“No,” I said. “You still haven’t told me how your dad’s tattoo ended up on your arm.”
“Ian tattooed me. End of story,” he said. “Now go home.”
“Bullshit. He said you were too young.”
“Catherine…”
“I’m not leaving until you tell me,” I said stubbornly.
He threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. “Why do you have to act like such a pain in the—”
“Because that’s what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know why. Now, I won’t leave until you’ve taken me all the way down to the bottom of your cursed life and we’ve climbed back out again.” My voice was hoarse but steady. And I tried to use the same glare my mom uses when she’s made her mind up.
It worked. He flopped back down on top of the snow, but looked away from me into the trees, his outline blurring even more.
I let him stew for a few minutes and then ventured warily, “So…what do you think made your dad do that? You know, draw that tattoo? Dedicate himself to helping the Archangel Michael?”
He waved his hands up in the air in frustration. “How the hell should I know? I was only eight when he died! He didn’t talk to me about stuff like that! I just thought the sword was cool.” He was becoming more and more agitated, flickering and fading faster. Come on, Michael. You can face this.
“So he named you after the Archangel?”
Michael was already nodding, but he was flickering so fast now that I could barely make out his features. “Yeah, Catherine. Ian told me my dad dedicated me to God and asked Saint Michael to be my patron when I was born, and I was thinking, and look what the hell you’ve done with yourself! You’ve dumped drug after drug into yourself! You’ve probably murdered someone! You’ve lied and stolen and…” He clenched his jaw tight, fighting for control. He settled into a slow waver that ebbed and flowed with his breathing.
“I think Ian thought telling me all that would make me feel better. Help me realize how special I was to my dad. But it just made me feel like I’d let him down. Like I couldn’t be any further from what my dad wanted me to be. And I just couldn’t listen to him anymore. I had to leave. Ian ripped my dad’s drawing out from under the staple and shoved it at me as I walked out the door.
“He was like, ‘Take it Michael! Your dad would want you to have it.’ “But I just let it drop onto the sidewalk next to the cigarette butts and dried up gum spots. Ian wouldn’t pick it up either, and we just stood there staring each other down under the street light. But I couldn’t leave it there. No matter how much I hated myself at that moment—and I did hate myself—I loved my dad, and it was a piece of him lying there on the ground. So I bent down and picked the drawing up, and then I took off running for the second time that night.”
Michael looked up at the shifting pine ceiling, and then he dropped his chin, leaned in close to my ear, and whispered haltingly, “You have to understand, Catherine, I had no place left to go. I was frozen solid inside. I felt like if I could just throw up, I could spew out the jagged ice cubes that were stuck in my gut. They were tearing me apart from the inside, slashing me to pieces, and you know what? I finally understood my mom’s addiction, because all I could think about was the rush, the heroin rush that was in my pocket. I may never have used myself, but I knew what it was, and I knew what it could do. It could take it all away. All my fear, all my pain, all my hate…it would all melt away into nothing. I’d talked to enough junkies to know. The rush. I wanted it. God, I wanted it.”
He turned his eyes to the woods again and nodded to himself. Agreeing again in his mind to the demand his tortured soul had made that night. The demand for relief.
“So I found one of those gas stations with access to the bathrooms from the outside, and I got the key from the guy at the counter, and I headed out back. I couldn’t get there fast enough. It smelled like piss and flowery air freshener, and there was water all over the floor around the toilet.
“I didn’t have a hypo, so I knew I’d have to snort it. That would cheat me out of the ultimate rush and it would take longer to feel it, but I didn’t care. A rush was a rush, and I wanted it bad. My hands were shaking with the need.”
Michael looked down at his palms, and they were shaking now. I wondered how badly he still wanted it, and I shuddered with sorrow for him.
“I locked the door and faced myself in the dirty mirror, but I could hardly see my face, and I figured that was probably a good thing. I wouldn’t have to see myself give in to the Devil. I pulled the guitar off my back, dragged out one of the bags and poured half of the brown powder carefully onto the edge of the sink, crushed the chunkier pieces with the edge of my school I.D., and then separated it into two short lines. But then I thought, what the hell, and poured the rest of the bag onto the edge of the sink and divided up the lines again. Who the hell cared if I ever surfaced again?
“I dug a dollar bill out of my pocket to roll into a straw, but my dad’s drawing stuck to it, and it fell, sword side up, onto the floor in front of me.”
Then Michael squeezed his eyes shut.
“God, I wanted to believe! The Angel, the sword, God’s love…all of it! But the rush was waiting for me. And it was real. It was here. And who the hell knew where God was? And I leaned on the sink with all my weight, feeling like I was split in two by a bolt of black lightning. I could almost smell the smoke.
“And I was thinking: Just do it already…Just do it already…Just do it already…
“Then I heard that detective’s voice in my head. ‘So, when are we gonna see you back here, kid? I want to make sure I come pay my respects.’
“And I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me dead. I didn’t want my dad to see me fall into the same hole that buried my mom and I…and I…” Michael swept his hands back and forth in front of him violently. “I shouted at the mirror, ‘So if you’re real, Michael the effing Archangel, then protect me from the Goddamned Devil inside me! Don’t let me do this! I don’t want to do this!’
“And my back was tied up in knots and my hands were locked in this death grip on the sink, but somehow I pried my fingers free and started to back away…”
I was riveted on Michael’s eyes, which were nowhere near here anymore. Please, God, let this be the bottom.
“And then I slipped on the water on the floor and was knocked out cold.” Michael sighed heavily and came back to me, watching me carefully to see my reaction.
“You think the Archangel Michael had something to do with you getting knocked out?” I asked. Michael fought to keep a straight face.
“No. The toilet did,” he said.
“Not funny,” I scowled. Michael looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t apologize.
“So. I woke up to the sound of the gas station guy pounding like crazy on the door. Then I heard a key turning in the lock, and I came to pretty quick and without thinking it through, I brushed the lined up heroin down the drain and rinsed my hands off. Yeah. I wasted a whole bag of good dope and was immediately pissed at myself. The guy busted in just as I was turning around. One week and counting. I was still clean. Barely.
“He was like, ‘Dude, you’ve been in here for over an hour.’”
“I tossed the key at his chest and said ‘Whatever, man,’ and then I grabbed my guitar, squeezed past him and walked out into the parking lot. My head throbbed, and I felt around with my fingers and found a huge and majorly painful bump on the back. That’s when I started to wonder. Yeah. I did, Catherine. Just like you. I kind of looked up at the sky and said, ‘So are You freaking shitting me? Did You just answer my call for help? Because if You did, where the hell have You been the last seven years?’
“Then, I thought maybe I’d gotten a concussion or something, and I was going…you know…” And he made a face befitting the criminally insane.
“Thanks,” I said acidly. “You asked me to tell you where my faith comes from, and I do and then you—”
“Just wait, okay? I’m not
finished yet,” Michael said impatiently. “So, at that point the sun was rising. It was reflecting really brightly off these bits of broken glass that were smashed all over the empty parking lot, and I sort of blinked a few times to clear my vision. I was just starting to think about where else I could go to rail some of the heroin I had left and nod off in private, when I saw this open pawn shop across the street.” He looked away and then back again quickly. Then he leaned forward on his elbows conspiratorially.
“Catherine, I felt this need inside me to go and check it out. It was even stronger than the need for the heroin had been. And without thinking, I crossed the street and looked in the shop window.”
It was then that I saw the embers of faith in Michael’s eyes, but they were burning him.
“There was a ring in the window. A gold Claddagh with an aquamarine stone, and it was tilted so its inscription could be read from the sidewalk: ‘Hope Springs Eternal.’ It was my mother’s ring, Catherine. It was waiting for me.”
Chills ran up my spine. Michael glanced at me knowingly. “Yeah. I know,” he said. “It freaked me out, too. I mean, how many pawn shops do you think there are in Cleveland, Catherine? What are the odds?” He was silent for a minute, and then he stretched out his arm and cradled my chin gently in his open hand, his eyes screwed up with tender pity.
“People see what they want to see, and that morning I saw miracles. I saw my dad reminding me I was valued, I saw an Archangel stopping me from making a huge mistake, and I saw my mom telling me there was still hope for me. And I believed. I believed.”
Then Michael dropped his hand and shook his head in disgust. “I looked up at the sky again and cried out, ‘Okay! Whatever! Just tell me what you want me to do now!’ Only I didn’t have to ask. I knew. I wasn’t going to find hope in a line of heroin, and I wasn’t going to find it out there alone on the streets, so I traded my guitar for the ring and headed home.’”
He shook his head softly again, a cynical smile playing on his lips. “When I got home a few hours later, there were two police cars in the driveway, and I thought. Oh shit. Here we go. And then I thought, Crap. I’ve still got heroin in my pocket.
“I stopped in the middle of the driveway and one of the cops said, ‘You better get inside, kid. Your mom’s worried out of her mind and the chief’s sick of the phone calls.’
“Okay, I thought. If God wanted me in jail, I’d go, but I was fine with the whole handcuff delay. And then I was like, my mom? Phone calls? What the hell is he talking about? But he just stared at me and motioned with his hands for me to get going. So, I went inside and Sue just threw her arms around me, hugging me and telling me how worried she’d been, and Bill poked at the big purple bruise on my head, and I was like completely confused.
“‘This your son, Mrs. Gardiner?’ The cop asked her, and she nodded. She had tears in her eyes! Over me! And I was her son? And then I started to get choked up.
“The cop said, ‘Can you call off your prayer chain buddies now? They’re clogging up the police lines.’
“Sue was like, ‘Of course, officer.’ Then she told me that after the police refused to help find me when I didn’t come home the night before, she’d had all the people on the prayer chain flood the police station with calls about me. She told me they were all praying for me all night. Then she said she’d told the stupid cops they would keep calling until I was found. That’s when they sent the cars out.
“The cops left, and she made me sit at the table and fed me pancakes, and I asked her, ‘Why’d you do all that for me?’ And she just said…she loved me.
“And then I really broke down. I told them everything. I told them about my dad’s tattoo and my mother’s ring. I told them about the pot and the coke and Devlin. And I told them about the heroin. And I told them I wanted to stay clean. And they listened to it all, and they didn’t judge me because they loved me.”
“Michael, you are so loveable,” I said. “Why can’t you see that? Maybe you’re a little prickly sometimes, but that just makes me love you more.”
Michael’s chin trembled a little. And he was quiet for a minute. He sniffed up hard through his nose.
“Um…” He cleared his throat. “So then Bill helped me flush the rest of the heroin and pot while Sue called the hospital to see what happened to Devlin. He was still unconscious and listed as critical. That’s all they would tell her. And the three of us sat around the table to wait. And while we waited, we talked and talked until there was nothing left to say. They said they would stand by me no matter what happened.”
He looked down at his hands then and brushed his fingertips absently over the icy snow. He let his shoulders drop.
“By late afternoon, the cops were back. They said, ‘Your friend woke up.’
“I was charged with assault, read my rights and cuffed. Sue followed me out to the cruiser, hugged me, and told me that she and Bill would do what they could. And that I shouldn’t give up hope. Right.
“I spent a few days in juvie, but it wasn’t all bad. I had a lot to think about. It turned out Dev wouldn’t testify against me because he thought I still had his smack with his prints all over it, and I didn’t want to tell the police he was a dealer because he and his ‘friends’ would have come after me. I was better off doing time if that’s what it came down to.
“Sue and Bill respected that, and I pled out in court in exchange for a year’s worth of probation, a shitload of community service and a promise to go through anger management therapy.” He rolled his eyes. I gathered the therapy, for him anyway, was the worst of the three conditions.
“So the Gardiners took me home and set up my therapy, and I worked out at the ‘Y’ to take my mind off trying to stay clean. They took me to a few twelve step meetings, which were okay except for all the hugs and stuff. Then last July, I went on retreat with the Saint Paul youth group, and I even started going to Mass every week—”
“But I never saw you at Mass last summer.”
Michael rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah…the Gardiners like to go to the 7 a.m. Mass on Sundays. They thought I would get more out of it since there were less people there to distract me.” He half grinned at the memory and then went on, “After the retreat I asked to transfer to Saint Joan—”
“Wait,” I interrupted again. “You asked to transfer to Saint Joan?” That surprised me. I’d always figured it had been forced on him.
“Yeah…well…I thought I needed a fresh start, and I wanted to learn more about my dad’s faith. I’d even signed up for the Sacraments class at church and thought maybe I’d make my First Communion and Confession this year. I had a lot to confess.” He smiled ruefully, but the smile quickly faded and his eyes grew cold.
He stopped there and rested his head back against the tree with his eyes closed.
“What about the tattoo?” I asked.
When he opened his eyes and glanced down at the tattoo, the old bitterness was back to full strength. “Oh yeah…that. I convinced the Gardiners to give Ian permission to tattoo me with my dad’s design. I wanted a permanent reminder of, you know, the fact that I believed and everything. It stung like a bitch, having it inked. The weird thing was, the Gardiners actually liked Ian, and he started coming over for dinner once a week to check on me. The Gardiners believed in me. Ian believed in me. I was just starting to believe in myself when…”
His jaw suddenly flexed hard, and he looked away.
“But Michael, you’d finally found your faith. You let Ian tattoo it on your arm,” I said gently. “How did it get lost again? Did you relapse?”
“I died and…”
His lips were trembling again despite his heroic efforts to stop them. He looked up, blinking desperately, and then I couldn’t believe I’d been so dense. I should have guessed what had shaken his faith to the core from the first time I saw him in the woods. His whisper was so soft I could barely hear it.
“It’s easier to believe there is no God than to believe He’s forgotten me
.”
I knew then that he’d never stopped believing.
Not for one eternal second.
And then the tears came.
TWENTY-TWO
MISSING CHRISTMAS
HIS TEARS FELL like spring rain down his subtly-wavering face. They dropped off his nose and disappeared into the clean white snow. He closed his eyes, not wanting to acknowledge them, and curled up next to me like a small child.
He wasn’t hiding alone anymore, and I did what I could to comfort him. I murmured quietly to him and ran my fingers over the place his damp blonde head would be if only I could have felt it. I imagined his heat warming my palm and his salty sweat on my fingers. But all I felt was static.
We sat like that for a long time, me resting my sore back against the rough bark of the tree and Michael anchoring himself close to me. His breathing slowed, his face relaxed and his mouth went slack. And I realized with wonder that he’d fallen asleep.
He gradually began to fade, and when I could barely make out his features anymore, he fell through me, dragging a blanket of soft static with him, and then disappeared into the cold winter air. I couldn’t feel him at all anymore. I couldn’t smell him either. But I knew he was near. I could hear his peace-filled breathing.
I was careful to stay still while I kept watch for him, but it became more and more difficult as my body fought back against my rising fever, shivering and shaking with stubborn chills. Body aches, fever, sensitive skin, sore throat, chills…there was only one affliction I knew that had all of those symptoms and came on this fast, and that was flu. Shit.
But there was no way I was leaving yet. I waited with my eyes closed, hoping I was wrong, listening to him breathe and to the soft sound of snow settling around me. Too soon, our frosty peace and quiet was startled awake by the vibration of my cell phone. And then I was startled again when Michael appeared suddenly in front of me, crouched in the snow, disoriented, his bloodshot eyes still betraying his childlike vulnerability. I wanted to take him in my arms and rock him back to sleep, but Michael would have none of that.
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