Angel

by Shawn Michel de Montaigne

  The northbound Blue Line was pulling up. He jogged across the tracks, got on it, sat.

  He had told the officers that he wasn’t done with me “by a damn sight.”

  He wasn’t.

  Chapter Six

  Intimidated

  ~~*~~

  I HADN’T shaken my catatonia. As the trolley sped north, I fell back in it. Calliel stared out the window, his face expressionless. I watched him blankly.

  The full implications of his presence were only now making an impression on me.

  How many people were in fact angels? How many had I run across during the course of my life? Were they like Calliel, always seemingly at the right place at the right time, or was he just very good at his job? Was there training? Did they get paid for their service? Or were they, as I wondered earlier, simple robots, predetermined?

  That last question bothered me a great deal. I knew why.

  In the particular bitterness of the last thirty years I’d become a hardened atheist and materialist. Free will was a concept for idiots. We all were predetermined robots.

  The notion of a supreme being watching us from on high had always pissed me off. If there was a God watching over us, then that God, I reasoned, was a monster. For the evils that visited humanity, from cancer to war to earthquakes to starvation, were entirely and squarely His to prevent. An indifferent Creator, to my way of thinking, was an unnecessary Creator. If you can create an entire universe, then why can’t you create one where evil doesn’t exist? Why create one where disease can flourish, or one where vile men can be born and rise to power and oppress or kill millions?

  I would get to know Calliel over the next ten months, which were the last ten months of my life. He would “save” me. I once thought “saved” meant being a drooling, kneeling sack of useless, free of all doubt. The “saved” lived in their own little private Idahos with the rest of their congregated sheep as reality drifted lazily by, ignored.

  He didn’t try to remove doubt from me. He never once asked me to believe in anything, never tried to convert me, never asked me to pray, never preached or condemned me. If anything he increased my doubt. I’d always used it as a cudgel to keep opposing philosophies and people I didn’t like away. Somehow he showed me I could use it to discover myself and my humanity and, yes, in the end, and in my own way, God.

  Doubt was still very much with me. Calliel had proceeded through this day like an automaton. I knew that perception was incorrect, but I needed to see more. Maybe that was why I was given this vision at the very end of my life. I was, after all, only seconds from death. Maybe this vision was a test to see if I could trick out the mystery of his presence before the Pacific Ocean crushed me.

  ~~*~~

  Al Snow, one of my colleagues, had dropped by after Calliel’s arrest and suggested one of his doctoral students take the rest of my classes, and that I, after such a trying incident, take the rest of the day off. I’m sure his offer had nothing to do with helping me, but to give my students a break, who would’ve had to face a real terror later, if my past behavior was any predictor. I took him up on his offer, repacked my briefcase, and left with him. He thought I could use a little sun, and so got on the freeway to Ocean Beach. We ate a late breakfast at a quiet diner not far from the pier, then took a walk on it.

  Al Snow was a good man. I take that back. He was a great man. Almost eighty-five, he still possessed a keen intellect, one he used to publish half a dozen scholarly papers a year, way ahead of the rest of us. He’d won practically every educational award in existence, including the National Alliance of Black School Educators Teacher of the Year Award—twice—and was very popular with students. Despite being old enough to be their grandfather, he could still connect with them. Educators routinely visited his classroom to glean teaching tips; it was a common sight to see one or two of them in the back taking notes. The kids called him “the snowman,” and he didn’t dissuade them. His white hair, round, dark eyes, a constant grin and a big belly only reinforced the image. He’d been Santa Claus at every staff party since my first year at SDCC.

  He was an accomplished guitarist and singer, and would occasionally take a break in the middle of a lecture to play a song. Students loved it. When the mood struck him, he’d teach out in the plaza or take students off campus to observe engineers or computer scientists or actuaries at work. His College Algebra course was so popular that it had a waiting list. A math class with a waiting list!

  I found him so intimidating that I took great pains to avoid him. He was the anti-me. I thought if we got too close the math department would disappear in a blinding white flash of photons or education-ons or math-ons. When I was particularly troubled, as my freak-out over Calliel’s appearance and his dire announcement that I was about to die made quite obvious, he’d inevitably show up and offer to help. Were it anyone else, I’d find such offers intrusive and condescending, and would let the offender know in no uncertain terms. But with Professor Snow I felt, honestly, only deep relief. His help was welcome, and, like one of his students, I would simply let go of the mental reins of my life and let him lead me where he will.

  He had the uncanny ability to accept you as you are but prod you gently in a better direction than the one you were taking without you feeling judged or nagged. He could say more with a single smile than I could with a haranguing speech. At the diner I spilled my woeful beans all over the table and he listened without comment, sipping coffee and flirting with the waitress when she came to refill his cup. He paid for both our breakfasts, and we left. At the end of the pier his cell phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket and answered it, his inestimable grace in doing so making me once again pause and marvel, because had it been anyone else interrupting me to take a call, I’d’ve been typical me, incensed and vocal about being relegated to second place. Instead, with a smile and a quick grasp of my shoulder and, “Please excuse me, Ray. I need to take this,” I felt privileged simply to have a little of his time.

  It was his wife. She was a respected ophthalmologist who had “semi-retired” several years ago, having given the practice over to her daughter, herself a respected doctor. Like her husband, Janice Snow was a model of grace and decency. The few times I had spoken to her made that clear.

  He hung up.

  “I need to go, Ray,” he said. “We’ve got a landscaper who can’t quite figure out what we want, and we’re paying him by the hour. If I hurry I can make it back for my 1:45. You coming, or do you want to stay and take in some more sea air?”

  “I think I’ll stay,” I said. “Thanks, Al.”

  He pulled out his wallet. “Let me give you cab fare then …”

  “No, no,” I said. “No need. I’ll be fine.”

  “You sure?”

  “Thanks again,” I nodded.

  He stuffed his wallet back into his back pocket. “Well, okay then …” He shook my hand and held the grip with both of his. “You’ll be all right. All right?”

  I nodded again, this time with much less certainty.

  He gave me one of his reassuring “Snowman” smiles and walked away. I watched him walk up the pier.

  I watched as he passed another man coming the other way.

  I went to reach for my briefcase, inside which was my cell phone.

  My briefcase … my cell phone … both of which were in Al Snow’s car. Al Snow … who was gone, out of sight.

  Floating over Calliel’s shoulder as he marched towards me, I started giggling. My expression out there was cartoonish. I giggled for another reason, though, and damn well knew why. I was trying to fend off the horror of what I knew was coming.

  “Jesus Christ, you’re pathetic!” I shouted. “Run away! Yell! Do something, you simpering little shit, anything!”

  The me at the end of the right branch of the pier did nothing but gape stupidly. It really was comical. No one else was there with me. There were three or four people on the left branch, fishing and taking photos and whatnot. Perhaps that’s why I di
dn’t yell—I didn’t think they’d hear me. I don’t know. Calliel rounded the corner, striding towards me like walls of brick weren’t going to stop him, glaring like he had the whole six-pack of whoop-ass and was going to open it in short order.

  I remember thinking he should’ve been in jail. I remember thinking there was no way he could’ve found me here in Ocean Beach, miles away from the college. What I don’t remember is backing up against the rail, which I did; and I don’t remember bleating, “You shouldn’t be here. Why are you here?” as he got within speaking distance.

  “For the Dumbest Possible Thing Said During a Shitty Life, the award goes to Dr. Raymond Wilms!” I shouted, still giggling.

  Calliel grabbed my shoulders and spun me about. His strength was frightening. He hoisted me up by my belt like a bale of hay and chucked me over the rail. I flipped once in mid-air and slammed down into the sea.

  I never learned how to swim. I yelled down at me, “Grab the pier support! Grab the pier support, you moron!”

  But the me splashing about down there didn’t. I don’t know why. Yes, I do. I was in full panic and flailing wildly.

  Calliel didn’t stick around to watch me drown. He turned on his heel and marched back the way he came, not bothering once to look over his shoulder.

  I could hear myself crying out. Those on the left branch of the pier came running and shouting for help. Several were on their cell phones, ostensibly calling 9-1-1. They raced by him as though he weren’t there.

  Lifeguards on jet skis saved me. I went unconscious on the beach, having taken water into my lungs. An ambulance loaded me up and hurried away to the hospital.

  The E.R. nurse told me when I came to that I was just moments from death and had to have the seawater drained out of me … just before he asked why I climbed the rail and jumped. No one had seen Calliel throw me in the Pacific. No one had seen Calliel, period. Witnesses (there were at least three) reported that they saw me step onto the concrete bench at the end of the right branch and then up onto the rail and, for a moment, stand there, barely balancing myself on the eight-inch-wide strip of wood before jumping.

  Calliel in the meantime had boarded a bus that would drop him off at the hospital the ambulance had taken me.

  He was coming for me again.

  Chapter Seven

  Terminated

  ~~*~~

  CALLIEL’S RESOLVE intimidated me. Hell, it frightened me. He was relentless and unstoppable, and he was coming for me.

  “I’ll be bock,” I said in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice as I hovered above his shoulder, and laughed. It was a hollow laugh. There was nothing funny about the look in his eyes.

  He walked through the emergency entrance and stopped at the red line before the counter. A nurse eventually looked up from her work and motioned him forward.

  “I’m looking for Edward Sowles,” he said, surprising me.

  “Are you family?” she asked with tired impatience.

  He reached into his jeans pocket and produced an ID. It looked plain enough, but when she took it and glanced at it, her face softened and went blank for a moment. With a shaking hand she handed it back to him.

  “ICU, 3023,” she said, her voice shaking like her hand. She pointed to her left in a way that conveyed that she wanted him to leave immediately.

  Calliel nodded and walked away. She gawked at him all the way to the elevator.

  “Who’s Edward Sowles?” I demanded once the doors closed and the lift started moving. And then it hit me. Was Edward Sowles Officer Edward Sowles? Was that the name of the poor bugger who got shot in the head back in the Gaslamp?

  The elevator slowed, stopped. The doors opened. A cold breeze pushed into me from behind. I turned. It was the same cold wind I felt just after Calliel pulled the trigger on the .45 and just before Floyd did the same with the gun in his hand, blowing his brains all over the wall.

  This time the breeze didn’t go away. It continued, whispering around me, and it gusted occasionally, roaring in my ears and making me shiver and clutch into myself for warmth.

  Calliel marched down the hall. There were few in it.

  Doors to patient rooms were variously opened or closed. Beyond the breeze I could hear the occasional beep of a monitor, or a ventilator laboring to keep someone breathing, or a television. The hall smelled of disinfectant and urine and sickness. A nurse emerged from a room on the left and saw him coming. She blinked with shock, and then approached with a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. He stopped walking. She did something then that fairly blew my mind. She kneeled and bowed her head.

  “He’s miserable,” she cried. “I don’t know what else I can do for him.”

  “He’s scared,” said Calliel. “Go and be with him. I’ll be back.”

  I’ll be bock.

  Here was a real-life terminator, and I was somehow attached to him as he went about his grim duties. The nurse stood at his command and he took her hands. “Sit tight a few more minutes, Dawn, okay?”

  She nodded, her eyes glassy, and watched as he walked on down the hall.

  The ICU was a large room with a central nurses’ station and patients along the walls behind plastic, partially opaque curtains. It was full of beeping and the wheeze of ventilators and medical personnel going from patient to patient. The absence of talking or conversation deepened the chill swirling around me and made me slightly nauseated. This place was the gate to death, and most here would be boarding that plane. My mother had spent much of her final six months in a place very like this, and it left a permanent mark upon what I now knew was my very real and present soul.

  He walked to the nurses’ station. One looked up at him.

  “Edward Sowles,” he said.

  She stared. “Oh, thank God. Bed 19.” She rose to walk him there.

  “No need,” he said. “I take it no DNR?”

  She shook her head sadly.

  “Great,” he mumbled, and marched around the station for bed 19.

  The curtain to Edward Sowles’ bed was partially open, enough for Calliel to go through it without disturbing it. I looked down and choked out, “Jesus fucking Christ …”

  Edward Sowles’ face was unrecognizable and covered in bloody gauze. He was hooked to what seemed like a hundred tubes and monitoring devices. The ventilator wheezed and clicked like a dying ostrich.

  I could never understand how any thinking being could look at something like this and call it living. It wasn’t. Oh, certainly his biological processes were still functioning—at least some of them. But that wasn’t living. It occurred with a shock that in many ways the past thirty years of my so-called existence weren’t all that much different than the lump of glopped hamburger before me. I may have been a functioning person, but I was certainly not living.

  “Hurry up, Calliel,” I begged, horrified. “Free him.”

  “You’re going to have to let go, Ed,” said Calliel in a very quiet voice a minute later. “You’re scared. That’s okay. Let go, and I’ll grab you, and that’ll be that.”

  There was a long moment of nothing but automation whirring and clicking and beeping. Quite suddenly, he jerked his hand out like he was reaching for something—

  The monitors all howled out at once. A split-second later nurses and doctors yanked the curtains back and surrounded the bed, shouting at each other—

  The cold breeze swirling around me became for an instant a hurricane—

  —And I found myself well away from the bed with Calliel, who was holding the forearm of Edward Sowles, who stood naked and shimmering slightly like he was bathing in watery sunlight. There wasn’t a scratch on him.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much.” His voice was hollow, like he was talking from the far end of a tunnel. He looked up in wonder. “Stars …”

  He began to dissolve. He didn’t seem at all troubled by it; if anything, the last thing I saw on his face could be interpreted no other way than enormous relief.

  He was gone
.

  The doctors and nurses were working frantically to revive him. Calliel, as though invisible, walked unnoticed back through the ICU and out.

  He reboarded the elevator. At the ground floor he walked down another corridor and into a room, where the nurse named Dawn stood at the foot of the bed of an unconscious man who was probably no more than forty-five or fifty, but looked twice that from whatever illness had ravaged him top to bottom. The room stank of death and decay.

  She saw Calliel and began crying. I’d never seen a nurse behave this way, and it both touched and annoyed me. I reasoned that the patient was very dear to her—her husband, maybe?—and so put a rein on my tongue.

  “It’s so unfair,” she wept. “He was such a good, decent man. Look at him! He isn’t even forty! He had so much life in him …” She brought her watery gaze to Calliel. “How is this fair? How?”

  He went to her, put his hand on her shoulder. “It isn’t.”

  “Then what’s the point in believing in God?”

  “There isn’t one,” he said simply.

  She gazed up at him in horror. “A God?”

  He smiled sadly. “A point in believing in one. Everybody bitches about the unfairness of it all, but no one thinks: a universe of ‘fairness’ is a universe on railroad tracks, and ‘fairness’ is what the track layer says it is. Does that sound fair to you?”

  “I … I guess not. I never thought of it like that before.”

  “You love your husband and your kids. You do everything you can to make their worlds fair. You have a dog and a little kitten, and you do the same for them too, as well as your home and the birds and trees out back. You try to make life fair for your neighbors and your friends. You are a good, good soul, Dawn. And you have fought and fought to make James’ final days fair. He’s ready to go. Before I got here he wasn’t. It wouldn’t have been fair to deny him that fight. But he’s ready now. He’s had enough. Now go continue being a fair soul and start his paperwork so that the hospital and his insurance company don’t screw him and his worse than they already have. Go on, now …”