastard!

  “Traynor,” I whisper. Was it something as simple as that? Drugs? Was that a connection? A hit of what?

  “Benji?” Cal asks me, looking worried.

  “Do you know a man named Traynor?” I ask. “Do you recognize that name? Is he one of yours?” I hadn’t recognized his name or his voice, so he didn’t seem to be a townie.

  Cal closes his eyes, and they move quickly behind his eyelids. “No,” he says after a moment. “I don’t know him. I don’t know that name. He’s not one of mine.”

  “But you would have to know him if you saw him, right? If he’s in your jurisdiction?”

  Cal shakes his head. “Only if something were to happen to him. Only if I could see his thread.”

  I didn’t know where to find Traynor, much less cause something to happen to him so Cal could track him. “Why should I stay away from Griggs, Calliel? What are he and Walken doing? What is going on in this town?”

  He squeezes his eyes shut. “I don’t know.”

  I roll off him and he doesn’t try to stop me. I sit up on the side of the bed and put my feet to the floor, my back to Cal. “I think you do,” I say bitterly. “I think some part of you knows and you’re just not telling me. I think you know far more than you’re saying. I believe you when you say it’s tangled up in you, that you haven’t pulled it apart. But I don’t believe you can’t. I think you’re scared and you’re hiding behind it.”

  Blue lights begin to flash in the dark.

  “That’s not—”

  “How did you come here? You said you were the first. You told me you fell because I called you. How did you do it, Calliel?”

  “Oh, Benji,” he whispers. The blue lights are brighter.

  I stand up and look down at him, scowling. “You said that angels are tested. That all of you are tested. Maybe this is your fucking test, Cal. Maybe you don’t remember because you’re being tested. Maybe that’s why you exist. Maybe that’s why God needs angels and that’s why you see the threads. Because it’s just some fucking game to him. His tests are nothing but games. You see patterns. You see designs. But you don’t see what’s right in front of you. You’re being played, Cal. God doesn’t give a damn about you. He doesn’t give a damn about me. It’s all a fucking game!”

  Cal leaps up from the bed, the flashing lights following him and starting to form behind him. “Nothing about this is a game,” he snarls at me, a look of pure fury on his face. I’d be scared by it if I wasn’t so angry. Just an hour ago we were fucking, I muse darkly. “I am here because of you. I came here because of you. All I want to do is keep you safe! To keep you away from the river!” The accusation in his voice is loud and clear. You did this to me. You brought me here. This is all your fault. You tore me away from the only home I’ve ever known and now you’re pushing me away.

  It only succeeds in making me angrier. “Can you say the same thing about my father?” I shout at him. “Where were you when he was drowning? Where were you when he was dying? Did he call for you? Did you promise to protect him too? What about him? Why did you let him die!”

  The blue lights explode and the room is suddenly awash in a flash that causes my eyes to burn. Afterimages dance along my vision as I blink, trying to make sense of the darkness falling again in the room. My eyes start to adjust and I see Cal leaning over the opposite side of the bed, curling his hands into the comforter, great blue wings extending from his back, curling against the ceiling, dragging along the floor. Again, they take my breath away. They are surreal. My mind argues with itself, telling me they can’t be real, this is nothing but a nightmare I can’t seem to escape, but I hear them dragging on the floor, and that rustling sound can’t be anything but real. It can’t be anything but here in this room.

  Wake up, my father whispers from a fading dream. You gotta wake up, Benji. He’s come down from On High because you called him and you’ve got to wake up. He’s been waiting, yes, but you still brought him here, down to this place. You’ve got to help him. He’s going to act big, he’s going to talk big, but deep down, you two are the same. You must remember this. You are the same.

  “You’re right,” the angel Calliel says, standing. His hands are fists at his sides. His voice is something I haven’t heard yet before. Angry. Deep. Cold. His wings shift around him, the deep blue catching the moonlight. “I should have done more. I should have been more. You have every right to be angry. I will try to remember what I did and what was done. You will know as soon as I do.”

  The wings begin to fade, as does my anger. Now, I’m just unhappy. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that,” I say quietly. “It’s not fair to you. I’m sorry.”

  He shakes his head, but he won’t look at me. The wings are growing dimmer. “No need to apologize. I am a protector, and I need to do my job. I’ve allowed myself to become distracted. I need to be working more on remembering. On trying to figure out how I came to be here and why. I need to know who allowed it. The reason they did.”

  “But… I thought you came here for me,” I say, backtracking, wishing I hadn’t said a goddamn thing. My chest hurts. “Don’t you….”

  The wings are gone now. He slides into his jeans and shirt. He moves toward the door. I reach out and grab his arm as he tries to move past me. He towers above me, fully clothed. I’m still naked. I tremble at the heat of him. “Where are you going?”

  “Out,” he says gruffly, finally looking at me. He looks sad. He looks like he’s been betrayed. “Away. I need to think. I need to focus. I need to make this right. Some of us have lost our Father too.”

  The sting of those words overwhelms me. “Will you be back to watch the sunrise?” I ask quietly.

  He looks like he’s about to speak, but doesn’t. He pulls himself from my grasp and I’m still standing there when the front door to Little House opens and then shuts behind him.

  I wait on the roof as the sun rises. He doesn’t return.

  I’m still there when I see Mary and Nina walk out the door of Bi
g House and get into the car, going to open the store.

  I’m still sitting there when Christie leaves a few moments later, going only God knows where.

  I’m still sitting there when an old Honda rolls up the driveway. It rolls past Big House and a minute later brakes squeal as it pulls next to the Ford. I’ll have to remember to check the pads next time. Abe opens the door and gets out. He looks up at me. “Benji,” he says.

  “Abe.”

  “Where’s our friend?”

  I shrug.

  “Is he here?”

  “No. He’s gone.”

  Abe looks around. “He left?”

  I nod.

  “He coming back?”

  “I don’t know.” I hope. Oh, how I hope. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please come back. I’ve been praying like this for hours. Nothing has happened.

  “Boy,” Abe says, narrowing his eyes, “what did you do?”

  “I told him that God didn’t give a shit about him,” I say honestly. “I told him he might as well have been the one that killed my father, since he didn’t protect him. I told him I didn’t need him here.” Those words hurt. I ignore the way my voice cracks.

  “Did you mean it?”

  I shake my head. “He’s my friend. I was mad. He was hurting and frustrated and I took that and made it my own. I lashed out. I drove him away. I drove him away and I don’t know if he’s going to come back.”

  “You’re going to make me climb that ladder, aren’t you?” Abe asks, sounding resigned.

  “Had to watch the sunrise,” I tell him, hoping he’ll understand even though I know he won’t. “It’s kind of a tradition now. Abe, what if he doesn’t come back?”

  But Abe doesn’t answer, he’s already moving toward the side of the house, to the ladder. I try not to think as I wait, but I fail miserably. You’ve only known him nine days, I chide myself. Nine days is nothing in the scheme of things. Nine days is minuscule compared to how long you’ve gone without him. Grow a pair.

  I almost believe my own lies. Almost.

  Abe finally huffs his way to the top and comes to sit beside me, his knees cracking as he lowers himself. He doesn’t speak for a time, and we watch the morning take shape around us. It’s okay, this silence. It’s easier to drown when it’s quiet.