by L. A. Banks
Azrael let out a weary breath. “In this density, there is so much distraction and so much distortion that it is hard to stay connected or to hear without deep concentration—that is something else I learned.”
Celeste nodded, but he still hadn’t answered her question to her satisfaction. “But the new clothes, dude...”
“When we touched, I saw much of your knowingness. I found a place nearby that sells these items. I went in and found my size and left them money.”
“Oh . . . man . . . how much money?” Celeste shook her head. “I hope you didn’t leave it all?”
“Three of those with the numerals one zero zero on it. I still wasn’t completely sure how to make sense of the payment system here.”
She reached out and looked at the shirt tag that still hung from his sleeve, then guesstimated the cost of the jeans. “Well, you left them about a fifty-dollar tip—which I guess is cool for shopping after hours. The sneakers alone in your size were pretty expensive, so I guess it’s all good.”
“Is it customary to wear this marker on your items of apparel?” He lifted his arm to show her the antitheft device affixed to his sleeve at the armpit, then pointed out the alarm on his shoe. “It is very uncomfortable. Is this only for new items? If so, I’d rather try the secondhand items.”
She smiled. “Here, let me pull the tags off for you—but just like you did on the door, you have to get the alligators to come off your sneakers and jacket and jeans.” She pointed to the heavy plastic alarms. “If I yank them, they’ll tear holes in your clothes.”
“Oh,” he said, seeming amazed. “I suppose if the shopkeeper was there, he would have done this once I made my decision?”
“Yeah . . . that’s definitely how it works.”
Celeste swallowed a smile, but it faded on its own as she watched him take off a huge sneaker and apply blue-white light from his fingers to open the store alarm and remove it. He did it two more times on his other garments, then released a long, satisfied sigh.
“Thank you, Celeste. This feels almost as good as the shower.”
“Which you took where?”
“Oh, at someone’s home on the way back to the church. They were not there using it. I left them a payment to help their household and then put on my clean clothes and came back here to meet you.”
She simply stared at him.
“But I have a confession to make,” he said in a quiet tone, then looked away from her.
She waited, mute, almost holding her breath.
“I learned about rage when I first came here. It is a very low frequency vibration . . . frighteningly so. I also learned about ego and loss . . . and I am ashamed of my actions.”
“What did you do?” she whispered, feeling all her muscles readying to help her bolt.
Azrael closed his eyes. “Three juveniles were poised to attack me for no reason, simply because I was naked and confused and defenseless. I got angry...”
“Oh, my God,” she said without censor. “Did you kill someone?”
“No!” he said quickly, turning in his seat fast enough to make her jump. “But I asked them for their clothing—only . . . that is not accurate. I demanded that they help me and we are only supposed to request. Then I used force to take what I needed. I am so ashamed. I had no right to the things I took . . . I traumatized three youths and even stripped them of their weapon and their paper resources.” He produced the gun for her and held it out to her in the flat of his palm.
For a moment, she recoiled, but calmed down a bit when he hung his head.
“Celeste . . . what am I to do to make that offense all right or—”
“Okay, first off, put the nine away,” she said in a firm, steady tone. She waited until he’d once again stashed it under the jacket lying on the pew. “Second of all, part of what went down is what I’d like to refer to as karma.”
Azrael looked up at her and she watched awareness slowly dawn in his dark brown eyes.
“Those young-boyz were slinging rock on the corners, or they wouldn’t have had a cash knot like that in their pockets. Either that or they were stickup artists. You were minding your business and they decided to mess with you—but tonight, let’s just say they also learned a lesson about picking on the seemingly helpless and defenseless. Let’s hope that you did traumatize them enough to make them think twice about victimizing someone weaker than them again. The Almighty has a plan, least that’s what my aunt told me. Sometimes I believe her, sometimes I don’t. But I do know this—wallowing in guilt for something already done is of no use. It wasn’t like you’d jacked some old lady’s pocketbook or stole from a hardworking family’s household. For about two bucks worth of soap and water, you gave a needy family a hundred bucks. Besides, a nine-millimeter in your hands is probably better than one in theirs. Who knows, you might have kept them from shooting another kid their age by stripping them of their weapon. So walk away with the lesson and say a prayer and keep it moving, if it’s really worrying you.”
He just stared at her.
“How did you become so wise, Celeste? I have been truly troubled about the three boys since it happened.”
“You learn down here to let some stuff go or you’ll lose your mind.” She chuckled sadly. “Ask me how I know. What am I saying, down here?” She shook her head. “See what I mean, I am certifiable.”
“No, what you’re saying is completely true.” Azrael nodded and spread his hands along the pews. “People come in here all suffering from loss. I now understand why they took my wings in such a visceral way. Had I not known loss, I could not be compassionate to human loss.
Had I not known fear or anger, I could not know why people succumbed to that.”
Suddenly he stood and stripped his shirt over his head, revealing his stone-cut chest. Celeste was out of the pew as if a bee had stung her.
“Hey! You crazy? I’m not even about to—”
“I must show you what I lost,” he said, oblivious to why she’d fled the pew. He turned around before she could fully bolt. “Look at my back . . . I have never known injury or loss or imperfection like this in my existence.”
Riveted to the floor, her gaze traveled over what should have been a smooth, athletic surface of muscular splendor. Wide, broad shoulders and a proud straight posture revealed thick scars raised on otherwise flawless skin. Someone had hacked into his beautiful back as though trying to create a horrible wood carving. Tight cords of muscles formed a deep valley along his spine that gave rise to a tight, spectacular ass covered in jeans, but her eyes remained on his scars.
“Dear God in Heaven...,” she murmured, slowly going to him. “Az . . . who did this to you?”
“The Source,” he said quietly, and hung his head, still facing away from her. “It brought me humility . . . made me more humanlike in my understanding. Gavreel says we all lose them in the rebirth to teach us this lesson. It was a practice begun after the Great Fall, I’m told, to make sure that those of us who come to earth remember to serve humankind, that we remember where our true Source of power comes from, and to give us greater compassion for the weak.”
The tragedy visited upon his back made her walk forward. This man had obviously been tortured or abused as a child, and she couldn’t just stand there and witness his pain saying nothing. If this horror is what had broken him, she could understand. All she could offer was human touch in the form of a hug. Her aunt Niecey had taught her that a gentle hug spoke volumes, especially for someone who felt ugly and unclean—something she’d felt for most of her life.
She placed her fingertips on his back, gently testing whether he’d whirl around and draw back as many injured souls might do, or if he’d allow her close enough to the old wounds to let him know that on a human level she cared that he’d been mistreated by this cruel world.
The moment her hands rested on the scars, she felt him relax under her gentle touch. Maybe he was from Africa, a person tortured in Somalia or the Sudan . . . or maybe he was an ex-vet
who had been a POW, or maybe he’d been knifed in prison and was just out of the joint, but this gentle soul had been scarred so terribly by someone hateful, and it broke her heart to see it.
“I don’t know who this Gavreel bastard is, or what kind of gang initiation he performed on you or whatever the story behind this guy is . . . but this isn’t right. No one should be allowed to do this to another living being.”
“It wasn’t him,” Azrael replied just above a whisper.
“All right—it doesn’t matter. We all have scars...some can be seen with the naked eye, some are hidden. You’re still whole, no matter what they did to you.”
She laid her cheek against his right-shoulder scar and briefly hugged him before she stepped away. “Let’s go get you something clean to eat,” she said in a gentle tone. “Okay?”
They walked to Broad Street and caught the subway to Fifteenth Street, then jumped a cab the rest of the way to Whole Foods right off the Parkway. The entire time Celeste’s mind stayed with Azrael’s scars. He’d said he’d gotten them upon his rebirth, which she could only take to mean he’d been a victim of unspeakable child abuse. Maybe Gavreel was his father, a sick stepdad, or his mother’s screwed-up boyfriend, or even an older brother or uncle. No wonder Az had made up an elaborate past and mental shelter that he was an angel. Who was she to judge? She’d been to enough therapy to know a safe-place denial story when she heard one.
The only thing she couldn’t figure out was how he did the blue-light healing thing and how he opened doors with no alarms going off. Same dealio with removing the alarms off his clothes. Maybe he did have a little paranormal, extrasensory thing going on like some psychics she’d heard about and seen on TV. Maybe that’s why some sick adult had either burned a small boy or lacerated the child so badly that all he could believe now was that he was an angel fallen to earth. Maybe his grandmother had told him that, no matter what, he was an angel. The possibilities were so sick and so sad that she wanted to weep for him, then she reminded herself that there were 8 million stories in the naked city.
Besides, the bigger problem was that she’d forgotten that a police substation was right around the corner from Whole Foods!
“You know,” she said carefully as they climbed out of the cab, “this is probably a very bad idea.”
“Why?” Azrael asked, his gaze as open and seeking as a child’s.
“There’s a police station around the corner, dude. If your alarm thing doesn’t work or if they have a paid night guard in there, we’re screwed . . . especially if you’ve got an unregistered weapon that could have been used in multiple felonies—none of which you know about. Just sayin’.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding as though he fully understood the gravity of their situation. “Then I will have to really concentrate to be sure that we remain undetected.”
Just like that, it was clear that the problem was solved in his mind, and he walked toward the bright store lights.
Hanging back but close enough to watch him, she stared in awe as he closed his eyes and placed his hands against the locked doors. When they swished open, she ducked behind the chained row of shopping carts. However, after a few moments, when no alarm sounded, she slowly stood and timidly came forward.
“This place is more than I could have imagined,” he said, calling out to her. “Celeste, come join me!”
“Shsssh!” she cautioned, hurrying to enter the doors behind him and hoping they closed quickly. “You make a terrible thief.”
“But that is because I am no thief, nor are you. We will pay.”
“Okay, okay, but technically, we are not supposed to be in here. And, you’ve gotta watch for motion-detector alarms and whatever.”
“Ah . . . then you will teach me what to disable as we find nourishment.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, nervously looking around. “Okay, and here’s how you tell clean versus anything with pesticides. Organic is the stuff you want, Conventional—not so much.” She pointed out the labels over the produce, but his attention ricocheted from one bright stand of fruit to the next.
“Look at these . . . ,” he murmured in awe, taking up fat, succulent strawberries and opening a plastic case. He closed his eyes briefly and turned his chin toward the direction of the ceiling. “Thank you,” he murmured, then opened his eyes.
She couldn’t help but laugh as he bit into a berry and moaned as though he’d never eaten in his life.
“Oh, Celeste . . . the things of this temporal world are truly divine.”
“Yeah, well, lemme open up a ripe mango for you, brother, and you’ll pass out,” she said, laughing. “But go easy on the unwashed fruit. We might need to take them into the bathroom and at least rinse them off.”
“Whatever small amount of dirt is on them will not compromise my system, I do not believe,” he said, steadily eating the strawberries as they walked.
“Yeah, well, keep eating all that fruit like you’re doing and you’ll have to visit the bathroom anyway, sooner than you think.”
She kept low, even though Azrael strolled leisurely behind her with perfect posture, and found a pile of stacked mangoes. Carefully selecting one, she dug into it with a thumbnail, then peeled it, standing back from the juicy mess that splattered the floor.
“Here, take a bite.”
He accepted the offering with wonder, then smelled it as though about to sip a fine wine, and bit into it. She laughed out loud when his eyes crossed and his knees buckled.
“Watch it, there’s a pit in the center.”
“Can we take some of these with us, Celeste?”
“Sure.” She went through the pile and selected several to load into his jacket pockets, careful to avoid the pocket that had the gun. “But get some green vegetables in you, too—like, you can cook kale and collards—”
“Cook,” he said, seeming confused. “Why cook anything? Raw, natural, is best.”
“Okay, you are a hard-core naturalist, aren’t you? Hmmm . . . well, they have raw bread, probably raw pies—made with almond or cashew crust, nothing baked...melons, I don’t know. Supplements and stuff. Nuts...”
“Can we try nuts and seeds?”
Celeste chuckled as she took him to the canisters of raw cashews and almonds, grabbed a plastic bag, then showed him how to lift the spout to fill the bag. Again she watched him chew and emit a low, satisfied moan of satisfaction. Laughing as she went down the seemingly endless row of choices, she loved every moment of his sampling.
“Okay, I am addicted to Kettle chips, I admit it—and, no, they aren’t good for the human body. You can have these natural, uncooked flax chips, which are okay . . . but me, I’m still hard-core.”
“Can I taste one?” he asked, seeming curious as he followed her.
“Notice I didn’t give you an apple—I’m not trying to be in Eve’s position of handing an angel temptation that you’ll never be able to resist.”
He smiled and hastened his steps behind her. “That is mythology, you know . . . one woman could not cause the fall of humankind. Men made that up when they wanted to create a reason to separate the Source into a male dominant role and then required an excuse to steer human society into patriarchy. Besides, I just want a little taste of what you claim to be so irresistible.”
Celeste laughed. “Yeah, that’s what all guys say when they want something they aren’t supposed to have. Suddenly Eve was framed and they only wanted a little bit.” She grinned and gave him a wink over her shoulder as she found a big bag of plain Kettle chips, popped it open, and stuck one in her mouth.
“Aw . . . man, I love these,” she said, crunching. “But I’m a purist—I don’t go in for the exotic flavors. Plain is da bomb.”
He eyed the bag in her hand, then eyed the aisle. “These are all bad for you?”
“Yep,” she said, laughing and popping several chips into her mouth.
“Can I try just one?”
“Nope—because you can’t eat just one.”
> “You are teasing me,” he said, laughing.
“Yes . . . I most certainly am,” she said, offering him the bag.
She watched him as he took out one lonely chip, smelled it, studied it, and then placed it in his mouth, initially seeming as though he didn’t know how to actually chew it. But once he crunched down on it, he frowned.
“Celeste . . . these are incredible.”
Again she burst out laughing, this time so hard she had to bend over and wipe her eyes. “Oh, no, I’ve corrupted an angel with Kettle chips—you are cut off, brother!”
“No . . . just one more?”
His request made her sit down hard on the floor as he swiped the bag from her and ate several more.
“Read the label, dude!”
He stopped munching, jaws filled like a squirrel’s, and tilted his head to the side in question. She got up, still laughing, and turned the bag over, showing him the ingredients.
“Okay, I guess these aren’t too bad, like some other stuff. But if there’s a word on here you can’t pronounce, it’s a chemical that’s slow poison. You’re lucky; these don’t have any.”
“I think I understand,” he said, still chewing.
“Well, while we’re in here, I might as well show you pure crack . . . that would be the ice cream aisle. But I’m not gonna let you make yourself sick, if your system is clean. That much I would do for a friend. Nothing dairy, or behind all the fruit you’ll definitely get the runs . . . but they’ve got this coconut-milk ice-cream-substitute stuff that one of my rehab buddies swore was off the chain. She said the chocolate was the best.”
“Thank you, Celeste,” he said, walking quickly behind her, grabbing another bag of chips.
He stopped behind her as she stopped in front of a freezer case.
