Praying for Angels

Submitted to Fringe on 10/10/09


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Praying for Angels
by Robert Aquino Dollesin

I was stuck fast on the sidewalk, my Nike knockoffs caught in the clinging grip of an enormous mound of chewed bubble gum.

How could I had been so stupid?

The pocks and pits cratering the gum's pink surface suggested that the gum had to had been chewed, then spit out by somebody with incredibly large molars.

Each time I tried to raise my captive feet, the gum tightened its grab on the soles of my shoes.

Neighborhood kids raced past snickering. None or them stopping to help.

I'd been warned a million times to watch where I'm going, cautioned to check both directions before crossing the street. Hardly a day went by when I wasn't reminded to keep alert for huge slabs of discarded gum.

The sticky strings of melted gum yanked back each time I tried to lift my feet.

Helpless and afraid, I struggled with against the adhesive gum, and kept recalling the stories I'd heard of kids who'd been stuck in gum before, how they used a pocketknife to free themselves. They sliced their legs off, just below the knees. If only I had a knife. But my mother claimed knives were too dangerous.

I bent awkwardly and fished out of my jeans front pocket the few things I did own: a plastic magnifying glass, a rabbit's head, and fifteen feet of hairy rope.

Just then a redheaded boy skidded his scooter to a stop at the edge of the gum puddle and watched me struggle.

"Can you help me?" I asked.

He shoved his hair out of his face and grinned. Then he slowly raised one of his feet a couple of inches off the sidewalk to mock me.

“Please,” I said, sobbing.

He all of the sudden stamped his foot down and broke out into a fit of giggles.

Once when I was younger I climbed into the shallow end of an indoor pool. I bounced on the balls of my feet, the water rising with each step, to the rope separating the deep end from the shallow. I ducked underneath the rope and a moment later the ground beneath me disappeared. I was submerged completely underwater, swallowed by the pool itself. My lungs were exploding. As I slowly sank to the bottom of the pool, I closed my eyes.

Next thing I knew I was hovering above the pool, floating toward the ceiling, where beyond the twining duct work a brilliant light awaited

I reached the light and felt an unexplainable peace.

Then just as suddenly I was drawn away from the light. Something that felt like forklift forks shoved under my armpits. The light shrunk and I broke through the water surface gasping and coughing.

A teenage girl with braces told me to shut up and quit flailing. She cradled my head in her arm, dragged me to the safety of the pool's edge and hefted me out of the water.

After instructing me to stay in the shallows, my Angel hoisted herself back onto her high perch and while water still dripped off her red swimsuit, she went back to diligently studying the pool.

But on city sidewalks there are no Angels. Right?

Still remembering the near-tragedy that took place at the pool, I caught sight of two ponytailed girls skipping along the front of the boarded up storefronts across the street. The girls carried buckets of stones that clattered against their thighs. When they stopped in front of a red fire hydrant, I raised my arms above my head, scissored them repeatedly and pleaded, "Can you help me?"

One of the girls pointed at me. Her friend plunged a hand into the bucket she was carrying. The hand came out of the pail clutching a handful of stones, which flew from her hand in my direction. I held my rabbit's head in front of me for protection. Still, I was pelted over and over by the barrage of stones. Finally, when the girls had exhausted their supply of stones, they both flung their empty buckets at me. The steel pails fell short and smashed against the curb with deafening clangs.

The girls ran off, laughing, and once again I started to cry.

A long time later – I'm not sure exactly how long – a battered old garbage truck rumbled around the corner. It stopped in the road beside me. The grinning driver leaned out of the window.

“Please, Mister,” I begged. “Help me.”

He grabbed his ball cap by the bill, removed it, and swiped his sweaty forehead with a dirty forearm. He said, “Throw me your rope.”

I coiled the long rope and tossed it into the truck's open window. The driver picked it up, examined it by turning it over in his hands. “Fine rope here,” he said, then set it down on the passenger seat next to him.

I twisted my hips wildly, tried to free my feet but only sank deeper into the gum. “Please, Mister, please. Could you help me?”

He threw his head back and laughed. Then he stomped his accelerator. His whipping tires slung coarse gravel against me, then the truck disappeared down the street, the driver's laughter still roaring in my ears.

Looking skyward, I prayed for Angels. Like the Angel in the swimming pool.

Then it hit me that if I could harness the sun's heat, I just might be able to melt the gum. I held my plastic magnifying glass up to the blinding sun, shifting it until a beam streamed through and fell with a shimmer onto the surface of the gum. I waited for the sticky mess to melt.

An hour crept past. I abandoned the effort.

Trying not to think about dying, I closed my eyes and uttered the prayers my mother taught me. Soon, a familiar peacefulness enveloped me. It was the same peaceful feeling that had consumed me every other time: warm air passing over my face. A bright light swelling through my eyelids. The lyrical sound of harps and the sweet fragrances of freshly-bloomed flowers. Flashes of past near-tragedies flickered in my mind: the swimming pool, the cliff overlooking the rocky beach, the lion at the zoo, the airplane that had lost one of its starboard engine. So many different occurrences.

The light surrounding me grew more intense. I stepped into it, accepting my fate.

But then, abruptly, the sound of metal scraping against concrete filled my ears. I felt myself being dragged back. I snapped my eyes open and the light faded.

Orange-vested Angels were all around me. Hard-hat topped Angels armed with shovels and power tools. Angels whose faces were strained as they worked away at the clamping gum.

One of the angels stopped chipping with his chisel and glared at me. “You are one stupid kid.”

"Thank you," I said, smiling brightly to thank him.