Commitment

A chance encounter with an angelic musician leads to an ambiguous opportunity

I found the archangel Gabriel sitting on a bench in the park.

He was just resting there, his horn sitting in his lap as though he’d been playing for the quarters passers-by would drop in his hat, overturned on the sidewalk at his feet. The nearest street lamp was burned out, but in the glow from the lamp down the path a ways, I could see that his coat was worn and his trousers were shiny at the knees.

It was impossible to tell how old he might be. But of course he wasn’t just some old Black musician, down on his luck and years removed from his days with Benny Goodman—he was the archangel Gabriel, and he was sitting on my bench.

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