Angels

by Vonnie Winslow Crist

The beekeeper stood in the woods, watched the maple boughs sway and listened to the angels singing in the trees.  Though he hadn’t known who was doing the singing as a child, Porter had always heard angels.  When he was young, he’d liked to scramble up tree trunks, sit among the branches, and listen to the lullabies murmured by the tree-voices. 

He glanced across his yard at the red and white sign nailed above the side entrance to his next-door neighbor’s house: Victor’s Cuttery.  The sign had been painted by Victor’s wife, Bea, twenty years ago.   It needed re-touching, but Victor didn’t want to cover up anything that Bea had created.  Porter couldn’t blame him – Bea was a rare find.

He walked over to his beeyard.  The hives were raised two and a half feet above the ground, sheltered by apple trees, and protected by a rock wall that surrounded the orchard.  His mother and father had sold honey, fruit, vegetables, flowers, and Porter’s woodcarvings at a roadside stand and several local markets.  He’d helped his parents when they were alive and continued the apiary, orchard, and woodcarving business after their deaths.

As Porter closed the iron gate to the orchard behind him, he noticed a bee alight on a rhododendron bloom, creep into its lilac depths.  The blossom quivered as the striped bumbler lifted off, headed for the pin-cushion flowers sprawled at the edge of the perennial garden.  He knew the bee was color-faithful, and watched her buzz from purple flower to purple flower, her furry body dusted with pollen.

He wanted to delay the visit to Victor’s Cuttery, wanted to postpone the delivery of the carved angel to his best friend, but knew the decision was not his to make.  He’d tried in the past to deny the angels, but their constant singing had grown louder and louder till his ears rung and his head throbbed.  Angels were not to be denied. 

He reminded himself that he had made visits like this to friends before.  It was never easy, but he would survive the parting.  Perhaps the hardest carvings to deliver had been to his parents.  First, his father.  Then, his mother. 

Before delivering the carved angel to Victor, Porter stopped by the family graveyard near the south side of the tool shed.  He traced his parents’ names, Leiper and Anna, with his forefinger in the granite monument.  His father’s death had been forecast by a swarm of wild bees clinging to a dead elm below the orchard – but Porter had known weeks earlier when a piece of hickory had told him to carve Leiper’s angel. 

His mother’s angel had called to him less than a year later from a beautiful piece of cherrywood.  Mother hadn’t been herself since his father’s passing, so when he’d finally given her the angel, he’d felt relief.

Porter knelt, and then, bowed his head.  He was immediately surrounded by bees – bees dancing on blossoms, bees tasting the sticky sweetness of his sweat, bees carved into the marble tombstones.  Little messengers, they carried his thoughts to the wildflowers where they traveled down the stems, through the roots, into the earth, and comforted the bones of the dead.  One landed on his hand and as he gazed into its many-faceted eyes he wondered what sort of blessing it was bestowing.

He shuffled to his back porch, picked up a carefully wrapped bundle from the top step, and slipped it into his jacket’s pocket.  He rubbed his face with both hands, pressing his callused fingertips against his forehead.  The angels’ voices were becoming louder.  Soon, they would roar in his head like a rushing wind.  He couldn’t procrastinate any longer. 

On his way to Victor’s shop, Porter plucked several Japanese beetles off the tea roses in his side yard, dropped the bugs into a canning jar that he kept by the garden for just that purpose, and sighed.  He couldn’t bring himself to kill the pests.  Tonight, when the fireflies were lifting up from the cornfields, he’d free the insects down by the woods.  He patted the arm of a cement garden angel, whistled to a blood-red cardinal balanced in the mimosa, and walked across the lawn to Victor’s Cuttery.

“Finished another one," he said as he stepped up into the barbershop.

"Morning, Porter."

He removed his John Deere cap and hung it from a peg by the entranceway.  Then, he unsnapped his volunteer fire department jacket, unzipped the right front pocket, and withdrew the bundle. 

"One of the best I've ever whittled," he said as he unwrapped a wooden figure from a square of plaid flannel.

The barber placed his scissors on the speckled countertop beside him.  He tapped his customer on the shoulder.  "This here’s Porter.  He carves angels.  Porter, this is Timmy, Otis Lebow’s oldest grandson."

"Nice to meet you," said the teenager in the barber chair.  He raised his eyebrows and smiled, but didn’t move his head as the click-click of the shears resumed.

"Good meeting you, son.  Hope your grandfather is well.”

“Yeah,” Tim answered.  “Though he uses a cane nowadays.”

“We’re all getting older,” observed Porter.  “So, Victor, what do you think of her?"  He held the carved angel in the palm of his right hand, slowly rotated her.

The barber stopped snipping.  "Not bad.  White pine?"

"Yup.  Thought about working with walnut or maple this time, but decided on pine."  He placed the angel on the windowsill.  "What do you think, son?"

"Looks great," the teen responded, moving his head as little as possible.  "How do you know what to carve?"

He lifted his hands, palms up, in front of his overalls' bib.  "The wood tells me.  Each piece of lumber is different and as I turn a block over and over in my hands, the wood tells my hands where to cut, what to carve away."

"Oh." 

Victor chuckled.  "Porter, Tim's going to think you're crazy."

"I'm not crazy, I just believe in angels.  You believe in angels?"  Porter stared straight into the teenager's eyes, brow furrowed.

"Yeah, I guess." 

"Let me tell you, angels are everywhere.  They're not just hiding in the Bible or hanging off church walls.  Angels are watching us all the time, are whispering in our ears.  Ever get a funny feeling about something, say a train trip, and decide not to go and later you hear the train crashed?  Angels.” 

As Tim searched his pants’ pocket for his haircut money, Porter continued.  “How about when you lose your glasses and suddenly recollect they're on the dining room table?  Angels.  Or how about when you get that feeling that you've been somewhere before when you know you haven't?  People call it deja vu.  Well, that's angels, too.  They whisper the future into our ears and when the future arrives, we feel like we've already lived it.  I tell you, son, angels deserve a lot more credit than they get for helping us day-to-day."

Victor flipped off the razor.  "Stop it.  You're scaring the boy." 

Porter continued to study the teen.  “How about bees?”

“What about bees?” Tim said as he clenched his money in his right hand and worried a tear in his blue jeans with his left.

“Bees are little angels that transport the souls of the dead to heaven.  Know why?” Porter didn’t wait for an answer.  “Because they’re the only animal to arrive on earth unchanged from Paradise.”

“Enough, Porter.”  The barber whisked loose hair from the teenager's neck with a soft-bristled brush dipped in talcum powder.  "Tim, glad I could fit you in today.  Now you think about having a good time at the prom Saturday night, not about Porter and his angels." 

Porter grunted, mouthed the word: angels.

“I’m not worried.  In fact, I’d like to learn how to carve that well.”

Porter’s head throbbed, his pulse raced.  “Tim, you got a pocket knife?” 

“Yes sir – a good one my grandpap bought for me.”  The teen lifted his chin, looked Porter square in the eyes.

“Then you find yourself a piece of kindling, bring the knife, and stop by my place tomorrow afternoon.  Then, I’ll show you how to carve angels.”

“Got yourself a deal,” Tim said and stuck his palm out.  As Porter shook the teen’s hand, he felt a sudden lightness, and the hum of angels’ voices seemed a bit softer.

Victor frowned at his best friend.  "Tim, what’s your prom tux like?"

"Regular, black with a white shirt and a blue bow tie and cummerbund," answered the boy as he got up from the chair.  "Thanks for taking me on such short notice, Mr. Vic."  He handed the barber eight dollars, started to leave.

"Wait, you get change."

"No, keep it.  Thanks again.  See you later..."  The teenager started out the doorway, paused, and then, turned around to face Porter.  “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

"I’ll be waiting for you, son,” answered Porter.  “I’ll be waiting.”

“Have a good time at the prom, and tell Otis I said hello," Victor called as the door banged closed.

"Nice boy.  Makes you wonder why he’d ever go to the mall for a haircut."

Before Victor could respond, the phone rang.  As the barber talked, Porter looked at his friend 's shoes, pale as wings in the dark forest of hair on the shop's floor.  He stood, took five steps, and climbed into the barber chair as Victor scheduled an appointment for next Thursday.

The barber hung up the receiver.  "Doesn't seem to be enough hours on Thursdays and Fridays to cover my regular customers anymore.  I'm slowing down."

"We all are."

"I haven't really taken any new customers for a couple of years now, and some of my old ones have died or moved away.  Still can't keep up.  Cutting hair two days a week is all I can do, three tires me out."  The barber coughed, fumbled around, and found his inhaler.  He breathed in a dose of the asthma medication, set the inhaler aside, and then, started to comb Porter's thick white hair.

"The angel's yours."

"Mine?"  The scissors continued to flash.

"I whittled it for you."

"And the wood told you that was my angel?" Victor put down the scissors and picked up the razor.  He was grinning.

"Yup."

His friend laughed as he shaved the stubble off the back of Porter's neck.  He put down the electric razor then combed some spice-scented tonic through Porter's hair.  "Saw you working on the roses this morning.  They look good."

"Need some rain.  I'm afraid the beetles will be bad this year."

"You ought to get some of those bug bags from Smoot's Hardware.  The ones with the chemical lures.  Fanny Benson swears by them." The barber finished brushing talc on Porter's neck, unsnapped the protective smock.  "All done."

Porter admired his trim in the mirror, then handed his friend some dollar bills.

Victor counted the bills.  "Change?"

"Nope.”

Victor placed the money in an old cigar box that he used for cash.  “Can you stay a while?  Visit?  I had a cancellation, so I don’t have another customer for an hour or so.”

“If you’d like.”  Porter pressed his lips together, leaned back in the barber’s chair.

His friend went to the window and picked up the angel.  “She’s beautiful.”

Porter nodded.

Victor sat in a chair, examined his angel.  She held her right hand up, pointed to the sky; with her left, she reached out.  Her wings were unfurled.  The barber rubbed his thumb over the carving.  “You sanded it real good.” 

“Tried to.”

Victor turned the carving around, examined it closely.  The angel's gown draped her body in swirling folds and ripples.  Her toes were barely visible at the hem of the garment.  There was no harp, no halo.  The barber blotted his forehead with a handkerchief, rubbed his chest.

Porter stared out the shop window at the cement cherub in his rock garden – it was surrounded by cement rabbits, deer, squirrels, and frogs.  He tilted his head.  He could barely hear the ceramic angel wind-chimes whispering from the dogwood branch draped over his herbs.  A fat bumbler landed on the shop’s window screen.  Porter felt his eyes welling up as he gazed at the bee.

Victor continued to scrutinize the carving.  “You know, I think this angel favors my sister Midge as a young woman.”  The barber took a deep breath.  “‘Course she’s gone.”

“You know, if you don’t like it, I can take the carving back.”  Porter offered.  The angels’ voices in his head grew louder.  His ears began to ring.

“Nope.  I think I’ll keep her,” said Victor as he undid the top button of his shirt.

Porter closed his eyes, listened to the soft chant of the angels, and smelled the air that wafted through the window screen.  It was laden with the scent of honey.

Victor blinked.  “Looking at it more closely, I believe the angel's face resembles my mother.  I recollect how she looked when the afternoon sun slid ‘cross the hayfields.  We’d all come in from the barn and she’d be there holding the door to the kitchen wide open.”  He licked his lips.  “To this day, I can smell her chicken ‘n biscuits, stewed tomatoes, and apple pandowdy.”

“Did she serve honey?”

“Oh, yes.  She’d spread a layer of honey, near as thick as the bread, onto whole wheat toast early in the morning when the only sounds were the insects and birds and farm animals.”

Porter nodded, thought about his own childhood tending the hives and draining the honey from the combs.  The finest apple-blossom honey flowed easily from the wax hexagons in May.  Later, he’d help his dad cut hunks of dripping combs to pop into jars.  Next, they’d fill the glass containers with extra honey.  Finally, his mother would hand-letter the labels: A,L& P’s Wildflower Honeycomb.

The barber wiped his forehead again, eyed the phone, then returned to the carving.  He smiled.  “Wait.  I recognize her face.  This looks just like my Bea on the day I proposed.  See,” Victor pointed at the angel’s head.  “Her hair flows down her back in copper waves and she’s wearing the muslin gown I bought for her in a dress shop in Philadelphia.”

Porter remembered the first time he saw Bea.  She’d wandered over to his beeyard to ask him to go on a picnic with Victor and her.  One of his hives was swarming, yet she’d walked through the cloud of bees unstung.  Porter’s father had told him years before that only a virgin could pass this test.  Whether the legend was true or foolishness, Porter had fallen in love with his best friend’s intended that day. 

Bea’s carving had been almost impossible to deliver.  Porter remembered crying when the old dogwood started to whisper her name.  He vowed to ignore the angels, but he’d barely been able to stand, much less take care of his bees when the heavenly whispers had grown to thunderous choruses louder than the scream of a jet plane.  A thick branch from the tree tore off in a rainstorm a few days later.  When Porter touched the fallen dogwood branch to clear it from his yard, his hands heard Bea’s angel and he began to carve.

And now, it was his best friend’s turn.  Porter sniffed, rubbed his nose.  He watched the angel turn towards Victor, saw the bright glow of her face.

The Victor’s lips parted.  “Bea,” he exhaled slowly.  “Look, she’s even got the nosegay of Confederate violets that I picked for her pinned to her bodice.  I picked the flowers from the foot of one of your apple trees, tied them together with a bit of ribbon.  Didn’t know it then, but Bea pressed those violets and saved them in her diary.  Found them not long after her funeral.”  

The barber raised his hand to his chest, stiffened for a moment, and then, relaxed.  The angel elongated, expanded, drenched the shop with brightness.  She reached out her shimmery hand and smoothed Victor’s wrinkled face.  Then the angel paused, lifted her kind eyes, and gazed at Porter.  It was Bea.  And for a moment, Porter thought she’d come for him, too. 

But, she shook her head and whispered the words, “Not yet.”

Porter watched Victor and his angel as they paused in the doorway, strolled to the lilacs, then wandered across the backyard.  Porter stood and slipped on his green and yellow cap.  He closed the door to the shop as he left. 

As he watched the angel lead his friend through an arch of silver maple at the edge of the woods, he touched the brim of his cap.  "Good-bye, Victor."

Porter shuffled home, stooping to pull up a weed from a rose bed before he climbed up the front steps into his house.  He wiped his eyes with a handkerchief, cleared his throat, and hung his cap on the hat rack.  His home was full of angels.  They hovered in paint, needlepoint, embroidery, ceramic, stone, and wood. 

He stared at a basket of his carved wooden angels.  They were waiting for him to deliver them to a local gift shop.  He’d never know the names of the customers who received one of his angels, but he knew every angel served a purpose.  Each of those angels had told his hands how to release them from the wood, each would find its home, each would offer comfort of one sort or the other, and eventually, each would lead someone through death’s arbor.

He straightened a picture of the heavenly choir, then relaxed in an oak rocker by his bay window and studied the door to the barbershop. Victor had been Porter’s best friend all his life. 

“Find a girl and get married,” Victor had urged after he and Bea had eloped.  “Then, the four of us will have a grand time.”

“Won’t marry unless I can find a girl as good as Bea,” Porter had said.  He never found one, and he never married. 

Porter rubbed his chin, wondered who his angel would be.  A cardinal fluttered to the windowsill, scolded him for his idleness. 

He sighed, and then, selected a chunk of birch from a basket full of wood blocks and turned it carefully in his hands.  Though he wouldn’t complete this angel until after Tim learned how to carve, he knew he had to start the whittling process today.  He checked the window once more.  The insistent bird continued to peer at him, bees murmured in the gardens, the silver maples swirled in the wind, the sun spotlighted the empty place where Victor had last stood, and thousands of angels hummed in the distant trees. 

Porter picked up his penknife, began to carve.  His hands heard wings struggling to be free.

*********************

Vonnie Winslow Crist is the author/illustrator of a children's book, "Leprechaun Cake & Other Tales," and 2 volumes of award-winning poetry, "River of Stars" & "Essential Fables."  She's also the editor and cover artist of 2 science fiction/fantasy anthologies, "Lower Than The Angels" & "Through A Glass Darkly."  Her first novel, "The Enchanted Skean," is represented by Firebrand Literary, and looking for a publisher.