Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 22:56:32 -0800 (PST)
From: CloseTheCellarDoor <closethecellardoor@yahoo.com>
Subject: Evil is a Man: The Angel Stretched Out His Hand -- chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Here we go again.  This is the third story in the "Evil is a Man" series.

This story is about addiction.  If you're not into it, that's fine--I
suggest checking out the fourth story when I get to it, somewhere down the
road.

Don't make the assumption that the opinions and beliefs of my characters
reflect my own beliefs or opinions.  In fact, in many instances it's just
the opposite.

I love all feedback.  Send it to closethecellardoor@yahoo.com.



THE ANGEL STRETCHED OUT HIS HAND


CHAPTER ONE

Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat."
1 Kings 19:5

*****

I screamed with all of my indignant rage.  The pain that was ravishing my
body had no cause or cure, it just was, and screaming was my only line of
defense.

My fingernails searched out every patch of my burning skin, scratching deep
into my flesh.  I rolled fitfully on a dirty floor in a dark, empty room.
Bars separated me from a man, barely visible in the shadows, smoking a
cigar.  Was this man my prisoner, or vice versa?  I didn't seem to
remember, all I was certain of was that I knew and hated this man.

No, I wasn't even certain of that, not really.  All I was really certain of
was the pain.

My bones were swelling painfully, stretching the skin to its breaking
point.  My elbows were the first to rip through my skin, followed by my
hands and feet.  I never stopped screaming, choosing to focus on the oddly
unfamiliar sound of my voice instead of the insurmountable pain.

*****

My own screams rang through my ears.

"Try sitting him up!"

Cool hands on the fiery skin of my back, pushing me up.

"Brad, wake up!"

"Wake up, bro!"

I opened my eyes--I was in my bunk, where I belonged... but what the hell
was happening to me?  Was I dying?  What was the cause of this pain?

I stopped screaming, leaned over, and vomited up a pungent mixture of bile
and all the night's beer.  Vomit shot through my nose on its quick trip out
of my body, burning my nostrils.

"Oh shit, dude!" yelled Ross, the one who had been holding me up.  I had
just thrown up all over him.

Hushed laughter as Ross jumped away from me, letting me fall back onto my
bunk.  The pain was thankfully starting to go.

How many of them were here?  How many were watching me?  Besides Ross there
was Jimmy, Carlos, Francis...

...And Omar.  Of course Omar.

"What the fuck's wrong with him?"

I felt Omar's hand brush against my forehead.  It was soft, like a woman's
hand.  I wanted him to get it the fuck off of me.

"He's got a fever," said Omar.  "He probably has the flu or food poisoning
or something."

"We should take him to the nurse on duty."

I shook my head with all the strength I could muster.  I was still so
disoriented.

"No!" said Omar quickly.  "It's nothing serious.  I say give it twenty-four
hours.  If it hasn't cleared up by then, I'll take him in myself.  In the
meantime, Francis, go find him a bucket or something to puke in, would
you?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Could the rest of you guys help me clean this up?" asked Omar, but he
could have just as easily commanded them to do it--those idiots were all
under his thumb, they would do anything for the guy.

I fell back asleep as they started to mop up the vomit from the floor.  The
pain was gone, but the remnants of the nights partying still drifted
through my body.  Could I have sobered up and helped those fuckers clean up
my puke?  Sure, but what was the point in that?  I'd much rather sleep,
somehow knowing that the vivid, horrible nightmare would not return.

*****

"Bradley, wake up."

I opened my eyes wearily.  Omar's hand was on me again, this time against
my bare shoulder.  I shook it off and pulled my covers over my exposed
chest.

"You'd better get up, brother."  I hated when he called me brother.  Not
brotha or bro, but brother, like we were monks or something.  Ore even
worse, family members.  We were practically two different fucking species,
and he still wanted to call me brother?  "We're reporting in a half hour."

He went back to getting dressed on the other side of our shared room.  I
staggered out of bed, feeling a bit wobbly, but fine nonetheless.

"Room smells like shit," I said.

"Like vomit, actually."

"Why the fuck didn't you open the window?" I asked as I walked over to the
window and cracked it open myself.

"You were sick last night, I didn't want to give you the chills."  He
looked at me sideways.  "Are you feeling better now?"  His voice sounded
warm and comforting superficially, but underneath I could detect that trace
of self-righteous indignation that was his trademark.

"I feel great," I said.  "Fucking fantastic."  A necessary exaggeration.

"They would have taken you into the nurse last night if I hadn't stopped
them," he said, adjusting his collar while looking at himself in the
mirror.  He was fishing for gratitude here, and, oh how much I wanted to
throw it back in his face.

But I couldn't.  "You always look out for me.  Always got my back.
Thanks... brother."  That last word I had to force out of my mouth, it
almost didn't come at all.

"This needs to stop," he said, the self-righteous indignation now out in
the open.  "You're killing yourself."

"Come on," I said.  "I'm not a junkie or anything."

He raised a disbelieving eyebrow.  Oh, what the fuck did he know?  He'd
never even smoked a joint before.

"You've been watching too many after-school specials," I said.  "I can get
high on my days off without it affecting the job I've signed up to do."

"And if you get sent overseas?"

"Then I'll have to quit, and it won't be a big fuckin deal."

A silence while he thought this over.  "I'd hate to see you get caught,
that's all.  I'd hate to see you get discharged."

I wanted to push him against the wall, knock him in that smug little mouth
of his.  Who was he to threaten me?  But instead I said, "I'll be fine,
don't worry about it," and I headed off to the shower.

Problem was, he would always have this power over me.  Ever since he had
caught me smoking in our room, made me fess up in my moment of weakness
what exactly it was that I had been smoking.  Since then he's been watching
me like a fucking hawk, always knowing when I'd been lighting up by the
haze in my eyes, the odd smoky smell on my clothes.  He'd promised to keep
my little secret between just us, but secret-keeping is just a precursor to
black mail.  Already I had to act like his fucking best friend for fear
that he might turn on me and turn me in.  He had all the power over me.

I hated feeling powerless.  I was supposed to be the one with the fucking
power.  I needed desperately to find a way to get it back.

*****

That opportunity wouldn't come for a couple months, but when it did, I
recognized it immediately.

I stepped out into the Camp Pendleton afternoon sun, a soda in my hand.  It
was Saturday, and the guys were hanging out over on the lawn out in front
of the barracks, where we always could be found when the weather was good
and there was no training to be had.

As I joined the rest of the guys, I realized I was walking in at the end of
Omar's Indianapolis tourist story.

"And then she said to me," here was the punchline, the kicker: "just keep
the friggin' map, buddy."  I mouthed the words as he said them, knowing
he'd inflect the word buddy, saying it with a sharp nasal tone as he
mimicked the woman in his story.

I hardy-har-har-ed along with the rest of them, as if this was my first
time hearing the tale.  It was not--I had heard it three other times
before.  Once on the first day we met, our first day as roommates.  Second
time when he wanted to impress a girl he met at an Oceanside beach--that
girl later became his girlfriend.  The third time was when he and I were
double-dating.  And now it was the fourth fucking time I had to hear about
that fucking map.

All of the guys looked up to Omar, that much was obvious from the way he
dominated the conversation whenever he was around.  I guess it was only
natural, he was the oldest among us at 24, he was the most educated, a
good-looking guy, and a good marine.  He had a charm that made him a
natural leader.  In fact, Omar seemed practically perfect in every way
imaginable.  I've hated the motherfucker since day one.

Was I being unreasonable?  Absolutely not.  It wasn't my fault that I was
the only one in the whole USMC with enough brains to see through him.  His
perfection was all just a carefully constructed show, a tool to gain
respect, a weapon.  He pretended to like us, pretended to be one of us, but
really he looked down on all of us from his perch of elitism.  He didn't
enlist hoping to make friends, he enlisted to find poor lost souls to
worship him.

Just take for example his "reason" for enlisting.  Most of us had practical
reasons... we needed the money, we didn't know what the hell else to do
with ourselves, so we joined up.  He regularly fed people some bullshit
about how he enlisted to prove to the country that Muslim-Americans were
just as American as the rest of us, how he felt a responsibility to help
out his country in this time of need.  Biggest load of shit I had ever
heard out of a marine's mouth, and we had some big shit talkers among us.

I grabbed the bag of Cheetos and thrust it towards him.  "Want some?" I
asked, then I pulled the bag back quickly.  "Oh, what am I thinking?  It's
Ramadan, and you're fasting... you couldn't eat these even if you wanted
to."  I grabbed a handful of Cheetos and stuffed them into my mouth with
pleasure.

"No shit, you're fasting, dude?" asked Ross.  "Like a fucking monk or
something?"

"Shit, how are you supposed to perform during the exercises?"

"Muslims are some twisted sons-of-bitches... what do we Christians do
during religious holidays?  We eat... fuckin feast, man.  Muslims fucking
starve themselves for a whole fucking month."

I was pleased with myself.  To the guys, nothing was sacred, anything
different about you was likely to get made fun of.  It was so easy to get
them going on the one thing that separated us from Omar.

 "No, we don't starve ourselves for a whole month," he was trying to
explain.  "We just can't eat when the sun's up."

But nobody would listen to his rationalizations; they were having too much
fun teasing him.

"I gotta take off," said Omar eventually when he had reached his breaking
point.

"What is it, time to bow to the east?" laughed Jimmy.

"Just gotta make a phone call.  Later guys."

When he was out of earshot, I said, "Phone call my ass.  He's got a bunch
of Snickers hidden under his bed.  I seen him sneak some of that shit in
broad daylight, no joke."  It was a complete lie on my part, but it made
him look ridiculous, and that was always my intention.

The others laughed and carried on.

"None of you motherfuckers better tell him I told you that, got it?"  I
puffed out my chest a bit as I said this, reminding them that I was the
fiercest guy here, and if they fucked with me, I would beat their asses.
None of them ever fucked with me.  They respected me almost as much as they
did Omar.

"Hey," Carlos said to me.  "Omar knows we're just fucking around with him,
right?  He doesn't take that shit to heart, does he?"

"Omar knows that," I said.  "Don't worry about it.  He thinks it's a riot
when you guys work him over like that."

I excused myself and went back to my room, where Omar was reading the paper
on his bed.

"Don't pay any attention to those fuckers," I told him as I came in.
"They're not like you and me, bro.  They're all ignorant hicks with no
fucking worldliness whatsoever."

He put down his paper and considered this.  "They're not all that bad," he
said.  "A little ignorant, sure.  A little insensitive, definitely.  But
they're good guys.  They'll learn."  Ugh, he was even a graceful victim of
bigotry.

"I wouldn't fucking count on it," I told him.  "You should hear the way
they run their mouths the moment you step out."

"Yeah?" he said.  I could feel his impeccable confidence shaking.

"Yeah, but don't worry about it, bro.  We don't need those fucks, we look
out for each other."

He said nothing, but forced a slight laugh and nodded in agreement.  I
knew, of course, that he wasn't completely convinced, and he never would
be, not as long as the guys generally treated Omar with respect.  I needed
one of them to really treat him like shit in order for his confidence to
take a permanent hit.  Just one guy, that was all I needed.  But I knew
none of them could be turned against Omar so easily.

I left the room.  As I walked down the hall, a stranger was walking towards
me, a skinny young red-headed, freckle-faced marine with a bag over his
shoulder.  He had a slip in his hand and was looking for a room number.  He
looked anxious and agitated as he walked, like a kid might look on his
first day of kindergarten.

I walked towards him, standing tall and proud, confident.  When he saw me
come he forced a smile onto his face.  I smiled back.

"Hey," I told him.  "Bradley Wheeler."  I offered him my hand.

He reached his hand forward to meet mine, only to realize that he was
holding his paper in that hand.  He nervously stuck the paper in his pocket
and then shook my hand, soft and squishy at first, and then excessively
firm towards the end.

"I'm, uh, Casey," he staggered.

And I already knew this kid was a total mess.

"Where you from, Casey?" I asked him.

"Uh, Miramar."

"Miramar?  You were fuckin' born and raised on Miramar?"

He forced a little laugh.  "No, man.  From Arkansas.  But I was transferred
from Miramar."

"Oh, welcome to Pendleton then," I said.  "How old are you?"

"Nineteen.  Well, not really nineteen, I'm eighteen, but my birthday's only
a couple months away, so rounded off, I guess, yeah, I'm nineteen.  Why,
how old are you?"

"Twenty-three.  Look, Casey, why don't I help you find your room, and then
I can show you around.  I think you'll like it here."

He smiled, revealing his crooked teeth.  "Killer," he said.

I grabbed his bag for him and walked him down the hall, determined to make
a new friend.

*****

That night I was in San Diego, just a quick bus ride from Pendleton, and
where I spent most of my leisurely weekends.

I stood in crappy apartment in a crappy part of town, just another
residential box in this complex full of shady looking residents.

"You're the only one who still buys this shit," said Miguel, a disturbingly
skinny Mexican whose pale, sickly complexion suggested he was addicted to
his own stuff.  Furniture and appliances were always coming in and out of
his dirty place, and he usually always had something new to show off to me.

"Check out my new flat screen," he'd brag.  "Finally I can watch the Padres
in style."

But the next week when I'd stop by his new possession would be gone, and
he'd never mention it again.  If I'd ask where his items went, he'd always
scratch his scraggly goatee and say, "had to get rid of it.  Needed the
cash."  I guessed that the drug business wasn't always kind to Miguel.  But
what the fuck did I care?

"Dust is a dead drug, man, didn't you hear?"  He handed me a baggy filled
with a dozen joints.  I always asked him to roll them himself... he used
dried mint and laced them with PCP.  Dealers used to use weed, but mint
smelled a whole lot better when smoked.  "I always have to search far and
wide for it."

"Don't complain," I said.  "I pay you damn well."

"I'm not complaining, man.  Business is business.  You wanna hang out here
for a while, man?  Check out my new palm?"

"No thanks, man," I said, not wanting to spend anymore time in his shithole
place than was necessary.  "I gotta head over to Shannon's."

*****

Shannon put her hand on my chest.  I looked down at her fingernails... a
couple weeks ago they were manicured with purple, glossy polish.  Now they
were chipped, the polish scraped and dulled.  She never fucking took care
of herself.  Lazy, that was the bottom line.

She nudged her head against my shoulder in bed.  Her tits were uncovered by
the sheet and pushed up against my ribs.  Her breasts were large, but
shaped oddly, already starting to sag at her young age.  I preferred it
when she covered them up, out in the open they grossed me out.

I threw the covers off the bed and jumped out, leaving her alone on the
bed.  I found my briefs on the floor and put them back on.

"Don't you want to stay here in bed with me for a while?" she asked
hopefully.

"Nope," I said, not looking at her in the face.

"What the fuck?" she said.  "You're still fucking pissed off at me, aren't
you?"

I didn't say anything, instead finding my jeans and pulling them on.  She
knew I was still pissed off at her, I was always pissed off at her.

"You're gonna get all pissy just because I didn't suck your cock?  I told
you I wasn't gonna do that any more, didn't I?"  She was raising her voice
now.  Her voice was shrill and grating enough as it is, but when she
shouted, she sounded like a fucking parrot.

"I don't know what your hang up is," I said, trying to stay calm.  I was
the adult in this relationship, and she was the fucking child prone to
tantrums.

"My hangup?  How bout I don't see the fuckin point in giving you a BJ just
to have me left unsatisfied and frustrated.  I mean, what's the fucking
deal, we just had sex, right?  What's wrong with that?"

"It's boring," I said, and it was the truth.  "There's only so much a pussy
can do.  You want to keep a man, you learn how to please him.  Cause
there's millions of other girls out there who would beg to give me a BJ."

"Oh, yeah, they're fuckin' lining up around the block for a chance to suck
your cock."  She jumped off the bed, her saggy tits flying around like mad.
"Are you telling me that you're breaking it off?"

"No," I said.  "I'm not saying that."  I pulled my shirt over my head.
"Put some fucking clothes back on and let's join the party."

"Fuck the fuckin party!" she screamed, but I was already leaving her
bedroom.

Shannon's apartment was a non-stop party.  The dining room table always
offered an assortment of cheap beers, the carpet was covered with cigarette
ashes and vomit stains, and the living room always held at least five
non-residents.  Shannon had two roommates in this three-bedroom place, all
three of them community college students, and somehow they had managed to
make their apartment a bigger party stop than any local fraternity house.
Marines and Navy guys were regular customers, as well as a variety of
college students.

I had met Shannon a couple months ago after showing up at her place one
Saturday night with a few marine buddies.  They had been there several
times before, had always enjoyed themselves, so they invited me along.
Supposedly the apartment was a good place for military guys to find fresh,
young, college cunt, and that attracted me more than anything.  Shannon was
there that night, we met, we fucked in her bedroom, and the rest is
history.

I opened the fridge and grabbed one of the good beers from Shannon's secret
stash in the vegetable bin.  I popped the top and made my way over to the
living room, sitting on one of the couches.  There were several people
here, most of them I didn't know, talking about some shit they saw on MTV
or something.  I wasn't much for pop culture, and wasn't planning on
participating in the conversation.

>From the couch across from me, I noticed Mandy was looking at me--one of
Shannon's roommates, the hot one.  She was tall and slender and wore the
teeniest, tiniest skirts even on the coldest days San Diego had to offer.
I locked eyes with her.  She took a long swig from her bottle of beer,
never losing eye contact with me.

Shannon came stomping out of her bedroom, now fully dressed, thank god.
Her hair was a mess and her make-up was smeared.  She had her purse on her
shoulder and a sour expression on her face.

"I'm hungry," she announced.  "I'm gonna go get a burger."  She nodded at
me.  "You coming?"

"No thanks," I said.  "I'm not hungry."

She rolled her eyes, and then was out the door.  The crowd didn't even
notice her go.

But Mandy sure did.  She raised an eyebrow playfully, licked around the rim
of her beer, and then got to her feet.  She stood right in front of me,
forcing me to look up at her smallish but perky breasts, and smiled down at
me.

"I have something to show you," she teased as she took the beer from my
hand and set both it and her own down on the ash-covered coffee table.  She
grabbed my hand and pulled me gingerly.

I stood up and let her drag me off to her bedroom.  Once the door was shut,
she leaned back against the wall.

"What did you want to show me?" I asked.

"I got a new belly button ring," she said.  "Wanna feel it?"  She didn't
wait for an answer, she just grabbed my hand and pulled it towards her
navel.  I fingered her ring, but it wasn't doing anything for me.  She must
have noticed because she pulled my hand higher, right to her breast.
That's where I left it.

She kissed me then, sticking her tongue into me, but I wasn't into it.

"I don't know about this," I said, pulling back.

"Did I ever tell you how hot I think you are?" she asked.

"Yeah, about a billion times."

"So what's the problem?"

I shook my head.  "I just can't do this to Shannon."

Her eyes flashed with anger.  "That's not what you said when we were
fucking last weekend," she said.

"That was last weekend.  This is now."  I pulled away from her and walked
back towards the door.  "Shannon's a special girl," I told her.  "I want to
make things work."

"You're an asshole, you know that?" she asked, but I never answered.  I was
already out the door.

I sat back down and picked up my beer once again, but the alcohol wasn't
having any affect.  I gave up on it and went outside, sitting on the curb.

I pulled the baggie Miguel had given me out of my jacket pocket and opened
it up.  I pulled a joint out and stuck it my mouth, lighting it with the
beat-up, disposable lighter I always kept in my pocket.

I inhaled the familiar smoky taste.  Ahh, relief.

Yeah, I knew PCP wasn't exactly trendy, but why should I give a fuck about
trends?  I got into it a couple years ago and never let go.  It did it all
for me; relaxed me and excited me at the same time, gave me the euphoria
that I craved without turning me into a bumbling idiot.  Best of all, it
was pure confidence.  When I was on it, I could do anything, be anyone.

Sure, there was always the chance of hallucinations, of delusions, of bad
trips worse than anything acid could give you.  And that was why it was so
hard to find these days.  But I'd never had that problem with the stuff,
and I never would.

Suddenly there was a pair of shiny black shoes in front of me, a man's
pair.  I looked up.  The man was wearing a stylish black trench coat and
black leather gloves.  His tall, wide frame was blocking the streetlamp's
yellow glow.  He was peering down at me through designer sunglasses.

In my normal frame of mind, I would have extinguished my joint immediately
if a stranger were to stop in front of me like that.  But I was not in a
normal frame of mind.  I kept on smoking, looking angrily at the man above
me.

"Who the fuck are you?" I asked him.

"Who the fuck are you?"  Was he asking me, or just mimicking me?

Suddenly he was crouched down, his face just inches from mine.

"What the fuck's your problem?" I asked him.

"Problem?" he asked, driving his leather bound index finger against my
forehead.  "My problem, I'd say, is you."  He said it not aggressively,
like you'd expect, but matter-of-factly, with the corner of his mouth
raising into a smile.

Feeling affronted, I struck out angrily, aiming for his face.  But before
my hand made contact, his face was gone.  He was gone completely, just
vanished.

I leapt up to my feet, a feeling of paranoia washing over me.  Who the fuck
was that guy?

"Curly fries?"

I jumped, startled completely, until I realized it was Shannon offering me
her fast food bag.

"Fuck, girl!  Do ya have to sneak up on me like that?"

"I didn't sneak up on you," she said.  "You're tweakin.'  You lit up
already, didn't you?"

"Nah," I said, trying to play it off.  But that only lasted a brief second
before I broke into laughter and she hit me with her fast food bag.

"You motherfucker," she said.  "You should have waited for me.  Come on,
hand it over."

"Not out here," I said, looking around again for the disappearing guy.
"Inside.  Some weird dude just came up to me out here.  Just fucking
vanished into thin air."

"A homeless guy?"

"No, he was dressed real nice."

"He was probably just one of the partiers.  He probably went inside."

"Jesus Christ, I hope not," I said.  "Besides, he looked older than most of
the guys that come over here."

"Hmm, older guy, has money, sees you alone on the street curb, comes up to
you.  He probably thought you were a whore and was trying to pick you up."
She shrugged.  "Either that or you're fucking nuts, and you imagined the
whole thing."

*****

"So what do you think about Omar?" I asked Casey.  It was Wednesday night,
and the first time in the past couple of days that I had gotten a chance to
speak to him alone.  We were in his room, having a couple beers.

"Omar?  I don't know," he said.  "Haven't really thought about it.  What do
you think about him?"  He was being indecisive, unable, like usual, to
express an opinion that might contradict my own.

This was how it had been since our introduction.  Because I was decent to
him, because I looked out for him, he followed me around and hung on my
every word, trying oh so hard to impress me every change he had.  As soon
as I introduced him to the other guys, he had known how much I was
respected around here, and he valued the friendship I offered him that much
more.

He belonged to me.  He was my pawn.  He would think how I told him to
think, and do what I told him to do.

"We get along fine as roommates," I said.  I took a swig of beer, swirled
it around my mouth, and swallowed it.  "But, can I tell you something, just
between you and me?"

"Yeah, of course, man, I won't tell nobody, my word's as good as gold."

I sat forward in my chair and gave him a stern stare.  "I mean it, whatever
I tell you stays in this room."

"You know it, man."

I sat back again.  "Well, I know that our military is supposed to be
politically correct.  You know, equal opportunity and all that.  And most
of the time that shit isn't so bad.  But in the case of Omar's kind, I
think they're making a big fucking mistake."

His eyes went wide with interest.  "Islams, you mean?"

"Muslims, yeah," I said.  "It's a twisted religion.  Backwards.  Evil.
Every other Muslim is a goddamned suicide bomber it seems like."

"You don't know how true that is.  My cousin back home, she was a good
Christian girl, you know, an angel.  Then in high school she started dating
this middle-eastern guy, right?  Next thing you know she's fucking
brainwashed, wearing the black veil and shit.  She took off.  They caught
her at a train station, trying to light a bomb in her shoes.  Crazy, so
fucking crazy."

Casey had a penchant for inventing these long, unbelievable stories on the
spot, although this one was the worst of its kind I had heard so far.  If I
wasn't trying to stay on good terms with the guy, I would have called him
on his bullshit, for sure.

I nodded enthusiastically.  "Yep, that's a damn shame what happened to your
cousin.  But they're all like that, these Muslims.  They seem normal at
first, but give them time, and they'll blow."  I shook my head.  "Omar
should have never been let in.  On the battlefield, we wouldn't be able to
trust him.  Cause if you did, that's when he'd turn on you, that's when
he's stick a bullet in your fucking head."

"Yeah, like fags," Casey offered.  "Shouldn't be in the armed services,
cause who knows when they'll try to fuck you, you know?  Can't trust em."

"Exactly," I said.  "I'd tell Omar to his face what I really think about
him.  Problem is, I'd get kicked outta here for that."

"Fucking marines, too politically correct for their own good," he said.  He
was parroting back to me what I had already told him.  The conditioning was
working fast, probably because Casey had about the lowest IQ of any marine
I had yet come across.

"If only there was a way to get our feelings across without getting blamed
for it," I paused here contemplatively, for effect.  "I don't know.  Here,
bud, have another beer."

*****

Later on that night, I had just gotten into bed when Omar came into the
room with a towel around his waist, fresh in from the shower.  Everybody
else took morning showers, but Omar showered at night, further proof that
he was an absolute freak.

I shut my eyes when he came in.  I didn't want to have to make small talk
with him.  I opened my eyes again when I heard him open the dresser drawer.
His back was to me and the towel had dropped to his ankles.

Omar had a well-developed body, not as nice as mine, but definitely above
average.

I watched as a drop of water fell from his black hair onto his neck,
dripping down his spine along his back, and traveling into the top of his
ass.

I flipped over in bed, feeling my dick begin to stiffen.  I hadn't had sex
since Saturday and now even my roommate was starting to look attractive--a
problem I often had towards the end of the week.  Worst part about it was,
there was no way to jack off when you shared a room with a guy who had the
exact same schedule as you.

Omar got into his bed and turned out the light, and still I could not calm
myself down.  My dick was harder than ever, throbbing, screaming for
attention.  I slipped my hand down into my briefs silently and grabbed a
hold of it, trying to force it to settle down.  But of course touching it
just made it worse.

When Omar's long breaths signaled that he had fallen asleep, I got out of
bed and threw some clothes on.

A half hour later I was in Oceanside, on the beach, leaning against a
jagged rock and looking out towards the Pacific.  I had the beach to
myself; not many beach-goers on a Wednesday night in the when it as almost
winter.  A strong, cold wind was coming in from the ocean.  I pulled my
jacket tight around my body.

I fished a joint out of my pocket, looked around me to make sure I was
alone, and lit it up.

I took a satisfying puff or two, and gazed out into the dark water.  The
waves were large and tumultuous.

I took a long, deep drag.

And then I thought I saw something in the water.  And then it was gone.  A
moment later, the object reappeared, just an indistinct blur in the dark
waves.

I leaned forward and squinted.  What the hell was that?  A boat?  No, it
was too small.  Some marine animal?  A shark, perhaps?

The object was growing bigger, it was getting closer.

"Jesus Christ," I said out loud.

It was a person out there.  I could see its head, its arms splashing
through the waves.

It was a man.

"Oh shit," I said to myself as I realized that this idiot out there was
probably drowning.  What was he, a surfer who lost his board?  How fucked
up mentally do you have to be to go out in the water at night when the
waves looked like that?

I saw the guy wave his arms around again.  Oh no, was he expecting me to go
rescue him?  Shit, I'd probably drown in the attempt.  And if the ocean
wind was any indication, the water was fucking cold.  I almost expected to
see icebergs floating around out there.

But I couldn't just leave the guy to drown, could I?  I was a Marine for
Christsakes.  I hadn't busted my ass through boot camp, getting railed on
by the DI's by the minute, just so I could sit here and watch this poor
motherfucker drown out there.

I got to my feet, putting out my joint in the sand.  "Hey!"  I yelled out
to him.  "Do you need help?"

He hollered back, but I couldn't make out the words with the overwhelming
sound of the waves.

I shouted louder, cupping my mouth this time.  "Do you need help, man?"

"No!" he shouted.  He had gotten closer, now I could hear him.  "Just out
for a swim!"

"Crazy motherfucker," I mumbled.  I picked my joint out of the sand.  There
was still some good stuff here.  I returned to my rock and sat back down.

"Woo-hoo!" shouted the insane swimmer guy who was coming out of the water.
It was too dark for me to see him clearly, but I did notice that instead of
trunks he was wearing pants.  No fucking wet suit though, so he clearly
wasn't a surfer.  "Nothing like a swim in the ocean to remind you of
nature's divine power, huh?"

Apparently he was talking to me.  The last thing I wanted was to start a
conversation with this nut.  "Uh-huh," I said, trying to project my
disinterest.

Oh great, now he was coming towards me.  I buried the joint back in the
sand as he came, looking away to my left, hoping he would detect my
emotional distance and leave me the fuck alone.

No such luck.  Next thing I knew, there was a pair of large, tan feet
beside me.  "Thanks for almost coming to my rescue like that.  But I was
never in any danger."  His voice was deep, with a subtle foreign accent.
This guy was not from around here.

"No problem."  As I said it, I turned to look up.

At first I was a little floored by the physical impressiveness of the guy.
He was tall, real tall, and cut and muscular.  I could tell by his size
that he must have been some kind of athlete.  Not a football player or a
weightlifter, he wasn't massive, he was just really well built, with no
sign of fat on his body.  Of course, only someone as athletically built as
he was would have gone swimming out there in those kinds of waters.  He was
white, but really tan--obviously the guy had been spending a lot of time in
the sun, probably swimming.

His body caught my attention first, but as I looked up to his face, my
heart almost jumped out of my chest.

This was the same fucker who I had seen in front of Shannon's apartment on
the weekend.  I almost hadn't recognized him without the sunglasses, but it
was him.

"You're, you're... you!"  I said, scooting back defensively into the rock
and away from him.

He smiled.  "Yes, most definitely, I am me."

"What the fuck do you want?" I asked him.  "What are you doing here?"

"I was swimming in the sea," he said, pointing to the ocean as if it might
be hard for me to pick out without his direction.

"So let me get this straight... you're saying we are just coincidentally
meeting up again?"

He shrugged.

"Bullshit.  You're stalking me or something.  You'd better get the fuck
away from me, man."

"You're scared of me," he said.  "Don't be sacred of me."

"I'm not fucking scared of you!"

"Good, I'll sit down then."

He sat down beside me, leaning back against the boulder.  "Doesn't the
ocean breeze feel fucking great?" he asked me.

"It's freezing," I said.  "Don't you have a goddamn shirt to wear or
something?"

"You want me to put on a shirt?"

"Don't you think it's a little too cold out here to be goin' around in just
a wet pair of torn-up jeans?"

"Are you concerned for my health?" he asked, smiling at me.  "These are the
only clothes I have.  Are you offering me your jacket to wear?  Your shoes,
maybe?"

"Not fucking likely," I said.

He had an amused expression on his face.  "I didn't think so.  Don't worry
about it.  I like the feeling of sand between my toes."  He dug his feet
into the sand for a moment, then turned to me with a look of surprise.
"Hmm?  What's this?"

He pulled his left foot out of the sand.  In between two of his toes was
the half-burnt joint I had buried before.  He picked it up with his fingers
and showed it to me, his eyes accusing.

"How should I know?" I asked defensively.  "It's not mine.  People leave
their shit everywhere around here."

"You're lying," he said.  "I saw you smoking one of these the other night,
remember?"  He lifted it up to his nose and sniffed.  "This sure as hell
isn't tobacco."

"Who the hell are you, some sort of beach bum narc?"

He laughed.  "I'm not a cop, don't worry.  But you should quit this shit
before it kills you."

"Shut the fuck up," I said, not having any patience for unsolicited advice.

"And you shouldn't litter," he said.  "You want some little kid to dig this
up?"

"Who the fuck are you?" I asked.

"They call me Sam," he said, but I wasn't up for introductions.

I got to my feet and started walking in the direction of town, angry that
my peace had been disturbed by this clown.

But he was on his feet in an instant, following alongside me, determined to
be even more of a disturbance to me.

"You didn't tell me your name," he said as he followed me away from the
beach and onto the sidewalk.

I ignored him, I wasn't going to let him know how much he was getting to
me.  Normally I'd probably threaten violence, hit him if it came down to
it, but this guy was much larger than me.  Even with my military training I
couldn't be sure I'd be able to take this guy.  So I kept walking, hoping
he'd go away eventually.

"Wait, wait.  Don't tell me.  Let me guess.  I'm pretty fucking good at
name guessing if I don't say so myself."  He thought for a moment.
"Hmm... Hank?  Is it Hank?  No?  John?  Stuart?  Shirley?  None of those?
Brad?"

I shot him an angry sideways glace, shocked that he had actually guessed.

"Brad?  That's it, isn't it?  Brad.  Fuck, man, how do I do it?"

I stopped, turned around, and faced him.  "Look dude, why are you following
me?  Where do you live?"

"Around," he said.

"You have a car here?  Where's your transportation?"

"I don't own a car," he said.

"No home, no car, you're a goddamn bum, aren't you?"  He didn't reply, he
just stared at me.  "Thought so."  I pulled out my wallet, removed a dollar
bill, and shoved it in his face.  "Take it and get lost," I said.

His eyes never left mine, they refused to acknowledge the dollar I was
offering.  "I'm not so easily bought," he said.

"Fine."  I pulled out another bill.  "There's a five.  Tell you what, you
can take the five, and the one if you just leave me the hell alone."

"I don't want your money.  Why don't you save it for your drug habit?"

I turned around and kept walking into the town.  Most of the buildings were
dark and deserted.

"It'll take a lot more than money to get rid of me, my friend."  That
European accent was really starting to drive me crazy.

"I'm not your fucking friend."

Finally I came to a business with its lights on--a liquor store.  Perfect,
I could really use a drink about now.

"You're gonna get booze?" asked crazy Sam as soon as I shifted my direction
towards the liquor store.  "You really need another mind-altering substance
in your body tonight?"

"Go away or I'll call the fucking police," I told him.

"Who are you kidding, Brad?  If you call the police, they'll search you as
soon as I tell them you have drugs on you.  Don't make empty bluffs, man."

I pointed at a sign in the store window.  "No shoes, no shirt, no service.
You've got neither, bro, I suggest you take a hike."

"Thanks for your concern, Brad, but I don't think the staff will mind."

I walked into the store, and Sam came in behind me.  The fat Mexican behind
the counter nodded to me as I came in.  I pulled a single bottle of beer
out of the refrigerated section and took it to the counter.

"ID please," said the Mexican.

I fumbled around in pockets.  "Look, man, I forgot my ID.  But I'm a
Marine, I come here all the time.  I'm 23."

The Mexican raised an eyebrow and looked at me.  I knew he was buying it.

"He's lying," blurted out Sam from behind me.  "He's only 18."

"Shut up motherfucker, and get out of the fucking store!" I snapped.

The Mexican looked absolutely astonished at my outburst.  I knew I wasn't
getting that beer anymore.

"Hey, calm down friend," said Sam.

"I'm not you're goddamn friend, you filthy little immigrant piece of
worthless shit.  Go back to your own fucking country and leave me the fuck
alone!"

I turned back to the Mexican, and was staring into the barrel of a gun that
he had just removed from under the counter.  I jumped backwards in
surprise.

"Get out of my store, you racist son-of-a-bitch."

"Now you've done it," chided Sam.

"Whoa, whoa, put down the gun man.  I wasn't talking to you, I was talking
to him."

He looked confused.  "To who?"

I pointed eagerly towards Sam.  "Him!  The crazy, wet blonde guy, he's
pretty hard to miss."

But the Mexican seemed to only get more confused.  "What kind of bullshit
is this?  Me and you are the only two in the store."

"What?" I asked.

"He can't see me, Brad," said Sam.

"Is that true?" I asked the Mexican.  "You can't see him?"

"He can't see me.  Only you can see me, my friend."

The Mexican pushed his gun towards my face.  "Get out, you fucking psycho."

"Alright, I'm leaving, calm down."

With my arms in the air, I left the liquor store, being trailed by Sam.  I
spotted an old man walking along the sidewalk across the street, and I ran
straight for him.

"Hey, you!" I yelled.  He stopped as I approached him, looking up at me
fearfully.  "Tell me something."  I turned around and pointed at Sam, who
was moseying across the street after me.  "Can you see that man?"

The old man followed my finger, looking towards Sam, but he was focusing
out in the distance, squinting.

"No," he said finally.  "I don't see the man."

"Will it help if I come closer?" asked Sam, standing only inches from the
old man.  "How's this?"

"You don't see him?"

"Can't say I do, sorry.  Guess my eyes are pretty shoddy."

"Fuck!" I exclaimed.

"Thank the man for his time and let him on his way," Sam told me.

"Fuck you," I said, hurrying down along the street away from the old man.
Of course Sam was following me once more.

"You believe me now?" he asked me.  "You're the only one who can see me,
Brad."

I stopped walking, pulled the bag of joints out of my jacket pocket, and
looked and the remaining bunch.

"Fuckin A," I said.  "I'm hallucinating.  I don't believe this."

"You're not hallucinating."

"I am hallucinating.  It happens.  It's never happened to me before, but I
should have expected this.  You only appear after I get high.  Fuck, I
should have known.  No real person could have just come out of the ocean
like fucking Aquaman."  I poked him in his bare chest.  "You're just a
fucking figment of my imagination."  I kept on poking him in the chest,
then I moved my hand up and began slapping him on the cheek.  "I can do
what I want with you `cause you're not even real."

After several slaps, he grabbed my wrist and held my hand tightly in place.
"If I was a hallucination, would you be able to touch me?  Would I be able
to hold you like this?"

I laughed, pulling my hand away from his.  "Yes.  Hallucinations aren't
just audio/visual, they make use of all five senses."  I turned suddenly
and started walking down the street again.  "Oh my lord I'm a fuckin nut,
talking to myself like this.  Okay.  It's cool.  So you're hallucinating.
That's a perfectly common side effect of your drug of choice.  You can
handle this."

"Maybe you should go clean," said Sam from behind me.

I spun around and advanced upon him.  "Don't give me any fucking advice!" I
snapped.  "If it wasn't for the dust, you wouldn't even exist, so you'd
better be thankful!"

He set his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it lightly.  "Hey, calm down
buddy."

"Don't touch me!" I yelled, pushing away his hand.  I turned and kept on
walking.  "Fuck, why did I have to hallucinate up a wet, half-naked blonde
doofus?  Why couldn't it have been Rebecca Romijn-Stamos coming out of the
ocean instead?"

"I think the two of us need to have good, long talk.  There's a lot you
need to know."

"Shuttup, hallucination, just shuttup.  It's like that Russell Crowe movie,
I just have to pretend you're not there, and you'll go away."

"I'm not gonna go away."

"I'm not talking to you anymore!"

"Fine, ignore me, really I don't care."

I continued, walking along in silence.  If I turned my head back and to the
right, I could see him close behind me.  So I didn't turn my head back and
to the right.  I ignored him completely, determined to not let this
hallucination ruin my evening anymore than it already had.

It wasn't long before I came to a fast food place that was open late.  I
had been there before, and there was always this hot blonde chick behind
the counter.  Last time I was in there, she gave me that "I would fuck you
if I could" look that was unmistakable.

"Late night snack?" asked Sam.

I went to the window and looked inside.  Yep she was there, the only one
working register.  I walked in.

"Something tells me we're not here for food," said Sam as he walked in
behind me.

She did a double take when she saw me come in, and then played it cool,
looking away from me and cleaning the counter.

"Hey," I said, in my deepest, most manly pitch.

"Hey," she returned, smiling.  "You want something?"

"Yeah," I said, looking up at the menu.  I wasn't really hungry at all.  "A
coke."

She raised an eyebrow.  "Small or large?"

"Large," I said, cracking a smile.  "Definitely large."

"Oh lord," Sam said beside me in a frustrated tone.

The girl filled up my cup and rang me up, never breaking her smile.

"I'm Brad," I said as she handed me my change.

"Tracy."

"I think you're really hot," I said under my breath.

"What a line," said Sam.

She looked down and smiled nervously.  "Give me one sec," she whispered,
nodding back to the other workers in the back.  "I'll meet you outside and
we can talk some more."

"Cool."

As soon as we were outside, Sam started ripping into me again.

"Hey, what about Shannon?" he asked.  "You know, your girlfriend?"

"Shannon doesn't satisfy me anymore.  What else can I do but look for
satisfaction outside the relationship?"

"Do you know how fucked up that sounds?  You can't cheat on your girlfriend
just because she won't give you oral."

"What are you, my fucking conscience or something?"

"Yeah, that's right," he said.  "I'm the goddamned angel on your shoulder,
trying to guide you down the right path.  Maybe you should shut up and
listen for once."

I had about all I could take of this boy scout.  I spun around to give him
a piece of my mind.  "No, you listen, motherfucker.  Stop preachin, shut
the fuck up, and get out of my face and back in my fucking head."

My words didn't seem to phase him at all.  He was looking passed me, and
pointing towards the window of the restaurant.  "I think you just lost your
window of opportunity, buddy."

I turned to face the restaurant.  She was standing there, watching me with
increasing anxiety.

"No, you don't understand," I yelled at her through the glass.

I grabbed for the door handle, but she had already locked it.  What a
fucking cunt she turned out to be.  I flicked her off through the window as
she backed away fearfully towards the counter.  She called out to the guys
in the back, and two kitchen workers came out to leer at me.

I turned and walked away before they called the cops or something.

"It's for the best," said Sam behind me.

I turned around, raising my clenched fist.  "Hallucination or not, I'll
fuck you up right now if you don't leave me the fuck alone."

He sighed.  "I'm not leaving."

I went for him.

He took a step back.  "Don't hit me, Brad.  I'm warning you here."

And so of course I took a swing.  I hit him square in the jaw.

"Ahhh!"  It was a yell of pain, and it came from my mouth.  My hand felt
like it had shattered into a thousand pieces, and yet his face hadn't even
budged.  I opened my hand and studied it.  It was trembling.  Had I broken
it?

"Let me see," said Sam, grabbing onto my hand suddenly.  He wiggled and
pulled at my fingers, pressing into the bones of my hand with his fingers.
"You're fine," he said, throwing my hand away.  "Don't hit me again."

"Wait a second," I said.  "Since you're just a hallucination, I can't hit
you anyway.  So why does my hand hurt?"  Then it came to me.  "Oh fuck.
This is like Fight Club, isn't it?  You're Brad Pitt, I'm the other dude,
and I'm not hitting you, I'm hitting myself."

"You watch too many movies.  Go home and go to bed, tiger, you have to get
up early tomorrow."

"Thanks, Mom.  I guess you'll be tucking me in?"

"No, I'll leave you right now if you swear to call it a night."

"I swear to fucking god I will if it gets rid of you."

"Deal."

As soon as I parted company with my hallucination that night and starting
heading back home, I swore to myself that I'd never touch dust again, not
if it meant another conversation with my fucked up creation.

With perseverance and a strong state of mind, I managed to stay clean.
Yep, completely fucking sober, for two whole days.

*****

On Saturday morning I reached my breaking point.  The last two days living
drug free had fucked with my body, making me weak and tired, sick
sometimes.  And after all, it was my weekend, and I just wanted to kick
back, unwind a bit.  I didn't know how to do that without a little dust.

Omar was out somewhere, so I smoked in our room, locking the door and
shutting the blinds beforehand like I always did.

I pulled a joint out of my bag and studied it, praying that it wouldn't
make me hallucinate again.  "I'll just smoke half," I told myself.

I lit it, and took a deep drag, feeling my agitated body relax.  A couple
more puffs and I was completely under its spell.

I looked around the room, looking for anything bizarre or out of place,
anything that might have been hallucinated.  But there was no sign of
anything unusual.  No fucking blonde guy harassing me, that was all that
mattered.

I smoked the whole joint.  Then I pulled out a second and smoked that one
too.

*****

"I think we should just fucking do it," Casey told me that afternoon, alone
again in his bedroom.  "Send that son-of-a-bitch a message, you know?  Show
him that Americans will not be fucked with."

"You know I can't do anything," I said.  "If I was involved, they'd find a
way to pin it on me.  I'm his roommate for Christsake.  If it's gonna
happen, you're gonna have to do it on your own.  I don't know if you're up
to it."

"You fuckin kidding me, man?  You should have known me in high school.  I
was like unstoppable.  GTA, B&E, whatever, you know?"

"Right, man, so you were a stud back in high school.  Well this ain't high
school no more.  You can't just talk, you gotta do it, man.  Are you down?"

"I'm down."

 *****

"You're doing a horrible, despicable thing," my hallucination told me,
seemingly appearing out of nowhere.  I was alone in Shannon's bedroom,
smoking dust, hoping the hallucinations were done and gone with, that I
could just enjoy myself in peace for one friggin' night.  And then he came
along.

"You're back," I said.  "Fucking fantastic."

"Damn right I'm back," he said.  "I have a lot of work ahead of me here.
You're one hell of a fixer-upper, I'll tell you that much."

I was on the floor, my back against the foot of Shannon's bed.  He moved
right in front of me, looking down upon me.  His trenchcoat, sunglasses,
and shiny shoes were back, as was his self-righteous demeanor.

"Thanks for putting on a shirt this time, hallucination."

"Omar's your fucking friend.  You ever think about that?"

"Why are you always standing above me like that?  It makes me nervous.  If
you're gonna hassle me, at least have the decency to sit."

"Fine by me," he said, sitting on the ground beside me.  "You gonna talk to
me now?"

"Well, hallucination--can I just call you Hal?"

"Call me by my fucking name if you don't mind," he said.  "Sam."

"Well, Sam, the thing is--do you want a joint, Sam?"

He frowned at me, answering me with his look of disapproval.  Then he
reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

"You smoke?" I asked, surprised.

"All the time," he said, sticking the cigarette in his mouth, crumpling up
the pack, and jamming it back in his coat pocket.  "Last one."

"Wow," I said.  "My conscience smokes.  How cool is that."

"It's a bad fuckin' habit, that's what it is."  He pulled a silver Zippo
lighter from his pocket, lit it with a quick snap, and raised the flame to
his lips.  For a moment, his black shades reflected the fire at the end of
his cigarette, before he shut the lighter and stuck it back in his pocket.
Right then I became convinced that my hallucination was loads cooler than I
ever was.  I didn't know whether to be jealous or proud.

He started to chuckle coyly suddenly.

"What are you laughing at?" I asked him.

"I know what you're thinking," he said.  "It amuses me."

"What, are you fuckin psychic or something?"

He just raised an eyebrow at me, taking a long drag.

"What a stupid-ass question," I said.  "You're from my head, of course you
know what I'm thinking."

At that moment Shannon walked in.  She was dressed in a pair of men's
jogging shorts and an oversized concert T-shirt.  She had no make-up on and
she hadn't even pretended to do her hair.  This is the way things were
progressing in our relationship.  At first she had looked real nice, real
put together.  Now, the more comfortable she got with me, the less she
tried to look good.  I knew things would only get worse.  A few months from
now she'd probably be a fat slob.

"Who are you talking to, crazy?" she asked me as she plopped onto the bed,
propping up her chin with her hand and looking down at me over the foot of
the bed.

"Just my friendly little hallucination I've been seeing since I started
smoking Miguel's latest batch."

"No shit, you're hallucinating?"

"Yeah, been seeing this same annoying dude since last week."

"You shouldn't smoke that batch anymore," she said.  "It could be tainted
or something."

"I think that's sound advice," said Sam.

"Hell no, I'm not just trashing this stuff.  It's working fine, potent and
everything."

"Well, you should at least go over to Miguel's and give him a piece of your
mind," she said.  "So what's this hallucination like?"

"He's an opinionated motherfucker with a big mouth," I said.  "Always has
something to say about me."

She laughed.  "What does your hallucination think about me?"

I turned to Sam.  "Well?  How bout it?"

He exhaled a billow of smoke.  "I think she's a troubled young woman."

"He thinks you're totally fucked up," I told her.

"I didn't say that."

"Is that all?" she asked.

"No," Sam offered.  "Like you, she's a good person in the core.  She has a
lot of great qualities.  But her relationship with you is totally unhealthy
and self-destructive."

"He says we're hopeless as a couple," I said, laughing.

She hit me upside the head.

"Why you hitting me?"

"Cause those words are coming from your head."

"I can't help what my hallucination says."

"Give me some dust," she told me.  "Maybe if I smoke it I'll be able to see
your invisible friend too."

Sam shook his head as I gave her a joint and lit it up for her.  "What a
pair you make," he said.

She hung her head over the bed and smoked upside down.  "Nope, no
hallucinations," she said.  "Too bad.  I hallucinated once on acid, did I
tell you that?  There was this fake flower in my room, a pink rose bud, and
it fucking bloomed right before my eyes, turning into the most beautiful
rose I've ever seen."  She smiled as she took another drag.  "I was so
fucking proud of myself, because it was all me.  I made something so
fucking beautiful.  It was like I was God for a moment."

"Why do you always have to get so heavy when you get high?" I accused her.
"I'm hungry.  What kind of food do ya got?"

"Nothing," she said.  "Nothing to eat but beer and cigarettes."

"I'm going shopping," I said.

"Right now?" she asked.

"Why fucking not?"

*****

I was in the soup aisle, looking for ramen, the cheapest meal there ever
was.  The only other person in the aisle was a short, mousy woman in her
forties with stringy brown hair.  Above me, out of the corner of my eye, I
noticed an object hurtling down towards me.  I jumped and cried out as a
bundle of flowers landed in my basket.  The stringy haired woman looked up
at me in alarm.  Then a small box flew over the shelves and into my basket
as well.

"Did you see that?" I asked the woman, my heart still pumping from the
shock.

"See what, dear?  Did something startle you?"

Obviously she had not seen the objects fly into my basket at all, they must
have been more hallucinations.  I pulled the flowers up and held them in
front of her.

"Do you see these?" I asked eagerly.

"Oh, yes," she said, slightly bewildered now.  "Daisies.  Lovely, dear."

If they were my hallucinations, how could she see them?  I pulled the small
box out of the basket and showed her.  "And these?" I asked.

"Contraceptives," she said, and I realized that I was holding a box of
condoms.  "Looks like you've planned a nice evening ahead of you."

I smiled awkwardly, and she went back to loading her cart.

Then, Sam came leaping over the shelves, just like the flowers and condoms,
landing gracefully on his feet (on the floor, not in my basket).

"Flowers for Shannon," he said.  "You're always such an ass to her, it's
time to do something nice and unexpected."

"You just launched them into my basket from the other aisle?" I tried to
whisper, but the woman was still looking up at me suspiciously.

"Yes, what's the big deal?"

"Okay, fine, I'll get the flowers.  But I'm not getting the condoms.  I
hate condoms."

This was all the woman could take.  She quickly put a can into her cart and
pushed out of the aisle.

"You shouldn't be having sex if you're not wearing condoms," said Sam.
"What happens if she gets pregnant?"

"What do you think?  She'll get an abortion."

"Have you even talked about abortions with her?"

"No."

"Well then, how do you know she even believes in them?  Do you really think
you're old enough and mature enough to become a father?"

"Fine, I'll get the goddamned condoms."

He smiled at me, glowing at his victory.  I swore it would be his last one.

Sam was beside me at the checkout as the cashier rang up my groceries.

"Ask for a pack of Marlboro's," Sam told me, hitting my arm.

I said absolutely nothing.

Sam jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow.  "Ask him!"

"Cigarettes are bad for you," I said.

The cashier looked at me blankly.  "Yes, they are.  That's why I don't
smoke."  He must have thought I was a retard or something.

"Good for you," I told the guy.

"Will that be all?"

"Yes, definitely."

Sam poked me hard in the temple.  "Fuck you."  He then pushed me into the
counter.

"Whoa, son, are you okay there?" asked the cashier.

"I'm fine," I said.  "The floor's just a bit slippery is all."

When I got back to Shannon's she was astonished to receive the flowers I
had bought.  "You must be fucking loaded to buy me those," she told me, but
she was happy to accept them.

She saw the box of condoms and was eager to try them out.  As I started to
undress, I told her that I couldn't do it with my hallucination hanging
around in the room watching me.

"How inconsiderate of me," said Sam.  "I'll leave."  He smiled wolfishly,
waived, and walked out the door.

"Did you just see the door open and shut?" I asked Shannon as she pulled
her shirt off, her saggy tits oozing down onto her stomach.

"No," she said as she pushed me onto the bed.  "Don't worry, crazy, you're
just hallucinating again."

*****

"My god, Bradley, my god.  Who would do this to me?"

"I don't know, Omar.  Someone who's really fucked up in the head."

The two of us had returned from our lunch together.  He had been the first
one to enter our room.  I heard his gasp before I actually saw any of the
damage.

His sheets and mattress shredded.  His dresser emptied, his clothes ripped,
and his pictures smashed.  And then there was the graffiti.  I could still
smell the chemicals from the spray paint in the air.  "Fuck you Muslam,"
was in huge, red letters over his bed.  Another wall held the messages
"Remember 9-11," "Fuck Allah," and "Go back to Iraq."

"I'm not even Iraqi," said Omar.  I could tell by his shaky voice that he
was almost in tears.  "My family is Turkish."

"I know, Omar.  Obviously whoever did this is a complete moron.  Look how
they spelled Muslim.  A bigoted moron, that's who did this."  I shook my
head with disgust.  "Too bad the Marines are so full of bigoted morons."

"I can't believe anyone could have this much hate."

"I can believe it," I said.  "It's horrible to say, but I'm not surprised
about this.  It was only a matter of time before one of those fucks lashed
out like this."

He went back to look at the door.  He wiggled the doorknob.  "The door was
unlocked when I got here," he said.  "You were the last one to leave the
room.  Didn't you lock it?"

"I think so," I said, then I scratched my chin doubtfully.  "I don't know,
maybe I forgot to."

He looked annoyed with me, disappointed.  "How could you have forgotten?"
His voice was stern but calm.

"I'm sorry," I said, shrugging my shoulders.  "You know how absent minded I
can be."

He sighed.  Was he suspicious?  I didn't think so.  He walked over to the
phone and picked it up.  "Who should I call first?"

*****

They came in.  Took some pictures, questioned both of us, but they were
just wasting their time.  They weren't going to find the culprit.  Even
searching all of our rooms for signs of the spray paint wasn't going to be
of any use, Casey had already gotten rid of all of any incriminating
evidence long before they started snooping.

They asked Omar not to alert the media about this incident, and he
complied.  They told us the investigation was ongoing, but only a couple
days after it happened, we saw no sign that anyone even remembered the
event.

Except Omar.  He became sullen and withdrawn.  When the other guys came to
offer him their support, he brushed them off.  He suspected everyone, and
would no longer be able to trust any of us.  His confidence, once proudly
unshakable, was now in ruins.  I knew this was the beginning of the end for
Omar the faultless Marine.

I had won the war.  It was time to celebrate.  When Omar went out one night
to meet his girlfriend for dinner, I pulled out my baggie of dust.

Two and a half joints later, and although I was lying on my bed, I felt
like I was floating somewhere near the ceiling.  I was on fuckin cloud
nine.  Not even Sam's sudden appearance in the room dragged me down in the
least.

"You're killing yourself, my friend," he said, sighing and shaking his head
sadly.  "You're making all the wrong choices."

"Am I a bad person, Sam?"  I wasn't asking him out of remorse, I was just
teasing him.

"You're not a bad person, you just do bad things."

I laughed.  "Since you're my hallucination, then I guess somewhere inside I
believe what you're saying to me.  But then, how come I don't feel any
guilt?"

"I'm not a hallucination, Brad.  I'm an angel."

I laughed.  "An angel, huh?"

"Yes."

"My guardian angel?"

"For now I suppose that is accurate, yes."

"Wow, my own goddamned guardian angel.  This is great.  I guess you already
know that I don't believe in angels.  Angels, god, Jesus... none of that."

"I know, Brad.  But, here I am.  It's time you re-evaluated your beliefs."

My imaginary friend was getting more and more elaborate the more I got to
know him.  I must have been one creative motherfucker to hallucinate up
someone like him.

"Okay, Sam," I said, smiling at him.  "If you're really an angel, how come
you don't have wings?"

"I have wings.  You just haven't seen them."

"Well, show them to me then," I said.

"Not now, Brad.  Another time."

"You're lying, you don't have any fuckin' wings, do you?"

"Fine, you want to see the wings so badly, I'll show you the wings.  Don't
see what difference it makes, but I'll show you anyway."

He pulled off his trenchcoat and put it on the dresser.

"You're stripping?" I asked.

"You want to see my wings, don't you?"

"You're not going to take your pants off, right?"

"No, Brad, no need for that.  The wings come out of my back, not my ass."

He pulled off his shirt and set in on the dresser.  Now he was naked from
the waist up, facing me.

"Where's the fucking wings?" I demanded.

"Just be patient."

He closed his eyes and lowered his head, as in prayer or deep thought.
Then, all at once, just as he had said, wings appeared behind him.

"Holy shit," I said.

He looked up at me, smiling.  "Satisfied?"

I got up off the bed in utter amazement, slack jawed and wide eyed.  I took
a moment to look over my hallucination in front of me, for once giving into
the marvel of it all.

He was tall, well over six feet, much, much taller than my 5'8" foot frame.
His limbs were long, filled up with thick layer of ropy sinew.  His skin
was perfectly smooth and covered with a deep tan.  His chest was hairless
except for a light covering of blonde hair on the top of his defined pecs.

His musculature was magnificent.  Huge biceps, big, round shoulders, large,
cut pecs, and yes, my angel even had a six-pack.  It was everything I
wanted to be, everything I worked in the gym for, but while I just had a
muscular body with no real definition, his body was perfect.

His face was equally perfect.  The most beautiful man I had ever seen.  Not
an effeminate beauty, but a rugged, masculine sort of beauty.  His long
face, strong nose and chin, cut jawline covered with stubble, and
expressive cheekbones.  Those deep, blue eyes, so wise and compassionate.
Those perfect lips and his straight white teeth showing with his disarming
smile.  His short blonde hair bleached by the sun.

And behind him, his wings.  Oh, those wings, not like a butterfly's or a
soft dove or fairy wings or anything else frilly or elegant, these wings
were rugged and powerful, like the rest of him.  They looked like an
eagle's wings, only white, and they were so fucking big.

"Eight foot wingspan," said Sam as if he was reading my mind, and of course
he was.

They were as beautiful as the rest of him.

I reached forward and touched one of the stiff white feathers in my
fingers.  He batted his wing back.

"Sorry," he said.  "That tickled.  Okay, go ahead and touch them."

I reached forward again and touched the feathers.  I would have done it
with or without his permission, he was my creation after all.  My
beautiful, perfect creation, a creature so remarkable he should have been
sculpted out of marble.  I was overwhelmingly proud of myself, that my mind
could create something like this.

"Shannon's rose don't got nothing on you," I said as I fingered my way
through the hard ridges of his wings.  Suddenly, with the euphoria of the
drug running through the blood in my brain, I got the urge to move my hands
to the body of my creation, to explore my work once again, this time with
the sense of touch instead of sight.

"Hold on," Sam told me.  "We have company here."  He nodded towards the
doorway.

I hadn't even heard the door open, but there was Omar, standing in the
frame of the door, not in or out, just watching me.

I was too high to read the expression on his face.  I was too high to
become upset or angry that he had been spying on me.

"Omar, you're back," I said cheerfully.  "Come in."

He stepped all the way inside.  I crashed down on my bed.

"Who were you talking to just now, Brad?" he asked suspiciously.

I looked towards Sam.  His wings had disappeared, and he already had his
shirt back on, his coat in his hand.  "An angel," I said.

"Don't tell him that, you idiot," Sam chided.

"An angel?" asked Omar.

"Well, not really an angel," I said.  "An imaginary angel.  I'm not crazy,
I know he doesn't really exist."

"Well, that's good," said Omar.  "But you talk to him anyway?"

"Shuttup about me," urged Sam.

"Yeah, kinda hard not to when he stalks me like he does.  He likes to tell
me what to do."

"When this angel tells you what to do, do you listen?"

I thought about it.  "Sometimes I guess.  I don't know."

"You're digging yourself a damn deep hole," said Sam.  "This is exactly why
you shouldn't abuse drugs, you turn into an moron incapable of making any
positive choices for yourself."

"I am NOT an moron, motherfucker," I barked.

"I didn't say you were," said Omar.

"I was talking to the angel."

"Alright, I'm leaving," said Sam.  "You can stop referring to me now.
Please, please stop referring to me now."  He quickly walked out through
the door, shutting it behind him without Omar noticing.

"How much did you smoke today?" Omar asked me.

"A little more than usual, I guess," I said.  "The normal amount wasn't
cutting it anymore."

"Uh-huh," said Omar.  "You gonna call it quits for tonight?"

"Sure," I said, yawning.  Smoking more dust wasn't the least bit attractive
to me at the moment.  What I wanted was some sleep.

"Good."

I curled up and went to sleep, blissfully unaware that I had just set in
motion my speedy discharge from the USMC.

*****

I was pulled off duty the next day and called in for a urine drug test.  I
knew as soon as I pissed into that little cup that it was fucking over for
me.  "Just a random test," they told me.  If it was just random procedure,
then why the hell was I the only one pissing into plastic?

>From that moment on, I bided my time, praying that there would be some
lucky oversight or something.  Maybe PCP was so rare these days that they
didn't bother to test for it.

No such luck.  Two days later they told me the news.  I had violated my no
drug contract with a serious narcotic.  The amount of PCP in my system made
me an extreme hazard to my fellow Marines.  I was done.  They offered my
forty-five days suspension before I had to go if I agreed to use the time
to enter drug counseling.

I told them to shove their forty-five days up their asses and got ready to
leave that afternoon.  The only one who knew about it was Omar.  I didn't
want any awkward good-byes from any of the others.  Omar would eventually
tell them why I was discharged, and they would all shake their heads
shamefully.  "How could he think he could just get away with that?" they'd
ask.  I'd become just another example of what not to do for the new
recruits.

Nobody cared that I really had nowhere else to go.  No family to go back
to, no savings account to live off of.  I had always thought of the armed
forces as being my only real chance at any sort of greatness.

Now, all my chances had been squandered.

*****

I was in my room, throwing all my shit into a bag.  I never had much of
anything, so there wasn't much I'd be taking away with me.

"Where will you go?" Omar asked, looming by his bed, by his new mattress
and new blankets under his newly painted wall.

"To Shannon's I guess."

He hesitated for a second.  Then took a deep sigh.  "I told them about the
PCP, Brad."

That disclosure lighted a spark somewhere inside of me.  "I knew it was
you, you little bastard."  I could have hit him right then, but I managed
to keep myself in control.

He was staring me straight in the eye, totally level-headed.  "I was
worried about you," he said.  "You need help.  You need treatment."

"You're just so fucking heroic, aren't you?  You're full of shit.  You just
wanted me gone.  Wanted your revenge."

He raised an eyebrow.  "Revenge for what?" he asked.

"I know you blamed me for what they did, even though I couldn't have done
it, I was with you the whole fucking time."

"You don't know me at all if you think that," he said.

I ignored his comment.  "I didn't do that shit, but they were right about
you.  You don't belong here, you never did.  The Marines is not the place
for middle-easterners and their ass-backwards, fucked up beliefs.  Go back
to fucking Turkey.  Fight for those Turkish monkeys if you want to fight,
but don't fucking destroy my armed services from the inside out."

He looked disdainful, regretful, but he still stood tall and strong.  "So,
I finally see your true colors, Wheeler.  You've been wanting to say those
things for a long time?"

"Damn right."

He scowled.  "You were never my brother."

"Nope," I said as I zipped up my bag and threw it over my shoulder.  "I
think you've been mistaking me for Osama bin Laden."

"Get out, Bradley.  You're a monstrous, spoiled little child."

I walked towards the door.  "When you do get called over to fight this war,
I hope you're the first to die, violently, at the hands of one of you're
Sadam-loving brethren over there."

I slammed the door behind me, and headed out of the barracks.

*****

I stood on Shannon's apartment doorstep at dusk, my bag in my hand.
Usually I just walked right in, but today the door was locked.  From the
silence inside, it sounded like the perpetual party had taken a night off.

I knocked on the door.  No response.  I knocked again.

Was she not here?  One glance towards her car in the parking lot told me
she was.

I pounded on the door.  "It's me!  Let me in!"

At first there was no response.  Then I swear I heard some sort of movement
inside.

"Stop playing around and open the fucking door!"

No response.

"I'm not letting you in," she said finally, in a serious, resigned tone of
voice.

"Yeah?"  I said.  "Why the fuck not?"

"Me and Rachel got in a fight with Mandy.  We kicked her out.  She told me
what you two did."

My stomach twisted.  This was one fucking bad day for me.  I had to think
fast.  "What did we do?" I asked, sounding both confused and completely
innocent.

"You know what you fucking did, Brad!"  Now she was yelling.  She saw
through my bullshit.

"She came onto me, yeah, but I told her to forget it.  That's all that
happened, babe, I swear."  Usually, if you admit to just part of the truth,
you can get away with the rest of it without any damage.

"You're a liar," she said.  "You're lying to me."  Obviously she wasn't
falling for my tricks.

"Come on, Shannon.  Let me in, at least talk to me face to face."  At least
I still had my charm.  I could convince her to take me back.

"No, I want you to get out of here."

"I don't have anywhere else to go."

"Maybe Mandy will take you in.  Now get the fuck away from the door."

"Shannon, fucking open the door right now!"

"No, Brad.  Don't make me call the cops."

"Ugh!" I yelled, slamming my fist against the door in my anger.  "Alright,
bitch, forget it.  Fuck!"  I kicked the bottom of the door as hard as I
could with my foot, then turned and stormed off.

I walked along down the sidewalk, fuming.  I didn't know where I was going,
but I needed to walk.

I wasn't particularly surprised when Sam showed up on the street beside me.

"You've made your bed and now you have to lie in it," he told me.

"Shut the hell up," I said, not in all in the mood to hear his reprimands.

Then a disturbing realization came to me.

I hadn't smoked all day.  I wasn't stoned.

"There's no reason why I should be seeing you right now," I said, stopping
cold.

"Seems like you need me now more than ever."

"Oh my god," I muttered.  I knew what was happening to me.  I had heard
about hippies and stoners who had dropped acid tainted with some bad
fucking chemicals.  They damaged their brains with the shit.  Eventually,
they weren't just hallucinating when they were stoned.  They were
hallucinating all the time, sober or not.  They would sometimes hallucinate
for years, even after quitting.

Shannon was right.  Miguel gave me a tainted batch, and I've been smoking
this shit for days.  And now I have brain damage.  And I'll be
hallucinating this motherfucker up for years to come.

It was a maddening thought.

I reversed my direction and ran off towards Miguel's apartment.  I wasn't
gonna let the skinny little rat get away with that shit.

*****

"Please, please let me up."

I dug my knee into Miguel's back.  "Not until you tell me what the fuck you
gave me."  I twisted his scrawny arm until he cried out in pain.

"Nothing, I didn't do nothing, man, I swear!"  His mouth was agape, and the
hair and dust from the filthy carpet was getting in his into it as he cried
out.

"Don't fuckin lie to me!" I yelled, grabbing the back of his head by his
greasy hair and smashing it into the floor.  "I want my money back," I
said.  "All of it!"  Now that I was jobless and homeless, I really needed
that money.

"I don't have the money anymore, man, it's gone!"

I twisted his arm tighter and tighter, knowing that I could probably
dislocate his shoulder.  "Don't... fuckin... lie."

"Ah, you're gonna break my arm, man!"

"I don't give a fuck."

Suddenly I felt hands around my torso, ripping me away from Miguel on the
floor.

"Let him be!"  It was Sam's familiar voice.

"Why should I?"

Sam set me on my feet but held onto my arm forcefully.  "Because he's an
innocent."

"He's a fucking drug dealer!"

"Who are you?" asked Miguel, gaping up towards us.

"A friend of his," Sam answered.

"Well, get him outta here, please."

Absolute shock.  "You can see him?" I asked Miguel.

"Who, the blonde guy?"

I shook Sam's hand off my arm and walked out the door of the apartment.

No, no, I couldn't believe this, I couldn't accept this.

"Are you okay, Brad?" Sam asked, coming up beside me.

"You're real," I told him, terrified at the implications.

He smiled big.  "That's what I've been telling you all along," he said.

If I had never been hallucinating, then that meant he really was invisible
to everyone but me.  He knew things about me that I had never told him.
And in the bedroom, when he showed me those wings...

"Yes, Brad, I'm an angel, just as I told you before."

No.  I didn't believe in angels, in the supernatural.  What did all of this
mean?

Take a breath.  This is real and this is happening to you.  Don't think
about it too much, that will only drive you crazy.  Just accept it, accept
it passively.

Sam was laughing at me.  "It's good that you're coming to terms with it.
Just remember that I've chosen to show my true nature to you and you only.
I ask you to keep that secret, always."

"It's not like anyone would believe me if I told them I'd been
communicating with an angel.  They'd probably lock me away."

He nodded.  "Yes, probably.  So keep that information to yourself, for your
own good."

Right then my stomach growled.  It had been a long time since my last meal,
I realized.

Sam smiled at me.  "You're hungry.  Let's get you something to eat.  It's
my treat.  Anywhere you want to eat, we'll go."

"You have money to pay for food?"

"Sure."

"Let's go to a taco shop," I said.

"I offer to treat you anywhere, and you pick a taco shop?"

"I don't need anything fancy.  I just want a burrito."

*****

We sat at an outside table of the dingy little taco place, me devouring a
massive two dollar burrito, and Sam smoking a cigarette across from me.

"So, do you finally believe that I am a real angel, Bradley."

"I believe you're real, and that you're not entirely human.  But an angel?"
He was asking me to believe in a whole religion that I found to be
superstitiously silly and completely impossible.

"Do you want be to bust out the wings again?" he asked.  "Is that what it's
going to take?"

"No," I said.  "I've seen the wings, I know you've got `em.  But what gets
me is, you're asking me not just to believe in angels here, but to believe
in God, and Heaven, and Hell, and all the rest.  Isn't that right?"

He took a long drag and shrugged.  "Yeah, that's right," he said.  "Have
some faith, Brad, that's all I'm really asking of you here."

"So, what are you then, Della Reese, sent down by God to turn my life
around?"

"God didn't send me to you," he said.  "At least not in the form you're
envisioning... some old, white-bearded guy commanding me down from the
clouds to look after you.  No, I haven't had a direct conversation with God
for many years.  I found you myself, chose you myself, although I like to
think that God is in everything I do."

"Why me?"

"Because you haven't committed unforgivable sin, but you're edging towards
self-destruction.  Because I knew you were strong enough mentally to know
my nature, to have irrefutable proof in some greater power, but to keep it
to yourself and live a normal life when I leave you.  These are the
characteristics I look for in all those I accept as my keep."

"So basically you're saying that it's because I'm totally fucked up,
right?"

He shrugged slightly.  "Basically, yes.  I'm trying to stop you from
committing unforgivable sin--the really bad shit.  And to turn your life
around for the better."

"Wait a second," I said.  "If you're an angel, how come you cuss all the
time?"

"God is not so petty to be offended by foul language.  God did not invent
cuss words, man did, and man should not be so arrogant to think that any
words of his invention may have the power to disturb the Almighty."

"Okay," I agreed.  "But what about the smoking?  Angel's don't smoke."

He blew a billow of gray smoke from his parted lips.  "Who says?"

"Well, did you ever see any classical painting or sculpture of an angel
with a cigarette in their mouth?  No.  And what about your goddamn German
accent?"

He looked offended.  "Russian, it's a Russian accent."

"Yeah, your Russian accent?  What, did you come from the Russian part of
Heaven or something?  If you're an angel, shouldn't you be able to lose the
accent?"

"There's good reasons for both of these things," he said.  "But for you to
understand, I'll have to give you a brief rundown of angel history."

"Go for it.  I still got more than half of this burrito to eat."

He nodded, sitting back in his chair and adopting a scholarly way about
him.  "I assume you know the origins of Satan?  He was an angel that was
cast out of Heaven by God and sent to have dominion over Hell."

"Okay.  God gets vindictive and kicks Satan out of the clouds.  Got it."

He smiled at this.  "Let's just say, you don't fuck with God if you know
what's good for you.  Anyway, that took place during the formative years of
the human race.  A long, long time ago.  Much more recently, all of the
rest of us angels fell into God's disfavor."

"What did you do?"

He hesitated.  "It's not important to this explanation.  Let's just say he
was mighty pissed off with his angels, and banished them from Heaven and
sent them permanently into Purgatory."

"Not Earth?"

"No, Purgatory."

"So how did you get here?"

"Well, God sent one of angels down to Earth, just one."

"That's you?"

He threw his arm out in front of him in a gesture of frustration.  "Will
you let me finish the fucking story here?"

"Sorry."

"This angel, who was NOT me, after some time, realized he could summon
other angel souls from Purgatory into the bodies of men, serving as divine
hosts."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He sighed again.  "Let me explain my history to you.  I was born in 1879,
in Russia, a normal man like you.  In 1915 I was selected by the angels to
be a host body.  They summoned the soul of the angel named Samuel into my
body.  I got my wings at that time."

This was all very confusing to me.  "So who are you now, the angel or the
Russian guy?"

"I'm both," he said.  "I have two souls."

"Two souls in one body."

"Correct."  He finished his first cigarette and moved on to another.

"And you're immortal now?"

"Not quite.  I can't age, I don't get sick, but I still can die."

"And if you died, would you go to Heaven?"

"My human soul would go to Heaven.  My angel soul would go back to
purgatory, where hopefully it would eventually be summoned back to Earth
again."

"Reincarnation, then."

"Sort of, yes."

"What is Heaven like?"

"I don't remember."

"You don't remember?  It must not be all that special."

He locked eyes with me.  "God stripped us of our memories when he sent us
away, as a necessity.  We are here on Earth to help humanity.  If we had
memories of our old existence as angels in Heaven, by God's side, we'd be
completely despondent with our current fates.  We'd be unable to function
as a part of God's great plan."

"So all you remember is your time on Earth?"

"That's right.  Sometimes I get little glimpses and flashes of something
greater, but it's fleeting."

"Okay, that explains the accent.  What about the smoking?"

He chuckled, holding out his cigarette and getting a good look at it.  "God
gave angels a weakness for chemical addictions.  I smoked before, as a man.
The angels almost denied me the privilege of serving as a host because of
that addiction.  But, I convinced them.  Now, I need to smoke every few
hours or I'll slip into withdrawal."

"Can't you just quit?"

"I probably could, but not without a major ordeal.  Cigarettes aren't a
bothersome habit.  Tobacco isn't mind-altering, after all.  I can live with
it.  As long as humanity still produces cigarettes, I'll keep the tobacco
companies in business."

Something occurred to me.  "So, if God booted you from Heaven, doesn't that
mean you're a fallen angel?"  It was definitely a cool idea.

He frowned.  "When men think of the term fallen angel, they imagine an
angel that is in league with the devil.  That is not what we are.  We are
in God's service still, we've just had a change of venue.  A demotion, if
you will."

"And what have you been doing since 1925?  Wandering the Earth like Michael
Landon in search of lost souls like myself?"

"More or less," he said.  "We chose a subject, and we lift them to a higher
ground.  Then we leave them for good."

"And that's what you want to do to me?  Lift me to a higher ground?"

"You're life is a mess, Bradley.  You need my help to get it straightened
out.  If you give in to me, I promise you'll end up happier and healthier
for it.  A better person."

"What if I say no?"

"No is not an option here.  It's my duty to stay with you until either
you're a changed man, or you commit unforgivable sin."

"What's unforgivable sin?"

"You take part in the rape or murder of an innocent."

"What will you do if I commit unforgivable sin?"

He didn't answer that question, he just stared into my eyes.  Something
about the way he looked at me told me it wasn't a pleasant possibility.

"Well, I didn't ask for this help," I complained.  "I didn't ask for some
angelic nanny or therapist or whatever you are.  I've had a bad day, I'll
admit that.  But I'm in control of my own life here, and I'll do what I
want with it.  Angel or no angel, I don't need you following me around,
wiping my ass for me."  I got up suddenly and grabbed my bag.

"I have to follow my duties, Bradley."  There was a weary sort of
disappointment in his voice.

"You do what you have to do, just do it the hell away from me."

I took off, walking briskly down the street.  After a few yards I looked
back.  He was still sitting there, smoking his cigarette, and looking up at
the stars.

I hoped he had gotten the picture.  But just to be safe, I knew I needed to
get the hell of San Diego.  No reason to stay anymore anyway.

I took a taxi to the bus station and bought a ticket to LA.  I had a
powerful desire to see my brother there.  I'd get a motel and find him
first thing in the morning.

*****

I leaned my head against the glass of the bus window and peered out at the
people walking here and there in the San Diego bus station.  The bus was
still loading and unloading passengers--I had been one of the first to get
on.

Outside, a chubby boy of about nine was waiting eagerly for someone to
arrive, there with his wholesome-looking mother.  Finally the kid spotted
who he was waiting for, a balding man in his late thirties, his father.
The kid's eyes lit up as he ran over to the man, who picked him up in his
arms and spun him around.

"Seat taken?"

I turned to face the aisle.  There was Sam, standing there smiling at me,
pointing to my suitcase on the seat.  Damnit, I just couldn't get rid of
him.  I had put my bag there with the hopes that no one would try to sit
next to me.

"Yes it is," I said.  "This seat's for my bag.  Find another place to sit."

"I doubt your bag paid for a bus ticket."

"Not like you paid for one either."

Sam grabbed my bag, threw it down on my lap, and sat down.  People were
still piling into the bus, obviously it was really going to fill up.

"Oh, great.  A two hour bus ride stuck next to you.  Can't you find another
fucking seat?"

"But then I wouldn't get to sit by you, and we both know how much I enjoy
your company."

"Obviously, or else you wouldn't be stalking me like you do.  Anyway, since
you're fucking invisible and all, someone's probably going to sit right on
top of you."

"No they won't.  Look around you.  Everyone has noticed you're talking to
yourself.  Nobody wants to sit next to the crazy guy on the bus."

"I'm not fucking crazy!" I yelled.  Everyone around me went silent for a
moment and looked at me, then turned away and shrugged anxiously to their
neighbors, rolling their eyes.  "Fine, you're right," I said.  "I'll just
shut up then."

An older woman got on the bus, heavy with wild gray hair.  I kept my mouth
shut until she came to my row.

"Excuse me, ma'am," I said to her, smiling warmly.  "Would you like to sit
next to me?"  I pointed at Sam's spot invitingly.

"Oh, I'd love to," she said.  She spun her big behind around and stuck it
right upon Sam's lap.  Then, shocked, she got up and spun around again.
"Oh!" she said to Sam.  "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there."

Sam smiled cheerily at her.  "No problem.  Happens all the time.  I guess
I'm just one of those people that you don't really notice until you, well,
until you sit upon them."

"Oh my, no.  You're the most handsome character I've ever seen on a bus."

"Oh, thank you, Miss."  Sam was obviously loving the attention.  I was
completely appalled.

"Hey lady, you'd better find a seat before this bus takes off and you fall
over in the aisle," I barked at her.

"Oh, right."  She gave Sam an extra long squeeze on the shoulder as she
went on back.

"Wonderful woman, wasn't she?" asked Sam as the bus pulled away from the
station.

"Okay, smartass, tell me how you did that."

"Did what?"

"You know what, turned visible all of the sudden."

"I'm not invisible, Brad, that's preposterous.  If I was invisible, would
you be able to see me?  I don't think so."

"Then how come nobody else can see you?"

"Because I erase myself from their minds.  Psychically.  I am constantly
emitting a psychic cloak, if you will.  Nobody can see me or hear me unless
I directly interact with them, as with the woman who just passed.  But by
now, even she has forgotten that she ever saw me, ever spoke to me.  Watch
this."

Sam stood up, leaned over the big black guy who was sitting in front of
him, and snatched the Sports Illustrated out of the guy's hands.

"What the fuck do you think you're doin'?" the guy yelled, turning back
towards us.

"Excuse me, sir, but this magazine is mine," said Sam as he sat back down
in his seat.

"No, it fuckin' ain't," said the angry black man, getting up in his seat
and trying to snatch his reading material back.

"Oh my god," said the woman sitting in front of me, next to the black guy.
"Give him his magazine back, you psycho."

Sam didn't respond, he just thumbed through the magazine, completely
disinterested in the guy in front of him that looked about ready to
throttle him.

Then, after a few seconds, the black guy looked around as if he was
suddenly very confused.  He turned to me.  "I'm sorry, bud, did you say
something to me?" he asked.

"Nope," I said.

"Oh, never mind."

The guy turned around and sat back in his seat.  The woman beside him had
already forgotten her outburst completely and was playing a game on her
cell phone.

"See?" said Sam, shutting the magazine and looking at me with
self-amusement.  "Gone and forgotten."

"Hey baby, have you seen my magazine?  I thought it was right here."

"Haven't seen it.  Maybe you forgot to bring one."

"No, I just had it."

"Well, maybe not completely forgotten," Sam said.  He leaned forward and
tapped the guy on the shoulder.  "Is this your magazine, sir?  It slid
under the seat."

The guy smiled happily as he took the magazine back.  "Bingo," he said.
"Thanks bud."

"No prob."  Sam looked at me and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, "aren't
you impressed?"

"Okay," I said, "so whatever you touch they can't see and forget about?"

"Right, well, it's more complicated than that," said Sam.  He grabbed my CD
player from my bag and held it up in the air, waving it around.  "Nobody
can see this now except you, but what happens if I let go of it?"  He
started tossing it up and down, smiling at me, obviously enjoying the
demonstration.

"Careful with that, it's my only fucking CD player," I reminded him.

"See, I'm tossing this into the air and they still can't see it.  That's
because the mental cloak I've created lasts for a little while even after
I'm not touching the object anymore.  But if I put this down," he set my CD
player in the middle of the bus floor, "after a few seconds, they'll be
able to see it again."

Just as he finished the sentence, a young woman across from him grabbed the
CD player and held it up into the air.  "Is this someone's?" she asked no
one in particular.  "It was on the ground."

"Uh, that's mine," I said.

She looked at me with suspicion, probably because I had been talking to
myself the whole trip thus far, but nobody else was claiming it, so she
tossed it my way.  I quickly put it back in my bag, where it would be safe
from anymore of Sam's demonstrations.

"Thanks," I told the woman.  "So, can you cloak living beings the same
way?" I asked Sam.  "Could you make me invisible?"

"Umm, I'm sorry," the young woman across the aisle asked me.  "Are you
still talking to me?  Cause I don't know what you're talking about."

"No," told her sharply.  "Quite clearly I'm talking to my invisible friend
sitting beside me."

She rolled her eyes and turned away from me.

"Yeah, I could cloak you as well," Sam told me.

Suddenly he was scooting up against me, invading my physical space.  He
lifted his left arm up and I realized he was going to put his arm around
me.

"No, no, no," I whispered.  "You are not gonna put you're fuckin arm around
me, dude."

"It won't work unless we are touching, substantially."  He tried to put his
arm around me again.

"What are you, a fag or something?" I yelled out, pushing his arm away.

The big black guy spun around in front of me.  "Did I just hear you call me
a fag?"  His tone of voice was anything but friendly.

I had to think fast.  "No," I said.  "I was just, uh, talking to myself.  I
guess I've been questioning my sexuality lately."

"Fuck that shit," said the black man.  "You called me a fag.  You've been
hasselin' this whole damn bus ever since you got on."

Other people were turning to look at me, as angry as the black man was.
The woman in front of me.  The woman across the aisle.  Would the bus
passengers form an angry mob and lynch me at 65 mph on Interstate 5?

I turned towards Sam, slid my right arm behind his back, and pressed my
chest up against him.  "Good time to make me invisible," I said, leaning
heavily against him.

He put his left arm around my shoulders, chuckling softly at my
predicament.  "It'll take a couple seconds.  Just don't say anything."

One moment, they were all looking at me with angry disgust.  Then, they
were all looking around, confused.  Seconds later they had all returned to
their normal activities, completely forgetting how much they hated me.

"See?  There you go, as invisible as me."

"This is fuckin' cool, man," I said.  "Hey, motherfucker!" I screamed at
the guy in front of Sam.  "You are a fag, and I hope you burn in hell,
shitface."  The man made no response, and I took that as an agreement to my
accusation.  I looked up at Sam.  "We should rob a bank or something!  We
could just grab the money and walk right out, and they would never know
they had ever been robbed!"

He groaned.  "You don't know how many times I've heard that proposition."

"You ever do it?"

"No!  That would be wrong."

"Oh right, the whole angel deal."

I didn't know whether or not the other bus passengers would remember their
anger for me again if I let Sam go, but I wasn't going to risk it.  As the
bus traveled north, I held onto Sam for dear life, and he never complained
or removed his arm from around my shoulders.

I actually sort of enjoyed it, the contact, the closeness, although I never
would have told him that.  I was never much for physical expressions of
affection, they had always made me uncomfortable.  If a friend were to try
and hug me, for instance, I would stiffen up or try to pull away.  I always
felt invaded.

But there was nothing invasive about Sam's touch, it was completely for my
benefit.  For the first time all day, I felt like my life was more than
just a pile of worthless shit.  It must have been a pure chemical reaction
my body had to his contact, endorphins or some hormone or something
released into my blood stream that provided me with the same sort of
euphoria that dust gave me.

But like I said, I would never have told him these things.

"This is going to be a long fucking ride holding on to you like this."

"Oh yeah?"  He laughed nonchalantly.  He was totally immune to my
complaints and insults, I knew that by now.

"You're clothes stink like cigarettes," I said.  "So what's your plan?  You
gonna follow me all the way to LA?"

"Seems that way," he said.  "What are we doing there anyway?"

"Looking for my brother.  He lives there, somewhere."

"You have a brother?" he asked excitedly.  "I didn't know you had a
brother.  Younger, I presume?"

"Yeah, a year younger than me.  Well, he's not really my BROTHER brother.
He's my foster brother."

"Oh, foster brother, I see."

"He's the only one I ever gave a fuck about when I was growing up.  I
guess, now that everything happened the way they did for me, he's all I
have left."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"I don't know.  A couple years ago, I guess.  We were separated when I was
thirteen.  He was sent around to different foster homes.  I kept track of
him for a while, kept in touch.  But then I just lost him.  But he has to
be somewhere in LA."

He squeezed my shoulder a little harder.  "Wherever he is, we'll find him."

"What's this we shit?  He's my brother, I'll find him."

"Let me help you, Brad.  I'm good at finding the lost."

*****

"Where are you going to stay tonight?" Sam asked me as he followed me out
of the bus station.

"I don't know.  I'll find some motel I guess."

"I have a small apartment in the city.  You're welcome to stay with me
there."

I didn't want to accept his favor.  "I'll be fine on my own."

He looked doubtful.  "How much money do you really have?  Enough to support
yourself for a few days?  A week, tops?  And then what?  Save your money,
and come stay with me.  There's no shame in accepting some help when you
need it."

"Okay, deal.  But the second you start pulling any of your sanctimonious
bullshit, I'll be gone."

"I promise to keep my bullshit to a minimum."

"And your place better not be a total shithole."

"No, not a total shithole."

"Then what the fuck are we waiting around for?  I'm tired, let's get
going."

He led me out towards the street.  "Hey, don't bother being thankful or
anything."

"Why should I?  You're a fucking angel, right?  It's your job to be
charitable."

We took a cab from the bus station to Sam's apartment.  Sam turned visible
to hail the cab, and stayed that way throughout the rest of our journey,
paying the cab driver out of his own pocket.

Sam's apartment was in an old hotel not far from downtown.  It was about
fifteen stories tall, was old, but definitely had character.

"This place was built in the forties," Sam said as we entered the building.

The only staff member in the lobby was a fat, 30ish female receptionist
with horned rim glasses.  She waived and giggled at Sam as we walked in.
"Hi Sam!" she yelled out.

"Hi, Gloria, how've ya been?"

"Same old, same old," she said.  "It's been a long time since you've been
here, I was worried maybe you were never coming back!"

"I always come back, Gloria, you know that."

She turned her perky smile towards me.  "Who's your friend, there?"

"I'm not his friend," I snapped.  Her perkiness deflated.

"This is Brad," Sam said.  "He's had a long day.  So, if you don't mind, I
want to get him down to my room and get him to bed."

Gloria looked a little taken aback by that comment.  "Oh, alright."

"Separate beds," I told her.  "We'll be sleeping in separate beds.  Don't
get the wrong idea."

"Of course," she said.  "You two have a good night, now."

"Goodnight, Gloria."

Finally we were in the rickety old elevator.  Sam pressed a button for one
of the basement levels.  "Most of the building is for overnight guests, but
downstairs there are some larger suites with month to month rent."

"In the basement?" I complained.

"Sure, you lose the windows, but the rent's a whole lot cheaper."

Sam's apartment was small but stylish.  There were basically two large
rooms; one had a couch, TV, a table, and a small kitchen, and the other was
a bedroom with a bathroom off of it.

"It came furnished," he said.  All the furnishings and decorations were in
that 40's, rat pack style.  "Not as nice as some of my other apartments,
but it serves its purpose well."

"How many apartments do you have?"

"A few, in different cities.  Not all that many."

"How much money do you have?"

He laughed.  "Enough.  Feel free to put your stuff anywhere.  There's no
food in the fridge, but that can be rectified soon."

I nodded limply and set my bag down in the corner.

"You must be beat," he said.  "Why don't you take the bed, it's the most
comfortable."

"I'm not going to sleep in your bed," I replied.

"Why not?  Don't worry, the sheets are clean.  I insist."

"Nope.  This is your fucking place, I'm not going to sleep in your bed.
Really I'm not that prissy, the couch will be fine."

"Okay, you win.  Let me get you some blankets then, it can probably get
pretty cold down here at night."

He brought in a huge mound of blankets from the bedroom and arranged them
on the couch.

"Do I really need all that much?  We're not in fucking Siberia."

He gave a slight smile.  "Well, angels don't get cold, so I never know if a
person's getting too chilly or not.  It makes me overcompensate sometimes.
Now, hot, hot we can get."

"Why can't you get cold?"

"There's a very good reason for that.  I'll let you figure that one out."
He sighed, looking at the microwave clock.  "I'm on a different schedule
than you.  If you're all settled in, then I think I'll go out for a while."

"You're going out now?  What could an angel possibly be doing at one in the
morning?  Fighting crime or something?"

"Hey, what can I say?  I'm nocturnal."  He grabbed his keys and headed for
the door.  "I'll try to come in quietly when I return."

"Couldn't you just make yourself invisible from me?"

"No, not from you," he said as he opened the door.  "Haven't you figured
out by now?  You're special.  Goodnight, Bradley."

He shut the door and locked it from the outside, leaving me to ponder his
parting words as I stripped down to my boxers and settled into the couch
for the night.

But I couldn't sleep.  This had been a long, hellish day for me, and now
that Sam had left me alone, I was agitated beyond belief.

I jumped out of bed, dug into my bag, and pulled out the dust.  These
didn't cause me any hallucinations, I reminded myself.  They were
completely safe.

I pulled out a joint and my lighter.  Would Sam be pissed with me for
smoking in the apartment?

No, he'd never smell it through the thick smell of cigarette smoke that
already clung to all the surfaces of this place.

I lit up, and smoked the thing slowly, taking it all in.

Finally, I could sleep.


TO BE CONTINUED