The Wrath of Angels

‘Who the fu—?’

Sam tapped him on the thigh, and handed him a napkin. ‘For when you mess up,’ she said, then trotted off to join Louis at a table.

‘Thank you, honey,’ said Angel, before returning to the subject in hand, minus the swearing. ‘I mean, who are you calling old?’

‘Older,’ I corrected.

Our sundaes came, and we carried them over to where Louis and Sam were waiting.

‘Like that makes it better,’ said Angel. ‘Fat, old: you want to add anything else before I go throw myself in the sea?’

‘Don’t do it,’ said Louis.

‘Why, because you’d miss me?’

‘No, ’cause you’d just float. Bob like a cork until hypothermia took you, or you got eaten by sharks.’

‘No!’ said Sam. ‘Not eaten!’

‘It’s okay, Sam,’ Angel assured her. ‘I won’t get eaten. Am I right, Uncle Louis?’

Sam looked to Louis for confirmation of this.

‘That’s right,’ said Louis. ‘He won’t get eaten. Shark’s mouth wouldn’t be big enough to fit him in.’

Sam seemed content with this, even if Angel wasn’t, so she started work on her sundae and forgot about everything else.

‘I’m substituting ice cream for affection,’ whispered Angel glumly, in deference to Sim’s presence. ‘I’ll be watching The View next, and considering male HRT.’

‘It’ll never get that bad,’ I said.

‘HRT?’

‘Watching The View. What are you, gay?’

‘I used to be. I’m a sexless being now.’

‘That’s good. I didn’t like thinking of you as a sexual being. It was kind of gross.’

‘What, gay sex?’

‘No, just you and any form of sex.’

Angel thought about this. ‘I guess it kind of was,’ he concluded.

Behind us, at the other occupied table, a couple of loud-mouths were discussing a mutual acquaintance in borderline obscene terms. One of them was wearing a Yankees cap even though his accent was Down East. In a town like Portland, a Yankees cap invited harsh words at best, but being a Mainer and wearing one was an act of treachery that made Benedict Arnold and Alger Hiss seem harmless by comparison.

The men moved from borderline to outright obscenity. They smelled of beer. What they were doing in an ice- cream parlor, I couldn’t quite figure.

I leaned over. ‘Hey, guys, could you keep it clean? I got a kid here.’

They ignored me and kept talking. If anything, the volume increased, and they managed to squeeze in a few more swear words, separating syllables where necessary to accommodate them.

‘Guys, I asked you nicely,’ I said.

‘It’s after nine,’ said the older of the two. ‘Your kid should be at home.’

‘It’s an ice-cream parlor,’ said Angel. ‘You ought to watch your fucking language.’

‘Was that helpful?’ I said to him. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Sorry.’

I returned my attention to the men nearby.

‘I won’t ask you again,’ I told them.

‘And what are you going to do if we don’t?’ asked the same man. He was tall and broad, and his features had an alcoholic blur to them. His friend, whose back had been to us, turned around, and his eyes widened slightly at the sight of Louis. He looked more sober than his friend, and smarter too.

‘My daddy will shoot you,’ said Sam. She made a little gun with her fingers, pointed it at the man who had spoken, and said ‘Bang!’

I looked at her. Good grief.

‘And then I’ll shoot you too,’ said Louis.

He grinned, and the temperature dropped.

‘Bang,’ Louis added, for effect. He too had made a gun with his fingers. He aimed it at the big man’s groin.

‘Bang’, he repeated: at his chest.

‘Bang’: closing one eye to focus, at his head.

Both men visibly blanched.

‘Not a Yankees fan,’ explained Angel.

‘Go find a bar, fellas,’ I said, and they left.

‘I like bullying people,’ said Angel. ‘When I grow up, I’m going to do nothing else all day long.’

‘Bang,’ said Sam. ‘They’re dead.’

Angel, Louis and I exchanged glances. Angel shrugged.

‘She must get it from her mother.’

Sam was staying with me that night. When she had finished brushing her teeth, and her two rag dolls were tucked up to her satisfaction alongside her, I sat on the edge of the bed and touched her cheek.

‘You warm enough?’

‘Yes.’

‘You feel cold.’

‘That’s because it’s cold outside, but I’m not cold. I’m warm inside.’

It sounded plausible.

‘Look, I think it might be best if you didn’t tell your mom about what happened tonight.’

‘About the pizza? Why?’

‘No, the pizza’s fine. I mean what happened after, when we went for ice cream.’

‘You mean about the two men?’

‘Yes.’

‘What part?’

‘The part about you saying that I would shoot them. You can’t talk like that to strangers, honey. You can’t talk like that to anyone. It’s not just rude: it’ll get Daddy into trouble.’

‘With Mommy?’

‘Absolutely with Mommy, but also maybe with the people you say it to. They won’t like it. That’s how fights start.’

She considered this.

‘But you have a gun.’

‘Yes. I try not to shoot people with it, though.’

‘Then why do you have it?’

‘Because sometimes, in my job, I have to show it to people to make them behave themselves.’ God, I felt like a spokesman for the NRA.

‘But you have shot people with your gun. I heard Mommy say.’

This was new. ‘When did you hear that?’

‘When she was talking to Jeff about you.’

‘Sam, were you listening when you shouldn’t have been listening?’

Sam squirmed. She knew that she had said too much.

She shook her head. ‘It was a accident.’

‘An accident.’ A spokesman for the Society for Better English too, it seemed. Still, it gave me time to think.

‘Look, that’s true, Sam, but I didn’t like doing it, and those people left me with no other choice. I’d be happy if I never had to do it again, and I hope that I don’t. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Were they bad people?’

‘Yes, they were very bad people.’