The Guardian's Playlist

by J Powell Ogden

  “How could he say that? That’s horrible!” I cried. Michael shifted around so he could look me in the eye.

  “No. It wasn’t,” he said.

  I was shocked. “But she was your mom! How could he be so—”

  “Number one, he didn’t know that. And number two, I needed to hear that.”

  “Michael, there have to be better ways to stop kids from taking drugs,” I argued, but Michael was adamant.

  “I don’t know, Catherine. Maybe that was the best thing my mom ever did for me, you know? Letting me see her totally trashed dead body? Because you know what? After I got home, I decided I needed to lay low for a while, you know? Like stay clean for a while. I guess I wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t addicted to anything. It was mostly just pot anyway, right? Maybe a little coke or booze now and then? A few pills here and there, right? Wrong.”

  Michael turned and spat into the snow and then dropped his head and looked down at the icy ground between his knees, moaning, “I was a total head case for the next week. I couldn’t sleep. I had no appetite. And irritable. Christ, was I irritable! You’d have thought I had freaking PMS.”

  He shook his head in an exaggerated shiver gesture, and the tips of his hair brushed back and forth against my cheek, sending electric chills across my face. Even as sick as I was, my body responded to his magic, and my heart rate spiked. He paused in his story to look at me, his troublemaker eyes glinting, and then shook his hair back and forth again.

  “Will you stop!” I cried.

  “Whatever…” he murmured, stopping. But I caught a glimpse of a grin twitching at the corners of his lips, and my heart fluttered again. He glanced down at his toes and then stretched out his bare legs on the snow in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. He was like a polar bear comfortably lounging on an ice floe. It was so not fair. Despite my stadium cushion, my butt and thighs were freezing.

  “So, we got the official call about a week later that she was dead,” he said. “Sue didn’t hug me or anything. We didn’t work that way. Not yet. They were great that way, you know? They gave me my space. But I could see all this sympathy in her eyes, and it made me sick. I didn’t deserve any of it.”

  “Yes. You did,” I countered. “Your mom had just died, Michael.”

  He didn’t agree with me. He just soldiered on, his voice taking on an ominous tone. I steeled myself for what was coming next. I’d once wondered how he’d gotten the whole world’s ration of bad luck dumped on him. And I’d wondered what else could possibly go wrong in his life. My answer was coming. Like a runaway freight train on a moonless night.

  The train took us deeper.

  “I was still irritable when I ran into Devlin at the little strip mall near the Gardiner’s house about a week after my mom died. I’d hardly seen him since I’d moved out of my mom’s apartment. He’d come out to wait on a customer. It was late, past eleven, and the stores were all closed. The parking lot was totally deserted, and the black top was still hot. I could feel the heat right through the soles of my Converse.” He waved the tip of his one shoe at me. “I liked to walk up to the strip mall with my guitar and mess around with it while I sat on the curb in front of the stores and smoked. It helped me relax when I was all keyed up. And I was really keyed up that night. Staying clean was more of a bitch than I thought it would be. I’d just pulled out a new cigarette when Devlin drove into the empty lot and got out of the car.

  “He was like, ‘Hey Mike! How the hell are ya?’”

  Michael turned his chin over his shoulder to look at me. “You have to remember, we were still friends at that point.” Then Michael’s eyes gleamed savagely, and his lips stretched taut over his teeth. “At least, for the next sixty seconds.”

  The timer started ticking.

  “So, I lit the cigarette and offered it to him, tapped the pack again and pulled out another one for me. He was like, ‘Thanks bro,’ and then he pulled a small, plastic, zippered bag out of his pocket and handed it to me. ‘For old time’s sake,’ he said.

  “I flicked the ashes off my cigarette and dangled the bag up at eye level under the street light to check it out. Light brown powder. A couple of lines’ worth. And it wasn’t coke. It was heroin.

  “And I was thinking, oh shit, I’m gonna be sick. All I could see was my mom’s pasty face. I tossed it back to him and took a hit off my cigarette. My fingers were shaking, and I dropped my hand back down to my side. You can’t let a guy like Dev see you sweat. He might not be that big, but he’s got friends.

  “‘I’m clean,’ I said.

  “Then Devlin was like, ‘You’re fucking with me.’ And he tossed the bag back at me, grinning. I bungled the throw and had to bend over to pick it up, and then I tossed it back to him again.

  “‘No shit, man. I’m clean. Keep it,’ I said. It was a hot night. I started to sweat.”

  Then Michael’s breathing came faster.

  “Dev was like, ‘Aw, come on, Mike. What, like you don’t trust me now? It’s good H. Your mom’s been comin’ to me for the last six months, though she hasn’t been around this week.’”

  Michael’s oration came to a screeching halt as if he’d smashed into a brick wall, and then his whole body tightened up. Luke Devlin was his mom’s dealer? Shit. No wonder Michael hated him. Oh crap. A whole lot of things started to make sense then, and I was ready to puke in solidarity with him right there.

  Michael’s next words tumbled out in an avalanche, falling all over themselves. “My hands were all over his throat in seconds, and I just shoved him backward with all my frickin’ might, screaming, ‘That’s because she’s dead, you mother effing asshole! Your effing smack killed her!’ And then he was like flying backward and glass was breaking and blood was spurting out from under his armpit.”

  “Luke Devlin is the one you pushed through the plate glass window?”

  He nodded his head once in answer to my question, and then he stood up and started pacing across the icy snow, his emotional lava bubbling way too furiously for him to remain motionless.

  “Dev’s blood was squirting out like three feet with each pump of his heart, but you know what my first thought was? Get rid of the freaking evidence. That’s where my head was those days. I grabbed the bag of heroin he’d dropped and then searched his pockets and found four more plus some pot, and I buried it all under the mulch in this flower pot next to the door. Then I called 9-1-1 on his prepaid cell.

  “I thought about running, but he was already going under. I couldn’t leave him there to die—and he would have if I hadn’t done anything. Even with the ambulance coming, he would never have made it.”

  Michael rubbed the back of his neck, and then he locked his hands over the top of his head and pressed down.

  “Voices in my head were screaming!

  “No witnesses!

  “No one will know it was you!

  “He killed your mom for Christ’s sake!

  “Get the hell out of here!”

  He shook his head violently as if he were trying to silence the voices all over again.

  “But I yanked off my shirt instead and tried to find that pressure point thing near his shoulder to stop the bleeding, the whole time thinking, Crap, Michael, you really did it this time! If he dies, and they find you here, you’re totally screwed! They’ll try you as an adult! You are so freaking screwed!

  “I expected a squad car to show up, but the ambulance got there first. When the paramedic rushed over, I took my hand off Dev’s arm, and he started gushing blood all over the place again. The paramedic pressed his hand down, and then I got the hell out of there!

  “The medic called after me, but he was obviously too busy to chase me down, and I could hear more sirens in the distance. I slipped into one of the bathrooms at the park down the street to catch my breath. It was so damn hot! And I went to the sink to splash some cold water on my face and just like totally froze up when I saw myself in the mirror.

  “My chest, my face, my hands?
>
  “All splattered with his blood.

  “I could smell it.

  “Taste it.”

  Michael’s nostrils flared as he remembered.

  “At that point, I figured it was only a matter of time before the police showed up at my door, and it wouldn’t matter whether Devlin lived or died. I was going down. And you know what, Catherine? I really didn’t care anymore. My dad was dead. My mom was dead. I’d helped her killer deal drugs, and then I’d most likely killed him. And by then I was probably wanted for murder. I had absolutely no hope that anything in my life was ever going to get any better.”

  Michael sank down in front of me with his feet tucked under him, his tingling hands clinging to my pulled up knees, trying desperately to make me understand how he’d felt.

  “I gave up on myself that night and I wanted to make it official. If I was going to be a psychopath, a stoner, a murderer, a hopeless case, then I’d mark myself permanently as one. And I wanted to do it before I was locked up or…” His jaw tightened, and he lost his voice for a moment.

  “So I did my best to wash off the blood, which was already crusting up at the edges of the spatter marks. Then I waited. And when everything was quiet again at the strip mall, I went back and dug up the heroin. I told myself I just needed it to trade for money.”

  He glanced down and then back up at me, guilt ridden, through his lashes. We both knew why he went back for the heroin.

  “Oh, Michael…” I murmured, and he looked away. “I still love you,” I whispered.

  He looked back at me, his eyes filled with doubt, his eyebrows twisted, as if it were impossible for him to believe that I was telling the truth, that he was worthy of any love at all. And I wondered if we’d reached the bottom yet.

  He dropped back slowly onto the ground to sit in front of me and continued. “So…um…I couldn’t go home. That much was obvious to me. Instead, I slung my guitar across my back to hide the worst of my scars and walked to the highway, hoping to hitch a ride across town. The store I was looking for, Ink Relic, was dark when I finally got there. I had no idea what time it was. I knocked anyway. Ian Doyle lives on the second floor above the shop.

  “I saw a light go on upstairs, then something crashed and the light went out. Then Ian came stumbling out of the shadows and switched on the bright light above the door.”

  Michael down-shifted his voice into the deepest part of his register. “‘Who the heck is it?’ Ian said through the glass door. He had on his black leather pants and no shirt, and his Mohawk was all bent over. He could barely keep his eyes open, but he was raising his tattoo covered arms, trying to push his hair back in place. Ian’s all about the hair. I felt a little bad for waking him up, but I had nowhere else to go, and I needed something from him.”

  I was pretty sure I’d seen the guy Michael was describing. He’d been at his wake and funeral, but I wasn’t about to interrupt him then. He was immersed.

  “‘It’s Michael Casey,’ I yelled through the door. Ian rubbed his eyes and opened them wider.

  “‘Do you have any idea what time it is?’ he said back.

  “I was like, ‘uh…yeah! You said to call you if I ever needed anything. Ring. There. I called.’ See, I was too strung out to be polite, and I knew Ian wouldn’t care. He’s a come-as-you-are kind of person, and he was already unlocking the glass door and pulling it open. The bells above it rang, and he flicked on the bright overhead light. The funky artwork all over the purple walls flashed in my face, and I had to close my eyes for a sec just to get my bearings.

  “Ian said, ‘Open your eyes, Michael.’ And I did, and he took a good long look and then he sighed and said, ‘You look more like your dad every time I see you. How’s your mom?’

  “‘Dead,’ I said.

  “‘Well that sucks,’ he said.

  “‘Yeah,’ I said. Then I walked away from him and over to the wall of art. Tattoo art. Skulls and roses and the faces of people who’d died. It was all his, and it was all awesome.

  “‘So what’re you running from this time, Michael?’ he said. Ian never beat around the bush. Ink Relic, his shop, was my favorite place to run to whenever one of my Fosters got too nasty or too annoying. He’d been a friend of my dad’s in high school, and he’d never turned me in. His was a place to…” Michael looked off into the frosty trees, trying to find the right word. “…just breathe, you know?”

  I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. That’s how I’d felt about Lewis Woods lately. Michael hunched down farther against the tree and studied his fingers.

  “I didn’t tell him about Devlin, and he didn’t ask me again. I just looked at all the art on the wall, and then I pointed to one, a skull with a snake coming out of its eye hole. ‘I want that one, Ian,’ I said. I turned around to see him leaning against the arm of the waiting area’s zebra-striped sofa, shaking his head at me. He didn’t laugh though. He always took me seriously.

  “But he was like, ‘Unless you traveled back in time to add on a few years, you’re only fifteen, Michael. Can’t tattoo you yet.’ I was so mad, Catherine! I was ready to rip everything off the walls!

  “‘Why the hell not?’ I yelled back. ‘You did my dad’s tattoo when he was only seventeen!’

  “And he was like, ‘Sure I did. And I was only sixteen. And he was lucky he didn’t get some nasty skin infection.’ Then he asked me, ‘Why’d you pick that one?’

  “‘Well, Ian,’ I said. ‘I’m going to effing Disney World! Skulls kinda go with the whole Cinderwhatzerface theme. Don’t ya think?’

  “Ian rolled his eyes at me. I just couldn’t tell him what I’d done or how I felt that night. There were no words! He told me to sit down on the sofa and then he went in the back. But I couldn’t sit. I paced. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. All these thoughts were banging around in my head. The police…the drugs…my mom…Devlin’s blood…”

  Michael looked up at me anxiously to make sure I was following. He ran his fingers through his damp wavy hair.

  “When Ian came back out, he was holding this black binder that had duct tape all over the outside of it to keep it together. He sat down on the zebra sofa and turned on a lamp that was on the table next to it. He reached back behind him and switched off the buzzing overhead light. Then he said, ‘Sit down, Michael. I want to show you something.’

  “I didn’t sit. I just watched him flip the lumpy pages back and forth. It was filled with scribbled tattoo designs on all kinds of paper. They were stuck to the pages with whatever Ian must have had lying around at the time he got them: scotch tape, staples, paper clips, gum…”

  “He finally found what he was looking for, turned the book around on his lap and said, ‘How ‘bout that one?’

  “He was pointing to a design that had been drawn on a white Post-It note with ball point pen. The paper was crumpled and stained, and the drawing was crude, but I’d have known that tattoo anywhere: a sword with angel wings behind it. It had the name ‘Saint Michael’ inked on the hilt.”

  Michael glanced down at his own tattoo, and I held my breath. But instead of the sneer that he usually regarded it with, he reached out with the fingers of his left hand and traced it as if it were something holy.

  “It was my dad’s tattoo, Catherine,” he whispered. “This was my dad’s tattoo.” His jaw flexed, and then he looked down at his hands again, his brows furrowing deeply. His deep-voiced imitation of Ian turned sarcastic. ‘I don’t think your dad would want you getting a snake-filled skull permanently inked on your arm at fifteen, Michael,’ Ian said to me.

  “And I was like, ‘What’s so freaking great about that tattoo? So what if it was my dad’s! Big effing deal! I’m not him! I’ll never be him!’ He was…all good, you know? He was the best…”

  And I lost track of what Michael was quoting from his past and what he was feeling now. I think maybe he was in both places at the same time right then.

  “I know he was,” I soothed, but Michael ran his fingers anxiously through
his hair again. There was more.

  “So Ian waited for me to calm down, and then he told me what was so special about this tattoo. ‘Your dad drew it,’ Ian said. ‘Woke me up around five on a Sunday morning, handed me that paper, rolled up his sleeve, pointed to his right bicep, and told me to put it right there.’

  “See, Ian had already tattooed this cool shaded gray dagger above his own ankle. He said he told my dad no way, but my dad just wouldn’t stop bugging him. And you’ll never believe what my dad told him that finally convinced him to do it.”

  His next words poured out with an even mix of scorn and long buried reverence. “My dad told him, quote, ‘Ian, we’ve gotta stop screwin’ around. From this day on we’re dedicating our lives to God and to helping Saint Michael with all the shit he’s got to deal with here on earth.’”

  I was incredulous. “The Archangel Michael?” I clarified.

  Michael nodded and shifted his weight uncomfortably.

  “You mean your dad pledged to help Michael, the Archangel, protect people from the Devil’s—”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And from evil spirits, like moi, and snares and whatever. You can Google the stupid prayer if I ever stop talking and let you go home today.” He wrapped his arms protectively around his knees. He started to fade.

  “Please don’t stop talking,” I begged. You couldn’t have paid me to leave. It didn’t matter that I was feeling sicker by the minute, that I could barely swallow my own saliva without wincing.

  Michael’s now translucent gray eyes flicked to my face and appraised me carefully. I took a deep breath and tried to look…fine. He saw and felt right through me. He’d just been too wrapped up in his story to notice.

  “You really don’t look so good, Catherine.” He narrowed his eyes and then reached out with his fingers to touch my throat.

  “I’m fine, really. I’m just—”

  “Sick,” he said. “Your glands are all swelled up, and you do have a fever. I can feel it rising. You need to go home!” He started to stand up, but I hunched down against the tree.