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Archived Thesis/Research Paper/Faculty Publication from the University of North Carolina at Asheville's NC DOCKS Institutional 1 His fist connects with my jaw and church bells start ringing in my ears. The sound hits a sweet frequency somewhere between Heaven and Miami-Dade county as my knees crack against the concrete. Blood blossoms in my mouth like spilled wine. I heave in a breath, scraped palms and bruised lips pulsing with pain, and tip my head back. Someone is repeating my oldest name. I shut them out, letting the dirty moonlight spill over my throat. The constellations spin above my head, and as my vision threatens to give out, the stars look like music notes ripped from their measures and scattered through the sky. “You know I won’t answer to that,” I rasp, spitting out blood. The name is repeated, softly this time, and the muscles in my neck tighten. I attempt to pull myself up off the ground, but I’ve underestimated how disoriented I am and only manage to stagger into a position of genuflection. I dig my fingernails into the asphalt, hissing in irritation. “Do you really expect me to call you by some title you cherry-picked from the Bible?” The voice asks. “I would have thought we were beyond that.” The sound of footfalls approach me, and I lift my chin up to face my assailant. He’s gotten more tattoos since being stationed in Gaza, some in Hebrew, some in Arabic, and there are new lines around his dark eyes, but he’s still Michael, broad-shouldered Michael with his rough hands and austere features. He’s practically thrumming with power, and as he looks down on me, he’s swathed in a light more vibrant than all of Florida’s neon signs put together. I blink, and when I open my eyes the light has been smothered entirely. “Please don’t resist,” Michael says. “I would prefer not to use force.” If there’s one thing I hate, it’s going quietly. I try to kick out one of his knees but Michael sidesteps and hoists me up by the collar of my beer-splashed shirt. The asphalt disappearing out from under me is disorienting, and I stagger a bit as I am yanked to my feet. “You get the fuck off me,” I spit. “I didn’t call for you. No one asked you to break down the door on my life!” I’ve been laying low for the last week, raking in tips at a piano lounge by winking at lonely barflies and plucking out the chords to “Layla”. Not my ideal situation, but it kept me out of the cosmic limelight. At least I thought it did. Apparently the universe and its agents are committed to making me as miserable as possible. I thrash and Michael releases me. “I didn’t come all the way out here to fight you.” He says. I smear the blood from my mouth, defiantly drawing myself up to my full height. Michael stands an easy head taller than me, but I’m committed to conducting myself with as much dignity as possible. He doesn’t need to know how much I want to run. “Then why did you come?” “You tell me. There’s rumors swirling around about administrative change-ups in your department and the next thing I know you’re working at some dive in Florida? I had to use every ounce of pull I have to pry your location out of the hands of people who were eager to bring back your head.” “Oh my God!” I groan, pressing the heels of my palms to my eyes. “Don’t do me any fucking favors, Michael! If I have to sit through your lecturing and self-martyring one more time I swear I’m going to hurl myself into traffic!” “You don’t seem to understand what a risk I’m taking here, how bad begging for this case made me look-” “All you ever care about is how you look! How I look, how we look; it’s not fucking real! There are more important things!” “Then be real with me! I’m not happy to see you either, but I’m doing my damndest to be civil. So do me the courtesy of answering my question.” I seeth for a moment, then spit on the ground and say, “I’m not breaking any cosmic law by slumming it in the States. I do it all the time.” “I know that. But you’re usually just running down your company credit card on roulette and plane tickets. This is different.” I cross my arms and kick at the edge of a dumpster with a patent leather shoe. Michael approached me slowly, his voice more soft and conspiratorial than either of us had heard for a long time. “What happened, Lucifer?” “There was a mutiny.” “What?” “There was a mu-ti-ny,” I anunciate. “Drop the attitude. You’ve got one minute to explain yourself properly or else I’m deferring to protocol and calling in reinforcements. I don’t want-” “Yeah, yeah, you don’t want to have to do that,” I say, fishing a half-crushed pack of Virginia Slims out of my pocket and placing one between my teeth. A migraine is blooming between my eyes. “I’ve heard this fucking tune before. You haven’t changed at all.” I rifle through my pockets, searching for my Zippo, and turn out the pockets of my jeans before realizing that it was probably thrown from my person when I got shoved out of the bar a few minutes ago. Michael reaches into his pocket and produces a pack of matches, offering it to me like an olive branch. I glower at him for a moment, hips cocked at a dour angle, then acquiesce with a nod. Michael strikes a match on the wall and lights my cigarette. My eyes never leave his face. I’ve been vying for his blood for years, I’ve spent hours imagining how I would make him suffer if I ever saw him again, but I didn’t really anticipate being in such a sorry state when that happened. It catches me off guard, and now sliding into a bit of our old familiarity, antagonistic as it is, presents itself as the easiest option. Maybe that’s the way it always is with family. Smoke as heady and spiced as frankincense floods my mouth. “You look terrible, by the way,” I mutter around my cigarette. “You’ve aged.” A smile touches the corner of Michael’s lips, a for a moment it looks as though he’s going to join in with the banter. Instead, he reaches for his cellphone. “Who are you calling?” I ask. “The only person with the jurisdiction to advise me on what to do with you.” I almost drop my cigarette. It’s difficult to speak through the panic strumming at my nerves. “You can’t-” “You don’t get an opinion,” Michael retorts. “I’m calling her in, and as soon as I’m off the phone you’re going to explain yourself in excruciating detail with sources cited, and then you’re going to do it again as soon as she shows up. You’d better start getting your story straight.” My shoulders slump and I nurse my cigarette in sullen silence. I could try to run, of course, but he would just find me, and I don’t really have anywhere to go at present. Shitty as it is, I’m at the end of every rope I ever had. “I’m not apologizing for a damn thing,” I snap by way of an ultimatum. I lean against the brick as the phone rings, once, twice, and then a terse female voice sounds on the other end. Michael cuts her off. “Gabriel, I’m in Miami. Lucifer is with me.” Our actions have a way of coming back to kick us in the teeth, and in my experience the more time you spend running from something, the more likely it is to be sitting up waiting for you when you get home. In the past, I’ve reacted to such unpleasant encounters by setting the whole place on fire. Now, as I bite my thumbnail and eavesdrop on Michael’s conversation, I’m really wishing I had a gallon of gasoline big enough for this mess. I’m lighting matches and watching them burn out, and Michael is glaring at me like an irritated parent. “‘Well what else am I supposed to do with him?’” Michael continues, striding over to snatch back his near-empty matchbook “Show up to Heaven with the Devil in tow and no excuse between us?.” I massage my temples and groan. I forgot how awful all the bickering was. Michael covers the mouthpiece and turns to me long enough to hiss, “Your testimony. Last chance to get it straight. Think, Lucifer.” A straight story. It’s almost enough to make me laugh. Truth-twisting is my forte, and the rhetorical stunts I’ve pulled to get myself out of tight spots before are things of legend and renown. But in this situation, the straight truth might be the only option left open to me, and it’s certainly the most compelling. If nothing else, it can’t implicate me in a thing that’s happened in Heaven, Hell, or otherwise over the last week, and I’m really hoping to sidestep the inevitable blowback from Upstairs once they get wind of the whole thing. So when Michael puts his phone away and looks at me with those vast, expectant eyes, I do what I haven’t done in a long time.
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