Nuke

Now Nuke was another story altogether. He could take Kansas or leave it. In fact that was the way he was with most things except for one area of his life that remained sacred. That area was his spiritual life and Nuke had known from the time he was about five years old that something was guiding him along. When he was about nine years old he had an experience that reinforced his feelings for this higher level of power. Small Kansas towns were hard enough to grow up in so he wasn’t eager to share his innermost thoughts about something that struck him as being so peculiar. He knew his feelings weren’t the norm so he kept this all to himself. He didn’t get along too well in school and was usually into some sort of trouble, either with his teachers or on the playground with other students, usually other boys, who would taunt and provoke him until he had had enough to the point that he exploded. “He’s got a bad temper,” the teachers would say and would then “keep an eye on him” to make sure they caught and punished every wrong move. It was a time when teachers could still whack you with a stick and he certainly got his share of whacks. He never allowed the whackers to see any emotional response to this corporal punishment and would stoically stand and take it then walk away in pain. He fought regularly on the playground over any and everything: He got in a fight when another kid said he didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, with another one when he was told he stepped out of bounds in a dodge ball game, and another when a kid spiked his spinning top and broke it in half, a perfectly legitimate action that provoked him into a fight. He certainly did have a temper. He became strong and somewhat of a bully. His fights were usually with older kids but he never thought about defending the helpless littler ones who couldn’t defend themselves. “Let them fight for themselves,” he thought, “nobody ever helps me,” and he would turn his back on them and go on. But Nuke had a weakness and that weakness was girls. He loved them. He loved the pretty ones and, like he did the poor defenseless kids who couldn’t fight, he treated the less attractive ones with disdain, even taunting and teasing them. He could be cruel and his cruelty didn’t help him out one bit. He was on his way home one day when he met a girl who scared him nearly to death.
Whenever Nuke wanted to get away and be by himself just to think, he would climb up into the old mulberry tree on the corner of O’Connell and Third Street. There he could breathe the spring air and look out over the visible area around him and know he was in control. Nobody could sneak up on him. Nobody could approach without his knowing. He had a keen sense of hearing, probably because of his nearsightedness that gave him “eyes in the back of his head.” So it surprised him when, one particularly fine day in early summer, while he was sitting in reverie as high up in the tree as he could, he looked down and saw her standing there. She was standing there at the base of his tree and he had not even noticed her coming. The girl looked familiar but he wasn’t quite sure of who she really was. To his horror, she reached up and began to climb. “Hey! What do you think you’re doin’? he yelled at her. She continued to reach, one hand then the next for the successive branches that brought her closer to his perch. “Hey, I said, who do you think you are anyway, this is my tree.” Nuke was beside himself now and stood up on the branch he had been sitting on. Her brown chestnut hair was now even with his feet and he backed up higher into the boughs. Her blue and white checkered skirt swung back and forth as she negotiated the climb. Her starched white blouse complemented her white US Keds tennis shoes. “She looks like Margaret out of Dennis the Menace,” he laughed nervously now as he watched her approach. Small branches stuck him in the back. Mulberries squished on his white tee shirt, surely to bring him grief when he got home with a shirt stained beyond cleaning. He was forced to take a stand and when she reached for the next higher branch, he put his foot down on her hand. The brown haired girl rolled her wrist around his ankle and then pushed his foot away. He nearly fell out of the tree as he lost his balance and grabbed backward for the nearest branch. The ripe mulberries squished in his hand staining his palm. He wiped it off on his blue jeans. “Hey, are you tryin’ to kill me or what?” He screamed this time.
Suddenly she was standing there face to face with him, her tanned skin inches away from his, her breath sweet from the deep purple mulberries she picked from the palm of her hand to eat. Her dark eyes showed laughter and teasing and a sense of power over his blue ones that probably showed fear. He tried to regain the upper hand and moved out away from the branches behind him. He noticed that she was just standing there, balanced and poised in front of him, not hanging on with either hand as she continued to stare at him, smiling and eating the ripe berries. Her fingers were long, her fingernails starkly white against the olive tan of her skin and the purpleness of the mulberries. He calmed down a bit. She seemed to be having a calming effect on him and he felt more and more at ease. “Who are you?” he asked quietly. He was struck by her beautiful appearance and watched her intently now.
She turned her head to look back behind her and picked the juncture of two limbs to sit on, a place that he, himself, had sat many times, a place that belonged to him. He felt a twinge of selfishness but checked himself from saying anything. She grabbed the corners of her skirt and sat down. “I’m the Angel of Death,” she said it without looking directly at him at first then slowly turned her eyes to his, “Do you want to see my panties?” It was a good thing there was a stout branch behind to catch him as he fell backward almost losing consciousness. He could not believe what he had just heard and wanted at first to get out of there at all cost. He thought about jumping and running but a guy just didn’t run from a girl in those days even if she was the Angel of Death. He decided to stay but didn’t exactly know what to say to the question she had just asked. Instead, he leaned his elbow on the crook of the branch next to him and settled back into his favorite spot. “Sure,” he said regaining his composure, “Why not?” This was an unusual situation for a kid who wasn’t even old enough to like girls, a kid who was supposed to tease them and pull their hair. But he was different, he got along with girls and liked to be with them. He just hoped that none of his buddies happened to be riding by on their bikes. If they saw him up there with a girl he was as good as dead. This thought brought him back to reality and he remembered her joke about being the Angel of Death. Or maybe it wasn’t a joke.
“OK, so what’s your name? I mean I can’t just call you Angel of Death now can I.” Nuke became a little bolder now, thinking to himself that she was someone visiting a grandma or an aunt, or maybe she was one of the Fleenor kids. Their family had just moved into the big two story on the hill and nobody yet knew how many kids there were.
“Nope, none of those,” she said, “Just call me Angel.”
“Well, then where are you from? I’ve never seen you around here before.”
“Here, there, and everywhere,” Angel gave him a coy look, “You haven’t seen me before, but I’ve seen you.”
“You have?”
“Sure, lots of times,” she looked prim and proper, like she was sitting in a chair in someone’s parlor. Her feet were together and she adjusted her skirt to where it was about two inches above her knees and then, interlocking her fingers, she placed her hands on top of her knees and straightened her back, giving her long hair a shake and giggling at him.
Nuke blushed. “Oh yeah? Like where have you seen me before?” He tried to get control of himself and the conversation. He leaned back on the tree limb and cocked his head to one side, squinting one eye and peering at her intently with the other. This seemed to work because she looked away from his direct, one-eyed glare.
She became more sullen now, her jet black eyes turning on him and nailing him to the tree. He felt like she had literally pushed him with her look. “The other day when you were walking to school, you stopped and rummaged through the remains of that old lady’s house that burned. You know she died in that fire, don’t you?”
“She did?” Nuke was sitting forward now, listening to her and reflecting back on that day. He knew the old lady died but he wanted to make sure he wasn’t being tricked.
“I was there, too.”
“I didn’t see you there.”
“Right beside you.”
“Then how come I didn’t see you?”
“Sometimes I can be seen and sometimes I can’t, it depends on the person and the situation. The time wasn’t right for you to see me but now it is, so you can.” She smiled a little, hoping he was able to comprehend what she was telling him.
“Well then, what about the old lady?” Nuke was getting a little concerned with this talk. He squirmed on his tree seat.
“It was her time.”
Nuke was concerned but he was also amazed at himself for not being scared. Something about Angel calmed him and he wasn’t scared at all, even though he did understand what she was telling him and who she really was. It was like he intuited that she really was the Angel of Death and that he, himself, was not in any danger. It was like she was his friend and he liked that a lot. The question, though, had to be asked. “Is it my time?” He looked directly at her now, bright blue eyes to brilliant black ones, locked in a cosmic gaze.