WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD - Part Two

by Allan Argus

"Yahweh? Oh, yes, now I remember. He was Bulbosa's lacky, an escaped psychopath and never a full-fledged god. He probably meddled in the collective unconscious of your race and that's why he is included in your Old Testament. As I recall, Yahweh was big on making covenants with primitive peoples who couldn't possibly keep them. He did this on a number of planets before the authorities confined him to the Cold Cube."

"Cold Cube?"

"That's where the insane are incarcerated. But now it is time for more sex. It invigorates me."

Waycross shook his head. "I don't know whether I'm quite up to another go-round like that last one, but if you could wait a few hours."

"With some more Zo ..."

"Give me a little time." Waycross jostled his balls. "I think I'm a bit scuffed."

"In that case, I will wait." She gazed at him. "Waycross, I think you should travel with me. There are a few fine points of your culture that I am still ignorant of. You could be a great help. And I rather like the sounds you make when you copulate."

"Might be the death of me, but it's a mighty tempting offer. Let me tell you something, though. On this planet people don't do it out in the street. They're kinda ashamed and sneaky about the whole mess, if you get my meaning. When the spirit moves you, and it seems to move you often, we'll have to rent a room somewhere or the cops'll be on our ass. Screwing in public isn't approved behavior on earth."

"I knew that of course."

"I'm relieved."

"Well, Waycross, why don't you gather your belongings and we'll be off in the vehicle I commandeered. That is, after you make it function once again."

"I don't have much except these dirty old clothes. I look pretty awful compared to you."

"Then I will clean them with my sonic cleanser. Ragged as they are, they'll smell better than they do now."

Waycross watched in wonder as Angelique unhooked a small gadget from her belt and passed it over his clothes. When he put them on, he felt cleaner than he had in a long, long time. His jeans were no longer stiff and crusty and his flannel shirt was fluffier than the day he'd found it in a dumpster.

"Angelique, you're really okay with me."

"Shall we be off?"

When they found the Toyota, Waycross checked a few things, then unfastened a large red canister from the rear of the vehicle. Angelique watched him transfer the liquid in the can into a hole in the side of the machine.

"Sometimes even Angels don't think of the obvious," she said.

"How would you know what's in the can? Where did you say you got this rig?"

"It belonged to a nice young couple named Jim and Janice. I took it from them not two hours ago."

Took it from them? Stole it?"

"Yes, but they won't mind."

"What's gonna keep them from reporting it?"

"The fact that I left a post-coital suggestion in their minds. They will not be able to bring themselves to report it missing. They have new interests now. I believe they'll both end up dedicating their lives to people less fortunate than they."

Waycross shook his head. "Well, now, ain't that something."

Angelique walked to the edge of a precipice.

"Before I drive, I must first urinate."

Stripping down her leatherine shorts, Angelique stood with her feet wide apart, her arms akimbo and peed a stream that arched out twenty feet to spatter on a sandstone shelf five- hundred feet below.

"You're one hell of a female, Angelique. There ain't no man walking could piss a stream like you just did. And I thought that women had to squat to do it."

"There is no squatting for Angelique!" she whinnied, flapping her short wings for emphasis. "And I'm an Angel, not a woman. Please don't forget that, monkeyboy." She gave him a sharp glance.

"No offense, Angelique."

Angelique's stern expression changed to a smile. "I was just kidding you, Waycross. Actually, I've grown quite fond of you."

It was the following weekend when Waycross found himself sitting in a front row seat of the Greater Tuscaloosa Roller Derby Playoffs. The sport had enjoyed wide popularity in the past, but had faded over the years. So, Waycross was surprised that there were a few amateur leagues still active in the South. Angelique had not had a bit of trouble securing a spot on the team. In fact, after two practices, she had become the captain. And now with one game left in the tournament, it looked as if Angelique was living her dream. Waycross watched the bunched skaters slew around a turn, then sling Angelique ahead. She skated hard and low, her wings cocked to offset the centrifugal force generated as she tore around the banked, oval track. As she came upon a member of the opposite team, the battle began. Elbows, knees, even fists as she struggled to lap the girl. Driven toward the rail twice, Angelique recovered and came back for the attack until finally she got the chunky skater off balance and forced her toward the rail. With a mighty shove, she propelled the girl from the ring and into the crowd.

The unfortunate female landed only a few seats away from where Waycross sat, quickly got up and shook her fists at the victorious Angelique.

"That bitch with her phony wings! I hate her."

Waycross didn't tell her that the wings weren't phony. She wouldn't have believed him anyway. He left his seat and moved down the aisle toward the locker room. The manager knew him and let him inside. Soon, the sweating females came skating through the door. There was much high-fiving and laughing. Angelique held the huge silver trophy on her shoulder. Fans in the hallway pushed open the door and waved programs to be autographed. Waycross stayed back, watching the wild scene with amusement. When at last Angelique had extricated herself from the confusion, she handed him a bottle of champagne some fan had given her.

"Let's get out of here," she said.

When they were outside the arena, Waycross breathed in the cool night air.

"You were great tonight," he said.

"True. However, I think I am tired of this sport. It is too easy."

"What you gonna try next?"

"I wouldn't mind becoming a running back for the Dallas Cowboys."

"They don't take women."

"I told you I was no woman. I'm an ..."

"Angel, I know. But all the same, you got tits and a nice ass and the crowd likes to see that kind of action over on the sideline jumping up and down in short skirts."

"Hmmmm."

"You look like you're thinking about something."

"It is time for me to return to Billy Akklon and turn in my data. The trouble is, he's usually so baked that he rarely pays much attention to the plethora of information I've worked so hard to collect."

"Who cares? He pays you, don't he?"

"Wages aren't good enough anymore. I'm bored. I'm tired of working for Billy Akklon. I want to pursue my own destiny."

"What kind of destiny?"

"Considering the imbalance of psycho-social forces and the degenerate state of world politics here, I think a change is necessary. It is time for a goddess to step onto the stage and correct the deeply imbedded, narcissistic patriarchal psychosis."

"Yeah?" Waycross watched her make a grand gesture.

"It's time for Angelique to rule the world!" Angelique sat on the bus stop bench, splayed her legs apart and shoved a hand under her short skirt. Waycross gaped as the night traffic passed on the busy avenue.

"If you can wait," he said, looking around nervously, "maybe I can take care of your business a little later."

"No, Waycross, it's not what you think. You see, an Angel has two stimulation points between her legs.. One is erogenous, the other speculative. I am arousing the latter. This will stir ontological, cosmological and metaphysical creodes and increase my ability to choose the best spactio-temporal path."

"Oh." Waycross nodded. Then he pointed the neck of the champagne bottle away from him and gave the cork one last push with his thumb. With a loud pop, it flew high into the night sky. He had a mouthful of the expensive bubbly, then another. He heard Angelique groan and glanced over. Her head was thrown back, and her lips moved silently. Suddenly, she raised both her arms towards the night sky. Her eyes shone with crystalline certainty.

"I know exactly what I must do. First, I'll secure a highly visible position on a television talk show and as soon as the female population adores me and believes every word I say, I'll run for political office. Every eligible female voter will register and vote. I will have hypnotized them during my television appearances just to make sure. Within three years, I'll be in the white house. Within a decade I'll rule the planet. It won't take me long to get things back on track." She nodded emphatically and stood up. "Yes, I know exactly how to do it."

Waycross took a swallow from the frothing bottle and held it out to Angelique but she was already striding purposefully up the street toward a waiting cab. He realized at that moment that his life had been inexorably changed the moment he'd shared his baked beans in the hobo jungle beside the road. He also realized that he had come to another split in the road. Though his life had changed for the better in many ways, he missed his old leisure, the unhurried days of little purpose and no direction. Since being taken on as Angelique's sidekick, he hardly had time to think. And now she wanted to rule the motherfucking world! What kind of suckass job would he end up with?

"Hurry, Waycross," she called to him, "there's work to be done. We will have sex in this yellow vehicle while I refine my plan of action."

Waycross watched her get into the cab. The existential moment was upon him. He took one last swallow from the champagne bottle, set it down on the curb and began to jog toward the nearest subway entrance. Then he was running, leaping down the steps, through the turnstiles and onto the underground platform. A train was just sliding into the station and as the doors opened, he jumped in. With a whoosh, the train shot into the darkened tunnel and he found a seat. It was done. He had saved enough money so that he wouldn't ever starve. He'd probably rent him a nice trailer somewhere and hang out. But when the spirit moved him, he could go back to walking the lonesome roads of the country, cooking his meals out of tin cans and not worrying about clean socks or underwear. He closed his eyes in relief.

Three years later Waycross climbed out of a cardboard box to face the dawning day. Another hobo named Fat Jake sat by a morning fire, cooking a pot of coffee and reading a newspaper. Waycross wasn't in the habit of following the news, but when he saw the headlines, his attention was riveted.

"Mind if I look at the front page, podner?" he asked. He had just met Fat Jake the night before and he seemed like an okay sort though he talked kind of funny. Fat Jake had told him that he used to work for the railroad but had given up his career for a life on the road. Fat Jake folded the pages together and tossed them to Waycross.

"Of course, my good man, though you will find little in this edition of the news to pique your interest."

Waycross noticed that the date on the paper was only two days ago. He smoothed the front page and held it up. ANGELIQUE PACKS STADIUM
FOR THREE HOUR CONCERT
HAS SEX ON STAGE

"I know her," Waycross said.

"Know who?"

Waycross waved the paper with the big colored picture of Angelique. "This here Angelique. She and me were partners once. Met her right here in this very ravine."

"Most assuredly," laughed Fat Jake, "and I used to have lunch with Saddam Hussein every Saturday. Could you believe that he is a strict vegetarian. Plays cribbage. Has a pet pig." Fat Jake giggled.

"Okay, okay, I know you don't believe me, Jake, but it's true. Hell, man, she was the best piece of ass I ever had in my life and she ain't even from this planet."

"Where might she be from then, New Jersey?"

Waycross studied the news story. It was a long feature article explaining how Angelique was the hottest thing on the planet. It wasn't just her music either. People were starting to form cults around her, wanting her to run for president, wanting her to start a new religion. The President had invited her to sing at the White House and it was rumored that she was meeting with half a dozen world leaders. Her syndicated programs were on every television channel on the planet. She had written self-help books, meditation tracts, cookbooks and even manuals on auto mechanics and hotel and restaurant management. She was the darling of the feminists and loved by all red-blooded American males as well. The best movie directors in the business were begging her to make a movie with them and the North Koreans had built her a vacation home in their exotic Ban Won mountains, on the off chance that she might spend a few weeks a year there. She was filthy rich and getting richer by the minute. And, she was thinking of running for public office.

"Boy, I guess she got what she wanted," Waycross said. "Maybe I shoulda hung in with her, but I just couldn't adjust to not having any free time. Money is just money. It ain't peace of mind."

"Free time is indubitably superior," said Fat Jake. "It gives you time to conjure up fantasies such as the one you've just related to me."

"God dang it, I could prove that I know her," Waycross said. "For instance, it wasn't far from here that I first met her. And now that I think about it, that UFO I thought I saw that night was probably her ship coming down."

"You don't say?" Fat Jake had a bemused expression on his face.

"Went down just over those two hills. If I showed you that, would you believe me?"

"I would be more inclined to, that's a fact. But if no UFO exists, I'd rate you a most scurrilous liar."

"Fair enough. Let's go."

"Wait, let's not be hasty. As I peruse the landscape you are referring to, it appears we are facing a five-mile excursion on uneven terrain. I'm not the slender lad I used to be, either. No, I think I'll tarry here rather than pursue chimeras. But if you do happen to find this alien craft, do come back and get me."

"It's a deal."

"I'll wait on tenterhooks," Fat Jake said, settling back in the dry leaves, his hands folded behind his head. Waycross got his few possessions together and slung his pack on his back. He had a long drink from the nearby brook and started off. The sun was up and it was hot going, but he kept slogging, remembering the lay of the land and the general direction from which Angelique had come that fateful day. Going a bit farther, he spotted the exact ravine where he'd seen the streaking light descend. He knew he could find the spot.

Soon, he was struggling through thickets and around huge boulders as he descended into the ravine. But so far he hadn't seen anything that looked like a UFO. He was just beginning to wonder if maybe Angelique was an escapee from some mental institution and not an Angel at all when he saw the brassy sheen of something covered by limbs and brush. It was a flattened, disc-shaped craft not more than ten feet across. There were no windows nor portholes, and the surface looked to be all of a piece. It didn't hardly look big enough for somebody as big as Angelique but he didn't doubt that it was her ship.

"Waycross, is that you?" came a husky voice from somewhere behind him. He turned to see Angelique poised on a nearby boulder, her wings fully extended. Her legs were spread wide, her long toes grasping the rock.

"Angelique! What a surprise."

"How are you, my friend?"

"Doing well, thanks. I guess I should apologize for running out on you that night three years ago, but ..."

Angelique raised a hand. "Not necessary. The past is the past, the present is eternity."

"Huh?"

"Eternity is not counted in years but is timeless. Hence we are living in eternity this very instant. Every instant."

"You could have put it past me." Waycross rubbed his grizzled chin. He looked around at the opening in Angelique's ship and back to her again. "But what are you doing here?"

"I might ask the same of you."

"I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd see if that UFO I saw that night really was your ship."

"Ah."

"And you?" he asked. "You're not fixing to leave?"

"Planet saving turned out to be less fun than I had hoped. Too many meetings with humorless people. Yes, I'm leaving this world of yours, Waycross. Leaving on the brink of success. That, as your specie often says, is life."

"Leaving? Right when you're about to be made the all-out Queen of the whole shooting match? I've been reading the papers about it."

"The whole shooting match bores me."

"Going back to that Akklon fellow?"

"Exactly. It is true that I am at the cusp of my desires, but having seen the limitations of your monkey race, I have decided that working for Billy Akklon is not such a bad job after all. Besides, even if I did put things right here, I'm not sure how long a fix would last. Humans, I have found, are far too suggestive to trust. Anyone with a loud voice and a little cunning can get whole populations to believe anything, do anything. With the smallest urging, humans are more than willing to perpetrate the most idiotic deeds, the most unimaginable cruelties. So, though a new world order might hold for awhile, it would be a full-time job just to keep the various factions from each others' throats. And if I took a vacation, by the time I got back there would be so much chaos that I'd have to start all over again. The problem started when the agrarian settlements won out over the nomadic."

"You're talking farmers?"

"Sure. In the days of the hunters and gatherers people traveled around too much to keep much personal property. But farmers settled in one place and developed pride of ownership. They became acquisitive. And then came the industrial revolution giving them a million things to be acquisitive about. A bad prognosis."

"I see what you mean. I reckon, that's why I like the nomadic life. Don't have to worry about my possessions."

"You're superior, Waycross. No doubt about it."

"But how can this mess ever be fixed?"

"You mean the human predicament?"

"Yes."

"Big government might do it."

"Hmmm, isn't that what the Republicans are always bitching about?"

"Yes, Waycross. Whereas the other alternative is the Christian fascists. If they have their way, humanity will revisit the dark ages. Remember what happened?"

"I wasn't around."

"Everybody turned into a fink. A person could get burned at the stake for having two thoughts in his head."

"Sounds like we've got serious problems. Stuff even an Angel don't want to mess with."

"In the grand scheme of things, it's no big deal, my friend."

Waycross scratched his grizzled beard. "Hard to believe you're really leaving."

"Want to go with me?"

"You mean I could?"

"Not really, I was just teasing. When my ship passes through the temporal wormhole into the meta levels of universal existence, your rudimentary body would burn up like a sparkler on fourth of July."

"What a way to go. Well, guess I better stick here."

"Actually, I think your present lifestyle is ideal considering the alternatives of your self- destructive race."

"My mama always said I had good instincts. But I'll tell you, meeting you sure solved a lot of problems for me. Things I'd been missing. Like making love to a beautiful woman. I was short of that kind of activity before I met you. Guess I'll be short of it from here on out too. But, what the hell, I've got my memories. And I've got a nice little trailer up in the woods where I spend my winters. I did allow myself that luxury with the money I had with me when I took off."

"Though I haven't seen you for years, Waycross, I think I love you as much as I've ever loved any one entity. Which isn't very much, when it comes right down to it. Angels love on a more universal level."

"Sure, I get the drift."

Angelique looked thoughtful for a moment, then turned toward her ship. "Waycross, I am going to send you a gift. Expect its arrival tomorrow night. It will find you wherever you may happen to be."

"Thanks, Angelique."

"So, au revoir grizzled hobo man."

"So long to you too. I'll never forget what you taught me." Waycross was about to ask her how she managed to fit into her little space ship when she bent down and seemed to flowinto the opening. She looked more like a snake than a big woman with wings. Waycross stepped forward, but before he could get a better look the door clicked into place just as if there'd never been a hole there at all. Waycross stepped back and shielded his eyes. But instead of a blast, the ship lifted quietly and slowly. As the tree limbs and brush slid off its smooth surface, it shot up straight into the air for a couple of hundred feet. The next instant, it just blinked out. Gone in an instant.

"I wonder what all those important people are gonna do when they can't find Angelique?" Waycross wondered aloud. It took him nearly an hour to return to the camp by the brook. The fire was smoldering, but Hobo Jake had packed his things and gone. It was just as well. Now that Waycross had had one last meeting with Angelique, he didn't want to share any of his secrets with anyone. He unrolled his bedding and crawled in for the night. He didn't go to sleep for a long time, thinking of Angelique. Seeing her again made him realize just how good it had been to be with a woman. Though his desire had faded some with time, he was as horny as an adolescent just thinking about the way she could boogie his woogie. Finally, he drifted off into uneasy sleep.

The next morning, he woke before dawn and after taking a thorough bath in the running stream and eating a breakfast of day-old doughnuts soaked in sardine oil, he packed up his few belongings and readied himself to set off. That's when he saw the small golden box on the ground.

"She must have beamed it down or something," he mumbled aloud, bending to pick it up. Gingerly, he worked the lid loose and peered in. There was one tiny cylinder about the size of a .22 shell. He rolled it between his fingers, his brow wrinkled in confusion. Then suddenly, he realized the thing was getting hot. Real hot. He quickly put it on the ground and stood back. A holographic projection began to form around the small cylinder and as he stared in disbelief, the filmy, semi-transparent form filled out until he was staring at the image of a female. But even as he watched, the filminess of the image began to thicken as if the illusion was being inhabited by ... something real. Now the girl appeared as substantial as he was and her eyes blinked as she focused on him.

"Waycross?" she asked in a soft, husky voice.

"That's me."

The girl's green eyes opened wide. She looked a lot like Angelique in the face except that her hair was red and hung down over her shoulders. And now, Waycross noticed that she had no wings. The sleek gown she wore clung to her other attributes though and that made him swallow hard.

"My name is Astra," the seeming girl said, "and I'm yours."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm your girl. Angelique left me to be your companion." Astra spread her long toes in the sand and smiled. Waycross could see her erect nipples under the sheer material of her gown and his heart beat faster.

"Might I ask just what you are? I mean, you look like a girl, but you couldn't be human. Not the way you came out of that little cylinder."

"I'm a poly-molecular, hyper-reciprocating consciousness projection."

"Sure," he said, nodding like he knew what she was talking about.

"You might say I'm a special kind of android."

"Okay." He swallowed again.

Astra put our a hand. It was long and thin and when he took it in his own, it felt very warm, very alive. Waycross pulled her closer, studying her movements, her lips, her nose, the small wrinkles at the corners of her mouth. She didn't look a day over twenty-five.

"You don't have a hankering for weird sports, like mud wrestling or something, do you?"

Astra looked puzzled. "No."

"Just checking. I hope you don't want to run the world, either."

"No interest in that whatsoever." She smiled. "I like whatever you like."

"You know, this is starting to sound good. Only thing is, I'm not so hot on making wages, so I can't hardly afford a woman like you."

"I'm yours whether you can afford me or not. But if we decide we want to play with money, Angelique left the earthly fortune she had accumulated to her only heir." Astra tilted her head and winked. "Me."

"What if we decide we don't want to be rich?"

"Your wish is my desire, master." She winked. "Up to a point."

"How do you know all this stuff? Just a minute ago you were a little bitsy chunk of metal in a box."

"Everything I need to know has been loaded into my memory. For instance, I know the name of the lawyer Angelique engaged."

"I didn't know Angelique had a lawyer."

"Oh yes, his name is Nick Jules and he has all the paperwork that will set us up for life. Or, we can draw money on the account whenever we need it. Mother amassed a fortune in banks throughout the free world."

"We wouldn't really need much to set up a happy home," Waycross said. "Maybe we could give a bunch of it away. Or spend it where it would do some good. There are lots of people worse off than we are."

"Not a bad idea, Waycross. That way we wouldn't have to worry about somebody blowing everything up while we're making love."

Waycross grinned. "Angelique sure took care of business when she sent you to me, Astra. But you might as well know that I don't want to live fancy. Fact is, I've got this little trailer stuck up in the woods where I like to hang out."

"What are we waiting for?"

"Well, it's a good long ways from here. Maybe a little of that money and a motel would suit us better for the time being, now that you mention it.

"Sounds wonderful. Let's go find a bank."

"And then a motel," Waycross put in.

Astra glanced down at the front of his pants. "Maybe we should get the motel first."

"Unfortunately, I don't have a dime, Astra."

Astra reached into a silken pocket of her gown and produced a plastic credit card. "Will this help?"

Waycross took a look. It was a MasterCard inscribed with her name: Astra Nomical.

"Yeah, I think this'll work just fine. Boy, that Angelique thought of everything." Waycross took her hand and chatting happily, they headed west looking for a road that would lead them back to civilization and a Holiday Inn.

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Last Updated: March 10, 1997