The Fourth Angel

by John Rechy

  ‘We'll go to The Seed,’ Shell again releases Jerry from Cob's scrutiny.

  ‘There's always good shit there!’ Manny extols.

  Immediately, the announcement of a design lifts the brooding heaviness threatening them. They've vanquished another inch of time.

  Soon, rushing there as if to outspeed their thoughts before they form, they're in Anapra, a small town in New Mexico, just minutes outside of El Paso. A town more like a village, it's an awkward, ugly conglomeration of adobe houses in which poor Chicanos live. The streets are cloudy with dust. On a tall mountain dominating the village is an awesome, giant statue of Christ; a strong, stone, primitive Jesus with arms outstretched. Railroad tracks tangle like angry snakes at the foot of the mountain, and the Rio Grande meanders casually past a small bridge, on which, on hot evenings, restless young Chicanos stand waiting sullenly for nothing. There's an ironic scattering of nightclubs in the village—and a disdainful racetrack. And on a filthy street, more like a field of dirt than a street, is The Seed—a doper hangout: a square, squat, flimsy building like an abandoned barn. Beer, wine, soft drinks are sold inside. Outside, a ragged camp of young hippy gypsies exchange dope openly.

  Shell parks among the many cars situated in studied disorder. The four get out. Here and there, other young people cluster in dark cars, the light from a number occasionally flickering like a lazy firefly in the darkness. Long-haired youngmen and girls mill idly, some sit or lie stoned on the dirt like the remnants of a crushed, resigned army.

  Inside, wooden tables, booths are gathered tightly at one side, allowing a cleared area for dancing. Against the wall, screens, like giant sheets, are propped, awaiting the attack of colors of a light show. Already two long-haired youngish men hover in a small coop before the patched screens, arranging the whirling discs that will project the bursting lights. To one side of the screens is a small elevated platform. Sequined drums glistening red, white, and blue dominate the stage, a youngman hovers over them ready to perform another precise ritual.

  There are perhaps a hundred people here tonight—more than that outside. Some are shirtless, barefoot, all wear bright colors. Cool, slender young bodies, they seem to move within private glass chambers, enclosed but highly visible to each other. In isolated display.

  The four sit at a table, one of them occasionally nodding to someone familiar nearby.

  All here seem merely to be waiting. Just waiting. For the music to begin? For the light show to flash? For something else? For nothing? There's a stoned silence, a lack of movement, as if only the music may commit the young bodies to motion. A wake at which the corpse, delayed, will be young.

  Now the band of five youngmen—faces intense, transfixed—has begun its subterranean sounds of pulsing, tortured climaxes. Suddenly amplifiers seize the thundering sound, thrust it out even louder, blaring. The room itself vibrates. And there's the wailing orgasmic voice of the lead singer; at his feet a tattered groupie like a sad rag doll. The sounds shatter the stoned trance like light on glass. Here and there a shirtless youngman moves his head back and forth, a barefoot girl comes to life. A flooding river of sound—opposing waves crashing in spellbinding cacophony—the deafening, mesmerizing rhythm is a physical presence in total control of the enclosed glass worlds of the stoned young people … Jerry feels a surging release, and a heavy sorrow, as if the music contains both.

  Now, as if spewed out by the music itself, colors flash on the screens from the whirling disc before the projector. Orange! Blue! Red! Purple! Green! Yellow! Within the erupting colors, bodies captured by them seem to burn, melt, freeze, thaw, in a purgatory of colors and sound.

  As if her body had been suddenly charged by the electric vibrations of light and music, Shell stands. She holds her hands out before her. To Jerry? To Manny? To Cob? Quickly Cob rises. Separately, he and Shell move into the clearing on the floor, two shadows thrust starkly into the spinning colors.

  Colors exploding like rockets on them, Shell and Cob dance. Motion itself, Shell's body twists, arches sensually, her long, long hair lashes ferociously like an angry whip. In the shifting colors, she seems to move in rhythmic jerks without transition.

  His movements slower, more deliberate, Cob is a dark form occasionally set ablaze by colored lights. To the cruel rhythm, his hands move fiercely before him as if confronting an enemy. Thrusting, lowering itself, his body arches from the hips.

  More than a dance, it seems to be a violent test to see how far each can get from the other—and still be close, still together: sharing only the colored lightning on the screens and the throbbing currents of sound. Slowly, the two move farther and farther from each other, gyrating, flailing savagely, within their invisible cages.

  Now slides replace the colors on the screen. A blue heart! A red butterfly! A vibrating black flower! … A luminous orange angel! The slide is held: the angel's wings seem about to encompass—to embrace or trap—the shabby barn.

  Jerry remembers: The avenging angel in church. The screaming, unrepentant dragon.

  Manny shakes his head. ‘That Shell—man … She's … far out.’ He closes his eyes—as if to seal within his mind whatever images flashed there.

  As if alternately seized and released by an electric current, Shell's body becomes rigid, relaxes, becomes rigid, loosens. She holds one hand before her thighs … Facing her, Cob's body trembles in a paroxysm of motion; and his hand too dangles between his legs.

  Then the music stops! The colors, the slides disappear! In the gray-yellowish light which remains, Cob and Shell stand facing each other for moments. Then—separately, quickly—they return to the table.

  ‘Let's split,’ Shell says suddenly.

  Soundlessly they rise.

  Outside, youngmen and girls waiting in the night offer them grass. But Shell moves away from the milling groups. Now she's talking, alone, to a youngman wearing an Indian headband. He disappears momentarily, into an old van painted with blazing stars; he returns, hands Shell a packet. With a smile she holds out the packet to the three waiting for her nearby.

  ‘Pow!’ Manny approves.

  Shell gets into the driver's side of the car, Jerry gets in front.

  The Texas night is still. Dust pursues the car from the un-paved dirt road. There is no moon. But the stars are luminous silver.

  ‘We'll go back to that empty house,’ Shell announces.

  ‘And do the acid!’ Cob says.

  ‘We've never tripped at night,’ Manny says excitedly.

  ‘We're not tripping till tomorrow,’ Shell says.

  ‘Why the fuck not?’ Cob asserts himself.

  Shell smiles: ‘Would you dig some cocaine tonight?’

  ‘Cocaine!’ Cob blurts. ‘You got cocaine?’

  ‘Yes,’ Shell says.

  ‘Pow!’ Manny repeats.

  In the distance a siren wails. Forlornly. Jerry remembers: the ambulance. Will the new drug fill the void? he wonders. Or will it be like the grass, the hash? Nothing.

  They've reached the dark, boarded-up house by the bar; the brooding house is harshly real in the fantastic night. Shell parks in the familiar alley. They get out. Shell carries the packet she got outside The Seed, Manny carries the flashlight, Cob carries the transistor radio, not on. Before the window they use for an entrance, they pause. The loose boards are parted. Cob's wolfish face registers, alert.

  Inside: along the dark corridor: suddenly: ‘Cool it, there's someone else in here!’ Cob whispers excitedly.

  ‘Maybe Stuart came back,’ Manny says with apprehension.

  ‘No,’ Cob dismisses definitely.

  From the inner darkness: stirrings. A long sigh.

  ‘Maybe Stuart brought the pigs …’ Manny begins.

  ‘Keep your voice down!’ Cob orders. ‘It's not Stuart.’ Quickly he takes the flashlight from Manny, giving him the radio.

  They walk silently along the dark corridor, Cob clearly leading them this time.

  The same sounds again, increasing. Now: a sudden ga
sp.

  Cob stops abruptly at the door to the room where they interrogated Stuart. A car's light wounds the darkness, revealing in a bright flash like a quickly focused slide, two male bodies fused into one, one stooped over, the other entering him from behind, pants and shorts at their feet.

  Shell's world: A sudden blackness … Automatically she turns away quickly. Instinctively, seized by the emanating waves of vagrant sexuality, Jerry reaches for her arm. To touch her? To keep her here? His fingers quickly slide down to her hand. It's cold. She doesn't withdraw it.

  Cob floods the two men in light.

  Two stunned faces turn. The youngman being fucked begins to straighten up, the second to pull his prick out of the other.

  Cob's voice shoots through the darkness: ‘Stay exactly like you are, you weird motherfuckers!’

  ‘The cops!’ the youngman penetrating the other blurts.

  ‘Oh, God, no!’ the second youngman moans. He begins to reach for his pants.

  ‘I said don't move!’ Cob commands. He advances, holding the harsh light like a rifle.

  Frozen in terror, the two bodies remain fused, the one's cock softening instantly against the other.

  ‘Finish what you were doing—queers!’ Cob says.

  ‘Please …’ the second of the two whimpers.

  ‘Let us go!’ pleads the other.

  ‘Don't stand up! Don't move. I'm warning you two creeps: finish!’ Cob fires.

  The others stand at the door. Still touching—barely touching —Shell's hand, Jerry stares at the two—and then away, at Shell.

  A tide of giggles issues from Manny's mouth nervously: ‘They're fucking!’ he blurts.

  Composed now—pulling defiantly at composure—Shell's voice rips: ‘Finish!’

  Jerry pulls away his fingers from her cold, cold hand.

  ‘We can't …’ the first youngman whimpers.

  ‘If you let us go …’ the second starts.

  The two see only threatening shadows clustered about the door. Terror has quickly replaced sexual excitement. The light advances menacingly in a bright crystal circle.

  ‘Finish, motherfuckers!’ Cob says darkly.

  ‘Do what he says!’ Shell deliberately matches Cob. But she's looking away from the two, at Cob.

  His prick still against the other, but soft, the terrified youngman presses against the other's buttocks.

  ‘Ooo-eeeee—they're fucking,’ Manny giggles nervously.

  Jerry merely waits, as if for a definite reaction to the bewildering sexual spectacle.

  Cob advances closer to the two youngmen. ‘Fuck him!’ his voice thunders at the youngman in back of the other.

  ‘I can't!’ he whimpers.

  ‘Go on!’ Shell demands angrily.

  Desperate to end the sexual charade—to pacify them—the youngman grinds against the other's buttocks, but his soft prick cannot penetrate. He merely pushes against the other, who whimpers in fear.

  Suddenly Cob drops the flashlight to his side, its light spills on the rotting floor.

  The soothing semi-darkness embraces the two youngmen. Quickly, they straighten up, adjust their clothes. Tensely, they face the four shadows. ‘What do you want?’ says the first youngman.

  ‘We're pigs, man!’ Manny says. ‘And we're going to fucking bust you for doing queer shit.’ He pauses. ‘Let's interrogate them!’

  ‘No,’ Cob rejects decisively. ‘Split!’ he commands the two. Til count to three … One!’

  The two stumble past them.

  ‘Like animals,’ Cob's words shoot out in accusation.

  ‘Man, we really freaked them out,’ Manny says.

  ‘Animals!’ Cob yells after the two.

  ‘Animals!’ Shell seizes the word, laughing harshly. ‘Animals!’

  ‘Animals!’ Manny joins them.

  ‘Animals …’ Jerry echoes softly. But to whom is he addressing the word? He feels relief that his own violent excitement—and it had been stirred by the charged anger—has ebbed.

  ‘We shoulda fucking interrogated them!’ Manny insists. ‘Why didn't you wanna?’ he questions Cob.

  Cob doesn't answer. The flashlight is still at his side.

  Shell sits on the decaying wooden floor. The others join her, slowly. She turns on the transistor radio. Rock sounds float like soft magic into the darkness.

  ‘Let's do the dope now!’ Manny says; he wants release from the tension.

  Shell's voice comes coldly, unexpectedly: ‘Not yet. Let Jerry suggest something,’ she says.

  ‘Right on,’ Cob agrees. He lays the lighted flashlight on the floor: a shaft of light exposing each splinter on the floor, enlarging it grotesquely.

  ‘They want you to make up a game, man,’ Manny says, somewhat bewildered, to Jerry.

  ‘You've just like come along with us so far,’ Shell says.

  Why is she turning against him—because he touched her and she allowed it? Jerry wonders. Because he touched her cold, cold hand?

  ‘And you blew the scene with Stuart,’ Cob accuses him.

  ‘Maybe he could make up a game about locked rooms. Or death,’ come Shell's brutal words. Grabbing it quickly from the floor, she flashes the light on the transom. On the dead bird caught there.

  Death: Jerry looks up at the crushed bird. Then at Shell in overt accusation. She's deliberately stirring the black sorrow he thought only earlier she understood, might try to calm. Angered and confused, he stands up quickly, to leave.

  Whether because of that or because that phase of cruelty has been run through, Shell withdraws abruptly. She pulls the light away from the transom. She places the flashlight again on the floor—a sheet of lighted transparent ice. ‘Let's do the cocaine,’ she says quickly.

  Jerry still doesn't sit down.

  ‘Come on, man, join us,’ Shell says. ‘We were just putting you on—you're one of us, man.’

  But is he? And does he finally want to be? Still, Jerry remains apart. Yet, if he leaves … Alone … Night contains death. And this thought intrudes powerfully: to vanquish Shell's cruelty…

  She's smiling radiantly at him.

  Now she brings out a small plastic bag containing a thin white powder like talcum. With intense attention, she spreads it on a piece of paper on the floor. Using a small strip of cardboard as a knife, she divides the powder into four neat, thin rows on the paper. Then she rolls a dollar bill thinly, like a slender cigarette.

  ‘You cover one side of your nose like this,’ she explains, doing it. ‘And you bring the bill to the other, and then you bring the tip of it to the shit, and you snort the hell out of it and hold it. Like this …’ She bends over the powder, inhales forcefully. The first rail of white powder disappears. She leans back, closes her eyes. ‘Wow!’

  Jerry sits down with them, lured by the prospect.

  Cob reaches eagerly for the rolled dollar bill.

  ‘Don't exhale till you've got it all in,’ Shell tells him.

  ‘I know how to snort the son of a bitch,’ Cob says. He takes the powder expertly. Now he too leans back, eyes closed, welcoming the rush.

  Manny does it clumsily, blowing bits of the powder over the paper, so that he has to snort all over it. He inhales loudly. It hits him. ‘Pow! Outasite!’

  The shielded purple-glassed look issuing a challenge to him, Cob hands the bill to Jerry.

  Quickly Jerry takes the bill, leans over the powder, inhales. Immediately he felt a tickling in his nose, then a sudden deadening. And then: a violent, decreasingly violent, numbing, beautiful sensation, like a lingering blue rush.

  8

  Standing up suddenly, Jerry deliberately separates himself from the others. Will it last? this racing feeling of power and release?

  Abandoned in their violated circle, the others look sad to him, sitting close to each other but not touching. Sad and isolated. Like unwanted children. Yet the drug has created a superficial closeness. But paradoxically a wall, too.

  Shell looks up at Jerry. ‘How do y
ou feel ?’

  He sits down again. He doesn't answer. But, yes, this time he's reacting to the drug, he knows with relief. He merely nods at Shell. His body seems to be rushing frantically—speeding without motion. Then he hears his own words: ‘Poor Stuart, man.’

  ‘What is this, man?’ Cob says.

  ‘Jerry's our conscience,’ Shell says softly. ‘Or maybe we're really his.’

  ‘Yeah, ole Stuart,’ Manny says. ‘Hell, he wasn't such fucking bad people.’

  ‘He just wanted to bugger your ass,’ Cob says.

  ‘No, he didn't,’ Manny says with conviction. ‘He was just like lonesome.’

  Lonesome.

  Silence.

  And within that crush of lonesome silence, Jerry sees: Strange children in the dark house. He laughs uncontrollably.

  ‘It's far out, isn't it, man?’ Manny asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jerry agrees.

  ‘What is?’ Cob asks, smiling.

  ‘Suddenly I just saw it,’ Jerry says. ‘Like we're really children.’

  ‘We are,’ Manny mutters. ‘We're the little people.’

  ‘I was a child,’ Shell sighs. Her sudden laughter smashes the words she just spoke.

  Cob echoes her sigh, then her abrupt laughter.

  Then silence rocked softly by the radio's mellow sounds.

  Silence. And the drugged music. And time—this moment of time—conquered.

  Manny shakes his head dazedly. ‘Can you diggit, man? Those two dudes, screwing!’ His mind opens on the earlier scene, springs to another: ‘Ole Stuart…’

  More silence.

  Time.

  The rushing stoned magic wanes.

  Jerry feels a heavy disappointment that it lasted so briefly, the sensation of speed, eroding pain.

  Cob tries to cling to it: ‘Let's do the acid now,’ he says.

  ‘No, man,’ Shell says. ‘Tomorrow. There's got to be something for tomorrow.’

  Abruptly she gets up. By tacit agreement they know they're ending the night. But Cob remains sitting, as if he dare not yet commit himself to the knowledge of its end. Soon there will be tomorrow to fill, the thought hovers over him.