Will Do Magic for Small Change

by Andrea Hairston

  Glass Slippers and Golden Angels

  A shelter for your heart

  Sirens drowned out Aidan’s song. Flashing red lights blinded Cinnamon. She shivered in the sleet on the Playhouse loading dock. Where were Klaus and Marie? Ominous heart monitors beeped off key in a forest of plastic tubes. Bloody gauze rolled into a wheezing pump about to give up the ghost. This emergency vehicle needed rescue funding. Two rickety stretchers crumpled before they were set up. Rusty wheels on the third skated across a treacherous walkway. Cinnamon skidded on glassy ice too. Black boots and folded arms blocked her. Lights on the ambulance spun like a merry-go-round as it raced away. The emergency room in Oakland wasn’t far. The ambulance screamed and farted exhaust as it veered left. Wasn’t the Tenth Street Bridge the other direction? Cinnamon must be turned around. The driver wouldn’t go the wrong way, even if Opal came to and started working everybody’s last nerve.

  Time was wrong. Cinnamon stood in front of the Playhouse, holding Opal’s broken shoes. The sky dropped needles on her woozy head. Fog tipis shrouded the street lights. The roads were black ice. A stiff wind howled up the river, complaining about the sleet in its way. Nobody should be driving. She blinked away slushy tears and shivered. Her shit-brown coat was in the ambulance, twisted under the one functional stretcher.

  “You can’t see the ambulance anymore. Mmmoooovvve.” How long had the security guard been poking a bruise in Cinnamon’s arm?

  Cinnamon almost fell off the curb. “Damn, lady.”

  “Watch your mouth.” The guard shoved her toward the theatre entrance.

  “I gotta get to the hospital.”

  “It’s this way.”

  Cinnamon let the guard pull her into the lobby. She halted at the box office and dropped Opal’s broken shoes on the counter. “You’ve done your job. Thanks. Bye.”

  “Excuse me?” Melting ice crystals on the guard’s cheeks made her irritation sparkle.

  “Ain’t no reward for your suffering.” Cinnamon did Snow White. “I got wheels. My aunt’s cruising in with my grandparents and great aunt.”

  “Fine.” The guard marched off.

  Cinnamon scanned the crowd, slowly, so she wouldn’t get dizzier. Klaus and Mrs. Beckenbauer fought in German. Marie Masuda smacked the pay phone, dumped coins in, and punched numbers. They didn’t notice Cinnamon. Citing winter storm warnings, Prospero and Medea exited as donors mobbed Jason, the Argonaut from NYC. He offered a vacant smile and zombie eyes. Having zilch personality was an acting asset. Your own character didn’t interfere with the roles you played. Cinnamon envied Jason. Folks made up their minds about her before she opened her mouth; she’d have to accelerate faster than the speed of light to become somebody else in their eyes — impossible in this sector of space-time. How would she ever find a ride to Oakland?

  “Grants are miniscule; corporate giving is down. How is that Hill’s fault?” The donor in glass slippers and liquid silver gown spoke to a clutch of Angels. “He’s a real genius. We’re lucky to have him.” She sighed, a woman in love. “You want vibrant art? Cut him some slack.” She waved off hors d’oeuvres Cinnamon would’ve killed for. “Cutting-edge artists deserve our patience, our…” She smiled at Cinnamon. “Our forgiveness when the going gets rough.” Cinnamon wondered what kind of car this rich white lady drove — maybe not four-wheel drive, but serious brakes and tires for sure.

  “Bull, Gwyneth.” A glowering Platinum Angel slung his arm around her waist. “Hill and his artsy-fartsy crew are ruining the Playhouse.” He boomed over Gwyneth’s protests. “New York tossed Hill out on his ass. Hollywood picked the bones before dumping him in backwater Pittsburgh. The guy’s a loser.”

  Gwyneth rolled her eyes — right at Cinnamon.

  Platinum burped champagne bubbles. “Why doesn’t Herr Genius Director put on Guys and Dolls or Oklahoma or The Odd Couple? Something audiences want to see.”

  “Warmed over warhorses can sink a theatre too.” Gwyneth slipped from his grasp, disgusted.

  “Sleuth?” Despite his captain of industry confidence and Armani elegance, Platinum was clueless. Didn’t need a detective to peep the triangle affair brewing. Damn! Cinnamon was adlibbing like Snow White, even in her mind. She’d have been perfect for the role! Gwyneth smiled at her again. Certainly the number one ride possibility.

  Cinnamon walked up to Platinum. “Cutting-edge theatre isn’t a moribund art form.” She used dictionary words for Gwyneth. “It’s effervescent.”

  Platinum grabbed more champagne. “Bullshit artists are always sticking their hands in my pockets.”

  “Harry! Be nice, now,” Gwyneth said.

  Harry threw back his drink. “What’s nice get you?”

  Gwyneth leaned close to him and whispered, “She and her Asian friend didn’t get cast in Diamond’s show. They were good too. Her mom checked out of the hospital to support her. Poor woman was so distraught, she collapsed.”

  “How do you always know these sordid stories?” Harry snorted. “It’s a buzz kill.”

  Cinnamon dashed away from his mean mouth and her Opal-check-out-of-the-hospital lie. If she could go back and tell a happy true tale — the hero-on-the-bus saga, not a half-dead-in-the-hospital story, then… What? The elders conjured good magic. Cinnamon called up the twisted, dark fantasy, dystopia stuff.

  Don’t blame yourself. Sekou’s words tickled. Opal’s lungs took up arms and revolted.

  “That’s cold comfort, Bro.” Cinnamon spoke full voice, not caring who heard. “I been begging her to quit. She lights up and says, It’s all I got left. And I’m right there.”

  Opal is standing at the crossroads, and it looks like a dead-end.

  “I can’t get her a fun job or turn myself into you. No fuckin’ way can I wake Daddy out of that stupid coma. I can’t even get a ride to the nursing home.”

  Trust me, Sis. You don’t want to go see your dad rotting in that bed.

  “Yes, I do!”

  Nobody in the lobby noticed Cinnamon yelling except Gwyneth. Shaking a few blond tendrils from her French twist, Gwyneth marched over to Mrs. Juanita Williams, the Golden Angel black lady who thought Cinnamon was too ghetto. Gwyneth nodded in Cinnamon’s direction as they conferred. Cinnamon cringed.

  A cork exploded from a bottle. Dodging the lethal projectile, Cinnamon charged into the paradise set and tripped over a light tree. Swaying Fresnels and Lekos banged into a goddess and dislodged flower garlands. Cinnamon gripped the tree and steadied the instruments. Pink lily petals and a dusting of pollen collected on her braids. She hugged the metal pole and cried quiet tears. Not public display, but still stupid. Feeling sorry for herself wouldn’t turn a lie around, wouldn’t get her to the hospital. Feeling sorry wasted precious time. All they had, really, was time.

  “Yeah, baby!” A throaty, familiar voice moaned.

  Under cover of foam bushes, Chanda, the gutsy college girl, kissed the ASM. His hand groped under her shirt. She was writhing on his bulging crotch. Backlit by a shin buster Fresnel, her hair was a wheel of black fire. She looked like Kali, Hindu goddess, destroyer of illusion. Cinnamon gasped, covering her mouth too late.

  “What’re you gawking at?” Chanda yelled. “Wait. Why are you still here?”

  “Shit!” The ASM pulled bushes in front of them. His eyes flew every direction, hunting more spies. “I told you somebody would see us.”

  “Don’t be such a pussy.” Chanda snorted. “A little danger spices shit up.”

  Cinnamon raced for the exit door. Mrs. Williams grabbed her before she could escape. She was two inches taller than Cinnamon and strong for a strait-laced, middle-class black lady. “What do you think you’re doing?” she said.

  “I’m walking to the hospital,” Cinnamon replied.

  “Have you lost your natural mind?”

  “My pass doesn’t work on this line.” Cinnamon wasn’t sure which bus to take. “I know the way.” Or could figure it out. “I like to walk.”

  “Walk? Don’t talk nonsense.�
��

  “Walking too ghetto for you?” Cinnamon flung Mrs. Williams’s arm off of her. “Fuck sense.”

  Mrs. Williams bunched her lips together. Fuck probably drove her over the edge. Techies and donors hung their heads, too much public display.

  “Walking is —” Cinnamon tripped over her tongue. “Safer than wheels tonight.”

  “You can’t walk.” Klaus escaped his mother and strode too close.

  Cinnamon shoved him. He didn’t budge. “I’ve walked all around here.” The Monongahela flowed in her. “I have!”

  Marie ganged up on her with Klaus. “I’m not walking, and I’m going with you too.”

  “Not my walking shoes.” Klaus kicked his foot high, a ballet move. “Vati is, he wasn’t home. We can take the bus together.” He waved a five-dollar bill. “I have fare.”

  “No. Buses have stopped running. Snow emergency. We’ll all go in my car,” Mrs. Williams declared, more five-star general than Golden Angel. “You two,” she dropped a hand on Marie and Klaus’s shoulders, “keep an eye on her. She’s not herself.”

  “No problem,” Marie said.

  “We got her,” Klaus said.

  Mrs. Williams glared at Cinnamon. “Wait here with your friends. I’m getting my coat.” She stomped off.

  “Mist,” Mrs. Beckenbauer said, like a curse.

  “Yeah, Mist,” Cinnamon said. “We’ve got to hurry.”

  Mrs. Beckenbauer frowned. “Kannst du Deutsch?”

  “Sie kann ein bißchen. Hörst du das nicht?” Klaus said then whispered, “I said you spoke a little German.” He held up her knapsack and a clump of Chronicles pages. “You dropped this.”

  “These too.” Marie waved the moving picture of Dahomey and a Polaroid of hero Opal that had fallen from her journal.

  Cinnamon’s legs wobbled. “Losing everything —” She blubbered.

  “I told you we shouldn’t leave her alone out there,” Marie said.

  “Muti was worried about getting home,” Klaus said. “The guard said she’d watch her.”

  “You believed that?” Marie snorted.

  “My mom is — I have to run interference.” Cinnamon pointed at the Polaroid.

  Klaus leaned closer to the image. “Is that guy holding a machete?”

  “Knife boy!” Cinnamon said. “That’s proof!”

  “Of what?” Klaus asked.

  “My mom almost got fired over Bonnie and Clyde.”

  Klaus and Marie shook their heads.

  “OK, OK.” Cinnamon flooded, “Opal supposedly yelled death threats at this glam gangsta couple, trying to cheat a ride downtown with last year’s transfers. But the bus company couldn’t fire her since right after Bonnie and Clyde, this white guy with orange hair and slabs of muscles jumped on her bus waving ten inches of knife like he wanted to kill somebody. And Opal just talked him down, telling him, you know, not to give up hope, ’cause opportunity was around every corner. She said, Don’t waste your life. I believe in you. Knife boy turned into a fire hydrant gushing tears and snot. Opal hugged him, opened the door, and said, Have a nice day! He dropped the knife and jumped off. Everybody all right? she said and drove on.”

  “Really?” Klaus and Marie said.

  “The bus company thought she was lying too, but she had Polaroid proof. And…and… Nobody at the hospital is going to believe Opal Jones is a hero. It’ll be…Angry Black Woman Collapses Before She Can Strangle Hunky White Director!”

  “Oh.” Klaus hugged the orca.

  “Wow.” Marie tucked the Polaroid and Chronicles illustration into Cinnamon’s journal. Lightning flashed over black waves in the Atlantic. “It’s a…video.”

  Cinnamon reached drunkenly for her treasures. “Those pages come from a special book, magic, a book to see a person through tough times.” She fell into Klaus who wasn’t surprised by how heavy or out of it she was. He just caught her.

  “Magic?” Marie rolled her eyes. Klaus shook his head. “OK. Fine.” Maria slid the journal into the orca’s mouth — no resistance. “Magic.”

  “I’ll hold on to this for you.” Klaus slung the orca over his shoulder. He dropped a luxurious black coat on Cinnamon’s shivering frame. The inside was furry and smelled of his boy perfume — a fresh-baked bread and herb tea smell.

  “You’re freezing.” Marie rubbed Cinnamon’s icy fingers. Marie’s lavender and sage mixed with Klaus’s aroma and made Cinnamon’s stomach gurgle.

  “My crew.” Cinnamon spoke this aloud to see how it sounded.

  Amen! A perspicacious and intrepid crew, Sekou declared, in dictionary boy mode.

  Klaus and Marie gasped. Eyes wide, noses quivering, they heard Sekou too.

  Gwyneth swept into the lobby and jammed a furry cap onto her French twist. Behind her Harry tripped over the cloakroom doorsill and fell into Mrs. Williams.

  She steadied him. “Too much bubbly, Harry.”

  “Why does everybody put up with drunks?” Harry muttered at Gwyneth.

  Gwyneth thrust Harry out the streaky glass doors then hugged Mrs. Williams to her heart. They wore the same down coats, fleece-lined boots, and strained expressions — probably old friends who’d been synching up forever

  “You better drive,” Mrs. Williams said.

  Gwyneth nodded. “Thanks for taking these kids out of your way.”

  “Thank you both.” Marie smiled. “I couldn’t persuade or bribe or even find a cab. My dad doesn’t want to drive in the storm. He wanted me to wait it out.”

  “Yours too, huh?” Klaus said.

  Some dads. If Raven weren’t in that stupid coma, he’d come get Cinnamon in a hot second, weather be damned. Gwyneth heaved the glass door open. Whatever Harry was yelling got snatched by the wind. She glided out into the blizzard.

  Mrs. Williams waited until Gwyneth dropped into Harry’s car and then shouted, “Let’s march.” With the bearing of a commanding officer going to battle, she hustled them out into the brutal wind blasting the parking lot.

  Perspicacious and Intrepid

  Slogging through snow drifts made everyone breathe hard. On point, Mrs. Williams forged a path. Marie and Klaus sandwiched Cinnamon between them. Mrs. Beckenbauer brought up the rear. Commander Williams halted the troops under a busted street light by a flashy, silver Audi. The key wouldn’t turn in the lock.

  “It’s iced shut. Do I need this?”

  Cinnamon laughed. No one else thought it was funny. Mrs. Beckenbauer dug in her purse and pulled out a tiny spray can. As she spritzed the lock and handle, a flock of crows swooped across the parking lot. Bits of black plummeting through endless white made Cinnamon’s heart flutter. “The night sky has shattered above the clouds and it’s coming down on us now,” she said.

  “A poet, huh? You don’t believe that stuff about crows and death, do you?” Marie said. “These particular birds are random.”

  “Coincidental affinity.” Cinnamon thought of the Wanderer’s birds. “A flock flying in a storm means something.”

  Hovering at the gate of life and death, Eshu asks which direction you go take? Sekou said.

  Cinnamon groaned. Opal, not Aidan, had one foot in the grave. “God wouldn’t fire a hero. It wouldn’t make sense,” Cinnamon said. “God is a great spirit, not a petty one.”

  Klaus and Marie exchanged glances. Mrs. Beckenbauer shook her can violently.

  “Mist. These are getting wet!” Klaus fumbled with the Chronicles pages. Words glowed green and blue as he stuck them in the orca’s mouth.

  “Fluorescent words. Cool,” Marie said. “What’s up with the magic book?”

  Cinnamon hunched her shoulders.

  “Tell us,” Klaus said.

  Cinnamon had been dying to tell somebody for over two years. Redwood’s spell #6: find a friend or two, and share secrets and magic out loud. Friends had just been impossible to find. “Sekou gave The Chronicles to me before he…died. Sekou’s my half-brother, my best friend still. You heard him. He called you a perspicacious and intrepid crew.
”

  The stream of fog white from Marie and Klaus’s lips stopped. Cinnamon panicked. What if they didn’t hear what she heard or heard bits and pieces of ancestor static on the wind — enough to raise the hair on your neck, but gibberish really? Or what if Cinnamon was crazy, talking both sides of the conversation, and they heard that?

  “Verdammt!” Mrs. Beckenbauer said, a German damn it for sure.

  “I got this.” Mrs. Williams took the jammed spray can and attacked it with a tool from her purse.

  Klaus pulled Cinnamon and Marie out of range of grown-ups ears. “We heard your dead half-brother?” He didn’t mind asking stupid questions.

  “Isn’t that what I said, fool?” Cinnamon replied.

  He frowned. “In our heads?”

  “We hear everything in our heads.” Marie swallowed the snow on her tongue.

  “Right.” Klaus rubbed slush out of his eyes. “We’re saying that dead brother Sekou talks out loud, but most people don’t hear him?”

  “I’m saying it doesn’t matter,” Marie said. “The three of us heard Sekou, and we can’t all be going crazy the same way. We’re too different. Right?”

  “I guess.” Klaus’s cheeks were cherry red. He had a shitload more questions. “Right.”

  “You all believe me.” Cinnamon giggled. She could have cried too. “You’re not mad about being haunted. Perspicacious and intrepid for sure.”

  “We shouldn’t talk about this with anyone else.” Marie glanced at the grown-ups. “If people don’t hear Sekou, they’ll think we’re crazy. Our secret, agreed?” She stretched out her hands, palms up.

  “Logisch.” Klaus took one hand.

  Nothing like logic. Cinnamon grabbed Marie’s other hand and Klaus’s too. They were a Mod Squad secret society with an oath and everything holding them together. They leaned into one another, bumped heads, and gasped a few nervous laughs. Cinnamon could taste their breath, warmer than the snowy air. They entwined their arms and tangled up their legs, becoming a single snow creature who toyed with balance and gravity on icy ground — contact improv. Cinnamon could barely believe how good it felt. Spontaneous choreography on stage wasn’t a fluke. Laughing, the Mod Squad secret society tumbled to a halt and shook off clouds of snow. No getting around it, Cinnamon had to work happy alongside despair about Opal.