Will Do Magic for Small Change

by Andrea Hairston

  “What’s wrong with you, child?” Iris read the death wish in her heart.

  “I gotta lie down.” Cinnamon squeezed past the elders and dashed up to her room.

  More Good News

  Cinnamon almost got her door shut, but Redwood held it open with her storm hand. She walked in without an invitation. Cinnamon dropped The Chronicles on the Oxford English Dictionary and pouted.

  “Marie called over to the hospital for you.” Redwood had her hands on her hips. “Klaus too. I think that German boy’s sweet on you.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Klaus wore his heart on his sleeve. Marie kept hers under heavy guard.

  “So tell me.”

  “Romance instead of nursing home disaster?”

  “Why not? You can tell me anything.”

  “You a nosy old sinner like Granddaddy, poking and prying and hot diggity dogging?” That came out too bitchy even for Cinnamon’s foul mood. “Sorry.”

  Redwood flashed a shameless hussy grin. “Aidan’s Aunt Caitlin tried to make him a good Catholic. She failed. Baptist and holy rollers never snagged me either. Aidan and I run off together into the Okefenokee Swamp. Church couldn’t hold our spirits.”

  “Oh.” More important shit she needed to know.

  “It’s all in the book we’re doing for your birthday.”

  “That’s not till August!”

  Redwood reached through the foul mood and pulled Cinnamon to her heart. “So, Miz Woman, what you know good?”

  Cinnamon should have told Daddy about her secret romance. He’d have understood the trio thing. The elders raised him to be wild. “I don’t know how to begin.”

  They were all sweet on each other. Cinnamon never understood the big fuss about kissing until Marie. Girlfriend did this tasty, flirty dance with her tongue that made Cinnamon weak in the knees. Klaus had magic hands, on her neck, by her ear, strolling down her arm. She was twisting and tingling, and they hadn’t gotten down to anything nasty. Fine as they were, what were Marie and Klaus doing with Cinnamon?

  Redwood held her at arm’s length. “What are these faces you’re making?”

  Klaus and Marie might be doing a con, some twisted scam. Cinnamon didn’t go out hunting pale blond hunks or five foot Glamazons who could sit on their hair. They’d come after her. She was hanging by herself after the audition, not thinking she wanted anybody like that. Marie was fifteen, Klaus almost sixteen. They had the jump on her in the romance department. Every day was torture, waiting for her best friends (only friends?) to cut her loose and do each other. She even considered cutting them loose first. Romance was overrated. With Opal wheezing her lungs away and Raven shriveling up, wasting away, why was Cinnamon doing a trio weird thing?

  “It can’t be that bad,” Redwood said.

  “Unless I’m suffering acute wishful thinking, we’re all sweet on each other.”

  Redwood poked her and winked. “That’s more good news, right?”

  “No.” Cinnamon dropped down on Sekou’s bed.

  “They’re on their way here.”

  “I don’t want to see anybody.”

  “Iris never goes back on a dinner invite.”

  “I feel like road kill.”

  “They rustled up tickets for The Tempest. Tonight is that special preview.”

  “Mist! We planned to test if Ariel was from another dimension, then get her — it? — to unscatter with Griot Joe, and voilà! The Wanderer would be whole, with a full mind and, and…” Every night before falling asleep, Cinnamon imagined unleashing the whole Wanderer on Daddy’s coma. Weird science had to be way ahead of human medicine. She was hardly conscious of this new wake-up Daddy fantasy. Telling Redwood would be admitting it to herself. “Fairy tale, comic book, kiddie crap.”

  “Tonight’s an early show,” Redwood said. “You gotta be fit for human consumption in an hour.”

  “Everything’s too hard. Impossible.”

  “You climbing Sorrow Mountain?”

  “Granddaddy’s song? Ha. I’m doing Fury Mountain.”

  “Your muscles are cramping and burning up.”

  They were.

  “Your heart’s pounding a ghost back beat. Talk to me.”

  “Granddaddy was so sad this morning, and now he’s fine. I can’t do that.”

  “Who says you have to?”

  “Daddy drooled in that stank room, didn’t even look like himself. Eyes were rolling around in hollow sockets. Dead eyes.”

  Redwood looked stricken again, like on the porch.

  “OK, sorry, not dead, but unfocused.”

  “Aidan don’t want to let Raven go.” Redwood stumbled over nothing. Cinnamon broke her fall. Redwood’s heart was doing the ghost back beat too — dead and not dead, her only son.

  “Wait, people crowd in to see Daddy regularly. They’re not giving up. They do live music jams on drums and saxophones. DJ’s spin R&B and World Music sets. They dance Daddy’s muscle mind. Moving to a groove is the best physical therapy. And Daddy has a stack of wild art PJ’s and stimulating sheets. It’s a, a changing art exhibition. Forget hospital bleach white. People sneak in puppies and kittens to lick and purr on him. They bring flowers and smelly things — so much memory in your nose. Fresh cut wood, green tea, orange peels, candy bar wrappers, cigar stubs. Smells call up a whole world, even with a bullet scrambling your brain.

  “Griot Joe smuggles in his crow to sing jazz riffs with the poets dropping verses. Poem for cement block blahs, poem for the sweet smell of germs dying on an alcohol high, poem for salt and pepper dreads, and poem for taking your own sweet breath, no ventilator. A parade of rapper nerds in there every week, free styling about what’s wrong with the world and how they’re fixing it and what’s right with the world and how they’re relishing every tingle and taste. You know Daddy loves a good rant, a good ode to joy. Folks bring him gossip, news, bad jokes, and urban legends. He has visitors and volunteers doing his hair, trimming his nails, and acting like the family should recognize their chunky behinds.”

  Redwood smiled at the word deluge. “Aidan didn’t mention any of that.”

  “The story’s in the room. It storms into my mouth. I talk it out.”

  “Who you telling?”

  More images tingled on Cinnamon’s lips. She gulped them back.

  “Don’t swallow that. Spit it out.”

  “The flabby attendant had to be Dr. Bug-Man Lexy. He jumped over a millipede instead of stomping it.”

  Redwood shook her head. “Dr. who?”

  “Sekou’s Lexy, rapper nerd DJ, medicine man on the case.” Cinnamon banged her head against the wall. “I never remember people. Lexy blew up seventy-five pounds since Sekou’s funeral. I was too busy being evil to recognize this chubby cheek version. Lexy’s part of the mission. Mist! He probably thought I recognized him and hated him still.” She banged her head again. “I never hated him. It’s pointless anyhow. None of our comic book tactics will help Daddy.”

  “I don’t know about that.” The river scarf at Redwood’s waist was a torrent pounding the floor. A wind from nowhere rattled the windows. Mist, the foggy English kind, crept under the doorsill. Cinnamon closed her eyes on hoodoo flourishes.

  “You’re not sulking in your room tonight,” Redwood said.

  “Why not?” Tears snuck out of Cinnamon’s eyes. “You never even go see him.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  Cinnamon buried herself in Sekou’s galaxy pillow. “Quick death is better.”

  “For who?” Redwood pulled the pillow away.

  Cinnamon quoted Kehinde. “Who wants to linger in pain and humiliation?”

  “Everybody’s dying, honey, but I’m taking my time.”

  “I’m tired of sitting up in stank hospital rooms, waiting on nothing.”

  “You’ve been dealt a difficult hand.”

  “I haven’t faced lynching, I know.”

  “Raven’s still with us, and Opal’s alive and kicking.”r />
  “What’s Mom got to say to me but ‘yippee, you’re getting skinny’ and ‘don’t let the elders snooker you into more hoodoo mess.’”

  “See? Opal’s spirit is fine. Still herself.”

  “When do I get to be me?” Cinnamon was hollering.

  “What you doing right now?”

  “Mom hates who I am.” Her throat hurt. “She wishes I OD’ed instead of Sekou.”

  “No. Opal wish Sekou was still with us, and wish Raven was all the way here too.”

  “Mom hit that nursing home, visiting Daddy every day, and lied about it.”

  “So I hear tell.” Redwood sat down next to Cinnamon.

  “Why does Mom have to lie?”

  “Opal want to shield you from pain.”

  “She treats me like a dumb little kid. I’ve been old since Daddy got shot.”

  Redwood slipped her storm hand between Cinnamon’s head and the wall. “I’ll go see Opal with you, get this straightened out.”

  “No more hospitals. No more funerals either. People are dying like they ain’t got nothing else to do.”

  “Quoting Opal? She ain’t goin’ be in that hospital much longer.”

  “Doctors have been saying that forever.”

  “Checking out tomorrow. Still need watching, so she’s going to stay with Becca.”

  Cinnamon gasped. “Wow.”

  “Opal be steering clear of us ole country fools trying to run her life.”

  “No, it’s me.” Cinnamon’s head throbbed, bruise up front, bump on the back. “Can you hoodoo me into acting right?”

  Redwood drew pain to her fingertips. “You got that kind of power, not me.”

  “I used to think you all could do anything.” Cinnamon curled into her. “I wanted to grow up to be you.”

  “A singing, dancing hoodoo wonder.” Redwood hummed a melody Aidan had found during a sleepless night. When Cinnamon hit a sweet harmony, Redwood stood up. Heading for the door, she was sooty winds and black clouds, a whirlwind. Around her, red, blue, and silver sparks burst from the spaces between things. What good were carnival tricks if Redwood couldn’t call Daddy back from a coma?

  Cinnamon sputtered. “Wait.”

  Redwood turned and held out her storm hand. Sparks gathered over her palm and morphed into a bright white spiral. “I’m listening.”

  “Today I was up in that stank nursing home wishing people dead and meaning it. In the mirror I looked evil, not like me.”

  “I seen that look out on the porch.”

  “If I could find Daddy’s paintings, if I could uncover the important shit Mom’s trying to keep from me, what you wild elders did and what happened when Daddy got shot…that’d be a spell to make me and everybody better. Maybe I could help Mom too, and she’d want to come home instead of running away.”

  Redwood closed her hand around the spiral of sparks and clutched it to her heart. “You lose something, Iris be the one to help you find it.” She headed downstairs. “Get ready. Klaus and Marie arrive in fifty minutes. They’re both sweet on you too. Any fool can see that a mile away.”

  “Really?”

  I called it. Sekou whispered after two weeks of silence. Didn’t I? Everybody’s queer.

  “You were always exaggerating. How could I believe you?” Cinnamon replied.

  You were always snooping on me and Lexy, hearing what you shouldn’t.

  “You’re snooping now.”

  What else I got to do? He was gone as quick as he came.

  “How about rest in peace?”

  Changing into the jeans Iris had bought for her bold, womanly figure, Cinnamon felt ugly. Pulling her braids into the side waterfall looked silly. Forget smearing on make-up. That was Iris’s money wasted. Maybe Marie could use the expensive goop. Aidan’s knotted silver buckle was a bit of Celtic flash, but trying to look cute was pointless. Cinnamon threw up her hands and knocked The Chronicles off the OED. She caught the heavy tome before it hit the ground. Light pulsed from the spine. Pages fluttered to a video-drawing of Redwood and Aidan wandering through a fantastic city. They gaped at giant balloons, moving walkways, and a crystal palace of electric lights.

  “No way.” Cinnamon whistled.

  Her grandparents were young and movie star beautiful. Why hadn’t Cinnamon inherited their good looks? The Wanderer must have met them when they time-tripped off to the Chicago Fair. Two chapters came before this moving-picture-drawing. Cinnamon was behind! With forty-five minutes until Marie and Klaus arrived, she sank down, lost in the words before her butt touched the floor.

  CHRONICLES 21: American Dreams

  When La Vérité docked in New York, I fluctuated from man to woman to aje. France had made me leery of the unknown. Entering a land where ancestors dissolved in fog and the future was unmoored frightened me. What was this rush of atoms and light without history? A robust woman on a two-wheeler waved at ships on the waterfront. Her magnetic signature seemed familiar. A wound on her head had recently healed — brave Océane? Or had Abla stolen Océane’s face?

  I turned to Lady Liberty, grand orisha guarding dark waters. She held a book of laws and a torch of wisdom. A broken chain circled her feet.

  “Iwori Meji,” Kehinde said. “Sacrifice and journey, who argues with a cure?”

  “The patient who suffers and dies.” Bob embraced his foul mood.

  Liam suggested a tour of the New World capital. “Tomorrow we ride the rail to Chicago. Let’s make the most of this evening. Bobbie knows the best New York sights.”

  Waiting for a telegram from Chicago, Luigi let us go without protest. America had River Pirates cleverer than he, eager to cheat him. Ghost Dog said as much and joined our excursion.

  The air in New York was lifeless, the ground unyielding. The streets were clotted with buildings, and people were thick as flies on a corpse. I raised warrior shields and tried not to feel. Few Americans frowned at Yoruba and Igbo words or stumbled over exotic flesh. Even so, the aje was ready to spit fire at three gawking youths.

  Ghost Dog distracted me. “We’re a traveling spectacle.” He had played Wild West Shows across America. “You will get used to this.”

  “Transforming alien ground into home soil requires much sacrifice,” Kehinde said.

  “I’m Oglala Lakota.” Ghost Dog kicked the dust. “This land is my home soil.”

  “You’re from the Wild Wild West.” Somso pointed. “We shall bury Melinga’s cord in your country, and she will be home.”

  “Ha!” Bob led us down an alley to a river. “You’re foolish and a bad Christian if you believe sticking rotten afterbirth in the dirt will make America home for your daughter.”

  “What you fretting over, Bobbie boy?” Liam threw an arm around his shoulder.

  Bob shook him off. “The animals sense danger, even if you good folks won’t.”

  Somso flicked her fingers, smiled at Ghost Dog, and spoke Fon. “This white man is handsome and doesn’t smell. His robes are beautiful. Is he rich, with many wives?”

  “Ask him yourself if you’re in such a hurry for a husband.” Kehinde also spoke Fon. “Luigi has rebuffed you?”

  “Don’t scold me,” Somso said. “Is no man worthy of you, only demons?”

  “They’re talking about us,” Liam said.

  “Not you, Irishman,” Kehinde spoke English. “The Wild West man.”

  “Ghost Dog keeps the story of his country secret.” Somso spoke English to flirt.

  “What would you like to know?” Ghost Dog said.

  “You’re an old friend of Bob’s from Chicago,” I said. “Tell us what he fears.”

  Bob stepped breath-close to me. “I’m about to sell my friends to misery and pain.”

  “Your caged beasts? Your femmes sauvages?” I stepped back as Bob sputtered.

  Somso sashayed up to Ghost Dog. “Tell us how you came to Paris.”

  Ghost Dog drank her smile. “It’s a short tale. I was performing battles from the Great Plains when my horse fell and brok
e both our legs. Wild Jack and Lonesome John shot the horse, a swift death for happy spectators. French doctors put my leg back together, but too slowly. Wild Jack shipped his show home without me.”

  “Why do you do vile masquerades?” I sneered. “Look how they abandon you.”

  Ghost Dog held up a pouch. “I send the money Wild Jack pays to my family. Digging in dirt is another man’s path. Telling the story of brave warriors, of successful raids and days of glory, I can do this. And I have seen much of the world.”

  “Yes.” Kehinde looked at me. “We can do this.”

  “I hope to find a path to tomorrow,” Ghost Dog said, pleasing Kehinde even more.

  “They’ve shut the way to tomorrow for the likes of us.” Bob scowled at a construction site blocking our way. We halted at a fence.

  “We still got a toe in the door.” Liam poked Bob.

  Bob poked back. “Maybe you do.”

  “Men who only mourn their losses shut themselves off from tomorrow,” Ghost Dog said.

  “If a door is slammed shut, slide under the sill.” Kehinde rolled under the fence.

  “If the road ends, fly.” I jumped it.

  Ghost Dog lifted Somso over as if she weighed nothing.

  “I’ve no wings.” Bob walked around. “Don’t lecture me with noble savage wisdom.”

  “I refuse eight hundred miles of foul temper.” Liam followed him.

  A man lighting gas lamps gaped at us and fell from his eight-foot-high two-wheeler. Bones shattered on impact, and he howled. I made no move to aid him or a companion he knocked senseless. The aje was wary of aiding strangers after France. Ghost Dog joined the crowd gawking at the broken men close up. We left him and hurried to the Brooklyn/New York Bridge. Hanging from graceful curved cables and grounded in solid bedrock, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, a sight as impressive as Lady Liberty or the Tour Eiffel électrique. I gave a squealing Melinga to Kehinde and ran out on the walkway into a forest of steel. Bob chased at my heels. We halted at the second set of towers. The East River gurgled a hundred thirty-five feet below us. I put my ear to a cold cable to hear its song.