My Book of Life By Angel (3 page)

W
idow yells at me if I come too close

but she and I talk

on our own sides of the line.

I said to Widow,

do you think an angel really came to Jimi Hendrix?

I heard him singing about it in a song,

an angel coming for tea.

That would be cool if an angel came to me
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Widow laughed,

she thinks I am so funny,

laughed and said,

­we're the last ones on earth who would get an angel.

I thought, maybe the last ones on earth

are the ones they come to.

You can think about stuff like that when you're waiting,

when you don't work by sun

when you have a little dark to stand in

some moonlight to walk in

ankle deep down the street

so no one sees your mismatched shoes.

W
hen Widow ­wasn't looking I leaned back

so my face didn't go over the line, not my nose or chin,

and I stretched my toe right over her line,

the line between kiddie corner and midtrack.

She didn't even look at me,

she just knew,

yelled,

you watch out for that toe,

one night I'll cut it off.

How did she know?

She talks like that, but she watches out for me.

She has always helped me out

just like Serena did

only not as nice.

T
wo men walked by Widow and said,

I ­wouldn't take that for free.

They said, hey ugly,

they said, waste of oxygen that one.

Widow, she stood like a queen,

back straight, chin up, silent,

breathing oxygen,

looking hot.

After the men ­were gone

I said, Widow, how do you keep your figure?

you look so good
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She said, the Jenny Crack diet

and she cracked up.

And then the tourists came out—

Widow calls them hoons—

rich kids, kids with cars

who want to see the poorest postal code in the country.

They threw things at us

bleach

spitballs

eggs.

I said, ignore them, don't pay attention.

I willed her with my eyes to have dignity.

I said, I'm thinking angel, angel, which has powers.

They won't touch you.

And they didn't—­everything fell at our feet.

Serena would have said,

see? see?

W
idow said to me, you are a freak.

She said, don't you step over that line.

A van with tinted windows drove by, slowed,

and Widow called, hey Angel! come ­here!

So I walked toward her and the van moved on.

As soon as it was gone

Widow said, hey, stay on your side of the line,

and I said, but you called me,

and she said, don't you get into that van

and don't think I care if you do.

Widow said, I got a bad feeling about that van.

She said, pay attention—

you wanna be the next one to go missing?

Widow said, everyone on the street is saying there's a killer

but the police say no.

She talked about a Mr. P,

who she has heard whispers about,

and how Mr. P has a van.

I
t is true girls are missing. That part is true.

Not just Serena.

Widow told me Debra is missing—

she played guitar and piano

and sang like Janis Joplin

and dreamed of going to Nashville.

Dawn is missing—

her father died with his head in her lap when she was five.

Dianne is missing—

she was a nurse's aide who ­couldn't support all her kids

and welfare ­wouldn't help

because she had a job and too many kids

because they don't pay for that many kids.

I said to Widow

Call says in the business

girls go missing all the time

and it ­doesn't mean a thing.

They run away or they go to rehab

or they go to jail or they get sick—

Widow said, Dianne would have called her kids.

She's not missing, she's dead,

someone killed her,

you think about that.

I
said, don't worry, Widow, you are safe with me around.

She said, just because your name is Angel

­doesn't mean angels are real.

She said, I'm an atheist thank God.

I said, Widow maybe you have had a traumatic experience.

She said, I'll give you a traumatic experience,

said, I bet Angel's not your real name anyway.

I said, it is hard to believe but try.

I said, Widow what is your real name?

She said, guess.

So I said,

Linda?

Susan?

Debra?

Janice?

Kimberly?

Maxine?

What is it, then?

She said, no, no, no,

and her face turned from mad to sad.

She said,

I don't remember.

I wish I could remember.

And then she was mad again,

said,

why do all the crazies come ­here,

you keep your sweet baby face out of my space

or I'll cut it up for you.

I said to Widow,

Serena told me I was her charm.

She said I had a glow.

Widow said,

that glow is just you going neon on contraband,

and if you ­were Serena's charm

where is she now?

I
said, Serena will be back.

She ­wouldn't go without telling me.

Serena taught me the ropes.

Yeah, Widow said, the ones we hang ourselves with.

Widow said, you think Serena is missing gone

but I say she got a date with Mr. P

and she's dead gone.

She said, who's gonna be next?

Someone's gonna lose the lottery again any day now.

But then Widow got a date and she said to me

before she drove away,

stay off my tar,

and then a car stopped for me.

Shall I to him make known as yet
my change
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?

C
all says it's just business

and I thought, just business

while the date was breathing hard

and all the breath was pressed out of me.

I thought, just business

while he was sweating hot

and I was cold,

and I was hot

and I was cold

and while his heart beat fast and mine was still.

I was surprised he didn't sink through me

I was so nothing.

After, when I took his money,

he said,

you look innocent, like a real girl,

but you are a monster.

Standing at my corner again

and starting to yawn and sneeze and yawn

because of a lack of candy,

standing there, I thought, if I saw an angel

maybe that would mean I was a real girl

and not a monster.

N
ext date said,

how'd a sweet girl like you

end up in a gig like this?

I started to tell him about my shoe collection

and how it all started with that green patent Mary Jane

on the display shelf

but he said shut up.

And while the armrest was wrenching my neck

and he was breathing his sushi breath into my mouth,

while he was squeezing and pinching

and pushing his fingers into secret places,

I had to feel it without candy,

had to feel him and feel my stomach aching

and my shoulders aching

and my hips aching

and my stomach juice burning

and my eyeball juice fizzing—

that's what you get when you make a vow

about no more candy.

N
ext date asked, how old are you?

and I said thirteen.

I don't remember the first few birthdays

so in a way I ­wasn't lying,

which the street preacher says is in God's top ten.

He asked,

is this your first time?

I said yes

which in a way again I ­wasn't lying

because I am a plea­sure virgin,

and not even with Call.

Everything was quiet

because my date had earbuds in his ears—

I ­couldn't hear his music

but I could hear the pain in my brain like a drum—

dopesick dopesick—

and I knew I was just getting started.

Then it was over and he asked, are you okay?

He ­couldn't hear my answer

but he didn't ask again

because he knew what the answer needed to be.

L
ittle old Fred came in his little old truck,

almost a toy truck it was so small,

and the back part was wooden with no paint.

Fred's truck was a toy that got left out in the rain

and played with hard,

dents and scrapes all over,

same as Fred.

He saves up for me once a week,

wears cologne and a tie,

speaks nice to me.

He is wifeless, childless, jobless,

less, less, less.

He always gets teary that I would really take his money.

This time as he drove me back to the kiddie corner

I saw him try to steal his own money,

his little old hand in my purse.

He saw me see, and pulled out his hand

as he pulled up to my corner.

I thought, what would Serena do?

So I said, wait, I meant to give this to you,

and I handed him his money.

I said, this is Call's money.

I ­can't do this again.

He cried and took the money

and I said goodbye.

W
idow saw me do it.

She said, why?

I said, angels.

She said, ya there's angels all right,

and every time a loony-­tune chick acts stupid

one loses its wings.

I said, sometimes you have to walk a mile

in a person's shoes.

Widow said, ya and then you're a ­whole mile away

if you decide to keep them.

She said, what you did to get that money,

what would angels think of that?

I said, oh. That.

N
ext date,

he kept saying sorry sorry

because his hands sweat so bad.

He ­can't get a girlfriend because his hands are always slimy.

I thought, sweaty hands don't mean much

to a girl who's dopesick.

I pretended he was an alien sliming me

and the safety of all the earth

depended on me befriending him

and I would unite our planets.

Before we broke I kissed his palm.

He said, you are an angel, and gave me a big tip

and he didn't even know my name.

I told Widow with yawns and sneezes

and the water in my brain running out my eyes.

She said, hey, are you sick?

And that's when I got John the john.

J
ohn the john is a university professor.

He has told me about his mother

and his first wife

and his last girlfriend—

he says, I ­can't figure out women,

and looks at me as if I know something.

He says, tell me the truth, Angel—

whose fault was my divorce?

whose fault was it really?

He never touches me, only wants me to read to him

paradise lost by John Milton,

has me read book nine out of twelve

while he does his professor business.

It is about when the serpent guy

gets Eve to eat the knowledge fruit

and then everything is bad after that

and it's all her fault,

everything bad in the world is her fault

and she deserves it.

Every time Eve goes to eat that fruit,

I say in my mind, don't do it! it's a trick!

That's the only part I understand.

J
ohn told me his copy of paradise lost

is a 1935 edition.

He gives me a handwipe before I touch it.

John gets mad if I don't read it right,

makes me read it again

with a colon in my voice, not a comma,

says, don't read that like a run-­on sentence you

have to put the punctuation in you don't, read

commas where there aren't any.

He said, Milton made his daughters read to him

in Latin and Greek and they didn't understand a word.

If they could do it, you can.

John said, in Milton's day punctuation was called pointing

because it pointed to the meaning.

John taught me that a semicolon is a longer pause

than a comma;

and a colon is a longer pause

than a semicolon;

and a period is the longest pause of all.

The punctuation is in En­glish

but the rest of the book sounds foreign.

John said, Milton liked to mix up nouns and adjectives
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we would say, pretty young girl,

but Milton would say, pretty girl and young.

I said, oh.

He said, is that all you have to say?

I said, oh terrific that is.

J
ohn said, terrific?

You ­wouldn't have that word without Milton.

He made that word up.

I said, you can make words up?

He said, Milton added 630 words to our vocabulary.

Before Milton there was no

fragrance

or lovelorn,

no debauchery

or stunning,

no unprincipled.

I said,

you can make words up?

He said, some of the words didn't catch on,

like opinionastrous, meaning opinionated
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I said, you can make words up?

He said, book nine.