A Better Angel

by Chris Adrian

  Faster and faster and faster—not even a grieving short-gut girl can be forgiven for speed like this. People are thinking, She loved that little girl, but I am thinking, I will never see him again. Still, I almost forget I am chasing something and not just flying along for the exhilaration it brings. Nurses and students and even the proudest attendings try to leap out of the way but only arrange themselves into a slalom course. It’s my skill, not theirs, that keeps them from being struck. Nancy tries to stand in my way, to stop me, but she wimps away to the side long before I get anywhere near her. Doctors and visiting parents and a few other kids, and finally a couple of security guards, one almost fat enough to block the entire hall, try to arrest me, but they all fail, and I can hardly even hear what they are shouting. I am concentrating on the window. It’s off the course of the circle, at the end of a hundred-foot hall that runs past the playroom and the PICU. It’s a portrait frame of the near tower of the bridge, which looks very orange today, against the bright blue sky. It is part of the answer when I understand that I am running the circle to rev up for a run down to the window that right now seems like the only way out of this place. The fat guard and Nancy and a parent have made themselves into a roadblock just beyond the turn into the hall. They are stretched like a Red Rover line from one wall to the other, and two of them close their eyes, but don’t break, as I come near them. I make the fastest turn of my life and head away down the hall.

  It’s Miss Margaret who stops me. She steps out of the playroom with a crate of blocks in her arms, sees me, looks down the hall toward the window, and shrieks, “Motherfucker!” I withstand the uncharacteristic obscenity, though it makes me stumble, but the blocks she casts in my path form an obstacle I cannot pass. There are twenty of them or more. As I try to avoid them I am reading the letters, thinking they’ll spell out the name of the thing I am chasing, but I am too slow to read any of them except the farthest one, an R, and the red Q that catches under my wheel. I fall off the pole as it goes flying forward, skidding toward the window after I come to a stop on my belly outside the PICU, my central line coming out in a pull as swift and clean as a tooth pulled out with a string and a door. The end of the catheter sails in an arc through the air, scattering drops of blood against the ceiling, and I think how neat it would look if my heart had come out, still attached to the tip, and what a distinct, once-in-a-lifetime noise it would have made when it hit the floor.

  WHY ANTICHRIST?

  My father warned me that sadness cleaves to sadness, and that depressed people go around in hangdog packs. Common disaster is the worst reason for a friendship. In picking your friends, he said, you should consider what great things you can do together. You are assembling a team, he told me, not a teatime cozy of crybabies, and he made me promise never to become part of any orphans’ or bereaved sons’ club, because sitting around in a circle of pity getting your worst qualities praised and reinforced was no way to move ahead with a great life. That is the way down, he said, making a down-roller-coaster motion with his hand, but you shall go up.

  So I knew what it was all about, when Cindy Hutchinson started paying nice attention to me after her father died. He was the richest man in town and was doubling his money at the World Trade Center when the planes hit. Cindy became a tragic celebrity, and suddenly everybody remembered that my father had died when we were all in tenth grade, and the teachers all looked at me in the silences that fell during the frequent breaks they provided for us to talk about our feelings, as if I were somehow more grown-up than everybody else because my life had sucked harder and earlier than most. Or like I must have learned something back then, and if I would only share, it would make it easier for them all to bear up in these days. But I just stared at my desk, because I didn’t know anything like that.

  I caught Cindy looking at me in class or at lunch, and a couple of times she came to games and I would feel an itching on the back of my neck in the middle of a play and look up to see her there. But she didn’t actually talk to me until the middle of October, and I never tried to talk to her, though like everyone else I felt bad about her dad. She was always surrounded by friends or admirers and seemed like she was getting enough sympathy to last anybody a lifetime, so I stayed away.

  One afternoon after school while I was walking down to the lacrosse field I saw her with her friends, playing around on the statues outside the library. She ran after me when she saw me, but she didn’t catch up till I was passing the gym. “Hey!” she said, and I stopped and turned around.

  “Hey,” I said, and then she just stood there, pulling at her skirt and touching the pencil that was stuck in her hair and looking at the divers falling past the windows in the gym. “Yeah,” I said, because I didn’t know what to say to her. “See you later.”

  “I know how you feel,” she said suddenly, spitting the words out all at once and stringing them together in a swift mumble, but I’d heard the phrase so many times before that I think I’d understand it if somebody said it to me in Chinese.

  “No you don’t,” I said, and walked away. Her hand was only touching my bag and she just let it drop away.

  “I’m having a party tonight!” she called out after me. “You should come!”

  “I don’t really go to parties,” I said, which was true. I didn’t like to drink, and didn’t like watching people get drunk, and the people I wanted to make out with were never the people who wanted to make out with me, and if I wanted to make some drunk girl cry then I could stay home and do that with my mother.

  But I did go, and maybe that was the first sign, that weird pressure I felt all through practice and at home while I made dinner and while my mom watched me eat, not touching what was on her plate except to push up the potatoes in heaps, and to take strings of chicken off the bone to dangle for the dog. I was thinking of Cindy and her party all afternoon, and in the shower after practice I stood with my eyes closed under the water like I always do and felt like I was spinning in place, my bare feet turning on the soap-slicked tile, and when I opened my eyes I found I had turned to face south, down toward the river and her house. I almost never feel like I have to do something, but when I do, it usually turns out to be the right thing—I’ll pass the ball to someone who looks like they’re covered or pick an answer on a test that I think is wrong but feel is right, and it always works out.

  “I’m going to a party,” I told my mother.

  “Good for you, honey,” she said. “You don’t get out enough. Did we show you this?” She turned down to the dog. He is part poodle but mostly mutt and the fancy haircut my mother gets for him every month always looks like borrowed finery to me. “Channel up!” she shouted at him, and he ran toward the television and turned it off with a bump of his nose. “Well, we’re working on it,” she said. “But go, go! You have a good time! Don’t worry about these.” She indicated the dishes with a sweep of her hand. “Puppy and I will take care of everything.” But she went to her room not very much longer after that, the dog trailing after her, and closed her door. So I cleaned up myself before I went down the hill to Cindy’s house.

  We live in the same big neighborhood, one of those places on the Severn where people pay a lot of money for big woods and the feeling that they are miles away from their neighbors. On the curving roads it would be two miles to Cindy’s house, but cutting down the hill through the woods it wasn’t even one. She lived on Beach Road, right on the river, on a little house-sized peninsula. The drive down to the house was full of cars, but the woods covered the light and the noise of the party until I came around a bend in the drive and saw the place, every window bright. She was sitting alone on her front porch with a glass of wine in either hand, one red and one white, taking sips off each one while I watched her. I don’t know why I stood watching like that but it wasn’t long before she looked up at me. “I knew you’d come,” she said.

  “I feel like shit,” Cindy said, “but I want everybody else to have a good time.” That was the point of the party—the next be
st thing to feeling happy herself was seeing other people happy. So she floated from group to group in her house, exhorting them to drink more or laugh more or sing more or join her for a game of strip poker upstairs in her big attic bedroom. “Come on,” she said to me, when I hesitated to accept a drink. “It’s for charity.”

  I followed her upstairs and sat between her and Paul Ricker at the poker game. Paul has big eyes and a very open face, and was in his underwear within twenty minutes. Most everybody had at least taken off their shirt, but I was only barefoot, and Cindy was still fully clothed. She was in and out of the game, running off to dance downstairs, or to bring more players upstairs, or to replenish the drinks, mixing vodka and gin and ginger ale and grapefruit juice in a big bowl in the middle of her bedroom floor and then dipping out servings with a ladle.

  “Hey,” Paul said. “Stick on stick! Body on body!” We were on the lacrosse team together, and he liked to imitate our coach.

  “Right,” I said, trying not to look at his hairy belly. I had seen it before in the showers but it was different here, in a darkened room full of drunk kids, at least a fourth of whom had given up on the game to make out in front of everyone. Even drunk-droopy, his eyes were huge, and they seemed to shine in the dark. He scooted over so our legs were touching, and I moved. He put his hand out and rubbed between my shoulder blades, circles around and around.

  “Did I ever tell you,” he asked, “that you have a nice back?”

  “No,” I said, and moved away again.

  “Dude,” he said. “I’m kidding!”

  “I know,” I said. He smiled, and seemed all eyes and teeth.

  “You know,” he said. “I know. We both know!” And then he leaned into and started kissing my neck. He had hardly attached himself to me before Cindy pulled him off.

  “We have a winner!” she said, and announced that Paul was the drunkest person at the party. Everyone applauded, and Paul bowed, then turned around and pulled down his underwear to show us all his ass.

  “You may address me,” he said, “as Mr. Winterbottom!”

  “Mr. Winterbottom!” somebody called out. “Tell us a story!”

  “Once upon a time,” Paul said, shaking his ass back and forth with every word, “there was a boy named Paul.”

  “New game!” Cindy said, pushing Paul aside, so he fell next to her bed and nearly missed splitting his head on her night table. He rolled on the carpet and laughed hysterically. “Everybody!” Cindy was shouting over the music. “Everybody come upstairs!” Only three or four people came up, but it seemed to be enough for her. She distributed the candles that were burning on her dresser and windowsill to the people on the floor, and drew us all into a circle. The she reached under her bed and drew out a Ouija board. “This is a game,” she said, “called Talk to My Dad.”

  Paul laughed for a moment, but even drunk as he was he noticed that everyone else had become totally quiet.

  “Cindy,” said a girl on the other side of the room. It was too dark to see who. “That’s . . . that’s just . . .”

  “It’s okay!” Cindy said. “It’s not what you think. It’s not really him. I know that. Of course I know. I’m not crazy. It’s just some fucked-up spirit that pretends to be him. They can’t fool me.” She put the board down in the middle of the circle we’d made and started drawing people into it, pulling at their shirts if they were wearing one, or giving people hugs and then pulling on their arms, saying all the while, “Come on, come on.” Soon she had us gathered close around the board. “Hands on,” she said, guiding fingers to the planchette, until at least a dozen people were touching it. I just held a candle. “Quiet now,” Cindy said, though no one was talking. She had closed her door but we could all still hear the music from downstairs. “Quiet and still. All the smart people, empty out your heads. All the drunk people, get serious for a second.” This made Paul laugh again.

  “Serious!” Cindy said. After a few moments of heavy-breathing silence, she started to hum in a low tone, as if she were setting a tone for herself, because when she called out for her dad, she pitched her voice lower than mine. “Papa,” she said. “Father. We are calling for you. Come back across the river and speak to us. We are ignorant and wish to learn the secrets of the dead.”

  “You’re ignorant,” said Paul. “I’m not ignorant. I’m just fine.” He snorted but didn’t take his finger away from the planchette, and Cindy ignored him.

  “Papa! Are you there?” The planchette moved right away, swinging in three quick arcs to spell, Yes.

  “How have you been?” she asked, still in that deep, goofy voice.

  As well as can be expected, the board answered. Given the circumstances. Malcolm Walker wrote down the letters as they came and then read the words out loud.

  “Well,” Cindy said. “It’s not exactly all parades and puppy shows up here, either.”

  “Up?” said Paul. Cindy held up a finger to her lips.

  “Will you answer our questions?” she asked.

  Of course, as always. I am your servant.

  “That must be nice,” said Sonia Chu. “I wish I could order my dad around.”

  “Careful what you wish for,” said Cindy. “Questions? Questions?”

  “Are any of our teachers gay?” asked Malcolm.

  Mrs. Lambert is a lesbian, was the reply. Sonia said we hardly needed a spirit to tell us that.

  “Are the terrorists there in hell?” asked Paul, “Are they roasting on a spit?”

  Hell is a heaven to the innocent eye and the unspoiled imagination.

  “What kind of answer is that?” Paul asked.

  Answers are questions. Questions are answers.

  “Who in this room is going to die?” Cindy asked. “Give us a name!”

  “Cindy!” said Sonia. “Gross!”

  All to die, but one. All to suffer, but one. “Now this is getting creepy,” said Malcolm.

  “It’s supposed to be creepy,” said Paul.

  “But who will die first?” Cindy asked.

  What matters time when time is soon to end?

  “He’s never very straightforward,” Cindy said. “You just have to be patient.”

  “But I don’t want to know,” said Sonia.

  “Sure you do,” said Cindy. “Come on, it’s just a game.”

  It is not a game. It is the end of time. My suffering is great but yours will be greater.

  “Was it horrible?” asked Arthur. “There in the tower. It must have been horrible. Did you see it coming? Did you see the plane?”

  It was coming all my life but a greater disaster is coming for you.

  “I think he’s on their side,” said Paul. Cindy told him to shut up.

  “Who will die?” Cindy asked again.

  All but one.

  Cindy sighed exasperatedly. “Sometimes you just have to humor them,” she said, “to get your answer. Fine. Who is it? Who is going to live forever?”

  The Great One. Lucifer’s son. Antichrist.

  “The Antichrist is at this party?” asked Paul. “I’m going to kick his ass!”

  He is among you. He has always been among you, sleeping and dreaming but even now he wakes.

  “Who?” Cindy asked. “Stop teasing. Tell us!” And instead of letters this time the planchette swooped toward the person it wanted to name, the fingers drawing along the hands, the hands drawing along the bodies, so all twelve of the players fell forward, faces to the carpet. The planchette flew off the board and flowed over the carpet as if on wheels, stopping at the uttermost reach of their arms and pointing squarely at me. I turned to look behind me, expecting for some reason to see Cindy’s mom, back early from her trip out of town with Cindy’s sister, standing in the door. But the door was closed and there was nobody there.

  “Crazy party,” Paul Ricker said to me the next day. We were in the locker room after practice.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It was all pretty weird.”

  “I don’t remember anything that happe
ned after nine, but I heard about the Ouija thing. Don’t worry about it. One of those things told my sister that she was Jesus.”

  “You don’t remember anything?”

  “Well, a couple flashes here and there. I remember singing a lot. And a little bit of the poker game. And looking for my pants. That’s about it. Except . . .” He leaned down so his mouth was close to my ear. “I think I screwed somebody. Don’t remember any of it—dammit!—but I woke up the next morning with this feeling, and when I felt down there it was just like after . . . you know. How’s that for fucked-up?”

  “That’s definitely fucked-up,” I said.

  “I have a list of candidates, but how do you figure something like that out? You can’t just walk up and say, ‘Hey, Cindy, did we screw last night?’ Except I’m sure it wasn’t her. Anyway, I’ll figure it out.” He left his practice uniform in a pile at his feet and walked off to take a shower.

  “Good luck with that,” I said, and waited until he was done with his shower before I took mine.

  Cindy found me again while I was waiting for the bus. There was barely enough light to read by but I was sitting in the grass with my history book and for once I could pay attention to what I was reading, so I didn’t notice when she came up, and only saw her when she sat down next to me.