She Found Heaven
She found Heaven lying like a crippled animal by the side of the road. It was small and glowing, and looked rather like a phosphorescent armadillo in the deep-morning darkness. She got out of her car to examine it. She looked up, but the sky was a vast desert of stars, and she could not see the place from which it fell. She poked it with her finger, and it rolled slightly, although she felt no physical substance beneath her touch. She did, however, feel a warmth that coursed through her bones and her blood, and she caught a scent of Ireland, a place she had been once as a child and had never forgotten. She gathered it up in her arms and brought it to the car. She stuck it in the glove compartment so that its light would not reflect off the windshield and interfere with her driving; but the light that bled out around the edges of the glove compartment door—silver and wavering, with the oily ripples of gasoline or of heat rising off pavement—proved to be equally distracting, and she nearly lost control of the car twice when the temptation to gaze upon it stole her attention from the road.
A week later she placed an ad in The St. Petersburg Times; although her first inclination had been to keep the piece of Heaven (and she was convinced it was only a piece; she could not fathom a Heaven so small and disposable), she felt that it probably belonged to somebody who lost it on the freeway, and she did not want to incur the wrath of God in only her first year in Florida by stealing it.
FOUND:
One piece of Heaven, about a
foot long, slightly crumpled;
call Sally Baxter at 555-8264.
Since the Heaven had been found only an hour out of town, she hoped its owner would see the ad and call her. In the meantime, she folded in half and set it in an old shoebox, which she stored in her closet.
Sally had moved down from Virginia to Florida because she wanted a taste of what she called “real life.” She had no solid idea of what that entailed, but she knew that it must be dirty and filled with Cuban drug dealers. She was twenty-four years old, fresh out of college, and filled with a righteous flame that compelled her to repair all that was damaged in the world. Florida seemed as good a place to start as any. And the beaches didn’t hurt.
Hello, you’ve reached the home of Sally Baxter. I’m not in right now, but if you leave your name and number at the sound of the beep, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
Beep!
Yeah, uh, this is the lady with the Heaven, right? I’m the guy who lost it. It’s like what you said in the paper, it’s all crinkled up, and it ain’t that big, but still it’s mine and I’d like to get it back. My name’s Lance Washington, and my number’s 555-9038. Call me back as soon as you can, ‘cause I need it pretty bad.
Her seventh-floor apartment was small, but it had a large window that overlooked the Gulf of Mexico. She kept the window open to admit the ocean breeze, which rolled into her apartment carrying the scent of distance and the ruminations of pelicans and seagulls. Evening came, and she reclined on her couch so she could watch the colors change in the sky. As they turned from red to purple, and as the first of the stars lit up behind the clouds, she closed her eyes, and it seemed to her as though the physicality which bound her to the earth fell away in great clumps, and she rose off the couch and drifted out into the night. She floated above the waters, her nightgown billowing in the sky like diaphanous wings, and only the light spray of the ocean on her face kept her from wheeling away into the stars.
Beep!
Yes, hello, my name is Ruth Landis, I’m calling about your ad. I live in a retirement home here in north Tampa, and a friend of mine showed it to me the other day and said I should call. You see, my husband died last month, and I’ve lost my faith in God. I haven’t been able to pray or even read the Bible since it happened, and when I pass by the church on my way to the store I get to feeling cold. My friend tells me my soul is in jeopardy. I think you have my Heaven. I need it back so I can see my husband again. Please, call me at the Westlake Retirement Community, and ask for Ruth. They know I’m making this call. They’re good people, and they hope I can get my Heaven back, and I just know you were sent from God to give it to me. I almost believe again, just seeing that ad. Call me. I’ll be waiting.
Beep!
Yeah, this is Lance Washington, I called yesterday? Maybe you didn’t get the message. That Heaven you have is mine. And it’s not just me, it’s my wife and kid, too. It’s kinda like a communal Heaven, you know? We share it between us, and now we’re all without. My kid, she’s only seven years old, and she don’t understand why her daddy can’t get no job. She doesn’t understand why people don’t hire me on account of the time I spent in jail. How do you explain that to a seven-year-old kid? And I been married to Alice goin on six years, and she ain’t once backed down from my side, she ain’t once threatened to leave me when it looked like we might not eat, some nights. I gotta do questionable things now just so I can put some food on the table, and keep up with the bills. But she ain’t invincible. She can’t put up with this forever. Please, Ms. Baxter, call me back. My number’s 555-9038, and I’m desperate. If you want me to beg it from you, I will. If you want money, I’ll get you what you ask. I’m here most of the day. Please call me. I don’t know what to do.
