It was hot, hot; the kind of heat that only happens on the plains. The silt that settles on your skin,
bakes there, till it cracks like clay all redbrown and no matter where you go you can't escape the sulfur
smell of manure and the susurration of cicadas and crickets in the fields tawny with sweetcorn. There was
a drought that summer and it felt even hotter than usual. Their bodies were depleted of water and even
their veins no longer contained blood, only that hardpacked dry dirt. They were sluggish and bored.
Sipping on ninety-nine cent tallboys of High Life didn't cool them off, didn't get them fucked up like it
used to.
Wylie appeared on that raddled porch they always hung out on, he flopped down on the couch that belched
rusty springs and he waited with his secret, grinning like a cat that just sucked down a mouse; he waited
while Sissy cracked open another beer and Gus and Rider threw dice. Clack clack clack, dice carved from
coyote bones, flashing red dots in random patterns. Hey I got smoke, Wylie said, and they all agreed
smoke was better than the dust in their veins. Ain't just any smoke. It's laced with dust. More dust?
Angel dust. And also. . . He didn't finish the last part. Better to let 'em see how it felt. Light it
up an' pass it around! Sissy shouted.
The first sensation was cool and numb; no more fire and heat, this was ice ice ice. And then the
sensation of exploding, the ice shattering into thousands, millions of tiny, brilliant pieces, bursting
open, shooting out and they will become angels, hallelujah. When they returned, they weren't angels, but
they weren't quite themselves. What were all these memories? Memories of other lives that stuck to the
shards as they shot out through the heavens. Memories of things they'd never done, people they'd never
seen; images – a wedding, a funeral, a prize-winning pig at the state fair. Mulberry pie and blackberry
brandy and Oh Jesus what it felt like in that black pine box, the darkness and the fetid air. Why? The
third ingredient, Wylie said. Embalming fluid. From the funeral home.
If Wylie had told Gus and Rider and Sissy that third ingredient before they tried it, they never would
have. But now it was too late – they were already so fond of their newfound depravity. It was a way to
escape the ceaseless prairie heat. It was a way to learn without doing. It was the closest thing to
religion they ever got.
Yes yes they continued, lighting up those starshower blasts in the dusty, tenebrous backyards. They
scattered their bodies among the broken toys, the debris of childhood – a doll head here, a rusted metal
shovel there. At night, at night, always keeping themselves in shadows; taking off into the past and then
returning with stories; and cigarettes that melted down to the filter. They began to take on more than
the memories of the dead – they adopted certain personality characteristics, as well. Sissy, who never
had an interest in sex (preferring the idea of heading a rebel motorcycle gang to that of getting knocked
up at age seventeen), turned suddenly wanton. She lifted her skirt for the boys, lay on her back on the
warm, flat earth, let them put their rough hands between her freckled legs. Gus had always been shy, and
somewhat of a pushover – now, he was brash, outspoken, quick to share his opinions no matter how many
enemies they made him. Rider was the badboy of the group, so bad that parents feared him, thought him
inherently evil, a bad seed; he was the type of boy that tied burning cans to kittens' tails just to watch
them run in frantic circles, making trails of fire in the night – but now, now he was kind, he made
lemonade to cure Sissy's drug-binge headaches, covered Wylie with a blanket when he shivered from too much
gin. And there was Wylie; Wylie who was quiet, not shy like Gus, but mysterious, he didn't care to share
much of himself with anyone. Things were different, now; all his secrets poured out and sunk into the
cracked backyard dirt, bust out into the vast black sky, tumbled over themselves on his tongue until he no
longer even knew what he was saying. Isn't it great? Gus asked. Now that we have this magic, this dust
of angels, this liquid from beyond life, all the parts of us we couldn't tap into before are just coming
out.
The furnace of day was spent holed up in bedrooms with the blinds drawn tight, drinking beer or lemonade
or gin, trying to rid themselves of headaches like scalpels cutting into their brains. When the headaches
ebbed enough for them to pull themselves off the floor and emerge into brutal daylight, they took turns
sneaking through the back door of the funeral home. Some fresh body would be there, all propped in a
coffin, hands folded piously, face a waxy green; all covered with too much makeup, and full of so much
formaldehyde – to keep away the stink, to keep away the flies. There was plenty of formaldehyde for all
of them, for anyone who might want it, and all they needed was just such a little bit. So whoever had the
duty that day, they walked up to the open coffin, bowed their head as though paying respect to the
deceased; they looked around to make sure no one was watching, and then they slipped the syringe out of
their pocket and in a flash they filled it up with formaldehyde. Then it was time to take the precious
fluid back to the rest, where they took their weed-and-dust joints and dipped them into the preservative.
And soon, soon, they'd be ice again; soon, soon, they'd be angels.
They never thought to check who the body belonged to before they took the formaldehyde. They never
thought to worry that things became increasingly muddled in their minds – they returned from their flights
with hazy memories, unsure whether they were dead people's memories or things that one of them had done
while high. The next time it was Wylie's turn to gather the substance, he had no idea that the corpse set
like a mannequin in the coffin was a man who'd been suspected of killing his mother and sister but had
never been convicted because the police never found a motive or a murder weapon. Wylie had no idea – to
him it was just another body that contained what he needed. Yes and he had what he needed, the syringe
full of pungent medicine, and he returned to the backyard of dusk and broken things, and he began the
process – roll and dip, roll and dip. He'd rolled a few joints and the sun had already dropped behind the
horizon, the cicadas began to hum in the weeds, the constellations popped out across the sky in a bright
scrawl, and his friends still hadn't arrived. He grew impatient, tapping his fingers on his bruised knee,
smoking cigarettes. He did not want to wait for that ice in his veins; he did not want to wait for his
explosion toward the stars. There's no harm, he thought, in smoking some before they get here. After
all, I did all the work this time. They'll understand. Inhalation, and the numb coursed through him, but
the ice gave way to a feeling he did not expect – a fiery, murderous rage that muttered and mumbled, kill
kill kill kill. He did not even see the faces of his friends when they filed into the backyard, did not
see Sissy or Gus or Rider. All that existed was the need to destroy. He did not even hear the skirl of
screams funneling into the summer night, or the coughs and sputters as he strangled them one by one. Or
if he did, well, maybe that's what he desired. He blacked out, and when he opened his eyes, the sun had
risen on an unexpected scene. Rider and Gus and Sissy, on the ground with limbs akimbo like ragdolls,
their faces splotchy with blue and purple. Drug overdose, the authorities said. You're lucky, son, they
said to Wylie. You're the lucky one who didn't o.d.
But Wylie knew that he'd done it; or rather that someone else had done it through him. And at the
funeral, he whispered to himself: And they will become angels, hallelujah.