Unlikely Angel

by Ashley Smith

  I tried another question.

  “Where are your parents?” I wanted to stay focused on family to get his mind off of what he had been doing all day—killing people and running.

  “They’re in Africa,” he said with little emotion. Africa? He didn’t have an accent or anything. He just sounded tired, maybe depressed or irritated. What does he think of me asking these personal questions right now—being bold and not acting scared?

  Before I had a chance to take the conversation any further, he turned off the water, and I heard him pull the shower curtain back. I could picture the tub—the cream-colored plastic running up the wall; the white rack for my shampoo and conditioner hanging on the showerhead; my washcloth from my shower this morning hanging on that rack; the plaid shower curtain. I had this fear that when I looked inside that tub again, I was going to see blood all in the bottom. Blood from the people Brian Nichols had killed.

  Hearing the last of the water run through the drain, I could see from under the towel his dark feet step out of the tub, first onto my teal bath mat, and finally onto the orange rug closer to me. As he dried off, I could see the white bath towel flap below his knees. Then I could tell he was wrapping the towel around his waist.

  I remembered the drugs—and that pink zipper pouch tucked under the fold of my comforter. Why did I even have it in the house? These days, since I was trying to straighten up, I always flushed the leftovers. I would get a little bit of ice every once in a while for a specific purpose—like staying up to study for a test or, in this case, staying up to move. Then, normally, I flushed whatever was left over down the toilet. I would tell myself, “See, I don’t need this. I can stop when I want to. It’s not ruling me. I can flush it, no big deal.”

  But for whatever reason, I had not flushed the leftovers from the move. I held onto the stuff. Why did I do that? Maybe I was thinking I didn’t want to waste it. Maybe I thought I might need it again—I was trying to go to school at night and hold down two jobs. Still, this was the only time I had kept ice in my house in months. And now, like a total idiot, I’ve offered it to this guy who’s freakin’ shot three people, broken into my apartment, and tied me up. Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut? Why didn’t I think before I spoke?

  “You got some clothes I can wear—like a tee shirt or something?” he asked. He had stepped to the door, and I could see by his feet that he was facing me where I sat with the towel still over my head.

  “Yes,” I said. At this point, what was mine was his. “I’ve got stuff that might fit you. Go in my bedroom. Boxers are in the bottom drawer of that short dresser by the windows.”

  I saw his feet turn, then a second or two later, I heard the drawer open. When I heard it close, I continued, raising my voice a little. “Okay, if you go over to the tall dresser, you can look in those larger drawers at the bottom and find tee shirts.”

  I was picturing my tee shirt drawers as I talked. They were color-coded. All of my clothes were organized by color and type. I couldn’t help it—I was just a neat freak. If I wanted a white tank top, I would go to the tank top section of my closet and look for white. If it wasn’t there, then I knew it was either dirty or someone had taken it and not put it back. My drawers were the same way—set up so I could find what I wanted when I wanted it.

  Now, as I heard Brian Nichols opening my drawers in the tall dresser, I thought, “He’s going to look in those drawers and think I’m a totally strange person.” But at least he’ll see more about the kind of person I am, I guess.

  A minute later I could hear the sound of fabric stretching and sliding over skin—he was putting on a shirt. Then the drawer closed, and I saw his feet again. He stepped into the bathroom, reached out, and slowly pulled the towel from my head. I tried to shake and blow my blond curls out of my eyes so I could look at him.

  He stood in front of me now, wearing the pair of blue boxers with white snowflakes that I had gotten out of the donations box when I was in my recovery program the year before. For three months I had slept in those boxers pretty much every night; and after working outside raking and bailing pine needles all day, I always slept hard. I liked the work, though—or, I grew to like it, both the work and the routine. At the beginning I hated everything about recovery. The program was out in the middle of nowhere several hours from Atlanta, and I could remember looking at my mom the day we pulled up to that house and thinking, “She can’t be leaving me out here.”

  The tee shirt Brian Nichols had on—it was tight and pulling around his chest and shoulders—was my white Willie McGee’s work shirt from waiting tables the summer before. I remembered my last day working there. I was being moved up from wait staff to bartender, and I was training behind the bar. As I practiced making drinks, I started feeling crazy and thinking people were after me. This was several months after recovery. I had gotten back in touch with my Augusta friends by then, and I was back into ice again. Standing behind the bar at Willie McGee’s, I felt like I was losing my mind, and I could tell my coworkers were laughing at me. They could see what I was doing; they knew I was messed up. So I thought, “Well, if they’re laughing at me and thinking I’m stupid, then what’s the point of even coming to work?” After that, I didn’t go in. And they fired me.

  “Get up,” Brian Nichols said.

  I pushed myself up from the vanity stool, hopping in order to catch myself from falling.

  “Can you walk now?”

  What would make this guy think I can suddenly walk? “No,” I said, “but I can hop.” I definitely was not up for being carried again. I would rather hop around the rest of the night, falling down and busting my butt, than have him carry me.

  “You hop in here and sit on the bed,” he said, walking across the hall to the bedroom.

  I followed him—hopping slowly in my sock feet so I didn’t slip and trying to stay balanced despite having no real bend in my knees and my legs taped together—and I made my way to the edge of the bed where I had been sitting when he tied me up. His black blazer was still hanging on that post next to me.

  As I turned my back to the bed and then leaned backward to sit down, I saw him coming toward me. What’s he doing? He grabbed the knot of curtain material at my side and started working to untie it. Am I being untied already? Is he actually feeling more comfortable with me? Or is this going to be bad, Lord? I really hoped he wasn’t going to ask me for those drugs.

  He got the knot loose and unwrapped me, pulling the curtain away from my body and throwing it on the floor by my tall dresser. Then he bent over my legs and undid the knots in the extension cord. As he yanked at the cord, trying to loosen it and get it off my shins and knees, I could feel my legs relax a little and my circulation return. Okay, get me ready for whatever’s next.

  He got the cord off, stood up, and dropped it behind him near the curtain. Then he reached back and grabbed a pair of blue-handled scissors off my dresser. I hadn’t seen those in here earlier—they came from the drawer by the stove in the kitchen. What’s he doing with those?

  Bending down to where the tape ended at my shins, he began cutting straight up the front of my legs, in between my knees and thighs until he had cut the tape all the way through. Then he peeled what now looked like a sheet of tape first off my right leg, thigh to shin; and then off the back of my legs, reaching his hands underneath to finally unwind all the tape off my left leg.

  “Stand up,” he said. I stood, bending my knees and straightening them a few times while he balled up the tape and dropped it on the floor. It felt good to be free of that stuff. “Now turn around.”

  I turned toward the bed and felt the cold metal of the scissors at the top of my wrists. He cut down between my hands to my fingertips and unwrapped the masking tape, picking off the stray pieces. That feels better now. Lord, just help me keep it together. I stretched my arms out to the sides and to the front, loosening up my shoulders. Then I turned back around and faced him.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now where’s that stuff?”


  9 defining moment

  Hold on,” I said. “I’ll get it.”

  I walked to the head of the bed on the left side—the side farthest from the windows and nearest the closet—and reached under neath where I had folded down the comforter, feeling for the pink zipper pouch. I kept the pouch under the fold, where it was easy to grab just in case the police ever busted in on me and I needed to get rid of the drugs fast. I probably came up with that hiding spot when I was messed up and paranoid and thinking the police were tracking me, but it worked for me.

  “Hey,” Brian Nichols said as I turned back around, “can I wash my clothes in here?”

  Is he asking my permission? Okay. Maybe things are turning just a little in my favor. Please let it stay that way. I have no idea what’s going to happen with these drugs.

  “You can,” I said. “But you’re going to have to fix that washing machine first. It was spewing water everywhere earlier. But yeah. Go ahead.”

  Looking at him standing there in my boxers and tee shirt, I remembered some pants hanging in my closet. “And if you don’t want to mess with the machine, I think I might have some pants in here that’ll fit you. They’re men’s pants.” I stepped over to the closet and walked into the bright light.

  The closet was huge—it was one of my favorite things about this new place. Inside, my clothes were hanging along three walls, and underneath the clothes I had set up some stackable units from WalMart for my shoes. In the corner just to my left was my set of plastic file drawers with a box of extra files sitting on top. Pants were hanging on the wall facing me.

  All the way over on the right-hand side of the pants rack, I still had that pair of khakis belonging to a guy from Augusta who lived with me for a few months in my other apartment. He stayed with me around the time I was getting back into ice and working at Willie McGee’s—late summer to early fall of last year. I was arguing with Aunt Kim on the phone a lot then. “This is not good enough,” she would tell me. “You’re living with that boy. We know you’re doing drugs. You may have finished recovery, but you can’t raise Paige like this.” I just fought her and fought her, denying the drugs, and she kept on challenging me.

  One day she called and said, “Ashley, I’m tired. I don’t want to raise Paige. I want you to raise her. I want you to see her grow up. I want you to be here when she gets married. I want her to be able to look at you one day and say, ‘Mommy, thank you for what you did for me. Thank you for teaching me.’ ” As Aunt Kim talked, her words started sinking into my heart, and I began to cry. “I want that too,” I said. “I want that too.”

  Days later I got fired from Willie McGee’s. My mom, who lived in Atlanta by then and could see what I was doing, told me it was a wake-up call. I thought, “She’s right. This is it. I’ve got to make some changes.” I told the guy living with me that he would have to move out.

  Now I bent down and pulled that guy’s pants off the hanger and walked back into the room.

  “Here,” I said, handing the khakis to Brian Nichols. “See how these fit.”

  He held them up for a second and folded them over his arm. Then I held out the pink zipper pouch. “Here you go.”

  He looked at the pouch. “How do you do it?” he asked. Is he nervous? I hope so. Then: “Aren’t you going to do it with me?”

  The words came out faster than I could think them. “No way,” I said. “That stuff has ruined my life. Do it if you want to. But I’m not doing it.”

  Whoa! I couldn’t believe what I had just said. “I’m not doing it.” Did I just say that? I stopped for a minute to regroup. I had totally shocked myself. Holding that pouch out to Brian Nichols right then, I really and truly felt as if nothing he did or said could make me do that stuff with him. I wasn’t even tempted to consider it. Not even the slightest bit. Snorting those drugs up my nose had absolutely no appeal to me. The whole thought of it actually repulsed me. This is huge, Ashley. Totally huge. I wondered if I had ever felt this turned off since first trying ice. I didn’t think so. Not even during recovery.

  Suddenly, looking down at my drug pouch, I realized that I would rather have died in my apartment than have done those drugs with Brian Nichols. Rather have died. Was I feeling this? Was this me? I felt as if I was seeing the truth like never before. Those drugs were my weakness. They were my baggage—the stuff I kept dragging around and trying to hold on to. I was trying to be what Paige needed with my two jobs and being in school so I could prove to my family that I was on my feet like those custody papers said. And I was reading my Purpose-Driven Life book; I was trying to show God I really was serious now. But then, I also wanted my drugs when I wanted them. Just a little bit here and there, I would tell myself; I can control it. And yet I couldn’t totally let go. I was weak to those things. And it was dawning on me right here in my bedroom that God was really tired of me being weak.

  Yes, I made it through recovery. But then I fell into that stuff again. Yes, I made some choices after that to snap out of it, clean up, and get back on the path. But I was still doing the drugs—so what if it was less often? I was doing them, and that was the bottom line here. There was that awful back and forth I would play with God about the guy who got the stuff for me. Let him be there. Let him not be there. I would repeat the whole line to myself: “But I’m in school now. I’m working two jobs. I’m getting it right. I’m making a home for Paige. Just this once or twice isn’t going to hurt.”

  That was weakness right there. That was giving in. “But other Christians make mistakes. I bet other Christians have done drugs.” No! God did not want me doing drugs, period. What other people did was their business—they would have to answer to God too. Right now all I could hear was God saying, “You know, Ashley, you’ve got to quit saying ‘oops.’ At some point you’re going to have to start learning. Connect the dots. Look at what this stuff does to you and then ask yourself, ‘Why am I still doing it?’ ”

  Well, I was going to learn right now. Right this minute. I realized that even if God took me home tonight, this was it for those drugs. I was not doing that stuff anymore. I remembered what I had told Aunt Kim the day I took Paige over to her house and moved her in there for good: “I’m not stopping,” I said, daring my aunt to challenge me. “You know, I would rather die than quit doing these drugs.” Pulling out of her driveway, I told myself, “You are such a loser! You are sorry. You can’t even stop for Paige? You won’t let it go for your child?” I knew the answer, of course—it was no. To me, moving Paige in with Aunt Kim just gave me more license to get messed up as much as I possibly could.

  But here I was, standing in front of Brian Nichols—a guy who was holding me hostage in my own apartment after a terrible killing spree—and thinking the complete opposite of what I had told Aunt Kim. I was actually thinking, “I would rather die because I didn’t do those drugs than die doing them.” If the cops were going to bust in here and find me dead, they were not going to find drugs in my body when they did the autopsy. I was not going to die tonight and stand before God, having done a bunch of ice up my nose. Jesus was not going to look at me and say, “Well, the last minutes of your life you did drugs.” It just wasn’t going to happen. I wanted God to be proud of me. I wanted to hear him say, “You made a good decision this time.”

  For once, when it counted, I was going to stand up for God and do what he wanted me to do. This right here—I knew this had to be the defining moment of my life. Until now, Mack’s murder had been the defining moment. Everything had changed for me after that—changed for the worse. But right here in my bedroom, this seemed to me like the real defining moment; whatever happened after this, things were going to change in my heart for the better. Because even if I died tonight, I could still look at God and know that he was pleased with me for doing the right thing. He might not be pleased with me for offering those drugs, but that was just going to have to be Brian Nichols’s choice at this point. As for me—finally, once and for all, I was going to do the right thing.


  Brian Nichols stood there holding the pants and looking at the pouch. “Can you set it up for me?”

  “Sure,” I told him. “I’ll set it up for you. But you know, I really wish you wouldn’t do it. If you want to relax, this is definitely not the drug for you to be doing right now.”

  He didn’t say anything, so I walked out of the room and took the pouch into the bathroom. All right, it’s his choice. He can do what he wants. “Come on,” I said.

  Laying the pouch on the counter by the sink, I realized I didn’t have a credit card.

  “Hey,” I called out to him. He was still in the bedroom. “I need my pocketbook.”

  “It’s in the living room,” he said.

  I walked into the living room, and there it was—the fake Louis Vuitton from Aunt Kim—sitting on the coffee table over to my left. I couldn’t believe he was just letting me walk around like this. The guns were lying out on the bathroom counter. What if I had grabbed one and walked back into the bedroom pointing it at him? I guessed my mind just hadn’t gone there. For whatever reason, I was focused on doing what he asked: getting the drugs laid out for him so he could make his choice. I believed he was starting to feel comfortable with me, and I hoped that somehow everything going on in here right now might work to my advantage. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of here, but I just kept my mind on trying to win his trust and do the next thing.

  I reached into the pocketbook for my brown leather wallet and took out a Kroger Plus card and a twenty dollar bill. Then I dropped the wallet back into my bag and walked into the bathroom, standing to the left of the sink with one knee on the vanity stool.