Will Do Magic for Small Change

by Andrea Hairston

  “Hey, Raven, how you doing?” The truck men knew him.

  “Is it that bad?” The driver stuck his head out the window, sounding reasonable too. Wind snatched his big cowboy hat away. Rain splashed his eyes. The hat skipped down the road. “Oooh shit. Turn on the radio, Frank, see what they say.”

  “You’re out fifty bucks.” Frank glanced up at us sitting on the ledge. Kehinde’s blade glinted. He slugged the driver’s shoulder. “Nothing but static on the radio.”

  “Damn.” The driver squinted at the sky. “Fuck this. The road could be underwater in a snap.” He spun the steering wheel. “You all better take cover.” He glanced at the truck bed. Nobody asked for a ride. “Be seeing you folks later.” They sped off without retrieving the hat. The storm chased after them leaving clear sky over us.

  Had I imagined the gun?

  “You know them?” Opal quietly accused Raven of a crime.

  He shrugged. “Were they after you?”

  Opal shuddered.

  “Skip lets Frank talk him into stupid shit. No excuse for either of them.”

  Opal spit blood, shook fear from her body, and stared at Raven’s hair snapping in the storm’s updraft. No dreads then, just a thick mane of black. He had smooth brown skin, large hazel eyes, and high cheekbones. He wore a Navajo squash blossom necklace, tight jeans, and cowboy boots.

  “You goin’ say anything more?” Raven asked.

  Opal’s heart pounded. Sweat dripped from every pour. She scanned the horizon then locked her eyes on him. He didn’t flinch or blink. After several long minutes her muscles relaxed, and she licked at the blood on her lips. A pulse spiked across Raven’s nerves. Opal almost smiled. Perhaps she read his magnetic field. He was forty-something and all muscle, sinew, and intensity.

  “What are you staring at?” Raven growled.

  “You,” she said. “Cause, damn, you are pretty.” She grinned. “That ain’t only concern in your eyes.” She read him like an open book.

  More menacing clouds rolled in from the west.

  Raven huffed. “I’m not a tourist attraction or a goddamned museum exhibit.”

  “Flesh and blood, huh? Glad to hear it.” Opal shook sand from an afro. She must have been twenty-five. A flimsy tee-shirt hugged her breasts and belly. Running shorts clutched buttocks and hips. She was a womanly spectacle, sparking Raven’s nerves. He wasn’t as bold as she and didn’t speak passion. It was a tense situation. “Don’t know what I’d do if you were an on-display-do-not-touch kinda experience.” Opal grinned.

  “What do you want, woman, talking at me like that?” Raven said.

  “What you think?” Opal raised an eyebrow. “You aren’t the type I usually go for.”

  “What type is that?”

  “Who cares? It’s time to change.” She shook and flung sweat and sand at him. “Those crackers got my blood up. I want to kill somebody, get high, or make love.”

  Raven laughed. “That’s quite a come on.”

  “Oughta be a law or at least a city ordinance against someone fine as you riding around, causing traffic jams and accidents.” Her leg muscles cramped. She bent over to stretch and grinned at him from between her thighs. Kehinde put away her blade and chuckled. Watching Opal work tension out, Raven took short breaths.

  “What are you doing out here?” He kept reaching for reason. “Who are you?”

  “Nobody yet.” She stood up and stepped closer to him. Big lazy splats of rain got sucked up by hot sand and turned to mist. Kehinde held a Navajo blanket over our heads. “You smell like a painter,” Opal said. “Catching the whirlwind, the lightning, and throwing it on a canvas, huh?”

  Raven’s back stiffened. “How do you know that?”

  “I know things sometimes, out of nowhere. It’s like I can read minds — if there’s a good connection. My name is Opal Jones, pleased to meet you.” She stuck out her hand, unafraid, trusting a good connection. “You’re a storm child if ever I saw one.” She gazed into his painterly eyes, totally in lust. “Your call, sugar.”

  Raven clasped Opal’s rough hand with thin delicate fingers. “I stood in the lightning once, it knocked me down, stopped my heart, but I lived.”

  “A big heart like yours —” Opal put her hand on Raven’s chest. “It’d take more than one bolt to stop that beat.”

  “Is that so?” Raven ran his hands through the beads of water in her afro. He shook wetness at the cactus blossoms.

  Kehinde gripped my arm. Melinga would have had elemental children and grandchildren, reaching into the spaces between things, pouring libation to the master of uncertainly. The signs would be easy to recognize.

  “Romance after running for your life? You sure about that?” Raven said.

  “You got wide eyes seeing clear into next week.”

  Raven lurched back from her, as if she’d punched him. “Don’t tell me. You had a medicine woman dream,” he said.

  “What?” Opal said.

  “You came out West to sweat with the people and have a vision, right?”

  “Hell no. I’m just appreciating a fine hunk of manhood.” Her hands on her hips, her chin a blade aimed at him, she was a fine doorful of a woman as Liam might say.

  “Please don’t tell me your great grandma was a Cherokee princess.”

  “Cherokee didn’t have princesses, no tipis neither.” She walked a spiral in the dust getting closer to him again. “You Cherokee? Indian blood turning you brown?”

  “Seminole.” Raven eyed her, ready and not ready to risk love with a bold stranger.

  Opal bounced on her springy calf muscles. “I ran hurdles in high school. Gotta quit smoking. It’s ruining my game.” She enjoyed defying gravity. “You get a lot of tourists who want to go back to nature with you?”

  “Not runners.” He folded his hands over his chest. “Other types.”

  Opal laughed. “White folk always getting in between everybody.”

  “Who says these types are only white?”

  She wiggled her ankles. “Don’t even know your name, and you’re mad at me.”

  “Raven Cooper.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s what I use in the galleries. My real name’s for friends.”

  “What if I call you Lightning?”

  He grinned at her. “Seriously. Can you read minds?”

  “I’d like to see your art, be your friend.” She walked close again, feeling his pulse, testing his magnetic field. “I’ve been around the block. I’ve got a son and a few busted dreams. If you’re married or don’t like what you see, I’ll keep on running. That ole motel gotta be somewhere. But if you’re a free man, a man of adventure…”

  “You’ll what?”

  “Ask you to buy me an ice cream.”

  He laughed and dabbed the blood off her lips. “Does that hurt?”

  “Not too much.”

  The wind howled through the ravine. In a flash, buckets of water fell.

  “Get on,” Raven yelled. Opal hopped with him onto the long motorbike seat. He stomped the pedal several times. The engine didn’t turn over. “Damn.”

  “Climb up here!” Kehinde yelled.

  The clouds came down fast. Raven and Opal had no time to be mad at us for spying. As we hauled them up to our ledge, the desert turned to a water world. A river carried Raven’s motorcycle away. In the huddle of our bodies, I illuminated Star’s map with a flashlight. Eshu favored our meeting. Raven had rented the studio next to Star’s and sometimes stayed overnight in the loft. He had a map of the desert in his body. He pointed up. Opal was uncertain about the slick steep surface. With a grunt, Kehinde scrambled up ahead of us. Raven and Opal followed. I came last.

  Bolts of electricity crackled and thunder boomed. Below us water sluiced through the ravine, ripping and roaring like a happy child. When we reached level ground, the rain stopped. We were soaked, and the air was icy. Kehinde complained of achy joints. Opal took the pack from her back and tramped on, not looking to see if we followe
d. For hours, we borrowed her energy to slog through wet sand. The lock on Star’s door was rusted shut, so Kehinde and I stayed in Raven’s loft. He and Opal made a braid of their bodies on a drop cloth in his studio. Cyclones of trucks, billboards, airplanes, adobe houses, factories, and busted skyscrapers surrounded us in vivid surreal colors. Beyond exhaustion, even I feel asleep.

  “Are you too good to be true?” Opal whispered. I was awake. It was morning.

  “Maybe you’re bringing out the best in me,” Raven replied.

  “I don’t want to be nobody’s muse.”

  “I like whatever I bring out of you.”

  Raven painted the future on her belly, breasts, and thighs. Opal thought it a shame to wash such beauty off in the shower. She showed us the image. I can’t remember it, but we talked all day about the tomorrows we might make.

  “Usually, I’m not like this,” Opal told us.

  “How are you?” Kehinde asked.

  “Not optimistic, that’s for damn sure.” Opal smiled. “I’d like to be better. I need to be around the right people for that.”

  “Ashe,” Kehinde murmured.

  “She evokes the power to make things be,” I translated.

  “Can people change?” Opal shivered.

  Raven hugged her. He poured hot tea for everyone and laid a table of biscuits, fruit, and fragrant beans. “Gilidinehuyi, Cherokee for lightning — Star Deer muttered that when I came to, after being struck.” He showed the scar on his back where the bolt had hit. “I went walking in an electrical storm, the tallest thing for miles except Star, out there dancing. She says I pushed her out of the way. Is that possible? My heart stopped; I blacked out. I’m not a reliable witness. In the dark, I heard Gilidinehuyi. Star banged my chest and blew breath in my throat. I wanted to know what the word meant. Gilidinehuyi brought me back from the dead. It’s my secret name.”

  Opal buttered a biscuit and stuffed it in Raven’s mouth. “If you dared to come back from the dead, so can I.”

  Chewing, Raven put on a record — Marvin Gaye:

  Talk to me, so you can see, what’s going on

  He and Opal shimmied around the studio. Kehinde pulled me up to slow dance.

  Two of Melinga’s children had found us. So had love.

  Pittsburgh, PA, 1987 & Pittsburgh, PA, 1982

  There is another world, and it is in this one.

  Paul Éluard

  Mallemaroking

  Only one thing a BMW can do for me, and that’s drive me to a Caddy.

  Sekou’s quip was as quiet as the mist drizzling down Cinnamon’s cheeks. He’d been silent the last few weeks. Without her Squad it was hard to tell memory from ghost talk, especially with Uncle Clarence fussing. His fancy BMW had died, no warning. Wilson’s Towing hauled the disabled car to the shop, and Kevin was driving Clarence to Opal’s house with Cinnamon and Aunt Becca in the back seat. As they cruised through the Hill District, Clarence sulked. Riding shotgun in a beat-up Toyota offended his butt.

  How could German engineers have failed him like that? Sekou was louder this time, but Clarence never tuned in to the spirit channel. He’s such a tight wad. How much you want to bet, Clarence still has the first nickel he earned? Cinnamon chuckled.

  “What’s so damned funny?” Clarence said. “Are we trying to hit every pothole?”

  “Just for you.” Becca squeezed Kevin’s hunky muscles.

  Old and all, Kevin was a doorful of a man. Every day now, he was breaking records with Becca. You didn’t have to be a fast-talking shark of a lawyer to make a woman happy. Kevin smiled into the rearview mirror. He enjoyed adventures with Becca’s wild family. Getting him in on the mission had taken only one piece of Iris’s chocolate cake.

  As Clarence busted out of the car into cold April drizzle, Cinnamon popped the question. “We’re doing a celebration for Daddy at the nursing home. Want to come?”

  Becca exchanged glances with Kevin as he locked the car.

  “A celebration seems premature,” Clarence said.

  “That’s not what I’m asking.” Cinnamon didn’t want to invite her uncle: that was Iris. She and Star Deer wanted her to invite everybody.

  “Way too soon to get slap happy.”

  Rain growled at Clarence.

  “That attack dog don’t like your tone.” Becca took off her three-inch heels. “I’m not ruining my hair.” She charged up slippery steps, faster than everybody.

  “Why do people own killer dogs?” Clarence stepped back from the fence.

  Rain looked to Cinnamon, ready to snap the chain and bite Clarence’s head off.

  “Hush, Rain. This is your weather. Sit.” Rain dropped down. “Good girl.” Cinnamon tossed a treat from lunch over the fence and headed up behind Becca.

  “After you,” Kevin said to Clarence.

  “Raven just rolls his eyeballs around.” Clarence raced up two steps at a time. “If he wakes up, he’ll be disabled, maybe severely.” He slammed the screen door for emphasis, barely missing Kevin’s nose. “Sorry, man, didn’t see you there.”

  “You’re on a roll, counselor.” Kevin stepped in behind him. “But —”

  “Somebody has to be realistic. Raven’s muscles won’t work right. He might not walk or talk, and forget picking up a brush again.” Clarence halted at the kitchen island. The Wanderer burst into this world from the spaces between things. Only a painting, but Clarence freaked, as if he’d turned the corner into a horror movie. He gaped at Raven’s canvasses hanging around the living room and kitchen. “Who put this surreal Sun Ra stuff up?”

  “Aunt Iris helped me find Mom’s stash.” Cinnamon didn’t mention Star Deer. Noble Indians and hoodoo Negroes got on his nerves.

  “It was too gloomy,” Becca said. Her iridescent hat and dress fit right in.

  “Wait till I get the lights on a dimmer,” Cinnamon said. “This corner wasn’t up at the Rain Forest Lounge.” She pointed at the former TV alcove. “They’re untitled. Daddy wasn’t done.”

  “No wonder Opal’s staying with you, Rebecca.” Clarence’s voice was shaky. “Raven lived to throw paint. He always said, Man, when I get too feeble to paint, take me out back and shoot me.”

  “Yeah,” Cinnamon said, “whenever you harped on getting a real job. Daddy said it was paint or die.”

  “He won’t be the Raven you lost.”

  “We don’t care. He’ll be who he is. We’re ready.”

  Clarence wagged his finger. “He won’t be the man who got shot, the man everybody loved. He’ll be a stranger, and that’ll be hard, maybe impossible.” He paused, a real drama queen like everyone in the family. “That’s if the man ever wakes all the way up. This isn’t a grade B soap opera where the dead come walking back into your life.”

  “He’s not dead,” Cinnamon said.

  “You’re right.” Clarence stood stiff and tall, his courtroom persona in place. “Maybe dead would be better for him and for us.”

  Cinnamon had already done this stupid argument with herself, over and over without getting anywhere. Nowhere to get to.

  “Don’t give me those death-ray eyes, Rebecca,” Clarence shouted. “I’m speaking the unvarnished truth. Stupid convictions are more dangerous foes of truths than lies.”

  He’s quoting Nietzsche. Sekou hissed. Don’t let him get away with that!

  How could she argue with Nietzsche? Cinnamon grinned. “So drop your stupid convictions and try an open mind.” Kevin whistled at her smart comeback.

  “Are you going to the celebration or not?” Becca held up a folder of papers.

  Clarence refused the folder and prowled the kitchen and living room. “Is Opal going to spend the rest of her life taking care of a cripple?”

  “That’s her choice, isn’t it?” Becca said.

  Clarence stumbled by two paintings of the Wanderer eating zigzags of electricity. “How are they going to get a wheelchair up and down twenty-three steps? And a second floor? I can’t fit through that ancient bathroom door. How’s he goi
ng to pee?”

  “I know a good carpenter.” Becca smiled at Kevin. He was an old-style handy man who did woodwork, plumbing, even electrical under the table. Clarence and everybody hired him on the cheap, instead of pricey union people. That’s how he and Becca met.

  Clarence snorted. “How will Opal pay for even budget renovations if she’s taking care of Raven twenty-four seven and can’t work? Driving her shift, she’s already sick as a dog. She won’t take a dime from anybody.” He bumped into Kevin. “How many times did Raven run out on her?”

  “Beats me,” Kevin replied. “I didn’t know them, before.”

  Clarence shuddered and kept moving. “Did Raven ever sell anything? If you’re not making money, you’re making excuses. He might as well have been shaking a tin cup.”

  “I’m an artist like Daddy,” Cinnamon said, “painting the world with words and gestures. That’s a hard road.”

  “It’s a dead end. For you too.”

  “You don’t get to write my future.” Talking slow, Cinnamon barely controlled her rage. “No matter how reasonable you sound.”

  “You’re smart as a whip, little girl, I’ll give you that. But you’re not movie star material. So put your megawatt brains to good use.” Clarence made a sharp turn to avoid Kehinde whirling a cutlass in a desert storm, but ran into Star Deer dancing with spirit rocks. He was surrounded. “Why did I come across town for a party invite? You backward Negroes don’t know how to use phones?”

  “Don’t get mean.” Cinnamon spoke softly.

  “Iris wanted you to see the paintings,” Becca said. “You’ve hardly looked.”

  Clarence halted and stared at the floor. “The truth is mean, not me.”

  Cinnamon rolled her eyes. “Sekou used to say that shit when he got nasty.”

  “Shit? You’re comparing me to your dead brother?”

  The faggot, druggy, suicide! Sekou chuckled. Don’t give up, Sis. He’s on the run.

  Iris said they needed Clarence’s help, otherwise… “Maybe Sekou used your line to weasel out of sticky situations. Look, we can’t manage the impossible by ourselves.”