I’d seen it a handful of times, but it still surprised me. I always thought that by virtue of seniority he’d have a somewhat nice place, but it made sense that he’d chosen this place for himself. The furnishings were beyond sparse—one sitting chair with a small pile of books, a kitchen table for one, with a gas stove in the corner, and a bed that could’ve been a cot. The only real thing of value hung on the wall next to his bed: a small golden frame housing an old black-and-white picture of a young couple. There was a handsome young man with a short cut and fair hair, holding hands with a beautiful young woman who held a passing resemblance to Mia.
As I laid him on his bed, covering him with the tattered excuse for a blanket, I hoped he’d see her soon.
I locked up the Depot and shivered out into the night, skipping past the train station and straying far from my apartment. I wandered down the sketchy back alleys that served as shortcuts on busy days, trying my best not to trip over my own laces, piles of trash, or lost souls sleeping. Somehow I managed to step in horse shit, though I couldn’t recall seeing a horse once in twelve years.
I felt uncomfortably alone that night, the same way I had when I pressed the eject button on life. The discomfort wasn’t enough to cripple me; my legs kept moving at a soldier’s pace. But I could feel it constricting my brain, making me desperate. I could tell Michael tomorrow “no deal,” that I immediately wanted out of this awful place. Those thoughts nipped at my heels like angry dogs for six blocks. It was all I could do to follow through with my plan.
***
Down that alley, up on that wrought-iron terrace, he came off almost stoically, as if he were ruminating on some great mistake, but he seemed approachable, like any of the Archangels after you got over the initial shock. I felt sad for him. He looked just the same as he had a week before, and I assumed this has been his routine for centuries. He sat eating his applesauce from a tin, his bathrobe whipping in the wind, loose hair tangling around the stem of his spoon. As he pulled the spoon from his mouth, it glinted in the street light, hinting at an ornate design.
“I knew you’d be showing up,” he said, his mouth full of mush.
“How?” I shivered, though I wasn’t sure whether it was because of the temperature or his foresight. I was used to the angels being able to do it, but to my knowledge he was no angel.
He seemed amused. “I’ve been here longer than most. I know a great deal. And there aren’t many courageous enough to visit,” he muttered.
“You know, for something so powerful, you sure don’t come off that way.” I wasn’t sure where my attitude was coming from, but I wasn’t thrilled to be standing out in the frigid cold and playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons with some kook.
“I don’t need to posture. Word of mouth spreads. Those around here know what I do. Most fear it. A few seek it out. I believe you fall in that latter category.” He smiled, pulling down the hood of his bathrobe. I could see a rope burn around his throat, and his skin was ancient and sallow. He looked down the length of his crooked nose at me.
“So tell me who it is that requires my services. I know that you aren’t here for yourself.”
“How do you know that?” My hands were shaking in my pockets, all my preconceived notions escaping me. “Are you some kind of angel?”
“No,” he laughed, his voice tinged with regret. “There are no wings under this robe, and there were never meant to be.”
“So it’s true then? You can do it?”
“For a price,” he said. He pulled another can of applesauce from his pocket, snapping off the lid and tossing it to the alley below.
“I haven’t got much,” I said. Less than fifty dollars, and I wasn’t getting paid well even before I was supposed to take the big trip upstairs.
“I don’t ask for much,” he chuckled, rubbing at the ring around his neck. “It’s part of the rules. Thirty pieces of silver is the going rate.” He sat his spoon down on the table, resting his chin and beard on his frail, spindly hands.
“I can handle that,” I said, relieved.
“And you’re sure that the recipient is okay with this? Once you pay me, the act will be done, one way or another. There are no refunds.”
“Yes, absolutely. Just be at the Depot tomorrow, around closing time, please?” The words shivered out of me, as if the city streets around us had become a vast arctic wasteland. He gave a small nod and pulled his hood back over his head. Without another word, he returned to his applesauce.
He’d clearly tired of my company, so I turned my back to him, beginning the slow walk home. I couldn’t shake the feeling that his eyes were on me until I was several blocks away. I wondered how much he knew about my plan, if it would even work, or if he was just some cosmic con-man with a spooky story and a weird affinity for applesauce. I worried about Mia, that she’d be upset that I’d planned this without her. But I was breaking her out of this place, and that had to mean something. I still wasn’t even sure how I’d get him in the Depot without Jonas completely losing his little German mind. I just knew I had to do this. My mind raced the entire walk home, too busy overthinking every minute detail and scenario, every single possibility. This had to work.
15
Sleep was impossible that night. I’d grown accustomed to something I’d spent twelve years without, but the warmth and comfort of Mia was irreplaceable. Without her, everything seemed empty. I couldn’t keep my eyes closed long enough to even attempt slumber. When the light finally drifted in through the cracked, dusty window, I crawled out of bed, neglecting to comb my hair and tucking in half my shirt as I buttoned my jeans. My socks didn’t match, but they never did. They were all gray anyway.
I left the apartment determined to walk the length of the city to avoid the bus. I was done with that driver. The last thing I wanted was to play another game of snarky quips and guess-how-the-new-passenger-killed-themselves. I was too close to escape to deal with things like that. In the distance, the embarrassingly tall statue of St. Peter stood watch over his Courthouse like some vigilant emissary. He was my north star. I kept my head low, not wanting to observe the growing midday cacophony. Twelve years had been long enough, and this was it. This was escape, and happiness—what I’d been looking for long before I got here, and what I’d hopefully find when I left.
I stopped in a convenience store to acquire Michael’s asking price. Everything was so unappealing, as though lingering depression from before was trickling in—a final cosmic “HA-HA gotcha!” before I pulled one over on the universe. Behind the counter at the convenience store stood the old Russian woman from the bus.
“Two packs of cigarettes,” I said, holding two fingers up and avoiding eye contact.
“Any preference?” She did not have a Russian accent. I was taken aback, years of daydreaming slowly circling the drain with two words.
“Oh yeah. The red ones at the top,” I said, pointing. I dropped exact change on the counter and hightailed it out of the store.
***
By the time I burst into Waiting Room 13, I was nearly out of breath but two minutes early. Janice looked at me like I was a bear snatching at the beehive on her head to extract every precious honeycomb.
“Excuse me!” that hoarse croak bellowed. “You’re gonna have ta take a numb–”
“Nope.” Michael’s voice boomed in a way I’d not heard before. It was full of authority, a tone that would put the fear of God into anything. “He’s my one o’clock. Come on back, kid.” He gave me a friendly smile, then turned to Janice and glared at her in a way that could’ve melted steel.
Not one to argue with an Archangel, I shuffled past a full waiting room of unsavory looks. If those looks were a sundae, Janice’s malicious sneer was the fudge topping. I stepped carefully, avoiding the creaks I’d memorized over the years. In Michael’s office, I plopped down into his cushiest armchair. It was a heavenly respite from the rest of the seating arrangements in this place.
“First things first,” he growled, his us
ual greasy voice returning. “Them smokes.”
I tossed the two packs onto his desk. He greedily ripped the cellophane from one pack like a kid opening his Christmas presents. He slid a cigarette between his lips, clicking his fingers twice before the bright red cherry appeared. Inhaling deeply, he kicked his feet back on his desk, ashing directly into the wastebasket. He sucked down the full cigarette in complete silence, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Stubbing it out on the bottom of his loafer, he quickly lit another, and instead of relaxing again, brought his feet down to the floor, facing me directly.
The words came out with an unexpected force—a furious hurricane of admonishment.
“YOU BARELY KNOW THIS GIRL! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK YOU ARE DOING?! YOU ARE DISRUPTING THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS! DO YOU EVEN REALIZE THAT?! YOU WERE DOING SO GOOD!”
I slumped deep in the chair, somewhat of my own accord but mostly due to the heavy collision of his words. I thought maybe if I could just explain my line of thinking he’d get it.
“Well—”
He held his finger up to stop me, nearly inhaling the rest of his cigarette before continuing.
“Do you even know why she’s here?” His question was a land mine I was too foolish to see.
“Well, I mean, no, she hasn’t told me yet. But I’m sure she will. It takes some time—” And boom, there went my legs.
“No, Owen, it doesn’t take time,” he seethed, smoke barreling out of his nose as though the Archangel had himself become the serpent. “You know it the minute you get off the fucking train. You may take some time to process it, but it’s always there in the back of your damn head.”
“Okay, so she hasn’t told me yet,” I pleaded. “But like I said, I’m sure she will. She trusts me.”
His sigh was angry and heavy and earthshaking. His cigarette-free hand extended toward his filing cabinet. Within seconds, a plain manila folder flew out, Mia written in red lettering on the tab. It landed wide open on his desk, right in front of me. I could see paragraphs and circles, names, dates, an obituary. But I didn’t focus. I wouldn’t let myself.
“All right kiddo, you don’t wanna read it, I’ll give you the summary.” He put another cigarette in his mouth, this one lit without a single click of his fingers, as if it had kindled purely out of rage.
“Mia was a lot like you, kid. Smart, attractive, impressive. All the talent in the world.” He grabbed yet another cigarette, tucking it behind his ear. “Things were a little bit different for her, though. She got sick, had a string of unhealthy relationships, some family trouble. School trouble. Trauma. Shit she couldn’t forgive herself for. So while you found yourself a shower and a safety razor, she found herself a bridge. It’s poetic, almost. Beautiful bridge in one of the prettiest cities in the world, looks like it’s got salt-and-pepper shakers lined up along it.”
He paused to inhale twice more as tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t want to know. “She used to walk the bridge at night, headphones in her ears, listening to music, looking for hope, for something to hold onto. You know what she found? Stray pieces of the bridge. Rocks, kid. She lost a younger sister, an awful accident that took place on her watch, and she never could let it go. Wasn’t her fault, but she carried that with her like the weight of the fucking world. So she filled every pocket she had with every heavy thing she could find, shimmied her way around one of those pepper shakers, and jumped. You know why her eyes are so blue? Why she’s goddamn pale? Why you can’t help but smell sea salt around her and her hair always seems a little wet? She drowned, Owen. It all got to be too much, and she loaded herself down with rocks, just as heavy as the guilt, and she drowned. That’s why she’s here!”
I didn’t want to believe him. I couldn’t believe him. I followed the cherry of his cigarette as he pointed at the folder. I wish I hadn’t watched. I’d have watched my own suicide a thousand times if it meant I never had to see this.
It was dark and she was surrounded by an incredible city. Bright lights shone in all directions. There was hardly any traffic, so I assumed it was early morning. She walked slowly but steadily across the bridge, in the same ragged jeans I’d cried into before, the same Thin Lizzy t-shirt I’d spotted the day we met. The shirt was covered in a dark-gray, hooded sweatshirt, the lettering on the front obscured by the straps of a backpack.
Her headphones were barely visible in her messy blonde lion’s mane, but I faintly heard a song I recognized to be “A Case of You.” I knew it well; Jonas occasionally played it on wistful nights in the Depot. It came from a small device in her pocket. She paced along the bridge and back twice, her feet quiet and lethargic. The song was on repeat the entire time. Occasionally I recognized her voice, softly singing along with Joni Mitchell. It was on her third go-round that things changed.
She stopped at one of the posts—or “shakers,” as Michael had put it—and shimmied around to the side facing the water. I tried to look away, but Michael wouldn’t allow it. She looked down into the water before dropping to her knees on the concrete. As she unzipped her backpack, I could see that it was full of stones. Some big, some small, some heavy, but all stone. She filled her pockets until they bulged, engorged with weight they were never meant to carry. The backpack hadn’t even been half-emptied. She pulled it back over her shoulders, tying the loose straps together in as many knots as she could.
I heard the final notes of “A Case of You” play out one last time as one of the slender, caring hands I’d come to know and love made the sign of the cross over her body. And then she leapt. There was no grace, no hope, not even desperation. I shut my eyes tight as I heard the splash. Michael spared me the rest by closing the folder. It took me a moment to open my eyes. I tried desperately not to imagine her sinking into the water, her body thrashing as survival instincts kicked in.
It felt wrong, as if someone’s diary had been forcibly read to me. I thought back on all of it, trying to piece together everything I knew, but I was completely gobsmacked—slumped in the chair, unwillingly sedated, tears streaking down my face.
“Why are you telling me all this, Mike? Why did you—” I felt useless, almost vegetative, and I couldn’t speak. She understood how I felt more than I ever wanted her to. I needed to hold her and try to help, even if it was too late. I wanted to dive in and pull her out. To tell her that it would be okay. To help her stand up straight and find something in the night, in that great big city, that was greater than the pain she felt. But I couldn’t move.
“The girl is a runner. She’s a depressive, and she’s a runner. She has a problem, she runs away from it. She finds a solution and runs away from that too. She finds reasons. Every time. She has to learn that sometimes what she needs really is right there for her. That’s the lesson she’s here to learn. Do you understand that? She has to learn that sometimes she fucks things up for herself and that sometimes you have to let go of guilt. All you’re gonna do is help her run.” His bark had cooled considerably, but he was still seething.
Those early fears of being her temporary solution came rushing back, filling me like a poisonous cloud. I felt violently ill.
“It’s just like you. You’re impulsive as all hell,” Michael said. “One year in and you tried to break out. You meet this girl for all of fifteen minutes, and you’re willing to stay here for her. You fucking go and find the sin eater, of all people. Do you even realize who he is? And you concoct this plan to get you both out of here without even thinking about the rules you’re bending, the fact that she’s not getting anything out of this experience.”
I hadn’t been lectured like this in the In-Between. I wanted to curl into her lap, to hope that I meant something to her. That we were both capable of redemption.
“You know what, kid? I’m gonna do you a favor. You think you’re ready to put your big-boy pants on? You want Paradise eternal for you and your girl?” He spat his words through his teeth, tearing open the second pack of cigarettes. “I’ll give it to you. You tell her about yo
ur plan tonight, and if she goes through with it, you’re both out of here, first thing tomorrow, front row seats up to Paradise.” His arm stretched out and the cabinet drawer slid open. My file flew across the table and landed right next to hers.
The heat of his heavenly wrath was absolutely smothering. Someone had turned up the gravity in the room, and I was suffocating under his words and the weight they carried. I rubbed my scalp and dug through my pocket for something that could serve as a comforting distraction. No coins. No lighter. Nothing. I sat there, staring at a celestial being full of rage. I felt as if I’d disappointed a stepparent who just wanted to smoke cigarettes and talk to me about how cool the bands were when he was young.
“Either way, your ass is back in here tomorrow morning. Now get the hell out of here.” Michael turned his back to me, his wings spreading as he pried open the blinds to peek at the gray sky outside.
I waited a moment, attempting to reassemble the pieces of me he’d expertly dismembered. Then I walked toward the door, face pallid, heart trembling, knees weak. I hit every damned creak in the hallway. Janice’s taunting grin greeted me as I re-entered the waiting room.
I sat in the corner and waited for a while as lost souls filtered in and out through the door. I ignored all of them. All I could think about was what I’d seen, the weight of it hanging over me like a dark cloud of depression. No umbrella could ready me for the torrential downpour of angst and despair and empathy I felt for her. Now more than ever, I knew. I couldn’t let her stay here. Not after that.
16
Somehow, I made it back to the Depot. I remember leaving St. Peter’s, and then I was sitting cross-legged on the catwalk behind the lanes, trying to adjust the pinsetter for Lane 12. The entire walk to work had passed by in a haze, and I was coasting more than I had in the last days of my life. I tightened screws haphazardly, knowing no one was going to complain. Anyone who’d bowled a few frames at the Depot was used to having pins set improperly or falling over.
In-Between Days Page 13