When I was fifteen, Dad went on a prayer tour of the east coast. I wanted to go with him because the tour included Philadelphia and I wanted to see Independence Hall, but he said not this time. On his return, he met us at Aunt Cindi’s house, where he sometimes sent all of us when he was away. I gave him a long hug, like I always did when he had been away, and then asked him if he had a good trip.
“I’ve had better,” he said.
He was smiling, but his eyes and nearly imperceptible facial movements told me that he was upset. All through dinner, the adults laughed and traded funny stories, but even as he laughed, Dad kept stealing glances at me that conveyed the usual, bottomless sadness.
I was asleep on the extra bed in my Cousin Gwen’s room, when I was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of someone outside doing combat training. I expected to see Uncle Cameron, but it was Dad. He had arranged a dozen or so practice dummies in a rough circle and was pounding them at an unbelievable pace with a fighting stick.
Uncle Cameron and Aunt Cindi were standing in the shadows, watching. I think even they may have been afraid to go near the whizzing stick. After ten minutes, the dummies started to break apart, which I didn’t think was possible. Heads and arms were flying off, but Dad didn’t slow down. He was winding up for a particularly vicious hit when, out of the shadows, a stick blocked the attack and held it. It was Mom.
Dad was shaking with anger, and for a moment I thought he might hit her too, but instead he dropped the stick and fell to his knees, panting. Cindi and Cameron walked back into the house.
“You’re going to tell me what it is this time, Cephas …” Mom said “… or so help me, we’re going to repeat the fight where each hit results in a question being answered.”
“I found it,” Dad said. “It was in Baltimore.”
Mom hit her knees beside Dad.
“You’re sure?”
“There was news footage of her in the local archives. They called her “The Angel of the Zone.”
******
“Fine,” I say, as I look at the faces around me. “Call me Angel. All I ask is that you make it all or nothing. No more calling me ‘Jocie,’ okay?”
“Whatever you say, Angel,” Jake replies.
“Now, what do you mean you asked for an ice machine in my name? Who did you ask?”
“We painted up the truck with the wings and all, and the highway guards just waived us through with smiles on their faces. Then, as we were driving to the hospital, I noticed people were pointing and waving, so I pulled over and asked them what was going on. It turns out that the guard you stole the car from is a journalism student at night. He did some digging around and wrote a story about the conditions in The Zone and how you’ve organized the gangs to pray and care for others instead of fighting. It got picked up on the web, so when we told an ER doc why we needed ice, he handed over the whole machine.”
I leave them discussing how to plumb the machine and return to J.W.’s apartment.
“Could you hear all of that?” I ask.
“Yes, Angel,” J.W. replies.
“I’m not an angel.”
“You look like one to me.”
“You’re still blind,” I say.
“My eyes were an impediment.”
******
J.W. seems better; so I take a prayer patrol and end up sitting with a Jewish man for several hours. He asks about the ice treatment, but I tell him that nothing has been proven - yet. I can tell just by looking at him that he doesn’t have the same mutation as J.W.
When I get back, J.W. has stopped bleeding from his sores, but Hannah looks worried.
“His temperature won’t come down,” she says.
“This is it,” J.W. says. “One way or the other, your experiment is almost over.”
“How’s the pain?” I ask.
“I think I’ve gone beyond the concept of pain. I think the nerves have been fired so many times that they’re stuck in the ‘on’ position.”
I look at the bottle of pain killers that sits on his shelf. It’s nearly empty. He’s already had more than he should.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“I can see a little again. It’s mostly movement and outlines, but it’s something.”
“I’ll take that as a good sign,” I say.
“Hannah?” J.W. says. “Can I have a few minutes with Jocie?”
She looks hurt, but she leaves.
“I’m not going to make it, Jocie,” he says. “But even if I do, there’s something I want you to have. In my top drawer, under the socks, is a woman’s scarf. It belonged to my mother.”
I retrieve it. It’s a modest pattern of white with blue stripes.
“It’s beautiful. Why do you want me to have it?”
“I’m not sure. It’s been on my mind for days and I just can’t shake the feeling that you should have it. If it was anyone else, I’d be giving them a screaming cloth, but since you don’t need one, I know you’re the right person. Mom wouldn’t have liked having it used in that way.”
“Thanks.”
“I don’t need eyes to know that something is bothering you,” he says. “Do I look that bad? Are you counting the minutes I have left?”
“You do look horrible…” I reply, “…but I’m thinking about the man I was praying with before I came back here. He asked about the ice baths, and I realized that I could already tell that it won’t work for him. It makes it hard for me to spread hope.”
“Is that it? I’m lying here in pain, in a tub of ice. The least you could do is deliver a good soul- baring. You might as well, since dead men tell no tales. Why don’t you tell me about your family? I bet you have some good skeletons in your closet.”
“Your minute with Jocie is up,” Hannah says, as she re-enters. “I’d like to hear about Jocie’s family, too.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I say.
“That statement alone tells me it’s one heck of a story,” J.W. says.
“It’s their story to tell, not mine.”
“Give us something,” Hannah says. “Tell me, what’s the first word that comes to mind to describe your mother?”
I think for a moment.
“Fierce. Everything about her is fierce.”
“She sounds more like a mother lion,” Hannah says.
“Why do I have the feeling I’d rather face the lion?” J.W. says.
“I didn’t appreciate it when I was younger,” I say. “No kid appreciates a mom who cleans their room or reviews their homework in a fierce sort of way, but when I think about her now - the way she fights, the detailed way she plans things, the way she loves my dad and her family - I’ve really come to admire that fierceness.”
“What about your dad?” J.W. asks. “What’s one word to describe him?”
I shake my head.
“I know every detail there is to know about my dad. Part of me thinks I understand him better than anyone … even my mother. Then there are times when I swear that I’ve never met him before. He’s like looking at a complex geometric pattern. Just when you think you’ve discovered how the pattern works, you realize that you were only looking at one small piece and that there are patterns within patterns, extending outward farther than you imagined.”
“I may be blind, but I can feel that sadness is back in your eyes,” J.W. says.
“It’s just one of the patterns of my family,” I say.
I see Timothy running our way.
“Angel! There are some people looking for you, and you’re not going to believe it.”
I see a group of people walking and talking to one of the prayer patrols. They have cameras and microphones.
“They found me on a patrol,” Timothy says. “The reporter says that the world has been shut out of what’s happening in The Zone for long enough, and she’s going to show them what’s really going on in here.”
The reporter is a petite blonde woman with brilliant white teeth. She walks into the apartment uninvited, followed by the camera crew. They take shots of everything, including J.W., so I throw a blanket over him.
“My name is Rita. Are you the one they call “The Angel of The Zone?” she asks me.
“There are hundreds of angels in The Zone,” I say. “You’ve already met a number of them.”
“Yes, I have. They all say you’re The Angel.”
Her attention switches to J.W.
“How much time does he have left?” she asks.
“The rest of his life.”
She looks up, and we scrutinize each other.
“I think what you’re looking for is a private interview,” I say.
Blowing up interviews with the press is another family pattern.
“I’m glad I did a little digging,” she says, as we sit down in my apartment and motions for the cameraman to start rolling. “Everyone said this would be just another story about a little old lady praying for people in The Zone. Imagine my surprise when I found out that The Angel is a young, red-headed fireball. Then I get here and start hearing stories about you beating up three guys who tried to rape you. I knew I’d have to get this interview.”
“There were seven.”
“What?”
“I beat up seven guys the first time; then a group of three. Then three coroners who prey upon the girls who are still healthy.”
“They say you have the gene,” Rita says.
“That’s right.”
“You have remarkable skin for a girl who claims to have the gene.”
So that’s it…
“I exfoliate daily and stay out of the sun.”
Rita smiles.
“We could waste an entire afternoon doing this sort of posturing,” Rita says.
“I didn’t want to mention it. It seemed like your journalistic style.”
“Why are you really here?” she asks.
I smile at Hannah, who is standing in my doorway.
“The way things are in the world right now, all of the real angels are busy,” I say. “So the Lord sent me instead. I pray with people when they’re near the end. Why is that such a mystery to you?”
Rita leans across the table, as if to intimidate me.
“You’re a scam artist,” she says. “You can’t be making money in The Zone; nobody here has any. I think you’re looking for your fifteen minutes of fame so you can get a book deal or something. Care to take a little challenge that will prove it?”
“I’d love to.”
“I brought a skin test that will tell if you have the gene or not,” she says. “It’s just a little pinprick. If you have the gene, we’ll know soon enough.”
When I roll up my sleeve, she knows I’m not simply calling her bluff, but she takes a small test kit from her pocket, shakes it, and removes the cap. I can see a small needle on the cap.
“Hold out your arm,” she says, and aims for my wrist.
“Higher up on my arm, please,” I say. “It’ll make a better view for the folks at home.”
She presses the cap against my arm and I feel a slight prick of the needle.
“We’ll know if you’re telling the truth in about three minutes,” she says. “If you have the gene, you’ll get a reaction on that spot.”
“I won’t make you wait,” I say.
I nod to the spot where the needle pricked me. It’s raised a large, red bump. I rotate my arm slightly so the camera can see it from a few angles, then roll my sleeve back down. By the one minute mark, my body will have neutralized the test and started to heal the spot. In five minutes, there will be no trace.
Now I lean in close to her.
“If you want the real story of what’s happening in the Baltimore Zone, you’ll have it in less than forty-eight hours. Leave a camera in the apartment of the man in the bathtub.”
“The world has seen enough footage of people dying.”
“He’s going to live. He’s going to be the first, and you’re going to document it and show it to the world.”
She looks unsure.
“If I’m wrong, you throw away the footage,” I say. “If I’m right, you collect every prize for journalism you can name.”
Her eyes say it all.
Gotcha.
******
The news team sets up a camera in the corner of J.W.’s apartment. They wanted it in a different corner, but I insisted on its current location so I could more easily sit with my back to it. The less footage of me for a historian to see in my time, the better.
“They’re still just a bunch of peeping Toms, if you ask me,” J.W. says, while looking into the camera. “Why would I want my last day on earth recorded like this?”
“Why did Jesus wait so long before He resurrected Lazarus?” I ask.
I get a blank look.
“Documenting with a camera makes a more effective demonstration,” I add.
“I’m sorry, Jocie, but you’re wrong. I’m not going to make it. Something has changed. I feel different. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the pain has even increased. It’s as if I’m on fire inside.”
“On a scale of ten, put a number on the pain,” I say.
“Eight out of ten.”
“As my Mom would say, that’s only a B-minus,” I reply.
“Your family is seriously messed up.”
You don’t know the half of it.
He shutters a little, then grimaces.
“Can I change my answer to nine out of ten?” he asks.
“What if I told you that you’re going to reach eleven?”
He looks to the red book on the shelf.
“Aw, now you’ve gone and ruined the surprise,” he replies. “Will you go get Hannah?”
“Are you looking for more sympathy that I’m giving out?”
“Something like that.”
Christopher happens to be in sight, so I ask him to sit with J.W. for a while; then I head for the apartment with all the girls. Hannah is there, praying alongside a girl named Catherine who I’ve seen on many prayer patrols. The girl on the bed only has a few hours to live.
“Hannah? J.W. wants you. How about if we switch?”
I take a moment with her, when she steps outside.
“Do you remember our conversation about how J.W. would rather die than watch you suffer along with him?” I ask. “That point is coming soon. When it comes, be strong in the Lord, and give him reason to live.”
I pray aloud for the young woman in front of me, but in my mind I’m praying for both J.W., and Hannah as well. The young woman can’t speak, but I’m told that her name is Abasi and that she’s a Coptic Christian who emigrated from Egypt three years before the war. Egypt was hit with seven different Israeli bombs filled with toxin, and the concentration was so high that most people with the gene died in a matter of days. I wonder if Abasi would have been better off had she stayed in Egypt and died quickly.
When I take breaks from praying aloud, I can sometimes hear J.W. across the street in his big metal coffin. It’s clear that he’s in agony, and I wonder if he, too, would have been better off with a quick death rather than what he’s going through. Unfortunately for both Abasi and J.W., they can’t run away from the plan that God has for them.
I can also hear Hannah, as she tries to comfort J.W., and realize that her emotions are strained to the breaking point.
Lisa and Patrick come to relieve me. I’ve hardly slept in two days, but I stop by J.W.’s apartment for a minute. The ice machine is chugging away just outside the doors, so I fill a bucket, then step in through the open doors.
“No more ice,” J.W. says. “It’s making the pain worse.”
“He’s melting it like a hot wood stove, anyway,” Hannah says.
“Where’s the pain now?” I ask.
“Ten-and-a-half,” he replies.
I dump the entire bucket onto him, causing first him, and then Hannah, to shriek.
“It’s time, Jocie,” J.W. says. “I tried it your way and I can’t do it anymore. This was never my plan. Hand me the red book from the shelf.”
“Get it yourself,” I say.
“Jocie!” Hannah says. “Why are you being so mean?”
She reaches for the book.
“The book is hollow,” I say. “J.W. has collected toxin particles from his air filter. If he drinks even one of those vials, no amount of ice - or prayer - will save him.”
She withdraws her hand from the bookshelf.
“Get it yourself,” Hannah says.
He tries to lift himself out of the tub, but the effort is too much.
“Hand me the book, Hannah,” J.W. says. “I can’t take anymore. Help me.”
“I need to sleep,” I say, and turn to leave. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“Take the book with you,” Hannah says.
I turn back towards them.
“Removing temptation isn’t the same thing as resisting and overcoming temptation. Leave it on the shelf.”