Visited By An Angel

"I'm not paying no damn fee! I don't see why this company is so damn cheap!"

My name is Jack Dufraine, and I am not in the mood for this.

Do you ever wonder if there should be more to life than what you do now? That you were meant to be more than another cog in the machine, and yet here you are, grinding away at some monotonous job? I do. At 23 years old, I work at an investment and insurance firm that seems to not know how to sell investments or insurance. Ever wonder why insurance salesmen are pushy and obnoxious snake oil salesmen? It's because we have impossible goals to meet and the shittiest products to sell. My company, Rafferty Financial, charges the highest premiums, gives the lowest coverage, and God help you if you actually get sick or injured. We have more people here to prevent you from getting the money that's rightfully yours than we do people who actually sit and work with the clients. Our investment products aren't much better. Our mutual funds seem to be geared towards putting customers' money in the most high-risk, underperforming, speculative stocks possible.

Having bought out some of the smaller banks throughout the less desirable areas of New York City, our lower Manhattan firm has two very polar opposite types of clientele. The first type is the obnoxious rich person that thinks they are entitled to the sun and the moon, comes in wearing their fancy suits and flaunts the fact that they are good friends with your previous supervisor in your face as if you gave a damn.

"Isn't there something you can do for me!? Why you charging me a fee? Damn, my other bank don't charge me no fee."

The second type is sitting right in front of me. Working/middle class, but acts like he just encountered other human beings for the first time in his life. Half the time, I can barely understand what people are saying through their thick accents, though with their nasty attitudes and insane troll logic, I'm probably better off.

I take a deep breath, fighting the urge to dive across my desk and rip his eyes out. "Sir, this has nothing to do with the bank. Our firm charges you an extra fee for having medical coverage for your pets because obviously a pet is not a human being. It was right there in the agreement you signed, and I'm looking at a copy of your contract on my computer. You did check off to have you pet insured."

"That's some bullshit, man," the customer replied. I can't stand it when they curse. If I cursed, he'd be calling corporate to report me. "I ain't paying $15 extra a month."

Yup, that's right. This guy is bitching about $15 a month to insure his f*****g dog. He'd probably b***h if we didn't offer pet coverage at all. "Well, sir, perhaps you shouldn't have requested to have your pet covered."

"I thought it was free! You'd think they'd offer it to me as a courtesy or something," he replied. That confused me to no end. What made him think that an insurance company was just going to offer him free stuff? It's not like he was a long-time customer or anything. "Just take the fee off, or maybe I'll take my money elsewhere.

Ooh, is that a promise? "Sir, there's nothing I can do. I'd take the fee off for you if I could, but I just don't have that authority. Have you considered just removing your dog from your medical coverage?"

"I tried, man. First I went to the bank. They told me to call customer service. I called customer service. When I finally got an operator, she told me to call their Financial Services Department. I called them, dealt with their automated system, and a guy from India told me that the bank had nothing to do with this and that I would have to take a bus and two trains and come to you guys." He shook his head in frustration. With the corporate bullshit he had to deal with, I would have felt sorry for him if he weren't acting like he was two seconds away from flinging his poo at me.

"Well, sir, if you'd like, I can see if I can remove your pet coverage for you," I offered with full knowledge that I'd have to go through twice the bureaucratic nonsense that this guy had to go through. Nothing in this company was ever simple or logical, and I doubted that it would be much different anywhere else. Still, better to be navigating through automated messages and searching through the network for the right forms to fill out than to argue with this idiot. Perhaps I can get him to shut up for a bit so I won't have to throw him in front of a moving car.

"I'd rather keep the coverage. I'm entitled to it. I want my dog covered on my medical. I just don't want to pay $15 extra a month for it," he replied.

Where's that moving car? I need it now. Well, it looks like it would be a waste of time to offer him one of our investment "opportunities".

"Alright, everyone. Can I have a quick word with you all?" called Samantha.

Oh thank God. It's not like I wanted to catch my train on time.

Samantha, the sales manager, stood in the middle of our 10-office cubicle farm to speak to the 4 salespeople that inhabited them (apparently, sufficient staff isn't needed to run a successful business in the 21st century). She, her roly poly body structure, and her sensible pants suit went above and beyond when it came to portraying the demanding boss. I waited for what the b***h had to say with breathtaking exhilaration. By "breathtaking exhilaration", I mean I would have purposefully pulled up Solitaire on my computer if it wasn't already shut down.

"Look, I know everyone here is on their way out, but I just got off my conference call with the Division Manager, and to be frank, we aren't making anywhere near the numbers we should be," she said. "And frankly, a lot of it is a serious lack of effort on the part of this team."

Here we go. The same old song and dance, only this time she's beating around the bush less and being more upfront. I just want her to get this over with so I can go home and play X-Box already.

"I know how tempting it is to just put in the minimum effort that's required to get the client away from you and move on to your next one. Trust me, I don't always feel like working either. But the fact of the matter is that our numbers are the laughing stock of the region. I have to be able to explain how we take the most clients but make the least amount of sales, and I can't," she said, not even bothering to hide her frustration.

I bristled with anger, but kept a solemn face. Samantha definitely hit the "I don't always feel like working either" nail on the head. Do you know how hard I work at this job that I hate? No. Do you know what I have to deal with when it comes to helping our clients? Ugh. Samantha's contribution to the company involves hiding in her office and spending the day on conference calls that sound suspiciously similar to personal calls, emerging from her office only to sign off on something for us only if no one else is available to do so. A huff and a pissy fit are usually included free in that deal.

I put my jacket on my desk and start fiddling with it, trying to not look at her yet not look like I'm ignoring her as she continues on her tirade. "I'm tired of the lack of effort, and I'm tired of the excuses. We just recently expanded our market into the Bronx, upper Manhattan, and parts of Brooklyn. There are lots of new clients and lots of sales to be made. I want you all to put some effort into actually making those sales."

If only that were true. Our new markets consisted of poor neighborhoods, with half of our new potential clients unemployed and living in the projects. Our company geared its services towards wealthy clients with successful businesses and lots of investments. When we took over the banks that serviced these neighborhoods for so many years, our firm seemed to go out of their way to ensure that those new customers would be made to feel like second class citizens as long as we held their accounts. The higher-ups didn't seem to grasp the concept that if you take over a bank that catered towards the working class, instituted more fees while cutting down on customer service, and then only offered them products that they couldn't afford, then you were not going to make so much as a dime from these people. All we have to show from these incredibly short sighted dealings were an increased customer load, higher goals to meet, and sinking morale.

Well, I don't care. Just shut up and give me that paycheck. That's the only reason I'm here. That's the only reason I'm listening to Samantha as she goes on about how there will be changes and how everyone will be held accountable for their actions. She'll never be held accountable for the fact that she never does any work herself, or that she takes the clients with the most money for herself and her favorite senior sales reps, thus leaving employees like me with no sales and no clients with enough money to sell anything to. The company won't do anything about it; she and her ruthless sales sharks are pretty much the backbone of our "team" when it comes to making those numbers, and it all comes down to that bottom line. She's invaluable, I'm expendable.

Now she's going on about how we should greet each client. About how each one should be offered this or that or the other. But never waive any fees for them, of course. At this point, my mind is wandering off to the video game I'll be playing as soon as I get home. In that world, I am a knight off to save the land from demonic cult. I'm a legendary hero, everyone knows my name and sings my praises, and without me there would be nothing. Is it really such a wonder why people get addicted to these fantasy worlds, these video games and TV shows and movies, when in real life you don't really matter at all?

I missed my train. Thanks, Samantha. I hope your car breaks down on the highway.

Waiting for the train, I see varying types of people from all walks of life. My years riding on the subway system in New York City has given me a firsthand look at some of the world's most unfortunate people. Seeing a homeless man begging for change next to his cardboard sign that's begging for food, I really can't complain too much about my life. I'm really doing quite well for myself. I'm just unhappy.

I work in an insurance company doing sales, but I don't have the sales mentality. I could frankly care less whether some guy I never met wants whole or term life insurance, or if some businessman who treats me like I'm one of his employees isn't happy with his investment options. I don't hate people, mind you, I just hate dealing with their problems. Especially when no one's going to swoop in and solve mine. I kind of fell into this. I never went away to college, but for years I've been desperate to get the hell out of my house. I wanted to be free to make my own rules and my own mistakes without having to explain myself or answer to anybody. I wanted to go into acting, but my parents wanted me to find something stable with good pay and benefits, so predictably they were less than thrilled when I majored in theater (and even less so when I never got so much as a major supporting role in any campus productions). I figured my acting skills would come in handy when it came to sales, so I took a job hawking high priced financial products for a cutthroat insurance company in Manhattan simply as an excuse to move out of my house. Living on my own, I would pursue my dreams on my own terms without any criticism from my parents. So was the plan, except I didn't realize that having a job kind of infringes on the whole "dreams" thing. Eventually, I fell into my routine of waking up early in the morning, spending all my energy for the day surviving the soul-crushing world of convincing senile old people and self-absorbed Baby Boomers to let us put their money into tech stocks and oil futures, and coming back to my empty apartment completely drained. Not three months into my time with Rafferty Financial and I was already looking for a career change. Something where I wouldn't have to deal with sales quotas and customers. That search began about a year and a half ago, and as you can see, I've had about as much luck as a 90 year old man trying to understand the nuances of Internet slang.

Still, I had my health. I had family and friends. It's not like I had no social life. And as much in doubt as my future with Rafferty was, I had a well paying job at the age of 23. Not bad, I must say, but I wanted more. I wanted to be someone important, not just someone who was just there. I wanted to do something more fulfilling than sales. Something more rewarding than dealing with the general public.

Of course, right now all I wanted was for my train to arrive so I could get home and forget that this miserable day ever happened. With my mp3 player earpiece in my ear, I embodied the negative stereotypes that the older generations have of my own; just one of "these kids today" plugged into his music player, oblivious to the world around him. Of course, I didn't mind living up to that stereotype at all at the moment. I wanted to be plugged in and oblivious. I didn't want to be bothered by anybody. I just wanted to lose myself in some 1970's acid-inspired rock lyrics and not have to deal with anybody else's s**t for another fourteen hours.

So I was definitely not in the mood to deal with whoever it was that tapped me on my shoulder.

Once you take New York's subway for a couple weeks, you quickly get used to a lot of the odd individuals who somehow have just enough mental prowess to scrounge up the fare to get onto the trains and figure out which train goes to which station, but not enough to realize that doing a rain dance underground is even sillier than doing a rain dance outside where rainfall is actually possible. True story. So my lack of shock seeing this visibly frustrated man wearing an angel costume really isn't that much of a stretch.

He was wearing a black vest from which a pair of large angel wings protruded, his muscular chest completely uncovered. The archetypal angel robe covered his legs, and he wore a pair of sandals. Since he didn't seem like he had been bathing in dirt, I assumed he was just a really overzealous street preacher ready to talk my ear off about the end of the world and the importance of repenting my sins. Against my better judgment, I took my earpiece out. I'm too nice, really. Plus, on the off chance that he was a violent psychopath, I didn't want to piss him off and get stabbed. After all, who else would be there to force a Rafferty Unlimited Mutual Investor's Package down the throats of unwitting elderly couples looking for advice on where to put their retirement money so that it would be non-taxable?

"Must you humans always have your heads tucked into those infernal machines!?" he spouted angrily. I guess no one had ever told him that first impressions were everything.

"Um….sorry. Uh, can I help you?" I asked, a number of excuses that I would use to get away from this nutjob flashing through my head? Perhaps I'll use my usual "Sorry, but I used the last of my cash to get into the subway" line. Doesn't really hold up considering I'm currently wearing a suit and tie, but it doesn't really need to.

"I am here to bring you a message from a higher power," the strange man replied.

“That's okay, I already know to repent my sins. My pastor and I work very closely to ensure that I am relatively sin free, but I still make sure I go to church and bask in God's glory every Sunday and sometimes during the week when I have free time," I said hurriedly, too much of a smart a*s for my own good. It just comes out sometimes, I can't help it. I put my headphones back into my ears as I spoke. "But thank you, stranger, for your concern."

The man did not look amused, probably knowing full well that I was lying like I've never lied before. I was kind of hoping that that he would believe me and go bother someone else.

I guess this is a good moment to let you know that I am an atheist. I'm not too vocal about it, nor do I look down on those who go to church and worship God and all that. I just don't believe in the existence of God. And despite what you see in Hollywood, where atheists only become atheists because of some horrible tragedy that left them jaded and angry at God, there was nothing that happened to me that made me so. I simply never believed from a scientific or logical standpoint in the existence of God and Heaven and Hell and creationism and all that. I don't trash people who have faith in a creator, but I'm never going to get onboard with the idea that an omniscient deity created the first man out of dust.

The subversive anti-war/anti-establishment song I'm listening to suddenly gets cut off, replaced by a Christian rock song about accepting Jesus as your savior. Normally that wouldn't be too weird, except that I don't have any Christian rock songs on my mp3 player. I look at the player in disbelief, then flip to the next song. Another Christian rock song. The next song is what sounds like a church choir. Hitting the "pause" button doesn't work. Even as I repeatedly pressed the button, songs about the wonders of God blare through my earpiece.

The ground beneath my feet began to shake. I cried out in shock as I am thrown off balance. My flailing hand caught a metal pole that I don't remember being on the subway platform before, though my mind is elsewhere at the moment. I steadied myself, not realizing that the music player had suddenly gone silent as I looked around at my surroundings.

I was no longer on the subway platform. I was now on the train. The color drained from my face I looked at the seats, then out the window at the darkened subway tunnels, then back at the seats as my brain attempted to confirm officially that I was in fact on the train. I jumped as I saw a picture of myself on a large advertising poster. It was an image of myself I had never seen before and never posed for, done in the style of portraits made in the pre-photography era. The phrase "Spread the Word" was written across the top. Other men of African or Middle Eastern origin were featured on the other advertising posters, but they were all laid out so that my poster would take center stage.

"It shouldn't take this much to get anybody's attention, regardless of whether you live in the American Northeast or the sprawling cities of Paradise," boomed a voice behind me.

I whirled around and was taken aback by what I saw. The man dressed as an angel from just a moment ago stood before me with outstretched arms, a glowing aura emanating from his body. He neither wore nor carried a visible light source on him; the light just seemed to shine forth from his very presence. It was powerful, yet calm. It was at that moment that it dawned on me that the man wasn't simply dressed like an angel; he was an angel.

"Now do I have your attention?" he asked. I nodded meekly, convinced he was about to drag me to Hell. "Good. As you can clearly see, I am the Archangel Uriel. The Angel of Repentance. And it's time for you to repent, Jack Dufraine."

"I-I, look, I'm sorry. I didn't know that-that God and the Bible and angels were real," I stammered, an eternity of being filleted for Satan's barbeque being the only image of my future my mind could see. Sweat trickled down my forehead. My hand squeezed the pole so hard it hurt, yet somehow I didn't even notice. "Please, please don't drag me to Hell. I'll repent! I'll….I'll….Whatever you want!"

A look of confusion washed over Uriel's face. "Drag you to Hell? I don't do that. Don't you know who I am? I'm the Angel of Repentance."

I stared at him, confusion joining fear as my facial expression.

"The Fourth Archangel? The Patron Saint of the Sacrament of Confirmation?"

He still got no reaction from me. Even if I had been thinking straight, I had never heard of him or his titles before.

" I'm the guy who went around Egypt checking all the doors for lamb blood so that no Jewish children would be killed by God's plague?"

I continued to stare at him. He gestured at himself with both his hands, mouthing his name to me again in the hopes that doing so would jog my memory. It didn't, and all I could do is slowly shake my head. His aura quickly faded away, and his hands dropped to his sides in frustration.

"Of course. No human ever seems to know the name 'Uriel'. I bet you can recite every line by Gabriel in the Bible, but you don't even know who I am," he spat, like a child who had just been compared to his overachieving sibling.

"Um….sorry," I said.

"Whatever. Forget about it." He put his hands on his hips, staring at the ground as he shook his head. Taking a deep breath, he raised his hands towards me. His aura came back. "Jack Dufraine, you have been chosen by the Lord, the One True God, to spread His word and His glory. This world has recently begun to shun Christ, turn its heart away from the splendor of the Creator. Many heathen religions have sprung forth over the past few centuries, and atheism and even Devil worship has taken hold of the young people of this so-called modern age. You yourself have been a perfect example of such lack of respect towards the Creator".

"Sorry," I squeaked out. Usually I would have counterarguments against those who criticize my lack of believe in God, but they kind of fly out the window when the one criticizing you is an angel sent from Heaven itself.

"The Lord, who created the Heavens and the Earth, has called for a human to be the next Great Prophet; to do as only a chosen few have done before," he continued. "That human is you, Jack Dufraine. You will be as Mohammad, as Jesus. You will spread the word of God. You will teach people the proper way to live as spelled out in the Holy Scriptures written by man but worded by Jehovah."

I nodded quickly as if I were complying with a mugger demanding my wallet. "Okay, sure."

"Do not underestimate the seriousness of this undertaking," commanded Uriel. "You will face much persecution in your trials, and at times you will doubt the followers you gather throughout your exploits and they will doubt you. But it is a necessary sacrifice. This world has become too rife with idol worship, non-belief, and sin." He clenched his fist dramatically. "In the old days, the Lord would have unleashed His holy wrath. Thousands of years ago, when the world last stank of blasphemy, God saw fit to wash it of its stink."

"You mean Noah's Ark," I commented, though I really should know better than to interrupt an angel giving out commands at the request of God.

The angel looked confused and hurt, and the aura once again disappeared.

"Wait, you know about Noah's Ark?"

"Well, yeah. Everyone does," I replied.

"And you know of the Great Flood that lasted forty days and forty nights?" Uriel continued.

"Yeah. And Noah had two of every animal, and in the end he made a deal with God so that God wouldn't flood the Earth anymore," I answered, no doubt impressing the angel with my knowledge of Christian mythology"oops, I meant global history. I wanted him to put a good word in for me to St. Peter.

"And yet you've never heard the name 'Uriel'," he said, finishing his line of questioning.

"Well, not just me. I think everybody doesn't really know who you are," I mumbled reluctantly, trying to shift the blame away from myself but inadvertently making the angel feel worse in the process. "I mean, well, you weren't really in any of the major parts of the Bible….."

The angel stared at me in shock. His jaw dropped and his eyes squinted as if someone had just turned on a very bright light. "What!? I was all over the Book of Enoch! I was the one who told Noah about the flood! I even have my own prayer!"

"I….Sorry," I mumbled. I'm so glad I'm the Great Prophet. Otherwise, I think a flaming sword decapitation would have been in my immediate future.

Uriel's hands dropped to his sides, a look of defeat on his face. "Fine," he said solemnly. He breathed deeply for a few moments.

"Are…. Are you okay?" I asked cautiously.

"Don't worry about it," he replied dismissively . I started to feel sorry for him. It really looked like he was going to cry.

"Hey, don't worry about it," I tried to reassure him. "A lot of famous people say that being famous isn't all it's cracked up to be. Maybe you're better off without the attention."

"I said don't worry about it!" Uriel shouted, not buying my attempts to make him feel better. Whirling around, he walks towards the far end of the train. "Look, you have your task. Spread the word of God, teach people to live as the Bible and Koran commands, and get converts. I'll be back soon to check on your progress!"

A bright light emanated from him, different from his aura. It was pure white and it rushed toward me quickly. My ears rang and my vision blurred. When my senses of sound and sight came back, I was in my apartment, sitting on my bed with my video game controller in my hand. The title screen of the game I wanted to play was on the TV, but I didn't press Start to begin. I didn't press anything. I just sat there, staring at the TV screen and the controller in my hand. I sat there on my bed and I didn't move for a long time.