Flights of Angels

by Ellen Gilchrist

  The first thing we knew about the trip was one afternoon when Crystal’s mother calls up from Jackson and says, “Oh, did you hear that Phelan is dating your old friend Canada Marks, from Monroe, Louisiana? They are in Las Vegas now.”

  Crystal hit the ceiling. She has spent her life trying to get her brother, Phelan, to stay out of her life and here he is doing an end run around her with her oldest friend.

  I don’t dislike Phelan myself although I disapprove of shooting elephants just for fun and even lions if they aren’t doing anything to harm you. Phelan explained to me that the older lions are always killing the pups anyway and that the groups of lions, called prides, are better off if you shoot some of them but it still seems like a mean thing to do. Crystal never listens to him or believes a thing he says. All she wants from him is to be left alone.

  Before we go any further I must caution you that my niece, Andria, who is a television anchorperson here in New Orleans, has made me promise not to call Miss Crystal and Mr. Manny that anymore but to call them Mr. and Mrs. Weiss or just by their first names. “Don’t go writing any more of those crazy stories and casting yourself in the role of maid,” she says to me. Well, I am the maid, or, more correctly, the housekeeper. To tell the truth, I come in four days a week and buy the groceries and tell the Handicapped Cleaning Service what to do with the vacuum and the dust rags and the mop. I am retired from active service since Crystal Anne is off at the Mississippi College for Women learning to be a kindergarten teacher.

  Mr. Manny, I mean Manny, cannot do without me. “You have been here for the hard years,” he always tells me. “Don’t desert me now.”

  So it was Tuesday morning and Crystal and I were in the kitchen making a grocery list and watching The Gossip Show on the Entertainment Channel when the phone rings and it’s Mrs. Manning giving us the news. As soon as she hears her mother’s voice Crystal flips the phone to the speaker so I can hear the conversation. I am one of the few people who understand the complicated relationship Crystal has with her parents and the harm they do to her. Everyone else thinks they are saints, while I have seen the other side.

  “Your father is very excited about Phelan and Canada getting together,” Mrs. Manning goes on. “He thinks they should get married.”

  “What in the name of God is Phelan doing going to see Canada,” Crystal screams into the phone. “You are all crazy, Mother. And Phelan is the craziest of all.”

  “I was just warning you,” her mother said. “I think they’re planning on coming there. I think he’s bringing Canada to see you.”

  “Oh, no, he’s not,” Crystal says to me, when she has yelled at her mother some more and then hung up. “He is not going to involve me in this. He’s broke, Traceleen, and he’s going after Canada’s money.”

  “How much money does she have?”

  “A lot. She’s a doctor’s widow. Her husband died last year and she’s been sad. I called her on her birthday last year and she was crying. When she answered the phone she was lying on the sofa crying her heart out.”

  So that was the situation as far as we knew it on the morning of Tuesday, June the ninth, Phelan and Canada in Las Vegas. Old Mr. Manning thinking he could pull off one last coup from his wheelchair in Jackson. Crystal and I doing the best we can with a pot of coffee and The Gossip Show.

  Phelan and Canada were heading our way. They had taken a detour by the Grand Canyon and were crossing northern Texas as we finished up our list and got in the car to go to Langenstein’s to shop for the week. Langenstein’s is the most expensive grocery store in New Orleans but they have certain European foods Manny adores so occasionally we go there and squander money. We were back at the butcher section waiting our turn to order a smoked turkey when Crystal gets a brainstorm. “There’s a chance he and Canada had something going in high school that I didn’t know about,” she says. “He was a football star and she was a cheerleader. They certainly never dated but what about all the times she slept over at our house? We don’t know the past, Traceleen. All we have is this very selective memory that has been altered by hope and fear.”

  “It’s probably not about the past,” I answered. “You said she was lonely. You said she was crying on the sofa when you called. And Phelan’s a handsome man. You may not like him but lots of women have fallen for him. He’s probably lonely too, now that he doesn’t have enough money to go on safari.”

  “Las Vegas,” she says glumly. “He lost several fortunes in Las Vegas. He could bankrupt Canada. He could take her for everything she has.”

  He had not bankrupted her. No, instead he had helped her win ten thousand dollars at a roulette wheel and that is why they left when they did. “Let’s leave while were ahead,” he told her. “Let’s go to New Orleans and surprise my sister.”

  By the time Crystal and I were at the checkout counter they were driving through fields of bluebells on their way to the Louisiana-Texas border.

  Manny came home at five and we gave him the news. I was still there as we had decided to make gumbo and it takes a while. Also, the Handicapped Service had been late and I had volunteered to stay and supervise the new dusting girl. Manny has this large collection of priceless photographs by the artist Ansel Adams, and you must be very careful with the way you clean the glass as glass cleaner can seep in around the edges and ruin the mats. I have taught three different handicapped persons to clean those photographs and I am getting tired of doing it. Andria says they’re sending rookies to our house to get me to train them. Andria is extremely critical and suspicious since she became an anchorperson. “Be tolerant,” I tell her. “Try to love and trust your fellow men and persons.”

  “Phelan will not get me involved in this,” Crystal is saying. “If he thinks he can just show up in New Orleans with Canada and get me to forgive him for stealing all of Daddy’s money he has another think coming. He raided the trust funds, Manny. Never forget that, as if anybody can.”

  “You aren’t sure he did that,” Manny answered.

  “Am I not? Then where in the world did three hundred thousand dollars for the education of my children go? Did it just fly itself to Switzerland from the Hibernia Bank while I was asleep?”

  “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “I could sue him. I’m thinking of it.”

  I was stirring the gumbo, trying to decide if it was time to add the crabmeat. Crystal has been talking about those trust funds for five years. Before that she talked about the insurance policies he cashed in by forging her signature. Before that she says he stole her money for popcorn at the picture show but that was all in the distant past. I got out the crabmeat. I wanted to wait a few more minutes and cool the gumbo down before I put it in. You have to get it just right if you want it to stay moist and sweet.

  The phone starts ringing. Mr. Manny walks across the room and answers it. Crystal moves toward the stove to watch my cooking.

  “Well, hello,” Manny says. “Crystal said you might be coming to town. When will you get here? Come on over.”

  Crystal flies to the phone and takes it away from her husband. “Don’t you come over here,” she says. “Don’t you bring Canada to my house. I won’t be in on this, Phelan. What are you doing to her? What are you doing to my friend?”

  “She wants to talk to you,” he answers, and hands the telephone to Crystal’s oldest and dearest childhood friend. I hear Crystal let out a long deep breath and then I’m proud of her because she doesn’t start changing her tone and saying, Oh, sweetie, how nice to hear from you. She says, “What are you doing, Canada? How did you get hooked up with Phelan?”

  After she hung up the phone she told us what was going on. “They’re coming to New Orleans. I told Phelan to stay in the Quarter. I’m not having them here, Manny. I will not let that robber stay in my house. I don’t care if Canada does get her feelings hurt. She will know why if she thinks about it.”

  Canada was not doing much thinking. She had been a widow for two years after many years of a passionate
marriage. She was starved for love and being touched. Phelan showed up and took her arm and helped her into a car and after that she thought all his jokes were funny. He kept asking what she needed, what she wanted, and she kept saying, Whatever you want to do. That’s what happens to us here on earth. There are certain things we need and we don’t care what it costs to get them.

  Canada and Phelan had both been getting more than their share of what they needed by the time they rang our doorbell at ten-fifteen the next morning. Phelan had decided to ignore Crystal’s telling him to go stay in the French Quarter. He knew she couldn’t be mean to Canada when she saw her face-to-face. Besides, no matter what happened next I still think Phelan was as much in love as Canada on the day they arrived at our house. I have never seen a man hanging on a woman and never taking his eyes off her like he was doing. Crystal says it was just the money. That Phelan loves money the way some people love God but I can’t believe it was only that. Canada is a beautiful woman and sweet as she can be and funny. No one could look at her and only think of money.

  “We won ten thousand dollars in Las Vegas,” she was saying. “So we decided to come spend it in New Orleans.”

  “Have you found a hotel?” Crystal asked.

  “Not yet,” Canada answered. “First we wanted to come see you.”

  So of course they moved into the guest room and then we all made lunch. Leftover gumbo and cornbread and iced tea. It was like old times, before Crystal started hating everyone in her family.

  “Phelan’s going to take me to the zoo,” Canada says and giggles. “He’s taking me to see a sun bear.”

  “You’ve never shot a sun bear, have you, Phelan?” Crystal is still being mean.

  “Never wanted to,” he answers. “But I like to look at them. Go to the zoo with us, Sister. You look like you need a change.”

  So Crystal goes into her bedroom and puts on her new Solumbra pants and shirt that let you go out in the sun all day without sunscreen and then she pulls her hair back into a ponytail and off the three of them go to the zoo.

  No one would believe what happened next. Not in a hundred years or five years or ever. I was almost finished for the day and was sitting at the kitchen desk paying some household bills when the phone rang and it’s my niece, Andria. “Turn on the television set to my channel,” she said. “Hurry up. You won’t believe what you’re going to see.”

  “Where are you?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m on a mobile phone coming there. Don’t ask questions. Turn the television on.”

  She hung up and I walked across the room and turned on the television to Channel 29. There was Andria, at the zoo, standing before the Monkey House with Phelan at her side. Next to him is an Asian woman with a small child in her arms.

  “I just went after him,” Phelan is saying. “I didn’t think. You don’t think when a small child falls in an alligator pond.”

  “How did you manage it?” Andria asks. “How did you get him out?”

  “Damned if I know.” Phelan lets out this big laugh and throws out his chest. The Asian woman moves nearer to him. The small child looks his way. In the background I imagine Crystal and Canada Marks.

  “You could have lost an arm,” Andria suggests.

  “Oh, I doubt that.” Phelan gives her one of his famous come-on looks. “Those old alligators are too fat to eat human flesh. I was more worried about the boy drowning in that dirty water. Hell, that place needs cleaning out.” He holds up the sleeve of a ruined white safari shirt. It is wet and muddy. “You didn’t think you were going swimming, did you, little buddy?” He chucks the Asian kid under the chin and the boy puts his head down on his mother’s shoulder.

  Andria turned to the mother and began to ask her about her reactions. Was she scared? Did she see Phelan jump the fence? How did she think the boy fell?

  The station cut to an advertisement for Ford trucks. I couldn’t figure it out. How had Andria called me if she was interviewing people at the zoo? They must have put it on after it happened.

  There was all sorts of noise at the front door and Crystal and Phelan and Canada Marks and Andria and one of Andria’s assistants were coming into the kitchen. I started making coffee. Already I could see that things had changed. It was no longer Canada and Phelan hanging on to each other. It was Andria and Phelan showing off for each other. Andria has a long history of having to be the center of attention, which is why she has chosen anchorperson for her avocation. Also, we may have overdone it in telling her not to be afraid of white people. She is not above liking to make white women uncomfortable if she is in the mood, although she has always liked Crystal and been polite to her.

  “We were the first team there,” Andria said. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw Crystal. He went into the alligator pond, Auntie Traceleen. Bona fide heroic act. People there said they couldn’t believe it.”

  “I used to pole vault,” Phelan said. “I ran hurdles but I’m damned if I know how I got over that fence. It wasn’t me, girls. That was a higher power.”

  “When did all this happen?” I asked. “It seems like no time since you left here.”

  “As soon as we got to the zoo.” Canada is talking now. “We got our tickets and walked into the zoo and were going to the sun bear enclosure when we saw this woman standing by the alligator pond and the boy was with her and then he was up the fence and over. Phelan just bolted after him. I don’t know how he climbed the fence either. Then he was holding on to a rail with one hand and he fished the boy out with the other and people were running from everywhere. We never did get to see the sun bear. We forgot about it.”

  Manny came in the door. Crystal had called him from the car phone and he had come home to join the excitement. “Open some champagne,” he said. “Come on, Phelan. Let’s go see what’s in the cellar. This calls for a celebration.”

  ABC and CBS had it already because Channel 29 is an ABC affiliate but it was after we got the champagne upstairs that the newspapers and cable stations started calling. Phelan talked to them all. He gave interviews for several hours with Andria right beside him, coaching him. She was even in two of the interviews telling what the witnesses said.

  Canada had retreated to the living room where she was talking to Crystal and acting like she hadn’t noticed anything was going on. She was lapping up the champagne and Crystal even had a glass in her hand. “Should you be drinking that?” I asked. I have been to fifteen meetings of a group that keeps the close associates of alcoholics from doing things that help the alcoholic drink and I know what to look out for.

  “It’s ginger ale,” she answered. “I’m making Canada comfortable. Don’t worry. I won’t drink, even if Phelan is a certified hero and I saw it. There are reasons for high testosterone levels and aggressive personalities, Traceleen. I must rethink some things. I was impressed. I don’t mind saying that.”

  “You won’t make her comfortable by encouraging her to drink too much champagne,” I answered. “For all you know she has a problem with it too.”

  We had been talking in low voices. Canada was at the bookcases pretending to be looking at books. She turned to us. “I’d better call my house and see if there are any messages,” she said. “If there’s a second line somewhere. I guess Phelan’s going to be talking to people all day.”

  “There’s a children’s phone,” I said. “Follow me.” So I took Canada to Crystal Anne’s room and she called her house but there was no one there and no one had called her either. She was sitting on Crystal Anne’s bed looking like she didn’t know what to do next. Here she had been in the middle of a hot new love affair and now she was old hat and Phelan was upstairs with Andria being famous.

  “I would slow down on that champagne if I was you,” I suggested. “It is bad to drink too much when a situation is this exciting. Why don’t you take you a long bath and put on a pretty dress. By the time you finish, all these media people might be finished with their interviews.”

  “Good idea
,” Canada said. She put her glass down on a table and straightened up her shoulders. I could see how she had been the homecoming queen and later the runner-up for Mrs. America representing the state of Louisiana. She had a style about her and beauty and pride. It was clear we had to save her from Phelan and if it took Andria learning a lesson at the same time then that was that.

  “Phelan has had five wives,” I added, looking her in the eye. “But I guess I don’t need to tell you that. You knew him when he was young.”

  “I have been extremely lonely,” she said. She stood up and walked across the room and put her hand on my arm. “I have been acting like a fool, Traceleen. Thank God he brought me here. I was thinking of marrying him.”

  “Do not marry him,” I answered. “No matter what you do.”

  Canada went into the guest room to bathe and change and I found Crystal and made a suggestion. “People are completely mad,” I said. “Especially when they’re needful. We must do nothing to add to the madness. Remember all the hours of our yoga, not to mention the meditation. Now is the time to call up those reserves. We must be objective and stay alert and help out here.”

  “He went right over the fence and jerked that kid out of the water. It is what men like Phelan are for, Traceleen. The gene pool knows what it’s doing.”

  “We still should protect Canada, not to mention Andria. I’m ashamed of how she’s acting. She will do anything to test my love. It’s not the first time.”

  “All she’s doing is helping with the interviews. It’s her work.”

  “She’s flirting with him as hard as she can flirt.”