halfway down to his knees-but he was also as white as the guy on the Quaker Oats box.
“Whatchu doin’?” he demanded. “You blockin’ my car, man!”
I got out as he reached me. “Am I?”
He was clearly psyching himself up for something big and stupid: he bounced around on the balls of his feet like he had to pee, but his hand stayed behind his back. Up close I could see that he had one of those little chin beards (sparse and caterpillar-fuzzy) that always make me wonder if the guy just missed a patch.
“Don’t give me no shit!” he said, bouncing even higher in his outrage. “I been followin’ you!” And then, like a tired old stripper climbing from a cake, out came his piece, a 9mm. And to confirm the guy’s gangsta-wannabe status he held it sideways as he pointed it at me-a recipe for inaccurate fire and a good chance of the shell stovepiping and jamming the pistol. I smiled despite myself as I spread my hands.
“Peace, dude. You got the gun, you’re the boss.”
“Yeah! You better recognize!” He was still bouncing, and I was a little worried he might accidentally squeeze the trigger and injure a bystander. “What were you doing at Posie’s house?”
The picture was suddenly clear. I wanted to wince. “You mean you followed me all the way over here just because I was parked in your girlfriend’s driveway? Scratch that, your girlfriend’s
“Whatever! I’m the one asking the questions, motherfucker. And if you don’t want to get your ass capped, you better just answer ’em.”
“A little insecure, aren’t we?” I moved one of my hands in a gentle circle. “Look, I’m going to reach into my pocket and take out one of my business cards.”
“Super slow, dude.” He grimaced to show me how ready he was to start my ass-capping. I felt sorry for his parents, who had clearly spent a lot of money on his very nice orthodonture and would hate the way he was grinding his teeth together. I delicately lifted the card out of my breast pocket with thumb and forefinger and held it out to him. As he stepped forward to take it I let it slip my fingers and flutter to the ground. In the half second that he stood watching it, I took the gun out of his hand then gave him a sharp smack in the middle of the forehead with it, leaving a horseshoe-shaped red mark. He tottered back a couple of steps and then fell unceremoniously on his butt in the sloping driveway, his faced screwed up like he was going to cry.
“Shit, man! What did you do that for?”
“Maybe because you were waving a gun in my face?”
“Chill, man! It’s not even loaded!”
I rolled my eyes. “So you drew down on a perfect stranger without even having a bullet in the chamber?” I pocketed his gun and showed him my own. “What if I’d pulled this? Trust me-it
His eyes got big. “You would have shot me?”
I sighed. “Just get up. What’s your name, kid?”
“G-Man.”
“I don’t mean your codename down at the Dickhead Club. What does it say on your driver’s license? Your car already tells me you live at your parents’ house-nobody buys that much chrome on a grocery bagger’s salary unless they’re saving on rent.” He mumbled something. “What? Tell me again, louder. Full name.”
“Garcia.” He was as sullen as a third-grader caught playing with his Nintendo during class. “Garcia Windhover.” He pronounced the last name like “bend over,” which I thought was appropriate, because that’s what people would be calling him in prison sooner or later if he stayed this stupid.
“Figures. Let me guess-your parents were hippies.”
“You don’t know nothing ’bout me, brah!”
“Oh, but I do. Just look at yourself-Swedes, Frisians, Poles, Scots, all those Caucasian ancestors, God only knows how many kinds of all-white salad, mixing together to make the whitest person anyone could imagine, and your greatest desire is to be a poor black man.”
“Naw, man, I’m not ashamed of my roots. I’m representing the street!”
“Yeah, and your street just happens to have crossing guards at the corners and a lot of gardeners with leaf blowers.” I opened the door of my car. “Wise up, kid.”
He scrambled to his feet. “What about my gat?”
“I really should hang onto it-might save your life-but I’ll tell you what: You see that card lying on the ground, Garcia? My number’s on it, and whether you believe it or not, I’m on your side. So if you see anyone unusual around Posie’s grandpa’s house or notice anything the slightest bit freaky, you call me. Maybe you can earn your piece back.”
His eyes got big again, and he rubbed at the dent I’d put in his forehead. “What are you-like, a detective?”
“No, son. I’m the Lord’s avenging angel.”
I left him thinking about that as I backed out. I hoped he didn’t stand around thinking about it too long or someone was going to come and take the shiny rims off his pretty red car.
nine
“Do you have any friends who aren’t…who aren’t like us?” Clarence asked me.
I looked up from my eggs and bacon. Oyster Bill’s not only serves booze in the morning but also breakfast twenty-four hours a day. My kind of place. “You mean living people?
He looked around in alarm. “You shouldn’t talk so loud.”
“One of the things you’ll learn, kid, is that most people don’t notice anything out of the ordinary even if it’s
“Women?” He looked startled. “You mean…sex? Angels having sex with the living?”
“It’s not mandatory.” I leaned back and signaled to the waitress for a refill on my coffee. “Jeez, kid, you make it sound creepy, like reverse necrophilia. We’re all ’living’, we all have bodies, it’s just that some of us are in a different stage of the process.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why do you ask? You interested in someone?”
“No!” You would have thought I’d asked him if he was planning to machine-gun a church picnic. “No, it’s just all so…so different.”
“Ah, that’s right, you only just arrived here in Fleshworld.” In deference to the kid’s fear of being overheard, I paused until the waitress had delivered the coffee and wandered off again. “Is it that different than you expected?”
He had spilled some sugar on the table, and now he drew in it with his fingertip. “I don’t know. I…it’s strange to have a body. Again. I mean, that’s true, right? Because personally I don’t remember it.”
“Neither do I. None of us do. It’s part of the game, for some reason. Makes us better angels, I guess.”
“Well, I don’t get it.” He looked around again, worried about celestial spies, I guess. “What’s the point? If the Highest wants people to be good, why doesn’t He just make them good?”
“There you go.” I put down my coffee cup and sat back. The day had gone a bit gray and windy, the pennants whipping above the ferry dock. “You just said the magic word-you win a hundred bucks.”
“Huh?”
“You just discovered one of the benefits of being embodied. I’ve been going back and forth to Heaven for years, and I don’t remember once having a conversation like that up there. Nobody up there asks questions. Maybe you can’t even do it without a body.”
“I don’t get it.”
“None of us do. The ways of God are mysterious, and so on. And even if none of us remembers what we
