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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Science Fiction
- Subject: Life Changing Decisions/Events
- Published: 10/04/2018
Angel To The Rescue
By
Tom Di Roma
I bet you didn’t know there were real live guardian angels in the world today. I’m not talking about spirits or ghosts, like you see on TV or in the movies. I’m talking about flesh and blood human beings who also happen to be cosmically assigned to be guardian angels. Yeah, I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Believe me; I ought to know. I’m one of them.
The first time I did anything as a guardian angel, I had just turned 22. One of my jobs, besides bartending and helping out at my uncle’s salvage yard, was delivering the local newspaper with my car. This one morning, halfway through my run, I suddenly got the urge (Or was it my own guardian angel telling me?) to check on a house that wasn’t even on my delivery route.
About halfway there, I suddenly thought I knew why I was being forced to do this. There was an electrical short … in the garage wall … about to spark next to some rags and a can of gas. How did I know? I saw it in my mind’s eye like a movie, which I have to admit, was a little mind blowing, considering in the past, I had only gotten impressions (sometimes very strong) that something bad or good was about to happen. This was the first time I actually received a vision! It was definitely freaky, but even so, I didn’t let it stop me. As soon as the images came to me, I knew I had to do something and quick!
Running to the front door, I started pounded on it like crazy, hoping to wake someone up. At first, I thought no one was going to answer, and that I might have to break in, but then, the door popped open and a face peered out at me.
My immediate impression was that he reminded me of my senior year English teacher, Mr. Nubs. He had the same chubby face and balding head, ringed with a band of thinning hair. But instead of the jolly gnome-like character Mr. Nubs always seemed to be, this guy, who was even shorter than Mr. Nubs (if that was possible), looked at me like I was one of those people who go door to door and ask if you’re familiar with the Bible.
Before he could tell me to get lost, I cut him off by ordering him to call the fire department. “You have a fire in your garage,” I explained.
You would have thought I had pulled out a machete the way his eyes bulged. But at that moment, I didn’t care how scared he was. The only thought driving me was that I had to do something to stop this fire from happening.
Pushing past him, I stepped into the living room. He stumbled back a few steps, starring up at my six foot, two inch frame as if I was Godzilla himself. “Where’s the door to the garage?” I demanded to know.
“Ugh … Ugh,” was all he managed to utter, but I saw his brown eyes shift in the direction of a door off from what looked like the dining room, so I headed straight for it. Dressed in a blue terry cloth robe and jungle-print pajamas, he hurried after me, like a cub trailing its parent.
Reaching the door to the garage, I yanked it open. It was like flipping on a light switch. There was a loud pop. Sparks exploded from somewhere on the opposite side of a dark SUV. Beside me, I heard the frightened homeowner gasp, “Oh, my God!” Then he turned and ran toward a staircase that led up to the second floor.
I thought: where the heck is he going? Isn’t he going to put out the fire? He must have a fire extinguisher somewhere?
Instead, as he climbed the staircase, I heard him yelling, “Call nine, one, one! Call nine, one, one!”
For a moment, I was reminded of the movie “Down And Out In Beverly Hills.” That’s the flick where the character, played by Richard Dreyfuss, runs through his house shouting to his wife, played by Bette Midler, after he witnesses the Nick Nolte homeless character fall into his pool. Except, while I was thinking about the movie, the rags caught fire. I could see light from flames flickering over the far wall.
Now, this is where it kind of gets freaky again; because in the past, I could only assume I heard the voice of my guardian angel telling me whether or not to do something. But this time, I clearly heard a nondescript voice tell me that a fire extinguisher was attached to the wall of the garage just to my right, and that there was a light switch just below it. Without hesitating, I flipped on the switch. Light flooded the garage to reveal a dark green Ford SUV. But at the moment, the make of the vehicle wasn’t important. What was important, was putting out the fire, and quick!
Grabbing the extinguisher off its metal perch, I ran around to the front of the SUV to where flames from the burning rags were licking at a can of gas. I couldn’t help but feel fear, knowing that I probably had only seconds until the can exploded, engulfing everything around it in fire. That included me! Luckily, the extinguisher was one of those carbon dioxide types. It took just two blasts to put out the fire.
As I stood over the previously burning rags, my nose itching, my eyes watering from the smoke, the owner of the house appeared next to me. I heard him ask, “How did you know?”
“My guardian angel told me,” I replied.
Cringing inside, I thought, now why did I say that? He’s going to think I’m nuts.
But instead of calling for a shrink, he looked at me and smiling said, “Tell him thanks.”
I was about to ask him why he had said that when we were interrupted by a loud pounding on the front door. The firemen had arrived. It turned out, they had been returning from another fire when they got the call about this one.
One of them questioned the homeowner, whose name was Jerry Waters, and his equally tall wife, Sherry, while the rest dealt with the short in the wall. When it came time for me to explain how I knew about the fire, I told the fireman I thought I had seen smoke coming from under the garage door. I didn’t think I could explain about my guardian angel’s involvement. Even as I said it, I expected Jerry to jump in with the real story, but he didn’t.
“Thanks,” I said to him afterwards, “for not telling them what really happened.”
He smiled, his brown eyes shining almost conspiratorially. “I don’t think they’re quite ready for guardian angels,” he said, and tapped me on the arm. It was either a gesture of affection or camaraderie, I wasn’t sure which, but I liked his answer. I wanted to spend more time talking with him, but the firemen interrupted us again, so I decided it was best I get back on the road.
After saying my goodbyes to him and his wife, I continued with my deliveries. It wasn’t until I was almost done when what had just happened finally hit me. Son of a gun! Instead of me being the one protected, I had just become someone else’s real live guardian angel! Wow, neat, I thought as a feeling like warm butter flowed through me. But then the butter cooled as I began to wonder would I be able to do that again?
The answer was yes, and many more times than I ever imagined.
I was two the first time my guardian angel showed up, so to speak, to save my life. A piece of one of my toys had broken off in my mouth and lodged in my throat. I had begun to choke to death. I probably would have died if it hadn’t been for my guardian angel.
My grandfather, who was babysitting me at the time, and who helped raise me along with my grandmother after Mom died, said he saw me rise to my feet, as if someone he couldn’t see had lifted me up. Next, he swears this same invisible person gave me the Heimlich maneuver. I’m not kidding! That’s exactly what he said he saw—my two-year-old’s body jerking several times as he watched my stomach being compressed by an invisible hand or fist. That’s the story he told for years. Of course, not too many people believed him. Even I started to doubt it happened—until the next time my guardian angel stepped in to save my butt from disaster.
I was seven when I fell out of the tree behind my grandparent’s house. Instead of plummeting to the ground, I found myself somersaulting in slow motion to the weeds and rocks twenty feet below. That’s when I realized my grandfather might have been telling the truth about a guardian angel watching over me, especially since there were other incidences. Like the time a stray bullet from a bank robbery ricocheted off the air in front of me as if it had hit an invisible barrier. Or the time in high school when one of the tanks we used for welding in metal shop exploded, blasting everyone in the class except me. And I was the one who had been standing right in front of the thing when it went off like a bomb!
Between these and others, there were a lot accidents over the years, any one of which could have left me either maimed or dead, but you know what? Not one time was I ever seriously injured. Thanks to my invisible guardian angel, I made it through every potential disaster with hardly a bump or a scratch.
The next conversation I had with Jerry Waters about guardian angels took place two weeks after the fire in his garage. It was at night. I was on my way to a party. I had been tagged to bring the beer and chips. Remember, I worked as a bartender. My cousin, Vinny, was my boss. Everyone knew I could get a huge discount on the beer.
I was just rounding a curve in the road when suddenly I found myself staring at a small patch of flames burning an area of grass off the side of the road and next to some woods. Talk about startled! I also noticed a dark SUV parked next to the road right in front of the flames. It didn’t dawn on me right away whose SUV that might have been. All that seemed to register with my brain was that the flames were awfully close to the vehicle.
“Damn!” I muttered, as I jammed on my brakes and fishtailed to a stop in front of the SUV. I didn’t even look to see if there were any cars behind me. I just reacted.
Jumping from my car, I ran around to the back, popped open the trunk, then grabbed one of the cases of beer and ran to the back of the other parked vehicle. Then prying a couple of cans from their plastic ring holders, I shook them hard and popped their tops while I aimed the cans toward the fire. Yeah, I know, it should never have worked, but thanks to my guardian angel, it did work. It took a little bit of effort, though. The two beers were able to put out only a small portion of the flames. It would take another half case to extinguish the entire fire.
Just as the last of the flames went out, I found myself attracted by a set of approaching flashing colored lights. Oh, great, I thought, the cops! And here I was standing with a bunch of open cans of beer. They’re going to think I’m drunk, or worse—I started the fire. But then, after looking more closely through the glare of the approaching head lights, I realized it was a tow truck.
Relieved, I watched it stop then saw the passenger side door open and a chunky, kid-like figure hop down from the sideboard. What was a kid doing in a tow truck? He came toward me in a hurry and that’s when I saw the kid was actually Jerry, the homeowner, whose garage and very same SUV I had saved from fire two weeks earlier.
He stopped short and looked at me seemingly in shock. I guess he recognized me, but then I saw him look toward the burnt grass and at his van. That’s when it finally must have registered what had happened. A huge grin spread across his chubby face. He continued hurrying over to me, this time with his hand out.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” he said as he clasped my hand in both of his and pumped it vigorously. I felt as if I was shaking hands with a child, especially since I had to look so far down at him. “You don’t know how much trouble you prevented by saving my vehicle from the fire again.” I could imagine. “The kids would have been so disappointed if anything had happened to it.” He must have seen the questioning look on my face. “I coach a youth soccer team,” he explained. “I use my vehicle to carry both team members and equipment.” He gestured toward the burnt grass. “This could have been a disaster.” Suddenly, he noticed the empty cans of beer and must have put two and two together. “What, your guardian angel, again?”
“Not this time,” I told him as I bent over and began picking up the empties. “Past experience. I once used the same technique with soda to help put out a campfire that had gotten out of control.” He chuckled and offered to help me pick up the empties just as the tow truck driver walked up to us.
“I’ll be out of your way in a second,” I told the tow truck driver.
“Good, don’t take too long,” he replied as he started walking back toward his vehicle.
As we finished putting the empty cans and the rest of the beer back in my trunk, my companion asked me if I would give him a ride to the gas station where the tow truck was going to haul his car. “It’s only a short distance down the road. I know the owner. He does all my mechanical work for half the cost of what a dealership would charge.”
“Why is that?” I asked, astonished that, not only a gas station was still doing mechanic work, but also because he said he was charged half price.
“I’m, Bill, the owner’s minister. He figures better to play it safe than risk angering the old man upstairs.” He pointed his stubby index finger toward the night sky.
Well, I thought, that explains why he hadn’t seemed phased when I mentioned my guardian angel during our earlier encounter—which got me thinking …
“So, you’re a minister?” I said as my brain began to work.
“Why?” he asked, looking at me sideways with a knowing smile. “You need some spiritual advice?”
“Not exactly advice,” I explained. “I need to ask you a question or two about something.”
“Ask away,” he said, then called to the tow truck driver. “Paul, I’m riding with him back to Bill’s.”
The driver, who was standing outside his truck waiting for us to move, waved and nodded his acknowledgement.
Then my companion and I got into my car. As I pulled out onto the road again, I noticed Jerry, who was small enough to sit with his back against the door, even with a seat belt on, staring at me kind of funny—almost as if he was studying me.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.
“It’s your aura,” he replied. “It’s fluctuating.”
“My aura?” I said, somewhat surprised. What was a minister doing talking about auras?
He must have caught the question in my voice. “I may be a man of God,” he explained, “but I’m also partly psychic.” I didn’t know whether to take him serious or not. “Yeah, I know it doesn’t seem like the two should go together, but I’ve been this way all my life. It’s even helped me in my ministry.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s allowed me to know when people are being false witnesses.” I was about to ask him what he meant by that when he said, “By the way, your aura just calmed down.” He seemed to be studying me again.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“It was much brighter earlier when Paul and I first showed up.”
“So?”
“It gets brighter, doesn’t it, when you’re helping people?”
“It does?”
We had arrived at the gas station. As I pulled into the lot and noticed it was dark inside, I said, “This place is closed.” I wondered what he was going to do for a ride?
“That’s okay,” he said. “Paul will drive me home, unless …” He looked at me expectantly, “you give me a ride.”
I thought about it a couple of seconds. His house was on the way to the party. I nodded. “Okay, I think I can do that.”
His eyes got big and he pointed. “See, there it goes again.”
“What?”
“Your aura. It just got bright again.”
“So, what exactly does that mean?”
“Whenever you help people, you become like this bright angel of God.”
I almost laughed in his face. “Oh, I wouldn’t exactly call myself anyone’s angel.”
“Why not?”
“Because even though I might have been brought up Catholic, I haven’t been to church much in the last couple of years.”
“Why not?” he asked again.
“On Sundays, I deliver the papers in an area that encompasses two counties. By the time I’m done, I’m too tired to do much of anything except crash in front of the TV.”
Jerry’s face got all scrunched up in thought. “Which makes this aura thing all the more curious,” he said.
“Why is that?”
“Well, we all have auras. It’s part of the human life force. But to have one glow as brightly as yours . . . well, that makes you a very unique individual.”
“How unique?”
Jerry shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. Have you ever experienced anything like a miracle in your life?”
I grinned. “Do you have time for a story?” I asked him.
“That depends, is it long?”
“How about twenty years worth?”
He returned my smile. “I think I have time.”
Sitting back, I told him about my guardian angel and all the times he or she saved my butt.
Even before I finished my story, I could see Jerry’s eyes glowing with excitement. “Do you realize what this means?” he asked, practically bouncing in his seat. I shook my head. “It means somewhere in your future, you’re going to perform an act of extreme selflessness—something that’s going to benefit a whole bunch of people. That’s why you’ve been protected all these years.”
“Do you have any idea what it might be?” I asked, thinking the whole thing sounded a little scary.
Jerry shrugged and shook his head. “Don’t have a clue, but from everything you’ve told me here tonight, and the fact that you’ve already saved my vehicle twice from fire, I have a sneaky suspicion you probably won’t have to wait long to find out.”
As it turned out, he was correct. I didn’t have to wait long. In fact, the first hint of what was to come started that very evening at the party when I gave one of my former girlfriends the Heimlich maneuver. I say former girlfriend because she got kind of freaked out over all the accidents that seemed to happen around me when we were going together—and that night didn’t help any. Even though I saved her life, she was convinced my being there was the reason she almost choked to death. Who was I to argue? So, when she suggested, kind of forcefully, that I leave, I did.
A week later, I was strolling through a nearly empty parking lot when I heard the androgynous voice of my guardian angel whisper to me, “Check out that car in the middle of the lot.”
When I did, I found a baby inside strapped into a car seat, and not looking too well (the baby, not the seat). It didn’t take a genius to figure out the kid was probably having heatstroke. The temperature outside had already reached 85 degrees. Inside the car, with its windows cracked only a little, it must have been well over a hundred. God only knew how long the kid had been in the car.
With the help of my guardian angel protecting my fist with some kind of invisible glove, I managed to punch out one of the car’s windows and rescue the infant. Later, I found out the child’s mother, who was a European immigrant, had fainted in the nearby post office’s lobby, but since no one had known about the kid in the car, it was lucky for both I happened along.
This seemed to be the way things continued for me. I’d get a message in the form of a whispered voice, or an actual image in my mind’s eye just before something was about to happen then I’d go into action. It was amazing, some of the things I was able to do with the help of my guardian angel—such as leaping over an entire lane of traffic to reach a woman and her grandson who were about to step off a curb and get hit by a bus. Then there was the time I had to cross a pond covered with thin ice to save a German Sheppard that had fallen through. As soon as I stepped on to the ice, my entire body became as light as a balloon. It was like walking on an invisible ramp or something. My feet never touched the ice. And when I reached the dog, he never even growled. It was almost as if he’d been waiting specifically for me to rescue him. Of course, if you think that was amazing, you should have seen me with the falling tree. Now, that was something to behold!
It was right in the middle of a huge wind storm. The weathermen said gusts were topping between thirty-five and forty mph. I happen to be driving down a street full of houses and trees when I saw this kid on the sidewalk heading in my direction. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to his surroundings. He had his head down, and it appeared he was listening to something on a set of headphones attached to a portable CD player he had gripped in his hand. I assumed what he was listening to was music, because I could see the fingers of his right hand tapping out a beat on the side of his jeans.
Suddenly, in my mind’s eye I saw this tall tree on one of the lawns begin to fall in the direction of the kid. I wanted to yell out to him, but with the earphones on and the wind blowing the way it was, I doubted he could have heard my voice. So slamming on my brakes, I leaped from my car and ran over to the sidewalk just as the tree’s roots let go, and the twenty foot giant began toppling over toward the kid.
I guess it was a combination of my sudden arrival, plus the movement of the branches coming toward him that finally caught the kid’s attention enough for him to look up. When he did, his eyes went wide with shock and he froze. I think anyone would have had they seen a twenty foot tree about to fall on their head and crush them like a watermelon. But I think what freaked him out even more than the tree was me standing there with my arms up, holding the tree like it was some kind of very long two-by-four made of balsa wood instead of something massive that must have weighed close to a ton. You should have seen the look on that kid’s face. He stared at me like I was some kind of monster from the movies. The next thing I knew, he turned and took off like a shot. If it had been a cartoon, I think he would have left smoke in his wake, he ran so fast.
As for me, I felt kind of weird standing there holding on to this tree like I was Superman holding up a skyscraper. So, nudging it over toward the grass, I let it drop, then ran back to my car and drove off, praying no one except the kid had seen me do it.
When I told Jerry about the tree incident, his response was “Now, don’t get too cocky, kid. Just because your guardian angel turned you into Superman for a moment, don’t think you’re totally invincible.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I explained to him as we sat on his back patio sipping beers. “I may be protected when it comes to the big stuff, but I still nick myself shaving, or stump my toes when I try going to the bathroom in the dark. I only get the Superman treatment when I’m saving someone’s life or property. Otherwise, I’m like you or anyone else.”
“Good,” replied Jerry, who between sips of his beer, was studying a roster of his soccer team. He had more members than he needed for any one game, so he’d rotate starters, giving each kid a chance to play as much as he could.
“When it comes to the big event,” Jerry went on to explain, “your participation may not even be a physical one. “It could be mental, or possibly spiritual.” He lifted his eyes to meet mine. “It could even be a test of faith.”
That last statement sent a prickle of fear through me. “You mean I could be crucified?” I asked, as a lump formed in my throat.
Jerry smiled and shook his small round head. “I don’t think you have to worry about getting nailed to a tree any time soon. But whatever God has in store for you, it may or may not require a lot of strength.”
Once again, Jerry was correct. When the big one came nearly six months later, it was in the form of a mental exercise, not a physical one. I had to remember a lot of information in a short time period. Hell, I wasn’t even awake when I got the information. That’s because, it came to me in my dreams. Or maybe, I should say nightmares.
It was September 9th, 2001. I had gone to bed early that evening. I don’t know why I was so tired, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I literally went out like a light. It was as if I had been plunged head first into a pool of sleep-inducing water. There was a moment of darkness, then the next instant, I was sitting on my couch watching TV in total shock. What I had just seen was the stuff of nightmares. I watched with a sick feeling growing in my stomach as both towers of the World Trade Center in New York City were hit by separate passenger jets. First one, then 18 minutes later, the other. I watched the TV with my mouth open as the images of the planes exploding into the sides of the towers were repeated over and over.
Black, greasy-looking smoke and flames spewed like blood from the jagged wide slashes in the sides of the upper portions of both towers. You knew without anyone saying it that the people on the floors above where the planes hit were not going to make it out alive.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I saw the TV picture switch to Washington D.C., where another plume of black smoke was rising from a section of the Pentagon, where a third airliner had crashed. At that point, the entire world knew it was no mistake. Someone, somewhere had attacked the U.S.
But the horror was not over, for then I saw something that made me want to puke even in my sleep. First, one tower of the World Trade Center collapsed in upon itself, then the other! Both towers disintegrated like ashes in the wind to become nothing but ten story high piles of rubble spewing ash and smoke over half of lower Manhattan.
My brain kept telling me it was impossible. No building that huge could collapse like that. But reports later said the explosions, combined with the fuel-fed fires, had weakened the massive structures to the point that the areas above the crash sites could no longer support the numerous floors above them, so, that the tops of the towers literally compressed and crushed the bottoms. It was like watching two giant square “Slinkys” collapse down upon themselves. Thousands were reported to have died, including police and fire rescue crews on the ground.
There was even a fourth plane crash, this one into a field in Pennsylvania. It was later speculated that the passengers of that hijacked plane, aware of what had happened because of cell phone conversations with family members, reacted by attacking the hijackers of their plane, causing it to crash into the ground instead of its intended target, whatever that had been.
The images went on and on, as if I was watching consecutive news broadcasts. They talked about the aftermath of what turned out to be suicide terrorist attacks. The subsequent nation-wide shutdown of the entire aviation industry, plus the subsequent military mobilizations of U.S. Forces in places along the Pakistan and Afghanistan borders, where it was believed bands of terrorists had trained and were still planning more attacks.
I heard names mentioned—those of the individual suicide terrorists, where they had lived and what they had done to prepare, which included attending flight schools in the U.S. to learn how to fly passenger jets; but even more important, I heard the name of their leader, Osama Bin Laden, a rich radical Saudi, who had founded a world-wide network of terrorists called al Qaeda, bent on destroying the infidel U.S. and all its allies.
The images and the names kept coming—a whole year’s worth of news broadcasts in a matter of a few short hours. And when I awoke on the morning of September 10th, I found myself trembling and so sick to my stomach, I spent the next fifteen minutes with my head in the toilet.
Once I was able to move again without giving up half my insides, I called a friend of mine who was a computer and electronics geek. I knew he had a satellite phone that could call anywhere in the world with no interference or dead zones. I explained to him what I wanted to do, but not entirely why. He agreed to let me use his phone. Then while we sat together in his bedroom, I made my one and only phone call.
When I got Osama Bin Laden on the phone, I introduced myself in his native language, giving both my name and address then explained to him that I had information about his planned terrorist attacks that he would want to hear. After that, I continued in English, wondering, of course, if he would know what I was saying, but something told me my guardian angel would take care of that. So, I continued to tell him everything I had seen and learned in my dreams.
I mentioned names, flight numbers, targets, and I told him about the aftermath—the collapse of the twin towers. I bet he got a thrill over that one. Then I went on to explain how the U.S. was going to send forces over to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan to root out and bomb suspected al Qaeda strongholds. I even told him their locations. I continued telling him everything I had seen over the subsequent year, including the assignation attempt on his person by one of his top aids for having the aid’s family killed after they innocently gave an interview to a CNN news crew.
And when I was through, I repeated my name and address, then placed the satellite phone back into the hands of my friend who sat next to me on his bed staring at me with his mouth open and his eyes as big as doughnuts. After that, I went home to wait for their arrival.
It didn’t take long.
My plan, from the moment I woke up had been to alert the authorities. Well, maybe not right then, but after I stopped puking. But I knew that if I tried calling the FBI, or anyone directly, they wouldn’t believe a word I said until it was too late. But if the NSA heard what I had to say to Osama Bin Laden over one of their satellite transmission detectors, they might be more inclined to take the whole thing more serious—at least I had hoped they would. Lucky for me, I was correct.
About an hour and a half after I got home, two young-looking guys in identical dark gray suits and shiny black shoes showed up at my apartment door. They looked like bank tellers, they were so young, but even before they showed me their FBI IDs, I knew they were a lot more dangerous than mere bank tellers.
I glanced at my wristwatch. “It didn’t take you guys very long, did it?” I said, hoping they would be at least slightly amused by my minor attempt at humor. Neither reacted the way I had hoped. Instead, the older-looking of the two requested in a monotone voice that I accompany them. “No sweat,” I replied, then said, “Just let me get my jacket and turn off my TV.”
“You won’t need a jacket,” said the younger one, as I pressed the off button on the remote, and picked up my jacket from the couch. “It’s pretty warm out.”
I turned to him. “That may true, but you guys will probably keep me around for hours in an air conditioned room. I’ll freeze my butt off if I don’t have a jacket to wear.”
As it turned out, I was slightly off on how long they were going to hold me. They didn’t keep me around for hours. They kept me around for days in a group of offices in a building down town. A few of the offices had been turned into motel-like rooms—I guess for people they needed to question, or maybe protect, like in the movies. At least I had a nice bed to sleep in, my own clothes to wear (they got them from my apartment), a bathroom with a shower, TV to watch and some great food sent in. I especially liked the pizza.
Their first question, once they did begin interrogating me, was when and where did I learn to speak Arabic? That was the language of Osama Bin Laden. I told them, “I never learned any foreign languages. Even in high school, I skipped languages and took shop instead.”
My interrogator, who said his name was Robert Jensen, and who looked like he was about in his mid forties with graying black hair and eyes that reminded me of every executive type I’ve ever encountered, didn’t like that answer. I could tell by the frustrated look on his face, so I said to him, “Before you get too worked up, let me explain everything from the very beginning.”
That seemed to make him a little happier. So, shifting in my chair to get comfortable, I began, “When I was two years old . . .”
Nearly an hour later, I finished telling him all about my guardian angel and about everything I had learned from my previous night’s dreams. He tried to interrupt me several times, but I cut him off each time, finally telling him to wait until I was finished. “Then you can ask me all the questions you want.”
After I was done, he threw down the pen he’d been using to take notes and leaned back in his chair. “If what you’ve been telling me is true,” he said, “then why didn’t your, quote—‘Guardian Angel’—help you stop Oklahoma City, or the first attack on the World Trade Center?” His voice dripped with sarcasm.
“Probably because I wasn’t ready yet,” I told him. “I was too young.”
“But you’re old enough now?”
I was about to tell him yes when my mind went into one of its movie modes. I saw a group of four young teens inside a garage. They were watching a fifth teen who was standing in front of a workbench. He had just filled a small metal tube with a bunch of wooden match heads. One end of the tube had already been flattened. The boy by the bench was holding a rubber mallet. He explained to the others watching that, because the bench was made of wood, and the hammer was rubber, and the tube aluminum, there was no chance of any sparks causing an explosion.
He was wrong!
The next instant, I was watching a heavy-set man in a motorized wheelchair calling 911 on a cell phone. All around him, the teens were staring in horror at the kid who’d been standing by the bench. He was writhing around on the floor half screaming half moaning while holding onto his right forearm, as if it was going to fall off. What he should have been holding on to was his hand (what was left of it), which hung off his arm by a piece of skin.
When I awoke from my moment of horror, I asked my interrogator, “You have a son named Mark?”
“What about him?” he replied, looking at me as if I had suddenly turned into a child molester.
“Call your neighbor, Harry,” I said. “Tell him to get his wheelchair over to your garage, pronto. Your son’s about to blow off his hand with a pipe bomb he and his friends are trying to make.”
I’ve got to give the guy credit. He didn’t hesitate a second. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a cell phone then stood up and walked over to the corner of the small room we were in. Facing the wall, he dialed a number and began talking in an urgent low voice to whoever was on the other end.
“Tell him to hurry,” I said to his back. “He has less than three minutes.”
When he was done, Jensen flipped his phone closed, then turned to face me while he remained standing in the corner. Even though he tried to hide it, I could tell he was anxious. It showed in the way he kept turning his phone over and over in his hand. I couldn’t blame him. I was a little anxious, too, especially since it would be Harry making the rescue and not me. Would Harry make it in time?
While we waited, I glanced at the other two agents in the room. Both were also sitting in chairs, one by the door, the other down the far end next to a horizontal mirror on the wall. These were the same two agents who had brought me here. Remarkably, neither had showed much emotion during my story except for an occasional raised eyebrow.
Finally, after what seemed like a half hour, though was only a couple of minutes, a loud insistent beeping blared like a siren throughout the room. It was Jensen’s phone. He flipped it open and put it to his ear. After a moment, a slow smile spread across his face and I could see his whole body relax. This made me breathe my own sigh of relief. Obviously, Harry had been on time. And that’s when it must have hit Jensen. He looked at me, his eyes having become as large as beer kegs. “When did you say the first plane was going to take off?”
Everyone knows what happened after that. We all saw it on TV, thanks to an anonymous phone call to a TV news crew. Well, at least, you watched it. I didn’t, not the morning of September 11th anyway. That’s because I was too busy watching from behind the scenes right there at Logan Airport in Boston as Jensen and his team, along with the CIA and a few dozen other law enforcement types, rounded up the hijackers from both flights 11 and 175. They did the same at Dulles Airport in Washington and Newark Airport in New Jersey, where the other two planes were scheduled to take off. On the way to the helicopter that would take us to Logan, I asked Jensen why he had insisted I come along.
“I want you by my side,” he said, “in case your guardian angel decides to let you in on any other things going on that we should know about.”
He didn’t have to worry about it then, at least not on that day. My guardian angel remained as quiet as the empty streets on an early Sunday morning, but two days later, he/she spoke to me in words and images that were loud and clear.
My stomach still gets a little queasy every time I think about what might have happened had those twelve trucks loaded with their cargo of explosives reached their intended targets. The statistics are staggering: several million dead, trillions of dollars in damages, and the centers of twelve major world cities flattened by blasts, each nearly as strong as a small nuclear explosion.
It was right after that the recruitment talks began in earnest. Before it was over, I had the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and God knows what other government agencies practically begging me to join their ranks. I tried to explain to them that the information I received from my guardian angel was for saving lives, not becoming some kind of paranormal spook. Even after they threatened me with jail for supposedly being a threat to national security, I still refused.
In the end, it took several phone calls from Jerry to people in high places before they let me go. He had become concerned after they had questioned him about me. Of course, if he had really thought it through, he would have realized that my guardian angel wasn’t going to let anything happen to me. I was safe from the big bad government types, no matter what they threatened to do. Only Jensen was apologetic for their treatment of me. The others, I’m sure, would have loved to keep me around indefinitely. The best thing that came out of my stay with them was my decision about what to do with the rest of my life.
A year later found me starting my new job as a rookie firefighter with the New York City Fire Department. It felt great to be there, but you know what was even better? Standing outside our station house and looking down the avenue, and seeing the tops of the twin towers peaking above the other buildings like kids playing hide ‘n seek.
It made me proud to know they were still there and that I had something to do with that. Just as it also makes me proud to know that I’m out there every day saving lives and property, sometimes even before anything happens. My chief is especially grateful for that. He has said he wishes there were thousands more like me. “That way, every station house could have its own guardian angel.”
I told him not to worry. “More are on their way. Trust me, I have it on the highest authority.”
Angel To The Rescue(Tom Di Roma)
Angel To The Rescue
By
Tom Di Roma
I bet you didn’t know there were real live guardian angels in the world today. I’m not talking about spirits or ghosts, like you see on TV or in the movies. I’m talking about flesh and blood human beings who also happen to be cosmically assigned to be guardian angels. Yeah, I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Believe me; I ought to know. I’m one of them.
The first time I did anything as a guardian angel, I had just turned 22. One of my jobs, besides bartending and helping out at my uncle’s salvage yard, was delivering the local newspaper with my car. This one morning, halfway through my run, I suddenly got the urge (Or was it my own guardian angel telling me?) to check on a house that wasn’t even on my delivery route.
About halfway there, I suddenly thought I knew why I was being forced to do this. There was an electrical short … in the garage wall … about to spark next to some rags and a can of gas. How did I know? I saw it in my mind’s eye like a movie, which I have to admit, was a little mind blowing, considering in the past, I had only gotten impressions (sometimes very strong) that something bad or good was about to happen. This was the first time I actually received a vision! It was definitely freaky, but even so, I didn’t let it stop me. As soon as the images came to me, I knew I had to do something and quick!
Running to the front door, I started pounded on it like crazy, hoping to wake someone up. At first, I thought no one was going to answer, and that I might have to break in, but then, the door popped open and a face peered out at me.
My immediate impression was that he reminded me of my senior year English teacher, Mr. Nubs. He had the same chubby face and balding head, ringed with a band of thinning hair. But instead of the jolly gnome-like character Mr. Nubs always seemed to be, this guy, who was even shorter than Mr. Nubs (if that was possible), looked at me like I was one of those people who go door to door and ask if you’re familiar with the Bible.
Before he could tell me to get lost, I cut him off by ordering him to call the fire department. “You have a fire in your garage,” I explained.
You would have thought I had pulled out a machete the way his eyes bulged. But at that moment, I didn’t care how scared he was. The only thought driving me was that I had to do something to stop this fire from happening.
Pushing past him, I stepped into the living room. He stumbled back a few steps, starring up at my six foot, two inch frame as if I was Godzilla himself. “Where’s the door to the garage?” I demanded to know.
“Ugh … Ugh,” was all he managed to utter, but I saw his brown eyes shift in the direction of a door off from what looked like the dining room, so I headed straight for it. Dressed in a blue terry cloth robe and jungle-print pajamas, he hurried after me, like a cub trailing its parent.
Reaching the door to the garage, I yanked it open. It was like flipping on a light switch. There was a loud pop. Sparks exploded from somewhere on the opposite side of a dark SUV. Beside me, I heard the frightened homeowner gasp, “Oh, my God!” Then he turned and ran toward a staircase that led up to the second floor.
I thought: where the heck is he going? Isn’t he going to put out the fire? He must have a fire extinguisher somewhere?
Instead, as he climbed the staircase, I heard him yelling, “Call nine, one, one! Call nine, one, one!”
For a moment, I was reminded of the movie “Down And Out In Beverly Hills.” That’s the flick where the character, played by Richard Dreyfuss, runs through his house shouting to his wife, played by Bette Midler, after he witnesses the Nick Nolte homeless character fall into his pool. Except, while I was thinking about the movie, the rags caught fire. I could see light from flames flickering over the far wall.
Now, this is where it kind of gets freaky again; because in the past, I could only assume I heard the voice of my guardian angel telling me whether or not to do something. But this time, I clearly heard a nondescript voice tell me that a fire extinguisher was attached to the wall of the garage just to my right, and that there was a light switch just below it. Without hesitating, I flipped on the switch. Light flooded the garage to reveal a dark green Ford SUV. But at the moment, the make of the vehicle wasn’t important. What was important, was putting out the fire, and quick!
Grabbing the extinguisher off its metal perch, I ran around to the front of the SUV to where flames from the burning rags were licking at a can of gas. I couldn’t help but feel fear, knowing that I probably had only seconds until the can exploded, engulfing everything around it in fire. That included me! Luckily, the extinguisher was one of those carbon dioxide types. It took just two blasts to put out the fire.
As I stood over the previously burning rags, my nose itching, my eyes watering from the smoke, the owner of the house appeared next to me. I heard him ask, “How did you know?”
“My guardian angel told me,” I replied.
Cringing inside, I thought, now why did I say that? He’s going to think I’m nuts.
But instead of calling for a shrink, he looked at me and smiling said, “Tell him thanks.”
I was about to ask him why he had said that when we were interrupted by a loud pounding on the front door. The firemen had arrived. It turned out, they had been returning from another fire when they got the call about this one.
One of them questioned the homeowner, whose name was Jerry Waters, and his equally tall wife, Sherry, while the rest dealt with the short in the wall. When it came time for me to explain how I knew about the fire, I told the fireman I thought I had seen smoke coming from under the garage door. I didn’t think I could explain about my guardian angel’s involvement. Even as I said it, I expected Jerry to jump in with the real story, but he didn’t.
“Thanks,” I said to him afterwards, “for not telling them what really happened.”
He smiled, his brown eyes shining almost conspiratorially. “I don’t think they’re quite ready for guardian angels,” he said, and tapped me on the arm. It was either a gesture of affection or camaraderie, I wasn’t sure which, but I liked his answer. I wanted to spend more time talking with him, but the firemen interrupted us again, so I decided it was best I get back on the road.
After saying my goodbyes to him and his wife, I continued with my deliveries. It wasn’t until I was almost done when what had just happened finally hit me. Son of a gun! Instead of me being the one protected, I had just become someone else’s real live guardian angel! Wow, neat, I thought as a feeling like warm butter flowed through me. But then the butter cooled as I began to wonder would I be able to do that again?
The answer was yes, and many more times than I ever imagined.
I was two the first time my guardian angel showed up, so to speak, to save my life. A piece of one of my toys had broken off in my mouth and lodged in my throat. I had begun to choke to death. I probably would have died if it hadn’t been for my guardian angel.
My grandfather, who was babysitting me at the time, and who helped raise me along with my grandmother after Mom died, said he saw me rise to my feet, as if someone he couldn’t see had lifted me up. Next, he swears this same invisible person gave me the Heimlich maneuver. I’m not kidding! That’s exactly what he said he saw—my two-year-old’s body jerking several times as he watched my stomach being compressed by an invisible hand or fist. That’s the story he told for years. Of course, not too many people believed him. Even I started to doubt it happened—until the next time my guardian angel stepped in to save my butt from disaster.
I was seven when I fell out of the tree behind my grandparent’s house. Instead of plummeting to the ground, I found myself somersaulting in slow motion to the weeds and rocks twenty feet below. That’s when I realized my grandfather might have been telling the truth about a guardian angel watching over me, especially since there were other incidences. Like the time a stray bullet from a bank robbery ricocheted off the air in front of me as if it had hit an invisible barrier. Or the time in high school when one of the tanks we used for welding in metal shop exploded, blasting everyone in the class except me. And I was the one who had been standing right in front of the thing when it went off like a bomb!
Between these and others, there were a lot accidents over the years, any one of which could have left me either maimed or dead, but you know what? Not one time was I ever seriously injured. Thanks to my invisible guardian angel, I made it through every potential disaster with hardly a bump or a scratch.
The next conversation I had with Jerry Waters about guardian angels took place two weeks after the fire in his garage. It was at night. I was on my way to a party. I had been tagged to bring the beer and chips. Remember, I worked as a bartender. My cousin, Vinny, was my boss. Everyone knew I could get a huge discount on the beer.
I was just rounding a curve in the road when suddenly I found myself staring at a small patch of flames burning an area of grass off the side of the road and next to some woods. Talk about startled! I also noticed a dark SUV parked next to the road right in front of the flames. It didn’t dawn on me right away whose SUV that might have been. All that seemed to register with my brain was that the flames were awfully close to the vehicle.
“Damn!” I muttered, as I jammed on my brakes and fishtailed to a stop in front of the SUV. I didn’t even look to see if there were any cars behind me. I just reacted.
Jumping from my car, I ran around to the back, popped open the trunk, then grabbed one of the cases of beer and ran to the back of the other parked vehicle. Then prying a couple of cans from their plastic ring holders, I shook them hard and popped their tops while I aimed the cans toward the fire. Yeah, I know, it should never have worked, but thanks to my guardian angel, it did work. It took a little bit of effort, though. The two beers were able to put out only a small portion of the flames. It would take another half case to extinguish the entire fire.
Just as the last of the flames went out, I found myself attracted by a set of approaching flashing colored lights. Oh, great, I thought, the cops! And here I was standing with a bunch of open cans of beer. They’re going to think I’m drunk, or worse—I started the fire. But then, after looking more closely through the glare of the approaching head lights, I realized it was a tow truck.
Relieved, I watched it stop then saw the passenger side door open and a chunky, kid-like figure hop down from the sideboard. What was a kid doing in a tow truck? He came toward me in a hurry and that’s when I saw the kid was actually Jerry, the homeowner, whose garage and very same SUV I had saved from fire two weeks earlier.
He stopped short and looked at me seemingly in shock. I guess he recognized me, but then I saw him look toward the burnt grass and at his van. That’s when it finally must have registered what had happened. A huge grin spread across his chubby face. He continued hurrying over to me, this time with his hand out.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” he said as he clasped my hand in both of his and pumped it vigorously. I felt as if I was shaking hands with a child, especially since I had to look so far down at him. “You don’t know how much trouble you prevented by saving my vehicle from the fire again.” I could imagine. “The kids would have been so disappointed if anything had happened to it.” He must have seen the questioning look on my face. “I coach a youth soccer team,” he explained. “I use my vehicle to carry both team members and equipment.” He gestured toward the burnt grass. “This could have been a disaster.” Suddenly, he noticed the empty cans of beer and must have put two and two together. “What, your guardian angel, again?”
“Not this time,” I told him as I bent over and began picking up the empties. “Past experience. I once used the same technique with soda to help put out a campfire that had gotten out of control.” He chuckled and offered to help me pick up the empties just as the tow truck driver walked up to us.
“I’ll be out of your way in a second,” I told the tow truck driver.
“Good, don’t take too long,” he replied as he started walking back toward his vehicle.
As we finished putting the empty cans and the rest of the beer back in my trunk, my companion asked me if I would give him a ride to the gas station where the tow truck was going to haul his car. “It’s only a short distance down the road. I know the owner. He does all my mechanical work for half the cost of what a dealership would charge.”
“Why is that?” I asked, astonished that, not only a gas station was still doing mechanic work, but also because he said he was charged half price.
“I’m, Bill, the owner’s minister. He figures better to play it safe than risk angering the old man upstairs.” He pointed his stubby index finger toward the night sky.
Well, I thought, that explains why he hadn’t seemed phased when I mentioned my guardian angel during our earlier encounter—which got me thinking …
“So, you’re a minister?” I said as my brain began to work.
“Why?” he asked, looking at me sideways with a knowing smile. “You need some spiritual advice?”
“Not exactly advice,” I explained. “I need to ask you a question or two about something.”
“Ask away,” he said, then called to the tow truck driver. “Paul, I’m riding with him back to Bill’s.”
The driver, who was standing outside his truck waiting for us to move, waved and nodded his acknowledgement.
Then my companion and I got into my car. As I pulled out onto the road again, I noticed Jerry, who was small enough to sit with his back against the door, even with a seat belt on, staring at me kind of funny—almost as if he was studying me.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.
“It’s your aura,” he replied. “It’s fluctuating.”
“My aura?” I said, somewhat surprised. What was a minister doing talking about auras?
He must have caught the question in my voice. “I may be a man of God,” he explained, “but I’m also partly psychic.” I didn’t know whether to take him serious or not. “Yeah, I know it doesn’t seem like the two should go together, but I’ve been this way all my life. It’s even helped me in my ministry.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s allowed me to know when people are being false witnesses.” I was about to ask him what he meant by that when he said, “By the way, your aura just calmed down.” He seemed to be studying me again.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“It was much brighter earlier when Paul and I first showed up.”
“So?”
“It gets brighter, doesn’t it, when you’re helping people?”
“It does?”
We had arrived at the gas station. As I pulled into the lot and noticed it was dark inside, I said, “This place is closed.” I wondered what he was going to do for a ride?
“That’s okay,” he said. “Paul will drive me home, unless …” He looked at me expectantly, “you give me a ride.”
I thought about it a couple of seconds. His house was on the way to the party. I nodded. “Okay, I think I can do that.”
His eyes got big and he pointed. “See, there it goes again.”
“What?”
“Your aura. It just got bright again.”
“So, what exactly does that mean?”
“Whenever you help people, you become like this bright angel of God.”
I almost laughed in his face. “Oh, I wouldn’t exactly call myself anyone’s angel.”
“Why not?”
“Because even though I might have been brought up Catholic, I haven’t been to church much in the last couple of years.”
“Why not?” he asked again.
“On Sundays, I deliver the papers in an area that encompasses two counties. By the time I’m done, I’m too tired to do much of anything except crash in front of the TV.”
Jerry’s face got all scrunched up in thought. “Which makes this aura thing all the more curious,” he said.
“Why is that?”
“Well, we all have auras. It’s part of the human life force. But to have one glow as brightly as yours . . . well, that makes you a very unique individual.”
“How unique?”
Jerry shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. Have you ever experienced anything like a miracle in your life?”
I grinned. “Do you have time for a story?” I asked him.
“That depends, is it long?”
“How about twenty years worth?”
He returned my smile. “I think I have time.”
Sitting back, I told him about my guardian angel and all the times he or she saved my butt.
Even before I finished my story, I could see Jerry’s eyes glowing with excitement. “Do you realize what this means?” he asked, practically bouncing in his seat. I shook my head. “It means somewhere in your future, you’re going to perform an act of extreme selflessness—something that’s going to benefit a whole bunch of people. That’s why you’ve been protected all these years.”
“Do you have any idea what it might be?” I asked, thinking the whole thing sounded a little scary.
Jerry shrugged and shook his head. “Don’t have a clue, but from everything you’ve told me here tonight, and the fact that you’ve already saved my vehicle twice from fire, I have a sneaky suspicion you probably won’t have to wait long to find out.”
As it turned out, he was correct. I didn’t have to wait long. In fact, the first hint of what was to come started that very evening at the party when I gave one of my former girlfriends the Heimlich maneuver. I say former girlfriend because she got kind of freaked out over all the accidents that seemed to happen around me when we were going together—and that night didn’t help any. Even though I saved her life, she was convinced my being there was the reason she almost choked to death. Who was I to argue? So, when she suggested, kind of forcefully, that I leave, I did.
A week later, I was strolling through a nearly empty parking lot when I heard the androgynous voice of my guardian angel whisper to me, “Check out that car in the middle of the lot.”
When I did, I found a baby inside strapped into a car seat, and not looking too well (the baby, not the seat). It didn’t take a genius to figure out the kid was probably having heatstroke. The temperature outside had already reached 85 degrees. Inside the car, with its windows cracked only a little, it must have been well over a hundred. God only knew how long the kid had been in the car.
With the help of my guardian angel protecting my fist with some kind of invisible glove, I managed to punch out one of the car’s windows and rescue the infant. Later, I found out the child’s mother, who was a European immigrant, had fainted in the nearby post office’s lobby, but since no one had known about the kid in the car, it was lucky for both I happened along.
This seemed to be the way things continued for me. I’d get a message in the form of a whispered voice, or an actual image in my mind’s eye just before something was about to happen then I’d go into action. It was amazing, some of the things I was able to do with the help of my guardian angel—such as leaping over an entire lane of traffic to reach a woman and her grandson who were about to step off a curb and get hit by a bus. Then there was the time I had to cross a pond covered with thin ice to save a German Sheppard that had fallen through. As soon as I stepped on to the ice, my entire body became as light as a balloon. It was like walking on an invisible ramp or something. My feet never touched the ice. And when I reached the dog, he never even growled. It was almost as if he’d been waiting specifically for me to rescue him. Of course, if you think that was amazing, you should have seen me with the falling tree. Now, that was something to behold!
It was right in the middle of a huge wind storm. The weathermen said gusts were topping between thirty-five and forty mph. I happen to be driving down a street full of houses and trees when I saw this kid on the sidewalk heading in my direction. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to his surroundings. He had his head down, and it appeared he was listening to something on a set of headphones attached to a portable CD player he had gripped in his hand. I assumed what he was listening to was music, because I could see the fingers of his right hand tapping out a beat on the side of his jeans.
Suddenly, in my mind’s eye I saw this tall tree on one of the lawns begin to fall in the direction of the kid. I wanted to yell out to him, but with the earphones on and the wind blowing the way it was, I doubted he could have heard my voice. So slamming on my brakes, I leaped from my car and ran over to the sidewalk just as the tree’s roots let go, and the twenty foot giant began toppling over toward the kid.
I guess it was a combination of my sudden arrival, plus the movement of the branches coming toward him that finally caught the kid’s attention enough for him to look up. When he did, his eyes went wide with shock and he froze. I think anyone would have had they seen a twenty foot tree about to fall on their head and crush them like a watermelon. But I think what freaked him out even more than the tree was me standing there with my arms up, holding the tree like it was some kind of very long two-by-four made of balsa wood instead of something massive that must have weighed close to a ton. You should have seen the look on that kid’s face. He stared at me like I was some kind of monster from the movies. The next thing I knew, he turned and took off like a shot. If it had been a cartoon, I think he would have left smoke in his wake, he ran so fast.
As for me, I felt kind of weird standing there holding on to this tree like I was Superman holding up a skyscraper. So, nudging it over toward the grass, I let it drop, then ran back to my car and drove off, praying no one except the kid had seen me do it.
When I told Jerry about the tree incident, his response was “Now, don’t get too cocky, kid. Just because your guardian angel turned you into Superman for a moment, don’t think you’re totally invincible.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I explained to him as we sat on his back patio sipping beers. “I may be protected when it comes to the big stuff, but I still nick myself shaving, or stump my toes when I try going to the bathroom in the dark. I only get the Superman treatment when I’m saving someone’s life or property. Otherwise, I’m like you or anyone else.”
“Good,” replied Jerry, who between sips of his beer, was studying a roster of his soccer team. He had more members than he needed for any one game, so he’d rotate starters, giving each kid a chance to play as much as he could.
“When it comes to the big event,” Jerry went on to explain, “your participation may not even be a physical one. “It could be mental, or possibly spiritual.” He lifted his eyes to meet mine. “It could even be a test of faith.”
That last statement sent a prickle of fear through me. “You mean I could be crucified?” I asked, as a lump formed in my throat.
Jerry smiled and shook his small round head. “I don’t think you have to worry about getting nailed to a tree any time soon. But whatever God has in store for you, it may or may not require a lot of strength.”
Once again, Jerry was correct. When the big one came nearly six months later, it was in the form of a mental exercise, not a physical one. I had to remember a lot of information in a short time period. Hell, I wasn’t even awake when I got the information. That’s because, it came to me in my dreams. Or maybe, I should say nightmares.
It was September 9th, 2001. I had gone to bed early that evening. I don’t know why I was so tired, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I literally went out like a light. It was as if I had been plunged head first into a pool of sleep-inducing water. There was a moment of darkness, then the next instant, I was sitting on my couch watching TV in total shock. What I had just seen was the stuff of nightmares. I watched with a sick feeling growing in my stomach as both towers of the World Trade Center in New York City were hit by separate passenger jets. First one, then 18 minutes later, the other. I watched the TV with my mouth open as the images of the planes exploding into the sides of the towers were repeated over and over.
Black, greasy-looking smoke and flames spewed like blood from the jagged wide slashes in the sides of the upper portions of both towers. You knew without anyone saying it that the people on the floors above where the planes hit were not going to make it out alive.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I saw the TV picture switch to Washington D.C., where another plume of black smoke was rising from a section of the Pentagon, where a third airliner had crashed. At that point, the entire world knew it was no mistake. Someone, somewhere had attacked the U.S.
But the horror was not over, for then I saw something that made me want to puke even in my sleep. First, one tower of the World Trade Center collapsed in upon itself, then the other! Both towers disintegrated like ashes in the wind to become nothing but ten story high piles of rubble spewing ash and smoke over half of lower Manhattan.
My brain kept telling me it was impossible. No building that huge could collapse like that. But reports later said the explosions, combined with the fuel-fed fires, had weakened the massive structures to the point that the areas above the crash sites could no longer support the numerous floors above them, so, that the tops of the towers literally compressed and crushed the bottoms. It was like watching two giant square “Slinkys” collapse down upon themselves. Thousands were reported to have died, including police and fire rescue crews on the ground.
There was even a fourth plane crash, this one into a field in Pennsylvania. It was later speculated that the passengers of that hijacked plane, aware of what had happened because of cell phone conversations with family members, reacted by attacking the hijackers of their plane, causing it to crash into the ground instead of its intended target, whatever that had been.
The images went on and on, as if I was watching consecutive news broadcasts. They talked about the aftermath of what turned out to be suicide terrorist attacks. The subsequent nation-wide shutdown of the entire aviation industry, plus the subsequent military mobilizations of U.S. Forces in places along the Pakistan and Afghanistan borders, where it was believed bands of terrorists had trained and were still planning more attacks.
I heard names mentioned—those of the individual suicide terrorists, where they had lived and what they had done to prepare, which included attending flight schools in the U.S. to learn how to fly passenger jets; but even more important, I heard the name of their leader, Osama Bin Laden, a rich radical Saudi, who had founded a world-wide network of terrorists called al Qaeda, bent on destroying the infidel U.S. and all its allies.
The images and the names kept coming—a whole year’s worth of news broadcasts in a matter of a few short hours. And when I awoke on the morning of September 10th, I found myself trembling and so sick to my stomach, I spent the next fifteen minutes with my head in the toilet.
Once I was able to move again without giving up half my insides, I called a friend of mine who was a computer and electronics geek. I knew he had a satellite phone that could call anywhere in the world with no interference or dead zones. I explained to him what I wanted to do, but not entirely why. He agreed to let me use his phone. Then while we sat together in his bedroom, I made my one and only phone call.
When I got Osama Bin Laden on the phone, I introduced myself in his native language, giving both my name and address then explained to him that I had information about his planned terrorist attacks that he would want to hear. After that, I continued in English, wondering, of course, if he would know what I was saying, but something told me my guardian angel would take care of that. So, I continued to tell him everything I had seen and learned in my dreams.
I mentioned names, flight numbers, targets, and I told him about the aftermath—the collapse of the twin towers. I bet he got a thrill over that one. Then I went on to explain how the U.S. was going to send forces over to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan to root out and bomb suspected al Qaeda strongholds. I even told him their locations. I continued telling him everything I had seen over the subsequent year, including the assignation attempt on his person by one of his top aids for having the aid’s family killed after they innocently gave an interview to a CNN news crew.
And when I was through, I repeated my name and address, then placed the satellite phone back into the hands of my friend who sat next to me on his bed staring at me with his mouth open and his eyes as big as doughnuts. After that, I went home to wait for their arrival.
It didn’t take long.
My plan, from the moment I woke up had been to alert the authorities. Well, maybe not right then, but after I stopped puking. But I knew that if I tried calling the FBI, or anyone directly, they wouldn’t believe a word I said until it was too late. But if the NSA heard what I had to say to Osama Bin Laden over one of their satellite transmission detectors, they might be more inclined to take the whole thing more serious—at least I had hoped they would. Lucky for me, I was correct.
About an hour and a half after I got home, two young-looking guys in identical dark gray suits and shiny black shoes showed up at my apartment door. They looked like bank tellers, they were so young, but even before they showed me their FBI IDs, I knew they were a lot more dangerous than mere bank tellers.
I glanced at my wristwatch. “It didn’t take you guys very long, did it?” I said, hoping they would be at least slightly amused by my minor attempt at humor. Neither reacted the way I had hoped. Instead, the older-looking of the two requested in a monotone voice that I accompany them. “No sweat,” I replied, then said, “Just let me get my jacket and turn off my TV.”
“You won’t need a jacket,” said the younger one, as I pressed the off button on the remote, and picked up my jacket from the couch. “It’s pretty warm out.”
I turned to him. “That may true, but you guys will probably keep me around for hours in an air conditioned room. I’ll freeze my butt off if I don’t have a jacket to wear.”
As it turned out, I was slightly off on how long they were going to hold me. They didn’t keep me around for hours. They kept me around for days in a group of offices in a building down town. A few of the offices had been turned into motel-like rooms—I guess for people they needed to question, or maybe protect, like in the movies. At least I had a nice bed to sleep in, my own clothes to wear (they got them from my apartment), a bathroom with a shower, TV to watch and some great food sent in. I especially liked the pizza.
Their first question, once they did begin interrogating me, was when and where did I learn to speak Arabic? That was the language of Osama Bin Laden. I told them, “I never learned any foreign languages. Even in high school, I skipped languages and took shop instead.”
My interrogator, who said his name was Robert Jensen, and who looked like he was about in his mid forties with graying black hair and eyes that reminded me of every executive type I’ve ever encountered, didn’t like that answer. I could tell by the frustrated look on his face, so I said to him, “Before you get too worked up, let me explain everything from the very beginning.”
That seemed to make him a little happier. So, shifting in my chair to get comfortable, I began, “When I was two years old . . .”
Nearly an hour later, I finished telling him all about my guardian angel and about everything I had learned from my previous night’s dreams. He tried to interrupt me several times, but I cut him off each time, finally telling him to wait until I was finished. “Then you can ask me all the questions you want.”
After I was done, he threw down the pen he’d been using to take notes and leaned back in his chair. “If what you’ve been telling me is true,” he said, “then why didn’t your, quote—‘Guardian Angel’—help you stop Oklahoma City, or the first attack on the World Trade Center?” His voice dripped with sarcasm.
“Probably because I wasn’t ready yet,” I told him. “I was too young.”
“But you’re old enough now?”
I was about to tell him yes when my mind went into one of its movie modes. I saw a group of four young teens inside a garage. They were watching a fifth teen who was standing in front of a workbench. He had just filled a small metal tube with a bunch of wooden match heads. One end of the tube had already been flattened. The boy by the bench was holding a rubber mallet. He explained to the others watching that, because the bench was made of wood, and the hammer was rubber, and the tube aluminum, there was no chance of any sparks causing an explosion.
He was wrong!
The next instant, I was watching a heavy-set man in a motorized wheelchair calling 911 on a cell phone. All around him, the teens were staring in horror at the kid who’d been standing by the bench. He was writhing around on the floor half screaming half moaning while holding onto his right forearm, as if it was going to fall off. What he should have been holding on to was his hand (what was left of it), which hung off his arm by a piece of skin.
When I awoke from my moment of horror, I asked my interrogator, “You have a son named Mark?”
“What about him?” he replied, looking at me as if I had suddenly turned into a child molester.
“Call your neighbor, Harry,” I said. “Tell him to get his wheelchair over to your garage, pronto. Your son’s about to blow off his hand with a pipe bomb he and his friends are trying to make.”
I’ve got to give the guy credit. He didn’t hesitate a second. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a cell phone then stood up and walked over to the corner of the small room we were in. Facing the wall, he dialed a number and began talking in an urgent low voice to whoever was on the other end.
“Tell him to hurry,” I said to his back. “He has less than three minutes.”
When he was done, Jensen flipped his phone closed, then turned to face me while he remained standing in the corner. Even though he tried to hide it, I could tell he was anxious. It showed in the way he kept turning his phone over and over in his hand. I couldn’t blame him. I was a little anxious, too, especially since it would be Harry making the rescue and not me. Would Harry make it in time?
While we waited, I glanced at the other two agents in the room. Both were also sitting in chairs, one by the door, the other down the far end next to a horizontal mirror on the wall. These were the same two agents who had brought me here. Remarkably, neither had showed much emotion during my story except for an occasional raised eyebrow.
Finally, after what seemed like a half hour, though was only a couple of minutes, a loud insistent beeping blared like a siren throughout the room. It was Jensen’s phone. He flipped it open and put it to his ear. After a moment, a slow smile spread across his face and I could see his whole body relax. This made me breathe my own sigh of relief. Obviously, Harry had been on time. And that’s when it must have hit Jensen. He looked at me, his eyes having become as large as beer kegs. “When did you say the first plane was going to take off?”
Everyone knows what happened after that. We all saw it on TV, thanks to an anonymous phone call to a TV news crew. Well, at least, you watched it. I didn’t, not the morning of September 11th anyway. That’s because I was too busy watching from behind the scenes right there at Logan Airport in Boston as Jensen and his team, along with the CIA and a few dozen other law enforcement types, rounded up the hijackers from both flights 11 and 175. They did the same at Dulles Airport in Washington and Newark Airport in New Jersey, where the other two planes were scheduled to take off. On the way to the helicopter that would take us to Logan, I asked Jensen why he had insisted I come along.
“I want you by my side,” he said, “in case your guardian angel decides to let you in on any other things going on that we should know about.”
He didn’t have to worry about it then, at least not on that day. My guardian angel remained as quiet as the empty streets on an early Sunday morning, but two days later, he/she spoke to me in words and images that were loud and clear.
My stomach still gets a little queasy every time I think about what might have happened had those twelve trucks loaded with their cargo of explosives reached their intended targets. The statistics are staggering: several million dead, trillions of dollars in damages, and the centers of twelve major world cities flattened by blasts, each nearly as strong as a small nuclear explosion.
It was right after that the recruitment talks began in earnest. Before it was over, I had the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and God knows what other government agencies practically begging me to join their ranks. I tried to explain to them that the information I received from my guardian angel was for saving lives, not becoming some kind of paranormal spook. Even after they threatened me with jail for supposedly being a threat to national security, I still refused.
In the end, it took several phone calls from Jerry to people in high places before they let me go. He had become concerned after they had questioned him about me. Of course, if he had really thought it through, he would have realized that my guardian angel wasn’t going to let anything happen to me. I was safe from the big bad government types, no matter what they threatened to do. Only Jensen was apologetic for their treatment of me. The others, I’m sure, would have loved to keep me around indefinitely. The best thing that came out of my stay with them was my decision about what to do with the rest of my life.
A year later found me starting my new job as a rookie firefighter with the New York City Fire Department. It felt great to be there, but you know what was even better? Standing outside our station house and looking down the avenue, and seeing the tops of the twin towers peaking above the other buildings like kids playing hide ‘n seek.
It made me proud to know they were still there and that I had something to do with that. Just as it also makes me proud to know that I’m out there every day saving lives and property, sometimes even before anything happens. My chief is especially grateful for that. He has said he wishes there were thousands more like me. “That way, every station house could have its own guardian angel.”
I told him not to worry. “More are on their way. Trust me, I have it on the highest authority.”
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