Silver Trumpet

Gabriela ran past rows of dusty tables, barely seeing shopping carts that lay against the distant walls and shimmered in the gloom. A woman, gaunt and leering, rose out of the darkness to scream at her like a monster from a haunted house. Gabriela ran faster, past old machines that lay like the scattered bones of industry on the dusty floor. Rats scurried in the darkness. She saw a broad stairway looming above her like the tongue of a malevolent giant and sped up. The boards creaked and groaned beneath her feet. She climbed higher, through a second floor and a third. It was only when she stood above the broad expanse of the fourth story and stared down on ranks of rotting desks, still covered in mouldering papers, that she realized no one was behind her. It was only then that she saw the double doors at the top of the stairs and heard a voice come through them.


“Nothin' up here worth stealing.” It was a hard, cracked croak. Gabriela's eyes widened.


“I'm not a thief.” It was the only thing she could think to say.

The author wants to take the opportunity to credit and thank the late Mr. Donne.

“Then come on up here. I don't own this place. Who am I to keep you out?” Gabriela walked up the last three steps and pushed open a door. A figure lay in a nest of blankets that reeked of piss and sweat. The smell of blood hung in the air, thick and heavy and sad.


“Sorry 'bout everything,” the figure said. He coughed. “I ain't a dirty bum, ain't on drugs and never drank in years. Can't afford to. I'm a musician, a trumpet man got old and out of work. I'm sorry 'bout the smell. I ain't had a real place to live since before a young girl like you was born, but I hung onto my self respect. This is what I have, and I used to keep it clean. This mess only happened after I got too sick to get up, too sick to clean it up anymore. I can't stand up. Haven't even had water in three days.” At the dinner, Gabriela had found a half-filled water bottle in an out of the way pocket of her book bag. She pulled it out.


“I have some,” she said. His sunken eyes widened.


“Bless you, Miss” he said. After he had drained the bottle, he spoke again. “I ain't never gonna forget this. I believe in Heaven, miss, and I'm gonna go there soon. Once I do, you'll have an angel watching over you every day of your life. I'll do whatever for you an angel can. Now, I don't have much to pay you with in this world, but there is one thing. I wasn't entirely truthful when I said there wasn't nothing here for a thief. He raised one broad, leathery hand. It shook as he pointed to the far corner of the room “Go dig under those rags, miss. I've got something I can give you.”


“You don't have to-”


“Yes, I do,” he said. “I have been on this earth more than eighty years, and I ain't taken charity in all that time. I know you mean well, Miss, but let a man die with his pride.” Gabriela nodded and walked to the corner of the room. Buried under the rags was an old, black case. “Open it.” She did. A silver trumpet glittered in the rays of the waning moon that came through the dirty pane of the big window. “Her name is Selene,” he said, “And she was new in 1924. I played out on street corners until last week. I never begged, miss. Until the end I earned my bread.” As she fingered the horn, she saw a hand holding a baton in her mind's eye, a crowd, sheet music, a small bottle of clear oil. She tensed.


“I think I've held one of these before,” she said.


“You play, honey?”


“I-I guess I do.” She raised it to her lips. A note as sweet and cool as chai rolled out of the end of the bell. The old man looked up and raised one eyebrow.


“You guess you do?” She played faster, sixty-fourth notes streaming out of the bell and cascading down the stairs like molten gold. “You afraid of death, miss?” She stopped.


“I don't know.”


“I like your music. That's a song I could die to. If you're scared, though, you'd best get out of here. Death's about to walk into this room. If you don't want to see him, you'd better head back down those stairs before he comes.”
“Death?” she asked.


“Old Mr. Death,” he said and coughed. “Let me tell you something about death. You got my Selene, but you've been so kind to me, playing me pretty music. I'll give you something else, and it's all I have left. It's what I know, and I know something about death.” He closed his eyes. “Death ain't proud. Play your trumpet, miss,” he said.



“If you would, play for me while I tell you. I ain't got much time left.”


“Okay,” she said. She played.


“Death ain't proud, though he'd like us to think he is. Death can't have me yet, not for a few minutes, anyway, and he ain't gonna have you for a long time. He can't touch the best that's in us. All death can do to a man is make him sleep. Don't know about you, but I sleep every night. Always wake up feeling better than I did before. 'Sides, I've seen songs and drugs and good, hard work get people tired. Hell, the setting sun makes people sleep, miss! Sleep don't scare me. About the only thing Mr. Death's got going is taste. He takes the best men first. You know, death ain't even free to work when he wants to. He's got to wait around for sickness, age, war, or some poor, desperate sonofabitch with a gun who needs a fix. The Bible says that, for a Christian man, death ain't had any teeth these last two thousand years. I ain't seen you 'round here, before, miss, and I saw all kinds of people. You're gonna see some things if you stay here, miss. I suggest you go elsewhere if you've got an elsewhere to go. Every alleyway's a shortcut to some earthly Hell. If you're gonna stay, though, remember what I said. Death ain't proud, and, around here, it ain't the worst that can happen,” he said, “but don't be too scared of the people you see. Most of them, that's the worst they can do to you.” Gabriela lowered her horn.


“I'll remember that,” she said.

Mercy Road

Gabriela walked for a quarter of an hour. She shivered at first, but her army jacket and the morning sun warmed her. She came to the corner where a man in jeans and a biker jacket was standing and shouting at no one with one hand on a bible and the other on the handlebar of a long, black motorcycle. Its headlight glowed like a coal in the darkness lingering in the shadows of the buildings that loomed above the street.

“I was a sinner! A drug user and abuser! A fornicator and customer of whores, the women and men. I wasn't picky! I didn't care if it was pot or meth or turpentine. I should have died. I was going to Hell. I planed on it, but I got saved!” He pumped the arm that held a battered, black bible in the air. “I called this bike Beelzebub. This long, black sonofabitch is my traveling companion! Lord, I love it more than any woman! More than my own mother! Lord, I saw this whole country on the back of that bike. I was a wino! A sinner and a common drunk! It's a wonder nobody died when I was on the road! We ran down the highways like two devils from Hell, but I got saved!” He saw Gabriela. “You saved, little sister?” he asked.

A dim memory of warmth and stained glass windows and organ music washed over her. She nodded. “That's good,” he said. “A pretty girl like you in Hell would be an awful waste, so you're not going! My little sister here's gonna fly up to Heaven someday! Glory hallelujah! Yes, Lord, she plans on it! Can I get an Amen, little sister? Can I get an Amen?! This old world ain't gonna last much longer, and my little sister's gonna spread her wings. She plans on it! Can I get an Amen?!” Now he was shouting as if to an imaginary crowd.

“Amen,” said Gabriela. “Amen.”
She walked on, exploring the neighborhood. Gabriela gathered two dollars and thirteen cents in tarnished coins from the sidewalk. She also found seven lost bus tokens and a left glove. She had heard somewhere that cans could be turned in at recycling centers. There were dozens on the ground. She asked the butcher for directions to the recycling center and turned in twenty-three for a quarter a piece. She had enough for a big burger at the diner, which also bought her a soda and a place to sit down. Gabriela had no memory before that morning, but her body told her that she was unused to walking all day. She sat until almost three o'clock when it occurred to her that she would need more money for dinner. She went outside.

The air was colder, and the sky above was congealing into thick, black clouds. The pigeons she had seen earlier were gone, and Gabriela knew that meant rain. The wind picked up, and she began to wonder where she would spend the night, but she found a few more cans and even some bottles. She turned in a big wine bottle that was worth seventy-five cents all by its self. She had another good haul, a better one this time, and there was no one else out collecting cans from the street. She never thought to wonder why.

She passed a man selling food from a cart outside of an abandoned building that loomed like a witch's castle. She heard an engine. An old, white van covered in rust streaks turned the corner with two wheels on the curb. It rattled, shook, and spat an uneven stream of exhaust into the air. Gabriela saw that it was a big Dodge, an eight-seater with no tags. It passed her and stopped. A clutch groaned, the engine backfired, and the car went into reverse. A young man sat in every seat, and all of them had guns.

“Hey, honey!” said the driver. “You're a pretty girl. You wanna ride with us, ride with the boys?!”

“We're gonna go have fun, pretty girl,” said the man in the front seat. “Come one. Go with us.” The back door began to slide open. Gabriela's eyes widened. She took a step back and froze.

“Come on, honey,” said the one in the driver's seat. “Let's have some fun.” She screamed and fled into the rotting hulk behind her. No one followed.

Awakening

She was lying on the ground in the exhaust-tainted dirt beneath the overpass. Thin lines of blood had run down from a wound on the back of her head and congealed in her dark hair like rust stains. She looked like a parody of a ballerina, feet set apart, one arm extended, fallen where not even weeds would grow. She lay there face down as a black Lexus passed by without slowing. A blue Prius splashed her with the water and antifreeze that had collected in the gutter. There were no birds to herald it nor poets to record the sight, but the first rays of the morning were beginning to pierce the lattice curtain of the looming highrises. There were no cars passing when she finally stirred.

The girl stretched, winced, and touched the bruised and bloodied place at the back of her skull. She was dizzy, and her head was filled with a dull throb like hammer blows through a mattress, but she sat up. She saw a small backpack lying beside the imprint of her hand in the soft ground. Inside, there were two books, a ball of lip balm, a scrunchie, a scarf, and a twenty dollar bill. She could tell it was fall getting on towards winter because of the leaves on the cracked sidewalk and the cold. She twisted the scarf around her neck and found a pin in the pocket of her army jacket. It was a big brooch with a picture in the center. Its thin lines swam and bled together before her eyes, but she thought it was the image of an angel.

She stood and looked down the road in both directions. To her right, the sunlight shone hard as a knife's edge on towers of glass. To her left, there was the soft, dim, comforting embrace of the unbroken shadows. On the right, away to the north and west, a girl danced on an extra-large billboard. Her breasts, large as hills, hawked handbags to passersby. To the southeast, there was brick and mortar and broken glass glittering on the sidewalks like blades honed from diamonds. Somewhere, on some back porch, rooftop, or balcony, beside some open window, a radio was playing. An old spiritual, fuzzy with static, wafted down to the sidewalk like the smell of cooking. She could just make out the words:

The Lord spoke to Gabriel; fare you well; fare you well.
“Go look behind the altar;” fare you well; fare you well.
“Take down your silver trumpet;” fare you well; fare you well.
“Blow your trumpet, Gabriel;” fare you well; fare you well.

'Gabriel,' she thought. That's what I'll call myself. No, that's a boy's name. It'll have to be 'Gabriela.'