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.