Will Do Magic for Small Change

by Andrea Hairston

  “Cornball wisdom doesn’t work on me.” Clarence headed for the door.

  “Your battery died or worse, remember?” Kevin said.

  “So, call me a cab!” Nobody moved. “Cinnamon’s too young to see what she’s in for.”

  “Nothing wrong with being young and naïve and fresh.” Kevin said. “How else you goin’ change the world back ’round right?”

  “It’s never been right.” Clarence groaned. “You’re one of those throwback Negroes who thinks if we find our roots in Mother Africa we’ll live happily ever after.”

  “Don’t Negro me.” Kevin stood his ground. “Any plan but yours must be dead in the water before it gets started good?”

  “I didn’t shoot Raven and leave him for dead.” Clarence sat on the couch. It swallowed his behind; he scrambled up. “I just want what’s best for everyone.”

  Becca slipped her arm through his. “You’re always saying we don’t let you help.”

  “You and Opal never listen to a word I say.” Clarence eyed Cinnamon. “Raven and Opal quit each other, you know.”

  Becca waved the folder in his face. “I have something important for you to do.”

  “Right before he got shot,” Clarence said. “He split.”

  “Hush.” Becca patted him. “We got legal issues.”

  Clarence talked over his sister’s head. “They were always breaking up.”

  “How many wives have you had?” Cinnamon blurted. “And other women too? Maybe even a few stray kids?”

  Clarence gasped.

  Kevin grabbed Cinnamon and tried to shake the mess out of her. “Don’t get mean either, hear me?” He let Cinnamon go.

  Clarence snorted. “Young people, talking in your face like that —”

  “Serves you right.” Becca pulled him toward the kitchen table. “Quit acting the fool and listen to me. Raven and Opal were never married, that’s the thing.”

  “Where’s the phone? I’ll call my own goddamned cab.” Clarence crashed around the room, trying to avoid the paintings. He snatched up the receiver on the end table, almost knocking over a lamp. He banged the hook for a dial tone. He couldn’t hoodoo it like Miz Redwood. “Is this just for show?” He wanted to smash the phone. His temper was worse than Opal’s, a fire-breathing dragon burning up on the inside…

  Yo sis, don’t let your mouth write checks your ass can’t cash! Keep your eyes on the prize.

  “I didn’t mean the stuff about the kids, Uncle Clarence.” Cinnamon did spell #7, talking love instead of screaming. “You’re serious about your responsibilities. I admire that.” Almost true. “We’re serious about Daddy. No matter if it’s hard, harder, or impossible.” Almost an apology.

  “Opal won’t throw him away without a fight,” Becca said.

  “What the hell is Mallemaroking?” Clarence said. A painting with this title in bold block letters hung over the elders’ hoodoo altar.

  “Sekou did the titles,” Cinnamon explained. “A dictionary-boy thing.”

  Mallemaroking was a black, white, and purple rendering of La Vérité lost in fog. Heaving jugs to their lips, sailors danced on the deck; Kehinde sliced phantom enemies; Somso was a sensuous undulation by her side; Bob, his cap pulled low, cavorted in the shadows; Liam pranced beside him, tattoos shifting in candlelight; the Wanderer leapt from frothy waves, a mermaid/merman half as big as the boat, and Melinga clung to claws and seaweed hair. Everyone looked happy.

  “So what’s Mallemaroking mean?” Clarence asked. “I know you know.”

  “It’s a synonym for carousing,” Cinnamon replied. “Literally, the carousing of drunken sailors on icebound Greenland whaling ships.”

  “You don’t say.” He managed a weak smile.

  Clarence is a sucker for juicy words he’s never heard before. He used to enjoy ideas he’d never thought of too.

  “Yeah,” Cinnamon muttered. When they were younger, arguing with him was fun.

  Clarence was grooming you to be the next lawyer in the family. I was going to be a fancy journalist.

  Before Raven got shot… Cinnamon sighed. The bullet had pierced Clarence too. “The party’s for everybody, even you.” That came out wrong.

  “Opal shouldn’t waste herself on a lost cause.” Clarence gripped Becca.

  Becca flicked her fingers, a twentieth-century Amazon. “We need you to —”

  “Raven is a mess. Opal’s a cigarette puff away from a stroke.”

  “Mom has quit smoking,” Cinnamon declared.

  “Ha! Opal stays mad at me, but she might listen to reason coming from her baby sister.” Clarence was actually pleading.

  Becca chuckled. “Listen to me? No way!”

  “Have you tried? Opal’s been hurt so much.” Clarence never sounded this vulnerable. “Do you want her hurt more?”

  “Miz Redwood and Granddaddy want Mom to be Daddy’s guardian,” Cinnamon said.

  “They figure you know how to do that,” Kevin said. “They’re too old.”

  “Opal lied about being his legal wife.” Becca pressed the folder against Clarence’s chest. “So we need you to sort that out.”

  Cinnamon hugged Clarence from behind and said what she thought was true. “Mom would ask you herself, but she can’t stand to hear no.”

  “Here’s your chance, man,” Kevin said.

  “Say yes,” Cinnamon whispered. He had to say yes. He wouldn’t be a lawyer if it wasn’t for Opal.

  You got him, Sekou said and faded.

  Clarence clutched the folder.

  Danger Fans

  The Tempest ended its run with a matinee. Klaus, Marie, and Griot Joe had front row seats. Cinnamon quashed jealousy, a waste of good vitamins and minerals. She checked her watch: 6:30. By now, the Monongahela Theatre was in the throes of strike and put-in for the next show. Union actors would split immediately, so snagging elusive Ariel might be impossible. Cinnamon put doubt and worry on the bus heading downtown and wrestled with Rain.

  “Guests are coming.” She fed Rain choice scraps from Iris’s pot roast. “Don’t snarl at them, OK?” Cinnamon climbed back over the fence and stomped around the porch. She was the logical choice to rig the lights and do front of house. It was her house. She was a techie, eating grit and grease and doing theatre magic. “I hate logic sometimes.”

  Cinnamon went inside, straightened the paintings, and checked the lights and dimmers she’d rigged for each one. The gobos made a dappled forest effect on the whole first floor. Nothing had changed up on her. She put on Sekou’s tee-shirt — We’re all mostly space and the force to hold it together — and threw a mud cloth robe on top: basiaba, for young women at the crossroads, and ce farin jala, a brave man’s belt. She stuck the eagle feather in her braids. Aidan’s mojo hung from waist beads, seashells and the Dahomey bead hung around her neck. In full armor but with shields down, she stomped back to the porch. 6:50 PM — Klaus and Marie should have been here already.

  Commander Williams pulled up in her good German car at 7:00 PM with Mrs. Beckenbauer riding shotgun. They were bosom buddies since Vati went off on his “business trip.” Slender, graceful Ariel got out of the back, dressed in mud cloth like Cinnamon. Coincidental affinity. Cinnamon’s heart pounded. She would have kissed Ariel any time! Rain grumbled as Ariel surveyed the hilly street. One whistle from Cinnamon, and Rain muzzled it. 7:05 PM. Marie, Klaus, and the other half of this chicken-head scenario were supposed to arrive before everybody else.

  “I’ve biked around here.” Ariel drifted past Opal’s house. “There were Christmas lights.”

  “You biked these cliffs? In winter?” Commander Williams shuddered. “Why?”

  “Are you the danger fan?” Mrs. B said, her th drifting toward d.

  Ariel shrugged. “Two, three years ago, maybe five, I was doing a show. A contemporary tragedy.” The photo hung in the gallery of the stars. “We had tough rehearsals. I just couldn’t find my character. One evening I biked off into sleet. There’s a hairpin turn down that way.” Ariel�
��s muscles tensed. “Dusk. I couldn’t see a thing, thinking so hard. I almost wiped out.” A story storm had Ariel: Cinnamon read the signs from twenty-three steps up. “Some wild creature jumped out of the weeds at me, so I didn’t smash into the guard rail. I slipped by a vintage Cadillac, then ran a red light. I cruised all night, up and down these hills. Come morning, my muscles were jelly. I pushed the bike instead of pedaling. A very sad woman was out back there burning memories. The ink boiled to black smoke. Paper ash landed on my tongue. She turned the hose on me. It made no sense.”

  Cinnamon remembered a crazy biker on the drive home from Sekou’s funeral. The next morning Opal had set fire to the past and sprayed icy water on Ariel, a scattered bit of the Wanderer.

  “Why am I thinking of that?” Ariel asked.

  “Why not?” Commander Williams locked the car. “It sounds —”

  “Nothing made sense,” Ariel said. “I went to a bar afterward or, no, maybe before. No, I’m confusing two different times. Four years ago. A man with a gun shot up that bar before I got there.”

  “Sounds traumatic.” Commander Williams exchanged worried glances with Mrs. B.

  “I came after the shooting. Too much blood, so I jumped on a bike — it wasn’t mine — pedaling like a demon, and there was a hairpin turn. I went downhill thirty miles per hour, but I survived.”

  Mrs. B looped her arm through Ariel’s. “Good for you.”

  Ariel shook off the trance. “I never think about those nights.”

  Commander Williams hustled up the steps. “I don’t blame you.”

  Cinnamon was dying for the whole story. It was 7:10. Rain wagged her tail at Klaus and Marie tumbling out of the cab of Lexy’s truck, twenty minutes late! Griot Joe stood up by his cart in the flatbed. He wore a cape and pointy hat fashioned from aluminum foil and saran wrap, and foil boots splattered with mud. He must have been quite a front row sight at the Playhouse. The crow rode Joe’s shoulder as he hobbled over uneven ground. Klaus and Marie unloaded the cart and shoved it to the back door path. Lexy took off to get the elders. Prancing up the front steps, Ariel didn’t notice their arrival. Cinnamon still had the surprise factor.

  Mrs. B ushered Ariel into the dim hallway.

  “I’m so glad you came.” Cinnamon bowed. “Welcome.”

  “We’ll leave you to your fans,” Commander Williams said, breathing hard.

  Ariel startled. “You’re going already?”

  “The kids prepare good shock for you,” Mrs. B said. “Everyone wonders how Klaus gets two girlfriends.” She leaned close to Ariel. “I tell nosy ones, Klaus has two-for-one special. Two bunte — colored? Colorful girls.” She laughed.

  Ariel and Commander Williams looked embarrassed.

  “Actually, we’re —” breaking up as soon as the mission was over. Cinnamon couldn’t say it. Falling out of love with Klaus and Marie was hard.

  “They’ve got more than sex on the brain,” Commander Williams declared.

  “Yeah,” Cinnamon said. The Squad never got around to more than kissing and touching. They did get naked together — not bare asses, bare souls.

  Mrs. B ruffled Ariel’s hair. “While you enjoy shock, Florence and I go have dessert.”

  Ariel forced a smile. “Shock?”

  Commander Williams squeezed Ariel’s hands. “We must support our young people, when they think about more than themselves.”

  “Of course,” Ariel said. “But —”

  “I wanted to be an actress. Everybody stomped that dream. Today is a new world.” Commander Williams nodded until Ariel did too. “We’ll pick you up in an hour. Have fun.” She marched off with Mrs. B.

  Hoodoo Spell #7b

  “What’s going on?” Ariel squinted in the dim light and fingered opal beads that anchored several strands of green and yellow — ide Ifa.

  “Nice bracelet,” Cinnamon said.

  Ariel held it up. “It’s old, from Africa. I found it in a theatre or a gallery or somewhere. It’s probably costume jewelry, but…”

  “What?” Cinnamon’s tongue tingled. “Tell me.”

  “I’m waiting for someone to know its secret, the owner maybe. Isn’t that silly?”

  “No.” Cinnamon knew just the person for that.

  Marie slammed through the back screen door into the kitchen. “No one will steal your cart,” she assured Joe as he tiptoed in.

  “It’ll be fine. Rain is an attack guard dog.” Klaus followed them.

  Muscles in Ariel’s jaw jumped. Fire flickered in both eyes.

  The crow cawed and pecked Joe’s cheek. “You sit in shadows long enough, you become one.” Joe hobbled a few more steps, stopping arm’s length from Ariel. The Chronicles sat on the coffee table between them. Pages fluttered in the cross breeze.

  “Are you stalking me?” Ariel took a step back.

  “I saw the Tempest masquerade this afternoon.” Joe smiled. The crow hopped onto his head. Joe took off the foil cape. Underneath was a patchwork of cloth, pinned and taped in patterns resembling Kente cloth, well-worn but clean. Joe smoothed fraying edges. “I’m a fan. I’ve seen many of your shows.”

  Ariel pulled the mud cloth robe tight. “You look —”

  “Like a thousand miles of bad road,” Joe said.

  The crow spread its wings. Black silky feathers glistened as it glided to Ariel and perched on a bare shoulder.

  “Familiar, I was going to say.” Ariel was enchanted by the crow.

  Joe grinned. “The bird of my head and yours.”

  The crow rubbed Ariel’s cheeks. “How did you train this crow?”

  “Not a pet.” Joe replied. “Ariel, free as a bird, who do you mean to be now?”

  “What? The next show? I’m not sure. My agent is working hard.”

  Cinnamon slid the master dimmer from zero to full on a ten count. Scenes from the Wanderer and Kehinde’s travels in Dahomey, Paris, and the US melted out of darkness into sharp relief. Steamships sailed down from the clouds. African villagers painted clay walls and dyed cloth. Trains skipped over mountain peaks. Kehinde and the Wanderer danced across lightning bolts to carnival stages and desert canyons rimmed by sculpted rock. Melinga opened a gate to a suspension bridge that hung from cables of light.

  “What is this?” Ariel’s voice was stony.

  “Miz Redwood’s hoodoo spell #7b,” Klaus said. His cheeks burned.

  “Go out and find stories nobody has heard or everybody almost forgot.” Marie flipped a cascade of braids and beads.

  “We’re Guardians,” Cinnamon said. “We want to bring you two back together.”

  “What lies has this person been telling you?” Ariel’s eyes burned.

  Joe pointed at Raven’s paintings. “No lies.”

  Ariel clutched the bracelet.

  “You wear ide Ifa.” Joe offered a broken-tooth grin. “Father of mysteries.”

  Cinnamon hoisted The Chronicles. “Joe has the nineteenth century, you’ve got the twentieth.”

  “You forgot yourself, when you scattered,” Marie said.

  “Didn’t you?” Klaus asked.

  Ariel howled an Eshu laugh. “Is this a teenage prank?” The crow glided back to Joe. “What nonsense did you tell those nice ladies?”

  Cinnamon set The Chronicles down. Doubt and worry had caught a ride back to her street and were morphing into panic. It had never occurred to her that Ariel might not see the same light at the end of the tunnel as Joe and her Squad. Ariel believed in poetry and art. Wouldn’t anybody who believed see that Raven’s paintings were memory conjured and restored?

  Ariel circled the Squad. “Mrs. Williams said you wanted advice on alternative theatre. Not help with —”Ariel read the back of Joe’s cape. “Homeless Eshu. Will Do Magic For Small Change. Are you kidding?”

  “Say something.” Cinnamon shook Joe’s arm.

  He was silent. The crow shat a dribble of white.

  “I did a play about tricksters of the Diaspora — Eshu and Papa Legba. I don’t remembe
r the title. I always get androgynous trickster roles. My breakout show was The Tempest. Everybody calls me Ariel now. The roles you play can take over your life. After a long run, how do you even remember yourself?”

  “So what’s your real name?” Klaus asked. “Or have you forgotten?”

  “I’m usually on to the next play as soon as possible, so I don’t have to —”

  “Don’t talk over or down to us,” Marie said. “We hate it, and we’re snarky.”

  Ariel sighed. “I don’t know what figment of your imagination I’m supposed to be — tinker, dragon, soldier, spy.”

  “Careful,” Joe muttered. “Even —”

  “Even a dragon brushing against thorns will tear its wings,” they all said simultaneously.

  “You can’t know that.” Ariel’s face crumbled. “A friend of mine, an old actress from Africa, used to say that.”

  “Kehinde,” the Squad said.

  “She’s dead now. I haven’t thought about her in…” Ariel’s eyes darted around the room. “You don’t get to dredge up my worst nightmares, and — I have to go.”

  The dimmer board whined and spat sparks. The gobos pulsed on and off like a strobe. Ariel disappeared, a blur into the wall. The lights blazed bright and died. The Squad stood several moments in darkness. Curtains fluttered in an open window.

  “Did Ariel vanish?” Klaus asked.

  “Nobody can do that.” Marie said.

  Cinnamon wanted to scream. At least she wasn’t crushed on Ariel anymore. “The fuse on the dimmer board blew.” She fell into Klaus and Marie. They caught her, of course, and it turned into a group hug. Joe flicked on the overhead. Everyone squinted.

  “I’m sorry our spell didn’t work.” Cinnamon hung her head.

  Klaus shook Joe. “Say something.”

  “I try to find words.” Joe spoke slowly. “For aje thoughts.”

  “No lame excuses.” Marie’s weird hand sparked. “These two are nice. I’m not. Is the Wanderer-bit true?”

  “Or are you crazy, like Ariel said?” Klaus asked.

  “True and not true.” Joe hobbled to the TV alcove and gazed at the paintings Raven never put on display — a bouquet of colored glass skyscrapers, ghostly amusement parks, a flock of jets trailing smoke — twentieth-century images. “A New World,” Joe said. With the crow on his head, Joe leapt, stumbled, and shook his behind in the air — the dance he’d done at Sekou’s funeral. The Squad joined him dancing around the coffee table.