Heaven or Hell (31 page)

Angel frowned. “I can’t leave you here.”

Marion told him this would happen, and she told him she’d help him when the time came.
Where are you, Marion?
Joe thought.

“Some things are out of our control.” Joe blinked back tears that he refused to let fall. He’d thought he’d have less emotion on this side, but it seemed as if the floodgates were open, and he was being affected tenfold.

“Well, I don’t know how to go.” Angel spoke in a soft tone.

“I know, but it’s going to happen soon.” Joe hated the idea of losing his daughter again. He let go of Angel’s cheeks. His daughter must have been there listening.

“Did you hear what that man, Flavio, said about your accident?” Joe asked.

“Much more than that, Dad. I had a flashback, and he was right,” she said.

“All that anger I had …”

“Dad, would it have changed anything if you’d known about it then?”

He wiped his hands on his pants and stood up straight. His heart pounded in his ears. “How can this be?” he whispered.

“What?” Angel asked.

“I can hear my heart beating. I can feel it.”

“It’s only a memory. Your heart’s not beating.” Angel’s smile seemed to fade.

“I don’t think anything would’ve changed the course of my life. Whatever we went through was supposed to happen the way it did. That’s something I didn’t know until now.” Joe leaned against the wall and let his back slide down until he was in a sitting position.

“What about free will and all?” she asked.

“Some things are supposed to happen, Angel.” Joe let out a sigh, and then he stood up and put his hand out toward his daughter, gesturing for her to follow him. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” She walked on after him.

“I’ve got a feeling we need to head out of here and find your mom.” Joe turned and waited for Angel to catch up.

“Where is she?” his daughter asked. “Do you know where Mom is?”

Joe had no idea where to begin, but he didn’t want to share his uncertainty with his daughter because he knew they’d somehow find Marion. Panic from Angel wouldn’t help.

“Teresa’s, that’s where we’ll find Marion. But first, I have to get word to someone on where to find the General. I can’t leave his body out there to rot.” Funny, he thought, how the dead had so many leftover jobs to handle.

“How are you going to do that?” Angel asked.

“I thought you’d know how I could get through to the world of the living,” Joe said.

“We can try and borrow someone’s body. It’s not fun, though, and it can feel crowded inside.”

“Crowded?” Joe asked. He was at a loss, trying to understand.

“I did this thing last night, with Teresa. I tried to get into her dreams and I ended up in her body. It’s confining and difficult to stay inside. I wasn’t alone in her body—her soul kept trying to push me out.” She paused and thought. “Either that, or it was hugging me.”

“How does it work?” he asked her.

“I think the body needs to be relaxed and then on some level willing.”

He’d known a lot of relaxed drunks in his day—guys who wouldn’t kick him out perhaps. “Okay, we’re going down to the Row and we’ll find somebody there.”

Joe and Angel found their way to a street near Skid Row. The guy Joe targeted was sleeping in an alley with a yellow tarp over his body.

“Do souls leave their bodies early?” Joe asked, hesitant about sharing a body with another man’s soul, and wishing they could simply find an empty body—or some other way to get this done.

“I think so.” Angel nodded toward the breathing lump under the tarp. “But he’s alive. Put your head into his head and take a peek before you enter.”

Joe leaned down and within a second he felt as if he was being sucked into the body. And then he somehow found himself in a standing position with the tarp wrapped around his shoulders. His legs felt wobbly, and as quickly as he stood, he fell back down. The world spun around him. It’d been a while since Joe had taken a drink, but this was a feeling he recognized immediately. He pushed the body up against the building. Gasping for air, he braced himself as he stood up again.

Rain landed on the tarp over his head while cold air blew under it. The body he’d borrowed smelled like a month without a bath. He couldn’t see Angel but supposed she’d follow. Although she’d tried to describe the confinement of being in a human body, he only really understood it now that he was fully restrained within the encasement of this well-weathered flesh.

Joe flipped off his right shoe and found a five-dollar bill in there. He scooped that up and put it in his pocket, where he found a quarter. He began moving one step at a time and not easily when he saw Ralph up at the corner.

“Hey, Ralph. I need some food. Can you help me?” An unrecognizable croaky voice came from his throat.

Ralph stopped for a second and looked down the street. Joe raised the five-dollar bill from his pocket. “I’ll pay you, man.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Ralph approached with a smile on his face. He grabbed the five-dollar bill from Joe and stuffed it in a hidden pocket in his waistband. “Do I know you?”

“Name’s Sam. I need some help to the church kitchen.” Joe struggled for air. This guy’s lungs seemed worse than those in the body Joe had left behind. He dropped the tarp and placed his foot out to approach Ralph.

“It seems as if you do.” Ralph scooped up Sam’s left arm, “Bring that tarp. It’s going to rain harder.”

“I don’t need the damn thing.” Joe marveled at the croaky old sound leaving his mouth. He really had to concentrate on both moving the body and speaking—he almost felt like a puppet master.

“Bring it. You won’t regret it,” Ralph insisted.

“Okay, then when I’m done with it, you can have it for being so kind to me.” Joe had tried to put a nice tone in the timber of the old guy’s voice. The sound just came out more slowly—the harsh quality remained the same.

“Okay, I’m going to hold you to that.”

Ralph was strong. He gripped the left arm and carried Sam most of the way. At the end of the block, they stopped at a pay phone Joe knew was near the area where the General had slept and died in the trash bin. Joe dialed the morgue and resisted telling Dotty who he really was, but insisted she call Father Benjamin.

“You know the father?” Ralph asked after he listened to every word Joe said into the phone.

“No, but the General did,” Joe answered.

“And the General’s dead?”

“Yes, he is. And so is Juan. He died this morning in the hospital. Nobody knows it yet.”

“Damn, I made it longer than both of those guys?” Ralph’s face scrunched up and he turned his head with a sniffle. Either the old guy’s body smelled so bad Ralph couldn’t stand it, or he was hiding his tears—being the tough guy he thought he was.

The walk to the church kitchen went quickly enough, and Joe realized he probably didn’t need to do much more. Tell Ralph, and the world would soon know. But for selfish reasons, he wanted a last look at the kitchen and some of the folks he’d dealt with these last few years.

The witch woman he’d met up with years ago, the woman who’d told him he was haunted, was in line today. He thought this was unusual because he hadn’t seen her since that time, and she looked almost the same. Her face was a face he’d never forget.

Father Benjamin came out of the kitchen and spoke to Ralph, while Joe kept his head down. Of course he didn’t expect his friend would recognize him, but still—running into the priest was something he hadn’t expected, and something he wasn’t ready to face. Joe told Ralph he’d save his place in line, and he tried to avoid looking up at the father, but for some reason their eyes happened to meet. Joe hoped Father Benjamin wouldn’t suspect something was up, yet why would he, really? The idea of this body being Joe was too farfetched.

Within minutes, the whole line of homeless folks was talking about Joe and the General. Joe couldn’t see the point of sticking around. He had to go back and find Angel, anyway. He dropped his tarp so Ralph could have it later on and moved quickly down the line with his head held down, thinking nobody would notice him. But the witch woman’s bony hand grabbed Joe’s arm as he attempted to pass her, and with a strength he’d never thought she could muster, she spun him around and winked at him.

“Get out of here. I’ll find you in a few minutes,” the old woman whispered.

“Marion?” he said.

She pushed him behind her as the priest began to make his way down the line. “Go on. Wait for me there.”

He moved hurriedly away from the folks in line, taking one quick peek back. The old woman looked inebriated and not at all like Marion. Had Marion stepped into someone else’s body? How could it be, after all these years, that the old woman looked exactly the same?

Joe hustled into the alley around the block where he sat right down. The physical body he’d commandeered was in truly bad shape. He pushed down on the legs, and with a loud pop vacated the tight-fitting shell—which fell flat against the wall and back into its previous state of sleep. Joe looked around for Angel and panicked when he couldn’t find her.

“I’m right here,” she yelled from the edge of the alley.

Then he panicked again when he saw the world wrinkle slightly right beside her. “It’s rippling again,” he said as he sped to Angel’s side in fear that something in the other dimension beyond that wavy curtain would suck her in and she’d be gone forever.

“What …” Angel spun around and pointed. “There, I see it too.”

Both Angel and Joe remained rooted to the spot at the end of the alley, transfixed by the point in the air near Angel’s head that had previously melted. They waited in silence for another movement. When after several minutes of focused staring resulted in no similar occurrence, Joe let out a long exhalation of air he’d been somehow holding in his lungs. He wiggled his arms and legs, stretched his neck, turned his body, and then gave his attention to his youngest daughter.

“We’re still here,” he said, knowing that ripple had something to do with the next phase of their existence—or at least his daughter’s coming stage.

Angel touched her stomach. “I feel lighted stars winking inside of me. This whole thing is so beyond my understanding.”

Joe smiled at his little girl. “Did you see that old woman back there?” he asked. He wondered whether to mention the woman might possibly be her mother, in fact.

“I saw it all.” Angel nodded while her eyes scanned the surrounding area.

“Have you seen that ripple before?” Joe wanted to know. “I was waiting for the light and somehow I think I got that part wrong.”

“No, I’ve never seen a ripple before. But, Dad, I don’t think there is a wrong.” Angel reached out and put her hand in her dad’s. Strangely, to him, her hand felt warm.

As he strolled with his daughter Joe felt out of breath and sore. He assumed he was still experiencing symptoms he’d picked up from the body he’d commandeered. And, indeed, gradually his being began to feel better, as if it’d healed itself in a much faster form than his physical frame ever could have.

Joe walked absentmindedly along the sidewalk and spoke to his daughter. “I’ve got to check on Teresa before I leave. It’s okay for you to go with your mom, Angela. I’ll follow you soon, I promise you.”

“I’m not ready to leave you here yet.” Angel stopped, crossed her arms, and stomped her feet. Her pupils dilated, she hesitated, and then she spoke. “I’m scared, that’s all.”

“Okay, okay. We might have some more time,” Joe responded. Then he put his hand on Angel’s back, as if he could touch her, and led her further along the sidewalk. After they moved slowly down the street for a while, Angel appeared to have relaxed.

“What did it feel like to be in that body?” she asked.

“It was cramped like you said.” Joe experienced the viselike grip around his head as if it were happening again, and a slight tremor traveled through him. “Leaving that small space was sickening. And that loud popping noise—my ears had the physical reaction of ringing.”

“Once you’ve been like me for this long, smelling and touching are really good things to enjoy, but the tightness was too much for me, too.”

“Trust me, smelling wasn’t such a good thing a few minutes ago.” Joe laughed.

As quickly as the words came out of his mouth, it occurred to Joe this was a most unusual circumstance. His daughter appeared to be the same age as when she’d died, yet she’d matured in ways he couldn’t fathom or explain. And now and then he’d get a glimpse of the child she had been before. How was any of this possible?

“Let’s find your sister.” Joe blinked and he was standing on the sidewalk in front of Teresa’s home.
This can’t be real
, he thought to himself. He turned as Angela appeared at his side, and it was in that instant he knew it was her time to leave, and he could handle it. He would see her again. He believed he would.

“This is her house, Dad,” Angel said. “I always wanted to talk to her and never knew why I kept coming back to this place when she didn’t respond. I’d have thought she would’ve sensed she wasn’t alone.”

Angel paused for a moment and seemed to be searching for the right words. “In my flashback I saw Teresa as an entirely different person. She was carefree, fun, and full of life. The woman who lives in this house isn’t that way at all.”

Joe thought about his wife’s insistence that Teresa needed his help. He supposed his oldest daughter had more than withdrawn over the years and Marion was right about that fact. But he wasn’t certain about what to do next, or if he could make an impact from his current state.

Joe remembered his older daughter during their family’s “golden years.” “She was outgoing, and definitely ready to take on the world. But I tend to agree with Jessie on this one thing—Teresa’s had a good life, despite all she went through. I can’t control how she handled the cards she was dealt. We all have choices, right?” Joe stood at his youngest daughter’s side looking at Teresa’s home and imagining the life she’d made for herself.

“Well, yes, but didn’t you say you were going to help her?” Angel gave him a sideways glance.

“I’ll do what I can, but in the end the choice is ultimately hers, just as your life is yours. Doesn’t that make sense?” He wanted Angel’s approval more than anything though he was at a loss as to what he could do for Teresa at this point in her life. How could he help anyone who wasn’t willing to help herself?