Angel Over My Shoulder Read online

  “I wanted to tell you that I like your Mohawk.”

  She smiled and then looked down and popped the tab on her can. “Thanks.” She sounded like one of those shy geeky kids that she always stared at in school. They always knew all of the answers to the questions, but if you said hi to them they mumbled and ducked…or maybe they only did that with her because she looked like a freak to them—to most people. Was Derek telling her that he didn’t think she was a freak? She peeked at him.

  He leaned forward and whispered, “April wishes she could come out and be original like you.”

  Leslie glanced out to the room. There were only about ten other people present. Rap was blasting from the radio and the smell of weed was in the air. April was sitting on the lap of some thug. And Leslie realized that she looked no different than any of the other four girls in the room; long fake hair, long fake nails, and clothes from a rap video shoot.

  Leslie gave Derek a look that was half disbelief and half-way hopeful. “April is one of the prettiest girls in school.”

  Derek sipped his drink, eyes lingering on her. “To each his own.” He retreated back to the couch while Leslie’s heart went racing. Missy came over to her.

  “Slut.” She grinned. “Go sit next to him.”

  She shook her head slowly. Maybe when the Fentanyl and the beer mixed and she wasn’t feeling like such a dumbass, but not until then.

  Later, she did and it felt good to sit next to him and to talk and bob her head to the music. She almost pulled out The Cure’s tape--almost, but she wasn’t quite that fucked up. But she was obviously somewhat fucked up because Bobby Caldwell’s Open Your Eyes began to play and she jumped up yelling, “Ohhh, that’s my song.” Her Mama and Daddy used to sing it and she had a moment of nostalgia.

  Leslie closed her eyes and moved to the mellow tune, singing softly, feeling her parents through the lyrics and familiar beat. She tuned out the voices of her school mates as they speculated about Bobby Caldwell being a white man that sang jazz as good as any black guy could. Of course that brought up Hall and Oates, Boz Skaggs, Teena Marie and other blue-eyed soul musicians. April broke the mood when she stated that she hated how white people were always trying to claim what had been created by blacks as their own.

  “I’m a play y’all some real music! Let’s see white people try to do this!” She put on a De La Soul album. “Listen to this shit; this is on the NEW tip.” Me, Myself and I came on and Leslie sank back into the cushions of the couch. Everyone was dancing and swaying to the beat exclaiming about how white people couldn’t hang with De La Soul. When Eye Know played she smirked. Derek gave her a curious look and she just shook her head. She didn’t even bother to tell them that De La Soul had used the beats from Steely Dan’s Peg.

  His arm slipped around her as the night wore on. Derek was cool but most girls wanted the bad boys. He wasn’t bad and that was cool by Leslie. As a matter of fact, it was perfect.

  It was summer and no school the next day. They partied until well after one, and then Leslie began to worry that her grandmother might wake up and wonder where she was. Before they left, Derek gripped her hand without saying anything. Leslie stared into his brown eyes before smiling shyly. Yeah…

  When Missy dropped her off in front of her house, she barely waved goodbye. She hurried up the porch stairs and unlocked the door. Paranoia had set in and in her mind she pictured her grandmother pacing the floor worried, or worse...

  But the house was quiet. She peeked into her grandmother’s room. It still smelled closed up and stuffy, the TV still reflected a faint light, and her grandmother’s chest still rose and fell.

  Leslie shut the door carefully and went into her bedroom. She slipped out of her jeans and climbed into her bed wearing just her shirt and panties. She didn’t bother with her piercings or washing off her makeup. She just wanted to sleep, and maybe dream of Derek.

  Soon her body relaxed and she drifted into a deep sleep. Before long she found her silent wish had come true. She was back at the party and Derek was sitting next to her. They were laughing and having fun. She felt really good for the first time in a long time, until she saw Angel perched on the table that held the liquor. He was sitting Indian style with his elbows propped on his knees and his head resting in his hands--watching her as he always did.

  She tried to ignore him but his eyes followed her every movement until she had no choice but to stand up and walk over to him. When she did, the pleasant dream was over, the room disappeared and Angel began pacing restlessly.

  It had been years since she had greeted him with any type of kindness. The days when she was happy to see him had ended long ago.

  He began walking away, knowing that she would follow, and of course she did. Not because she trusted him, that too had ended. She just knew that whatever he wanted her to see he would force her to see one way or the other.

  Suddenly they were walking through a crowd of people. It was as if she was walking in the wrong direction, against the tide of people and they watched her curiously. She remembered this feeling. This had happened before! Her chest rose and fell painfully as she and Angel finally came to a stop, staring into the distance where well dressed people stood atop a hill. A minister was speaking words that she could not hear.

  Leslie licked her lower lip and felt her lip ring against her tongue. No, she wasn’t five years old here. She was eighteen.

  “No.” She said simply. “I will not see this.”

  Angel didn’t acknowledge her words. And seamlessly they were no longer watching an internment, they were in a familiar church and there was but one casket present. Beside the casket was a large portrait of her grandmother.

  Her breath cut off completely in a panic. She looked around suddenly. Somewhere there would be the other her. She needed to see how old the other her was! Maybe she would be in her thirties or forties because then she would have enough time to make amends!

  And there she was, wearing a black dress that fit her poorly. Her hair was still short but free of all gel and hairspray and it lay flat against her scalp. She wore no piercings. Instead were fresh holes and wounds in her face and ears as if they had been ripped from her…

  Other than that, she looked the way she did now. She looked eighteen.

  Angel seemed to know what she was going to do before she even made a move because he was suddenly gripping her wrist and holding her back. She yanked but his grip was like steel. Suddenly she was crazy with anger and grief. She pulled and struggled to get away and finally she screamed and cried.

  “If I can get to her…” She was sobbing so hard that she could barely talk. “I can tell her! Let me GO! I have to tell her!”

  Angel yanked her back roughly gripping her painfully with both hands now. He shook her once, hard enough to make her teeth snap and for the first time in her life she saw him angry.

  “Tell your grandmother goodbye!”

  ~***~

  Leslie jolted upright in her bed, wide awake. Her heart was pounding and the vision of Angel’s angry face was so fresh in her mind that she felt as if he was still close by. That was the second time that he’d spoken to her. Both times he had instructed her to say goodbye.

  Oh my god. She understood. He was telling her to tell them goodbye while they were still alive; while she still could.

  She threw aside her bed sheets and ran into her grandmother’s room. The older woman was still sleeping, breathing quietly despite the cancer that had taken one of her lungs and was slowly taking over the other. She wanted to crawl into Grandma’s bed and snuggle close to her frail body. But to do so would awaken her from her drug induced sleep, and the pain would return causing grandma to lay there and suffer until sleep could again claim her into its numbing grip.

  Leslie covered her mouth to hold back a sob. These were tears that she was not ready to release. Her grandmother would not be here much longer. She already knew this, but Angel, the bastard, had to show her…

  She went into the bathroo
m. Her hands were trembling. She shut the door and locked it though no one would be barging in on her. Opening the medicine chest, she searched for one of the razors that she had bought from Sallee’s Hair Care; the one which was supposed to be used to sculpt brows and maybe rid your chin of that one lone stray hair.

  Leslie lowered the lid on the toilet and sat down. She quickly unrolled some toilet paper and folded it neatly as she unconsciously rocked back and forth. When the toilet tissue was folded neatly and clutched in her palm she slowly dragged the blade of the razor over her thigh.

  Immediately the skin parted and blood sprouted and trailed slowly down her leg. She caught it with the tissue before it hit the bathroom rug. She repeated it and suddenly she seemed to be able to breathe again. The pounding in her head stopped and her hands were no longer shaking. Blood seemed to be rushing to her head and things became clear again.

  She cut herself for a few more moments until the toilet paper was saturated with her blood. Then she flushed it, got a cotton swab and cleaned the cuts with alcohol. It burned pleasantly and another rush of adrenaline hit her.

  When she climbed back into bed she knew it was ok to sleep. Angel wouldn’t be back for a while.

  Chapter 4

  ~1990 Winter~

  “You know…um, if there’s anything we can do for you we will.” Leslie didn’t answer. She sat sunken into the armchair in her grandmother’s living room while Uncle Monty stood in front of her looking uncomfortable. “You’re eighteen, an adult. You probably don’t need anyone to take care of you. You can live here on your own...”

  She still didn’t answer. He hadn’t touched her since the day that she had spoken the very first words that she’d uttered in nearly five years; ‘Touch me again and I’ll tell my Daddy on you.’ Uncle Monty had looked at her with a mixture of surprise laced with guilt. He had retreated then and she hadn’t seen much of him since. And now here he was, all up in her face as if the past had never happened, as if he hadn’t done those unspeakable things to her and made her do them to him…

  “Leslie…are you going to stop talking again? Because that’s not healthy. Pulling those rings out of your face, not talking, not eating…” She stared at the floor. “I know that you feel as if your Grandmother is all that you had. But you still have me.” He coughed as if the words caused him to choke. Leslie shuddered.

  She hadn’t spoken in days. And that was because there was no one worth speaking to anymore. Even when Missy called her on the phone she just listened and then hung up. Derek had even sent her a condolence card. She could barely remember why she had even liked him and she had tossed the card into the trash.

  “Your Grandmama left you this house and some money but it takes a lot to maintain a home. Now you can sign it over to me and I’ll take care of the taxes and repairs. You can keep the money-”

  “Get out of my house,” qshe glared at him. “MY house!” She stood up and Uncle Monty actually backed away. The funeral had ended hours ago but family and friends were still gathered around, eating and drinking and stealing her grandmother’s things.

  Everything stopped and all was quiet except for the gospel music that was coming from Grandmama’s old stereo. She turned to stare at all of them.

  “All of you! GET OUT!” People began moving towards the door but when they didn’t move fast enough she flew at them screeching like a mad woman. “Get the FUCK out of my house you fucking pigs!” They moved faster when they saw her flying at them. Her uncle was one of the ones trying to escape from the crazed young woman. She screamed at him.

  “You want to take my home now?! I can talk! See, you nasty bastard?! I can talk and I can scream and you can’t take anything else from me the way you took my virginity and my childhood, and my dignity, and my capacity to love-” She dragged in a deep breath as hot tears sprouted and overflowed from her eyes. “You took my trust! And then you have the nerve to say that I ain’t right?” She pointed to herself with a look of wild wonder on her face. “But if I ain’t right it’s because YOU made me wrong!”

  The stampede out of the house continued, yet now the focus had turned from her to Uncle Monty. He was busy denying but his look of guilt was undeniable. Leslie had said it out loud, after all of these years she had finally let it out. When Grandma was alive she would not have killed her with this information. No need to worry about that now. She didn’t care who knew now.

  When the last person had vacated her house; HER house, she slammed the door and locked it. She took a deep cleansing breath. First she turned off the music and then she filled up the trash with all of the food brought over by well-wishers. She did the dishes and got the house back to order. Then it felt like her and Grandma’s house again, instead of a house of mourning.

  Leslie climbed the stairs tiredly and the phone began to ring. She let it ring and ring as she stripped out of the black dress that had belonged to Grandma. While Leslie had plenty of black clothes, she had no black funeral dress.

  In the shower she tried to scrub away the day’s events. She cried for a few minutes but then she stopped, got out of the shower and dried off, slipping on her night gown. The phone had finally stopped ringing and she took it off the hook. Tomorrow she would have the number changed. Beyond that she had no idea. There was school tomorrow, but not for her. There was no way that she could pretend that she was just any other senior and sit in a classroom doing pointless schoolwork. She wouldn’t officially drop out but she just wasn’t going back.

  She opened Grandma’s closed door and stood there in the hallway just looking. The room had been ransacked. Grandma’s jewelry box was upside down and all of her drawers had been opened. Bastards! She hurried to the bedside table and checked the drawers for pills, but they had all been stolen as well.

  “Fuck!” She screamed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Then she slumped onto Grandma’s stripped bed and cried. She rubbed the scars on her legs from cutting but that didn’t help so then she pressed the sore wounds on her face triggering a small amount of relief. After a long while Leslie dragged herself up and out of Grandma’s room. It had never occurred to her to move to the larger room. She went into her bedroom and climbed into her single bed.

  She had never felt so alone in her life. She fell asleep shortly after, trying not to think about the funeral and grandma’s first night in the ground.

  A bright blue light is what awoke her. She opened her eyes only to see Angel sitting on her dresser, legs swinging. When he saw that she was awake he dropped down to his feet and stood before the bed. Leslie squeezed her eyes tightly closed.

  “Go away.” She tried to dream, to awake, to fall into a deeper sleep. But that wasn’t working so eventually she opened her eyes and he was still there, looking annoyed or impatient. His expression pissed her off; that she wasn’t reacting the way he silently wanted.

  “What are you?! Because you’re no angel. If anything you’re a fucking…angel of death! All you do is show me the bad!”

  She saw him flinch.

  Ha! She could actually hurt him! “Then you just stand back and watch and do nothing! Why didn’t…” Her voice cracked and tears sprouted to her eyes. “Why didn’t you stop him from molesting me?!” She wanted to see his guilt, for him to drop his eyes and to look away. But he didn’t look guilty. He just watched her steadily.

  She sat up in bed. “You can talk. I’ve heard you talk but you stand there like you can’t.” He was silent. “Say something, damnit!”

  “Why?”

  His unexpected response surprised her into silence.

  “Why?” She finally said. “Because-”

  He closed his eyes and she stopped. “Leslie, there is no reason to talk.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “You know that more than most people. Everything that needs to be said can be said without words. That’s how we’ve always done it, right?”

  She opened her mouth, unsure of how to respond. “Why didn’t you help me? I thought—you were the only friend I had. I trusted you! I thoug
ht…I thought you were there to take care of me. You were big, I was just a kid. You could have helped me.” Her voice cracked.