by Bruce Blake
My head throbbed rendering me unable to focus on the splashes of paint they passed off as art and I wished the pain was caused by the vodka. I watched the cafe’s patrons, worried I’d see black trench coats or a swallow tattoo. Suit-and-tie guys lined up for morning wake-ups beside working girls in smeared make-up getting a last shot of caffeine to settle their heads before sleeping the day away: an odd-couple tag team. I pondered them a while, wondering which suit the most successful businessman, which woman the most prosperous whore, but the twirling in my head distracted me. I closed my eyes and settled back in the chair, the big, white mug of mocha resting on the arm. Someone took the chair opposite mine, but I didn’t look no matter the warnings from my jangled nerves.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice: tentative, nervous.
I didn’t react outwardly, but the electricity of adrenaline flowed into my limbs. Maybe if I showed no interest, my visitor would think me dead, leave me alone. I was dead, after all.
“Icarus? Hello?”
I canted my head toward the speaker, eyes still shut. I didn’t recognize the voice and nobody knew me, so it didn’t take much to guess what kind of being sat across from me.
“Ric,” I said. A minute passed, then two. My uninvited guest remained, quiet except for her breathing. I cracked an eyelid.
A red butterfly clip held the young woman’s white-blond hair away from her face. Neither attractive nor unattractive, she possessed a face you might see anywhere and not think twice about. Her prominent nose kept her from being beautiful--I’ve always been a small nose guy. She glanced around the coffee shop like she didn’t know I was looking at her.
“Nice place,” she said, the nervous quake still evident in her words.
“Who are you?” I didn’t have the patience for niceties.
“Did you get a place to stay?”
“Who are you?”
“Poe.” She offered her hand and a self-conscious smile.
“Poe.” I shook her hand. Her fingers were long and dainty--piano-player’s hands--her skin cool. Static electricity passed between us. “As in Edgar Allan.”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “No relation.”
“What do you want?”
“Whatever you’re having.” She covered her mouth and giggled behind her hand.
I started to say I didn’t mean to offer her a drink but changed my mind. Her intentional misunderstanding melted some of my surliness and she didn’t seem likely to go anywhere or to fry me with fireballs, so I went to the counter and bought her a mocha. She sipped it, made a face, then poured more sugar into it than anyone should be allowed to use. Another sip brought a satisfied nod.
“That’s good.”
“Mmm.”
“Are you settled in?” She fidgeted in the comfy chair.
“Yep.”
“Good. I couldn’t stand the idea of you living on the street again.”
“You didn’t really answer my questions.”
She leaned forward, eyes shifting side to side, and whispered: “I’m your guardian angel.”
I nearly spit a mouthful of mocha at her.
“What?” She glanced into my eyes then looked away.
“Not very good at your job, are you?”
Her smile drooped; I felt no remorse. My only parent--a nun--died giving birth to me; I was raised by an abusive priest; suffered through drug and alcohol addiction while living for years on the street; went through a shitty divorce and got killed by muggers in front of a church. Any one of them seemed like good reason to hold my guardian angel in disdain. I stared at her, daring her to dispute my words, but she refused to meet my glare.
“I’m a guide, Icarus. I don’t make the decisions.” She managed to sound both defensive and on the verge of tears. “It’s you who chooses to fly too close to the sun.”
Bringing Greek mythology into a conversation has never been the best way to make friends with me.
“Who the hell were those men last night, Miss Guardian Angel?”
She examined the color of her mocha.
“After the shit I’ve been through, you owe me an answer.”
“Carrions,” she whispered like the word frightened her.
“Carrions? What does that mean?”
“They do what you do, but for the other team.” She looked up, her face taut with emotion: remorse, maybe.
Solid like me, not spirits.
“They do what I did. I’m not doing it anymore.” The force of gritting my teeth gave the words a compressed tone, anger squashing them flat. I drained my coffee and stood.
“Icarus,” she called as I crossed the room. I didn’t stop. I’d died once with too many regrets to list--I wouldn’t let it happen again.
***
I found a used car lot with sun-faded flags dithering in the meager breeze and paid way too much for an old Ford Escort--two tone: blue and rust--but at least I wouldn’t have to take public transit.
I didn`t want to go back to the motel, so I stopped and bought more vodka--some cheap brand I’d never heard of with a sarcastic name and a plain bottle. The good stuff didn’t work, so time to trod the path less traveled.
Heavy traffic slowed the drive, frustrating me, but all the stop-and-go offered plenty of opportunity to raise the vodka level in my blood. By the time I decided where to go, the late afternoon sun had dipped below the city’s skyline. I pulled over, scraping the hubcap-less steel wheel on the curb, and listened to the engine cough a couple times when I shut it off.
Houses lined both sides of the narrow avenue, each of them boasting peeled paint and ripped screens. Some years ago, someone decided a re-beautification project in order and a few saplings--now dead, leafless sticks pointing accusingly toward Heaven--still stood next to the chipped sidewalk. Things hadn’t changed since my last visit, but why should they? Six months wasn’t much time in the grand scheme of things. It felt longer, but it was half-a-year, one-twentieth of a decade, one-two-hundredth of a century. No time at all, really. The other thing unchanged was how the place made me feel: disappointed, sad, alone. Empty.
Eleven years Rae let me believe Trevor was my biological son. It ripped me in half, drove me back into a bottle, a needle. It was only her word, there was no DNA test to prove it, but I let myself get lost for too long to do anything about it. By the time I`d pulled myself out of the gutter, it was too late--my whole life had slipped away. Sitting in the car, looking at the houses on Rae`s street, the disappointment and emptiness rolled themselves into a ball and morphed into anger.
I poured vodka over my outrage to keep it in check. When it didn’t help, I tried some more. After a couple swigs, my more mellow nature bubbled to the surface and I settled back in the driver’s seat, not sure what to do next. I imagined walking up to the door, knocking, being greeted with love and enthusiasm: an unreasonable dream.
Why would they care the dead beat pseudo-dad/husband wasn’t as dead as they thought?
I watched and waited, grumbling to myself, thinking the worst until lack of sleep and too much booze caught up with me and my chin drooped down to my chest.
Full darkness and a damp spot on the front of my t-shirt greeted me when wakefulness returned. I blinked a few times, wiped the drool off my chin and righted the vodka bottle, much of its contents emptied onto the car floor. My neck hurt from sleeping upright. I thought about my watch lying on the dresser in my motel room and cursed the car’s broken radio. Lights glowed behind closed curtains and drawn blinds, so it must not be too late.
It hadn’t been my intent to drive here to catch up on my sleep, so I got out of the car and stretched before stumbling toward my ex-wife’s house. Feeling stealthy in my noise as only a drunk can, I melted into the shadows at the side of the house. She’d told me not to darken her door again, but perhaps my death would have rendered that command null and void. And she didn’t specifically mention her windows.
I skulked past the living room window, heading straight for Trevor’s room where light
shone through the Metallica flag he employed as a curtain. I vaulted the chain link fence and fell sprawling in the flower garden. Stealthy, my ass. It took a minute to regain my bearings and drag myself out of the dirt before brushing mud into a smear on the knees of my pants and lurching to his window.
I peeked through a gap between the black flag and the window pane. Trevor sat on a dining room chair with his back to the window, an Xbox controller gripped in his hands as he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. Zombies and other creatures exploded in fountains of blood across the screen of the television I gave him for Christmas last March. Giant headphones covered his ears--his answer to Rae yelling at him to turn the goddamn game down.
“Damn it.”
I considered rapping on the window anyway, but the neighbors would more likely respond than a fifteen-year-old playing video games. Ten minutes passed, his head bobbing and shoulders jerking in response to the game. His hair was longer than the last time I saw him, scragglier, if that was possible. Seeing him made my chest hurt. Rae’s parting revelation didn’t matter--I raised this young man.
“I miss you, Trev.”
I thought about leaving him a note--a bad idea considering the world counted me six months dead and my drunkenness likely impaired my ability to write legibly. Might have freaked him out, too. I trudged back to the living room, stealing a glance through the blinds. Rae sat on the couch--the one she and I picked out together a month before we split, paid for by my paltry wages--watching a TV show I didn’t recognize. I hadn’t been able to afford cable for years, and then I’d been dead, leaving me blessedly out of touch with the realm of sit-coms and reality shows.
She looked away from the program, her lips moving. I followed her gaze to the man standing in the kitchen doorway.
Ashton. I hadn’t seen him in years. He and I had worked together for a few months before Rae and I split. What the hell is he doing here?
I breathed against the glass, fogging it, and had to wipe it away with the side of my hand. Ashton left the room and Rae looked back to the piece of furniture she’d called the idiot box when we were together. A minute later, Ashton returned, a bottle of beer in one hand, a glass of wine in the other. My hands balled into fists at my side as he handed her the wine and sat close to her on the sofa. She kissed him on the lips and he touched her cheek. They kissed again.
The vodka’s calming effect fled like mice before a cat. Without thinking, I slammed my hand against the window and shouted: “Stop it.”
Both Rae and her new--or maybe not-so-new--beau snapped their attention toward me. Even through the vodka haze, I realized my mistake. Ashton shot to his feet, but I didn’t wait to see if he’d come to the window or head for the door. I took off, tripping over my feet, and slammed through the gate into the tiny front yard.
“Hey,” Ashton yelled, barreling out the door, but I’d already made it to the street. Thank God I forgot the keys in the ignition. The car chugged before firing up. I slammed it into gear and laid some rubber pulling away as he caught up, hammering the flat of his hand against the car’s already-dented rear fender. I glanced in the rearview and saw him standing in the street watching me go. I flipped him a triumphant bird.
I laughed as I drove, but the sound quickly died away; tears blurred the street ahead. The old neighborhood may have looked the same as always, but everything had changed. No one knew Icarus Fell anymore, no one cared. The world moved on leaving me behind to do a job I didn’t want. I knew I’d fucked up royally, but I always clung to the hope we’d make it work someway, for Trevor’s sake, at least. Through the times she wouldn’t talk to me or wouldn’t let me see my son, I still believed. Precious little else from my mess of a life interested me, but what little there was, I’d never have again.
Never.
The neon sign above the liquor store winked at me as I approached, enticing me to stop. I didn’t think the half bottle left in my room would be enough to obliterate my mood. The Escort bucked and coughed as I shut it off; something lying on the passenger seat moved. I wiped my nose on my sleeve and glanced at it, half-interested. A scroll, a twin to the one Gabe gave me before. I breathed deep through my nose, glanced out the window, then exited the car to get myself a friend for the evening leaving the scroll unopened on the seat.
The young man behind the plexi-glass barrier eyed me but didn’t keep me from my booze--minimum wage is hardly enough money to keep the public safe.
I arrived back at the motel, scooped up the roll of parchment and the bottle in the plain brown bag and bulled my way through the door into my room. A voice startled me, making me stumble. I surveyed the room, expecting to see the woman from the coffee shop, but the sound came from the television I’d left on. I tossed the scroll onto the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress, staring at it, wondering whose name I’d see on it when I opened it.
I opened the bottle of vodka instead.
***
After sleeping the whole next day away, I woke feeling like I’d lost the right side of my head and didn’t have a clue where to look. I dragged my sorry ass out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom to douse myself under the shower. Water cascaded over my head and down my back as I propped myself up with one hand on the wall in front of me thinking I might puke into the drain.
Thoughts spun my head as efficiently as the hangover. One kept coming, printed across my brain in neon letters that made my head hurt more: why me?
I lurched out of the tub, almost dragging the shower curtain with me, and dried off as best I could, which wasn’t great considering every time I bent over, my face threatened to fall off. As I walked out of the bathroom naked except for the towel draped over my head, my toe hit something hard.
“Ouch. Shit.”
Face and toe throbbing, I glanced down to see what ambushed me. The bathroom light glinted on the bottle lying against my foot, a bit of vodka sloshing around inside it. The day suddenly seemed better. I crouched down gingerly, trying to save my poor head, scooped up the bottle and drained the last three gulps. Hair of the dog. Now you’re messing with a sonovabitch. I dropped the bottle and fell onto the bed, fully intending to remain prone until someone became worried and called an ambulance to come get me--like anyone except the guy collecting rent cared--but an uncomfortable something-or-other pressing into my back ruined my plan. Shifting a bit, I pulled the thing out from under me and stared at it.
The scroll.
It quivered in my unsteady grip. I sat up, looked across the room at the garbage can, but couldn’t bring myself to dispose of it. I didn’t want this job, but curiosity skinned the cat, and I wanted to see what was scribbled across the parchment. Maybe they’d realized they’d chosen the wrong man and this was my heavenly pink slip.
I snapped the bedside light on and unrolled the scroll.
Not a letter releasing me from Heaven’s employment, unfortunately. Too bad. Instead, the name of some woman I didn’t recognize looped across the page in the finest example of calligraphy I’d seen outside of a book. Below it: two addresses, a date and a time. My aching head swelled as I attempted to work out what day it was and realized that, unless the foggy exploits of the previous day only took an hour or two, the time had come and gone.
Oh well.
I dropped the scroll, clicked off the lamp and crawled under the covers, determined to either sleep off the monster hangover or die again.
An hour later, eyes wide, I flopped onto my side for the hundredth time. Sleep wouldn’t return. With a sigh, I threw off the covers, found my clothes and got dressed grudgingly with Gabe’s words about consequences, Trevor, and other people’s salvation echoing in my head. I didn’t know how to get hold of her or Mikey--maybe didn’t want to see him--so I headed out the door to see the only other person I knew who was close to God.
Maybe confessing my sins would allow me to sleep.
***
The sign outside the bank a block from the church flashed between time and temperature: nine fifty-
five, forty-one degrees. I parallel parked the car, got out, and noticed I hadn’t achieved parallel in the strictest sense of the word. I shrugged: name one dead guy who excels at parallel parking. The stolen plate on the front of the car hung at an angle because I only had one bolt with which to attach it. When you’ve been murdered, they’ll sell you a car--cash--but try explaining to an insurance agent what happens when they plug your driver’s license into the computer. If it meant someone else would be responsible for my parking tickets...cool.
I entered the churchyard, a shudder quaking along my spine and down my arms. The smells of chill wind and fallen leaves had replaced grass and fresh rain, otherwise it might have been the same night. My muscles tensed as the path bent towards the oak tree, ready this time. No men in hooded jackets, no guys in trench coats, just me and the tree and the gravestones in the old cemetery. A sigh full of raked leaves and Halloween calmed me a bit.
I didn’t have to wait long for the Sister to come down the pathway at the side of the church. Without consideration to how she’d react, I stepped out of the shadows into her path.
“Sister.”
“Who’s there?” Her hand darted into the pocket of her heavy woolen sweater. If I didn’t talk quick, I’d end up getting pepper sprayed by a nun.
“It’s me, Icarus.”
“Oh, Icarus. You startled me.” She took her hand out of her pocket and showed me the cylinder it concealed. “I’ve been sure to carry this since...since what happened to you.”
“I wish I’d thought of that.”
“Do you need a bed, Icarus? We’re full, but I might be able to make arrangements.”
“No, Sister, I’m fine.” I shuffled one foot to the other. “I came to talk to you.”
She dropped the pepper spray into her pocket and hooked her arm around mine. “An old lady should never refuse the opportunity for a young man to walk her home.”
It felt comfortable, familiar walking beside her. Her touch on my arm opened a floodgate of memories, of the times she’d come to my aid. Beneath it all, the specter of Father Dominic tugged at peacefulness like a riptide digging sand out from under my feet. I glanced at her as we walked and saw concern in her expression, like she’d read my thoughts.
