Will Do Magic for Small Change

by Andrea Hairston

  “The bridge sways,” I said. “Do you feel it?”

  “No.” Liam huffed to a halt behind us. “Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”

  Kehinde tapped Liam’s chest. “A swaying bridge survives the storm that snaps a rigid one.” He gripped her fingers. She allowed this intimacy. Melinga clapped for their good spirits. The wind sprayed moisture in our faces. Maroon clouds floated overhead, and below us, island cities were patchwork cloths thrown at the sea.

  “Thank you for this view.” I kissed Bob’s mouth before he could jerk away.

  “People were afraid to walk out here at first.” He pulled me from the railing.

  “Afraid I might jump?” I teased him.

  “Jumbo led a parade of fellow elephants across the span to show how sturdy it was. Imagine twenty beasts marching along, Jumbo trumpeting glory be.”

  “Elephants?” Liam chortled. “Of course, you’d be telling that.”

  “A year later,” Bob said, “a train rammed that big-hearted elephant into the next world. P.T. Barnum scattered Jumbo all over. His heart went to Cornell University; his bones sit in a New York City museum. Barnum stuffed the hide for show then donated it to Tufts.” Bob displayed a blue mojo bag. “A fellow from Barnum’s circus sold wiry elephant hairs supposedly plucked from dead Jumbo’s head. How could I resist? A bag of tall tales and misfortune soaked in rum…”

  “That’s not the story of the bridge.” Liam said and ambled ahead to Kehinde and Somso to watch sailboats glide downriver.

  Bob put away his mojo. I leaned back into his chest, pressed dew-damp braids against his cheeks, and pulled his hands around my belly.

  “Taiwo,” his voice was rough, “you’re a torture and a joy.”

  “That is life on Earth.” We leaned against the stone tower. “Tell another bridge story. Not a scattering.”

  “Washington Roeblin had just begun building his father’s design when caisson disease left him paralyzed, deaf, and mute. Emily Roeblin stepped in as Chief Engineer to finish the bridge. She shared her husband’s passion for building impossible things. Many doubted her womanly mind and clamored for a man. Mrs. Roeblin worked twelve years till she could tramp from one shore to the next. Some say she channeled her husband’s genius. Others say she was the great mind behind the great work.”

  “Women plant and build and go to war. Men pretend they have never seen this,” Somso said. She waved at Ghost Dog striding in our direction and ran to him.

  “Come on you two, the sun is low.” Liam turned around. “Damnation!”

  One moment Bob and I touched our cheeks to warm stones, the next we climbed up the tower and balanced on a fat cable bundle. The wind whistled, ready to blow us away. I gripped Bob’s waist. He was feverish hot. The curved moon spot on his forearm was blood red. The crowd below us shouted many languages.

  “Come away with me.” Bob’s breath tickled my ear.

  “It’s so romantic,” a stranger yelled.

  “Naw,” another shouted. “They’re jumpers.”

  “What reckless demon rides you two?” Kehinde spoke under the babble.

  Liam gripped her and Melinga.

  “We’re a spectacle,” I said. “Luigi would collect coins.”

  “The Chicago Fair is a circus museum.” Bob laid his cheek against mine. “Rotten tomatoes in your face, like Raymond. Let’s escape before they run us down and stuff our hides. That’s how the carnival masquerade always ends, I know.”

  “Since Paris, you’ve barely talked to me, touched me. What am I to you?”

  His calloused fingers traced my collarbone, lingering in the cleft at my throat. “I’d be scared of that question on the open sea with stars shooting overhead and whales singing ocean hymns. So for damn sure, I won’t find out in Chicago. Let’s find a better place.”

  “But you see, I ran through an armored bush. I swore an oath.”

  “To play their savage?”

  “For love.”

  “You love me too. We’ll disappear in New York and find another ship.”

  “Luigi expects to make his money back —”

  “He won’t find us. We owe him nothing. In the wind and water, we’d be free.”

  “You sound like him, romancing Somso with tall tales.”

  “Chicago isn’t what you dream. It’s no better than France or here or anywhere. We can swear oaths if you like.” Bob kissed me.

  My nerves spiked. “I can’t leave Kehinde, even for love of you. I won’t.” I glanced down. Kehinde’s face was a warrior mask.

  “She’d follow you,” Bob pleaded. “Liam throws his spear with us.”

  “I refuse to abandon Melinga to Somso,” I declared. “Kehinde won’t steal her.”

  Bob was desperate. “Somso might give Melinga to you.”

  “Never,” I realized. “She’d give her to you, perhaps.” I touched his belly. “Chicago is where your umbilical cord is buried. Why not find tomorrow there?”

  Bob glared at the East River. “In Chicago, they tossed my cord in a trash heap and left my family bleeding and burning in the streets.”

  “That was yesterday. Every dawn on the ship you run from tomorrow into dark —”

  “You don’t know what I run from.”

  Kehinde slipped Liam’s grasp. “Bamidele, I know your story. It’s also mine.” She strode with Melinga into the weave of cables and halted below us. “Raiders always come in the middle of dreams. They steal us from ourselves, eat our spirits. Nzumbe, living dead, we sing their praises and take heads at their command. At the masquerade fair in Chicago I’ll give up the traitor-warrior to become someone else.”

  Bob snorted. “So you think now.” He pulled away from me and slid down a cable.

  I followed and grabbed him before he could escape. “Tell me what you run from.”

  Bob warred with himself, but finally relented. “I worked a circus brothel in Chicago for King Willy. He bought me, ‘rescued’ me from the trash heap for himself and special clientele. I thought I loved King Willy. Liam came often, always the highest bidder, paying top dollar for the Spotted Man and Frieda, a dwarf woman, for the whole night. One Sunday, Frieda ran off with Liam’s money. King Willy came after me with a horsewhip. He said he’d flay the spots off my ass, kill me, for one night’s wages. He jammed a gun in my mouth. I pissed myself. How had I ever loved him? I knocked him down. I stomped him. King Willy never got up. I was gibbering. Liam hauled me away. Ghost Dog let us stay with him, till I got right in the head again. So you see, I have no love for Chicago.” He searched my face. “What do you say?”

  I was more aje than human with only fire in my mouth. Bob raced off to Brooklyn.

  Liam took my arm. “Let him run. He’ll come back before the engines are stoked.”

  “We don’t have to be who we’ve been,” Kehinde said.

  In the long hours from dusk to dawn, I paced along the train cars waiting for Bob. When the home star appeared, Luigi smacked the cages with his walking stick. I snatched it from him. Bob grunted behind us.

  “You’re late,” Luigi said.

  “The train ain’t left.” Bob loaded unhappy beasts into boxcars.

  “Got no answer to my cables.” Luigi grumbled at him.

  “Nothing I can do about that.” Bob turned to me. “Chicago will be your fault.”

  Words failed me again. Should we have run off to sea as he said?

  Kehinde poured libation to Eshu. “We’re at the mercy of many-headed change.”

  To avoid Eshu’s laughter, to avoid Kehinde and Bob, I slept all the way to Chicago.

  Trying Times

  “The Tempest was over an hour ago. It’s hopeless,” Cinnamon said. “Impossible.”

  “It’s not.” Klaus tried to cheer her up. “I’ll wager Mrs. Williams will help us get Ariel and Griot Joe together.”

  “You’ll wager that, will you?” Marie mocked the fake British accents running around the Green Room. She was in a sour mood too. “How can Ariel be a no-show?”<
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  Soggy carrots and anemic celery languished on the decimated buffet table. No VIP was desperate enough for these cookie alternatives. They sipped champagne and oohed and ahhed over the actors and designers. Prospero swooped through the crowd in his cape, wizard-worthy on and off stage. Critics proclaimed it a privilege to get seasick as the mighty lantern swung across the proscenium to a gamelan orchestra. Director Hill was declared a genius, but the most buzz was for Ariel and her impossible disappearing acts. Marie walked the set, hunting secret scrims, mirrors, or trap doors. She found nothing like that, but her weird hand tingled. Proof. Ariel vanished through the spaces between things and reappeared anywhere. Fifty hot snots, or maybe fifteen, insisted it was the most magical production of The Tempest they’d seen. VIPs whipped out checkbooks. A five-figure donation slid into a Platinum donor envelope. Ariel brought in big bucks. Director Hill was an asshole taking credit for somebody else’s magic or weird science. He probably stole the gamelan idea too, from some production he’d seen.

  “You don’t know that,” Klaus said. “He —”

  “Hill’s a shark.” Marie shut him down. “He is using our Mod Squad blocking for his Ghetto Fairy Tale, but not me and Cin.”

  “Yeah,” Cinnamon snorted, “what’s the genius in that?”

  “You want to be mad, so you’re unreasonable.” Klaus punched her shoulder. “You told me not to drop out. You both did.”

  “That was before we realized Hill was a rip-off artist.” Cinnamon pouted.

  “Why should they get everything and my role too?” Klaus had a point. “Vati was so sure I’d fall on my ass and ruin another good production. I’ll show everybody.”

  “You better,” Cinnamon said.

  “Yeah,” Marie hissed, “the only acting Snow White Janice knows how to do is flirt.”

  “Are you worried?” Klaus’s question smacked them both.

  Janice was slender curves and bouncy curls. Marie was flat as a boy up top and no hips either. In three-inch platforms she was still really short. Cinnamon was half an inch taller than Klaus and only fifteen pounds heavier since recent weight loss; yet, Janice won the beauty contest. Klaus could shut them down too.

  “Janice flirts with me to piss out her new boyfriend.” Piss out was a Germ-English keeper. “The assistant stage manager dumped Chanda, a college girl, for Janice. Chanda’s mother is from India. Her name means moon.”

  “Moon?” Marie grinned. “You would know that.”

  The ASM was the cute rogue doing the Kali girl (Chanda?) in the island paradise set at auditions. “He better watch out,” Cinnamon said. “Janice is jail bait. No nooky in the bushes.” They laughed so hard strangers joined in. It wasn’t that funny.

  “Somebody ought to warn Janice.” Marie sounded concerned. “Lover boy is into exotic colored girls, high school or college.”

  The blood drained from Klaus’s cheeks. “Do you think I’m like this?”

  “Would Marie and I be with your pale ass if you were, fine as we are together?” Cinnamon chomped her tongue too late. She’d declared their Squad a sex item out loud. Nobody denied it. Klaus bit a celery stalk and sprayed juice on a tipsy Platinum Angel.

  The woman giggled and patted Klaus’s arm. “Celery is just stringy water. Don’t look so serious, young man. You’re almost cute. It spoils the effect.”

  Cinnamon and Marie pulled Klaus away from bad adult behavior.

  “We got a special three-way thing.” Marie dropped her full weight onto them, a contact improv move. “We do the weird from another dimension.”

  “Ja. Ja.” Klaus gripped Marie’s hand and Cinnamon’s too. “I don’t know who I am up to, in to? on to? This is first time. You two, are first real thing.”

  Cinnamon nodded. “Me too.”

  “You guys are shitting me,” Marie said.

  Klaus and Cinnamon hunched their shoulders, embarrassed.

  “Wow. I’ve been crushed out on somebody steady since I was twelve. A parade of losers, breaking my heart.”

  Klaus tensed up. “We won’t break your heart.” How could anybody guarantee that?

  “Promise?” Marie sounded pathetic.

  “I promise,” Klaus said and slugged Cinnamon.

  “Cross my heart.” Promising was hard. What if she fell down on them?

  “How did you kids crash this party?” Director Hill stood by the buffet ruins in Armani wool. Glass slipper Gwyneth hugged him from behind, her chin on his shoulder. She wore a liquid gold gown and transparent heels filled with gold sparkles. Their styles matched. Gwyneth had ditched Harry. “This is a private affair.” Hill leaned over the empty punchbowl and shook golden boy curls. Cinnamon caught a whiff of marijuana. “Not the time to swipe free cheese, dear.”

  “Klaus’s mother is a volunteer,” Marie declared. “We have VIP tickets.”

  Cinnamon waved the stubs.

  Recognition dawning, Hill backed up. “How’s your mother coming along?”

  Cinnamon’s tongue knotted up. He probably thought she was stupid.

  “Ms. Jones is going home tomorrow,” Klaus said. “We are very pleased.”

  Gwyneth smiled. “Tom and I stopped by the hospital last week.” First Harry, now Tom, all she needed was a Dick. “Ms. Jones was looking so much better. Wasn’t she?”

  “Yes.” Hill came around the table and squeezed Cinnamon’s hand, then hugged her. “Give Ms. Jones my regards.” They headed off, leaving Cinnamon in a daze.

  “Hill knows how to mess with your head,” Marie muttered.

  Klaus snagged the ASM. “Have you seen Ariel?”

  “Ariel took off on a bike,” he replied. “In this storm!”

  “Some homeless dude has been stalking her,” an intern bagging trash said. “Time for you kids to leave. Nothing to steal, everything’s locked up.”

  “Excuse me?” Cinnamon did a full-body, black-girl scowl. “What?”

  “Oops.” The ASM ducked out.

  The intern got up in Cinnamon’s face. “A gong disappeared Wednesday and a leather jacket walked out of the Green Room last night. That’s what.”

  “You have a death wish, motherfucker, talking this shit at me?” She shoved him at the buffet table. He fell over and banged his head on the plastic punchbowl. Her hand squeezed his throat; a knee jammed his groin. “Do I fit the description of the thief?”

  Marie chuckled. Klaus shushed her.

  The intern was bleach white. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything.”

  “You don’t piss on my head and call it rain. I should kick your sorry ass.”

  The intern flailed. “I was…taking precautions?” Carrots rolled onto the rug.

  “I could break you with a thought.”

  “Not right now,” Marie said. She and Klaus dragged Cinnamon out into cold drizzle to wait for Kevin to pick them up. Marie banged her hips against Klaus. “Admit it. That was Glamazon cool.”

  “OK, yes, I enjoyed it too.” He grinned.

  “Really?” Cinnamon sagged. “I don’t need to be fighting. What’s wrong with me?”

  Klaus stroked her face, pausing at the bruise. “Prince Charming says: these are trying times.” He and Marie kissed Cinnamon’s rage-hot cheeks. She swooned.

  “The night is still young!” Marie said.

  Sweet Revenge

  Kevin drove the Squad to Opal’s, chewing their ears about Aunt Becca. She was bartending in Shady Side and sticking to the job like she was sticking to him. Kevin hollered, “Be good y’all,” from the bottom of the steps and hurried to pick her up. The elders had gone out; the house was empty. The Squad could do whatever they liked.

  Opening the front door, gloom greeted Cinnamon. The naked overhead blasted cruel photon torpedoes. She switched it off. The air tasted ashy. Stale cigarette smoke wafted from the coat rack. Down the spooky hall, paunchy walls leaned into each other. The rug was pretty roughed up. The ancient refrigerator wheezed in the kitchen. It’d be dead before the month was out. Aidan’s wooden animals had disappea
red from the shelves — running for cover. Their house had been off for four years and four months. No wonder Opal refused to come home. Cinnamon sank with Marie and Klaus onto the couch in the dark. Nobody was sure what to do next. Iris had hidden the TV. She wasn’t giving advertisers a season ticket to their imaginations, even for The Cosby Show.

  You want entertainment? Do it yourself.

  “So, Klaus, what happened with Vati’s big dinner party?” Marie said. “Last weekend, remember?” Klaus closed his eyes, too shy or too ashamed to speak. Marie groaned. “Please talk, without making us beg.”

  “We should each tell something hard.” Cinnamon thought of Raven drooling in the nursing home and her wishing death on strangers. “I’ll go first if nobody wants to.”

  “No, I’ll go first,” Marie said. Klaus’s eyes popped opened. Marie arched her left eyebrow theatrically. “What? You don’t think I have anything hard?”

  Images stormed Cinnamon. Marie’s sister spewed in a toilet. Marie held off frantic parents. Her sister burst out the bathroom door and into the street. Five-toe footprints in melted slush led down a hill. Klaus furrowed his brow at Cinnamon. Did he feel her trancing?

  “Tough girls also get the blues.” He did another Prince Charming line.

  Marie stood up and paced around the coffee table. “No interrupting, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go look it up later or something.”

  Klaus shrugged. “Sure.”

  “This is like getting naked. Let’s do it upstairs.” Cinnamon hauled Klaus from the bottomless cushions. “Sekou has dictionaries and encyclopedias and history tomes.”

  The bedroom smelled of books, hair oil, and Sekou’s candle collection, not off like the rest of the house. Cinnamon lit the Arabian rose tapers. She’d been saving them for a special moment. Klaus fell out on Sekou’s bed. Marie hung in the doorway. Cinnamon grabbed A People’s History of the United States, Funnybook Physics, and a stolen social studies reference guide from the shelf over Sekou’s bed. She plopped down by the galaxy pillow. Klaus put his head in her lap.

  “You ready?” Marie said softly.

  Cinnamon stroked peach fuzz on Klaus’s cheeks. He did a baritone cat rumble.