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.'