A Flight of Storks and Angels

by Robert Devereaux

  She smiled and Harold almost had a seizure. “I don’t mind it, it’s quite nice, that sweet-and-lovely stuff, but I’m afraid I’ll have to edit it out.”

  “I know,” he said, his left hand idling at Dawn’s wet silky back. Between them, their lower halves submerged in but not displacing the placid water, a dreamy Caroline and Dawn’s woolly guardian were contentedly entwined. “That’s for your ears only, not for your readers. I just want you to know that I love the way you look and I love how damned smart and articulate you are, and the aroma of your entire self just blows me away and makes me want to make ecstatic love to you right here and now.”

  A little overbearing, perhaps.

  “Jesus, you don’t mince words,” she replied, disarmed but not offended. “Funny what the sight of a naked breast or two does to some men. Besides, it looks like you might have something going with Dawn.”

  “I hope I do.”

  “He does,” Dawn broke in. He turned to her, caught a smile, heard her companion suggest it before she leaned in to brush a kiss against his lips, one perfect breast small and warm at his side and a submerged hand high on his left thigh in sylphid caress. Neither her tone nor the look in her eye lay exclusive claim to him, encouraging him to say what he said next: “I love Dawn and I love you too, sweet lady—and it doesn’t have a thing to do with your state of undress, trust me, but with how splendidly attractive you are in every way.”

  Ruth laughed. “You really know how to turn it on.”

  “I’ll bet I know how to turn you on.”

  “Well be that as it may, Mister Porter, I wonder if we might get back to the interview?”

  “Fire away, dear Miss Crashaw.”

  Astonishing, isn’t it? She’s tilting.

  Caroline was right. Ever since they’d picked her up at the motel—after he’d crept from the house to call Dawn and make his way to her condo—Ruth’s eyes had sparkled in the sweetest manner. It wasn’t simply the impending scoop either: From the beginning, there’d been more to it than that, almost as if his and Dawn’s angel-inspired frankness had led Ruth, despite her continued facade of good-humored unfaith, to the brink of knowing her own guardian. She’d refused at first to undress—no big deal at a gathering of clothing-optional types—but Harold’s good-humored coaxing and Dawn’s pixyish comments, not to mention the matter-of-factness of the dozens of couples and singles who’d doffed their clothing as casually as a hat and coat, brought Ruth to the buff within thirty minutes of their arrival. She’d been far more relaxed from then on, swaying like a natural goddess to the table of hors d’oeuvres; joking with Harold about his continuous erection (“Doesn’t that thing ever go down?”), the only one in the place and, from the way folks avoided staring at it, an oddity at such gatherings though Harold sure didn’t understand why; and suggesting that the interview he’d promised take place in the spa. She’d made light of Harold’s comments on her beauty and intelligence, but he’d witnessed as well a gradual melting, butter under moonlight, which softened the gleam in her pupils and gave him hope of reciprocation to come.

  “The question of the hour, of course,” she said, “is the whereabouts of Ted Jameson and the children. Any idea where they might have gone?”

  “None, though if I knew it I wouldn’t reveal it, Ruth of my dreams. I saw them enter the woods—at what point I won’t confirm until the police dogs have sniffed it out—but where they went from there, I don’t know.”

  “Any speculation?”

  He paused, listening to Caroline. “They went,” said Harold, “to the best place they could, to do the best deed they’re capable of doing, at the best time for all parties involved.”

  “Straight from the angel’s mouth?”

  “Straight from the angel’s mouth.”

  She took a new tack, moving so that the water dipped and dappled about her, crooking her arms around the spa’s rim as if to say, Here are my breasts; admire them as you will. “These angels: Assuming, for the sake of argument, that they’re real—and I’m not saying for one moment that I believe in such things—I’d like both of you to describe them in detail, their looks, their voices, why you’re sure they’re not simply demons whose influence robs you of your free will, not to mention—as I’m too polite to mention—your sanity.”

  Dawn laughed. “Good one, Ruth,” she said. “A zinger and a half. Harold, you go first.”

  And he did, though it soon became a dual description, Harold speaking of Caroline melding with Dawn’s companion, her pale tea-rose complexion contrasting with the tan-dun-sorrel-bronze-brown ticking of his thick fleece; then Dawn chiming in—and sweeter chimes he’d never heard—to give a counterweight from her angled and enriching point of view. And so it went, running along their characteristics, their comments, their actions. And as he and Dawn spoke, Harold kept his eyes on Ruth, pert wide-mouthed vision of perfect grace and loveliness, faults and all; and what he saw, and what thrilled him, was the way she allowed their animation and openness to draw her closer to them, until, as she let her leg stray to touch his underwater and did not withdraw it, he could almost feel her spirit caressing the intimate place where his and Dawn’s souls already met, and he could almost see, like a suggestion of spiderwebs in the sunglow of breezed air, the outline of this beautiful woman’s most beautiful angel.

  *****

  Several days later, off I-80 halfway between Laramie and Cheyenne just outside of Buford, Wyoming, the regulars were mingling with the interstate spilloff at an open-twenty-four-hours-a-day Denny’s. With one exception, people’s spirits were low. It was that time between five and six a.m. when the night is finally over but the morning understands that it’s not yet time to commence, and not even a steaming cup of coffee can quite rouse the soul from its torpor or from the disquieting conviction that one’s weary bones ought to be in bed where they belong. The short-order cook sizzled widening pools of batter on the griddle, cracked eggs, and wished his mind were half as awake as his flashing fingers appeared to be. Nellie Riggs, one of three waitresses and looked up to by the others for her seniority and her quick wit and cheery disposition, felt about as elated as a dead helium balloon this morning. Loner in the far booth; trio of truckers talking loud but laconic near the front window with mouths that looked wrong without a cigarette; a small family from the motel next door, the dad’s hair still damp from the shower while he studied the map neatly folded in front of his menu, two dulled bleary-eyed girls whispered to by their scrawny stoop-shouldered mommy and nodding in return as they held their menus at listless angles; a few folks from town who blended in like the furnishings, they were so dependably there and so dependably deflated—some mornings were best zombied through, she thought, and this was shaping up to be one of them.

  There was an exception to the general lassitude, and that was the loner in the far booth. He looked as stuck in languor as a dead fly in molasses, but that’s because he was used to hiding his feelings under thick layers of deception. He sipped black coffee, watching his wavery reflection slosh about in the cup, slick on dark sludge and elusive, unpindownable. Cops were baffled; he knew it. He’d noticed more cruisers in the last couple weeks, but I-80 was one long mother of a spine and his brand of twinge he’d kept unpredictable going on three months now, a dozen kills in that time, cops hadn’t come close. He’d shoot the truckers first, still their empty macho mouths, make them so much meat. Then he’d huddle the wimps toward this booth here where he could keep an eye on the parking lot while he alternated berserk and reasonable, blew away a victim without warning and calmed the survivors, making plans for which woman he’d take with him when it was just her left alive. Usually it was a waitress. This time he guessed it’d be his waitress, Nellie, no great shakes in the looks department, but she had a flare to her that got him hard imagining her twisting under him in the backseat of the Nova he’d inherited a few days ago making a bloody splash near Kearney, Nebraska. He stared at his cinnamon roll, drab swirly maw-filler whose exfoliating walls were b
rown-flecked like powder burns and whose lifeless dough, surely reflecting its baker’s empty life, made him hungry to deliver these dead souls around him from the prisons of their flesh.

  A car drove into the arc-lit parking lot. A trucker craned his neck to look, turned back, whistled. “There’s one handsome hunk of metal pulling in.”

  “‘47 Studie,” commented the one on his left. “Good shape too. Must be a show coming on somewheres.”

  “‘S a ‘48,” said the first, glancing out the window. “Winged medallion on the hood.”

  “Right you are. Man knows his cars.”

  The third, a heavy-lidded geezer with white eyebrows, just sighed and sank his nose into his coffee cup.

  Footsteps outside. Most ignored them, intent on eggs or itineraries. The loner checked them out, Nellie too at his booth setting out eggs and bacon and a plate of French toast dusted with powdered sugar. Spry old man, familiar-looking somehow, holding the door for two kids. And then they were inside and something swept the restaurant like a searchlight or the flourish of a magic wand. The dad with the map dropped it and gripped the edges of the table, as if he might float away. “Mommy, I—,” said the younger of his daughters, and then she laughed and bloomed, almost in tandem with her sister, though two more dissimilar angels than rose above them could hardly be imagined. Their mom put a hand to her mouth and their dad’s shoulders bunched as if to suppress a sneeze, but then he giggled and shook, and shoots of color fireworked out of him and coalesced in the air as his wife’s grandmotherly guardian grew from her shoulderblades and politely suggested she sit up straight. The truckers jounced in their seats, one two three, as if a burrowing ripple coursed through the plastic—and where three had been, six now appeared. From the kitchen a yelp of glee sounded, and everywhere, like mushrooms popping up in a time-lapsed meadow, guardians bloomed and droopy-eyed men and women undrooped as if the air they breathed had in an instant been enriched with oxygen. Nellie’d been ready to say, “Enjoy your breakfast,” but her mouth slipped out of gear as her customer bloomed the most amazingly sorrow-laden companion, a fresh young woman with fathoms of depth to her face; and Nellie herself felt herself extend up and out and in one breath freed the billowing manifestation of her finest urges, a being which melded the features of her long-dead mother and father and made her weep for joy.

  “It’s Ted Jameson,” someone said.

  People rose to crowd around them, and though they had heard or seen the news reports, they knew immediately that the reports had been wrong, that what they saw and felt at this moment was as real as it gets.

  “Please, folks,” Jameson said, the impressive size of his angel making it difficult to concentrate on his words, “we’re just here for a quiet meal. Please carry on, give us some privacy; and when we’re gone, we ask only that you not mention to anyone that you’ve seen us.”

  A few people had kept their seats: the oldest of the truckers; the loner in the far booth; the Buford regulars, with the exception of Gracie Stamm who’d grown up long ago on a farm and loved the pre-dawn feel of the place at this hour. The short-order cook peered out from the back, his companion grinning like a ferret in a henhouse, but he had one eye always on the griddle. Now the others found their seats and watched Nellie lead the infamous trio to a booth two back from the young family. The sisters gawked around their mom, but their angels kept them unobtrusive. Where there’d been funereal silence, an animated buzz now filled the restaurant. Nellie took their orders (they seemed to know in advance what they wanted) and, as requested, asked the cook to make it a special rush. She noticed the loner sitting with his meal untouched, listening to his guardian and nodding or shaking his head, his hands fidgeting with the tablecloth. “Everything all right?” she asked, and he gave her the oddest look, eyes moist but his pupils seemed deep with jagged glass, a weak-eyed Ollie North look. His angel, with one glance, nearly broke Nellie’s heart.

  Twenty minutes later—folks feeling downright festive whenever a newcomer wandered in, better than Candid Camera and they got to joke across the restaurant at that person or welcome him to their table—the police car pulled into the parking lot. The boy, Jameson’s grandson, was mopping up egg with a wedge of toast. The girl tapped him on the arm and gestured out the window. Jameson arched his head but seemed not particularly alarmed. A slam of car doors. The rest of the place was abuzz.

  On her angel’s advice, Nellie went over to them. “We have a back way, through the kitchen. If you hurry—”

  Jameson dismissed it. “We’re not skulking. Cops are people too. We’re trying to keep a low profile, but a few days ago we discovered it’s best to take it slow and easy. You’ll see.”

  Crunch of sidewalk grit under hard-soled shoes. Two young men in uniform appeared, off-duty, trading comments about something or other as they strode through the double set of glass doors. Then it hit them like a shout of sun, and they were like two best buddies at a carnival watching from out of nowhere a raft of red balloons suddenly ripple and flurry up into the clear summer sky, laughing deep and loud, straight from the gut. One sprouted a chimp, wisdom in its eyes; the other, a beefy fellow with muscles and an outsized pair of wings.

  A hush had fallen.

  Jameson, wiping his mouth, watched them. His angel confided something to him, to which he nodded. The kids sat quiet and calm across from him, the girl more worried than the boy from what Nellie could see, though both were a bit stiff across the shoulders.

  The officer with the chimp walked past the family, a mingled look of wonder and determination on his face. His partner, grinning widely, followed. “You’re Ted Jameson?”

  “Yes, sir, I am,” Jameson replied, proud as could be. “We were just leaving, but if you’d care to join us—?” A gesture toward where the kids were sliding about the curve to make room.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to . . . that is, you see what a situation you’ve put us in, I—”

  “Officer,” said Jameson, “what’s the rush? You came in here for coffee, a donut. Sit down, have some. Let’s talk about justice and the law and what used to be called situational ethics. We should discuss Jiminy Cricket and what he had to say about conscience. Then if you want to arrest us, there’s plenty of time for—”

  “Daddy!” one of the daughters shouted out. People’s eyes focused on her, then on the far booth where the loner had drawn a pistol out of his traveling bag. His face was awash with tears and his guardian huddled close to comfort and coax him. Even as the cops drew their guns, crouching behind empty tables and shouting for him to freeze, he set the pistol down on his soft cold sponge of untouched toast and slowly raised his hands in the air. He blubbered some incoherent something as the cop with the muscled companion rushed in to cuff him, shouting back, “Sam, from what he’s saying, we’ve maybe got the Interstate Killer here.”

  “Read him his rights,” said the other, “then lead him out and radio in. No, don’t radio in just yet, you and me need to talk. You, um, miss—” the cop was trying to read her badge.

  “Nellie,” she prompted.

  “Nellie, I need a doggie bag for the gun.” The chimp was dropping quiet prompts in the cop’s ear, as efficient as his charge. “And you three—” He paused, brain racing with new perceptions, new notions, sitting uneasy amongst his more settled ways of thinking. He came in close. “I read your books to my six-year-old. She loves them. Take a hike. Do it quick before I change my mind. You’ve been handed a bum rap, far as I can see. Kids look fine. This guy,” he gestured toward the chimp, “is amazing. I don’t know what you’re up to, but I wish you well. My partner gives you any trouble, tell him I said it was okay.”

  They left then, the kids racing for the door, Jameson cooler behind them. When Nellie returned from the kitchen with the sack, she was in time to witness the weakening of the angels and the general dismay that settled everywhere. But her own companion she maintained—wise enough, at that same companion’s prompting, not to let on as dismay turned in some to doubt
and in fewer still to anger. Gracie gave a nod, her glowing openly-generous guardian the sole other survivor that morning. Nellie glanced caution at her, and the other woman kept her peace over a thick slice of peach pie, moded vanilla on the side.

  One of the angry ones was the cop whose chimp, dimmed and fading, sank back into him. He held them all there, a mouth and a set of piercing eyes full of questions. Who’d heard what about their plans? What had they said or done? Had they hit the restrooms? He wanted it all. And as the waitress who’d served them, Nellie caught the brunt of it. No, they hadn’t said a thing about where they were going; not in her hearing anyway.

  But then the wise androgynous being who, unbeknownst to her interrogator, anchored her said, Misdirect them.

  But that would be lying, she thought.

  No, her angel demurred, that would be doing the right thing, Nellie my Nellie my dear.

  And Nellie allowed as how she did, after all, recall the girl, or had it been the boy, let slip that they were headed for a relative in Denver, or maybe it was a friend of Jameson’s, she couldn’t be sure. But she was sure, now she thought about it, that Jameson silenced the child with a look, kind of quick and piercing. It’d been while she’d refilled their water glasses, and it was the kind of thing she prided herself on noticing about her customers.

  “They’re probably just now heading south on 25,” the cop muttered. She’d never seen anyone so p.o.’d.

  “More than likely,” said Nellie, putting on her most helpful face and hoping with all her heart that the fancy old car Jameson drove had enough oomph to have taken them past Cheyenne by the time the p.o.’d cop, who had thanked her and was now on his way outside into the metallic rise of the sun, had a chance to radio in.

  *****

  Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

  “Ward, for crying out loud, can’t you shut Timothy up for a while?” Grampa’s exasperation was mostly put on but there was enough of an edge, and Esme—floating outside as if guyed to the car—glanced an intense enough look toward him, that Ward willed his better self into calm.