Flame Angels

by Robert Wintner

  One man’s angel of death is another man’s spirit guide. And if you are the man with guidance, then you have no choice but to follow. Because it’s not a matter of choice, but of knowing. If your parents aren’t Hawaiian and never told you, then it’s a matter of sensing, then knowing. Then you can relax or be afraid. And maybe that’s why it works — even scientists say that sharks sense fear and are attracted to it. The important lesson here is that a spirit guide, once sensed, can provide guidance in the trickiest situations.

  Our fadda — not whodaguy Art, in heaven, but de udda one, da kine great, great, great, great granfadda — went swim’um out for talk story wit Mano, for find out.

  Mano swims nearby as she has for the last few nights and probably has for some time. But maybe the discomfort is not from fear. Maybe it’s from resistance. Souls merging could be a frightening event, the clay and plastic stretching and bulging with nasty noises like celery crunching and roaches squishing underfoot like in the movies — or maybe not. At any rate, it would be different than a digestive process, with its squishes and gurgles.

  So maybe the basis of my faith is not what I thought it was. I’m not sure what I thought, but I suppose I would have said that love was the foundation of my faith — that I love certain things and believe in them. Maybe it’s not love. Maybe it’s more, or maybe the faith isn’t mine but is part of a greater force, a phantom form that swims in water and thin air, its guiding principle and objective being...

  What?

  Salvation?

  It doesn’t feel like salvation, leaving a home of nineteen years with nothing but some camera gear and a laptop in a cushioned case and some shirts, shorts and underwear crammed into a dive bag with some high-pressure implements for breathing underwater while weighing you down and keeping you up. Unless they fail at depth, leaving you inexorably down or hopelessly ascendant, neither of which should be a reason to die, but mechanical failure as a continuing potential should keep you alert to ever-changing options in an exigent world.

  Except for the tanks. Nobody travels with tanks. Or weights.

  I got my weights, because they’re so expensive to replace. And maybe to remind me of my cross to bear, though we don’t use that phrase because of the burden left uniquely to us from that most fateful and unfortunate cross to bear — unfortunate for Yushke and for us; at least we have that in common. And him a Jew, too. Maybe that’s why.

  Still, ten pounds of lead is a burden not soon forgotten by a traveler, interisland or international. I wonder if they’ll allow my weights. Or this cooler. It’s soft. What the fuck? I mean, What the heck? A couple sandwiches, a few cans of sardines. Some crackers. Why not? You go to buy that stuff, you drop forty clams in a heartbeat. So why not? Money falling off for hotels and restaurants. No job, no prospects...

  Uncertain faith and no clear objective. No cat — talk about one true love; Skinny must be wondering where and why, and who will feed her and scratch her neck just so.

  Mano shimmies past, a murky wraith, a peripheral vision that vanishes on direct view, but then she comes around from behind or the other side. At this point she’s an apparent travel companion, along with continuing visions of admonition from the cat and the mother...

  Okay, the mother and the cat.

  Hanging off and slightly back, Mano lolls easy, hanging out, more of a presence than a threat. He clearly senses her shoulders dipping this way and that, indicating a casual cruise. This outing is recreational, without fear or hunger, because her endless swim is sometimes without appetite or destination. Sometimes she simply is, like Skinny and the rest, free of material motivation, without tangible objective. Too bad that a zealous scientist will come along and chart this too, soon after stabbing her with radio telemetry hardware. In the meantime she can sustain her animal essence unencumbered, living up to the mystical acuities and transcendent bliss the animals enjoy more than most humans do. She cruises the deeps without fear or hunger, artfully graceful. Her movement is a gift of gratitude from God or Neptune. Ravid watches her for a minute, and he mumbles, “So be it,” in recognition and greeting.

  “Be what?” asks the adjacent hobo, warming to the camaraderie.

  Minna must be home by now, thinking that it’s over, which it is in the practical sense and will be technically too, once the borders are cleared and the French lawyer can push the annulment papers, which seems only right, so the Somayan junta will understand exactly who wants clear of whom. Maybe. Unless it’s too expensive. He could write them a letter much cheaper. He could tell them that they’re really no great catch as in-laws go, and he’s very happy and grateful to be clear of a terrible error in judgment. And wrong values. And moral standards...and everything. They’ll get the picture. Minna can fill in the details when they press her. And press her, they will. Fucking nosy in-laws, judging him — him, who has forgotten more about their near shore than they’ll ever know. She’ll get over it — she’s likely already thinking about tonight, heading out with the girls to get loaded and see what happens — see if something new and slick might displace what went so inconveniently missing.

  I didn’t look back.

  “I don’t mind,” she called after. “I’d do anything for you. You know that. Don’t you?”

  Thanks, really, you’ve done way more than enough.

  Ravid raises his hand again to shoulder height as if to swear an oath on the truth of what is known. But he doesn’t know shit, which begs the bigger question: Why must he be so mean-spirited in difficult moments, killing hope with his own limitations? Well, that feels like progress, like the right question is now on the table. Is Mano smiling? Does that mean fear or guidance is now a close companion? Or that Mano approves? Or does this toothy grimace merely indicate indigestion? Or impatience at the gate?

  Maybe progress is subtle, and a waterman of unwavering rectitude is softening and warming to his own fallibility — as a concept — since crawling up and out of the sea. That is, fearlessness and acceptance surround him like air, like time and space are the stuff he breathes. He inhales deeply, taking it into his blood.

  Basha Rivka mutters her mantra. The words are visible, till they blur like wallpaper with a silly flower print: A man should not be a rolling stone...

  ...shouldn’t be...

  ...rolling stone...

  ...a man...

  Ravid sings the rejoinder, as off key as Bob Dylan, reminding those nearby that having nothing renders nothing to lose. Which isn’t so bad. Some people take terrible risk and spend huge money to achieve this indomitable indifference. Freedom from fear opens the eyes, the heart and mind to a world of possibility. Nothing to lose makes this the time for all good men to come up with answers to their newly defined questions:

  How could events turn so perversely, so that he no longer seeks her company but is driven away? How could her grace and beauty leave him so bereft? Or is he the defective character? Is she not right for him by virtue of her imperfection? Flaws are part of perfection, because perfection doesn’t really exist, except in paradox. Humans must remain imperfect to stay among the living. She eats and shits. Gets head colds and indigestion. Belches and farts and laughs at the wrong time. Yet he exceeds her in all these things. Does he not love her?

  Does not a shiny new car seem more comfortable and less worrisome once you get the first ding in the door? Reality is a good thing to grasp.

  When did I get so wise? Or am I only tired? Should I not stay and watch her develop, seasoned by our love? I’ve never seen her in the water, but she’s sleek as a mermaid. Should I not stay to see if she could, perhaps...

  “We’re now ready for boarding all zones.”

  “About fucking time,” the grumbling man grumbles.

  “I’m not going,” Ravid replies.

  “What? Not going? You’re here. You’ll get nailed on the ticket, man. You got to go.”

  “I already got nailed. On the ticket. I don’t got to go. What do I care about a ticket? I got a beautiful woman in love w
ith me, and I walked away without even looking back. I hate this shit.” He grumbles at the cumbersome camera bag and dive bag, the latter with its rude habit of gaining weight till he can no longer handle it without banging into everything nearby. But he hoists it up with some umph and a grunt. “I’m not going,” he reaffirms to the wino behind him, turning around to say so long, farewell, adieu, auf Wiedersehen, because the easy way out is the easy way back in — he can hole up at her place, so to speak, till Immigration Naturalization gets it straight and sees: As a married man, he’s now qualified to join the struggle to keep America free. INS guys ought to lose interest by their first coffee break, and things should cool off otherwise and elsewhere too. Any man can get another job — are you kidding? On a boat, in Hawaii? And time and tide can work admirably well for a waterman of notable skill and instinct, and don’t forget the reputation that will precede him.

  Verily singing his decision to go back, not exactly back home but across that certain threshold that may actually lead to a happily-ever-after, he turns to the grumpy guy behind him to state his intentions. He comes face to face instead with Mano, who yawns impressively, measuring the man before her or showing her inexorable appetite or unctuous boredom or both, like it might be time for nappy-poo right after snacks.

  Except that a shark has yet to visit a boarding gate, and the obtrusive fellow nudging from behind butts in on a moment of personal confusion with advice against going back. “You can’t go back. Not now. Not ever. You can’t. Look at the facts. Get real. Get a life. Get some balls, man.” What a pushy fellow.

  No wonder I have to leave a place founded in beauty and humility, rent asunder to humanity.

  “I hope I never get as bad as you are,” Ravid mumbles, surrendering to the line shuffling forward, eager to board at last. One thing for certain on this troubling, tentative night: He’ll make distance from that guy. Anyone can have a rough period.

  Just look at me.

  But a guy who won’t shut up is plain unnecessary.

  What’s it any of his business? Why can’t I turn back?

  These questions swarm among many as he inches along, turning timorously back to the nosy malcontent, to insist on privacy and independence.

  He stops on a premonition: What’s the chance of this grumbler having the seat next to mine? Given the long odds on the rude events of the last fifty hours, a grumbler next door may be a five to one...

  But the grumbler is gone, posing another big question on a man’s rational connection to the space-time continuum, not to mention the thought-to-speech interface or the eccentricity-insanity high wire, or the radioactive heat coursing through his veins. Taking inventory of self, faculties, acuities, thought synthesis and fundamentality, he concludes:

  I am me.

  This is tough.

  I will not react, even as my eyeballs roll into my head. I will think and act. I will breathe slow, deep and steady. I will surface slowly as my slowest bubbles. I’ll hang out at fifteen feet for five minutes...

  No, ten minutes...

  No. Five is plenty.

  Stabilized at a more socially acceptable level, he scans the immediate area to see who might be staring at the loony-tune grumbling to himself. Settling back into blithe functionality, he confirms both his presence and context, however tentative either may be. He wishes a nice day with a warm smile to those on the periphery and nods cordially to the amorphous cruiser alongside. Then he wonders who is on whose periphery, and if the day is technically over. And it’s night.

  Where did the grumbler go? More important, did he actually occur? We know that time can disappear, that we can be a few miles down the road with no recollection of those miles in passing; poof, they’re gone, like now. Distraction displaces those miles and minutes — unless time jumps forward to accommodate its easier passage. But could the jump vaporize the person beside him? Could the grumbler have jumped into nothing?

  So the grumbles replay, with questions. Complaints and images are scanned for palpability, because a man as rigorously worked as Ravid can be forgiven a few extra figments, unless he taunts the boundaries of appropriateness. He scorns most values of a society so easily led, mostly by the nose but often by the genitals. Still he needs to know what is fantasy and what is real. He watches, removed, slightly out of body but with perspective on the grumbling voice. The voice was his own, or the words were only imagined, so he asks the lady behind him if...there was...a...you know...a man, an unkempt fellow who looked...well — Ravid chuckles here to demonstrate the great good humor of the situation — an unkempt fellow who looked wrinkled, crumpled, slept in, who looked hosed down and dried out, who looked like — as we say in the boat business — like he was shot at and missed and shit at and hit... Did you see him? Here? Just a minute ago?

  The woman responds concisely with a fearful, defensive gaze, lips compressed way too tightly for words to escape, though a muffled whimper sorely tries. Ravid nods, comprehending the grumbler’s troublesome disposition, no matter who he was or where he is, though between these two travelers is a fair consensus of whom and where he is.

  But it couldn’t have been Ravid. He doesn’t talk like that, always complaining like a disgruntled tourist who expects the royal treatment just because he’s paid the fare, because his life back home isn’t so peachy, and a vacation is more than a getaway; it’s a chance to balance the power, to compensate what went wrong with what will now be set to rights. These onerous people suffer what the crews call rectal optitus, which is a shitty outlook on life. The telltale symptom is the victim’s head being so far up his ass he needs a glass navel to see through. Ha! Ravid laughs again, as if to signal continuing good humor or offer a calming influence or something. But the woman turns and walks away, allowing no time for a proper explanation. Just so, Ravid’s happy outlook more or less disproves that the other fellow could have been him. Any man can suffer residual delirium in extreme hardship and grievous loss. He may remain dazed by the challenge of an unknown future, of pressing on to unknown lands with no friends, a small budget and a heavy heart, because fatigue can twist a brain like a pretzel. And before he knows what’s next, up is down, left is right, green red, day night and so on ad infinitum.

  But if it couldn’t have been Ravid, then who was that unlikely traveler, forlorn and beat, shuffling like a panhandler, prematurely stooped, sleep-deprived and unstable, looking gang banged and left for dead? Can you blame these people close by for bunching their eyebrows, trying to imagine this unlikely candidate on his way to a carefree holiday down south? How does a moaning mumbler fit in with the rest of these festive vacationers, with their leis and smiles, their good cheer and happy anticipation? Hobos might be expected in the urban core, maybe on Market Street or in West Hollywood.

  But on his way to Tahiti?

  Well, this is no weekend outing, for one thing, and a man with a load on his mind is bound to look different than a tourist singing Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah. And maybe sound different...

  He squints on the long shuffle down the jetway to better manage the vertigo and to help keep his place against the deep eddies to the left, indicating aggressive movement of a relatively large being just below the surface.

  Oceania

  Arrival at the Papeete airport is after ten, closer to eleven — way past ferry service, and a man shuffling into a hotel cold off the street with all his worldly possessions in a dive duffel, a soft cooler and a shock-proof case faces a rack rate of a hundred and fifty dollars for the few hours remaining of the night for a crummy little room with no screens and a funky toilet.

  Or he can shuffle back out to the sidewalk and down three blocks to a grassy area to achieve a more frugal security with faith in the firmament. They feel different on this watch, the security more plausible and the firmament more stable. He can sleep on a bench in the park at more popular prices, grateful for the bench’s smooth ride and no pitching waves or murky phantoms. Arranging his nest for optimal comfort, he walks off discreetly to squat and dump. Her
e again he laughs, comparing this dump to his most recent outdoor dump — till the waves mount again, making him list and topple into the tree alongside. At least he maintains buoyancy and balance, never mind the uncouth, illegal and punishable character of the thing.

  But, Your Honor, a dog did that.

  Big dog. Woof.

  Thanking his lucky stars or street lights for tidy delivery with no messy aftermath, he sacrifices a handkerchief to the greater cause and in a short time is uplifted, a homeless man in a small park in a foreign country farther from friends than any man would care to be at any time in life. He has achieved life’s functions efficiently as a young man can, with his wits about him and feeling better than minutes ago. He feels irrationally happy, like Skinny, who daintily pushes sand or dirt over her business and then chases a few circles or jumps for a quivering leaf. He picks a star and wishes Skinny to see it, so they may beam up and down upon each other, making the miles meaningless between them. Yes, she’s good for that.

  In fact, he is neither homeless nor friendless because of Skinny and years of aloha and old friends and a few other reasons that can be sorted and developed tomorrow. So he nestles in, laughing one last time on a long, productive day, this time at the customs agent who wanted to know the reason for this visit to French Polynesia. As Ravid had shrugged at the open camera case, so he shrugs again on the park bench. “I’m a professional photographer. You can see that. What you must also see is that you have some beauty here in need of immortality.” The French sense of humor may be questionable, but esprit de corps is immutable. Et voilà, Monsieur; he’s in.

  Then he sleeps with no dreams.

  In the morning, he freely spends a fraction of the evening’s savings on exquisite French pastries and an equally inspirational double latte, leaving him caffeinated, sugared up and still a hundred and forty-four dollars ahead of the game. From there, it’s an easy promenade to the ferry bound for the next island over, say, nine or twelve miles away. The distance echoes with a cringe as the inveterate swimmer/survivor adds five miles or eight to his pesky nightmare. And why shouldn’t I imagine such a swim?