“Demons, Elie, they are always with us,” said the skeleton of my father.  “You put faces to them, which is a very nice touch.   The specific facial expressions, and the emotions behind them, are a key feature of those merciless fucks.  There’s nothing like the look of a smug sadist daring you to defy him, with a gaggle of angry henchman waiting to kick your ass.  Nothing like it, my son.”     

Yes, that’s certainly true.   We should not, however, neglect to mention the angels we encounter sometimes.  Like that nurse in your death chamber.  Absolute perfect casting.   

“A no bullshit black woman with a heart of gold and a dry sense of humor to match,” said the skeleton.  “Mutual love at first sight, I would say.  It’s like they looked through the book of my life and some merciful genius picked her out– ‘here, you take Irv.’  An angel, no doubt about it.”   

I remember, when you complained to her about being stuck so many times for tests, while it was clear you were dying. 

“Well, in fairness to them, they got paid $1,000 every time they stuck me,” said the skeleton.  “As you and mom later found out when the hospital sent my bills, which fortunately Medicare paid.”   

And she said, when you complained about the endless drawing of your blood, “Irv, just give me the word.  You don’t want to get stuck anymore, I’ll make them stop.”   

“And she did make them stop,” said the skeleton.  “Jesus, you’re right.  She was an angel.  God, did she make me feel understood, and loved.”   

I’ll tell you something else about that angel.   I don’t think anyone ever looked at me quite the way she did when I left your room around 3 a.m. that last night of your life.  The door to your room had been open, it was otherwise silent on the floor, and she’d been sitting outside in the hall.  That look she gave me, I don’t know how to describe it.  It was pure, selfless love, happiness for you, I guess, and relief that you got to say what you needed to say, and that your son wasn’t an asshole in the end. 

“Well, sometimes we have the luck to meet one of these creatures,” said the skeleton. 

I can think of a few in my life.  I wonder how many you came across in yours. 

“Hard to say,” said the skeleton.  “You certainly don’t come across them often.  I wish you could remember that nurse’s name.”   

It haunts me to this day that I didn’t go back to the hospital to find her, hug her, give her some flowers, tell her she was an angel.  I can’t even remember if she hugged me as I left the hospital that last time.  I certainly felt hugged. 

The skeleton looked off toward the unseeable river beyond the graveyard.  Birds circled and a few of them screeched.  A car crunched by on Cortland Road.

“You have noticed by now, Elie, that we have to take our angels where we find them and let them into our hearts.  It’s as natural as a baby drinking milk, to take an angel into your heart.  We can’t help but do it,” said the skeleton.  “You had a couple that I know of, angel and inspiration both.” 

You’re talking about Florence, who was both of those things.   One of the great single strokes of luck in my life, making that trip out there that frosty night, bringing her Thai food, and bullshitting with her for a couple of hours.  Two days later she checked out.  Goddamn, talk about an angel.   

I should also mention your good friend Arlene.   She had an angelic moment on a hill near the Delaware Water Gap.   

“Do tell,” said the skeleton. 

We were walking on this lush, endless green field.  She told me that developers were already making plans to convert this perfect patch of earth into perfect homes for yuppies.  It was near sunset.  The place was beautiful.  She brought out a little pipe and we each had a few hits.  It was the only time I ever saw her smoke weed.   

“Well, Russ was a prodigious head, it’s no surprise that she would smoke a little grass,” said the skeleton.  

Then she spoke a few words that turned on a light in a dark room for me.  She told me that you and mom were two of her dearest friends.  I knew how much she loved you and how much you and mom loved her. 

“We did, we do,” said the skeleton. 

Then, like she was reaching up to pull one of those chains that turn on a light bulb she said she was going to tell me something I might not understand fully at the moment, but that I should just file it for later.   She told me, correctly, that I felt somewhat responsible for my parents’ anger and unhappiness.  Then she said I was not responsible for it.  She told me that you and mom were very unhappy people, and that your unhappiness was not on me.   I felt a slight lifting of a very heavy weight off me as she told me that.  Over the next few years the truth of it began to set me free, as far as one can be free in this world of slaves.   

“Arlene was a great woman,” said my father’s skeleton.   

The sun was going down now over the cemetery.  The blue of the sky melted seamlessly into that gorgeous gradient of orange by the horizon.  It reminded me exactly of the moment after I closed my father’s dead eyes.