The Fourth Angel

by John Rechy

  Shell stands angrily before him. Even now, she exudes a fierce sensuality. ‘Then you'll always be weak,’ she says ferociously. ‘And what it's all about is to be strong! … Cob? Manny?’ She glances at them—that glance, the uttered names, as if to explain to them what their strange initiation was about.

  Adjusting his clothes, Cob stands. He rubs his wrists. He won't face Shell or Manny—or Manny him. Stunned, the two merely wait to react to the reality that crushed them earlier.

  ‘Maybe,’ Jerry says. He remembers the extreme vulnerability that thrust him into the twisted country of insanity. ‘Yes, that too. But maybe it's also controlling the cruelty inside yourself.’

  Then you're fucked,’ Shell says wearily.

  ‘Why, Shell?’ Manny asks out of the daze. He's buttoning his pants bewilderedly to shut out the immediate past.

  Automatically: ‘My father …!’ Shell shoots the two words. She blocks the rest determinedly. The Shell of icy control returns. ‘Because you've got to be strong, that's all,’ she whispers. Then loudly, ‘And that's all we've done—get stronger!’ she insists. ‘You, Manny!—letting your mother screw you over and going back to her all the fucking time for more shit … But no more!’

  ‘She really loves me,’ Manny insists.

  ‘God damn!’ Shell laughs brutally. ‘God damn! You are really something else if you believe that!’ She turns to Cob: ‘And you, Cob, with all your bullshit. You've let your sister…’

  Rendered totally vulnerable now, Cob says slowly: ‘She's not my sister. Janet's just some chick my mother picked up in that bar at the corner and is hung up on…’

  Jerry sighs.

  ‘Oh, man,’ Manny says.

  Shell holds her breath, exhales slowly.

  ‘Cob …’ Manny begins, but he can't finish, he can't face him.

  Seizing the exact moment, Shell shouts: ‘Look at Cob, Manny! Face him! Goddamnit, face it all! You've got to prove you're stronger now, not weaker!’

  Manny's world: I'm afraid! ‘I wanted you, Shell, not Cob, you pushed me to …’ He thrusts words into the empty house.

  Shell says softly: ‘I know, Manny,’ at least for now releasing both him and Cob from the wounding knowledge. ‘And that's why you can face him,’ she insists. ‘Now look at him, Manny.’ Her words are hypnotic.

  Responding abruptly to her powerful challenge to become strong, and her offer to withdraw judgment of the violent act, Manny faces Cob.

  ‘Face him, Cob,’ Shell's soft voice comes. ‘Prove it meant nothing.’

  Quickly Cob faces Manny.

  ‘Now look at me,’ Shell's voice almost implores.

  Cob does.

  Shell breathes easily. She's putting back her shattered world. ‘And now you, Jerry.’ She faces him nakedly as an antagonist.

  Shadows within shadows, the two confront each other.

  ‘It wasn't the drug that bummed you out—it was you!’ Shell hurls at him.

  ‘Whatever it was, it's over,’ Jerry says quickly. But he feels the drug's black wing touch him, hears its desolate howl.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you're still on a bummer, but you don't know it,’ Shell says viciously.

  Jerry shakes his head, attempting to shed the wailing bladeness. ‘No—my head's together now, maybe more than it's ever been before.’

  Shell's words form like cold bullets. ‘Let's find out, man. Let's go to your house. And to that locked room you won't face.’

  The house. It flashes into Jerry's mind as it was earlier today, in whirling dark caverns, caves of emptiness, a forest of shadows. The unopened room.

  ‘Yeah, let's go to your house, man,’ Cob's words invade the darkness abruptly. His voice is again threatening, sinister. He must prove he hasn't been weakened, and that proof will deprive the violent act of the harsh meaning Shell has already conditionally withdrawn. He stares at Jerry through shielded eyes.

  Manny retreats slightly. A part of him wants to block the inevitable, which Shell is already voicing like a sentence.

  ‘Let's go to your house now, Jerry,’ she repeats.

  ‘No,’ Jerry says quickly.

  ‘Yeah, man. Now.’ And Manny too joins them. The exposed weakness screams to be slaughtered.

  ‘You'd have to force your way in,’ Jerry hears the declaration of war bolting out of him.

  ‘Okay,’ Shell whispers.

  ‘Okay,’ Cob repeats.

  ‘Okay,’ Manny echoes.

  Within the muggy silence Jerry moves slowly to the transom. Carefully he removes the crushed dead bird trapped there. He lays it softly on the powdered cement disintegrating from the fireplace. Then soundlessly he moves away from them, out of the room. His footsteps echo, loud, in the magnifying darkness along the corridor.

  ‘He's gone,’ Manny says in surprise.

  Cob stares into the black hall.

  ‘No!’ Shell asserts. ‘He can't leave.’

  Silence. Within it they strain to hear the sound that will assure Jerry's exit: the pushing of the boards at the window. Nothing. They know he's waiting, undecided.

  ‘He's the fourth angel,’ Shell says firmly.

  The unbearable heat trapping them; the dark heat waits silently.

  No further sound. And so Jerry is still by the boarded window. In the dark room, straining shadows wait.

  ‘He'll come back,’ Shell repeats.

  And then it comes: the sound of the boards.

  ‘He's gone,’ Manny sighs.

  Outside, the dark house looms like a huge gravestone behind Jerry. His pace quickening, he begins to run away from it as if it, and the desperate ghosts passing through it, may summon him back. One block. Another. Another street. His life stretches like a plain before him.

  Then the bright lights of a car, moving slowly, attack him from behind.

  ‘Get in, man,’ Shell calls softly. She's driving, all three sit in front.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Jerry says. He pauses, he doesn't want them to think he's running away from them.

  The crystal web of white light containing him, the car moves slowly.

  Manny calls: ‘Come on, man; you still bumming?’ His voice, its tone, an eery imitation of Shell's.

  ‘Get in, man,’ Cob's cold voice insists.

  Jerry doesn't answer. Avoiding the binding stare of the headlights, he crosses the street. The city swims in dark heat.

  Suddenly Shell accelerates the car, the motor growls angrily. The car disappears.

  Jerry begins to run. On Montana Street, he hitches a ride with two youngmen. Now he's out of the car—and immediately, he's running again.

  And there it is finally: his needed refuge, his mother's house. White in the clear night. And within that spectral house, the locked room.

  Holding his breath, he walks slowly up the stairs leading to the white columns. Angrily he pushes away a tumbleweed clutching at the porch. The drug's madness whispers to him, withdraws. He unlocks the front door. He stands in the dark hall. Will the shadows twist him back into the mad vortex? No. Inside, there's an ordered reality. Lights from a car outside scatter on the chandelier, fragmenting it into a shattered piece of ice. Entombed silence. Shadows float on the closed black heat. The veil of darkness lifts slowly as his eyes grow accustomed to the sealed night of the house.

  The two furry cats appear. He touches them tenderly. But the brown one, where is she?

  Now he sees her, two yellow eyes blaze unreally out of the dark.

  Quickly the amber eyes disappear.

  Jerry feels the cat's desolation, his own—and the presence of the dark, locked room—electric.

  Footsteps outside!

  He left the front door unlocked! He rushes back.

  Cob, Shell, Manny are running up the stairs.

  Shell opens the door.

  Jerry confronts them. ‘You're not coming in!’ he says firmly.

  ‘We are,’ Shell says quietly. ‘We have to.’

  ‘Leave the dude alone,’ Manny vacillates. />
  Shell turns on him. ‘You're still weak!’ she accuses.

  ‘No, Shell,’ Manny says. ‘It's just that … he don't want us in his house, man.’

  Jerry blocks the door.

  ‘He's got to,’ Cob says. The memory like broken glass buried in him, he remembers the moment of attempted, thwarted touching—here—which triggered the earlier confrontation.

  ‘Yeah,’ Manny retreats, ‘like he's got to.’ He knows, just as Cob knows, that Shell may again unleash the unwanted verdict on them.

  Jerry begins to close the door.

  Suddenly Cob pushes against it. And then, with a whimper of protest, rage, despair, Manny joins him. Jerry pushes back ferociously. And then Shell joins Cob and Manny forcing the door open.

  They spill into the hall. The heat ambushes them.

  Jerry moves back quickly.

  Appearing suddenly, the brown cat stares defiantly at the invaders with glowing eyes.

  To drive away her accusing stare, Cob shrieks: ‘Neowwwwwwwwwwweeeeeee!’

  The cat shrieks back in terror.

  ‘God damn you!’ Jerry assaults Cob. Until he felt his fist aching and felt Cob's fallen sunglasses under his foot, only then did he realize he had struck Cob across the face.

  Cob advances menacingly: ‘You son of a bitch! You fucking bastard!’ All the anger, the mysterious accumulated tension explodes.

  ‘Don't fucking call me that!’ Jerry shouts back.

  Losing control: ‘Leave him alone, Cob!’ Manny yells.

  Knowing that his mother's room will become the object of their insane invasion, Jerry runs up the stairs. Shell and Cob rush after him. The cats scatter in panic. Upstairs, the heat breathes even more fiercely. Jerry stands before the locked room, to block his own and their entrance. His body is cold, a cold shell in the pool of angry heat. Manny remains on the stairs, looking up at them, not committing himself fully to the invasion.

  Shell shouts suddenly to Jerry: ‘Unlock the fucking door! Face the goddamn room!’

  Jerry's anger uncoils, snaps. ‘Don't call it a goddamn room.’

  ‘A goddamn room!’ Shell shouts. ‘Just a room you won't face!’

  ‘Shut up!’ Jerry yells at her.

  Shell sees the key in the door. ‘You've got to go in, Jerry,’ she says softly.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ Jerry yells.

  ‘You've got to face it!’ Shell says.

  ‘Alone! I'll face it alone!’ Jerry shouts back.

  ‘No you won't! You know you won't!’ Shell insists.

  ‘Now!’Cob yells.

  Shell attempts to lunge past Jerry.

  He moves to block her.

  Cob grabs him.

  Shell unlocks the door, flings it open.

  Cob pushes Jerry into the room.

  On the stairs, Manny is whimpering almost soundlessly: ‘Leave … him … alone.’

  Shell runs into the room. She finds the light switch, snaps it on. The room reels in light, shooting each object starkly into reality.

  The room! The empty bed! A bed of death now! The empty bed which contained her body! Jerry looks at it, then quickly away, his heart choking.

  ‘Look at it, man!’ Shell yells at him. ‘It's just a room now!’

  Jerry sees Shell's taut outstretched body—and he remembers the darkest moment in his life. His mother breathing harshly! Tubes and needles a hideous network about her body! And suddenly in one bolting instant as if the accumulated seconds of her whole lifetime had gathered to rush out, her body convulsed fiercely, her hands, her legs were thrust out violently, her mouth opened uttering one last unscreamed scream as blood gushed from her lips! What did she feel! Did death hurt!

  ‘Mother!’ Jerry screams now, and feels the scream ripping his body. ‘Motherrrrr!!!!!’

  Covering his ears, cowering against the balusters, Manny echoes Jerry's scream softly: ‘Mother…’

  Assaulted by the savage shout, Shell and Cob back away from Jerry and slowly out of the room.

  The scream over, his face wet with perspiration and tears, alone now, Jerry stands quietly over the empty bed. As if the knowledge had been torn out by the scream, he knows: She's … dead. The word forms for the first time. He closes his eyes. My mother is dead. He opens his eyes, and he looks at the bed which he knows now will be empty forever.

  Outside, Manny still crouches on the stairs. He whimpers over and over: ‘Mother … Mother…’

  Cob behind her, Shell stands over Manny—their shadows cover him. Shell's voice is emotionless, flat. ‘Can't you understand she hates you, Manny?’ she asks him softly.

  ‘Leave us alone!’ Manny shouts.

  The heat is still, like stagnant water.

  Shell's words continue softly. ‘She hates you, Manny, she calls the pigs to bust you, she hates you, Manny.’

  ‘She doesn't!’ Manny yells.

  ‘Manny, she throws you out of the house whenever she has a new lover.’ Shell's soft voice is almost a whisper.

  ‘Shut up, Shell!’ Manny shouts.

  Now Shell's words tumble violently into the cascading darkness. ‘She hates you, she hates you!’

  ‘I know it!’ Manny shouts hysterically from the steps. ‘Goddamnit, Shell, I know it!’

  As if Manny's admission has calmed her mysteriously, Shell seems suddenly spent. And then she voices her final verdict on him and Cob: ‘And you did want Cob, Manny; and Cob wanted Jerry.’

  Cob walks past them, down the stairs.

  Clinging to the balusters, Manny stutters: ‘Shell … Shell … Why are you so mean?’

  Shell feels the dark heat like a hundred choking hands. ‘Mean? Mean! Because I made you face … Because I …’ Control shatters. She shouts: ‘My old man fucked the hell out of me when I was eleven! He spit on his goddam prick so he could get it into me! And my old lady pretends she was too fucking drunk to know what happened!’

  ‘I'm sorry, Shell,’ Manny whispers, almost curling up on the floor.

  Now Jerry stands on the landing of the stairs.

  ‘Sorry, shit!’ Shell yells. She looks up at Jerry, calm now, strangely calm; down at Manny; at Cob, who stands in the desolate hall. Tm strong now! I've never cried since then—I cried enough to last my whole fucking life. And I'll never fucking cry again! Diggit: because I forced myself to look at the shit—the way you have to!’ she addresses them all. ‘I bled, I fucking bled—and I kept the bloodied towel; so I could face it constantly, look at it, recognize it! And know how much they hate me! Face it!f she shouts at them.

  ‘You haven't faced yourself, Shell,’ Jerry's cold voice calls down to her.

  She turns away from him. She walks quickly down the stairs. Then defiantly she faces Jerry.

  ‘You're like them now, Shell; your cruelty is just like theirs now,’ he accuses her—and himself? He'll remember, forever, the brutality which charged him too. He looks down at Shell, a shadow trapped in shadows. Yet … the radiant Shell released gloriously by the drug. The Shell fascinated by toys, bright colors, mystic aphorisms. Shell. The child … And out of the forced invasion, yes, he faced the locked room. To accept death … Was she right! But Manny, whimpering on the stairs … And Cob … Cob, so frighteningly silent. Jerry calls: ‘Cob … I'm … sorry.’

  As if that were all required to release the traumatized fear, Cob's body begins to tremble. Bewildered, frightened, he hunts about him on the floor for his shattered dark glasses. ‘I … lost … my …’ he sighs. Finding them, he puts them on. He stands. Through the smashed web of plastic, the world of this dark house is even more twisted.

  ‘You're all weak and sick!’ Shell shouts at them. Her words scatter the heat; it gathers about them with renewed ferocity. ‘Why don't you cry? Cry! Show how fucking weak and lost and sick you are! Well, I'm not, man! Because I've conquered the shit!’ she counters Jerry's earlier accusation.

  ‘We—I—want gentleness, Shell,’ Jerry hears himself say. ‘At least sometimes.’ He thinks: a gentleness that will flower from t
he relentless wounds of cruelty. And death. The ultimate cruelty.

  Shell laughs harshly. ‘Gentleness!’ she yells at him. ‘Man, you are so fucked up! Man, you don't even know it! Man, if you haven't learned from all you've seen!’

  ‘Especially after that,’ Jerry says.

  Shell's voice breaks: ‘Wow!’ She touches her head as if reorienting herself. ‘Wow!—and so we fucking got to each other. But we're still the angels,’ she tries frantically to dissipate the barbarous tension. ‘That's all it was,’ she says firmly. But the desolation grows. ‘Now we're like closer, man. Don't you see?’ Waves of isolation engulf her. She looks imploringly at Cob; up the stairs at Manny. She faces Jerry. ‘Like we're really close,’ she insists. ‘We know where each is at, and we can hassle it. We've faced the worst shit. Like Manny knows…’

  Manny says: ‘I didn't want to know, Shell.’

  ‘We're together!’ Shell insists. ‘None of us will ever, ever cry again! The four fucking angels!’ Urgently she looks for her suede bag, finds it on the floor. She brings out a joint of grass. She lights it with determinedly steady fingers. She inhales urgently. Moving quickly to him—anxious to complete the binding gesture, the meaning of the cigarette—she holds it to Cob.

  Cob doesn't take it. She extends it closer to him. Still he doesn't move. She holds it to his lips. ‘Do it, man,’ she almost pleads. ‘We're the four angels. Please…’

  Cob moves away from her. Then: the sound of the door. He's gone. Alone.

  Shell closes her eyes. Quickly, she opens them determinedly.

  Manny is coming down the stairs, as if to leave too.

  Shell intercepts him, holds the joint urgently to him. ‘Manny?’

  He stares down at it. Alone, confused, he frowns. He shakes his head; he moves away from her; he stands undecided by the door.

  Shell moves swiftly up the stairs, to Jerry. ‘Jerry …’ She holds the joint to him.

  Jerry doesn't take it.

  She extends the joint closer to him. ‘Please!’

  Jerry reaches for it, takes it, inhales from it. Gently, he returns it to her.

  Shell holds it, frowns. Then she says quietly: ‘I proved … I didn't cry.’