In so many ways, this old man seems younger than any of the volunteers in their thirties or forties. These middle-aged angels a half or a third his age.

 

 Mr. Whittier with his fingernails painted black. A silver ring looped through one honking-big, old-man nostril. Around his ankle, a tattoo of barbed wire shows above his cardboard bedroom slipper.

 

 A clunky skull-face ring rattles loose around one stiff, little-stick finger.

 

 Mr. Whittier blinking his milky-cataract eyes, saying, “How about you be my date for the high-school prom . . . ?”

 

 All the angels, they blush. Giggling at this safe, funny old man. They sit on his wheelchair lap, their muscle-toned, personal-trained thighs perched on his sharp, bony knees.

 

It’s only normal that, someday, an angel will gush. To the head nurse or an orderly, a volunteer will gush about what a wonderful youthful spirit Mr. Whittier has. How he’s still so full of life.

 

 At that, the nurse will look back, eyes not blinking, mouth open a moment, quiet a moment, before the nurse says, “Of course he acts young . . .”

 

 The angel says, “We should all stay so full of life.”

 

 So filled with high spirits. Such pep. So perky.

 

 Mr. Whittier is just so inspirational. They say that a lot.

 

 These angels of mercy. These angels of charity.

 

 Those foolish, foolish angels.

 

 And the nurse or orderly will say, “Most of us did . . . have that kind of pep.” Walking away, the nurse will say, “When we were his age.”

 

 He’s not old.

 

 Here’s how the truth always leaks out.

 

 Mr. Whittier, he suffers from progeria. The truth is, he’s eighteen years old, a teenager about to die of old age.

 

 One out of eight million kids develops Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome. A genetic defect in the protein lamin A will make their cells fall apart. Aging them at seven times the normal rate. Making teenaged Mr. Whittier, with his crowded teeth and big ears, his veined skull and bulging eyes, making his body 126 years old.

 

 “You could say . . . ,” he always tells the angels, waving away their concern with one wrinkled hand, “you could say I’m aging in dog years,”

 

In another year, he’ll be dead of heart disease. Of old age, before he’s twenty.

 

 After this, the angel doesn’t turn up for a while. The truth is, it’s just too sad. Here’s a kid, maybe younger than one of her own teenagers, dying alone in a nursing home. This kid, still so full of life and reaching out for help, to the only people around—to her—before it’s too late.

 

 This is too much.

 

 Still, every yoga class, every PTA meeting, each time she looks at a teenager, this angel wants to cry.

 

 She has to do something.

 

 So she goes back, with her smile toned down a little. She tells him, “I understand.”

 

 She smuggles in a pizza. A new video game. She says, “Make a wish, and I’ll help make it come true.”

 

 This angel, she wheels him out a fire exit for a day riding rollercoasters. Or hanging out at the mall. This teenaged geezer and a beautiful woman, old enough to be his mother. She lets him slaughter her at paintball, the colors wrecking her hair. His wheelchair. She takes a dive at laser tag. She half carries his wrinkled half-naked carcass to the top of a waterslide, again and again, all of one hot, sunny afternoon.

 

 Because he’s never been high, the angel steals dope from her kid’s stash box and teaches Mr. Whittier how to use a bong. They talk. Eat potato chips.

 

 The angel, she says her husband has become his career. Her kids are growing away from her. Their family is falling apart.

 

 Mr. W., he says his own folks, they couldn’t cope. They have four other kids to raise. It’s the only way they could afford the nursing home, by making him a ward of the court. After that, they’d show up and visit less and less.

 

 And telling that, with some soft guitar ballad playing, Mr. W. will start to cry.

 

 The one wish he wanted most was to love someone. To really make love. Not die a virgin.

 

 Right then, the tears still rolling down from his stoner-red eyes, he’d say, “Please . . .”

 

 This wrinkled old kid, he’d sniff and say, “Please, stop calling meMister.”

 

 The angel stroking his bald, spotted head, he’d tell her, “My name is Brandon.”

 

 And he’d wait.

 

 And she’d say it:

 

 Brandon.

 

 Of course, after that, they’d fuck.

 

 Her, gentle and patient. The Madonna and the whore. Her long, yoga-trained legs spread to this naked, wrinkled goblin.

 

 Her, the altar and the sacrifice.

 

 Never as beautiful as she looked, next to his spotted, veined old skin. Never as powerful as she felt, as he drooled and trembled over her.

 

 And, damn—for a virgin—if he didn’t take his own sweet time. He’d started missionary-style, then had one of her legs in the air, splitting the reed. Then both her feet, gripped tight around the ankles and framing his panting face.

 

 Thank God for the yoga.

 

 Viagra-hard, he rode her on all fours, doggy-style, even taking himself out and poking at her ass until she said to stop. She was sore and stoned, and as he bent her legs to force her feet up, behind her head, by then her bright, fake angel’s smile had come back.

 

 After all that, he came. In her eyes. In her hair. He asked her for a cigarette she didn’t have. Taking the bong off the floor beside the bed, he torched another bowl and didn’t offer her a hit.

 

 The angel, she got dressed and tucked her kid’s bong under her coat. She knotted a scarf around her sticky hair and started to leave.

 

 Behind her, as she opened the door to the hallway, Mr. Whittier was saying, “You know, I ain’t ever had a blow job before, neither . . .”

 

 As she stepped out of the room, he was laughing. Laughing.

 

 After that, she’d be driving, and her cell phone would ring. It would be Whittier suggesting bondage, better drugs, blow jobs. And when the angel finally told him, “I can’t . . .”

 

 “Brandon . . .” he’d tell her. “The name’s Brandon.”

 

 Brandon, she’d say. She couldn’t see him, not anymore.