Will Do Magic for Small Change

by Andrea Hairston

  “Keep those kids out of here.”

  Cinnamon rushed back to her place in the lobby. The skinny girl scowled at her and flipped silky black hair, like saving a spot in line had been hard work.

  “It isn’t fair for you to run off like that.”

  Cinnamon shrugged. “Thanks.”

  Only forty kids ahead of her now. She counted. Twenty-two. Parents made it look like more competition than it was.

  The skinny girl poked Cinnamon’s shoulder. She didn’t have anybody grown-up with her either. “You should have to go to the back.”

  “Why you stuck on that?” Cinnamon could squash this five-foot-three, button-cute wraith with one hand. “Who’s going to make me?” She balled her fist, and a smile slid into a sneer at the pale white folks nearby. Five-foot-eleven and a hundred-eighty-eight pounds was good for throwing your weight around.

  Skinny scowled back, unafraid. Impressive.

  “Coming through.” A cart piled with fruit, nuts, cheese, crackers, and pop banged Cinnamon’s side. She grabbed a fistful of crackers and cheese and stuffed it in her knapsack. She hadn’t eaten since lunch — a thin bologna slice on a rice cake and a few apple slices. She’d sung that off in choir. In gym, she’d been too weak for basketball. Now she was running on fumes. After the audition, she’d eat in the bathroom so Opal wouldn’t start in about dieting. Opal claimed she was helping Cinnamon lose that extra baby fat she was laying in for the next famine. Starving wasn’t a diet.

  Where the bee sucks, there suck I;

  In a cowslip’s bell I lie;

  A handsome devil in high boots, tights, vest, and a jeweled turban blocked the food cart and spoke Ariel’s lines with a tenor/alto lilt. As Cinnamon stuffed a fistful of cashews into her backpack, Ariel grinned and proclaimed:

  There I cough where owls do cry.

  On the bat’s back I do fly

  “She’s come from far away to play Ariel in The Tempest,” the skinny girl whispered.

  “She? Really?” Cinnamon said. Gender wasn’t the only slippery thing. Ariel had medium-pale skin and features that could have been Asian, African, European, Native, or some group Cinnamon didn’t know — Aborigine, Maori? “How far away?”

  Ariel bowed. “Alas, I am a slave to an old sorcerer’s whims or else we could have our own adventure.” Shakespeare’s lines or something improvised?

  “Why are you out here in costume?” A buzz-saw voice made Ariel un-bow and wink at Cinnamon. Brandishing elbows of steel, the production coordinator pushed through fans gathered around Ariel. She halted by Cinnamon. “Where’d she go?”

  Ariel had vanished with no door, hallway, or stairs nearby. Magic.

  “How did she do that?” Skinny’s eyes glistened.

  Cinnamon sighed. “Ariel’s a magic spirit.”

  “Only in the play, stupid.” Skinny was a realist. “You can’t do special effects in a lobby.”

  Cinnamon shrugged. “All the world’s a stage, right?”

  “Yeah.” Skinny scrunched her eyes at Cinnamon, surprised, impressed, wary?

  The production coordinator barged through grown-ups and kids. “I didn’t make this train wreck schedule!” She told the hunk clad in black. “You’re my ASM. Be ahead of fuckups. Fix shit before I notice.” Parents scowled at this language. “The foyer has to be clear for set-up.” She italicized a word in each sentence. “Donors already think they’re throwing good money after bad. I didn’t study begging at Carnegie Mellon.”

  “Sure.” The hunky assistant stage manager nodded and hunched broad shoulders. A college student, begging must have been one of his ace courses.

  Cinnamon would study begging, carpet-mold, and how to fix a furnace. Theatre CPR. She shivered. Glass doors opened every few moments for folks coming or going with props, costumes, champagne, and buckets of shrimp. February wind off the Monongahela River blasted right in. Chattering teeth covered fearful whimpers. A hundred-fifty kids, and only five real roles plus ten in the chorus —

  “Hopeless. Why does Hill do this open-call shit?” The production coordinator was halfway down the hall to the theatres. “I hate disappointing so many people. I hate it!”

  “This audition is for show, stats for government grants.” A peevish reply from a familiar voice — Medea? “Hill’s already got the whole thing cast. Take a miracle to change his mind.”

  Cinnamon didn’t believe in miracles.

  The orca knapsack fell from her hands and spit a drawing from The Chronicles at her feet. She’d stuffed it in her bag at breakfast, for safekeeping. The scrolled art work uncurled. Writing on the back of the drawing glowed, a fluorescent green, like Medea’s eyes. Several paragraphs of Notes were scrawled across the length of the page. These Notes had not been there before. No way could Cinnamon have overlooked such a glowing green message. The Wanderer must be writing to her right this second — a propitious sign!

  Skinny scooped up the parchment and thrust it at Cinnamon. “You’re losing your shit.”

  Cinnamon snatched her treasure. “Thanks.”

  As Skinny studied the boy ahead of them, Cinnamon carefully unrolled The Chronicles page and read.

  Acknowledgment for Temporal Gaps,

  February 1987

  Dear Guardians,

  Pardon the less than propitious interruption. I’m on a bridge over the rippling Monongahela, balanced among swaying steel cables. I don’t remember the climb up. This bridge is closed to traffic. No one would see me fall, except crows serenading an injured comrade. Above our heads, shooting stars drop from the sky. Crashing through the upper atmosphere, they burn to heat, light, and elemental compounds. Ash hisses in high clouds, a spray of dust to build a billion snowflakes. Irritable crows shit white globs, much warmer than falling snowflakes, and I dodge a spray of poop. The cold steel of the bridge is a shock to my feet and hands. Awareness also shocks me.

  I’m grateful for your patience and perseverance. In Chronicles 8, I disappeared in the middle of a sentence. (Was I writing in 1983 or 1984?) You must think me rude or uncivil or callous. Actually, weeks, months, years go by when I’m lost to myself. I become somebody else altogether, several someones even — as when the armored bush infected me with its poisoned minions — coma, amnesia…

  I do remember a few days ago. I was hunched on damp ground. A crow flew right over my hat into a shopping cart piled high with somebody’s life — my life. The crow broke a wing on an empty picture frame and shat on my head. Instead of wringing the creature’s scrawny neck (as a passerby suggested), I splinted the broken bones and wandered along the Monongahela River, pushing the cart, following the flock for days.

  The wind almost took me apart. I sat down near this broken bridge. Raven Cooper gone, but not gone, who can blame Opal for being too mad to greet me? In that bar, swallowing a madman’s bullets, the aje could have saved them both, saved us all…

  The crow pecked at my self-pity, so I got up and followed the flock through Keep Out signs and gaps in wooden barriers. I climbed high. Now I hug icy steel and dance with the wind, bridge, and gravity. A humble witness, here’s my challenge: distinguishing between what I merely believe to be impossible and what I know to be folly. A Guardian with an eye out for my story and an ear cocked to truth makes all the difference. Kehinde was always impatient with poor judgment and shallow faith. What do you believe, Wanderer? She would flick her fingers and speak Yoruba wise words:

  When a door is slammed in your face, slide under the crack at the sill.

  When the road ends at a treacherous ravine, fly.

  Fly? Really? What is lush metaphor to a thirsty neophyte but muddy, tainted water?

  I believe in doing impossible things. However, if a full-bodied being jumps out into thin air a hundred stories from the mighty Monongahela, gravity won’t care. To fly you must control a force to counter the mighty forces dragging you into disorder. Take a stupid leap of faith and splat, you’re a mess.

  Since taking Abla’s head, since the aje came back with
the Taiwo-self, doubts about my story mission have grown exponentially. A true Mission Impossible. According to the few legends I recall, when a mission is a bust, Wanderers scatter and scatter until, approaching infinity, they are nothing. Scattering is an elegant, indifferent failsafe. Entropy. Splat.

  The crows insist we move on before the blizzard swallows us. This bridge is creaking. Too many restless spirits roam the iron ropes.

  Eshu is a brash child and a wise old man

  We are all blessed with contradiction

  Eshu is a shapeshifter

  Pour libation to the master of masquerade

  Everything at once, yet not any one thing

  Dear Guardians, the emergency has passed. You are a lifesaver. Thank you for listening. I know you can fly. You have the energy of the spaces between things.

  Never doubt this.

  Urban Fantasy

  “No way!” Cinnamon gasped. The Wanderer was there when Daddy got shot — another one of Raven’s (and Sekou’s) friends that her mom pushed away. Cinnamon peered out the glass doors. Opal was outside fighting with Star Deer — a silent movie melodrama. Stomping in snow, black hair frosted, Star made the forties look like power years. Opal was a zombie extra, sucking the embers of a cigarette, shivering on the wrong side of death. What was her problem? Star was the drama coach at Cinnamon’s school; she belonged at the audition. Were Star and Daddy lovers? Or if Opal had something against Indians (like Uncle Clarence), why hook up with Daddy? OK, Star was Cherokee, not Seminole like Daddy, but…so what? If Cinnamon were rich, she’d take Star’s advanced contact improvisation class. Star taught people how to fly!

  The ASM called Cinnamon’s number. Her chance of a lifetime had arrived. She whispered a prayer to Eshu, master of masquerade, no SUICIDE for the Wanderer and also good luck for her audition. Maybe that was selfish. She shook off guilt and bounded up carpeted stairs to a broad landing that led to a photo gallery. Famous Monongahela players smiled, sneered, and winked at her. She hoped her picture would hang there one day. The landing functioned as audition space this afternoon. Musicians, tucked in the corner by the emergency doors, sawed violins, banged drums, and tapped a shrill upright piano. Were they auditioning too?

  The director glowered at Cinnamon, as if she were worse than wayward rhythm and bad notes. The hunky ASM beckoned her forward. She almost bolted out the side door into ice and snow, but the crowd of eager young thespians blocked her exit.

  “My mom had emergency surgery this morning or she would have been here.” A story storm mugged Cinnamon. “Lung cancer, from years of smoking Camels unfiltered. Her chest is like a coal mine. Aunt Becca dropped me off. She went to the hospital to check on Mom who insisted I audition anyhow, ’cause I got the talent and dreams to rescue a dying art. Aunt Becca told me to do my best and make my mom proud. If I get cast, well, good news is like medicine. When you’re hurting in a hospital room with death around every corner, good news can heal you.” The ground was untrue, tilting away from her. Good news should heal you.

  The ASM opened his mouth as if to object, then pushed her toward the stage.

  “What can you do?” the director asked the boy in front of her.

  Klaus Beckenbauer. He got cast in everything and was always terrible. Boys were precious commodities; so few to work with, talent didn’t matter as much as not acting out and disrupting rehearsal. Beckenbauer was supposed to be cute too. He was pale, even for a white person. His veins showed, blue-green and red, and he had no lips. His nose disappeared between alabaster cheeks. She didn’t get it. He was almost her height, but lean and athletic. His muscles probably made him cute, or maybe you had to be fifteen to get it. Perhaps understanding was on the other side of August 6, 1987.

  Beckenbauer finished massacring a monologue from Peter Pan and winced. His mom glared at him. She’d hoped for miracles. Cinnamon handed Director Hill a recommendation from Star Deer. In a funk over Beckenbauer, he barely looked at Cinnamon. She did a Judy Garland speech she’d memorized watching The Wizard of Oz and sang an oldie Opal played over and over, Ain’t No Sunshine When He’s Gone. She imagined Sekou in a box underground grinning. They were still tight, even with him dead two years and three months. Her voice got big. Public display was fine for a song and everybody tuned in.

  Skinny did a monologue from A Chorus Line about being short. Perfect. She belted a gospel hit that scorched nose hairs and eyelashes.

  The ASM shoved sides from the new musical at Cinnamon. “I hope you can read.”

  “Since I was four,” Cinnamon said. He didn’t believe her. “I read music too. That’s the truth —” Despite the monologue of lies she’d spouted before.

  “Director Hill’s got a lot of kids to listen to, so go.”

  “With them?” Cinnamon pointed. Beckenbauer was wooden and Skinny already hated her for no reason.

  “You are number 129.” The ASM talked slowly, volume on high, as if she was mentally challenged. “Isn’t that between 128 and 130?”

  “Great.” She acted excited. What you believed on stage or off turned into reality.

  “Ditch the backpack.” He gripped the orca’s dorsal fin and tried to wrestle it away from her.

  “It’s good luck.” Cinnamon was stronger than he was.

  “You think that ratty thing will help you?” Skinny smirked at Cinnamon.

  “You can’t audition with this!” The ASM was desperate. “I promise not to lose it.”

  Cinnamon beamed death rays at him. “You better not.” She let go.

  Skinny shook her head. “OK, you can sing. No big surprise, but a role?”

  “Sure.” One day she’d play Kehinde in a warrior woman movie and show them all.

  Skinny leaned close. “It’s Ain’t No Sunshine When SHE’s Gone.”

  “Sounds good either way,” Cinnamon said.

  “Don’t sweat the ASMs. They have zero power.” Skinny rolled her eyes. “How come I get the losers?”

  “Is there a problem?” Hill frowned, and they both smiled. “She’s the Changeling. He’s the Drug Prince, so you,” he pointed to Cinnamon, “do Snow White. Wait.” He waved at Beckenbauer. “Should we change the key?” He shook a curly mane of golden hair, figuring how to warp the show for Beckenbauer. Cinnamon pushed envy away. Envy was not your friend on stage. She could take envy to the bathroom and flush it. Musicians transposing to accommodate Beckenbauer gave her more time to prep the monologue.

  She glanced at the cover. Title Under Construction — was that a clever way to say there was no title yet? Mr. Greg Diamond, the playwright, had an MFA from Carnegie Mellon and was excited to offer Pittsburgh audiences an urban fantasy — old fairy tales redone for today. The hobgoblins and warlocks were drug dealers and gangsters. Fairy godmother librarians offered wisdom and support. Or something like that.

  Cinnamon scanned Snow White’s monologue. She could memorize anything on the spot — lines, dance steps, melodies. Sekou was always proud of his whiz brain sister. You’re a natural for show business. Fuck you! You can do anything. Snow White’s speech made no sense, and the song was stupid, but whatever. It was urban fantasy. The accompanist played the melody in the new key. Cinnamon sang it back to herself.

  “OK, Snow White, go,” Hill said. The crowd snickered. Fat, black Cinnamon doing the ethereal fairy-tale beauty was a joke, even in the druggy ghetto version. Beckenbauer winced. Skinny looked miserable. “Let’s go, Snow!” Hill snapped his fingers in Cinnamon’s face.

  “OK.” Her voice wobbled, and she stumbled through the first few bars.

  “These kids are a little high, not dead,” Hill barked.

  “Not dead.” Cinnamon swallowed an ache in her throat.

  “Hit the notes. Pick up the pace. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “Sure.” Beckenbauer spoke for all of them. He was bright red under the pale white.

  Cinnamon choked at the top of her monologue. Her jeans and blouse were new last October, but too tight already. Opal didn’t have a budget
for fat girls stuffing their faces and blowing up another size every time you turned around. So size 16 Cinnamon squeezed herself into an unforgiving size 14.

  “Fuck that noise,” she yelled Snow White’s line at folks sniggering at her.

  Opal came inside, cussing too — at Star Deer, who stomped off. Star didn’t need to see Cinnamon botch an audition. A security guard waved at Opal’s lit cigarette.

  “Standing in the storm will kill me sooner than a damn cigarette,” Opal said.

  “Watch the language,” the rent-a-cop woman said. “Please put the cigarette out.”

  Beckenbauer crashed into Skinny and knocked her on her ass. She chirped the last notes of her solo like a bird getting mauled by a cat. Their final trio was terrible. Cinnamon sagged. Her big chance was shot. Opal was right — a lobster in boiling water.

  “Do it again.” Hill helped Skinny up and mumbled advice or encouragement at Beckenbauer just loud enough for Cinnamon to catch the tone and not the words.

  She never got second chances. What to do?

  “Do it better.” Ariel leaned a silver ten-speed bike against a pillar. Out of costume, the actor sported an African bohemian look: bold colorful designs, long duster robes, and fat pants that hugged the ankles. “Show us what you really got.”

  “Me?” Cinnamon gulped.

  “Who else?” Ariel’s eyes were familiar. Not the color or shape, but how they didn’t line up or settle on anything. Ariel’s smile reminded her of somebody too, crooked and sweet, a bit of the devil, as Aunt Becca would say. Opal was always ragging on Cinnamon for never remembering how people looked, for not looking in the first place. Had Opal sprayed Ariel with a hose once?

  “The lizard that jumps from the high iroko tree says she will praise herself if no one else does.” Ariel sang more than spoke, a resonant, full-chested, theatre voice. “That’s a Yoruba proverb — from Nigeria.” African wisdom to match the chic African outfit.

  “Do you understand?” Hill shouted.

  “Not really,” Beckenbauer admitted.