The Destruction of Angels

by Leah Mueller

Barreling down the highway towards my brother’s memorial, I glanced at the dashboard thermometer. It remained stuck at 99 degrees, with two hours to go until sunset. June is the hottest month in southern Arizona. The sun threatens to immolate everything in sight. Even air conditioning becomes useless. No way to cool off except drive.

I’d only visited Josh’s memorial a few times. Twenty years had passed since he rolled his car, half a mile from the Douglas prison. Josh usually ran late for his guard job. He didn’t relish the task of babysitting convicted felons. But jobs were scarce in southern Arizona, and the hefty paycheck kept him coming back for more.

Though my brother had used part of a recent inheritance to buy a BMW, he didn’t bother to purchase new tires. One of the retreads blew out, and his vehicle flipped into a field. The impact killed him instantly.

Perhaps Josh had a death wish. Not surprising, considering our mother, Polly. I had a death wish, too, at his age, but I lasted long enough to outgrow it.

Josh lived with Polly until she died from throat cancer. His choice stemmed not from compassion, but from necessity. A classic mama’s boy, Josh’s relationship with Polly was one of mutual contempt, interwoven with toxic dependency. I often wondered whether they’d been an unhappily married couple during a series of previous lives.

When Josh died, I lived two thousand miles away, in Washington state. The prickly desert heat didn’t agree with me. A year later, my sister and her husband commissioned a local

artist to build a steel angel sculpture at his crash site. Not the corny, cherubic variety, which all of us hated. A slender, adolescent man with wings on his back, preparing to ascend into the Arizona sky.

The artist poured cement three feet into the flinty ground and set the pedestal inside. He affixed a heavy placard with Josh’s birth and death dates to the angel’s feet, plus the words “We love you” in cut-out letters. Ericka was tight with Josh, and she didn’t cut corners. She wanted the structure to last longer than her brother had.

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

I didn’t see the memorial until 2020, eighteen years later. My husband and I fled Washington a few months after his cancer diagnosis and bought a dirt-cheap house in Bisbee. Washington spit us out like a grapefruit seed once we could no longer afford its craft cocktails.

Though I cooked elaborate meals and drove Russ to Tucson for multiple chemo treatments, he couldn’t outrun the cancer. We finally opted to discontinue treatment. During his final month, Russ reclined in our living room, tethered by gravity to a rollaway hospital bed. His frail body grew increasingly emaciated, his muscle tone evaporated, and he lost his ability to speak, eat, or control his bowels.

My husband died in the wee hours of a chilly May morning, twenty months after his diagnosis. I slipped away to catch a few hours of sleep and finally returned to his bedside. Russ lay on his back, mouth akimbo, hands folded across his chest. His expression looked bewildered yet fascinated, like he had expired while studying a bug on the ceiling.

I turned off the breathing machine and called the on-duty hospice nurse. Then I watched

the two funeral home employees strap my husband’s body to a stretcher, cover him with a red cloth (why red, I wondered) and load the entire apparatus into the back of an SUV. I marveled at their efficiency as they slammed the rear doors, climbed back into their vehicle, and drove away.

Shock is a beautiful thing. It helped me arrange for cremation and take an impromptu, four-day road trip to northern Arizona. After returning home, I dragged most of Russ’ clothing to the homeless shelter. He’d embraced minimalism with a fervor and didn’t own much of anything.

The sight of his 13^th Floor Elevators and Nirvana tee-shirts filled me with rage and self-loathing. My husband, a gifted guitarist, rarely had time to practice his own art. He was too busy supporting his family with jobs he hated. Supporting ME, so I could sit on my ass and write poetry.

Russ couldn’t play guitar during his final months, after neuropathy crippled his fingers. He tried to strum instead of pick but gave up in disgust. My husband never made peace with his imminent demise. Despite his devotion to rockstar heroes, Russ didn’t espouse a live-fast-die-young lifestyle. He once said that a hundred-year lifespan was insufficient, so he wanted the cosmos to grant him an extra century.

*************      

A small drawstring bag of Russ’ ashes jiggled in the passenger seat. The remainder rested in a sturdy wooden box at home. The mortuary director had asked if I wanted to keep a portion separate from the main batch, and I’d said yes. It seemed like a nice gesture. Everyone at the funeral home was polite, but lackluster, in the stiff manner of death industry employees.

I hadn’t touched any of the ashes yet. After placing Russ’ box atop our living room bookcase, I collapsed onto the couch and sobbed. Even the little bag exuded a powerful, repellent energy.

Decades beforehand, my mother had lamented the scattering of her husband’s remains. Humans aren’t supposed to touch each other’s bones, she’d said. We were never meant to get so close.

Polly was wrong, as usual. We are supposed to touch each other’s bones. One person relinquishes their body, another remains to do clean-up. It wasn’t the first time I’d faced the latter task. Early in our relationship, Russ helped me scatter some of Josh’s ashes. I wanted to complete the circle by sprinkling a portion of my husband’s remains at the sculpture’s base.

I passed a small roadside bar. Dusty, nondescript, so diminutive that it lacked signage. Still, a landmark of sorts. My usual signal to start looking for the memorial. Double Adobe Road was tedious and flat. A motorist could easily pass the structure without noticing it.

Seconds later, the memorial popped up on the right-hand side of the highway. I pulled over and turned on my emergency flashers. With exaggerated care, I plucked Russ’ bag from the passenger seat. Then I emerged from the car and trudged through the prickly weeds.

Something was wrong, however. The statue leaned leftward at a jagged angle. Usually, it pointed towards the sky. Had someone tampered with Josh’s memorial? Anything was possible in rural Arizona. The locals had a lot of time on their hands.

A closer look confirmed my suspicions. The statue’s base had detached from the ground. Its exposed concrete foundation revealed numerous cracks. How could a person crack cement? Obviously, the perpetrator hadn’t used his body to wreck the monument. Someone must have hit it with a vehicle.

A moment later, I noticed a set of tire tracks. They began at the highway’s edge and created a jagged trail that ended at the base of the memorial. A hapless motorist had rammed into the statue with great force, enough to uproot and destroy cement that had remained underground for nearly twenty years.

The driver must have sustained serious injuries, at the very least. Maybe worse. Most likely, the poor asshole was blind drunk and driving well above the speed limit.

The whole setup seemed inexplicable. No engine parts on the ground, no spilled oil, no remnants of destruction. Had someone hit the memorial on purpose? A large truck could have uprooted the statue and emerged relatively unscathed. Still, pickups cost a lot of money. Even a little bit of damage would be expensive to repair. It wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

On the other hand, Josh oversaw a lot of prisoners. Perhaps one of them had emerged from the slammer after twenty-plus years and decided to destroy the monument. Word of Josh’s death must have traveled through the prison. Many of the guards had attended his funeral.

I studied the bag of Russ’ ashes. No way in hell could I scatter them now. Josh’s memorial had always been a tranquil spot, a somber place of remembrance. In the distance, the prison complex hovered like a huge, malevolent gargoyle. Ever vigilant, ready to snatch up lawbreakers at a second’s notice.

The prison must have been sleeping on its job. I traced the angel’s body with my forefinger and gazed at the wreckage. Would anyone be able to fix Josh’s monument? Such a task would require a dedicated team of strong individuals.

The merciless desert sun beat down on my head and shoulders. Its harsh light made me dizzy. I backed away from the memorial, returned to my car, and placed Russ’ ashes on the passenger seat.

After I fired up the engine, I noticed that the dashboard thermometer read 98 degrees. The digital clock said it was 6:30. The sun would set in less than an hour. No wonder people got drunk and slammed into things.

I did a U-turn and headed towards home. A minute later, I spotted the tavern and had an inspiration. Perhaps one of the locals would know what had happened to the memorial. It wouldn’t hurt to ask. At least, not very much.

I pulled into the enormous gravel parking lot. Obviously, the proprietors had big aspirations. You never know when hundreds of people might want to drink beer in the shade of a medium-security prison. Today, however, the lot was almost empty.

After I killed the engine, I glanced down at the bag of Russ’ ashes. I didn’t want to leave them in the seat. It felt like my husband was alive and I expected him to wait for me inside an overheated vehicle while I grabbed a quick beer.

On the other hand, I could hardly carry a sack of Russ’ remains into a roadside bar. I locked the car and strolled towards the door. Four people sat at a picnic bench in front, surrounded by half-full beer bottles and cigarette packages. They regarded me with detached curiosity.

I opted for the direct approach, my usual modus operandi. “Can I ask you folks a question? Are you familiar with that memorial a half mile up the road? The metal angel?”

One of the men spoke first. “Yeah. I don’t know who it belongs to, though.”

“It’s my brother’s,” I replied. “He died twenty years ago on this day. I wanted to pay my respects, but someone destroyed it.”

The group shifted uncomfortably in their seats. “I’m sorry for your loss,” a woman said.

“Thanks. You don’t even know half of it.” I tried my hardest to smile. “You think the bartender might have some info?”

“Oh yeah,” the man said, clearly relieved to be let off the hook. “Go right inside. Bartender knows everything that goes on around here.”

Somebody had propped the door open to allow for ventilation. The joint was too flimsy and ancient for air conditioning. I wandered inside and took a seat at the bar. A middle-aged man hovered on a stool at the far end. A couple sat in the middle, gazing at the overhead television.

The bartender came over. I’d expected a wizened local, someone familiar with the area’s darkest secrets. Instead, the woman was around thirty, Hispanic, and cheerful. “What can I get you?”

I checked out the row of bottles above the bar. Cheap American brews. Corona was the best they had to offer. Not surprising. I ordered one, and the bartender fished a bottle from the refrigerator. She took my money and smiled. “What brings you to these parts?”

“Well, I’m hoping you can help me. You know that memorial half a mile up the road? The metal angel? My brother flipped his car at that spot, twenty years ago. I just went over there and noticed that someone totaled his statue with a vehicle. Uprooted it from the ground and everything.”

The bartender gasped. “Sure, I know the spot. But I haven’t heard anything about an accident. That’s terrible.”

I nodded. “They slammed right into it. Hit it so hard the foundation cracked. I’m sure the impact damaged the car. Probably the driver, too. They must have been injured, at least. Maybe even worse.”

The bartender shook her head. “Weird that I haven’t heard anything. I’ve driven past that memorial for years.”

“Weird that they had an accident in the same spot as my brother, and nobody even knows about it.” I took a gulp from my bottle. “Kind of like the Twilight Zone, huh?”

“I was just going to say that.” The bartender turned her attention to a tiny window behind the bar. A cluster of moths was beating against the pane, trying its hardest to escape. They attacked the glass with military precision, retreated momentarily, then resumed their onslaught.

“Goddamn moths.” The bartender swung her rag in their direction. “They’re especially bad this year. All over my house. Then I come here and they’re at the bar. I hope monsoon season comes quick.”

The moths possessed a will to live that humans could only admire. Their freakish survival skills and penchant for self-immolation existed in perfect balance. The dry, hot weather had created an infestation of these pests, with more on the way.

I sipped my beer and allowed my brain to wander. Russ had only been gone for six weeks. After a month of weeping, my emotions had retrograded to a default state of shock. The paralysis had settled into my deepest tissues. It compressed my chest and shoulders like the weighted blankets a friend sent when Russ first entered hospice. 2021 brought a bumper crop of blanket gifts. Folks love to give warm covers to sick people.

The man at the end of the bar turned towards me. “Did your brother work for the DOC?”

“DOC? What’s that?”

“Department of Corrections.” The guy leaned forward and placed his elbows on the bar. “Lots of DOC employees die on the road to work. Or they retire, but they find themselves back on this highway. Like the gal who got hit by a car last year on her bicycle, a mile from here. She had just retired from the DOC. Guy that killed her worked for the DOC, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if whoever hit your brother’s memorial turned out to be a prison employee.”

I’d seen the bicycle memorial, perched in the weeds beside the road. Russ and I had passed it twice, on our trips to Josh’s statue. We never bothered to find out the story behind the wreck. Too much drama in our own lives. Such a terrible way to die, though, while having fun on a spring afternoon.

I studied the man’s face. Could he be lying? Did he know more than he was telling? It was impossible to gauge. The bar inhabitants were a tight-knit group, and perhaps they had taken an unofficial vow of secrecy.

His expression looked open, ingenuous. Obviously, prison employees were clumsy behind the wheel, and their luck was bad. The destruction of Josh’s memorial would forever remain a mystery, at least to me.

I took a final swig of beer and set my bottle on the counter. “I’d better go. I want to get home while it’s still light. Thanks for your help.”

I passed the outdoor group and said goodbye. An unopened pack of discount cigarettes lay on the far end of the picnic table. Why were these people still alive? They were trying their hardest to kill themselves. My husband hadn’t even made it to sixty. He’d come up short on the genetic roulette wheel and was predisposed to colon cancer on both sides of his family.

No cosmic reason for any of it. A nonstop series of random, freak accidents. Hapless folks get mowed down by drunk drivers. Or they ride their bikes on a two-lane highway, and a driver checks his texts or spills his coffee. Or they have blood in their shit but no health insurance. All of us arrive at the same destination. Some people get there faster than others.

Russ ashes waited patiently in the passenger seat. I checked the rear and sideview mirrors and pulled into traffic. Half an hour remained before sunset. I could make it home by dark, prepare dinner, and fall asleep in my king-sized bed. In the morning, I’d do my best to figure out how to live the rest of my life alone.

* * * * *

"The Destruction of Angels" was previously published by the Spotlong Review.

Leah Mueller's work appears in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Citron Review, The Spectacle, New Flash Fiction Review, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net. Leah appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions and was nominated for the 2024 edition. Her two newest books are The Failure of Photography (Garden Party Press, 2023) and Widow's Fire (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). Website: http://www.leahmueller.org.