An Angel, Someday

"An Angel, Someday"

1949 words

         Honeysuckle. That was it. The air smelled of honeysuckle, the sky shined like a giant blue sapphire under a jeweler's lamp, and the wind brushed over the windshield combing through my hair like the smooth, warm touch of a woman's fingers, searching for my attention after an elegant evening at The Blair House. Life was great now that I was divorced and free of the guardian shadow that my wife stuck to my back after that first affair with Ginelle, the waitress, who couldn't keep her hands off me even when we were in public because if she had, then we wouldn't have been in those perfectly focused pictures, used at the trial by the attorney my wife hired and for whom I paid.

          I always loved younger women. They got so involved, so tangled in the passion of the moment, even though it wouldn't last forever or even through the night most of the time because I hated waking up with stale liquor on my breath and having to direct my pillow talk away from their young noses, which had probably never been fouled by the natural body decay of another human being. All of them should be named Bambi, with their wide-open, baby-blue eyes latched onto every slurred word that trickled from my drunken tongue into the flashing neon lights of the nightclubs, where the air was thick with music and smoke and chatter. All those noises were muffled by the rumble rising from the floor underfoot.

         Sometimes I missed the, "oh poor baby, come right in, and I'll fix you a drink; let me put your feet up so you can relax; they work you too hard down at that office; don't they know how vital you are to their success?" However, I didn't miss the drone of the rest of my life as it settled around me like numb, fearful darkness swallowing me until that day when I would feel like a man staring into the padded part of the lid of his coffin and finding the space so tight that I couldn't raise my arms to scratch my nose or roll into a fetal knot or kick the lid with enough force to cause a shiver in the six feet of earth that lay between me and the sky above. When I bolted, I left behind the good with the bad and tried not to look back. Still, I looked back every time one of those young, taut sex machines smiled at me with the slightest resemblance to the first woman I loved because she shared my dreams, even if I lived alone now.

         My new convertible felt almost as comfortable under me as that ratty old lounge chair I used to head for every evening after work, where I'd sit with a bottle of gin and the current issue of TV Guide by my side while my mind churned the day over and over in my head. I speculated how different it might have turned out if I had only said that one funny or intelligent thing that would have brought me to the forefront of the crowd at the office and made me more important or attractive. The car came with the house in the mountains, where the sky melted into the horizon at a level just beyond eye-shot out of every window. The nighttime panorama started with a glow from the city and then merged into a sparkling, black-velvet backdrop behind the giant moon's mottled, soft, candle-like halo as it floated overhead. My flight from the city would be behind me, and the weekend ahead in just a few more minutes.

         A sudden jerk snatched the steering wheel. When I grabbed it with both hands to pull it back into place, it turned too easily like the road wasn't pushing back or something had broken between my hand and the wheel on the road because the car seemed to do what it wanted to do, bouncing from one side of the road to the other, making everything around me twist in and out of the corners of my eyes until I lost control of myself in the rush of sensations as my face pressed into the dashboard and then into the seat when the door on the driver's side slammed into my elbow shoving me across the console so that I ended up with my face in the floorboard on the passenger's side, my legs clamped between the soft, leather headrest in a tangle of pine needles and soggy red clay.

***

         "John, John Hanson, are you ready?"

         "Am I ready for what?"

         "You mean you don't know what you're here for?"

         "No. Man, you guys need to turn the lights down some, and--what happened to all the colors? How come everything's white? Wasn't I driving to my house in the mountains down the road?"

         "Yes. And your tire blew, and your car went off the road--and you died."

         "I was--what?"

         "You're dead."

         "Oh my God! My chest--I've got a pain in my chest."

         "Mr. Hanson, you're already dead."

         "Then--I can't have a heart attack--can I?"

         "No."

         "If I'm dead, then what am I doing here? This sure looks like heaven, but shouldn't I have wings?"

         "Well, Mr. Hanson, you're not exactly here to stay, and you don't get wings until you serve that purpose for which you were intended."

         "I'm not here to stay? What purpose was I intended for? And where am I going if I'm not staying?"

         "That hasn't been decided yet."

         "It's not going to be--the other place--is it?"

         "As I said, that hasn't been decided."

         "Some angel must be getting his wings because I keep hearing a ringing sound. Ringing, ringing like a worrisome alarm or a . . ."

***

         "...a telephone." I heard a telephone ringing. It pulled at my consciousness, drawing me out of the dream world where I stubbornly resided, pulling me back into reality. My eyelids wouldn't open, no matter how hard I strained the muscles in my forehead. But the persistence of that ringing sound gnawed at my consciousness until I decided to reach out and search the darkness around me. I fumbled across the small mobile phone with my left hand and raised it to my ear with a flip of my thumb to open it.

         "Dad?"

         "Johnny--" My voice broke, and the effort produced a sharp pain in his chest. When I felt down my shirt with my right hand, I found a large shard of metal had ripped through the door and jabbed into my left side.

         "Dad, mom said she wouldn't let me go to the concert tonight. You know I've been planning that concert for a month now. You gotta talk to her. She'll buckle if you use that 'sweet talk' of yours, and I'll wash your car for a month. Dad? Dad, are you there?"

         "Johnny--you need to listen--I've been in an accident--I need help."

         "Dad? You've faded out. Call me when you get to high ground. Or better than that--call mom. She's being impossible. I need your help, Dad."

         "Johnny, listen, don't hang up." It was too late. The receiver's buzz floated inside my brain. My strength rushed out of my lungs, and the phone fell to the floorboard beside my ear. My hand fell across my chest, and I found myself measuring the rise of each breath to the point where pain stabbed through me like a long, hot needle. I tried to move but couldn't. If I had moved, the piece of metal would have cut me in half, so I metered my breath to a point where the pain eased some. "The phone."

         I reached over my chest with my right arm and lifted the phone again. I still couldn't see clearly, but I was very familiar with this phone, so I used my thumb and pushed the "last call" button to redial my son.

         "Hello."

          A woman's voice surprised me. "Lil?"

          "John, is that you? I guess Johnny called you." My ex-wife didn't sound surprised.

          "Lil, listen--"

          "No. You listen, John. I'm not allowing him to go to that concert tonight. He's too young, and those animals he hangs around are too wild. You've got to stop telling him that it's okay to be wild and free--"

          "Lil!"

          "What?"

          "I'm hurt."

          "Oh, bullshit. Don't try to pull that 'wounded-little-boy' act with me. You don't have any feelings. Can't you even be serious about our son, you bastard? He's headed for trouble, and you're giving him the keys for the drive to get there faster. You don't see anything wrong with him wanting to grow up just like his old man?"

          "No. I mean it--I'm hurt. I've been in an accident, and this piece of metal is stabbing me in the side. I'm calling you from the car. You've got to send help. Lil? Lil, are you there?"

          "John, your phone is fading out. You must be at that mountain getaway of yours. Is your latest 'Bambi' there with you? Don't call back. I don't want to hear anymore, and Johnny doesn't need to hear anymore. You're not a father. You're a 'dirty old man' who wants to buy his son's love because he doesn't know how to earn it."

          Her slam of the phone pounded in my brain for several seconds while I stared into the silent shadows, and for the next hour, I lay there floating in the realization that she was right. The pain slipped away as the memories rushed in. I had never talked to my son. I had never taken him fishing or had him up to the cabin for a Father-son weekend, where we could get to know each other. She was right. I was always taking a shortcut when it came to my family. One-night stands were much easier to handle.

         

*****

          "Johnny?" The phone almost hadn't rung before my son picked it up. He must have been standing on top of it. "Listen, son."

          "Dad. Did you talk to mom?"

          "Yes, Johnny, I talked to your mother. You can't go to the concert tonight, son."

          "But, dad. You can talk her into it."

          "No--I can't. I don't want to, Johnny. She's right. You don't need to go to a concert where people smash themselves against the stage and perform sexual acts in the audience like they were at a Roman orgy or something."

          "But, dad?"

          "No, Johnny. Listen, you've got to promise me you'll do what your mom tells you to do."

          "Huh? Dad, are you okay?"

          "No. I'm not okay. I think I'm dying, Johnny. And I can see everything your mom saw when we were together. She's right, Johnny."

          "Dad? Where are you? What's happened?"


         

*****

          "There. How do they feel, John?"

          "Funny. It's like a twitch in my shoulders that won't go away. Do they molt? I don't know if I like the idea of feathers all over the floor, but I guess I can't complain, or I might be sent to the other place."

          "Oh, no, John. At the last minute, you changed the game in your favor. HE doesn't change HIS mind."

          "I wish you guys would turn down those lights, though. Hey, how did you know I would do that? You know. Not be me."

          "No one knew what you would do, John? But you deserved the chance to do it nonetheless." The funny-looking little man with a lopsided glowing ring floating above his head said.

          "Will my son be okay?"

          "Oh yes, Mister Hanson. Children always honor their parent's last wishes--when they know them. Besides, he's a very good boy."

          "He is, isn't he?"

          "Yes, Mister Hanson. An angel--someday."