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Eddie Meets an Angel

by James Barringer  
9/09/2009 / Short Stories

Eddie Broussard squinted into the night, rain hammering the windshield of his car, as he sailed down Interstate 30 toward Dallas. It had been a long trip, coming back from his grandmother's funeral in north Georgia, and all he had to do was last out the storm for another hour and he would be home.

The feeble glow of his headlights gave him a momentary glimpse of a man on the side of the road, patiently standing as if hitchhiking. "Bad luck for that guy," Eddie thought, frowning. "Nobody's going to stop in this weather." Yet even as he had the thought, to his surprise, he found his foot pressing the brake pedal and his hand reaching out to turn on his hazard lights.

He stopped about fifty yards past the man, who calmly jogged toward the car, the strobelight of Eddie's hazards washing him in orange light once a second. He reached the passenger door and hauled himself into the car in one smooth motion. "Thanks for the ride, Eddie."

Eddie spun in his seat, shocked. "Who are you, and how did you know my name?" He glanced around quickly; maybe there was something in the car - a name tag, a credit card he'd left on the seat - that had his name on it. Then he looked back at his passenger and noticed something strange. The man appeared to be about 30 years old - but he also looked much younger, as if his face had none of the worry lines, showed no sign of the stress, that a man his age should have.

The passenger looked back, a hint of a smile on his face. "Sorry to startle you like that, but my time here is short and I wanted to get right down to business."

"You're not making any kind of sense. Tell me who you are or else I'll push you out of the car and leave without you."

"I'm an angel, Eddie. In the hopes of avoiding the awkward scene where you doubt me and I have to prove it to you, let me say: you were born on August 15, 1978; your first girlfriend was named Hope; you're scared of spiders; your least favorite household chore is vacuuming; and you had a dream last night that you were being chased by a dinosaur."

Eddie sat in silence for a few moments, blinking. Of course everything his passenger had said was right. And Eddie believed in angels, even. He just didn't believe that they routinely hitchhiked by the side of interstates at night during rainstorms. Finally, he looked over again. "Fine, but tell me this: if you're an angel, why are you here?" He flicked on his turn signal and checked his mirror before merging onto the deserted highway.

The man - actually not a man at all, Eddie amended - relaxed in his seat a bit. "First, you can call me Levi. That's not my real name; I don't think you could pronounce my heavenly name, in fact, but Levi will do. You remember the part in Revelation where John describes a whole mob of angels sitting around the throne singing God's praises?"

"Yeah, I do."

"That's my day job. I sing the glory of God and praise him to his face. I've done it since the dawn of time and I love it more than I can describe in your language. But a few days ago - not that days mean anything in heaven - God told me that he was sending me to earth."

"Why?"

"That's what I asked him. He told me I'd be able to sing about his glory better once I saw what was here. He plunked me down back there and compelled you to stop for me. You're the one he wants to accompany me on this."

"Why don't you just do it by yourself?"

Levi laughed uproariously. "Do it myself! Oh, that's a good one. Why would I do anything myself if I could share it with someone else? Why pass up that chance for friendship, for relationship?"

"Er, I don't know. I just thought you wouldn't really need me to help you."

"Of course I don't need your help. I want your companionship. That's the way we do everything in heaven. Even God isn't an individual; he's a community - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 'Do it by myself,' he says. Ahaha."

Taken aback by that reaction, Eddie lapsed into silence for a while. Levi seemed completely content to stare out the window at the rain-soaked landscape, fascinated by it in a way that only a child should be. Of course, Eddie told himself, Levi was experiencing this for the first time, so in a way he almost was a child, regardless of how old he looked or how long he had been up in heaven. Eddie rubbed his temples, wondering if he had finally lost his mind.

He tried to make small talk a few times, but really, what do you say to an angel? He let Levi gawk at the rain for a while until the lights of Dallas finally loomed on the horizon.

Traffic picked up there, as it always did, and Eddie set the cruise control right on the speed limit - no need to break the law with someone like Levi in the car. As they approached downtown, traffic got heavier still; Eddie let his mind wander for a while, until he saw in his rear-view a giant SUV barreling toward him. It whooshed around him doing at least 90, then dodged back into Eddie's lane, missing him by a foot. Levi gasped and grabbed the underside of his seat. "What was that!"

"Just someone in a hurry to get where he's going," Eddie said dismissively. That sort of thing happened all the time, especially in Dallas.

"But he could have killed you! Th...bu...I've never seen selfishness like that! He took your life into his hands because getting where he was going was more important to him than your safety!"

"I don't know if I'd put it that way."

"But that's the truth! He cared nothing for you; he wasn't willing to inconvenience himself to make sure you stayed safe! I can't believe it. No one in heaven has ever done something like that." Levi sat back, breathing so hard he looked in danger of hyperventilating.

"Calm down, Levi. It's just driving. Sometimes these things happen. Besides, you're from heaven. If I did die, I'd just go straight there...right?" Now seemed as good a time as any to put to rest those doubts he'd been having about whether he was really saved.

"Yes, Eddie, your faith in Christ took care of your sins, etcetera, you know this." Levi told him. "But...argh. I can't believe anyone would drive like that. It's so selfish. He's acting like he's the most important person on the road. How can a person live that way?"

"You might want to close your eyes, then. I don't think it will be the last time it happens."

Levi ignored this advice and turned his gaze back to the window; a few moments later, he said, "What's this Joe's Crab Shack I just saw a billboard for?"

"It's a restaurant. They serve seafood, mostly. It's pretty good."

"Can we go? I've never actually eaten anything before. No need, you know."

Eddie gripped the steering wheel for a moment, unsure how to explain himself. "Ah, you see, I actually can't really afford to eat there now. Payday's not till Thursday...and...well, you know."

Levi turned to him. "Surely you could just explain that to them and they'd have compassion on you."

"That's...not really how it works here. You have to have the money to buy what you want."

"But you don't have the money."

"Correct."

"And they could give it to you for less than the usual price, right?"

"Well, I guess they could. But they don't do that. You have to pay the price."

"Even if you can't afford it?" Levi's brow furrowed; he was plainly having a hard time understanding the idea.

"If you can't afford it, you just have to go somewhere else."

Levi sat in confused silence for a moment. "So...they're more concerned with profit than they are with you as a human being."

"It sounds bad to say it that way, but yeah, I suppose so."

"Can we go to a different restaurant instead, then? One that would be willing to show you some compassion and let you pay less for your food?"

"Actually...none of them would do that."

"What!"

"Not many businesses in the United States would do that. If you're trying to buy a computer, or a car, or bread, you just plain have to have the money."

"How absurd! They could be kind and generous to you, meet your needs while losing almost nothing, and they're more interested in business and profit? That's disgusting. Absolutely revolting. I can't believe that's the way you do business here." He shook his head. "They're not even seeing you as a human being. They're just seeing you as a walking wallet. They've completely dehumanized you and you don't even care."

"I guess I've never thought of it that way before..."

"The other driver back there did the exact same thing. He didn't even care that you were a person with thoughts and feelings. He just saw you as an obstacle. No wonder you people are so messed up. You don't even realize that you're all on the earth together, all united by humanity and by God's love for you. You can't even be bothered to think of each other as humans!" Levi sat back in his seat. "I think I might be ill."

The rest of the trip passed in stony silence until Eddie pulled into his driveway. He and Levi made their way in the front door, which Eddie, on habit, turned and locked behind them.

Levi looked up. "What was that?"

"I locked the door."

"What? Why?"

"Are you serious? This is a rough neighborhood. The house across the street got broken into last month. I can't just leave the door unlocked."

"And you can't live in constant suspicion of everyone outside that door! That's absurd; how do you survive without being able to trust everyone around you? How much stress does it cause you to have to worry about things like that constantly?"

"Uh, actually, I don't really worry about it. I guess I'm just used to it."

"ARRRRGGHHHH!" Levi threw his arms up in the air. "You're USED to it?! You view the world as a dangerous and hostile place, filled with people who might harm you at any given moment, and you're USED to that? You look at a stranger and see not a potential friend but a potential thief, and you're USED to that? It doesn't break your heart every minute of every day?"

Offended, Eddie wanted to say something, but no words would come.

Levi slumped to the ground. "And that thief. He wandered into this neighborhood and, instead of seeing people who could help him, saw people he could take advantage of. He could have had friends, could have leaned on his companions to get him the money he needed. Instead he chose to harm someone else. He chose to cause pain and destruction rather than seek meaningful relationships. I can't believe it. I can't believe any human would see another human that way."

Eddie shrugged lamely. "Welcome to earth."

Levi lapsed into silence for a moment, and then burst into tears.

Eddie had never seen angel tears before, but there they were, flowing with a ferocity that threatened to make a puddle on his foyer floor. He didn't really know what else to do, so he put his hand on Levi's shoulder.

"Creation was good," sobbed Levi, face in his hands. "I was there. I shouted for joy when God spun galaxies into shape and sent them spinning through the heavens. I saw the care he put into shaping this earth in a way that it would be perfect for you to live on. The others and I watched over his shoulder as he scraped together a pile of dirt and breathed on it and made Adam, then took one of Adam's ribs and made Eve. You should have seen the way he looked at them, Eddie. Like a father on a son, like an artist on the masterpiece he just made, like a husband on his newlywed wife. He was crazy about them. Crazy about humanity. And look what you've done to his world."

"I haven't-"

"You have. All of you have. You all rebelled against God, you all acted as if the world should bow before you. You made decisions as if your own happiness was the most important thing in the universe. You treated people like they were obstacles rather than potential friends. You acted as if other people's problems didn't matter and your problems were the only thing that mattered. Every last one of you on earth has corrupted God's creation with your selfishness, greed, and rebellion." He raised his head and met Eddie's eyes, and the pain Eddie saw was beyond words. "It could have been as good here as it is in heaven," Levi said quietly. "It was never meant to be this way."

A few minutes passed, and Eddie broke the silence. "I guess seeing how messed up we are hasn't exactly made it easy for you to sing God's glory in heaven, has it?"

"I'm afraid you're wrong. I've never seen the full scope of God's glory till now." Levi slowly breathed out. "See, the fact that you're broken just makes God even more glorious. If humanity was perfect, anyone could love you. But God...he loves every last one of you even though you're totally imperfect, totally warped, totally unlovable. That's amazing to me."

Levi pushed himself to his feet, and Eddie stood along with him. "I think that's all I needed to see," Levi said. "Thanks, my friend. May the Lord bless and keep you; may the Lord make his face to shine upon you."

"Amen," whispered Eddie. Levi fumbled with the door lock, eventually got it open, and stepped outside. Eddie reached over and, impulsively, glanced out the peephole. Levi was gone.

In that moment Eddie was overcome by immense jealousy, and fell to his knees. How unfair it was that Levi could simply vacate the earth at a moment's notice, while Eddie was still mired in all the brokenness, surrounded by pain, forced to live here till God decided his time was up.

"That's not the whole story," he heard Levi say distantly. "You're not here to endure the pain. You're here to destroy it. You're the light. The only weapon against brokenness is love, and the only pure love is found in God through Christ. You have that love inside you. I'm jealous of you too, you know. I only get to sing about God's glory. You get to see it happen. You get to see him change lives; you get to be the one who shows the world his great love."

It's been a few years since that day, and this is the first time Eddie has told his story, for fear of the skeptical and mocking reactions he would get. But he did confide in me that some nights, when it's rainy and he's on a long and lonely stretch of interstate, he keeps one eye on the side of the road, hoping that his first conversation with an angel won't be his last.

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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