Dangerous Angels with Bonus Materials Page 7

  After that day Raphael Chong Jah-Love and Cherokee Bat became inseparable. They hiked up canyon trails, collected pebbles, looked for deer, built fires, had powwows, made papooses out of puppies and lay warming their bellies on rocks and chanting to the animals, trees, and earth, “You are all my relations,” the way My Secret Agent Lover Man’s friend Coyote had showed them. They painted on every surface they could find, including each other. They spent hours gazing at each other until their eyes were all pupil and Cherokee’s looked as dark as Raphael’s. No one could get their attention.

  Weetzie, My Secret Agent Lover Man, and Valentine and Ping Chong Jah-Love watched them.

  “They are just babies still,” My Secret Agent Lover Man said. “How could they be so in love? They remind me of us.”

  “If I had met you when I was little, I would have acted the same way,” Weetzie said.

  “But it’s funny,” said Ping. “I always thought Witch Baby was secretly in love with Raphael.”

  While Raphael and Cherokee fell in love, they forgot all about drums. Witch Baby stopped playing drums too. She pulled apart Cherokee’s Kachina Barbie dolls, scattering their limbs throughout the cottage and even sticking some parts in Brandy-Lynn’s Jell-O mold. She stole Duck’s Fig Newtons, made dresses out of Dirk’s best shirts and bit Weetzie’s fingers when Weetzie tried to serve her vegetables.

  “Witch Baby! Stop that! Weetzie’s fingers are not carrots!” My Secret Agent Lover Man exclaimed, kissing Weetzie’s nibbled fingertips.

  Witch Baby went around the cottage taking candid pictures of everyone looking their worst—My Secret Agent Lover Man with a hangover, Weetzie covered with paint and glue, Dirk and Duck arguing, Brandy-Lynn weeping into a martini, Cherokee and Raphael gobbling up the vegetarian lasagna Weetzie was saving for dinner.

  Witch Baby was wild, snarled, tangled and angry. Everyone got more and more frustrated with her. When they tried to grab her, even for a hug, she would wriggle away, her body quick-slippery as a fish. She never cried, but she always wanted to cry. Finally, while she was watching Cherokee and Raphael running around the cottage in circles, whooping and flapping their feather-decorated arms, Witch Baby remembered something Cherokee had done to her when they were very young. Late at night she got out of her bed, took the toenail scissors she had hidden under her pillow, crept over to Cherokee’s tepee and snipped at Cherokee’s hair. She did not cut straight across, but chopped unevenly, and the ragged strands of hair fell like moonlight.

  The next morning Witch Baby hid in the shed and waited. Then she heard a scream coming from the cottage. She felt as if someone had crammed a bean-cheese-hot-dog-pastrami burrito down her throat.

  Witch Baby hid in the shed all day. When everyone was asleep she crept back into the cottage, went into the violet-and-aqua-tiled bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. She saw a messy nest of hair, a pale, skinny body, knobby, skinned knees and feet with curling toes.

  No wonder Raphael doesn’t love me, Witch Baby thought. I am a baby witch.

  She took the toenail scissors and began to chop at her own hair. Then she plugged in My Secret Agent Lover Man’s razor, turned it on and listened to it buzz at her like a hungry metal animal.

  When her scalp was completely bald, Witch Baby, with her deep-set, luminous, jacaranda-blossom-colored eyes, looked as if she had drifted down from some other planet.

  But Witch Baby did not see her eerie, fairy, genie, moon-witch beauty, the beauty of twilight and rainstorms. “You’ll never belong to anyone,” she said to the bald girl in the mirror.

  Tree Spirit

  The chain saws were buzzing like giant razors. Witch Baby pressed her palms over her ears.

  “What is going on?” Coyote cried, padding into the cottage.

  Witch Baby had hardly ever heard Coyote raise his voice before. She curled up under the clock, and he knelt beside her so that his long braid brushed her cheek. She saw the full veins in his callused hands, the turquoise-studded band, blood-blue, at his wrist.

  “Where is everyone, my little bald one?” he asked gently.

  “They went to the street fair.”

  “And they left you here with the dying trees?”

  “I didn’t want to go with them.”

  Coyote put his hand on Witch Baby’s head. It fit perfectly like a cap. His touch quieted the saws for a moment and stilled the blood beating at Witch Baby’s naked temples. “Why not?” he asked.

  “I get lonely with them.”

  “With all that big family you have?”

  “More than when I’m alone.”

  Coyote nodded. “I would rather be alone most of the time. It’s quieter. Someday I will live in the desert again with the Joshua trees.” He took a handkerchief out of his leather backpack and unfolded it. Inside were five seeds. “Joshua tree seeds,” he said. “In the blue desert moonlight, if you put your arms around Joshua trees and are very quiet, you can hear them speaking to you. Sometimes, if you turn around fast enough, you can catch them dancing behind your back.”

  Coyote squinted out the window at the falling branches, the whirlwind of leaves, blossoms and dust.

  “Now I’m going to do something about those tree murderers.” He went to the phone book, found the number of the school across the street, and called.

  “I need to speak to the principal. It’s about the trees.”

  He waited, drumming his fingers. Witch Baby crept up beside him, peering over the tabletop at the sunset desert of his face.

  “Is this the principal? I’d like to ask you why you are cutting those trees down. I would think that a school would be especially concerned. Do you know how long it takes trees to grow? Especially in this foul air?”

  The saws kept buzzing brutally while he spoke. Witch Baby thought about the jacaranda trees across the street. Coyote had told her that all trees have spirits, and she imagined women with long, light-boned limbs and falls of whispery green hair, dark Coyote men with skin like clay as it smooths on the potter’s wheel. Some might even be hairless girls like Witch Baby—the purple-eyed spirits of jacaranda trees.

  Finally, Coyote put the phone down. He and Witch Baby sat together at the window, wincing as all the trees in front of the school became a woodpile scattered with purple blossoms.

  Coyote is like My Secret and me, Witch Baby thought, feeling the warmth of his presence beside her. But he recognizes that I am like him and My Secret doesn’t see.

  Witch Baby’s almost-family came home and saw them still sitting there. Weetzie invited Coyote to stay for dinner but he solemnly shook his head.

  “I couldn’t eat anything after what we saw today,” he said.

  That night, when everyone else was asleep, Witch Baby unfolded the handkerchief she had stolen from Coyote’s backpack and looked at the five Joshua tree seeds. They seemed to glow, and she thought she heard them whispering as she crept out the window and into the moonlight. In the soil from which the jacaranda trees had been torn, Witch Baby knelt and planted Coyote’s five seeds, imagining how one day she and Coyote would fling their arms around five Joshua trees. If she was very quiet she might be able to hear the trees telling her the secrets of the desert.

  “Where are they?”

  Coyote stood towering above Witch Baby’s bed. She blinked up at him, her dreams of singing trees passing away like clouds across the moon, until she saw his face clearly. His hair was unbraided and fell loose around his shoulders.

  “Where are my Joshua tree seeds, Witch Baby?”

  Witch Baby sat up in bed. It was early morning and still quiet. There was no buzzing today; all the trees were already down.

  “I planted them for you,” she said.

  Coyote looked as if the sound of chain saws were still filling his head. “What? You planted them? Where did you plant them? Those were special seeds. My Secret Agent Lover Man brought them to me from the desert. I told him I had to take them back the next time I went, because Joshua trees grow only on sacred desert groun
d. They’ll never grow where you planted them.”

  “But I planted them in front of the school because of yesterday. They’ll grow there and we’ll always be able to look at them and listen to what they tell us.”

  “They’ll never grow,” Coyote said. “They are lost.”

  Witch Baby spent the next three nights clutching a flashlight and digging in the earth in front of the school for the Joshua tree seeds, but there was no sign of them. Her fingers ached, the nails full of soil, the knuckles scratched by rocks and twigs. She was kneeling in dirt, covered in dirt, wishing for the tree spirits to take her away with them to a place where Joshua trees sang and danced in the blue moonlight.

  Stowawitch

  It was Dirk who found Witch Baby digging in the dirt. He was taking a late-night run on his glowing silver Nikes when he noticed the spot of light flitting over the ground in front of the school. Then he saw the outline of a tree spirit crouched in the darkness. He ran over and called to Witch Baby.

  “What are you doing out here, Miss Witch?”

  Witch Baby flicked off the flashlight and didn’t answer, but when Dirk came over, she let him lift her in his beautiful, sweaty arms and carry her into the house. She leaned against him, limp with exhaustion.

  “Never go off at night by yourself anymore,” Dirk said as he tucked her into bed. “If you want, you can wake me and we can go on a run. I know what it’s like to feel scared and awake in the night. Sometimes I could go dig in the earth too, when I feel that way.”

  Before Witch Baby fell asleep that night she looked at the picture she had taken of Dirk and Duck at the party. Dirk, who looked even taller than he was because of his Mohawk and thick-soled creepers, was pretending to balance a champagne glass on Duck’s flat-top and Duck’s blue eyes were rolled upward, watching the glass. Almost anyone could see by the picture that Dirk and Duck were in love.

  Dirk and Duck are different from most people too, Witch Baby thought. Sometimes they must feel like they don’t belong just because they love each other.

  When Dirk and Duck announced that they were going to Santa Cruz to visit Duck’s family, Witch Baby asked if she could go with them.

  “I’m sorry, Witch Baby,” Dirk said, rubbing his hand over the fuzz that had grown back on her scalp. “Duck and I need to spend some time alone together. Someday, when you are in love, you will understand.”

  “Besides, I haven’t seen my family in years,” Duck said. “It might be kind of an intense scene. We’ll bring you back some mini-Birkenstock sandals from Santa Cruz, though.”

  But Witch Baby didn’t want Birkenstocks. And she already understood about spending time with the person you love. She wanted to go to Santa Cruz with Dirk and Duck, especially since she could never go anywhere with Raphael.

  I’ll be a stowaway, Witch Baby thought.

  Dirk and Duck put their matching surfboards, their black-and-yellow wet suits, their flannel shirts, long underwear, Guatemalan shorts, hooded mole-man sweatshirts, Levi’s and Vans and Weetzie’s avocado sandwiches into Dirk’s red 1955 Pontiac, Jerry, and kissed everyone good-bye—everyone except for Witch Baby, who had disappeared.

  “I hope she’s okay,” Weetzie said.

  “She’s just hiding,” said My Secret Agent Lover Man.

  “Give the witch child these.” Duck handed Weetzie a fresh box of Fig Newtons. He did not know that Witch Baby was hidden in Jerry’s trunk, eating the rest of the Newtons he had packed away there.

  On the way to Santa Cruz Dirk and Duck stopped along the coast to surf. They stopped so many times to surf and eat (they finished the avocado sandwiches in the first fifteen minutes and bought sunflower seeds, licorice, peaches and Foster’s Freeze soft ice cream along the way) that they didn’t get to Santa Cruz until late that night. Duck was driving when they arrived, and he pulled Jerry up in front of the Drake house where Duck’s mother, Darlene, lived with her boyfriend, Chuck, and Duck’s eight brothers and sisters. It was an old house, painted white, with a tangled garden and a bay window full of lace and crystals. In the driveway was a Volvo station wagon with a “Visualize World Peace” bumper sticker.

  Dirk and Duck sat there in the dark car, and neither of them said anything for a long time. Witch Baby peeked out from the trunk and imagined Duck playing in the garden as a little Duck, freckled and tan. She imagined a young Duck running out the front door in a yellow wet suit with a too-big surfboard under one arm and flippers on his feet.

  “I wish I could tell my mom about us,” Duck said to Dirk, “but she’ll never understand. I think we should wait till morning to go in. I don’t want to wake them.”

  “Whatever you need to do,” Dirk said. “We can go to a motel or sleep in Jerry.”

  “I have a better idea,” said Duck.

  That night they slept on a picnic table at the beach, wrapped in sweaters and blankets to keep them warm. Duck looked at the full moon and said to Dirk, “The moon reminds me of my mom. So does the sound of the ocean. She used to say, ‘Duck, how do you see the moon? Duck, how do you hear the ocean?’ I can’t remember how I used to answer.”

  When Dirk and Duck were asleep, Witch Baby climbed out of the trunk, stretched and peed.

  I wish I could play my drums so they sounded the way I hear the ocean, she thought, closing her eyes and trying to fill herself with the concert of the night.

  Then she looked up at the moon.

  How do I see the moon? I wish I had a real mother to ask me.

  The next morning, while Witch Baby hid in Jerry’s trunk, Dirk and Duck hugged each other, surfed, took showers at the beach, put on clean clothes, slicked back their hair, hugged each other and drove to the Drake house.

  Some children with upturned noses and blonde hair like Duck’s and Birkenstocks on their feet were playing with three white dogs in the garden. When Dirk and Duck came up the path, one of the children screamed, “Duck!” All of them ran and jumped on him, covering him with kisses. Then three older children came out of the house and jumped on Duck too.

  “Dirk, this is Peace, Granola, Crystal, Chi, Aura, Tahini and the twins, Yin and Yang,” Duck said. “Everybody, this is my friend, Dirk McDonald.”

  A petite blonde woman wearing Birkenstocks and a sundress came out of the house. “Duck!” she cried. “Duck!” She ran to him and they embraced.

  Witch Baby watched from the trunk.

  “We have missed you so much,” Darlene Drake said. “Well, come in, come inside. Have some pancakes. Chuck’ll be home soon.”

  Duck looked at Dirk. Then he said, “Mom, this is my friend, Dirk McDonald.”

  “I’m very happy to meet you, Mrs. Drake,” Dirk said, putting out his hand.

  “Hi, Dirk,” said Darlene, but she hardly glanced at him. She was staring at her oldest son. “You look more like your dad than ever,” she said, and her eyes filled with tears. “I wish he could see you!”

  Dirk, Duck, Darlene and the little Drakes went into the house. Witch Baby climbed out of Jerry’s trunk and sat in the flower box, watching through the window. She saw Darlene serve Duck and Dirk whole-wheat pancakes full of bananas and pecans and topped with plain yogurt and maple syrup. A little later the kitchen door opened and a big man with a red face came in.

  “Chuck, honey, look who’s here!” Darlene said, scurrying to him.

  “Well, look who decided to wander back in!” Chuck said in a deep voice. He started to laugh. “Hey, Duck-dude! We thought you drowned or something, man!”

  “Chuck!” said Darlene.

  Duck looked at his pancakes.

  “I’m just glad he’s here now,” Darlene said. “And this is Duck’s friend…”

  “Dirk,” Dirk said.

  “Do you surf, Dirk?” Chuck asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, me, you and Duck can catch some Santa Cruz waves. And I’ll show you where the No-Cal babes hang,” Chuck said.

  “Chuck!” said Darlene.

  “Darlene hates that,” Chuck said, pinchi
ng her.

  “Stop it, Chuck,” Darlene said.

  Witch Baby took a photograph of Duck pushing his pancakes around in a pool of syrup while Dirk glanced from him to Chuck and back. Then she climbed in through the window, hopping onto a plate of pancakes on the kitchen table.

  “Oh my!” Darlene gasped. “Who is this?”

  “Witch Baby!” Dirk and Duck shouted. “How did you get here?”

  “I stowed away.”

  “I better call home and tell them,” Duck said. “They’re probably going crazy trying to find you.” He got up to use the phone.

  “Oh, you’re a friend of Duck’s,” Darlene said as Duck left the room. “Well, stop dancing on the pancakes. You must be hungry; you’re so skinny.” She pointed at Witch Baby’s black high-top sneakers covered with rubber bugs. “And we should get you some nice sandals.”

  Witch Baby thought of her toes curling out of a pair of Birkenstocks and looked down at the floor.

  “They were worried about you, Witch Child,” Duck said when he came back. “Weetzie bit off all her fingernails and My Secret Agent Lover Man drove around looking for you all night. Never run away like that again!”

  Did they really miss me? she wondered. Did they even know who it was who was gone?

  Duck turned to his brothers and sisters, who were staring at Witch Baby with their identical sets of blue eyes. “This is my family, Peace, Granola, Crystal, Chi, Aura, Tahini and Yin and Yang Drake,” Duck said. “You guys, this is Witch Baby. She’s my…she’s our…well, she’s our pancake dancer stowawitch!”

  Witch Baby bared her teeth and Yin and Yang giggled. Then all Duck’s brothers and sisters ran off to play in the garden.

  Duck Mother

  In Santa Cruz, Dirk, Duck and Darlene went for walks on the beach, hiked in the redwoods, marketed for organic vegetables and tofu and fed the chickens, the goat and the rabbit. Witch Baby followed along, taking pictures, whistling, growling, doing cartwheels, flips and imitations of Rubber Chicken and Charlie Chaplin and throwing pebbles at Dirk, Duck and Darlene when they ignored her. Sometimes, when a pebble skimmed her head, Darlene would turn around, look at the girl with the fuzzy scalp and sigh.