Will Do Magic for Small Change

by Andrea Hairston

“What else do you cogitate and not tell us?” Klaus wagged a finger at her.

  “Cogitate? Really?” Cinnamon said.

  “Cogitate. This is good English,” Klaus replied. “Isn’t it?”

  “Come on, five minutes staring a hole in the wall.” Marie looked mad.

  “Only a minute or two,” Cinnamon said.

  “Brooding is not cute.” Marie wagged a finger too.

  “You were trancing too. Drooling ain’t talking.”

  “Everybody trances reading The Chronicles out loud.”

  “I say everything twice, with a German accent.” Klaus reached over Marie’s pout and tickled Cinnamon.

  “Oh, hell no, boy.” Cinnamon tackled Klaus.

  They pounced on each other on top of Marie, tickling their bad moods away. The three fell into a heap, giggling and bouncing so hard the bed creaked in protest. They halted abruptly. Awkward silence settled over them. Marie tugged one of Cinnamon’s sleek new braids out of the topknot Redwood had done for her. Gold and blue beads at the end were from Iris’s last trip to Ghana. Aidan made the leather ribbons holding the ponytail together. Marie undid that and all the braids tumbled down Cinnamon’s face.

  “Come on.” Marie sat up. She was a bulldog with a bone. It was endearing. “You think we can’t handle the hard stuff?”

  Klaus set The Chronicles in Cinnamon’s lap. He stroked the Eiffel Tower’s sharp point. “This drawing set off a time bomb. Can you please explain that? Have mercy.”

  “Mercy, yes, please.” Klaus and Marie nailed Mrs. B’s heart-on-her-sleeves accent in two-part harmony. “Freaky mercy!”

  Cinnamon howled, “Give me freaky any damn day!”

  They bumped heads together and got tangled up in one another. Cinnamon still liked the taste of their breath, the warm and savory skin smells too: a woodsy herbal scent mixed with lavender and sage. Contact improv on the bed was a trick. Balancing and sharing weight, Cinnamon wanted to kiss somebody and get the taste of both of them on her lips. She wanted to get up and run out the house.

  Disastronauts and Glamazons

  What if Klaus and Marie only liked her for the weird shit around her? They were gorgeous and sexy. She was a blimp, even in Afro-chic mud-cloth robes. Who’d blame them for grossing out? Cinnamon wouldn’t fall for somebody who looked like her. What about Evelyn Powell, only an inch shorter than her and thirty pounds heavier? Cinnamon didn’t get hot looking at Evelyn waddle down the hall, or Chris Hunt. He had flabby man tits and a girl’s ass. Cinnamon didn’t hate Evelyn or Chris. She never said mean things to their faces or behind their backs, but she didn’t lust after them. Actually, she didn’t lust after anybody either, except… Klaus and Marie dangled over the edge of Sekou’s bed, clutching Cinnamon’s thighs, balanced on a shared breath.

  “Normal is so overrated,” Marie said, sober in a heartbeat. “I hate the real world.” Two weeks ago this child was a stone cold realist. “The real world hates me.”

  Marie fought tears, fought public display. Dreaded hormones probably had her in their grips too. Cinnamon lost her breath and her balance. Luckily Klaus used the rogue momentum to take them through twisty rolls and a flip. Cinnamon and Marie landed on their hands and knees. Klaus was balanced on his side across both their backs.

  “We’re making the real world, right now.” Klaus quoted Opal.

  Taut as a steel cable, he pivoted his full weight on the fulcrum of Marie’s pelvic girdle. Her arms trembled slightly, but she held him. Contact was dancing physics, not brute strength. Klaus tumbled and shifted so that he was balanced on Cinnamon’s back, knees tucked to his chest. Marie pressed her belly against his slender feet. Grunting German, Klaus pushed his legs upward. Gravity is my friend, Cinnamon thought as their combined weight flowed through her arms and palms into the floor and to the center of the Earth. Marie spun like a top on Klaus’s feet.

  “Our Mod Squad crew is a force to be reckoned with,” he shouted. “True, yes?”

  “True, yes.” Marie flipped onto the bed, floating through the air as if she controlled the wind. Aidan was right. How could you help loving someone who could fly? Marie held out a hand to Cinnamon and one to Klaus. “We should take our show on the road.” They pulled Marie through a somersault onto the floor with them. “I think we need to hear your story storm before more Chronicles pages come clear.”

  “That sounds right to me,” Klaus said.

  “Ganging up on me, huh?” Cinnamon sighed. “OK, but only if you two help.”

  “Help you what?”

  “Not call up the twisted, dark fantasy, dystopia stuff.”

  “You don’t do that.” Klaus leaned into her. “Do you?”

  Cinnamon shoved him, “Why ask your ass for help, if the shit ain’t fucking freaky dangerous?”

  “Sorry.” He snorted at her.

  “Whoa. How fucking freaky dangerous is it?” Marie cocked her head, thrilled. “I’m not a wuss. Klaus neither. We got your back.”

  “OK, so he’s Prince Charming and you’re a fearless Glamazon.” Cinnamon hid behind her braids.

  “And you’re not?” Marie smoothed each braid carefully into a thick tail.

  “I feel like a, like a,” Cinnamon groped around for the leather tie, “like a stupid Disastronaut, you know what I’m saying?”

  “No. You’re not telling us everything.” Marie squinted. “What’re you looking for?”

  Klaus pulled the leather tie from under his butt. “Glamazon? Disastronaut? Is this English?”

  “English is whatever people who speak English understand.” Cinnamon wanted to smack somebody. Was this her real self or more Snow White flashbacks?

  “Marie’s ten times more of a Glamazon than that waif Director Hill cast for the Changeling.” Klaus tied the leather around Cinnamon’s braids. “And you should be playing Snow White.”

  “Who you telling?” Cinnamon resented tears and snot dribbling out. Not getting cast two weeks ago shouldn’t still hurt.

  “I’m really terrible without you guys.” Klaus tugged one braid free on the side. “Janice is always acting too cute, not fierce.”

  “Are you saying I’m a natural for the angry bitch?” Cinnamon aimed for mad and missed. She laughed through stray tears.

  “No.” Klaus sputtered. “Fucking freaky dangerous is a line in Diamond’s play.” He scratched his scalp. “You two can say it like you mean it.”

  “Who cares?” Cinnamon said. “Everybody wants cute. Janice is, is…” green-eyed, good-hair, flat-belly, stand-up booty cute.

  “Janice is a legend in her own mind,” Marie said.

  “She can’t make Diamond’s words her own.” Klaus jabbed Marie’s shoulder and Cinnamon’s too. “There’s no force in her field.”

  Marie balled a fist. “With Janice, you got to wonder, what marched up her ass and croaked. The three of us, we’re, wow, we’re dangerous energy in a freaky force field!” She kissed the tear on Cinnamon’s nose and kissed Klaus’s cheek too. They got very still. Marie grabbed The Chronicles. “Disastronauts, we gotta know the rules against us and for us. Disastronauts are the ones who navigate through the apocalypse.”

  “Right.” Klaus nodded, touching his cheek at the kiss spot.

  Marie set The Chronicles in Cinnamon’s lap, as if it were the holy scripture of their secret society. “Check out the picture and say whatever.”

  “Like a theatre improv,” Klaus whispered. “Look out, real world! Here come the Disastronauts and Glamazons.”

  He rubbed Cinnamon’s shoulders trying to work out the boulders. He leaned strong, warm hands into each stroke, breathing moist air against Cinnamon’s neck. Bony knees pressed up against her butt. Marie held Cinnamon’s hand, squeezing it and stroking the palm. She tugged at the loose braid and rubbed Cinnamon’s forehead with cool fingers. Cinnamon closed her eyes on the good feelings.

  Maybe they did like Cinnamon the way she liked them. If she did a story storm, they’d all be dialed in so deep together, Klaus and Marie would
have to help her with gay bar mysteries and the important shit.

  “Pages coming clear!” Klaus shouted.

  “OK, read first, then story storm,” Marie said.

  CHRONICLES 18c: Paris Fables —

  Spirit Houses

  The Igbo say: O bu mmuo ndi na-efe na-egbu ha.

  It is the deity that people worship that kills them.

  I was deathly ill. Luigi threatened to abandon me. I was terrified. France seemed a cold wasteland where people built mountains to live in, covered the ground so it couldn’t breathe, and left nothing green to hold hopes, fears, love, or regret. Few free animals kept company with the people. Comatose cows and crazy horses hobbled about. Promiscuous insects and rats were the bane of city dwellers’ existence. Trees were not honored or even considered living beings. No wise old irokos stood in the light of distant stars, drinking ancient waters. Few living witnesses of life beyond the current life stood guard over French people’s spirits.

  Civilized people wore heavy clothes, ate too much rich food, and drank too much rum. Mouths rotted, hearts labored against constricted vessels, and bodies festered in old sweat and excrement. Chronic illnesses would claim many. The Paris air was thick with poison gas — so little oxygen for blood and brain. At night, workers in high boots and rubber aprons shoveled fermented shit from cesspits into horse-drawn wagons. The cesspools were vast colonies of creatures preying on human frailty. Marching past this foul-smelling work, I wondered, where were the mighty people who had defeated King Béhanzin?

  I still carry yellowed newsprint where Dickens, the supreme English griot, accused us: if we have anything to learn from the Noble Savage, it is what to avoid. His virtues are a fable; his happiness is a delusion; his nobility, nonsense.

  The French were strange to me, who knew too little. Without realizing it, I had come to view my scant experience as the measure of all things and my limited impressions as a full catalogue of life on Earth. After my short story, I presumed, as Dickens had, to be an expert on humanity and all the tales that could or should be told. This is a recipe for despair. The deity that people worship… Which one was killing me?

  “Luigi will wait for you.” Kehinde said. She snuck me out on day tours with the troupe. I’ve forgotten the places we visited. French names had no purchase on my body. The people greeted us warmly, smiled, and made sing-songy exclamations. Crowds gaped, excited by our skin, muscle, hair, and milk-heavy breasts, as if having been born French, they were made of different stuff, as if they had never laid eyes on people before. Most who greeted us were pale, with stringy hair and bad teeth. Heavy clothes made it hard to tell what sort ventured close to watch us. In an open place with nodding, hobbled trees and whispering rank water, Somso sat on a stool with Melinga in her arms. Somso’s health improved on still ground. Even in foul air, she was radiant. Show-warriors danced around her. Kehinde executed battle moves, taking the heads of phantom attackers. The French looked frightened. They were quick-witted and learned to respect her warrior ahosi nature. She spoke to bold fellows in their spicy snarl of a language, but none were clever enough to speak Yoruba, Fon, or Igbo. One man knew Arabic but refused to say a word. Dizzy and drained, I was unable to learn French idioms or gather stories.

  Kehinde claimed the French had little to say for their world of wonders. They refused to explain — how the streets were made — what wives were worth — how cathedrals climbed to the sky — if twins were sacred or despised — what wars still raged — how trains charged down iron tracks as fast as ships raced through slippery water. None could tell her about Chicago, America; they couldn’t say if the New World was what she had read in books, if the adventurers had lied or not, if it was the land of the free and the home of the brave. Audiences were too busy marveling at their precious language dropping from her lips to take her questions seriously.

  “The French wish to see the defeated ones dance.” Kehinde spit these words. “They clap for their victory, their power. It was the same in Ouidah. I danced for the Fon, and they stole my strength and ate my spirit.”

  It might be the same in the New World. I never said this out loud.

  Audiences rejoiced at whatever mundane similarity they recognized between our masquerade and their lives. Most only spoke one or two languages. The world passed through Ouidah: Yoruba, French, Ewe, Mende, Portuguese, Ibibio, Chinese, Igbo, Arab, Bambara, Brazilian, Akan, Tuareg, Cuban, Hausa, Indian, Fula, English, and Fon. In the French countryside, we broke the monotony.

  “They appreciate great spirits,” I said. “Why else build mountains for their orisha?”

  “They are in a contest with God,” Kehinde replied.

  We made sacrifices at spirit house doors to Eshu. Crossroad signs of the master of uncertainty were everywhere. Unfortunately Eshu was considered a devil and had to be worshipped in secret. An aje was an evil witch. Many celebrated Ogun of iron and war, creator of civilization, master of justice and oaths. But nothing compared to the wrought iron altar squatting in the center of the city that could be seen from everywhere. We sacrificed often at the Eiffel Tower on the war god’s green field, the Champ de Mars. The voluptuous exponential curve of the iron lady, its wind tolerance and nonlinear mathematical elegance thrilled me. A box climbed up and down, day and night, carrying passengers who had come to celebrate the warrior way. Kehinde sang praises to Ogun from a thousand feet above the ground.

  Roaming Paris, we came across a mountain built to the god of Abraham and Moses, La Grande Synagogue de la Victoire. Somso pulled us away, insisting that it would be unwise to disturb this particular house of god. Walking on, we found no shrines to honor orisha such as Shango, Osanyin, Obatala, Oshoosi, Oya, or any of the Fon Vodun.

  “No one praises Allah here,” Kehinde said. “Strange.”

  “Have we traveled every street?” Somso smirked at Kehinde. “Spied every altar?”

  Shrines to the Jesus cult were everywhere. Many fountains were anointed to Mère d’eau. The water woman, mother of us all, virgin girl-child greeted each day with mercy and grace, yet, “Why honor so few orisha and neglect the others?” I asked.

  Kehinde agreed. “How can Mère d’eau, Ogun, and the Jesus orisha be sufficient for so many people?”

  “Christians cleanse the world of paganism.” Bob thrust Dickens at me: I call him a savage, and I call a savage a something highly desirable to be civilised off the face of the earth.

  I crumpled the paper. “Throw this torment away and read The Tale of Two Cities.”

  Bob struggled for words. I’d never seen that. “Civilization is a tight weave of ideas. Pull out the savage thread and it all unravels.” Kehinde nodded with him. I didn’t understand until —

  Late one night, I rose from my sickbed and snuck out a window. I went sleepwalking in search of elder trees with the web of time braided in gnarled trunks and the future rustling through the leaves. Restless French builders had long ago razed their ancient groves. A tree might as well have been a tall rock. Frenchmen had learned how to abuse even the rocks! Kehinde tracked me to the Champ de Mars where I’d curled up in the bulging roots of a young tree. I was drenched in freezing dew. My ears throbbed from the trees shrieking nonsense at me. She carried me down lonely avenues. The forts in Ouidah were insignificant anthills compared to the mountain cathedrals and palaces lining boulevards that ran to infinity.

  Parisians ignored our desperate escapade. We could have been ghosts, chimera in smoky gas lights. Kehinde paused to gather strength inside the cool gloom of Notre Dame de Paris. Light through glass tapestries enchanted her. The jeweled windows celebrated the Jesus orisha, Mère d’eau, and wise Babalawo and Iyalawo. We bowed our heads like everyone else. Buttresses flew above us, making me laugh in awe. I lit many candles for lives wasted. Drunk with wonder, I talked in tongues, then curled into Kehinde’s warm, fragrant skin.

  “Why won’t you trust me with what troubles you?” she asked as we left the cathedral. I was still afraid to mention Abla’s torment, Paris confusion,
or scattering. Kehinde squeezed my arm. “Because I don’t know how to love, like Bob?”

  “You loved your brother.”

  “I killed him, didn’t I?”

  “No good solution.” What else could I say? “Let’s go high.” We returned to the Champ de Mars and climbed the Eiffel Tower. Staring into the clouds, I admitted, “I don’t know how to love either.”

  “Si,” Kehinde disagreed, sounding like Océane. “You risked death for me. You know who I am, what I’ve done. And still, you look at me with love.”

  I clutched her. “Never abandon me to Paris.”

  The Iron Lady

  “Kehinde would never leave the Wanderer in Paris!” Marie declared.

  Cinnamon squeezed her mojo and squinted at the drawing. A dreamy Eiffel Tower was getting struck by three bolts of lightning on a stormy night — how her daddy might have drawn it, real and not real. Cinnamon had never looked at the tower before. It was a tourist trap on the other side of the world. Nicknamed la dame de fer, the iron lady, it was constructed as a monument to the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution for a world’s fair in 1889. Mountain tall, just over a thousand feet, it was the architectural wonder of its day. Gustave Eiffel and his engineers had designed robust curves of wrought iron, flexible and strong enough to survive the blast of high winds for centuries. Eiffel had also engineered Lady Liberty. Engraved under the Tower’s first platform were seventy-two names of distinguished French engineers, mathematicians, and scientists. To have your name tattooed on the iron lady’s hips was a great honor. No women were on this eminent list, not even Sophie Germain, a mathematician whose work on elasticity theory had been critical to the tower’s very existence. Random factoids like this floated around Cinnamon’s mind, but she’d never examined the iron lady’s physical details or considered how the tower would fare in an electrical storm, how it would feel with a mega-current racing down its limbs.

  “Story storm?” Marie said. Magenta letters on the back of her quicksilver shirt read, Randomness is Different from Creative Unpredictability.