Will Do Magic for Small Change

by Andrea Hairston

  “Don’t comment on the character. Live the character. You must know somebody who’s been tempted, who’s succumbed to booze if not drugs. Get inside them.”

  “How?” Beckenbauer didn’t care if everybody knew he was clueless.

  People always assumed Cinnamon was dumb as dirt. She never risked confirming their suspicions by asking even intelligent questions.

  “Dump your middle-class, secret baggage,” Hill said patiently. “Slip over to how your character feels inside. That’s art.”

  Beckenbauer went zombie pale again and hugged his belly. Middle class and all, did he have a junkie brother or sister? Sekou hadn’t been anything like Mr. Diamond’s play. He didn’t angst over implications or fuss with elder wisdom. He just shot up bad shit one day. Cinnamon asked why all the time. He could never tell her. Twisting in a cold, dark box, Sekou whispered answers now:

  It was cool. A dare. Friends. Curiosity. Opal was yelling at me about Raven. Shit, it made me feel good, better, best. No one could tell me anything. They already messed shit up worse than I could. Why save myself for nothing? Hey, at first, I could’ve stopped. I just knew I wasn’t gonna get hooked, and then I was. Control is a fuckin’ illusion. Raven Cooper in a coma was my fault, so why the fuck shouldn’t I bliss my way outa here?

  “Bliss your way outa where?” Beckenbauer asked, ice-blue eyes bulging.

  Cinnamon swallowed a holler. Beckenbauer heard Sekou ranting from the grave.

  Skinny rolled dark eyes and snorted, “Outa this mess right here, right now,” as if she was hearing Sekou too. She gasped. “WHAT THE FUCK?”

  “Excuse me?” Director Hill’s tiny nostrils strained to open wide.

  “Sorry …” Skinny bit her top lip. “I’m…”

  “Getting into the role,” Cinnamon said. Being haunted by Sekou was no big deal for her, but realist Skinny twisted and itched, and Beckenbauer doubled over — not acting, in real pain. His mom yelled at him in German.

  Hill cut her off. “OK, yeah, exactly. Use that.” He steadied Beckenbauer. “One more time. Feel the words, the music. You can do it,” he said warmly.

  “All of you,” Ariel said, even warmer. “Go with your hearts. Fly!”

  Everybody telling her to fly… Cinnamon’s heart beat against Redwood’s Dahomean bead and Aidan’s mojo bag hidden under her too tight shirt in the ravine between DD bra cups. The eagle feather tickled her. Turning fear into power was a basic hoodoo trick. She could do that at twelve. Sekou talking to Beckenbauer and Skinny meant something. Words are a bridge. “We got this.”

  “We do?” Skinny and Beckenbauer said simultaneously.

  Cinnamon grinned. In sync adlibbing was a good omen. “Yeah. Let’s fly.”

  Medea halted by the dressing rooms. She shushed Jason. Prospero swept out of the men’s room and halted too. Cinnamon let Sekou flow through her into Mr. MFA Greg Diamond’s words:

  Who you talking to with that lame just say no shit?

  Oh, oh, us! Bad boys, bad girls

  Too ignorant for words

  Showing our asses to the whole world

  Too stupid to know the history we’re dying from

  So stuck on ourselves —

  Can’t see the present we’re dying in

  Fuck that noise, Jack!

  The R&B generation is so sure they done it all, invented everything twice —

  Hey, you got my R-E-S-P-E-C-T

  You done sat in, marched on, and overcome

  That don’t mean you know Snow White here

  I’m naming this moment with my blood, not your tears

  You’re stuck back in the day

  Jacked up on Yesterday’s news

  We ain’t thinking ’bout you

  I’m now! This is my day!

  Shit, I ain’t even happened yet

  I don’t know me!

  OK, yeah, we’re as stupid as every other generation

  But you’re over and it’s our turn now

  So open my veins and bring it on

  Cinnamon finished on the beat. Sekou was somewhere bright and open, grinning. Medea smiled too, and Ariel nodded. A sulky college girl perked up and shouted, “That’s acting. Finally.”

  A parent in the back muttered, “Shit.”

  Prospero swirled his cape and roared, “Bravo.”

  Skinny answered Snow White’s monologue with bring-down-the-house singing, a voice out of nowhere, belting, “I ain’t even happened yet. Watch out!” Folks gasped.

  Opal swallowed a cuss word for the security guard policing her in an alcove. She was missing Cinnamon’s great moment at a professional audition over a cigarette.

  “Beam me up!” Beckenbauer sang like his life depended on staying in tune.

  They were high, not dead, exactly how Director Hill wanted. As their three-part harmony spun into a percussive improv, Cinnamon whispered, “Follow your heart,” and bent back into a yoga bridge. Her fingers scraped gritty carpet, her empty stomach arched toward the grid. Beckenbauer boldly gripped Skinny’s waist and lifted her as if she were feathers and froth. Skinny stretched her legs into a graceful split right over Cinnamon. The audience cheered. Skinny’s skirt brushed Cinnamon’s nose — lavender, sage, and peanut oil — a Chinese-food smell that made her mouth water. The musicians improvised a flurry of notes. Cinnamon pushed up to standing as Beckenbauer set Skinny down on the upbeat. Theatre Magic.

  An astounded audience held its breath. Hill was too stunned to compose his I’m on top of everything face. Beckenbauer was a done deal. Cinnamon and Skinny should make chorus for sure, maybe even roles. Now that would be something.

  Ariel saluted them and pushed the ten-speed out into a fog of sleet. Only a crazy person or a wizard would bike Pittsburgh hills in icy winter. And wearing that getup…

  Skinny, Cinnamon, and Beckenbauer did a spontaneous group hug, then scattered like an explosion. Terrified kids stared at the empty space they left behind.

  “You all should give it up.” The bold and brassy college girl swirled a long cape of silky hair and looked fierce like Prospero. “Go home and do —”

  “Chanda, be cool,” the ASM cut her off. He threw the backpack at Cinnamon. “Don’t forget your killer whale.” The orca wouldn’t let her get lost. Raven gave her that.

  “Next. Come on! Come on!” Director Hill went from impressed to irritable in two seconds. “I’m not going to be here till dawn.”

  Untying Knots

  After a stellar audition, Cinnamon was flying high, but had to pee too, for real. She plucked her jacket off the cold radiator. It was still wet. She balled it up. Opal promised to take her to Goodwill to find a coat that fit, that kept her warm, that was purple or green or anything other than shit brown.

  “Such a looong wait! Worse than Kennywood Park.” Opal slumped into a broken chair by the radiator. “Pay all that money to stand in line forever, then the ride’s done in a heartbeat.” She waved an unlit cigarette in the security guard’s face. “This audition is a scam.”

  “Mom!” Cinnamon grabbed her hand.

  Phlegm in Opal’s chest made her rumble like a big cat. “Just so the Playhouse can tell the National Endowment for the Arts that they let in a few colored people.”

  “People of color,” Cinnamon said.

  “Turn a few words around and call that progress? I’m not taking you to any more of these stupid auditions.”

  “Star Deer recommended me.”

  “She’s a hope-junkie.”

  “She’s the drama coach.”

  “Star Deer’s a substitute math teacher, and you’re smart. You do your homework.”

  “Yeah, well, we didn’t pay any money.”

  “Time is money, honey.” Opal coughed. “Time is all we have. Why wait around to hear no?”

  Why go home to call if your phone’s been turned off and you have to track down the lone payphone that isn’t jacked up? Opal squirmed at Cinnamon’s loud thoughts. “I gotta pee.”

  “Hold up. Rebecca sen
t you a big-ass card for luck.” Opal rummaged through a bottomless purse. “I meant to give it to you before. Kevin drove to the bus depot to drop it off. Rebecca has that man wrapped around her —”

  “Heart.” Cinnamon pulled her magic-words journal from her backpack. She’d started journaling in December 1984 — Redwood’s hoodoo spell #4, one of the best. Actually, they were all great. She dumped backpack and soggy coat at Opal’s feet.

  Opal found the card. “A lot of good it’ll do you.”

  Cinnamon stuffed the envelope in her journal and ran into the bathroom. Pee burned coming out. She wiped herself, gawking at the graffiti. So many penises in the ladies room made her chuckle.

  “Having fun with yourself in there?” Kids giggled and banged the door. One girl poked her curly head underneath the stall.

  “What’s your fuckin’ problem?” Cinnamon snarled. “I’m not done!” She growled for more effect. Feet scrambled back out to the lobby.

  “What’s going on in here?” an older, gruff voice demanded.

  Cinnamon hastily pinned the busted seam on her jeans. The potty hadn’t been a refuge since she was five. She should open her good luck card at a more propitious moment. She skulked out past a middle-aged, middle-class black lady, Mrs. Juanita Williams — a Golden Angel Donor, according to her nametag. Mrs. Williams smoothed a salt and pepper, dead straight bob and glared at Cinnamon, like she was too ghetto. Fuck that noise, Jack.

  Back in the lobby, Cinnamon sank in a sturdy chair far from her mom’s foul mood.

  “Can I sit here?” Skinny plopped down before Cinnamon answered.

  “Me too?” Beckenbauer sat in between them. He looked crushed-out on Skinny.

  Beckenbauer’s mom grumbled. This was the loser, people of color section. “They were the best, Muti, that’s all.” Beckenbauer was so matter of fact, Cinnamon wanted to hug him. He didn’t notice. He was sitting next to Skinny, not Cinnamon. No big deal. Cinnamon wasn’t sure she liked boys, even nice ones. Ariel made her cheeks burn. Was that a crush?

  Mrs. Beckenbauer ranted in German, nicht this with a lot of consonants and nicht that with even more. She looked like a model — basketball tall, too red full lips, and sunken, blue-shadowed eyes. Beckenbauer ignored his mom and smiled at Cinnamon. He was radiant and defiant, a character she’d never seen him do. He laughed at the shock on her face. She wasn’t good at masking emotion.

  “I’m Klaus Beckenbauer. What’s your name?”

  “Cinnamon Jones.”

  He nodded politely. “Have I met you before?”

  “Yeah.” They’d been in four musical plays together. “Several times.”

  “Really?” Klaus rolled his eyes, searching his brain.

  “I sang in the chorus. You …Wasn’t professional, but —” He botched up big roles.

  “Oh.” Klaus scratched his jaw, drawing angry red lines from ear to chin. “I’m going to do better this time, if I get cast.”

  Of course Klaus would get cast. The boy competition was pathetic.

  “Waiting for call-backs is the worst.” Skinny smiled at him, totally in lust. Klaus didn’t laugh at this emotion all over Skinny’s face. He nodded politely. “Actually getting called back is higher hopes to dash.” Skinny yanked her hair behind her ears, mad all of sudden. She gawked at Cinnamon’s popped buttons and busted seams.

  “You’ve lost a few…” Klaus trailed off.

  Sekou talking from the grave to this fool and to Skinny didn’t mean Cinnamon could trust them. Making theatre magic didn’t mean they’d all be great friends and believe in each other. It meant she had to watch out. Patty Banks and Cherrie Carswell had ambushed her twice, once on stage. Sekou was too nice — even dead.

  Klaus turned from her scowl to Skinny. “Have we met before?”

  They exchanged coy chitchat as the last auditioners fumbled through Oliver, Annie, Jesus Christ Superstar, and tales Cinnamon had never heard. She jotted down lines from The Tempest and Ariel’s Yoruba saying in her journal. A techie tripped over cables and knocked the last word off her page. Interns were setting up the donor reception, using scenery from an island paradise play. Wooden statues — exotic people of color deities — looked lost and forlorn in the shabby lobby. Interns covered streaky windows with a photorealist seascape. They suspended parrot puppets from the balcony and hung leis of fresh flowers on the half-naked gods and goddesses. Dimmers whined, and light-trees disguised as giant palms bathed the reception area in warm twilight. Bowls of tropical fruit peeked from the shadows. Dust sparkled in high-wattage beams. The hunky statues shimmered. In ten minutes, a bleak, moldy interior was transformed into wonderland. Cinnamon and Klaus hung their mouths open. Lighting design was going in her Theatre CPR toolkit. Unimpressed, Skinny flipped open Momo by Michael Ende.

  “I read that and The Never Ending Story,” Cinnamon said.

  Skinny smiled, then maybe remembered it was the competition talking and frowned. “I don’t usually read fantasy.”

  “What a coincidence,” Klaus said. “I read both in German.”

  “Am I supposed to be impressed?” Skinny asked.

  “Why not?” He smiled. “Kannst du eine Fremdsprache?”

  Skinny grinned at his Euro-chic style. He could have said she looked like a turd. Cinnamon hated watching people flirt. Her stomach throbbed. The snack she’d stolen was in her orca pack by Opal, who was cussing at the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle that she’d fished out of their next door neighbor’s trash. Forget going across the lobby to that. Cinnamon tore open Aunt Becca’s padded envelope, wishing it was a loaf of garlic bread, crispy fried chicken, or mincemeat pie with cream cheese melting down the sides. She’d even take celery stalks. No luck. Nestled in plastic bubbles was a second envelope fashioned from hand woven cloth — a checkerboard of purple and blue geometric shapes — Kente cloth. Iris had traveled to Africa to study fabric wisdom and sent slides and swatches to Cinnamon one Christmas; but she didn’t remember what this pattern meant.

  Proverbs from a loom in Ghana. Sekou confirmed her hunch. I knew…

  “Shhh, not here. Other folk might be listening in.”

  “Talking to yourself?” the ASM asked. Cinnamon glared death rays in his direction. He flinched and hurried off. “Sorry.”

  A message scrawled on a post-it clung to the fabric:

  Dear Pumpkin, break a leg. I’m not much for writing like your Aunt Iris is. She wasn’t sure you were getting her letters, so she decided to hide in plain sight. She said you’re the only one who can open it. Love, Aunt Becca.

  Iris had been writing her all along. The letters weren’t getting through Opal! Cinnamon‘s fury was a fireball sweeping the lobby.

  Klaus and Skinny flinched mid-flirt, mumbling, “What was that?”

  Opal jumped up and glowered at the security guard. “Damn! Give me a break.”

  “What?” The guard furrowed her brow and scanned the room.

  The scent of licorice and lily of the valley filled Cinnamon’s nose, as if Aidan was hugging her and saying, Don’t let yourself get burning mad, honeybunch. Cinnamon gulped cold lobby air. She’d just have to beat Opal to the mail.

  “That storm off the river is ferocious.” Cinnamon hid the envelope behind her back. “A miracle this ole theatre doesn’t get blown over.”

  Klaus and Skinny giggled at some private joke. Opal shivered and sat down.

  Aidan had fashioned the cloth envelope and Redwood hoodooed the fancy knot holding it closed. Cinnamon tugged the threads, making the knot tighter. She didn’t have a clue how to untie it.

  “Sorry,” Cinnamon whispered. “I was ready to give up on you all.” She faked a sneeze for cover.

  “Gesundheit,” Klaus said.

  Cinnamon coughed a few more words. “Thanks for not giving up on me.”

  Aidan said hoodoo conjurers heard underneath things. Iris could see your heart spirit wherever in the world you were. Redwood snatched lightning out the sky, listened to ancestors on the wind, and talked to
tomorrow. When Cinnamon was little, she and Sekou used to tell her magic elders everything, whether they were in the next room, up in Massachusetts, or across the ocean. It never seemed crazy, especially after Daddy got shot. It helped Cinnamon feel better, maybe Sekou too sometimes. Opal insisted that at almost fifteen, Cinnamon was too grown up to believe backcountry hoodoo mess. And not hearing from the elders for months, she’d stopped talking out loud to folks who weren’t there. Distant souls had to listen for what she didn’t say.

  Squeezing the mojo bag between her breasts, Cinnamon peeked over the envelope’s edge. Her mom chewed a pen and fussed with hard puzzle clues. This was her weekly IQ test where she proved she wasn’t as stupid as her life. Klaus and Skinny mingled hair and soft giggles, stuck on each other for sure. Cinnamon slid her chair to the other side of the pillar out of view. Her stomach growled at bubbles of no-calorie anxiety. To open the envelope, she decided on Redwood’s spell #5 — improvising magic words to conjure the world she wanted.

  “I’m a dream machine with a hoodoo spirit. I’ll sing my own praises if no one else will. You better believe I can untie any mess. Watch out!”

  The intricate knot shivered and tumbled open.

  Letter from Iris Phipps, February 1987

  Dear Heart,

  How are you? Those warp speed shout-outs on the phone are lively, but I can barely hear the fancy stories you’re spinning with your stomach grumbling so loud. Are you getting enough to eat? I don’t mean deep-fried death on a suicide bun — real food, fresh vegetables, whole grains, stuff you got to chew. I bet your stomach’s squawking right this minute.

  Oh my, I promised myself not to be an old scold. Sorry.

  Folks might be standing by the phone, listening in, so you can’t say everything you want. You write your letters in code too. What’re you hiding?

  We can still trust each other, right? You can talk to me anytime, anywhere.

  I’ve written several letters full of bibble-babble mostly, so don’t be mad if they went missing. Opal’s got an eye out for that rogue train what’s going to jump the track and ruin us. Who can blame her? She’s afraid this mean ole world might break your beautiful spirit. Miz Redwood did a get-there spell to make sure this letter reaches you. She says, if I speak truth heart to heart, nobody but you can read it. I don’t dare disbelieve Sister when she’s hoodooing.