Metal Angel (36 page)

This part he truly did not understand. He lay very still and watched her face as she explained it to him.

“I—what it was really, you are so beautiful—I wanted to
be
you. I wanted to be able to sing, I wanted to sing the most wonderful songs in a voice like an angel so that people would listen to me and weep. I wanted to be tall and strong and free, like a god. I wanted—I wanted to have wings.”

Lying in a white bed, listening to her, Volos remembered that first sweaty moment of incarnation when he lay on black grit, that first rooftop day when the City of Angels had spread at his booted feet and the Marlboro Man had galloped through the smog-golden sky and he, the winged newcomer, had raised his clenched fists, full of defiance and a godlet's posturing, not even understanding that he was staring straight into the sunset. Now he understood many things, but lay with his heart aching like his wounded back. Both would heal, but for the rest of his life he would bear scars.

Angela said, “I wanted to fly. I loved—I loved the way you were, and I didn't understand it was not the same thing as truly loving you. Volos, I am so sorry.”

So what is this mystery they call love? She has taught it to me, yet she herself scarcely comprehends it
.

“With Ennis and me, it is different. Especially now. I am all myself when I am with him, I am never afraid of losing myself in him, there is a comfort when we are together, there is—a bond …”

She was floundering, trying to explain. Volos said softly, “It is all right, Angela. You do not need to tell me everything. Perhaps someday I will understand.”

“I hope so. I want—I want real love to find you. I want every kind of happiness for you, Volos.”

Standing by the door, listening but staring hard at the floor, was the young man who had saved his life, the one whose touch had felt like holy wine on his wing. Despite everything, Volos was glad to see him. A good feeling warmed him like whiskey. “Ennis!” he called.

Ennis looked up. His sober brown eyes were haunted by shame. Suddenly Volos lost patience with life and humans. It was all shame and blame, Ennis was going to tell him he was sorry for something, and Volos was bloody tired of hearing it, everybody saying they were sorry about his wings, sorry about what had happened to him, sorry about breaking his heart.

“Damn it. Ennis, get over here, would you?”

Too tamely, Ennis complied. He came and stood by his wife, then opened his mouth and started to say it. “Volos, I'm—”

“Fuck it! No more goddamn sorries.” Vehement, Volos sat straight up on his rumpled bed. “Ennis, you think I can't understand about you, the way you were before? Listen, it is the same where I come from, I
know
. The everlasting obedience, you feel like you have to do it, it's the only way, and it takes the soul out of you, it sucks you hollow like a bone. Look at me! Don't you see? What you did was like a miracle. Give yourself a break, would you? I felt your hand on my wing clear to my heart. You are a good man.”

Something had happened. Vehemence could be of use after all, if it could drive away guilt. Ennis swallowed hard, but no longer needed to stare at the floor.

“Are you going to be all right?” he asked Volos.

“Yes. Christ. I did not come through all this just to lie down and curse God and die.” Though the thought had occurred to him.

“Will you let me—do you trust me to be a father for your baby?”

The question took Volos's breath away. It had not yet occurred to him that he had some say as to the little one in Angela's womb. She was the Lady of Angels, to whom the Sefira bowed as if to the Holy Mother of God; who was he to say to her, I want my child?

Ennis said, “We talked it over, Volos. We want to keep the baby, if you will let us. To me it would be an honor and—and a blessing, like when Mary came to Joseph and told him she was carrying God's son.”

That stung Volos into protest. “Ennis, I am not a god!”

“Could have fooled me.” The young man stood looking at him steadily. “You're not the only one who felt something when I touched your wing.”

He still does not quite understand
. “Ennis no. If that was in me, then—then it is in all of us.”

Sometime in the course of the conversation Angela had let herself lean closer, near enough to touch. Or perhaps it was he who, sitting up, intense, had come closer to her. Nevertheless, he startled like a deer when she placed her hand on his.

She said, “Will you let us keep the child?”

He knew already that it would be beautiful as only her child could be, with her dark, singing eyes, her quiet heart of a face; how could she think he would take it from her? He said, “Of course. But can—may I be a father also? Can a child have two fathers?”

“I think we could manage it. But are you sure it will not be too hard on you?”

“I seem to do things the hard way. Ennis?”

“Yes,” Ennis said, and for a moment he also touched Volos's hand, so that the three of them were like a fire with three flames.

Volos looked up at him. “Listen,” he said, “there was something I was stupid about. I took a song away from you. There is no way I can give it back, but I want to give you—no, shut up.” As Ennis tried to protest. “I know what I'm doing. I have something I want to give both of you.”

He brought it out of the bedside drawer where Texas had stored it for him: a shining white feather from an angel's wing.

Looking at their faces, he knew he had done the love thing not too badly, for an amateur.

In the downstairs lounge, Gabe played disconsolately with Legos, hating forever Bernice the Monster Nurse or anything that kept him from seeing Birdman. He badly wanted to see Birdman again, because his mother had told him Birdman had lost his wings, and this simply could not be true. When people talked like that, it made Gabe feel afraid Birdman was dead. He had heard the grown-ups saying in the night that someone was dead. And he worried that this must be Birdman, because Birdman could not be Birdman without his wings.

Sitting on the thinly carpeted floor beside him, Mikey banged plastic dinosaurs together. Mikey was stupid, sitting there playing as if nothing was wrong.

“Uncle Texas,” Gabe said to the cowboy-booted feet by his side, “is Birdman dead?”

“No, son!” Texas slapped down his newspaper, grabbed Gabe under the armpits and lifted him to his lap. It was like being lassoed by a helicopter. “What the Sam Hill makes you think that?”

Gabe could not explain to him how ever since knowing Birdman he just knew things. Like he knew there was a baby inside his mother, and it was a girl, and she would be just like Birdman, like a dark fire angel, like she could fly without wings. And he knew Birdman was her father, but Daddy would be her father too. And he knew which people were really nice and which people, like Grandpa, only acted nice sometimes. And if he got close enough to hear he knew what the wild birds were saying. And even though he could not talk about them he knew Mikey knew these things too.

But he didn't know what had happened to Grandpa after the last time he saw him, though he knew something had happened, because there had been a black halo riding around Grandpa's head. And he didn't know what had happened to Birdman.

He said to Uncle Texas, “If Birdman's not dead, how come they won't let us see him?”

“You're too young, son, that's all. They don't let runny-nose kids upstairs. They're afraid of germs.”

“But what's Birdman doing upstairs?”

“Getting better. He wasn't feeling too good for a while there.”

“They cut off his wings?” Clearly impossible, yet the grown-ups kept saying this.

“Yes.”

“Who did?”

He had asked his mother this more than once, but she only looked as if her head hurt and did not answer. And Uncle Texas was of no more use. He looked like he wanted to hide under his hat.

Gabe had heard Aunt Wyoma talking with his mother about Uncle Texas, fixing supper together and telling stories about men the way women do. Aunt Wyoma had said, “He sure has changed. But it's all good changes. Everything I always liked best about him is right up front now. For a long time there it was hard, he was trying to be rough and tough, always hiding his heart—”

Mother had said, “Ennis, too.”

“That so? You think it was Volos changed both of them?”

“It's not—with Volos it's not change, really. Wasn't, I mean. It was just a sort of—strengthening, when a person touched his wing.”

“Honey, I ain't so sure. The whole bunch of you, there's a kind of warmth about you, a glow. The children, too. Like you got a golden light inside.” After a little bit, Aunt Wyoma had said, “I wish I'd gone along for the ride. I wish I knew him. Volos, I mean. Before it happened.”

Then they were both very quiet.

Uncle Texas might be the way Aunt Wyoma said, and he was an excellent person to ask for ice cream, but he was not being much help concerning Birdman. Gabe gave up on Uncle Texas and slid down from his lap to play again. But before he could grab the dinosaurs away from Mikey, the big doors to the lounge swung open and in came three people: Mommy, and Daddy, and Birdman in between them with his hands on their shoulders.

Birdman with a bruised face and a hurting walk and no wings.

Mikey started to cry first, but only because he got his breath first. It took a lot of breath to bellow as was called for. Half a moment later Gabe sent forth his own roar of grief and outrage to resound along with his brother's. Their father tried to hush them. They would not hush. They squirmed out of then mother's arms. Life was an affront to be defied with squalls of pain and rage.

“Got to admit,” Gabe heard Uncle Texas remark to Daddy or somebody, “I know just how they feel.”

“Michael. Gabriel.” Birdman had wobbled down to sit on the floor with them, cross-legged, like an Indian. He gathered them into his lap, one on each side, and his hug they did not resist. He had the right to calm them. Also, it was good to find that his arms still felt the same, though he had no wings anymore to give them comfort with a touch.

“Listen, small ones. It is not so bad as you think.”

“They—hurt—you,” Gabe sobbed.

“Shhhh. Yes, it hurt, but it is over now. Listen. Do you remember how I told you about the Grigori? The angels who came down a long time ago to teach necessary things to the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve?”

Gabe remembered. There had been Sariel, who taught people about the changes of the moon, and Kokabel, who taught them about the stars, and Shamshiel, who taught them the signs of the sun.

“Armaros,” Birdman said, “who taught women enchantments, and Azazel, who taught them the use of coloring tinctures to make themselves even more beautiful than before—almost as beautiful as your mother. And Penemure, who taught both men and women the making and singing of songs. Do you remember?” He rested his cheek against the top of Gabe's head as he spoke, so that the warmth of his breath stirred Gabe's hair. “And also Penemure taught children the bitter and the sweet and the secrets of wisdom. I have often thought it would be good to be like Penemure.”

Gabe had quieted, because there were many things lying hidden in Birdman's words like faces hidden in a picture, and he wanted to find out what they were. Across Birdman's lap from him he saw Mikey sucking on his fingers like a baby. He checked on the whereabouts of his own fingers, and pulled them out of his mouth.

“You remember how the Grigori were supposed to go back to the sky, but they did not? They fell in love with mortal women and stayed on earth and became family with men. So they had to lose their wings, did they not? Mortals don't have wings.”

Gabe began to guess part of it. “You—too?” he managed to say.

“That's right. I have become like the Grigori, that is all. Because I love the world and the people on it, and I want to stay here.”

If what had happened to Birdman's wings was part of a pattern, a story with sense and a reason, it was after all not so cruel. But Gabe knew there was more, that Grandpa's black halo was in the story somehow, because his mother had not mentioned his grandfather at all since that strange evening when his father and his grandpa had come to the big fair. There was something she was not saying. Gabe could sense when his mother was not telling him things.

“Birdman tell me about Grandpa,” he begged.

“Yes, okay. We think he has gone to be with the other fallen angels.”

“Black angels?” Mikey put in, his voice sounding muffled and wet around his fingers. So he had seen it too, the black cloud like a smoke ring riding around Grandpa's head. Unless he just said that because Grandpa wore black suits all the time.

“Yes. Long, long ago, before there were Adam and Eve, some of the angels rebelled against the Father and went off with a prince named Lucifer to be in their own place.” Birdman added more softly, “You know, that is just what I did, coming here.”

“You did?”

“Yes. Rebelled, I mean. Now I have lost my wings, but we think your grandpa has found his. We think he has gone to be with Lucifer and the other fallen angels. So he is a fallen angel now, and I am not an angel at all anymore.”

Gabe saw clearly that it had been fitting and necessary for Birdman to lose his wings, because Birdman might have been a fallen angel once, but he was not at all like Grandpa. “It's okay,” Gabe assured him. “You're still—” But his voice faltered along with his thoughts. This tall person he loved was not really quite Birdman anymore.

And knew it, for he said gently, “I think you are to call me Uncle Volos now.”

Late that night, after midnight, Texas got up from the Bradley's living-room sofa and headed toward the hospital. Angie and Ennis were upstairs, presumably sleeping, in a familiar double bed; they had come back to Jenkins for a few days to pack and do their banking and put their house up for sale before leaving the place behind. Gabe and Mikey were sound asleep in their cribs. But Texas was not getting much sleep, and he had a hunch Volos was not either. That afternoon, after the good-byes in the hospital lounge and after Texas had helped the kid back to his room, Volos had bellied onto his bed and fallen asleep as if he had been knocked on the head. Not a bad idea at the time. A good way to forget for a while. But he couldn't keep it up forever.