by Borne Wilder
The human form was quite fragile compared to that of an archangel in their true form. As far as durability, humans were way down the list of Creation. The Trinity topped all with complete indestructibility, followed by Satan, who could only be destroyed by the Trinity, followed by Seraphim, who no one in Heaven really knew anything about, except the Trinity. In fact, they had been created of all things; first, for all the archangels knew, they might outrank Satan. Since the creation of the tenth dimension, the Seraphim had encircled God’s head, singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” without stopping. (Michael assumed it was God’s favorite song.) Humans were down, somewhere below monkeys, as far as their ability to sustain damage.
“What happened? Did you wreck the car?” Michael rubbed his jaw.
“Gabriel was here.” Jeremiel decided that flooding the angel’s temporary confusion with information might be a better approach. “He wants us to capture the idiot that escaped the holding area. He says we are to make sure----”
“Did you hit me?” Michael carefully wagged his chin from side to side, testing its range of motion.
“Yes, I was about to mention that. I accidently hit you.” He said sheepishly. “I was afraid you were going to disable the car, I had to act fast. You, yourself know your mechanical understanding leaves much to be desired.”
“And using your words was not an option?” The chin wagging didn’t seem to help. “If I remember right, the last time you had to act fast, you shoved me into a gas chamber at Auschwitz.”
“I honestly thought they would stop the gas, Michael, I had no idea; they would poison one of their own soldiers.”
For a few minutes, neither angel spoke; the only sound was the clicking of the turn signal and the tapping of the tires crossing cracks in the road. Both could feel a commotion in the dimension, not too far ahead of them, something was rapidly jumping dimensions, but neither one mentioned it. Jeremiel stepped on the accelerator, increasing their speed slightly.
“Gabriel says, hello.” Jeremiel broke the tense silence. “We’re supposed to capture the naked fool.” He received only an indifferent grunt from the seat beside him. “We’re going to meet Azazel, or at least make sure she takes possession of the shekel.” He knew the mention of her name would get Michael’s attention. He probably should have mentioned her name when the angel was first waking up from the dark.
Using his fingers to comb his beard, Michael parted it to either side of his chin. He pulled a pair of Ray Bans from his jacket and poked the earpieces through his hair. With a sharp jerk on the front of his Sons of Anarchy cut, He vanished.
A moment later he returned to the rear of the limo with Nolte. The naked man was screaming and fighting to get free of the angel. His legs pumped and kicked the air as if he were riding an upside-down, imaginary bicycle.
“Please don’t take me to hell! I don’t belong there!” Nolte’s screams mimicked a rape whistle. “Please don’t take me to hell; I’ll give you my nest egg!”
“I’m not taking you to hell. Stop fighting me.” Michael could feel Nolte trying to jump in time. “You should feel this, Jerry. I’ve never felt anything attempt to jump this rapidly. He feels like he’s vibrating.”
“I can feel it. Where did you find him?”
“The idiot was riding on top of the car; the other two idiots are riding in.” He gave Nolte a squeeze. “He looked like a skinny little Buddha in a Christmas parade. Didn’t you little buddy?” Nolte’s sunglasses were pushed to one side of his face, by Michael’s headlock. “Now listen closely, you pig of a human. You can stop trying to jump, that doesn’t work around us. We stand before the throne of God, you tiny speck of worm shit.” Michael smiled at Jerry, who was smiling back into the rearview mirror. “Man, it feels good to say that.” He choked hard on Nolte’s neck, causing the sunglasses to rise away from the skinny man’s face.
“Neither of us has ever sent anyone to hell,” Jeremiel said, over his shoulder. “We are messengers assigned to assess your dealings in dark matters and follow your coin.”
Nolte relaxed immediately at the reference to his nest egg. “Why are you following my coin? Why in the fuck does every faggot and cocksucker on God’s green earth, want my fucking coin?” Nolte’s eyes fell on the minibar attached to the seatback. “Is there anything in that?” He asked, pointing from his waist, where his hand was pinned by the angel.
“I don’t know, but if you promise to sit your stinking ass in that seat over there and fly right, I’ll let you check.” Michael released the pressure of his grip but waited for a reply before he completely let go of the foul idiot. The ghost reeked of piss and shit. Nolte nodded with a grunt. Michael retightened his grip. “Use your words.”
“I promise.” Nolte scrambled for the minibar the instant the angel released him. “Vodka and bourbon! Well roll me in mud and paste me to a pig, Johnnie Walker Blue label! You faggots have decent taste.” He looked over his shoulder, sunglasses still cocked to one side of his face. If these fags were headed in the same direction he was, what would it hurt to take a tad of the edge off and ride in style, before he snatched his nest egg from his idiot sons? These two might even come in handy.
The moment the vile creature had left his lap, Michael noticed a cool feeling on his thigh. The idiot had peed through his diaper. “You little demon, you pissed on me!”
“No, no, no, that’s on you, twink, that shit happens when I dark travel. I was minding my own fucking business when you snatched me off the top of that car. You spooked me. Sometimes I shit, too.” Nolte pulled the waistband of his diaper out and frowned, “Voila, motherfucker," Nolte said, gesturing at the crotch of his diaper, "I shit on my cigarettes.”
Michael took a towel from the minibar and dabbed at the piss. When it came time to put this one in hell, he might make an exception and take him there, himself. He tossed the damp towel at the piss soaked gremlin.
“You want a shot Peter-Puffer? I can whip you up an Appletini if a man’s drink will scald your pussy.” Nolte downed several of the tiny bottles, discarding the empties onto the floorboard. “What about you, up there in the front, you want a snort? There’s some girly sounding shit in here you might like. I don’t see anything semen flavored, though.”
“I do not, you foul dog.”
Nolte repositioned the sunglasses so they rested more comfortably on his nose. “Good idea, never drive after you’ve been samplin’ granny’s rheumatiz medicine, you’ll get to fiddle-fartin’ around and have a crash. You just go on and keep an eye peeled for revenuers.” Nolte offered Michael a mini bottle of Jack Daniels. The angel waved him off, wanting to keep personal contact with the disgusting creature to a minimum. “So what are you two, really?” Nolte gestured at the biker’s cut Michael was wearing. “Homo Davidson and the Virginia Slim Man?” He twisted the cap off the Jack and swallowed it in a gulp.
“You talk just to feel your teeth rattle, don’t you?” Michael wondered how cocky this demon will be, once his lungs fill with sulfur.
“We are messengers, archangels, who are allowed to stand in the presence of God,” Jeremiel smiled into the mirror at Michael. It did feel good to say that.
“You don’t say? I’m sure your moms are very proud.” Nolte had heard of archangels, but in all honesty, had no idea what they were. “Well tell me, Messenger, why does every swinging dick, this side of Nantucket, want to get their hands on my coin?”
Michael ignored the question.
Nolte pulled the waistband of his diaper away from his gut and carefully placed three bottles of Johnnie Walker blue label down the front. “I’ll save these for later.” He reached further into his diaper and pulled out a wrinkled sandwich bag containing his half-crushed pack of Pall Mall Reds. He fumbled with the bag and grumbled, trying not to get shit on his hands, until he was able to extract a stained and crooked smoke. “Yeah, it’s a pain in the ass, but it keeps them fresh and dry.” He said, glancing at the messenger from under his brow.
The angel removed his sunglasse
s and stuffed them into his cut. He stared at the shriveled excuse for a human until he noticed the small tuft of cloth sticking out of Nolte’s chest. “What happened there?”
“Gunshot.” Nolte poked at the end of his cigarette, trying to repack the frayed end. “Jealous husband caught me balls deep in his old lady. I was changing that bitch’s religion.” He put the smoke between his teeth and grinned. “Some people don’t have a sense of humor about that shit, do they? Got a light, Nancy?” Nolte tapped his thumb to the top of his finger, mimicking a lighter.
The archangel’s stare was piercing and his eyes were the bluest, Nolte had ever seen. He felt a stirring in his crotch and it sickened him, he, after all, was a lady’s man. “It figures. I’ve yet to meet a pillow biter that smoked. So tell me, you and the dumb fucker driving, are you two like boyfriend and girlfriend? Pitcher and catcher?” Nolte dug his own lighter from the front of his diaper and spun the striker. “Fuck me, this thing keeps getting wet.”
“Why don’t you keep it in the bag?” This human appeared to be a few clowns short of a circus. A few clowns short of a circus, he liked that, he would have to tell that one to Jerry.
“Well goddamn, ain’t you a fucking rocket surgeon?”
“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain!” Michael bolted forward in his seat. “I will turn you into the shit-eating dog you are.” Carelessly referring to the Almighty, really chapped Michael’s ass, but he always gave out fair warning, before he administered punishment.
Nolte recoiled, biting down hard on his cigarette; the biker messenger appeared to be a religious fanatic. “Simmer down. Princess, I didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just an expression.”
“It’s an expression, you will not use again in my presence.”
The eyes of the angel took on an even deeper shade of blue. Nolte’s crotch tingled again. “You have the bluest goddamned eyes I have ever seen.”
Michael thrust his hand against Nolte’s chest. The back of the limo flashed brilliantly and Nolte was gone. On the seat, where Nolte had been sitting, was a soiled diaper, three miniatures of Johnnie Walker, a Ziploc, a wet Bic lighter and a miniature Chihuahua. The Nolte-dog began sniffing the diaper with great interest. It glanced once at the angel and started licking the diaper in earnest.
“You like Dogs, don’t you Jerry?” Michael called to the front of the car.
“Not especially.”
“Where are we headed?”
“New Orleans.”
“I wonder if they have a leash law.” Nolte-dog whimpered and lapped hungrily. “Good boy.”
“Gabriel said this thing we’re doing, is straight from the top.” Jeremiel wanted to tell Michael about the Show but didn’t want to hurt his feelings while his chin was still damaged. Michael had been looking forward to the Trumpets and Bowls since Christ had revealed the endgame to John. No one had ever told Michael he would be in charge of the Trumpets, he, for some reason unknown to the rest of them, had just assumed it would be him.
“Gabriel always says that.” Carefully, Michael unfolded the diaper, so the tiny dog could better clean it. “That’s a good boy, eat it all.”
***
Ron cut the wheel sharply to the right and back to the left. Charlie’s sleeping head raised slightly from the car door he’d been resting it on and crashed back hard. The empty pistol in his hand fell to the floorboard. “Real funny," he said groggily, "I remember the first time I drove a car.”
“Welcome to the Big Easy.” The sun was just breaking the horizon; the glare on the bug painted windshield was incredible. “Look for a place to get gas. I need some coffee.”
“Yeah, I’m about to piss myself.” Neither had wanted to stop during the night, for fear that Nolte might reappear, as if he might have been chasing them down the highway, skinny arms and legs pumping, drafting Ron’s car, waiting for the precise moment to overtake them.
Charlie coughed and wished for one of Nolte’s piss stained cigarettes. It seemed like the cravings were never going to go away completely. “I slept like an inebriated baby.” He said stretching. “Any sign of Grampa Nasty?” He scooped the pistol off the floor and tried to spin it around his finger. He concluded, that guns on TV must be made of styrofoam; real pistols were much too heavy to twirl.
“Nope.” Ron jerked the wheel and suddenly left the highway. “Thanks for helping me look for gas.” At the end of the off ramp was a small dilapidated store with two gas pumps poked up in the middle of a concrete lot. As Ron eased his Mercedes up to the pumps, he couldn’t help but notice the tall grass that feathered out of spider web of cracks, crisscrossing the drive. The lack of traffic, in and around the pumps, made him leery of the quality of gas he was about to put in his gunshot baby.
“Holy shit. I can’t believe there are two of these places.” It was an exact replica of the store where Charlie had stolen the Harley. There was a rickety wooden bench out front, with a sand-filled five-gallon cigarette bucket next to it. Someone had written Peeches on the side with a sharpie. A sign on the front of the building, in worn and peeling paint, announced the location as Fast Mart. “It’s fucking identical to the one I stopped at in Colorado.”
“Wow, that’s amazing,” Ron replied in mock disbelief. “More than one store with the same name? Someone should sell the idea to Seven Eleven.”
“I guess you had to be there.” Charlie scanned the area, expecting Nolte to materialize at any moment. It didn’t appear to be the best of neighborhoods. There were no white people in sight, always a bad sign for white boys, as far as he was concerned.
Five or six black teenagers, at the side of the store, were passing around two ‘fortys’ of Old English malt liquor. Several times, they had glanced at the brothers and laughed. “This neighborhood’s a bit dark, buddy.” Charlie held out his hand. “You want me to go in and pay?”
“What? Do you think I’m scared of those kids?”
“No, it’s just that I have street cred.” He tapped the barrels of the empty derringer on his thigh. Charlie didn’t consider himself to be racist, but it didn’t take the Grand Dragon of the Klan, to know that these fellows wouldn’t mind having a few more forties on their dime.
“Yeah, you have street cred alright, Sesame Street cred.”
“Hurry up, I’m about to piss myself.” Charlie shifted his legs to give his bladder more space.
“Don’t wait on me, you racist prick, go piss,” Ron said, looking around for the bug squeegee, knowing he wouldn’t find one. He estimated the life expectancy of a bug squeegee in this neighborhood was probably only fifteen minutes, tops. Removing the nozzle, Ron gave the end of it the sniff test, though he had his doubts, as to how 'good gas' might smell, but he figured he would know if it was bad.
Charlie got out of the car and shook his legs to get some blood flowing in them. He faced the gathering of hood rats; to be sure they noticed him shove the chrome pistol into the waist of his jeans. The laughter ceased. As he walked to the door of the Fast Mart, he heard one of the kids wonder to another, if the white boy was going to rob the store.
Inside, it was empty, other than Charlie and the clerk.
“Where’s your restroom?” He asked the large woman behind the register. She looked remarkably similar to the lady Charlie had seen rifling through her purse, outside the Colorado Fast Mart. They must be sisters. He wondered what the odds were, that he would happen upon the two stores, without planning it.
“It’s out of order.” She called out, flatly. Charlie felt his bladder tighten. “You can piss around the side of the building, where the niggers piss if they’ll let ya, but I seriously doubt they’ll let you take a shit.”
“Do you have any body spray?”
“Over there at the front of the isle, the niggers love that shit. I have to keep it where I can keep an eye on it, or it has a tendency to walk off.” The woman waved a fat arm above her head, for no apparent reason.
The door opened and Ron walked to the counter. “I don’t smell any coff
ee? He stated the question.
“You are shit out of luck on that, grab yourself a Red Bull.” She pointed at an old Frigidaire, sandwiched between two racks of potato chips.
Not waiting for Ron to mull over the decision, Charlie walked past him; he took a can of Axe from the shelf and grabbed two Red Bulls out of the fridge. He plopped it all in front of Ron.
“I guess you’re buyin’ Handsome.” The clerk rang the items up, scowling at the Body spray. “Seventy-five, fifty. Do you want a bag?”
Ron nodded, as he leafed through the bills in his wallet.
“How big is her head?” sniggered, the portly woman.
Ron had heard the joke before. “Same size as yours, gimme the one you wear.”
“You’re as funny as hair on a hemorrhoid.” The clerk grumbled and pushed everything back toward him. “Sorry, I’m fresh out of bags.”
Charlie turned and hurried toward the door. “I have to piss.”
Exiting the store, he turned toward the hood rats. “Where’s the pisser?” he asked, scratching his stomach above the empty pistol, hidden beneath his shirt. A kid in a hoodie jerked his thumb behind him, indicating the side of the building.
Charlie walked through the small crowd into an area between the store and a chain link fence, no wider than the width of his shoulders, it reeked of piss and shit. He switched the pistol from his waist to his back pocket and let loose a torrent against the wall of the building. Behind him, a footstep crunched broken glass.
“Hey White Boy, let me hold a square.” One of the teenagers had moved into the tight space with him, making the space between the wall and the fence, seem tighter.
“I don’t smoke.” Charlie reached back and wrapped his hand around the pistol grip. “And unless you came back here to hold my dick for me, I’d appreciate it if you back up and let me finish pissing.” He stopped his stream and stuffed himself back into his pants. He took the pistol out and squeezed back out from between the store and the fence, gun first. Racist my ass, he thought, I’m fucking cautious. The motherfucker waited, until I had my dick out, to roll me.
