The Further Tales of Tempest Landry (13 page)

I remember Branwyn kissing my left ear and saying that she was going off to class.

“I'll take Tempo to the sitter,” she said, “and drop Titi at preschool.”

“I love you,” I muttered without so much as turning over.

For a while I could hear the sounds of the morning coming down the hall from the kitchen. There was laughter and crying, Branwyn's chastisements and praise. And then there was a profound silence; the kind of quiet that brought fear to hearts of primordial men—just the sort of stillness that might portend a predator or enemy.

I couldn't sleep any longer and so I stumbled from the bed to the bathroom, splashed water on my face, and peered into the mirror….

I was not so much shocked as chagrined. I knew instantly that the stranger in the mirror was my punishment for not succeeding at getting Tempest Landry to submit to the will of heaven. I was not reinstated to my former rank nor was I thrown down into the pit for the blasphemy of spawning children. Instead the powers that be turned me into a stranger to myself; a man that neither Branwyn nor my children would recognize.

I went to the kitchen and sat down at the little breakfast table there. It was late fall and chilly outside the window. I was not hungry or thirsty but I made coffee and poured my cereal out of habit. After five minutes of not eating or drinking I understood that this part of my life was over. I dressed, donned a thin woolen coat, and left the temporary home that meant more to me than an eternity in the bosom of the Infinite.

Bernini Carts and Catering was behind a nondescript green door about half a mile south of Houston on Broadway. It was ten in the morning when I got there. I stopped on the sidewalk and reached into the right pocket of my long coat, feeling for the pipe and tobacco I'd put there the day before. Instead my fingers wrapped around something hard and cold. I pulled the metal object from the pocket, obscuring it from sight with my new big black hands.

It was a small silver revolver that had an unearthly feel to it. I did not wonder as to the weapon's purpose. It was designed to kill something supernatural. Michael and Gabriel had provided me with the means of my deliverance or demolition.

I put the gun back into its pocket and opened the door. A long open-roofed corridor led to the clearing where Bernini's fruit carts were stocked and sent out for the day.

“Can I help you, buddy?” a huge and bald white man said to me as I entered the large roofless space that smelled strongly of apples.

The man had bulging muscles and cerulean blue eyes. He wore a rough canvas apron and a dark red long-sleeved shirt.

“Ezzard Walcott,” I said, marveling at the new voice I contained.

“You lookin' for a job?” the man asked.

“No.”

He was expecting more but I was not giving. I was on a suicide mission but the target had not been identified yet.

“Ezzard!” the bald man cried while still gazing at me with his jewel-like eyes.

“Yo!” a familiar voice called from a jerry-rigged aluminum shed set against the wall of the southwest corner of the space.

Tempest came out from behind thick plastic curtains and looked toward the bald man and beyond him to me. He obviously did not recognize me. A cunning wariness entered his smiling face.

“Can I help you?” he said as I approached him, hand on the pistol in my right pocket.

“I came here to speak to Tempest Landry about the refusal of judgment,” I proclaimed.

“What's your name, man?”

“Joshua.”

At a chain coffee shop two blocks down from Bernini's, Tempest and I sat over espressos and coffee cakes. We hadn't spoken any words of import since our reintroduction. This was new ground for both of us and we held back our true feelings.

“Is that really you, Angel?” he asked at last.

“Yes.”

“I didn't know you could change form like the devil, man. I thought the body you were in was the way you'd always be—down here.”

“I woke up in this form. I had nothing to do with it.”

“In your own bed?”

I nodded.

“What'd Brownie say when she saw you?”

“My face was buried in the pillow. After that she left for school.”

“They left you a black man.”

“They took everything from me because I wouldn't work to trick you or force you into damnation.”

“Damn, man. That's messed up. Did they say anything?”

“They put a pistol in my pocket.”

Tempest's face froze and he regarded me with undecipherable shrewdness.

“A pistol for what?”

“Either me or you,” I said. “Maybe both.”

“That don't sound very Christian.” Tempest tried to get lightness into his voice but failed.

“Angels were never Christians,” I said. “We scoured the skies before the Hebrews or the Coptics or the great scaled lizards of the aborigines. We are brutal, bloodletting creatures who answer to a primal force.”

“You sure you Joshua, man?”

“Of course. Why do you ask?”

“Because I never heard ole Angel talk like you talkin' now.”

“I was made to forget a great part of my past lives,” I said, feeling as if I really were another being. “The angels have been around long before man was man, when he was merely a notion in the material of life. And we were different and brutal—of the instinct. As you developed so did we and we were estranged from each other.”

“And how come you remember all that now?” Tempest asked, looking around, for an escape route I thought.

“I don't know. Maybe it's the resurrection of my spirit in this new form. Maybe Gabriel is giving me the memory to enable me to execute his plans.”

“Execute, huh?”

“Are you afraid of me, Tempest?”

To my surprise a smile of delight came across the Errant Soul's face. He grinned at me and shook his head.

“You been a black man for more'n three years, Angel, and you still don't get it.”

“Get what?”

“When you down to the quick you don't have time to be scared of the gun. It's the bullet gonna get you, man. It's death that you scared'a, not the man wanna kill you. Ev'rybody wants you dead. Everybody wants you hangin' from a tree or telephone pole, from some bridge or just the side of a house. But just cause there a hangin' tree that don't mean I got to be afraid'a pinecones.”

“I don't understand. I have been sent to kill you.”

“Why?”

“For some reason beyond my comprehension.”

“So you don't know why but you might do it anyway?”

“I…”

“Listen, Angel, most people don't know why they do what they do. Most of 'em don't even wanna be doin' it anyway. Fat man don't wanna eat fast-food burgers but he cain't he'p himself. Pretty young thing don't wanna go out with a rich ole toad but she think she got to. I met this rich kid workin' for Bernini who was gonna go to medical school but he didn't want to.”

“Why would he go, then?”

“Because his parents said that's what they wanted. Here that boy had more fun wit' us than he ever did with his own kind but he just couldn't break the chain.”

“What are telling me, Tempest?”

“Just because you got a gun in your pocket don't mean you have to shoot it. I know everything seem to say that you have to pull out your pistol and squeeze off two shots but why now? Why you got to kill me or you right now? Maybe you could do it tomorrow or next week, maybe next year or never.”

“Don't you understand, I've lost everything.”

“Is Brownie or Tempo or Tethamalanianti dead?”

“You…you said my daughter's name,” I said, truly surprised.

“Of course I did. She's the daughter of my friends. I have to know how to say her name.”

Somehow this simple declaration broke the spell of my displacement. The fact that Tempest could speak a name that had not been uttered in a thousand years underscored his friendship. This revelation humbled and made me more human than ever.

“But what can I do?” I asked my human friend.

“You see, Angel,” he replied, sitting back easily. “That's all it takes.”

“What?”

“Life,” he said. “Life is a buzz-saw boxer and we the reckless counter-puncher lookin' to get in something before this wild man takes us out. He keeps on comin', throwin' everything he got at us and we try an' keep our wits about us even though we know it's a long shot for us to win.”

“I don't understand, Tempest.”

“There's no understandin', Angel. There's only the fight. Either you keep on fightin' or you give up. That's it.”

The words were convincing, if incomprehensible. I knew that I had to fight without understanding who or what the enemy might be. The long journey of my existence, it seemed, was like a preparation for this coffee break at the end of Tempest's shift.

I wrapped the small pistol in a handkerchief I carried and handed the bundle to Tempest.

“Hold on to it for me?” I asked.

He sighed as he took it and I realized that for a brief moment I was the buzz-saw boxer and Tempest had, at the last moment, broken through my attack.

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