Angel of Death

TWELVE

It had taken a week for Leland to wrap up her duties as a cop and another week to prepare for her duties beside Azra. This phone call would finish the job.

“Hello, Counselor Barnett, this is Detective Leland.”

“Yes,” came the world-weary voice of a middle-aged black woman. “My receptionist told me who it was. My client has also told me about you, Detective – plenty about you.”

“Well, let me tell you something about your client. He has no family or friends and no visible means of support.”

“So he has said.”

“Well, I’ve done some research and found a littleknown Wisconsin law meant to aid in handling the legal matters of Depression-era vagrants. An established citizen can be declared a ‘citizen advocate’ for a person with no family or friends and no visible means of support. The advocate enjoys rights of visitation with the person as well as exemption from testifying against him.”

“Detective, I am his advocate.”

“You are his legal advocate. But I have paperwork that, once he signs it, will make me his citizen advocate,” Leland said.

“You’re a cop – the cop that put him away!”

“I’m off the case – on administrative leave. I’ll fax you the paperwork, which you can review and present to Azra.”

“I’ll tell him not to sign.”

“I know you will, but he’ll sign anyway.”

“I know he will.”

Counselor Barnett received the fax and took it, incensed, to Azra. He read it over with delight and signed it and demanded that Barnett fax it back along with all her notes from their interviews.

When Leland’s fax machine spooled out the signed advocacy form, she smiled with satisfaction. But the little motor did not stop whirring. The machine spit out page after page of notes, and with each one, the picture of Azra became clearer. It was all there – the angelic delusions, the grandiose claims, the murderous fantasies, the paranoid schizophrenic stories, the resistance to providing anything like a basis for a defense. And mixed in among these whirling delusions were snippets of reality – popcorn and Tennessee Williams and Donna Leland. On one page, Counselor Barnett had idly drawn a heart and inscribed within it the words:

AZRA + DONNA 4 EVER

Another phone call. “Counselor Barnett, I’d like to be there next time you visit Azra.”

“Be my guest,” the counselor said with a despairing laugh. “Today at 2:15.”

A tortuous path had led Donna to this moment. It had changed her. Her hair was not in its customary brown braid. Instead, it flowed back from her face in kinky waves, an elegant look over a wardrobe of tweeds and linens. She carried with her not a badge and gun, not even a pen and clipboard, but only a single red rose. The thorns on the stem had been carefully sliced off by the guard who had frisked her.

Lynda Barnett led Donna into the visitation room, a glaring space of pink paint and wire-reinforced glass. Azra sat there, looking thin in his shapeless orange jumpsuit. His jaw was clean shaven, though it bore the scars of an inexpert razor. His hands were bony piles on the tabletop. He seemed to be trying to cover the shackles that bound him.

“Hello, Donna. Thank you for coming.”

“Hello, Azra,” she began, love and revulsion churning through her. She wanted to move toward him, but her low-heeled shoes seemed cemented to the floor. The shorn rose drooped in one hand. “How have you been?”

A weak smile played about his lips. “I’ve been better. I’m glad to see you.”

“I’m glad to see you, too,” Donna echoed. Counselor Barnett took a seat across from Azra, and motioned Donna to the empty seat next to him. “You can sit next to him. According to the agreement, you can even hold hands.”

“Yes,” Donna replied, her heart catching in her throat. She walked across the room. Her heels made hollow clacks on the floor. She sat down beside him, gave him the rose, and took his hand. “Yes. I can hold your hand.”

He stared levelly at her. Sleeplessness and fear jaundiced his eyes. “It’s not good in here.”

“Yes,” she said, and smiled. “I don’t imagine it is.”

“Do you remember those birds? The ones that had no legs?”

“Yes. The ones that never light on the ground until they die.”

“I feel like one of those birds. Only, I’ve lighted on the ground.”

“Azra, listen to me,” Donna said, her tone growing hard. “There’s a lot to sort out. You’ve already said you killed people, hundreds of them, because you were an angel. I don’t care whether you were an angel or just think you were or just want us to think you’re, well, crazy. But none of that matters. You’re human now. That’s what I care about. And you have to live. That’s what we have to sort out. Some way that you can be human and live.”

Azra blinked, considering. “Why are you doing this?

Most people think I’m a monster.”

Donna drew a long breath. “Any human who does not love, who is not loved, is a monster. I’ve seen that. But I’ve got to believe it works the other way, too, that if a monster is loved, and learns to love, well, he… he can be made human.”

His eyes narrowed. “Lynda said you’d hired a psychiatrist?”

“Yes, he’s waiting just outside. You can say whatever you want in our presence. Neither of us can be subpoenaed, and he’s bound by client confidentiality.”

“Bring him in.”

Donna nodded to the guard at the door. Tall and narrow, with bald-staring eyes, the guard motioned toward the hall. A shadow shifted there. A man appeared out of it. He was middle-aged and bearded, dressed in a shirt of teal canvas, a braided belt, stone-washed jeans, argyle socks, and penny loafers. He had a lot of hair, aggressive at chin, lip, brows, ears, and nose, and was prone to smile.

“Hi,” the psychiatrist said, crossing the pink room and extending his hand toward Azra. “I’m Gary Gross.”

“Doctor Gross is a clinical psychiatrist and a professor. I took three of his classes in college.” A fond look passed between them. “Before that, he had worked with my brother.” Her eyes dimmed.

Doctor Gross shook Azra’s shackled hand. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr Michaels.”

“Call me Azra.”

“Azra.”

“Yes. From Azrael. You see, I was an angel.”

“I know,” said the doctor kindly. “Donna let me read the interviews. Do you mind if I pull a chair up over here?”

Azra shrugged. “Please.”

Chair legs scudded across the scarred gray floor. The doctor set a yellow pad and a new package of Bics on the tabletop and then seated himself on Azra’s right. Donna sat at his left.

“Well.” Doctor Gross laced fingers over one knee and leaned back in his seat. “Donna has asked me to help you two sort everything out, so let’s start at the beginning. You’ve said that, as an angel of death, you’ve tended the Chicago-Milwaukee sprawl for fifteen years now. Do you remember the first death you orchestrated?”

“Of course.”

“Who was it? And where?”

“Eddy Roe, an eight-year-old boy, in Whiting. He was exploring an abandoned refinery. He was trapped in the heating conduits underground. The pipes were long disused, and the rust had pulled all the oxygen out of the air. He was breathing but dying all the same. It seemed fitting. His parents were chain smokers, living in the lee of a city of oil refineries and steel mills.”

“What did you do? Did you chase him to the spot? Did you lock him in?”

“No. He got in on his own. Couldn’t get out on his own.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I just held his hand. I sang to him. His mother and father would sing him to sleep every night. I sang him to sleep.”

The doctor sent an appraising look to Donna. “Why a boy? Why an eight-year-old?”

“He was the first one on the list. There were a number of others that day. Women and men, geriatrics and middle-aged. Eddy was simply the first on the list.”

“All right. So, on that first day, you killed Eddy Roe and a number of other men and women of all ages.”

“Arranged their deaths, yes.”

“What did you do the day before that?”

“What do you mean? Eddy Roe was the first one, on the first day.”

Doctor Gross made a note on his legal pad. “Yes, and the day before, where were you? What did you do?”

Azra shook his head, nettled.

“Were you in heaven? Were you on earth? Were you working somewhere else? Were you a person, yourself, on the day before – a person who got killed and became an angel?”

“I… I don’t… I don’t know…” Azra said. The doctor looked up. His hairy brows furrowed.

“Were you an angel before, charged with some other duty? Or were you a human? You had to be something on the day before.”

“I said I don’t remember.”

Doctor Gross smiled affably. “Well, that’s the first part of sorting this all out. Let everybody else worry about what you’ve been doing in the last fifteen years. We can focus on what you were doing before that. What you were. Who you were.”

“But if I can’t remember-”

“Would you be willing to be hypnotized?” the doctor asked. “The mind often represses memories that cause intense psychological pain. It’s a survival response. But now your survival depends on remembering, not forgetting. Hypnotism is one way to remember.”

Azra looked between the two, his fingers tightening on Donna’s hand. “I don’t know. Hypnotism can introduce suggestions. It can create memories instead of uncovering them. It’s playing with nightmares.”

“We’re already doing that,” urged Doctor Gross, not unkindly.

Donna patted Azra’s hand and wore a grim smile.

“Please, Azra. We have to start somewhere.”

Reluctance ghosted across his eyes. “Yes. Go ahead.”

The doctor’s sigh echoed through the space like a contented wind. “Lean back, Azra. Get as comfortable as you can. Good. Close your eyes. Good. Take three deep breaths: one… two… three… Good. As you draw your next breath, feel the air flowing across your lips, your nostrils, through your nose, down your throat, into your lungs. Feel the lightness and coolness of it. Now breathe out, sending all the heaviness and darkness out with it. Okay, let your next breath go even deeper. Let it lighten and cool you even further, down to your navel and up to the crown of your head. Breathe out all the heaviness from those regions. Good. Your upper body feels light and comfortable, like a cool pillow on a warm window seat in April. Breathe in again, letting the lightness suffuse you to your very toes and the ends of your hair. Breathe out. What is left is soul only, a light and cool and floating creature. Good.

“Leave this place, now. Let your soul drift beyond your body, beyond this room, beyond these walls. Let your soul find its place of bliss, its home, the one place where there is no worry, no fear, no guilt, no pain. You’ve breathed all those things out, and they are gone from you, and now your soul is drifting to the place where those things cannot enter, cannot reach you. Are you there, Azra?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have to, but if you would like to, you could tell us about this place.”

“It’s Donna’s love seat. She’s beside me. The bay window is dark behind us. The TV is showing a play by Tennessee Williams. There’s popcorn in a paper bag between us.”

Donna teared up, biting her lip. Doctor Gross offered her a tissue, but she shook her head.

“Good, Azra. Very good. This is your place of bliss. Nothing evil can reach you here. You are safe here. You can talk about anything in this place. You can remember anything in this place, and do so without guilt or fear or pain.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve brought with you a scrapbook of memories. It is your most precious personal possession. It tells you who you are. Would you like to look at it?”

“I don’t know if-”

“Nothing can hurt you here. No memory can bring guilt or fear or pain.”

“Yes. I would like to look at it.”

“Would you be willing to let Donna look at it, too?”

She shot a fearful glance at the doctor, but he nodded gently at her.

Azra said, “Yes.”

“Share something with her. Open the scrapbook and show her a picture of something.”

“What about this one, here?”

“Yes. That’s a good one. Describe the picture to her.”

“I’m eight years old. That is my bike. It had a banana seat. It didn’t have a sissy bar. I bent the rim jumping a rock.”

Donna blinked, uncertain. “Are you riding the bike?”

“I’m standing by it. My hand is on the seat. There is a yellow house behind me, and an oak tree. The sidewalk is all broken up from the tree roots. That was a good day. Later that week, I fell and scraped my knee, but that day not even once.”

Donna smiled, her eyes watering. “That’s a beautiful picture, Azra. A beautiful picture.”

“Good, Azra. That was a good day. And even remembering that you scraped your knee – that doesn’t hurt now, or make you fearful or sad.”

“No.”

“Good, Azra. That was a good day. Would you like to show Donna another picture, of a day that wasn’t so good? One that had lots of pain and guilt and fear?”

“How about this one?”

“That’s an excellent one. Describe it to her.”

The wind scorpions are gathering on the cell window again. It will be a cold night. They come at dusk, after the rocks and sand have given up their heat and before the bats begin their nighttime feasts. They crawl up the side of the cell and sit on the windowsill and let their bodies soak up the last heat of the day. When the sun is gone, I will be their heat.

I lie on the stone bed and watch the bugs gather. One of them is as big as my hand, which means he is old and doesn’t have much venom left. I call him Bush III because Bush I sent me to Iraq and Bush II sent me to Gitmo – and Bush III, seems he’s got a plan for me, too. He calls his coalition of the willing, and the wind scorpions gather. I count them. Six so far. They are my saints. I venerate them. They alone command my attention, my memory. All else is insignificant. Only the saints, who come every evening to wait like votives on the windowsill, are worth remembering, for they cure the wounds that appear across my body.

Bush III is tending the knee that won’t straighten. The two smaller ones on either side of him – they are sisters. Their needle-like legs are the best ones for stitching up cuts. The one that is waving its head and seems to have a mustache is John Bolton. He tends the wound lowest down on my foot and blesses it. They like to eat dead flesh, so I am a feast. Once the waterboarding and wires and fists are done, I’ve got plenty of food for them. Letting them eat at my wounds keeps me from rotting.

Rot has to go. Only what is holy can remain. Marines come to the bars and tell me to come. I do not, wanting to pray to my saints. One for every wound. But there are only eleven. I have a long way to go. Marines tell me I will regret making them wait. I ignore their insignificant voices. I am a Marine, and no one listens to me.

There comes the twelfth.

And then, suddenly, the bars swing into the room and there are two Marines with them, and wounds are coming faster than wind scorpions.

“-but you are not in that terrible place. You are only viewing it from your place of bliss. Yes. Remember. Good. Good. Two more breaths. Breathe back in the solidity of your body. Settle back into your flesh. Let your soul sigh. One last breath, and you will be fully awake.”

Azra opened his eyes. The hypnotic spell faded away behind walls of pink paint and cinder block and steel bars.

Donna opened her eyes as well, but they were brimming, and her face was the color of paper. She blinked, and a tear dropped from her eyelid and painted a red line down her white cheek.

“Good, Azra,” said Doctor Gross, a smile knifing beneath his mustache. He tried to look pleased, but he wore an expression that he himself would have called an angry grin. “You’ve opened the archive of memory. You’ve begun to touch once again the person you had been.”

Azra bent his head toward the table and rubbed his forehead with his hands. “But they aren’t memories. They’re fantasies. Suggestions. I was talking with my cell mate. That’s where all that stuff about Gitmo came from. It’s all a lie.”

Doctor Gross patted Azra’s hand patiently. “We’ll sort that out, too, in time. Yes, recovered memories and outright fantasies are sometimes hard to distinguish. Sometimes it doesn’t matter. Memories tell us who we were and fantasies who we wish we were. Both tell us a great deal.”

“Don’t equate them,” Azra said, flinging off the doctor’s touch. “I was an angel. Not a human. Not a psycho. I was an angel. The picture of me with the bike, that was only a fantasy. I want so much to be human, my mind concocted a fantasy.”

“Sweetheart,” said Donna, tears standing in her eyes.

“It’s not a fantasy. These memories are the real ones. You are human. You are.”

Doctor Gross rose. “Well, I need to get going. I’ll come back in a few days, and we’ll talk some more. In the meantime,” he smiled sadly, “remember your place of bliss.”

Azra watched him go. Once the teal shirt had disappeared beyond the guard, he spoke to Donna quietly, urgently, “You said you believed in angels.”

“Yes.”

“In fallen angels – in Satan?”

“Yes, in fallen angels.”

“In the Dark Angel who wrestled Jacob at Peniel -?”

“Yes.”

“Then why can’t you believe in me?”

Donna seemed suddenly deflated, and the glow of hope on her features faded away.

Lynda Barnett leaned forward. “I’m going to have to stop this conversation right here.”

“No, you’re not,” Azra said fiercely. “I’m in charge of my own defense!” Lynda rolled her eyes, released a hiss of steam, and slouched back, arms folded, in her chair. Azra turned back to Donna. “Well?”

“Why don’t I believe you?” Donna sought through interior spaces. “Do you know about Herbert Mullin?”

“I don’t.”

“He was a serial murderer in California. He heard his father, who was half a world away in the military, tell him to kill. Vietnam had just ended, and Herbert believed that the casualties of that war had been sacrifices to nature. With the end of the war, nature was growing angry. It was his job to go kill in order to provide more sacrifices and keep California from falling into the ocean.”

“I see.”

“Do you know about Richard Trenton Chase?”

“No.”

“He believed he had soap-dish disease. If you pick up your soap and it is gooey underneath, you have soap-dish disease. It turns your blood to powder. When he was in a psychiatric home, he would capture rabbits in the courtyard and inject their blood into his veins. He was once stopped when leaving an Indian reservation because he had buckets of blood in the back of his truck. It was cow’s blood, but later he hunted humans, drank their blood, and put their livers and kidneys into blenders.”

“Your point is?”

“Both of them were convinced of the supernatural forces that affected them. Both pleaded with those around them to understand, to believe. Both were human. Both died because they could not escape their delusions.”

Azra’s face fell. “It can’t be true, Donna. It can’t. If I was an angel, I was a great servant of God. If I was only human, I was a madman and a monster.”

“Whatever you were before, you’re human now,” she said. “You’re human now. And you have to live.”

“You’re wrong. You’re wrong, and I am going to prove it.”