Metal Angel Read Online Free Page A

morning?” he demanded.
    â€œOf course.”
    He scrutinized her, and she withstood the scrutiny impassively, keeping her face as smooth and disciplined as her hair. When she was a little girl, he could always see a fib in her face, and as many times as he had caught her he had told her that liars went to hell. A few times since she had grown to adulthood, thinking back, she had understood: He cared about her in his scowling way, he wanted her to be safe, saved. It was the passion of his life, telling people what to do, how to behave, how to be saved.
    But most of the time she was not able to understand whether he loved her, or why she loved him, and she had learned to tell her lies to him and not be caught. She had to. Short of leaving outright, the only way for her to keep some selfhood was to sneak and lie her way around his myriad rules. She knew it was no use trying to talk with him. Reverend Crawshaw perceived himself as a soldier of God at war with the devil, and he took no prisoners. He was not the sort of person who would ever in eternity agree to disagree.
    He peered. He had narrow eyes that could crinkle and be kind, blast him, when he was pleased with her. She was his only child.
    â€œHave you had your coffee?” she asked.
    He unbent enough to come into her kitchen, to sit and chat. No he did not want coffee. Angela could give him a glass of water if she liked. None of that bug juice for him, just plain water. Angie put ice cubes in it, which did not displease him. Rather than drinking it down, he sipped. The children ran in and latched onto their grandpa like Velcro, and he chuckled, letting them climb his black-trousered legs. He held them in his lap, bounced them on his bony knees as Angie watched with a bittersweet taste in her silent mouth. (A virtuous woman kept her head covered and was silent.) She loved how he loved her children. Watching the three of them warmed her heart. But—why was he so much less stern with her sons than she remembered his being with her? Was it because he was their grandfather? Or was it because they were boys and she was a daughter of Eve? Female, prone to evil, and therefore less loved?
    At the door, as he left, he said to her in a low voice, “Angela, are you in danger of sin?”
    â€œNo, Father.” It’s the truth , she thought, keeping the dark amusement in her mind from reaching her mouth to make her smile. She was way past just being in danger. She was clear in, thoroughly damned, a fallen woman, a diver in the murky forbidden depths. Not only did she listen to rock music, but at night its lewd rhythms pulsed in her mind. Often it seemed to her that she was most alive when she slept, when in her dreams she moved her body in barbaric ways and sang, sang, sang … In daylight and in fact she could not sing worth a nickel—a thousand church services had shown her that. Her voice when she tried it was reedy and insubstantial, like something in the wind. But when she dreamed, she could sing like Elvis come back from the dead in a woman’s breasty hot-throated body.
    Just the night before, she had dreamed such a dream, and now even as she faced her father with bland eyes she wrote the words of the song in her mind.
    A grownup ain’t a child who died
    That kid’s still kicking strong inside
    Making rude noises
    Spitting on the floor
    Alive and wanting to live some more
    Her father said softly to her, “Something is troubling you, Angela. Be careful. Satan is a seducer. Keep your eyes turned toward God. Say your prayers.”
    â€œI do,” she lied. “Every day.”
    â€œThe ones I taught you.”
    â€œI do, Father!”
    He wanted her to recite the petitions he had written when she was a child, the words he had put into her mouth. Reverend Daniel Crawshaw was like that. He preferred to be in charge. Felt safer that way. His church was entirely his own, unaffiliated with any denomination; he called it the