The Trouble with Angels by Glory Fink

TW: Depictions of accidents, injuries and death including a child’s. Discussions of a character unaliving themself

The trouble with angels is that they are always quite sure that they are right. Just because they are the gophers of the universe they think they know what to do or say no matter the situation. When I was in school the girls in my school would boast to each other, "If an angel ever came down to me I would do whatever he said and be so kind and grateful." And then they would sigh in such a dreamy way as only inexperienced high school girls can do. Bullshit! You sure as hell would not be so sweet and dreamy to the "heavenly gopher". Any normal person would be so shocked, offended and rude about the matter. 

This is for a few reasons. 1) Angels never bring good news. Never! They are the original spin doctors of public relations. They dress up the message so it sounds like a treat but anyone with an ounce of common sense will see right through the smoke and mirrors and usually try to slam the door in the angel's face. This is partly because of the second reason. 2) Angels look nothing like what people think angels should look like no matter where you were raised. Angels look like people, albeit usually sloppily put together people. Bob says this is because angels have been around so long that they've all developed a bit of job burnout and it's gotten very hard for them to really get into their work. In that respect they are a lot like government bureaucrats working on year 24 toward their 30 year retirement. They've done the same thing so long they are now bored out of their minds. The third reason is 3) No matter how hard an angel tries to blend into humanity we humans will always recognize them as not being a member of our species. 

When most people see an angel they instantly know something is wrong. This knowledge usually makes them nervous like how a gazelle probably feels upon spotting a dozing lion, "Oh crap! Is this sleeping beast going to be the end for me, François the Gazelle? What would be the safest way for me to get out of here before Ms. "I could snap you in two with one bite" lion wakes up and wants a post nap snack?" The thought process usually goes a lot faster and smoother but you get the gist. I think that's how angels get their work done so easily around here. While you're busy wondering if this strange person is about to cut you into tiny pieces for his jollies the angel delivers the message and leaves. 

This "Gopher for the Universe" accosts you on the street or in your home gives you a message, order, mission, memo or whatever gets you to agree to it on the promise that it will leave you unharmed and then leaves before your fear subsides when you would normally reply, "Hell no I'm not going to: have a baby, win against a much better army, kill my child, go spend the rest of my life looking for enlightenment, convince an empire of people to be groovy to each other, let my daughter marry that idiot, or whatever suits the situation. Are you out of your mind? I'm going to live my life just exactly the way I planned. Now go the fuck away before I call the police!" Bob agrees that modern lawyers would call this coercion or entrapment but apparently it still holds up because afterwards that visited person still feels compelled to do whatever they agreed to no matter how hard they might fight it. 

I've learned all this through my association with Bob. I met Bob inside Sneed's Hardware and Farming Supply. I mistook him for a clerk while I was shopping for supplies to kill myself. Don't freak out. I had come to the logical conclusion that there was absolutely no one or reason left for me to live and if I had no reason to live what the hell was I doing taking up space? 

Six months before I met Bob, my 9 year old daughter had been ice skating at a birthday party and fell in such a way and with so much force as to crack her head wide open. By the time Isabelle arrived at the hospital she was in a deep coma. My diabetic mother, who had been with Isabelle at the party, was so upset over the accident that the doctors told me later she would have normally had a mild heart attack. But because my mom ignored her symptoms and kept them to herself by the time she collapsed at Isabelle's bedside the staff was at a loss to save her. My husband Gerard tried his best to be the best kind of husband possible by working 12 hr shifts at the telephone company running lines and then driving 2 hours each way to stay with Isabelle while I went to stay with my mother in another wing. Then Gerard would leave to go back to work. I told Gerry that he wasn't getting enough sleep and that he should take some sick days but Gerry said, “We’re going to need those paid leave days when Bella wakes up and is recuperating at home. I promise I'm getting enough sleep." But he wasn't. By the end of a long week of endless commuting and long work hours Gerry had burned himself out. 

On his drive back to us at the hospital that night Gerry fell asleep at the wheel and drove head long into a deep ravine. State troopers didn't even spot the glint of his car until the next morning and by then Gerry had long since slipped away from his mortal coil. I don't remember much for a few weeks after that. I pretty much lived at the hospital trying to split my time between my mother and Bella. Eventually the staff moved us to a room where I could have Bella and mom together. A few weeks after Gerry's accident I started coming out of my mental fog. 

That was when the doctors sat me down to update me on my mother and daughter's prognosis. Phrases were used like "unlikely" and "lack of measurable brain activity" and "Vegetative state". I became frantic at the thought of losing the last members of my little family on the heels of my husband's death. I researched for days on end; spoke to experts, got second and third opinions but sometimes even a feisty, determined woman can't change fate. I spent 3 days in that hospital room doing nothing but crying and explaining to my comatose little daughter and my mother everything the doctors, experts, and my own research insisted, it was time for the 3 of us to say goodbye. Since this was our final goodbye I told them about Gerry because I was sure that if there really was an afterlife Gerry was already waiting for them so I felt safe about Mom and Bella passing on since I knew they wouldn’t be alone. I cried the first day for Gerry, all the tears I had shoved away. I finally let go. I looked through photo albums with Mom and Bella on their life support machines and I recounted funny stories about him. 

I reminded Bella of the previous father's day when she was 8 and she tried to make her daddy breakfast in bed. How the toast was burnt, the coffee was barely more than dark water and the milk was soured but he still insisted her breakfast was the best present he had ever been given. I whispered to mom how I was so grateful to her that she never said anything when I would stay out all night with Gerry come home just long enough to get dressed for work and then be out all night with him again. I told mom it was the best thing she could have done with such a headstrong daughter. 

The second day I cried for Bella. I brought to the hospital room all the things she had made over the years. I reminisced with her about all our adventures together like the time we played people bingo while sitting in the park one sunny day. I played for Bella the video her friends and classmates made intended to keep her up to date on the latest gossip and events at school. 

On the third day I cried for my mother. I told her that I felt like all of this was somehow my fault. I felt like if I had done things differently or made different choices none of this would have happened. If only I had been a stronger wife and insisted that Gerry not maintain such a grueling schedule. I should have gone with Bella to the birthday party instead of asking my mom to go so I could have a chance to clean the house. Maybe then mom wouldn't have been under so much stress and not ignored her symptoms. If I had been with Bella we would have been skating together so I would have been holding her hand and then she never would have fallen. 

Through my waterfall of tears I confessed to my mother that I believed myself to be the weakest, most selfish daughter, wife and mother I could possibly be. If I had done the right things and said the right things in the right way then none of this would have happened but now I was getting my just desserts for being so weak and selfish by losing everyone I held dear. 

On the fourth day the doctors and nurses and staff arrived. I asked that life support for both my mother and my child be done at once. I was unsure about heaven but I wanted to give Mom and Bella the chance to go together. Hospital procedures have a way of stripping the humanity from any situation. I thought I would cry and ball my eyes out during the procedures but the setting was so clinical I felt like I wasn't even emotionally present. I held Bella and Mom's hands and I stroked their heads. I talked to them about anything that sprang to mind while I waited for each of their bodies to "Release" . It took longer and went by faster than I expected and before I even realized it the whole thing was over. A cousin of Gerry's who was a lawyer took care of the paperwork and before I knew it I no longer had a reason to be at the hospital. Gerry's cousin Fred - The lawyer drove me home with a promise to call me when the funeral arrangements had been made. I went straight to bed and slept the rest of the day away. 

On the 5th day I cried because I was now truly alone. We humans are social creatures and we despise change. In a short time my life had changed so drastically that I could no longer recognize it. I cried because the last bit of the future I had planned out had just disappeared. There was no one to wake up for school or work anymore. No one to go to swap meets or antique stores with anymore. But most especially, no one to hold in my arms or who would hold me at night in bed. I cried because as awful as all these thoughts were, the worst part was that I no longer had anyone to confide my grief to. For the next month I did my duty. I said what I was expected to say and ignored everyone's pity. I dutifully attended all the funerals, the burials, the memorials, the headstone dedications and even the school assembly held in Isabelle's honor. I showed up but I wasn't present. I was reliving my happiest memories. The 3 most cherished people in my life were gone and all the entire outside world wanted was to remind me of that over and over. Again. 

When all of that was over and the world stopped requiring my presence at events I went home and bolted the door. I went into the backyard dragging the charcoal grill, took off the black dress I had worn to every one of these social functions and burned that motherfucker. I pulled up a lawn chair and sat in just my slip watching that ugly cotton/polyester blend fashion nightmare burn and melt. In fact I took up sitting as a hobby. I pretty much stopped leaving my house. 

The telephone company Gerry had worked for had a program where they paid all the regular monthly household bills for 6 months after an employee’s death. I no longer even needed to remember to pay the electric bill. I wasn’t needed for much of anything. And I lived up to those expectations. Eventually I realized the world didn't need me for much of anything. Since I wasn't needed I could no longer justify my existence and so began researching and contemplating different ways to finish the Greek tragedy that had become my life. 

I was at Sneed's hardware picking up some materials to test out a few of my theories when I asked Bob for assistance. I wasn't sure what would work so I was hedging my bets by making several contraptions. I was having trouble figuring out which rope would be strongest for my needs. 

Bob told me, "Well most ropes are made for horizontal pulls like pulling a boat with a hitch. But for vertical drop weight I recommend the Hanson Hiker's Hand Rope. Yes, this is the preferred for 8 out of 10 suicides."

"Excuse me," I said?

"Terry, I need you to come with me." Bob gazed deeply into my eyes.

"Oh Yeah? You think I’m at the hardware store to hook up? I ain’t that desperate, bubba." Maybe it was my commitment to death that prevented me from feeling any gazelle-like nervousness.

"The world needs you, Terry. The Lord has a special purpose for you and I am here to gather you " Bob grabbed me by my wrists for emphasis while never breaking contact with my eyes. 

"Excuse me, but what is your name?"

"Uhm," Bob blinked, "Bob"

"Well, 'Bob' The world severed all my obligations to it when it took away my husband, my child and my mother all in one week" 

I twisted my arms out of his grasp and walked away. When I noticed Bob following me out of the store I spun around, looked him straight in the face and loudly declared right in front of the bank of cash registers.

"If you don't stop following me I am going to pepper spray you and screen 'Thief' at the top of my lungs. Leave me alone, you freak!" 

Bob stopped in his tracks and I left in a huff leaving a stunned audience of clerks, contractors and DIY homeowners. That night as I was watching old movies in my darkened bedroom I heard the hiss of a match and saw a flicker of light out on the back porch. I grabbed the shotgun Gerry kept in our bedroom for me to use if I needed it whenever I was alone. Carefully, I tiptoed to the entrance of the back porch. There I saw the faint illumination of Bob's face thanks to his smoldering cigarette.

"What are you? Some kind of serial killer rapist? Do you enjoy toying with your victims before you chop them into little bits?"

"Nope."

"Then what?"

"I told you. I have been sent to fetch you for the All Mighty."

"Go back to the loony bin, nut bag." I sneered while I motioned with my head the direction that would take him off my property in the quickest possible fashion.

"Look, no matter what you say or do I'm going to keep showing up until you come with me. Lady, just do us both a favor. Come with me and find out what The Heavenly Host has in store for you. If you don’t like it, you can always kill yourself later."

I sized him up. He didn’t look like he was armed although I couldn’t be sure exactly what was under that enormous beat up ancient looking leather duster he wore.

“Buddy, I know what I’m doing tomorrow and it’s nothing any angels in heaven want me to do. And I’m sure as hell not going for a ride along with some random dude who thinks he can hear God. Now get off my property before I shoot first and call the cops later.”

Bob exhaled the smoke from his chest and stopped leaning on a post supporting the back porch, “Well, I guess you’ve made your mind up. So I’ll be leaving but I’ll drop in to visit you in Hell in about a week and see if you’re ready for a road trip to The Silver City.”

With a grimace I asked, “Are you trying to tell me I’m going to hell because I intend to kill myself?”

Bob shrugged as he started to walk toward the back gate that led to the street, “No, all humans go to hell when they die. You’ll see when you get there. Just hang tight and I’ll see you soon. Once you get to Hell, if you see Lucy, tell them ‘Bob sends Love and Praises’ They’ll know what that means.”