by Jaym Gates
“Careful now. That almost had the bite of critique,” The Magical Negro said.
“Well, it’s just us here now. We can speak plain.”
“Your job, your one job, was to help him finish his story,” The Tom said.
“I don’t get a backstory?”
“No one cares about your backstory!”
“I … I think you may be right about that. If I had a story, they wouldn’t read. But if they have a story and I can help them through it or Lawd Jesus,” The Magical Negro turned toward The Mammy, “they can save not just me but my whole people, then now we have something they want to see.”
“The story served The Market,” The Mammy said.
“The Market,” The Tom and The Buck whispered in unison.
“They want us around to remind them of how diverse a life they have but not in an inconvenient way. You know, having to get to know us. We’re here strictly to keep them safe, tuck them in at night.”
“You cannot thwart the journey.” A light-skinned woman glided toward him. She stared at him with her tragedy-filled eyes. With her high cheekbones, thin nose, and straight black hair — she had some good hair; probably had some Indian in her — she could’ve passed for Greek or Italian. Something exotic.
“Even you, The Mulatto? You are nothing but backstory.”
“You’d have probably told the boy with the ring to just stay on his giant bird and fly his ass to the mountain to drop the ring in it,” The Tom said.
“Hand me a tall glass of white man’s tears. With two ice cubes.” The Magical Negro looked around the room. “So say you all? Even you, The Coon?”
A minstrel in an ill-fitting tuxedo, grinned broadly. Clutching his plate of fried chicken and watermelon, he bugged his eyes out in alarm as if busted by his white boss.
“You know we don’t let him say much,” The Mammy said.
“For all the good it did us. He’s got another sitcom deal on BET,” The Buck said.
“Now things could’ve been worse: you could’ve let the dog die,” The Mammy said.
“Yeah, you definitely don’t want to be the black guy who let dogs die,” The Buck said.
“We may have to downgrade you to helping out a black guy,” The Tom said.
“Can a black guy have a Magical Negro?” The Buck asked.
“I don’t right know. I guess,” The Mammy said. “First he’d have to go on the hero’s journey.”
“We’re going to give you one more chance. Know your place,” The Tom said. “Fulfill your role. If we listen and are polite, we can succeed.”
“That’s what we’ve always been told. It’s our hope. Our legacy,” The Mulatto agreed.
With that, The Tom, The Mammy, and The Mulatto retreated to their places, preserved like relics in a museum. The Buck glanced over his shoulder at them, then turned back to The Magical Negro.
“Hold on, Negro godmother. Let me holler at you for a second.”
“Now what?” The Magical Negro asked.
“You should know, they’re afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of you.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“The Tom is going to resent you no matter what you do. The Magical Negro already works his side of the street, if you know what I’m saying. But there’s a legend we all speak about. Well, not them. The Council of Negro Stereotypes don’t exist for our benefit. But among us, the true us, there’s this hope that one day we’ll be able to tell our own stories. Fulfill the role of griots the way our most ancient story keepers once did. That maybe there will come one with a sense of agency. One of us who has a complex interior life. Who has real desires, real history, and a real journey.”
“You think that might be me?”
“I don’t know. They fear it. It might mean the end for them if someone like that comes around.”
“But not you?”
“Not as long as a white man needs a sidekick or a white woman has a fantasy. You don’t know how close I came to making it to hero status. Perhaps one day. But for now, you have a job to do.”
#
The two men rattled back and forth in the cab of the old Farmall truck. The engine grumbled all along the winding dirt road, sputtering and coughing with every turn and incline. J.C. tilted his head back, lost in his thoughts. He no longer cared. He took in the scenery with a blank resignation which worried the prison guard.
“We’re almost there, Joe,” the prison guard said.
“Okay, boss,” J.C. said the words as if they left a bad taste in his mouth. He shifted in his seat, his large frame taking up most of the space as it was.
“We’ve come a long way, you and I.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was terrified of you when I first saw you. Never met a colored like you before. You were the size of three grown men and the cuffs and chains barely seemed to hold you. It was like you wore them as a courtesy. I think that was what first fascinated me about you. When we get back to the prison, I hope you’ll do me that same courtesy when I have to put you back in chains. But for now …”
“… for now I’m free.” J.C. smiled his unassuming, sweet smile. But something was different about him. Just a little off. It was a big night for him. One last adventure to heal the prison guard’s daughter with his gift. Then after that, he had a date with Old Sparky. Gentle and self-sacrificing or not, he had been found guilty of the crime everyone knew the son of the governor committed. But someone had to die for those sins and J.C. fit the bill as good as any.
“Can I tell you something, Joe?” the prison guard said.
“What’s that?”
“I never had any colored friends before.”
“A good ol’ bullgoose like yourself? All them years as a block superintendent, all those cells occupied by so many black candidates, powerless against your authority and privilege, and you chose me. Because of my gift. Now we’re out breathing this here fine country air. I’d say that this certainly beats getting to know one.”
“What privilege? I’m struggling to get by same as the next man. And for all my power, I’m here, pinning my hopes on you.”
“Yes, yes. I have all sorts of power, while you’re not even living up to your potential. Yet I’m still here to serve you.” J.C. turned toward him, his tone almost unreadable.
“This is so … touching.” The prison guard wiped away some tears. “That’s so…what you’re doing is so beautiful. It’s teaching me so much. I’m all choked up.”
“Yeah, someone should be choked.”
The trees whirred past, dark, sharp shadows against the darker, moonless night sky. Nothing felt familiar and all the usual landmarks seemed strange. The prison guard kept his eyes on the road when he wasn’t checking the rearview mirror to make sure no one followed them. Innocent or not, J.C. was technically an escaped felon. If they were caught before the guard could return him, he’d be in nearly as much trouble as his prisoner.
They swung into the guard’s gravel driveway and parked the ratty truck. The guard closed his eyes as if reflecting on whether he’d made the right choice and if it were too late to turn the vehicle around and get J.C. back to his cell without anyone being the wiser.
“We have to go if we’re going to do this, boss.” J.C. wrapped one of his massive hands around the guard’s entire wrist.
“Yeah, might as well see this through.”
The guard led them up to his porch. He turned the key in the lock and slowly opened the door. When he flicked on the light, a little girl stirred on the couch. She rubbed her eyes. A blue-eyed little moppet of a girl with long pigtails. She ran to hug her dad.
“I knew you’d come,” she said.
“I promised you, didn’t I?”
“Is he the one with the gift? The Whining?”
The guard turned with embarrassment to J.C. before returning to his little girl. “Not every black person has The Whining. You know how some people get,” the prison guard says. “Com
plaining that they aren’t in enough things then when they do show up, in an important role at that, they complain.”
“No, honey. I’m here to heal you,” J.C. said.
“You’re saving my life,” she said to him with a grateful smile to her voice. “The spring formal is next week.”
“And you want to live long enough to have your first dance?” J.C. dropped town to one knee to meet her almost eye-to-eye
“I’d say. If I go right now, I’d just die.”
“What do you have?”
“Can’t you see it? It’s huge.” The little girl stepped closer. She turned her face to the side. That was when J.C. saw it.
“It’s a zit.” He wobbled, suddenly off balance. The girl covered her face at his reaction.
“You let me out of jail so that I could take her sickness upon myself right before you string me up for a crime I didn’t commit.”
“Do you know how long a wait we have to find a good dermatologist?” th prison guard asked. “Besides, my deductible is huge.”
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Why?”
“If you want me to touch a little white girl, I’d think you’d be expected to wash up first.”
“Good point.”
J.C. pushed past the guard and strode down the hallway toward the living room and beyond the kitchen to the last door on the left. The light buzzed to life above him. He ran the cold water and splashed some on his face. He looked into the mirror. His face was wet as if from a day’s labor sweating in a field; his arms exhausted and heavy. Turning to his left, he spied a small window. The thought leapt to his mind by the time he was halfway through it. With a bit of contortion, he twisted his bulky frame through the opening. He scrabbled along the roof and hopped onto their landing before running off into the night.
A disembodied head faded into view alongside him as he ran.
“Where are you going?” The Tom asked.
“Home,” J.C. said. “If I can heal people, I’m going to open up a free clinic.”
“What about the girl?” The Mammy appeared beside them.
“They got good health insurance.”
“I think he’s gone insane,” The Tom said to The Mammy.
“No, he may be … The One,” The Buck materialized beside them.
“The One?” The Tom turned to him. “Surely not.”
“Who’s The One?” The Mammy asked.
“If he’s really arrived, maybe now, he’ll have his own story to tell. The One who actually saves the day himself. He’s the hero.”
Drafty as a Chain Mail Bikini
Kat Richardson
A twig prodded Kes in her upper left thigh — right where the tasset should have been and wasn’t. “Plague take it!” she spat and all the woods around went silent. “Whosoever designed this so-called-mail should be forced to wear it himself. With pattens and one of those ridiculous hats!” She slashed at the offending shrubbery with her sword.
The falling-stones sound of Angeli’s laughter came from behind her. “Oh, but I think your outfit is quite cheeky,” the little dragon said with a giggle that set a small bush on fire.
Kes patted her free hand against her buttock and found a considerably greater degree of flesh exposed at the bottom of the brief … umm … brief than she had realized. She whipped around, glaring, and pointed her sword at her draconic companion. “I’ll thank you to stop sizing up my backside, wyrm, or you can walk in front and clear the way.”
It was an outrageous outfit: mail it may have been, but the hauberk was little more than a bandeau that shaped to her breasts with the familiarity of a drunken lord’s groping hands — and not much larger than the same — while the lower business was neither leggings, nor even a chausses, but something far more akin to the tiniest of smallclothes that covered her derrière like peach fuzz. Steel peach fuzz that tended to pinch, chafe, and yank out any strand of pubic hair that happened to curl round the leather-bound edges. In addition, she had nothing like a proper gambeson and the rings pinched her ski n —especially any bits which happened to be somewhat upstanding by dint of the irritation of cold steel nipping like a thousand insects. And it had a draft like a blacksmith’s forge in full roar. It rubbed Kes quite the wrong way, but it was all the covering she currently had, aside from inadequate boots and a hair ribbon. She’d donned the ridiculous ensemble that morning and used the ribbon to secure her hair in a plait, which she now twitched over her shoulder.
Angeli ducked its head and attempted an abashed expression — which resolved poorly on a face so scaled and inhuman. “It’s a nice backside … for a squishy-two-legs.”
Kes clonked the dragon on its snout with the flat of her blade. “It is not an ornament for the delectation of spark-wits. And extinguish that shrub before the whole copse is afire, if you please.”
Angeli grumbled a bit before it said, “Oh, all right … Grumpy.” It turned aside to pat out the flames with one partially-unfurled wing.
“I am not grumpy,” Kes said, kicking some dirt over the nearest smoldering plant life. Though, certainly she had a right to be.
“Are too.”
“Am not! Ow!” she added as an ember burned through her thin leather soles. “Blasted things!” They weren’t even proper sabatons — just soft boots. Fine for hunting, but not up to a real battle — or dragon fire. “I shall definitely kill the blackguard —”
“When we catch up to him,” Angeli said.
“Oh, we’ll catch him up. I’ve a good idea just where the toad’s got off to. Is all flora and fauna extinguished now, Angeli?”
The dragonet looked around, spotted a small smoldering weed, and sat on it. “All clear, My Lady Kes. Not even particularly singed, I’d say.”
“What you would say, my dear Angeli, is quite likely to get us both thrown out of even the lowest bawdyhouse. You have the tact of a leprous pickpocket.”
“Yes, but I’m charming about it! And I always leave a tip.”
Kes snorted. She hadn’t wanted the whelp, but it had arrived a few days before her twelfth birthday and nothing could make it go away. Six years on, whither went Kes, so went Angeli, and she was, by now, used to it, its bad jokes, worse timing, and fierce companionship. Truth to tell, she’d hardly know who she was without it—but she would never admit such a thing.
#
They left the scene of the minor conflagration with Kes in the lead and walked west. The sun was just behind them, but coming up quickly. The woody landscape was all very much the same and Angeli scuffed along in Kes’s wake. The dragonet snaked its head back and forth on its long neck, looking for something interesting in the underbrush, and frightening small animals and birds with little puffs of steam. It was quickly bored with their skittering, chittering, and running, and went back to merely dragging along behind the woman in the measly mail.
After a while, Angeli asked, “Are we going to High Tower?”
“Where else?” Kes replied. “Now hush.”
“But we don’t like High Tower. Do we?”
“It is of no consequence whether we like the place. It’s Assembly Day and therefore it is undoubtedly where our quarry has flown —”
Angeli chuckled. “Hah! Imagine that one flying! He hasn’t any wings! Silly squishy-two-legs.”
Kes turned around and gave the young dragon a disapproving glare. “While you, ruler of the slop heap, have two perfectly good ones that you never use.”
Angeli huddled to the ground in the dragonet version of a sulk that nearly hid it from view among the brush and tree trunks. “Are you implying that I’m too fat to fly?”
Kes looked the miserable creature over with a critical eye and started to reply.
There was a crashing from the brush behind her and a voice called out, “Hold, and hand over your purse, sweetheart.”
Kes clamped her mouth closed and narrowed her eyes. Then one eyebrow rose, pulling her face into a singularly sinister expression. Angeli tucked its head under one
wing, muttering, “Uh-oh,” as she turned slowly around.
Three rough-looking men had arranged themselves across the path ahead, armed variously with a cudgel, a crossbow, and a plain but serviceable sword.
“Where do you imagine I might conceal a purse in such harness as this?” Kes demanded, spreading her arms. All three men goggled at her largely-undressed form. None seemed to notice she held a sword of her own in one hand, or that a small dragon cowered behind her barely-booted legs.
“Maybe you’ve tucked it under your bubbies,” the one with the sword suggested. “We’ll search you, eh?”
The one with the cudgel said, “And if your purse is truly empty, maybe we could lend you a yard or two to put in it.” The others laughed as he started forward.
Kes flicked her sword upward with a chilly smile on her face. “Come closer, and I’ll take your yard and serve you my own.”
The advancing bandit stopped and swallowed, watching the gleam of sunlight off the edge of her blade. “What’s a pretty thing like you need a nasty great sword for?”
“For skewering meat.”
“Well, if you didn’t want our attentions, why d’you go walking the woods in little more than your skin?” he asked.
“Perhaps I’d a mind to feel the sun on my hide. Or perhaps it’s no business of yours what I chose to wear, any more than it’s mine if you choose to go unclothed in the wildwood, yourselves.”
The one with the sword cast a nervous glance down, possibly wondering if he was displaying anything that was better off hidden. “We’re not undressed.”
“You might as well be,” said Kes. “Not a whit of armor among you all.” She let the sunlight flash on her sword again.
“But … there’s three of us …”
“And that should give you pause,” she said.
The bandits looked at one another, confused. “Why ain’t she afraid of us?” the one with the crossbow asked.
“Exactly,” said Kes.