Angels in Heaven

night. The message read: “Hey, babe, whatever you
did, it’s still working. Your bread’s in the mail. Cut by Lakers, but front
seats here any time you pass thru. J. J.” And which would arrive first, I
wondered, my visiting Milwaukee, J. J.’s check, or the Second Coming?
    Piece four (five days a. g.): I was at the
bureau (as in office) doing this and that when Willing Boy and the twerp putted
up on his bike. It was the first time I’d seen either of them since I got back.
Sara looked ... awful. Like an old maid, but older. No makeup. She wore a
nothing scarf around her head, knotted under the chin, a long Mother Hubbard
dress, and flat shoes. Willing Boy was not only out of his biker’s leathers for
once, but I’ll be damned if he wasn’t wearing a wooly brown robe, with a hood
even, like a monk’s.
    Sara knocked politely on the door.
    I shouted, “It’s open, for Christ’s
sake.”
    They came in and stood, holding
hands, in front of me. Sara said, with excruciating meekness, “Please do not
blaspheme, Victor. Brother George and I have been born again, and we walk with
Jesus now.”
    There was only one thing to do, and I
did it, fast—
    I swooned.