Will Do Magic for Small Change

by Andrea Hairston

  “I know what happened.” Yao carried no visible weapon, yet aimed death at Kehinde’s heart. “Listen to the true story.”

  “So says the master spy.” Kehinde sliced phantom heads and pierced ghost hearts.

  Yao smirked. “Kehinde fired her elephant gun at a rebel-slave leader. Her bullets couldn’t pierce a father of mysteries. She ran from the battlefield without taking his head. Coward.”

  “He’s a nasty rascal.” Bob spoke English. “What’s he saying?”

  I translated as Yao continued. “Taiwo consulted Ifa and knew the direction coward Kehinde ran. Ifa warned of a deadly trap, but the verses only offer wisdom; a person must choose which action to take. Taiwo loved his sister. Yoruba believe twins share one soul — perhaps that is so. But Abla had made Kehinde nzumbe. Her soul was only good for obeying Abla’s will. A great Fon warrior, Abla defeated them both. Kehinde fell upon Brother-Taiwo from an ancient iroko tree and knocked him senseless. She dragged him to a spirit cave and plunged her cutlass through his heart. Taiwo was a sacrifice to Yemoja for saving Kehinde from hungry sharks so many years ago. Who better than a twin to take her place in the land of the dead?”

  “Yemoja would not ask for this sacrifice,” I said.

  “I found Taiwo in the spirit cave, his heart pierced. He clutched Kehinde’s staff.”

  “You lie. I was there. Taiwo was riddled with bullets. There was no staff.”

  “Kehinde was always happy to kill. Abla saw the warrior she would be.”

  “Abla saw what she wanted to see.” I turned to Kehinde. “Tell him.”

  Kehinde’s heart rate doubled. Blood shifted from gut to muscles. Yao watched her as she spoke. “Eshu tortures the oath-breaker with an aje who loves the child as a father might. The aje killed Abla, who knew the truth. Somso, you saw the murder and told everyone. The crossroad nkisi from the Jesus orisha protects you now, but for how long?”

  Whispering prayers, Somso clutched the cross at her neck and stepped behind Yao.

  Kehinde drew Yao away from us. “In Pené’s troupe, a Yoruba woman recalled you stealing her family to get rich from their sweat. She told me your boast, Yao. You said you’d drink from my heart and kill the aje or anyone who threw his spear with us.”

  Yao drew a hidden blade and lunged at Kehinde, faster than I’d ever seen anyone move, thrusting at her neck with such force he could have taken her head. The aje roused too slowly to intervene. Bob leapt to Kehinde’s aid with bare hands. He was too far. Somso screamed as blood spurted at the sky. Kehinde’s neck was not where Yao’s knife landed. He had sliced her shoulder. She’d twisted and jammed her cutlass upward, and the ferocity of Yao’s attack drove her blade through his breastbone, heart, and out the flesh of his back. Yao lost grip of the knife. He and Kehinde dropped to their knees, cheek to cheek. He spit blood in her face. The aje blasted fire above their heads.

  “You’re right, Yao. I carry my brother’s rebel spirit,” Kehinde said. “When I was a girl, you brought rape, murder, and treachery to me.” She released her cutlass. His body toppled into the dust. “Take your curses to the land of the dead.” Somso grabbed Yao’s knife and sprang at her. Kehinde smacked the knife away and gripped Somso’s throat, choking her. Somso struggled, clawing at Kehinde’s bloody arm. Kehinde released her suddenly. “This is a New World,” Kehinde said. “I don’t want your death.”

  Somso collapsed in the dust. The aje aimed its poison tail at her. Bob stepped in and shielded her. Melinga clutched seaweed hair, clicking and whistling.

  “Please, we’re free now.” Kehinde gripped aje talons and cried silver tears in the moonlight. She had never cried before.

  The aje turned from Somso and burned Yao’s body and Kehinde’s cutlass with its next fire breath. Using the last of this heat, I seared Kehinde’s wound. Melinga covered her face with kisses. Fairgoers exiting the Wild West show smiled at our colorful group clothed in ash and sparkling static. Liam and Ghost Dog appeared, joking about Buffalo Bill’s spectacle. Baffled by blood, tears, and gibberish, they brought us to Luigi’s camp. We explained nothing. Who could talk?

  Nobody slept that night except Melinga, nested in my lap. Somso snuck away in the dark. Bob followed her. Melinga woke once, crying. A woman in our troupe fed her son then Melinga. Kehinde lay huddled against hard ground muttering no more death. She wouldn’t let me touch her. The bandage on her shoulder was soaked with blood and pus. Liam sat vigil over her. In the morning, Bob slunk into the tent and hid in shadows.

  “We don’t have to be who we have been.” Speaking Yoruba, Kehinde struggled up with Liam’s aid. “Yao ran into my blade and killed himself.”

  “The aje would kill Somso to prevent Somso killing you,” I declared.

  “No!” Kehinde struggled for words. “My Taiwo…starlight eyes, hair smelling of sea greens, sometimes you’re no more than the bright edge of a shadow.” She smiled. “Your breath is a sea breeze or a firestorm, but you hate the bitter taste of killing. You weep at every story’s end. You’d regret killing Somso. We’ll make another story.”

  “Beautiful poetry, but the aje doesn’t think as you do, or as I do in human form.”

  “We’re not Abla.” Kehinde’s eyes clouded. “Today we bury Melinga’s cord and pour libation to the orisha of Lake Michigan.” She trembled.

  Liam steadied her. “What’re you going on about? Talk English. What happened? ”

  I told him of Somso’s treachery, Yao’s death, and the aje’s fury.

  “You’re between the Devil and the dead sea then?” he said.

  “Probably. Every choice breaks me apart.”

  Spying Bob in the dark, Liam cursed. “Scoundrel, when were you going to tell me?”

  Bob ignored Liam’s anger. “Somso says she forgives you.”

  “That’s Christian charity, to forgive the people you tried to kill,” Liam said.

  “I stole both her husbands,” Kehinde murmured, then her mind wandered elsewhere. Liam laid her gently on fabric bedding.

  “Somso!” I hissed — a curse word now. My rage woke Melinga.

  Bob scooped her from my lap. “Somso trusts you with Melinga.”

  Liam snorted. “She has no love for her daughter.”

  “She rejects a demon child of a twin.” I spoke as if I understood Somso.

  “Neglect is also poison.” Bob tickled Melinga. “We could steal the child and travel the world.” He gazed at me, calm and clear. “What do you say?”

  The plan thrilled Liam. “Let’s do it.”

  “Kehinde was stolen,” I said.

  “My father sold me to a circus brothel when I was twelve.” Bob spoke softly. “King Willy said he loved me, but it was all lies. I enjoyed killing the lies, but hear me now: killing is a moment of pleasure and a life of regret.”

  I knew what he said was true, but what choice did I have? “We might persuade Kehinde to run off with Melinga, after the taste of Yao’s blood has left her mouth.”

  “We might not.” Bob grimaced.

  “Kehinde swore an oath to stand by Somso and the child.”

  “Somso thinks the child is a monster.” Bob hugged Melinga. “No good solution — we steal her for love, when Kehinde can’t resist.”

  “We bury the cord and then see.” I was adamant. “Deception isn’t love.”

  Bob and Liam concocted a simple plan. Somso was to meet us at the lake to bury Melinga’s cord. Ghost Dog took Luigi to talk with Wild Jack about selling his African Savages while Liam procured a wagon, and I gathered the few possessions we’d brought to the New World. We knew no one to say good-bye to. Bob put a silky blue mojo around my neck containing hairs from the Jumbo elephant and pulled me to his heart. “You’re the sea demon who rode dark waves and scared a man to death,” he said.

  “How long have you known?”

  “I suspected that first night… You mean to kill Somso once the ceremony is over. Kehinde will hate you for this. You’ll hate yourself. I can’t allow that.”

  �
�My Guardian.” I stroked his tight curls. “But we’ll make Kehinde understand.”

  “Yes,” Bob kissed me, long and deep, “if we do a sacrifice for…Eshu.” I nodded as he mumbled incomprehensible French at Kehinde. Her eyes flickered bright at les sacrifices. I should have been suspicious, but she waved me close, to heal her wound. I thought only of banishing tiny creatures who would steal her life force.

  It was a chilly, damp afternoon. Bob bundled Melinga up. She fussed at him and reached for me, sparks on her fingertips. I barely noticed, too busy bringing Kehinde’s fever down. They departed before us. When Kehinde was stable, Liam drove us to a secluded shoreline in a wagon pulled by a tired horse. As the roar of the Fair faded, Liam chatted and joked with his dragon lady. She patted him occasionally, soaking up the passion he had for her.

  Lake Michigan was a freshwater inland sea. Waves rippled across the surface, splashing froth against golden sand. Bob and Somso were late. Kehinde leaned on me, and we strolled up the beach. Liam stayed close to the horse. I talked of future travels, of possibilities. The home star slid to the horizon. Distant stars became visible against a velvet void. I suggested we steal Melinga and go off with Bob and Liam. Somso would never find us. The aje need not kill her. Kehinde agreed.

  “Since coming to America, you’ve been distant,” I said. “Today you’re reasonable, a poet, a lover, speaking of starlight eyes and the bright edge of a shadow. Why?”

  “Warriors and cowards are afraid to trust.” Kehinde stumbled away from me. “Bob knows how to love, to sacrifice. I should have released you from your oath.”

  “I can love you both.”

  “I don’t know if I can love anyone.”

  “Hush.” I gathered her into the circle of my being.

  A north wind lifted moisture from the far shore and dropped it on us. We waited hours, getting drenched. Bob and Somso were too late, but I told myself lies: They’ve lost their way sneaking around Luigi’s thugs. Melinga was hungry — they stopped to feed her. The horses stumble through mud. They will come soon. Dawn approached, and a west wind blew the clouds away.

  “They aren’t coming. Bob has abandoned us.” Liam staggered to the lake’s edge and fell on his knees in cold water. He howled at the fates for doing him wrong yet again. “If Bobbie and I had started off better, there might have been a chance.”

  “Bob running off with Somso — it makes no sense,” I said,

  “Eshu has many heads,” Kehinde replied. I wouldn’t understand these words until years later. “Always look for what you can’t see.”

  I buried Melinga’s cord. She would be of this land. Fire scorched my nostrils and heated acid tears. Bob and Melinga were gone. My heart was in several pieces. I almost scattered then and there for lost love, but Kehinde’s breath was shallow, her shoulder was hot and full of pus. She could barely stand. I held her up. This was also love.

  The home star was high in the sky when Liam said, “You’ll catch your death.” He heaved us into the wagon and drove to Chicago.

  We stayed with Ghost Dog’s masquerade friends while he and Liam searched for Bob and Melinga. For a year, they searched far and wide. Kehinde and I did savage masquerade. We ate the dust of many American states. Liam drank too much and raged at everyone who ventured close, except Kehinde, or perhaps that was me raging. Kehinde never loved Liam as he loved her, but she was his friend — a comfort, a knife in his heart. One day, Liam refused to search anymore. He went off to get drunk and never came back. We were in a desert place. I was ready to let Abla tug me into the abyss when Kehinde demanded a story I didn’t want to tell. I told her of Abla’s torment and Bob’s mojo, of fractured Paris, of aje rage and scattering. We drew close and drank each other’s breath.

  “I can hold all of this and more.” Kehinde tugged at Bob’s blue mojo with Jumbo’s hair. “What is lost or cannot be found can be conjured. We make our own story. Is that not love?” She raced through sharp cacti and beckoned me to follow. “We’re not dead. We can search for Bob and Melinga. Would they abandon us? We must search for them and find love.”

  And so we did.

  AC-DC

  “That’s a killer ending.”

  A week passed, and Chronicles 23 still haunted Cinnamon. Canvas #25 — Xenophilia — was a black lake filled with broken bits of starlight. Liam calmed a horse as a demon moon wept misty tears. Kehinde caressed Taiwo’s face. Why did Bob run off with Melinga and Somso? Cinnamon blinked away tears. She was too sentimental.

  The ASM proffered a tissue with a used corner. “I told you, a killer ending.”

  Cinnamon sat in the back row of the studio theatre with him. “Yeah,” she lied. “It is.” She’d snuck in to watch a tech rehearsal of Title Under Construction. The script was stupid, but the actors were doing a good job, even Snow White Janice. Klaus deserved an Oscar. He acted totally into Janice’s every pout and prance, right up to her death. Strung out on bad drugs, Snow White wasn’t too high to take a bullet for sweet love. Every main black character died — OD’ed or got shot, and white Prince Charming was a better man for it. The playwright sat next to Director Hill with his head in his hands for the whole show. He jumped up applauding now, shouting bravo, brava. Cinnamon was over not getting cast. Better plays would come along.

  “Your boy’s good.” The ASM sounded surprised.

  Cinnamon pointed at the playwright. “My boy?”

  “No.” He leaned close enough to steal a kiss. “Klaus.”

  Cinnamon jerked back. “Oh. Right.” If this dipstick knew they were together, why was he flirting? No one ever flirted with Cinnamon. What was wrong with him?

  “You’d have been great.” He poked her orca knapsack. “Fierce attitude.”

  “Maybe.” Cinnamon hurried away from his cute-boy leer.

  Klaus had no idea she was there. The Squad was supposed to hook up after Director Hill gave notes. Star Deer was back in town. Klaus had tracked her down and signed them up for a ten-week contact improv class. Cinnamon had been saving money, but was one hundred dollars short, even with Squad emergency funds. Borrowing was out of the question. She’d tell Star today. Klaus and Marie could take the class and teach her the moves.

  Cinnamon slipped out to the lobby. Interns were setting up an urban fantasy landscape for a reception. Fairies clustered on fire escapes, bad witches popped out of chimneys, good witches made books come to life. In the bathroom, sopranos and altos harmonized over the stalls. They were so yummy-chummy, Cinnamon wanted to gag.

  “I thought Hill was giving notes,” Cinnamon said at the sink.

  “He told us to rest up for the opening — and that was it.”

  “Rest?” Cinnamon splashed water at her face. Klaus would be doing contact every afternoon after school. Star Deer worked you till muscles refused to defy gravity.

  “You’re Klaus’s friend?” A vaguely familiar curly haired girl asked.

  “Yeah.” How could everybody know? “So?”

  “Nothing.” The girl sneered.

  Cinnamon hated teen melodrama. She escaped to the box office. Klaus and Marie weren’t there. The Green Room was empty and dark. Nobody was in the studio theatre except downtrodden techies bitching about idiot actors. The Squad had forty minutes to get to Star’s studio by bus. That was cutting it close. Star didn’t do colored people’s time. Cinnamon raced up to the gallery of the stars. At the landing, Klaus was hunched under a picture of Medea riding a chariot to the stars. Cinnamon swallowed a cheer. Klaus radiated distress. Seeing Cinnamon, he clutched his belly and glanced across the landing. Loud voices got muffled by a mound of velour curtains in the center of the gallery. Cinnamon recognized Marie’s R&B bellow. Extracting an explanation from Klaus could take forever. She bounded around the dusty velour, and —

  Marie was kissing Janice Fucking Snow White.

  A long sweet kiss — Cinnamon knew exactly how it tasted.

  “Both of you?” Janice smirked at Cinnamon over Marie’s shoulder. “With that big ugly dyke?
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br />   “Shut up about her!” Marie didn’t see Cinnamon.

  “I don’t believe it.” Janice shook bouncy curls.

  Cinnamon missed what Marie said next. She imagined pounding the cute out of Janice’s smirk, but her heart was breaking and her muscles were soggy. She stumbled back toward the stairs. Klaus blocked her escape. Given her weakened condition, he was as strong as she was. She feinted around him.

  “Wait,” Klaus sputtered. He knew what was going on. He was a part of it.

  “You too, huh? Why?”

  Busted, Klaus almost fell down the steep steps. Cinnamon grabbed him before he broke his stupid neck. He clung to her, his heart pounding.

  Janice barged past them. “I don’t do crowds. Too freaky deaky for me.”

  “Hau ab, Arschloch!” Fuck off asshole — Cinnamon cussed at Janice in German.

  She hurried down the steps. “Fuck you too!” The fear in her voice was thrilling.

  Klaus pushed Cinnamon back to the gallery. Marie sank down in a puddle of braids under a photo of Ariel in a kitchen-sink drama. Cinnamon stomped around the heap of black velour several times. The hormone drip was frying her brain. Time was herky-jerky. Would she have kissed Ariel in a secret alcove? Maybe. It never came up.

  “Why aren’t you saying anything, Cinnamon?” Klaus had to ask.

  Her heart was broken. Everything could be broken. Why speak?

  “I don’t think I can do us anymore,” he said solemnly. “The three of us.”

  Marie rolled her eyes and snorted. “Is that supposed to be noble?”

  “No.”

  “Janice wasn’t interested in me until she thought there was an us,” Marie shouted.

  “I kissed her too,” Klaus confessed.

  Cinnamon snorted. “I figured that out already.”

  “Kissing her does nothing for me.” Marie rubbed her weird hand across her mouth and got a shock. “Owa.” Served her right.

  Klaus shuddered. “It’s no good with Janice.”

  “I spent a year crushed-out on that Snow White bitch. Since I heard she was AC-DC.”

  “AC-DC?” Klaus scowled.