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Dry Season · Tegucigalpa, Honduras
The
blast of taxi horns and dilapidated bus mufflers cut
through the opened balcony doors and packed the room with
noise. Ware Cornell stared in the direction from which
the racket entered, past the moss-draped electrical lines
an arm’s stretch beyond the balcony railing, and
into the dust-draped skyline of Tegucigalpa.
He felt like
dying, but he thought of other things. Even the moans and
kisses of the woman who played her lips upon his chest,
her bared breasts coursing his abdomen, did not interrupt
his thoughts—thoughts which ranged darkly, each one
a reminder of the depression which had grown upon him
since the day he was born. Surely since the day he
entered the Vanderbilt University School of Theology. And
certainly since that middle-of-semester day he packed his
bags and walked away from his reason for being.
Then his
rumination arrived at the trucks—six tractors with
trailers sitting in a storage yard, covered with dry
season grime. He glanced at his watch, groaned, and
pushed the woman from him.
"Damn,
Chica. Can’t you stop with those whore sounds.
You’ve got it sounding like a zoo in
here."
Chica sat back
upon her knees and frowned at her lover, the chocolate of
her irises concentrated into the most formidable of
Indian dissatisfaction.
"I was
only trying to raise your spirits, Ware."
"All you
need to do is raise my prick, Chica. All else
follows…without animal sounds." Ware pushed
himself erect against the head of the bed and tucked a
pillow behind himself. He eyed the naked body of the
prostitute Chica who had become his unavoidable
companion. He sighed. "But I must admit. You have a
great body, amante. And you’re the best in
bed. So, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult
you."
He sent Chica
his best false smile. The girl’s frown melted. She angled her head in a combination of approval and
curiosity.
"Don’t
be so glum, my baby," she murmured.
"If you
were me, you’d be glum," Ware answered.
"But
why?"
"If you
were me, you wouldn’t know for sure. But you might
guess those damned trucks Rhode and I have yet to pay off
might have something to do with it.
"Oh,
baby," Chica whispered and acted sad.
"Don’t
baby talk me, Chica. I can't stand the way you do your
lips when you talk like that. You look like you’re
sucking a--"
Chica slapped at him in time
with a shout of
anger, then sprang from the bed. She took her clothes
from the chair where she’d hurriedly tossed them to
appease Ware’s desire for her. She began to dress.
"You’re
crude, Ware. You’re a crude, crude man," she
hissed.
"And
you’re not crude, Chica? You’re a prostitute
that does more things with her mouth than most people can
do with their entire body."
Chica struggled
into the form fitting jeans which were two sizes too
small for her but, when finally fitted, accented every
curve and crack of her very sensual torso.
"Then
maybe you should find someone more
sophisticated—like that evangelical pig Don Rhode
lives with. Florita is a washwoman’s daughter and a
prostitute, too, you know—only she operates under
the alias of Virgin Mary. You won’t catch her
sucking a cock, I’m sure."
Chica was into
her top, a skimpy, skin-tight garment that even Florita
would have trouble squeezing herself into—the attire
bare at the shoulders and neck, showing the midsection
and the navel below. Chica’s amble breasts spread
tight against the fabric, their fullness emphasized and
their nipples taut toppings designed for the male eye.
"Don’t
be ridiculous, Chica." Ware spoke patronizingly into
the girl’s anger.
"I’m
not being ridiculous. If I’m not good enough for
you, get you a whore that uses a religious style. Get a
missionary—they’re popular right now."
Ware chuckled.
"And what
would you do, Chica?"
Chica slipped
her feet into her high-heeled shoes then directed her
gaze squarely at Ware.
"I’d
kill you," she answered.
Ware’s
mouth dropped with surprise. Then he laughed. He fell
from his pillow for a roll across the bed and laughed
grandly.
"Oh,
Chica! Finally you’ve cheered me!"
"Why? Do
you want to die?"
"No, no!
Or, maybe, yes. But not right now. It’s just funny.
What you said was funny."
Chica put her
hands upon her hips.
"I
don’t know why. But have it your way."
Ware calmed
himself, pushed aside two paperback philosophy books that
set upon the bedside table, and took the half empty beer
bottle there instead. He leaned against the headboard and
drank.
"I would
have it my way, Chica, if I could. But I can’t, and
I don’t. So I guess I’ll stick with you a while
longer."
Chica sneered
knowingly at her john as she arranged her coffee-brown
hair in the mirror of the scarred bureau across the room.
Ware drank the contents of the bottle, put it aside, and
pushed himself from the bed. He stood.
"Are you
joining me for the meeting with Rhode and Eldon?"
"I
wouldn’t miss it for the world," Chica answered
drearily, "The Office is my favorite place. I met
you there, remember?"
"I’m
afraid I do." Ware sighed. He retrieved his clothes
from the same chair where Chica’s had been.
"After the meeting we’ll leave that dump and
I’ll buy you dinner somewhere."
"If you
don’t pass out first," Chica answered.
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closest thing he knows to hope is a
liquor bottle; the closest thing he knows to love, the
arms of a prostitute. Dispatched from an anteroom of
Heaven, the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael
arrive upon Earth, their mission to save him. But the
world has changed. Angels can become victims, too. Their
best efforts are scarred by the viciousness of human
motivation. And the tragedy that mounts at every turn
upon the characters that surround them, mounts upon the
angels as well. Ware, and the spirit of humankind with
him, are lost to lust, murder, envy, and usury. No longer
rational enough to guess that the ruin of his career,
family, home, and dignity occurred while he was kidnapped
by phantoms of belief, he seeks divine sustenance through
a spiritual framework built upon the same lethal
qualities by which he is lost. He, Recalled, struggles,
captured and terrified within a slyly perpetuated spiral— until the last injured angel dares
join his world.