I Can't Hang

I was all ready for the next two weeks to be a total bore snore. We’d be chilling in the hotel for half a month, feeding ourselves with ramen noodles we’d send James out to get, watching TV. All that until God called us back to be angels again and we’d watch our ways so this wouldn’t happen again.

I wished with all my heart that would be the case.

But instead, that peace was short-lived.

For a few days we lounged around on the crusty hotel beds, watching reruns of stupid TV shows like Leave it to Beaver (St. James was the reason for that one) and Jersey Shore, which Brady seemed to become enamored with.

One thing that bugged me that didn’t even make a dent on them was the fact that whatever local channel we were on, something came up every day about the “angel incident,” as reporters called it. Even big-name news stations were caught up in it. And then I figured out why God was pissed at us for it all, since I realized that it was, in fact, a very big deal.

Freakin’ conspiracy theorists wouldn’t let it go, apparently. Everywhere you looked, you saw some other stupid talking head babbling on about it. Even when I looked out the window at Manhattan, trying to entertain myself through those long boring days in the hotel, camera crews would be out and about trying to pinpoint what exactly happened.

Brady and James weren’t touched by it. They were perfectly content to be lying in bed doing nothing with their afterlives. There was a part of me who was uneasy with this, but the other part trusted them. I mean, they’d been angels for decades longer than I had. But on the other side of the road, Brady wasn’t exactly the most innocent dude out there. I figured that out when he nearly cussed me out when I first died.

What mattered most was that we had to be kept under wraps for the two weeks’ course. That thought kind of intimidated me, to be honest. It wasn’t like I was out and about as the coolest kid alive when I was…well, alive, but I didn’t live a sheltered life. I caught a breath of fresh air every now and then.

I was scared of going stir crazy. Being cooped up in basically a cheap-ass apartment for two weeks didn’t exactly thrill me. But still, I stayed tough and stuck it out the best I could, knowing that all of this torture would eventually pay off.

So a few days after we were exiled from Heaven, Brady was in the middle of watching a marathon of Teen Mom when I snatched the remote from his dirty paws to change the channel to something that wouldn’t rot our brains.

He sat up immediately, red-faced. “What the heck? I was watching that!”

“And now we’re watching what I wanna watch,” I proudly proclaimed, beginning to channel surf through the little amount of channels we got on the crappy TV.

Behind me, St. James snickered.

“Aw, who asked you?” Brady spat, hurling a pillow at him. He then leaned back on his arms, sighing deeply. “This sucks so bad. I’m so bored…”

As if on cue, everyone yawned.

James tossed the pillow at the back of Brady’s head when he wasn’t looking. There was a flash of unspoken hatred between the two when he looked back, but then Brady cracked a little smile and turned back around.

Little fragments of television flickered across the screen as I powered through my random channel surf. Nothing peaked my interest. I’d seen it all before.

“You’re just gonna put it on another stupid news channel to bore us all even more and remind us we’re not allowed in Heaven,” Brady sneered.

“Well, we have to know what’s happening in the world,” I countered, absentmindedly flipping through shows. The remote felt sweaty and greasy in my hand, despite the room being incredibly chilly.

“Who cares? We’re only gonna be here for a few more days,” he shrugged, not really caring about the world. He just seemed indifferent toward the solid earth, just holding on to the hope of going back to Heaven.

“Ten more days, actually,” James spoke up. “And ten more hours.”

I just looked at him funny. I hated it here too, but I wasn’t counting down the time…

Brady stood up and stretched, yawning like the world was gonna end if he didn’t. Bones cracked, too – I could hear ‘em. James and I just kinda sat there staring at him, simply because he did it in such an odd way. When he was done, he stumbled for a moment but blinked twice and smirked. “I say we go out on the town.”

I shook my head. “Can’t. People’ll recognize us.”

“We have to lay low, Brady,” St. James spoke.

“Come on,” he rolled his eyes. “There’s gotta be some way we can get outta this stupid place without getting ourselves into a bigger mess.”

I almost protested. But my brain was lost somewhere in the thick stench of Febreeze and my heart made a decision for once. I looked over next to the TV where we kept our food, which were just ramen noodles of every flavor. However, I noticed we were running low.

“Well, we’re almost out of food…” I trailed off, twiddling my thumbs anxiously in my lap.

Slowly, we both turned toward St. James, who just wrinkled his eyebrows together in disproval at us. Then he just shook his head simply. “No. We’re angels, we don’t even have to eat.”

Brady swooped over, his hair whipping out of his face with how fast he moved. He practically got on his knees and begged. “C’mon, Jimmy! Please?”

“Okay, first of all, my name’s not Jimmy, so could you please stop calling me that?” James insisted. “And secondly, I don’t want to be responsible for anything that goes wrong.”

“Who says something’s gonna go wrong?” Brady smiled.

James didn’t even have to answer that. All of us knew what had gone on in the past few days and nothing needed to be repeated.

“I’m sort of involved with you two now, too,” he just said quietly. “And from what I’ve gathered, you’re not…you’re…um…”

“He’s the idiot, if you’re gonna call us dumb,” I pointed out, nodding toward Brady.

“No, I mean…you both just seem, I don’t know…risky.” He turned scarlet and didn’t look us in the eye. Despite loud commercials coming from the TV, the room had this awkward silence upon it, making me uncomfortable.

“What d’you mean?” I asked.

“You’re in trouble. And I don’t wanna add to that or get pulled into it,” he mumbled. Wiping his hands on his jeans, he bit his lip like he was nervous we were gonna beat the crap out of him for saying it.

“Well, if we’re risky, you might as well be risky with us, Jim!” Brady grinned, bending over and wrapping an arm around James’s shoulder. He held an arm out and stared into space as if the New York skyline was right in front of them. “Just picture it – us strolling along the urban sidewalks and engrossing ourselves in the crazy world! It’ll be loads’a fun, trust me!”

“We just wanna get outta this place for a while,” I added.

“Yeah! It’s boring ‘round here, honest to goodness. It’s drivin’ me crazy.” Brady shook James by his shoulder like they were old friends, which made James recede and turn even redder.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, really,” he said softly. “I don’t wanna take the chance.”

“But we’re running out of food. We have to go out sometime,” I bargained. It was true. Probably the only thing that could’ve changed his mind at that point. I mean, who wouldn’t be swayed by junk food? Not even angels could resist it – and angels technically didn’t even have to eat.

St. James thought for a long time. He had his chin in his hands and a look of puzzlement written across his face, and I was growing sort of apprehensive. I wanted out. But like him, I didn’t want to risk anything. Though, as long as we were careful, things would be fine, right?

He sighed in exasperation. “Okay, fine. I guess we could go to the grocery store. As long as you two lay low.”

“Not much we can do about that,” Brady brought up. “Not like we have any other clothes to wear. At least we got our halos taken, too.”

“And I’m not taking off my hoodie. It’s too cold out there,” I stated. I wore that sweatshirt when I died, but it wasn’t like it was some kind of rare one-of-a-kind article of clothing. Just a gray hooded sweatshirt. No reason to leave it behind.

James chewed on his cheek, staring at the ceiling. “Okay, but if you guys get in trouble, I’m blaming you…”

Brady immediately brightened at the approval, slapping our guardian’s back on the way over to the door. “Great! Let’s go somewhere and get some food!”

When I looked back at James, I couldn’t help but smile. The kid looked like he had the world on his shoulders and he hated every second of it.