The Virgin of Flames

by Chris Abani

  “I could sound distant and crackly,” Gabriel said, sounding like a cell phone with bad reception.

  Black didn’t waste time wondering how Gabriel knew what he was thinking. He said nothing, though, other than to mumble under his breath: “You’re not real.” Over and over.

  “Red says a lot about you humans. The whole story of your miserable species unravels along the river of that color. The blood you are made from, the bloodline you belong to, the blood in your veins, the blood of your sacrifice and redemption . . .”

  “You sound jealous,” Black said.

  “It doesn’t help to get into arguments with an angel, you know. Just ask Kant,” Gabriel said and laughed deeply.

  “Time I was gone anyway,” Black said, getting up and heading for the van. He and Sweet Girl would be arriving at the same time. This was good. He didn’t want to seem too eager.

  “The same as him,” she said to the waiter, sliding into the booth opposite Black. “Am I very late?”

  “No,” he said, smiling shyly, “I was early.”

  The old Hispanic waiter in soft, worn running shoes walked away, writing hard on the order pad, face furrowed in concentration as if trying to push the pen through. Black watched him for a minute. There was something about old men like this, they reminded him of good things, but he didn’t know what. Maybe something like a poor man with very little but who would split whatever he had and give you a feast. Black’s attention returned to Sweet Girl, as she adjusted her hair while looking into her compact, unself-consciously, with the air of a woman who is beautiful and knows it. She snapped it shut and returned it to her handbag.

  “What’ll it be?” It was a woman’s voice.

  Without looking up, Black said, “We’ve ordered. Thank you.”

  “I don’t think she’s a waitress,” Sweet Girl said, smiling at the old woman who stood by them. The woman stank and Sweet Girl was doing her best not to be rude and show her disgust. Black looked up.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “What’ll it be?” the old woman repeated. “Money or death.” She added this last part as though it clarified everything.

  “I don’t understand,” Black said.

  “I’m a fortune-teller,” the old woman said, tone exasperated. “Do you want your fortune told?”

  Black didn’t, but he looked over at Sweet Girl. She smiled.

  “Can’t do any harm, right?” she said.

  “Not if you pick money,” he said.

  Sweet Girl turned to the old woman.

  “How much?”

  “Five dollars.”

  “Five dollars!” Black said.

  “Okay, two then. But only because the lady is beautiful,” she said.

  Black paid up. The old woman took Sweet Girl’s hand in hers and squinting against an imaginary light, she stared off to the side of Sweet Girl’s head.

  “What are you looking at?” Black asked.

  “Ssh!” the old woman said.

  Sweet Girl made a face and giggled. The woman let go of Sweet Girl’s hand and wiped her own hand over her face.

  “Your energy is good. I think you are a good person,” the old woman said. “Do people say you are a good person?”

  “Yeah!” Sweet Girl said.

  “And people always take advantage of your goodness, don’t they?”

  “Oh, my God!” Sweet Girl said. “This is too freaky.”

  Black yawned.

  “I see a lot of money coming your way,” the old woman said. “Right here in your aura,” she added, gesturing. “Of course I am color-blind and it could just as easily be death.”

  Black laughed.

  “I told you it was a scam,” he said.

  The old woman rounded on him, eyes glittering.

  “If you don’t believe me, then give me two dollars for your reading.”

  “I got it,” Sweet Girl said, handing the woman two dollars.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Black said.

  “Hell yeah,” Sweet Girl said.

  The old woman folded the bills somewhere into her tent-like clothing and grabbed Black’s hand with her dirty claws. She dropped it.

  “You’re a crazy mothafucker!” she said, backing away.

  “Hey!”

  “No, you’re crazy and no good,” the old woman muttered, backing away. “No good!”

  The old man who had taken their order came over.

  “Hey, Gladys,” he said, and though he meant to reprimand the old woman, his tone was gentle. “Are you bothering the customers?”

  “No, Tony, they paid, honest, look,” the old woman said, showing him the money.

  “You have to leave now, Gladys,” he said, steering her toward the door. “Sorry,” he threw back at Black and Sweet Girl.

  Black looked rattled. Sweet Girl put her hand over his.

  “Are you okay?”

  He nodded. Lit a Marlboro. Fished a small bottle of brandy out of his shirt, poured generous shots into both their coffee cups.

  “It’s okay.”

  She sipped the coffee.

  “Whoa, papacito, are you trying to get me drunk?” she asked, smiling.

  “Maybe,” he said, pulling the bottle out again and taking a generous swig before passing it to her. She shook her head. He took another swig. He looked bothered.

  “Easy, mi rey,” Sweet Girl said. “She was just a crazy old lady. You don’t believe that stuff, do you?”

  He blew smoke into his coffee cup, watched it swirl over the surface of the dark liquid like mist over a lake. He took a sip.

  “When I was a kid I used to read comics a lot. Silver Surfer. The X-men. There was this comic book that had a young boy in it. He had these aliens come down from outer space. Small little beings. And they saved him, turned him from a nerd to a hero,” he said.

  Someone banged in covered in soot. He sat at the bar. A couple of policemen followed. They looked tired, eyes bloodshot. They sat at a booth in the back. They seemed to be casing the diner.

  “So?”

  “So I was maybe eight. Anyway I built a landing platform out back, in the yard. Nothing really, just some packed dirt and a strip of plywood painted with a runway. I set up my flashlight as a beacon, leaving it on every night for weeks.”

  “Did they come?”

  “No, but it cost me a fortune in batteries. We moved soon after. My mother and I, because my dad left and we couldn’t afford the house.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Anyway,” Black said, “I’m sure they came. I am sure they did. I just wasn’t there to meet them.”

  Sweet Girl smiled and squeezed his hand.

  “Of course they came, baby. Of course they did.”

  He was suddenly angry. He couldn’t tell if she was mocking him. He wanted to hurt her, be cruel. He pulled the bottle out again. Took another swig.

  “I’m a crazy fuck, you know?” he said.

  “No, amorcita. I know crazy. You’re not.”

  “I am and don’t argue with me, you bitch,” he said, but his words lacked the venom, the power, and they both knew it.

  “Corazón,” she said.

  Just then the old waiter brought them their food.

  “Enjoy,” he said.

  “Thank you,” they said.

  “If you need anything, just call,” he said.

  “Thank you,” they said.

  They weren’t that hungry anymore, but they ate. They ate in silence. In the parking lot they could see the fortune-teller. She was staring right at Black.

  thirty-eight

  the red of flames reflected.

  And this. Soft and white, like a butterfly, a flake landed on Black’s hand. He stared at it for a moment and then looked up. The sky was full of the flurry of snow. Bracing himself against the wind that was whipping everything into a frenzy, he leaned back and laughed. Snow, in Los Angeles, and it seemed to mitigate what was usual here: sorrow and loss catching in the city�
��s heart like tumble-weed. Snow and a red sky; he liked it. Black closed his hand around the flake in his palm and felt the papery crumple of it. The realization came slowly. It wasn’t snow, but ash from the brush fires blown in by the wind from the neighboring mountains. Just like Los Angeles, smoke and mirrors, and in this case, ash. He shook his head.

  Sweet Girl watched him for a minute, enjoying the sheer abandon of his joy. It was infectious. They ran around the Denny’s parking lot squealing like children at play, watched by the confused policemen of the K9 unit, their dog’s unbridled desire filling the lot with barking, and the ash swirling about them like a snowstorm. And there was something about the moment—the antiseptic lights that lit the parking lot like an ER, the traffic passing in a dull throb just beyond its wall, the Denny’s sitting in the middle of the lot like a postcard diner, the new wing of Union Station hunched over it on the slight rise like an inquisitive worm—everything, that made it seem like they were caught inside a snow globe, lost among the bric-a-brac on someone’s mantelpiece.

  Panting, Black came to a stop, leaning against his van. Sweet Girl fell into his arms. She kissed him, long and hard, pulled back, smiled at him and said:

  “You realize all the cars are covered in soot.”

  He laughed and stood away from the van, brushing at his clothes. He swayed.

  “Easy,” Sweet Girl said.

  “I think I had too much brandy,” he said.

  She smiled.

  “Your place or mine?” she asked.

  “I’m closer,” he said.

  “Your car or mine?”

  “We’re leaning against mine.”

  “Then let’s go, papitito.”

  Sweet Girl hesitated before the open door.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I think I’ll follow you. I don’t want to leave my car here,” she said. “I sat in a lotta laps for it.”

  But they both knew that wasn’t the reason. She still didn’t trust him completely. They turned out of the parking lot and waited for the lights on the corner of the rise, Black’s van trembling against the strain like an old man, Sweet Girl following closely. The Denny’s fell away into the small dip behind them, and the parking lot was empty apart from a lone police car, slowly being covered in ash and looking as forlorn as a scarf forgotten on the seat of a fast moving train, or a glove, dropped in the street.

  As they drove up Cesar Chavez, there were children in the streets, laughing and darting around the flakes. Parents watched them carefully from their places at Pedro’s taco stand or leaning against storefronts. Even Bomboy was out standing in the middle of the street, hands held up to catch the ashy snowflakes, eyes closed, wearing for the first time a plain black T-shirt turning white with the fall.

  The drive was slow as the street was full of people luxuriating in the snow. Somehow music had been introduced. There was a mariachi band at one end, and several parked cars with custom sound systems that were blasting music at their loudest. People were dancing—together, alone. Men in white shirts turning gray in the snow, dark blue jeans with razor-sharp creases, cowboy boots and white Stetsons stood in a group in front of the panaderia. They were passing several paper-bagged forties back and forth, watching, laughing, leering. A circle of women and a few men danced on legs unsteady from alcohol. One woman broke away from the circle, stood confused for a second before squatting by a tree, right there on the street. She rejoined the circle and began dancing again, skirt tucked into the back of her tights. No one told her. No one seemed to mind. Teenagers in baggy shirts and jeans that desperately held on to the backs of thighs as they slid down fashionably stared stonily at the parade of people from their perches on the hoods and roofs of their cars. Children squealed in and out of the snow and the crowds. Older couples danced with all the elegance of a past remembered romantically, content in that moment to be eluding death. There was the air of carnival about it, which meant the threat of an unbridled violence hovered over everything, becoming a thing that collected in the corners and under the cars, blown there by the inclement wind.

  Parking across from The Ugly Store, Black waited while Sweet Girl pulled in behind him and got out before leading her across the street. The faithful, still spread out over the sidewalk in front of The Ugly Store, had now built a shrine. A life-size Virgin of the Guadalupe stood in the middle of a sea of flowers and candles, and spreading like a shock wave around her, people kneeling and saying the rosary.

  “This place is crazy!” Sweet Girl said, sounding excited. “What is going on?”

  “These people,” he said, pointing to the faithful and the statue, “believe the Virgin has been appearing on the roof of my spaceship.”

  “You really have a spaceship?”

  He pointed. At first she couldn’t see it through the thick flakes of falling ash but then there it was.

  “Black!” she said. “That is just far out!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. You don’t know?” she said.

  “Know what?”

  She glanced behind her as a drunken man bumped up against her. “Hey, mama, let’s dance,” he said. She pushed him hard and the man fell back into the street, promptly falling asleep. She turned back to Black.

  “I love aliens,” she said. “Always have. Remember The Twilight Zone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, ever since then.”

  “Let’s go inside,” he said.

  He paused in the foyer of the store, leaning against the moa’s case. The place was packed and the band was still playing an upbeat standard, but he couldn’t make out what it was. On the far side of the room, he saw Iggy leaning against the door of her office. She looked at him blankly, like he wasn’t there, then her eyes alighted on Sweet Girl and she smiled. Sweet Girl smiled back and it seemed to Black like the two women spoke to each other. Iggy motioned them over.

  “Where was all that ash coming from? Is that part of the street parade?” Sweet Girl asked as they crossed the room to Iggy’s office.

  “Have you watched the news lately?”

  “No, why?”

  “There are brush fires eating up the whole state.”

  “Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed. “Still, the parade seems nice,” she added, perking up.

  “There is no parade. Just a bunch of people going wild because of the ash.”

  “Gotta love LA,” she said.

  “Yeah, gotta love it.”

  Iggy had seen them coming over and ducked back inside her office. She was sitting behind her desk as they came and she rose to meet them, sailing out from behind the desk to kiss Sweet Girl on both cheeks. It was quite the display, and Black was confused by it.

  “So,” Iggy said, holding both of Sweet Girl’s hands in hers. “You are Sweet Girl. I have heard so much about you.”

  “But Black has told me nothing of you,” Sweet Girl said, looking at Black with wide eyes.

  “Really?” Iggy said, her voice thick with delicious danger.

  “Iggy, meet Sweet Girl. Sweet Girl, this is Iggy,” he said, adding, “Iggy is my landlord.”

  “And an old friend.”

  “And an old friend,” Black agreed.

  “How good of a friend?” Sweet Girl asked.

  “Oh, nothing like that,” Iggy said, waving them both into chairs. “Sit, sit. Can I get you anything?”

  Black and Sweet Girl remained standing.

  “Actually, no, Iggy. We just wanted to say hello,” Black said. He was uncomfortable and wanted to get out of Iggy’s office.

  “Quite an interesting place you have here,” Sweet Girl said. “Nice music.”

  “Thank you, thank you.”

  “Lots of dead things,” Sweet Girl said, noting the stuffed owl on Iggy’s desk.

  “Yes,” Iggy said, stroking it. “Well, you know what they say. Death can only haunt the dying, not the living.”

  Sweet Girl looked at Black and made a face. Black shrugged.

  “You
’re not dying, Iggy,” he said. “Are you?”

  “Well, of course I am, and so are you. But not Sweet Girl here. No, she is a pure one, you know, living inside her joy. Compared to her, you and I are the walking dead.”

  “I think we should go,” Black said, steering Sweet Girl for the door.

  “Bye, it was nice to meet you,” Sweet Girl said, following Black.

  “Yes, it was,” Iggy said.

  As they made their way up the stairs to his room, Sweet Girl rolled her eyes.

  “What a weird woman,” she said.

  “She grows on you,” he said, stopping by the door of his room. “Well, here we are.”

  He opened the door, but Sweet Girl hovered on the threshold.

  “Aren’t you going to show me your spaceship?”

  “What? Now?”

  “Pleeze?”

  Nodding, he led her out onto the roof, and helped her up the ladder, making her leave her pumps on the roof. She went first and he could barely keep his balance, he was staring at her ass so hard. And he was hard. Like with Fatima. Sweet Girl was laughing nervously.

  “Shit!”

  “What is it?”

  “I got a run in my panty hose.”

  He smiled.

  “Are you sure this thing is safe? It’s swaying around a lot.”

  “It’s safe. Built to withstand earthquakes,” he said. But he was worried. The wind was whipping the spaceship about like a loose branch. He secretly hoped the screws and bolts would hold. He should have taken care of that.

  Sweet Girl pulled herself into the ship and sat in the open door watching him come up. As he got nearer, she spread her legs and flashed him, smiling. He laughed. Sitting side by side in the open doorway, they looked out through the snow-ash flurry covering Los Angeles. He took another swig from the bottle of brandy and handed it to her. She took a swig, grimaced and passed it back.

  “I wonder if you can make snowballs out of it?” he said.

  “No, stupid,” she said.

  They sat there for a while swaying in the dark, and Black hoped Gabriel wouldn’t show up.

  “Tell me about your family?” Sweet Girl said.

  Right then the only thing he could think of was his dying mother. Him holding her over the toilet, feeling her bones through the thin fabric of her nightgown, feeling the weight of her, which was as light as a bird’s, holding her while she heaved, sweat filming her, leaving the acrid after-smell of medicine on his hands. And after he wiped her and helped her back into bed, he would return to clean the toilet: lift the seat, and with wet tissue, wipe the spatter marks away. Wipe them clean. Then flush the paper. He never told her, never knew why he did it. But he felt some kind of love in that, he guessed.