by Bruce Blake
“Who’s our mutual friend?”
She ran long fingers through her hair and lifted her face skyward, eyes closed, allowing the sun to touch her cheeks.
“I love the feel of the sun on my face.”
“Miss?”
“It’s glorious. A most provocative reason for being human.”
I watched her profile, pondering the oddity of her words, then looked skyward, wondering what she saw, and felt the autumn sun caress my cheek.
She’s right.
I looked back at her face. No older than mid-twenties, her hair was the color of slightly over-cooked gingerbread. The freckles dusting her cheeks were enough to be attractive, not enough to be considered a blemish. Full lips, delicate nose, high cheek bones. Beautiful.
“Thank you.” She opened her eyes and favored me with a look.
“What?”
“I said ‘thank you.’ For thinking I’m beautiful.”
I felt my brows drop and the furrow come to life at the middle of my forehead.
“Who are you?”
“Michael is our mutual friend.”
Lost in her eyes and in the feel of the sun, I didn’t know who she was talking about for a second. “Michael?”
“Yeah. You know: tall, blond. Hair like a non-Hispanic Eric Estrada.”
“Right. Mike.” I laughed at her apt description, but humor quickly left at the thought of him. If she knew him, what did that make her? Someone like me?
“The seventies and eighties were his favorite time. And the fourteen hundreds, but dressing in plate mail attracts too much attention.”
“Not mine.” Her eyes were the same color as her hair. “Those decades didn’t work so well for me. The seventies and eighties, I mean.”
“I prefer the now. No time like the present, right?”
“What else is there?”
I glanced away, distracted by a sound unfamiliar so close to city center. Birds perched in the park’s lone tree--an anemic alder that probably dreamed of a home with more fresh air and sunlight, less exhaust. Perhaps ten or fifteen birds twittered and hopped among its branches: swallows. I’d never seen them in the city before. I watched them skip from one spot to another, branches bouncing under their tiny weights, before remembering the striking young woman sitting beside me.
“So if you’re a friend of Mikey’s, does that make you--”
“Sshh.” She stole a furtive look around the park, but we were alone--too early for smoke breaks. “Let’s say I’m one of his peers.”
If she didn’t interrupt, I’m not sure if my sentence would have finished with ‘an angel’ or ‘crazy’.
“My name is Gabriel.”
“Of course. But you’re a woman. Shouldn’t it be ‘Gabrielle’? Like Xena’s friend?”
She shrugged. “My name is Gabriel.”
“Whatever you say, Gabe. What do you want?”
She reached behind her, pulled something out of the back pocket of her jeans and held it out to me. A scroll. How it got in her back pocket, I couldn’t guess. It definitely wasn’t there before.
“What’s this?”
“Your first assignment.”
The furrow reappeared on my forehead. “Assignment? You mean like homework?”
“No. Your new job, remember?” Playfully, she tapped me on the shoulder with it, as if we’d been pals a long time. “I’m the messenger. You know...Gabriel?”
“Right.”
“You do remember what Michael told you, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Another swallow flitted into the tree, the branch bending beneath its added weight. Christ, it was autumn, shouldn’t they have flown off to Capistrano by now? “I didn’t tell him I’d do it.”
She threw her head back and laughed. I should have been confused or annoyed by it but found myself smiling along with the sound.
“Did you really get the impression you had a choice?”
“No.” My smile disappeared with the end of her laughter. “I’m not ready. I don’t know--”
...if this is real.
“You have a little time. This explains everything.” She held the scroll out, the smile which seemed never to leave her lips growing wider. “An easy one to start.”
I took the scroll. Carved wooden knobs on each end held a roll of paper, yellowed as though very old. It looked like the kind of document kept under glass in a museum. She rose and a few swallows flitted into the air and landed again. A brown leaf fell from the tree.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I’m on my own. Just like that.”
“You’ll be fine. You were born for this. It already lives in you.”
The second time I’d heard words to that effect. It sucks having special skills you don’t know about. I used to tell Rae I might be the best tennis player in the world, only I’d never played tennis to find out. She didn’t buy it.
“I don’t have time for this. I have to see my son.”
Her smile remained but the expression in her eyes softened.
“You are dead to Trevor, Icarus. Your only way back to him is through the salvation of others. This is your first opportunity.”
My expression sagged and I opened my mouth to be angry, be sad, I don’t even know what, until she touched me lightly on the shoulder. An electric pulse raced through me like when Mikey touched me and, though I didn’t forget my son, I forgot my concern.
“If you don’t go, there will be grave consequences.”
A shiver followed the electric pulse of her touch up my spine.
“Where do I go?”
“It’s in the scroll.” She walked away and the swallows--at least thirty of them now--took to the air in a cacophony of peeps. I watched their opalescent wings beat the air, their white breasts heave with the effort. Why hadn’t I seen birds like this before?
The distance between us widened and I realized I’d felt the same peace sitting beside her as I had in Mikey’s presence.
“Wait.” My mind had nothing to do with the word coming out of my mouth--it developed wholly from the empty feeling in my chest. Gabe glanced back over her shoulder, the muscles in her neck flexing, rustling the wings of her tattoo-swallow. “Do you have any money for a poor soul to buy himself a coffee?”
“Check your pockets.” With a fluttering wave of her fingers, she joined the growing rush of people making their way to work, brightening them with her presence. Smiles flitted through the crowd as she passed, the expression handed one to the next like a baton at a track meet.
“Will I see you again?”
Somehow she heard me, looked back and nodded before disappearing behind a building. Once she’d gone from sight, I leaned back on the bench, closed my eyes, and turned my face skyward. In spite of the morning’s coolness, the sun warmed my cheeks, spilled into me. Alive again. Alone, but alive. When did I last enjoy the the sun on my face? Years ago? Decades? Maybe never. Today may have been the first time, and it only took my murder, resurrection and a visit from an archangel or two to appreciate it.
Dropping the scroll into my lap, I jammed my hands deep into the pockets of my slacks. Nothing. My lips pressed together, but I held annoyance in check. I slipped my fingers under the flap of my jacket pocket. My left hand found lint and a piece of paper --a movie ticket stub or perhaps an ancient bank machine receipt--but the right touched something more solid in the place where I’d hidden the Xbox game that got me killed. The thought of it made me pause and wonder how Trevor was doing, wonder if he missed me.
I sighed and grabbed the item between index and middle fingers and pulled out a roll of bills wrapped with a red elastic.
There must be hundreds there.
A thrill ran up my spine--it was enough money for a motel, food, transportation, a coffee. I didn’t stop to count it--this was no place to flash large amounts of cash, if anyone knew that, I did; I’d been killed over fifteen bucks and a video game.
I half-jogged to the sidewalk, h
eading the same direction as Gabe, not really expecting to catch her but thinking I’d as likely find somewhere to get a mocha heading that way as any other.
Each step jarred away the last vestiges of serenity Gabriel leant me, the now familiar ache of fear and doubt replacing it. I bounced the unopened scroll in my hand as the flow of people carried me forward. Halfway down the block, I stopped at a garbage can overflowing with hamburger wrappers and coffee cups. The scroll grew heavy in my hand as I glanced between it and the refuse receptacle. My hand moved forward, ready to jam it into the detritus of our fast food nation. I didn’t need this kind of responsibility.
I stopped myself.
Neither fear of retribution nor dedication to any religious belief kept me from garbaging the thing, it was curiosity which stayed my hand. What was on the scroll? Where would it lead me? And what if what Michael said was true? Maybe doing this really would get me one step closer to life, and to Trevor.
I figured one of two possibilities would occur: either I’d do what the scroll said and find a soul waiting to go to Heaven or I’d find out two people who thought themselves angels didn’t possess enough marbles between them to have a reasonable game of closies. I decided to hang on to it, ride it out. What-the-hell-else was I going to do with my un-life?
Chapter Six
The roll of cash Gabe slipped into my pocket shrank significantly over the next few hours, swallowed up by a nice hotel, eating well, and more presentable clothing. I considered purchasing company to keep a weighty blanket of loneliness from smothering me, but I didn’t think it would work. Nor did I think angels would appreciate their money being used for such purpose.
I lay on the bed watching time crawl by and probably looked at the words on the parchment a hundred times debating what to do.
Alfred Topping
817 Alpha Street
October 17, 10:47pm
To: 10485 Pullman Rd.
Who Alfred Topping was and exactly what would happen at 10:47pm at 817 Alpha Street occupied much of my thoughts and I actually appreciated it distracting me. Without it to focus on, I’d have spent more time thinking about Trevor and Gabe’s words that kept me from seeking him out: “You are dead to Trevor, Icarus. Your only way back to him is through the salvation of others.”
The minutes dragged by. I flicked the TV on, turned it off, read he scroll,paced the room, picked up the phone to dial Rae’s number and set it back in the cradle after listening to the dial tone for a minute, read the scroll again. Paced. Paced some more. Finally, the time approached. Soon I’d find out if this was unbelievably real or if I’d gone off the deep end sans water wings.
Excitement quickened my pace as I headed toward 817 Alpha Street--a bit of a walk from my hotel. The new Levi’s purchased with Gabe’s windfall were infinitely more comfortable than suit pants soaked by rain, dipped in mud, bled on and washed in a machine instead of dry-cleaned. I zipped up the equally new jacket--charcoal gray to be stylish and to blend--and checked the time.
Fifteen minutes.
According to the scroll, Alfred Topping would die at exactly 10:47 p.m. A name, a time, two addresses; it didn’t seem like enough information. How would I recognize him? What should I do when I got there? How would he die? When I died, no one came to harvest my soul, so I didn’t have any example, nothing to use as a guide. Exactly how did one harvest a soul? I felt nervous and unprepared, like most people starting a new job and, believe me, I’d started at least my share of new jobs over the years, a direct result of losing a lot of them. It felt like Gabe had left me standing in a crowd with my pants around my ankles. Not a bad situation if someone like her accompanied me with her pants around her ankles, too. No such luck.
“She’s an angel, moron.”
I should have felt bad thinking such thoughts about an angel--the Archangel Gabriel, no less--but I didn’t. Still a chance she’d prove a figment of my imagination, a touch of insanity. The closer I got to 817 Alpha Street, the more convinced I became that this would be the evidence to prove the whole thing a hoax or hallucination. Maybe the entire episode was a mirage, a way for my blood-deprived brain to deal with death, like Tim Robbins in Jacob’s Ladder, one of my favorite fucked-up movies.
Ten minutes.
I stood outside the prescribed address, gaping up at the buzzing neon sign proclaiming it a twenty-four hour gym. Unoriginally enough: Rocky’s 24 Hour Fitness Center. The letters R and n were burnt out, so the sign actually read ‘ocky’s 24 Hour Fit ess Center’, but I got the gist. I rested my hand on the door handle of the glass and aluminum door, felt its chipped red paint in my grip, but stopped before opening it. The electric taste of nerves flooded my mouth with saliva and I thought I might lose my dinner.
What if it’s all real?
A deep breath shuddered hesitantly into my lungs but did little to settle me. Nothing to do but treat it like bad-tasting medicine--get it over with. I went through the door into the closet-sized entryway which smelled unsurprisingly of sweat and old shoes. Signs tacked to a corkboard announced times for pilates classes and schedules for boot camps and other fitness activities in which I’d never partaken. Directly across from the bulletin board, a bald man sat behind a counter, his impossibly large muscles stretching his tee-shirt to the point it might snap like an over-used elastic. The plexi-glass partition must have been more for my protection than his; I wondered if he turned green when angered.
“Kelpya?”
“Pardon me?”
“I said can I help you?” His tone suggested he didn’t care much for helping me, probably didn’t enjoy working the night shift, but his bouncer-like qualities made him the ideal candidate for the job. I, for one, wouldn’t screw with him.
“Um, I’m looking for a place to work out.”
“Sorry, this is a shoe store.” A dry chuckle struggled out of his mouth.
“Do you mind if I have a look around?”
“Whatever. Don’t touch nothing unless you pay the drop-in fee.”
“Right.” No more threat needed.
I left the muscles from Brussels perusing a magazine and went into the weight room where I found more people punishing their bodies with weights at ten forty on a Tuesday night than I expected. A moment of panic nestled in my gut. How would I know Alfred Topping?
Five minutes.
I wandered past weight racks and worn benches a decade beyond their best days. The odor of sweat multiplied in here, every piece of equipment and hard-working body exuding it like an air freshener gone horribly awry. A few patrons glanced at me and I was thankful for my new jacket covering my skinny arms and less-than-Conan-like pecs. I quickly realized evenings must be the favored time of the hard core guys: no one in the room possessed biceps smaller in circumference than my thigh. Even the woman doing squats alone in the corner made me look like the skinny geek whose face she would have kicked sand in.
Two minutes.
Despite the warm, thick air in the room sticking itself to me like a band-aid, a line of cold sweat trickled down my spine. Minutes remained until I’d know the truth of my circumstances. All those years railing against the church and the idea of God might come to an end. If it did, I didn’t want to let my new employers down.
One minute.
Three men gathered around a fourth in the bench press area raised a cheer. I looked over but couldn’t see through the forest of tree trunk legs, so I moved closer. The man lying on the bench pushed a barbell skyward with so many plates on each end you’d need a math degree to figure out how much weight it held. The bar bowed slightly in the middle as he pushed upward, the other men urging him on.
“One more.”
“You can do it.”
“C’mon, Alfie.”
Alfie: short for Alfred.
Thirty seconds.
All the muscles in my limbs tightened as I watched Alfred grunt and strain, legs bouncing with the effort, purple veins standing out in his neck. The man standing near his head put his hands under the b
ar, spotting him, but Alfred shook his head and huffed a quick breath; the man stepped back. The bar rose until he locked his elbows, then he lowered it again, bouncing on his chest, and pushed up once more. Halfway to the top, he stalled out.
Fifteen seconds.
I felt sweat on my forehead but made no attempt to wipe it away--I wasn’t sure my arms would work.
Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to happen.
Seeing the way his veins bulged, I expected a heart attack to take Alfred’s life, if anything, and either thrust me into my new profession or send me packing for the mental hospital. It surprised the hell out of me when the bar slipped from his grip.
It surprised everyone else, too.
The man standing at Alfred’s head snatched at the bar but missed, tipping it off course. I swear I heard his fingers brush the gnarled steel. The barbell crashed down onto Alfred with a sickening crack, snapping his lower jaw and crushing his throat with his own chin. Breath blew out through his broken mouth, spraying blood three feet in the air. His arms, still aloft trying to press the missing barbell, jerked and twitched. The man who’d been the spotter turned his head, Alfred’s blood on his face, and lost his dinner on the rubber mat-covered floor. The others stumbled over one another to grab the ends of the bar and lift it off their companion. It took two on each end. They removed it too late.
10:47 p.m.
My head swam, my throat constricted. I stared.
Oh my God.
The sight of the man’s blood running from his face, dripping from the edge of the bench, and the coppery smell of it mingling with the pungent odor of sweat made my stomach roil. I wondered if Sister Mary-Therese felt the same when she found me dying on the grass under the oak tree. The carnage of Alfred Topping’s face--worse than any horror movie special effects--held me transfixed, the way a car accident does.
What the hell?
No one else noticed the child sitting on Alfred Topping’s chest. Correction: sitting in Alfred’s chest, as if the man were a wading pool. The boy’s disheveled blond hair looked as though someone had placed a bowl on his head and cut around the edge; his short-sleeved button-up shirt looked like he’d arrived here from an episode of Leave it to Beaver. His expression suggested he’d woken from a long nap, face pinched and eyes hooded. He stretched and surveyed the action around him, his manner changing to surprise.