13: A Male Watcher Raises Questions

Waking up the next morning, I rubbed my eyes and immediately sat up and glanced at Cate’s bed. Unfortunately it was empty, unmade and apparently never slept in. I sighed and collapsed on the bed.

“She never came back, huh?” Patricia asked, rolling over and flicking the hair out of her eyes.

“No,” Allison answered. “She never came in all night.”

When I glanced at her, arching my eyebrow in question, she blushed. “Being a ‘party girl’, I’m used to staying up nights. And carrying large amounts of cash on me, I’m also quick to wake up at the slightest disturbance.”

I nodded, that little mystery solved but still worried about my sister. The four of us went about our morning preparations separately and without discussion. I didn’t even ask about anyone’s evenings, and they seemingly knew enough not to ask me about Cate. The girls understood I was still debating things with myself. No one even bothered to explain where the other women were, as I was too preoccupied to worry about it. If they needed me they could contact me instantly, so the fact they hadn’t contacted me must mean they were OK. For Cate, though, I had no such assurance.

Although I felt better about my disagreement with Cate about including these women in my life, she still weighed heavily on my mind. I didn’t really need to worry about the unimportant stuff. Among the unimportant stuff were any more concerns about what I’d done the previous day. Worries about having to cure people, or being noticed for doing so, suddenly seemed strangely immaterial. I simply hadn’t given it a thought since the movie had started the previous night.

Both Anh and Allison held my hands when my parents eventually knocked on the door. “No say anything,” Anh counseled, “she might be wait downstair.”

“And if she isn’t? What then?” She simply shrugged, conceding that would be a problem.

When I opened the door my parents were still putting things into place, straightening shirts, skirts and other assorted items. They didn’t even notice Cate’s absence.

“Uh, Mom, Dad... ?”

They both turned and looked at me, noticing my concerned looks.

“Yeah, there’s nothing wrong, is there?” Mom asked.

“He probably found another girl, or maybe he’s upset because he didn’t,” my father cracked. But when I didn’t laugh at his joke, he turned and regarded me seriously.

“Cate left the room last night and never came back,” I told them. Mom immediately looked concerned but Dad remained calm.

“Anything you want to tell us about?” He asked, glancing at me with that look that fathers have that says ‘I know you did something, so you might as well admit it now’. It rarely works, but they always seem to think it will the next time.

However, he reacted to something Anh did behind me, and simply shrugged in response. “As usual, it’s probably better that I don’t know,” he responded gruffly, probably more for my mother’s benefit than anything else. “Let’s head down to the dining room and see if she’s there.”

Mom still looked worried, fiddling nervously with her dress, but she didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t about to volunteer anything that I didn’t have to. We all morosely trooped downstairs together. When we got to the lobby, Cate was sitting in a big overstuffed chair. Mom started to rush to her but Cate headed her off by getting up and walking away.

“Let’s hurry up and eat,” she said over her shoulder, “I’m getting tired of always eating here every morning.”

So, my sister was upset, my parents were worried, I was terrified of what I’d done to our relationship, and the girls were concerned with trying to make me feel better, which meant that I had to act happy so I wouldn’t upset them too much. What a great way to start the day.

As we entered the dining room—which Cate was right about, after several days it was getting a bit repetitive—Natalie was there to direct us to our table. She, like the rest of us, didn’t say much, and I worried what her issue was.

Once we all sat down, Natalie stepped up to me and handed me something. “I think you need to see this,” she said. As I watched everyone’s reactions, I realized that things had changed as everyone waited for me to respond, all the other issues temporarily forgotten. I realized then that everything revolved around me now. My parents were still officially in charge of me—at least for now—but when something important happened, everyone turned to me.

Taking it, I casually glanced at it. It was the local morning newspaper, folded up. I didn’t think much of interest until I saw the title of the article she pointed out. I quickly started skimming it as a feeling of dread slowly overcame me. All thoughts of my sister’s reactions or the previous day’s activities were wiped from my mind. When I glanced up I noticed everyone looking at me, even Cate, who previously hadn’t wanted to make eye contact, so I started reading the article out loud.

“It’s an article from this morning’s local Times-Picayune newspaper entitled ‘Angel Seen in New Orleans.’” There was a collective gasp when everyone heard the title, but I just continued, wanting to get through this as quickly as I could.

“There’s been a lot of strange talk about town the last few days, and it has to do with an Angel visiting our fair city. No, this isn’t like when someone sees the Virgin Mary’s image in a shop window or a local statue cries. Instead, several local residents and visitors alike are reporting that an actual angel has been seen frequenting some of our local haunts. While most of the witnesses of this phenomena were reluctant to use their names, fearing reactions from friends, family and employers, each was quite adamant about what they had seen or heard on the subject.

“It seems this Angel isn’t your typical angel with wings flitting about the sky. Instead he’s young, male, and is seen frequently wandering about the French Quarter. I guess maybe he’s more interested in some Jambalaya than in the approaching end times.

“The respondents report they know he’s an angel mostly from comments from others. The man himself appears very low-key, seeking to avoid the limelight. His followers, those he’s ‘saved’, typically fall to their knees and rant about visions and ‘brilliant emanations’ that are invisible to us mere mortals. They accompany him about town, much like Jesus had his disciples or Judas Priest its roadies. You take your pick as to which is more apropos.

“And he’s not particular about the recipients of his blessings being Christian either. He seems to gather people of various ages, nationalities and religions. It seems one of these was a mature Asian woman who immediately began speaking in tongues with the young Divine being before a great number of witnesses, calling him a ‘Great Spirit’ instead of the traditional appellation. It seems she and a small child conversed in tongues with this spirited angel for quite a while. He also apparently favors hearing the sins of women over men for some unknown reason. Perhaps he considers them more ‘spiritually endowed’?

“Whatever the case, I’ll continue to listen to this intriguing story. That’s one thing you have to say about this town, we just don’t do things in the usual way.”

“Well, that’s it,” I informed everyone with a heavy sigh, glancing around the table watching how everyone responded. “Anyone have any opinions? Personally I’m thinking maybe it’s time we got out of Dodge.”

“This certainly isn’t very good news,” my father sagely offered, unintentionally twisting the source of the information.

“No, it’s not,” I insisted, my voice rising with my anger, frustration and fears. “The last thing I need is someone in the media taking an interest in this. It’s bad enough having people following me around, but it’s another to have my name and picture splashed across a newspaper as a possible religious fraud.”

“Now there’s no sense getting overwrought,” Shani offered, speaking in a calm placating tone.

“Maybe you should call the reporter who wrote it and talk to him?” Cate suggested.

“Yeah, right,” I scoffed, turning on her and venting my frustration on her instead of my actual target, who I wasn’t willing to face firsthand. “‘Hi, this is your friendly neighborhood Angel, otherwise known as the Great Spirit and sometimes double dipping as the Angel of Death; I’d like to request an interview?’”

“No, not like that,” Cate responded defensively, unused to my attacking her with dismissive hyperbole. “Just call him up and explain it from your perspective. Tell him you’ve never claimed to be an angel and that people are ascribing characteristics to you that don’t apply. The guy wrote it as a funny article, it doesn’t sound like he’s taking it seriously.”

That simple summation stopped me and I seriously considered it. My first inclination was to simply protect everyone around me and take off, but I simply bristled at the idea of some intellectual bully forcing me to do something just because he could. My feeling here was to stand up to this little man. For years I’d tried to protect Cate from school yard bullies, despite my being only a little bigger than she was, and while I rarely attempted to defend myself against the same bullying, it grated on me when they hurt those close to me.

But I thought maybe Cate’s middle ground was a better choice. Perhaps I could simply talk it over with him and try to get him to tone it down a little. That would helpfully minimize any complications or fallout to anyone surrounding me.

“You know, you may just have a point,” I told her, considering just that approach. “You know this paper, Natalie, do you know the reporter? Does he do any investigative reports? Is he likely to cause us any trouble?”

“Sorry, Alex,” she responded, “I’m not really familiar with him. I only noticed it because a couple of the waitstaff were commenting on it and one of the girls showed it to me, knowing that I know you and having heard a couple of things herself.”

“Great,” I groaned, burying my head in my hands “Now the whole city knows about what we’ve been doing. I can picture each of the people surrounding us during each of our incidents talking about it. Once this reporter starts asking them questions, they’d probably supply him with plenty of information.”

“You know, chances are it’s all those people who’ve been watching you in such fascination this week,” Patricia suggested. “We’ve gotten so used to seeing them that we don’t really think about them anymore, but chances are they’ve been watching you and talking amongst themselves. There’ve been some of them around for just about each of your encounters.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. I can picture that. It would explain a lot,” I considered her suggestion.

‘Just relax, eat your breakfast and collect yourself. It’ll take a bit before the paper’s offices are open so you can be ready for when you need to call him, ‘ Anh suggested. It was perhaps the most reasoned response so far. So I relayed the suggestion to everyone else and we managed to relax and enjoy a nice leisurely breakfast while ignoring all the unpleasantness that had been occurring since yesterday. In fact, the news was so disconcerting that Cate forgot she was supposed to be ignoring me. She still didn’t engage me, but she no longer refused to even look at me—which although a minor concession, was an improvement nevertheless.

We took our time eating and conversing—well, all of us except Cate that is—until 9:30 rolled around. We figured we’d give the reporter time to get in and get his morning coffee before we bothered him. The girls accompanied me as I found a secluded corner where I prepared to make the call, the girls watching anyone approaching me so I’d be warned. I lamented that we didn’t have a speakerphone, so Allison offered me her smartphone, which did.

“Hello, News Desk,” answered the pleasant female voice.

“Good morning,” I greeted her. “Can I speak with a Mr. Albert Rodriguez, please?”

“One moment please,” she informed me before putting on a nondescript recording. A few minutes later the phone was picked up again.

“Rodriguez here, what can I do for you?” He wasn’t exactly the most articulate or polished individual, I thought.

“Mr. Rodriguez, I’m calling about that article you wrote for today’s paper...” I began, before he cut me off impatiently.

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve seen this angel too have you?” He asked, sounding like he was tired of responding to the many calls describing details of my life over the last few days. I had a feeling this wasn’t going to go well.

“No, you don’t understand,” I fumbled, not having a clear idea of what I was trying to say. “I’m the one they’re all talking about and I—”

“Wait, you’re the one they’re talking about?” he asked, suddenly stopping, the interesting in his voice peaking. “What’s your name, kid?”

I laughed, knowing better to fall for that. “I don’t think that’s any of your business and I don’t really want to—”

“Look,” he said, speaking bluntly, “everyone assures me the angel’s name is Bob, so if your name isn’t Angel Bob then I’ve got no reason to talk with you,” he responded in a snide manner.

I laughed again at his cute attempt to manipulate me. “We both know that isn’t true,” I told him seriously. “If you know that much, then you know my name is Alex. I’m not going to bother giving you my last name because I’d like to keep a little bit of my personal life personal.”

“You’re the mysterious Angel Alex?” he asked, his voice sounding awestruck. He seemed to be unable to believe that he’d actually gotten me on the line. “Man, you’re just the person I’ve wanted to speak with.”

“Before you start, let me just say that everything they’re saying is untrue,” I told him, wanting to ensure I got my main point across before he started digging for information. “I’m certainly no angel. Hell, I’m not even religious.”

“They say you resurrected a dead person in the Business District yesterday,” he countered, trying to get me to respond. He succeeded.

“He wasn’t technically dead,” I pointed out, sighing in frustration that he’d been gathering the latest information since writing his article for today’s paper.

“But you don’t deny doing it?” he asked, sounding excited. “The police couldn’t stop talking about it. You’ve made quite an impression in our little city.”

“Look, I really don’t want to create a stir,” I told him, trying to temper both his excitement and any attempt on his part to get me to confess to more than I wanted to. “Everyone has the wrong impressions about this. I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t give the story any more credence.”

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, his voice suddenly turning friendly and reassuring, “how about if you come down and I’ll interview you? You can provide your own side of the story.” Now THAT got my attention. I immediately ended the call by hanging up unceremoniously.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Patricia offered.

“I guess we should have expected that,” Cate said, putting her hand on mine sympathetically, her voice taking on a solicitous tone. “After all, it’s his job to ask those kinds of questions.” After saying that she got this funny look, as if suddenly remembering she wasn’t speaking to me. She quickly blushed, yanked her hand back and turned away from me. Still, I was too keyed up to worry about her being upset at the moment.

“OK, thoughts people, what can I do to head all of this off?” I asked, calling for ideas. I knew that I was in over my head, and I’d already come close to making the problem worse.

“I’m not sure you can really do much,” Allison suggested. “After all, look at all the trouble executives, celebrities and politicians have when they try to deny that they’ve done something in the media, it almost always blows up in their faces. I think your best bet is just to lay low and simply ride it out.”

“That might be easier said than done,” I replied, glancing around at all the people surrounding us in the hotel’s dining room, considering the likelihood any one of them may report my presence here for the last week to Mr. Rodriguez. “If the hotel staff is aware of my activities, and if these people curious about me have been following me for several days now, it’s only a matter of time before he comes to the hotel asking for me.”

“We’d better contact Natalie,” Shani suggested.

Before I could even respond Allison handed me her phone again. “I’ve got to admit,” I mumbled to myself, “this kind of thing is much easier using my method.”

It took a little while to get ahold of her, making me think it would have been faster simply searching for her and talking to her personally. “What about it, Natalie?” I asked, once I’d explained our situation. Even though it took longer going through her, I thought she’d know the hotel hierarchy well enough to get us a better hearing than if we approached them on our own.

“I don’t know,” she hedged, pausing as she considered the various hotel staff she could ask. “Let me talk to the hotel manager. He should be in now, and I’d rather give you his response rather than what the other lower level employees think.”

“That makes sense, but it wouldn’t hurt to remind them to keep quiet as well,” I suggested before she hung up to talk to the manager personally—if she could. Seeing as there was nothing else that we could do, we all trooped back into the main lobby to report what had transpired to our parents while we waited for Natalie’s report.

We waited for about another ten or fifteen minutes until she returned. She wasn’t smiling, however.

“It took a while to get the hotel manager, I had to go through a couple of people,” she explained. “He said he’d talk to the reception desk and try to spread the word around, but he thinks he can keep a lid on the staff ‘gossiping’ but he can’t guarantee anything for more than a day or two.”

‘I think you should get out of town, at least for the day, ‘ Anh suggested.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Allison agreed, since I included everyone on Anh’s contributions. “I’m sure either I or one of the other girls can put you and your family up if you don’t want to stay here,” Allison suggested.

“That’s a great idea. How about we all go back to the beach at Biloxi?” I suggested, rolling my eyes as I continued, speaking sarcastically. “It’s far enough away that no one should notice a lone boy, his family and six women following him around.”

‘That won’t work, ‘ Anh said. ‘It’s too crowded. I know a nice beach that the Vietnamese community uses. It’s out of the way, and no one there would ever notice you.’

Turning serious again I considered the options. “Anh’s got an idea, but we’ll have to see what we think about it tonight. Natalie, tell the manager that we may be forced to pull our reservations because of this. See if he can get us a refund or something,” I suggested, worrying about Dad’s expenses as much as everything else I was juggling on my plate at the moment.

“You know, I doubt Natalie will have enough influence to refund us anything,” my father said. “But that’s OK, we’ll pay for the lost night. It’s a small price to pay to avoid this kind of trouble.” I was glad we were all of a like mind.

Everyone agreed it made sense. Not being able to do anything else, we headed off to wander the city once again. However, once we walked out the front door and were greeted by a small crowd waiting outside. We were a bit confused about what was going on, but figuring they were waiting for some celebrity or politician to protest, we ignored it and continued on to the car. About halfway there a young man walked up to me and dropped to his knees.

“I will follow you wherever you will go,” the man said, apparently quoting some obscure Bible verse I didn’t recognize offhand.

I stopped and just stared at him. “What?” I intelligently replied.

“I will follow—”

“Yeah, yeah. I got that,” I told him, waving my hand as if waving the meaningless reference away. “What the hell does it mean?”

“It’s from Luke 9:57. It—”

“I don’t really care what it says,” I told him abruptly, treating him just like I treated the people calling the house trying to raise money for the fictitious Police Protective Fund. “What the hell do you want?”

“I want to follow you,” he assured me, staring up at me intently as he remained on his knee.

“Why?” I asked, looking down at him, trying to figure out what he was looking for.

“What do you mean why?” he asked, as confused as I felt. This was getting us nowhere!

“I mean, why do you want to follow me?” I told him, waving my hand in a hurry-up motion to show just how impatient I was getting.

“You’re an angel, I want to follow you. I want you to lead me—”

“Yeah, it’s not going to happen, bud,” I told him rudely. I couldn’t believe my only male follower would just happen to show up just after the newspaper had reported about me in the paper. “Tell me why you’re interested in me. If you can convince me I’ll take you on, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. You’ve got no idea what it is that I’m looking for. Convince me I’m wrong,” I told him.

“I ... I want to ... I believe... , “ the man mumbled, unable to complete a full sentence.

“You have no idea who I am, what I represent, what I’m looking for, or what I do,” I told him, getting visibly angry. Anyone who was drawn to me by the energy I gave off would be able to convey that easily enough, but only a fraud would fumble for an excuse to follow me. “Get the fuck away from me you damn poser. I’m not a damn angel. I’m just a kid on vacation.”

I stormed off leaving the poor guy on his knee looking confused, mumbling piteously behind me. Everyone quickly fell in behind me, also wanting to get away from the scene he’d just created as soon as we could. We were almost at the car when another young man stepped up to me. I sighed in exasperation, noticing that we now had a crowd watching everything we were doing. Apparently the entire crowd outside the hotel was there looking for me, but since they weren’t actually drawn to me like the girls were, they had no idea what I looked like. Now that the one guy had alerted them to who I was, they were all following after me. It was clear they were all here because of the publicity following the newspaper article. They’d probably talked to a few of the people who’d been watching us for the past few days and figured they’d jump on the bandwagon.

“Yes?” I challenged him impatiently, ready to brush him aside just as I had the last guy.

“I heard you with that other guy,” he hurried to explain. Instead of trying to project an image of knowing more than he did, this guy looked doubtful, unsure about himself. “I think I understand. I don’t really know why, but I feel drawn to you somehow. I can feel you are important, that you are someone I should be following. I don’t know what you represent, but I know you are somehow important to my future.” When he finished he just stood there. He didn’t try to crowd me or force himself on me like the previous guy had.

I looked at him, confused, taking him seriously for the first time. He was white, very white, in that he was quite pale with fine dark hair combed carefully back. He had a few little marks on his face but nothing major. He literally looked whiter than white bread, and this is coming from a WASP himself. The look wasn’t helped by the bright blue shirt and the clean, brand new white undershirt beneath it.

“Who have you been talking to?” I challenged him, assuming he must have spoken to someone like Natalie. I couldn’t believe he was legit simply because I’d never encountered a man who was drawn to me yet. “Has somebody told you what to say?”

“No one has told me anything,” he said, seeming to grow more confident by the fact that I hadn’t rejected him out of hand. The fact that I allowed him a chance to justify himself to me seemed like I’d just given him a tremendous gift. “I’ve been watching you for a few days. I’ve felt drawn to you but I didn’t know what to do. I saw you with your other followers, and I know that I’m not like those with you, but—”

I still didn’t know what this guy’s deal was. Clearly he couldn’t be on the level, and while I might have been willing to discuss the matter any other time, the pressure of the crowd behind me didn’t give me the time to play nice. “Look, I’ll grant that you sound like you know what you’re talking about, unlike chowderhead back there,” I remarked, indicating the first guy we’d just bypassed, “but I’m not sure we’re ready to take someone else on right now.”

“Oh, OK, I didn’t mean to impose,” he quickly apologized, quickly backing away and shaking his hands as if to wave the affront of his presence from me. “I just thought, given that—”

“Alex,” Cate broke her silence to say, “I think you need to reconsider this. He clearly represents a break from the other watchers. Maybe we should ... think about it?” she said, hesitant to ask me to do this given the current situation, both between us and the one we were in now.

His simple answer was enough to convince me that he fit in with the other watchers, which intrigued me. What’s more, his natural deference clearly marked that he didn’t feel worthy of demanding I consider him. He was clearly a ‘Watcher’, as Cate had described the people like Natalie and Rebecca, and Cate was also clearly right; he clearly didn’t fit in with the rest of the watchers, simply because he was the only guy we’d ever seen among them. Still, I wasn’t in the best of moods that morning, and I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

“OK, that’s enough,” I told him, making a snap decision, figuring I owed Cate enough to grant her this little favor. “You pass. Get in the damn car and we’ll figure out what the hell is going on with a few less people following us.”

I was in no mood to hang around with everyone observing us. If all these people figured out where we were staying it certainly wouldn’t take a reporter long to figure it out either. I started walking, and the guy quickly fell in behind me. Turning, I told Cate as quietly as possible so my voice wouldn’t travel far, “Call Natalie and arrange to have our luggage sent to Allison’s.” I figured if we have further trouble, we might need to move to Shani’s, which is further from the heart of the city.

Anh had run on ahead while I’d been held up, so she was holding the car door open for us, even as Allison was behind the wheel, prepared to take off. I quickly looked for my parents, but the crowd was following me, so they had an easier time sneaking away unnoticed. I quickly got into the car, followed by the new guy, who quickly shut and locked the door as Allison turned sharply and tried to get away from the people following us. We couldn’t have fit everyone into our small family car, and no one beside Patricia had access to a van, which she didn’t drive around town that often. Brooke and Rebecca were working today so they hadn’t come with us, as was Natalie. I assumed that Anh rode with a sullen Cate and my parents. Cate had asked me to take the new guy along for the information he could potentially apply, but she was still not ready to deal with me yet.

“Wow, this is unbelievable. The Angel Alex has—” the new guy started to say, staring at me in fascination while ignoring the people trying to catch up to Allison’s car as she weaved in and out of the cars in the parking lot before I cut him off.

“Okay, first of all, I’m no damn angel,” I told him, still speaking abruptly, even as I tried to temper it somewhat. It wasn’t his fault that he’d waited until the worst possible moment to approach me. “Secondly, I need quiet in the peanut gallery, I need to think. We really need Cate to figure all of this out,” I said as we tried to make our way out of the city as quickly as we could. “This isn’t supposed to happen.”

‘Anh, can you get Cate to offer a guess on what’s going on with this guy?’

‘She says it’s possible we were mistaken, ‘ she replied. ‘It may be that males who have a single gene aren’t merely carriers but are actually as affected as both Natalie and Rebecca are. On the other hand, this guy may just have a double X chromosome as well. It’s not unheard of. He could actually possess a XXY set of chromosomes. There’s some syndrome they label it as but she doesn’t know the name of it. She says she remembers most of this just from a single article she read about it. People with this inherit an extra chromosome so they actually have the full female set, plus an extra male chromosome. It wouldn’t necessarily show up on any tests, and it’s likely he wouldn’t ever know about it. Either one would be a viable alternative, but he’s the only one we’ve observed so far, ‘ Anh explained.

I knew we could trust Cate’s love of scientific questions to override her discomfort with me, especially when we were separated in different cars. So either our theory was wrong and there were actually a bunch of guys who were drawn to me as well, or this guy actually had an odd set of chromosomes and likely didn’t know it.

“What’s your name?” I quickly asked the guy, turning only long enough for him to answer.

“Peter,” he said simply.