Will Do Magic for Small Change

by Andrea Hairston

“The fool with the gun was yelling heinous crap, faggots and dykes are abominations and God hates you all. Sekou told him to take his mess outside. A young guy, close to our age. The way he moved, talked — Hard Rock or Hip Hop, not R&B. Nobody wants to admit that. Who knew he was packing heat? We thought he’d just come to talk some shit. A rumor went around that he was a jilted lover, mad at Mr. Cooper for turning him queer, like how a vampire makes another vampire out of an innocent soul minding his own business. Can you beat that? So I shut that rumor down. Why does the shooter have to be a gay man who doesn’t want to be a gay man? Anyway, he got away…with murder. The case went cold in a minute. I don’t know how hard those detectives looked. They never found a clue, a trail, a hair to trace. He had a hood over his face and leather gloves. Didn’t leave a fingerprint or a nasty note. We don’t know what the shooter was besides a sick bastard. He shot up a few pictures, but he wasn’t aiming at the art. He was just mad shooting.

  “Mr. Cooper knocked Sekou and one of the old warrior Africans out of the way, and then the other one twisted around in front of him, so fast. I couldn’t move like that. Star Deer couldn’t move like that. Nobody could. That warrior lady was flying. Bullet went through her back and slowed down a bit before hitting Mr. Cooper’s head, or he would have been dead too. Her organs bled out. Everybody cowering in the corners, under the table, me too, and the heroes were out on the dance floor dying. Sekou had jumped behind the bar. I saw him from where I was hiding under a table. He couldn’t move. Star Deer was holed up in the ladies room. She didn’t come out till the cops arrived. We thought this maniac with the gun was going to go around shooting everybody. Nobody was packing heat except for him. It wasn’t that kind of joint. As the old warrior lady, Kehinde, was dying, I remember every word.

  Abla was wrong. That was Kehinde talking. I ate the bullet this time, for love.

  Foolish woman. The other warrior was crying.

  Save him and let me go. What do we do? Kehinde gasped. Let it be the last words I hear.

  We search for Melinga. We tell her the story. She is the Guardian at the gate to tomorrow.

  They stole my world, Kehinde said. I should have died in the water or at the end of a bayonet. I killed my twin brother, but I swore an oath and I loved you. No good solution, only love. What do we do?

  We search. We… The other warrior’s voice ran down.

  Promise me, on the oath you swore. Save him.

  “That was it. I don’t know, waiting to get whacked, time got funny, then Sekou was waving at me. My man shrugged, like what the hell were we waiting to die like dogs for. He took a quick peek and crawled out. Nobody shot him, so I crawled out too.

  “There was this raggedy homeless guy, safety-pinned together, smelling like burnt air before a storm. He was holding onto Mr. Cooper, mumbling, Don’t leave me, I can’t bear it, and crying. His hand was on Mr. Cooper’s wound, stopping the blood. Somebody I didn’t recognize dashed out the wide-open door, chasing the gunman, maybe. My mind was a mess. Kehinde was dead, her eyes wide open, not seeing anything. The homeless guy howled at Sekou or anybody trying to close her eyes. So much blood everywhere and shit too, I mean the warrior woman shit herself dying. Sekou left her eyes open and sat down in the blood. The other warrior was gone, nobody knew where.

  “The ambulance took forever to get there. Nasty weather, or maybe they didn’t give a crap. I don’t want to think like that, but I’ve seen it. Anyhow the EMTs said the homeless guy was a magic man, said it was a miracle. Mr. Cooper should have been dead, with blood and stuff swelling up his brain, blowing his mind out. But he wasn’t dead. He was breathing, stable. I don’t know if it felt like a miracle to Sekou. He was sitting there, rocking in the blood, moaning stupid talk, like the shooting was his fault. ’Cause it was his big idea, ’cause Mr. Cooper knocked him to safety and took the bullet himself. Who can think straight while something foul like that is going down? And Mr. Cooper, you know he would have told Sekou. He loved him, the way a man loves a son. He would have told him. He would have set Sekou straight.”

  Lexy paused again, scratching a long time. Redwood eased her storm hand under his fingernails. He stopped digging.

  “You don’t ever want to bury your son. That’s hell, for sure.” Lexy choked up. Redwood nodded, and he continued. “Mr. Cooper wanted Sekou to have a life. He was trying to give him that. So he wasn’t thinking: I’ll die or be in a coma for the rest of my life because of your trifling, faggot ass. But some people tried to make Sekou feel low. I can’t forgive them for that. Him doing the needles — OK that was Sekou’s choice, not anybody else’s fault, but maybe it could have gone another way.” He hung his head. “Actually Sekou started blaming himself before anybody else did.”

  “Nothing you could have done about that,” Cinnamon said. Her hand ached from writing so quickly. “Who ever won an argument with Dictionary Boy?”

  “That warrior lady, eyes open and all, she looked, I don’t want to say peaceful, but, Kehinde knew what she was doing, like Mr. Cooper, they were, uhm, at the end, you know, I feel they loved us. That’s what it was about.”

  Black Bird Take My Spirit High

  Rehearsing inside taped-down dimensions had not provided the full claustrophobic effect of Raven’s nursing home room. Cinnamon hugged The Chronicles under the folds of a long robe, trying to squelch preshow jitters. She set the heavy tome down on Raven’s lap. Klaus and Marie scooped her up into a group hug. They were ragged and jagged too. The bold colorful designs of their African bohemian costumes clashed with puke peach cement-block walls. The funky air laced with disinfectants made them cough. Even pushing the other beds to the wall and stuffing busted chairs in the closet, there was hardly room to move or breathe. They held on to each other in a Mod Squad secret-society huddle. Hooded robes shrouded their heads; fat pants hugged ankles and covered jitters. Grown-ups could not see what was going on.

  Her Squad had performed the Black Bird piece for a talent show at Cinnamon’s school last week. They would never have to play a harder crowd. Everybody knew Cinnamon had pipes, but nobody was expecting Marie. A big rapper kid shouted, Damn, the Asian girl can blow! and the audience was laughing and cracking on each other rather than the act on stage. Not a peep about white boys. Klaus and Cinnamon had talked down Flugzeuge flitting around their tummies in German before going on. Despite consonant clusters, some idiot assumed they were talking Spanish and spread the tale that Klaus was a blond Puerto Rican. Cherrie Carswell and Patty Banks said he was cute.

  Klaus tugged Cinnamon’s crown of braids. “You look good enough to eat.”

  “Like a tropical fruit chocolate delight?” Cinnamon said.

  “No!” Marie blew her lips at Cinnamon. “A surprise!” She kissed Cinnamon and then Klaus. Marie was the best kisser, no contest, sneaking her tongue in on a gasp. “What do we have to say for ourselves? Huh?” Marie shook them. “Don’t think. Don’t giggle. Talk to me.”

  “When you’re on stage, give Doubt a comfortable seat in the wings,” Klaus spoke Redwood’s lines. “Let Doubt watch you soar.” He leaned his full weight onto Cinnamon and Marie. They entwined arms and tangled up their legs, becoming a single creature toying with gravity on the scuffed linoleum. Klaus put a finger to Marie’s and Cinnamon’s forehead, nose, and lips, then his own.

  “Go with our hearts. We got this.” Cinnamon spoke Ariel’s prompt. Still tasting Marie’s kiss and shivering with Klaus’s hot contact, she traced her fingers across their cheeks and sent warm breath down their necks. Sex would be a good offering to Eshu. Together, they chanted their version of an Eshu praise poem from the Wanderer:

  We are all blessed with contradiction

  Eshu is a shapeshifter

  Pour libation

  to the master of masquerade

  to the master of improvisation

  Everything at once, yet not any one thing

  “What does that mean, for each of us?” Klaus asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Cinnamon admitted
.

  “Me neither,” Marie said.

  “We’ll find out when we do this,” Klaus said.

  “Right,” Cinnamon and Marie hit an upbeat reply together.

  “What are we risking? What are we giving up?” Marie said.

  “I wanted revenge,” Cinnamon confessed.

  “Me too,” Klaus and Marie said.

  “Like folks from the old country say, forgiveness is the best revenge.”

  “Verzeihen ist die beste Rache,” Klaus and Marie repeated in German.

  “We’ve been waiting for love to come on back in style,” Marie whispered.

  Cinnamon tingled. “Maybe we don’t have to break up.”

  The Squad swung a long moment through upbeat silence, doing the small dance, falling toward the center of the Earth, catching each other and falling again. Contact Improv readiness, waiting. Iris would give the cue for the beginning.

  Raven’s bed had been cranked up as far as it would go. If his eyes and visual cortex were hooked up and turned on, he would have the best seat in the house. Dr. Elliott had admitted a birthday party would probably do no harm. “Consciousness is an elusive mystery,” he said. “Raven is responding to stimulation. A twelve or almost thirteen. Who knows how far he’ll go? Just don’t get your hopes up too high.”

  Clarence, looking corporate and important with a snazzy briefcase, hulked in the corner and grumbled to Lexy and Kevin about false hope. Star Deer screwed up her face and slipped away from bad vibes. At least Clarence had shown up. He didn’t say a word about Georgia crackers, hillbilly music, or noble savages and hoodoo Negroes. But it wasn’t like Sekou’s funeral. He was outnumbered.

  Everybody on Daddy’s team had come to the nursing home, almost everybody. Opal and Aunt Becca were caught in a traffic jam but on their way, according to Kevin. No sign of Ariel/Griot Joe yet. Cinnamon refused to worry about that. Thirteen on a scale of three to fourteen was cause for celebration, not pointless negative speculation.

  With a twist of the pegs, Aidan got the banjo tuned to a sweet spot. He wore a Seminole patchwork coat and a turban tied around his loose white hair. Redwood sported a crown of river silk, chains of silver bangles at the waist of harem pants, and sea shells and seed pods around graceful ankles. She kept time with the machines beeping and whirring. Iris wore a gele — Yoruba head wrap — and a red and black sheath to honor Eshu, master of uncertainty, weaver of the cosmic interface. Over the sheath she’d draped a Seminole mantle. She and Kevin, who styled a blue velvet cowboy shirt and boots with two-inch heels, arranged a feast table of delicious food.

  Iris jerked as if a jolt of energy had hit her. “Excuse me.” She patted Kevin’s shoulder and headed for the door. While Kevin fussed with his famous barbecue and whiskey brownies, Yoruba words tumbled from Iris’s lips. The show was about to begin. Cinnamon spoke the English translation.

  Eshu, do not undo me

  Do not falsify the words of my mouth

  Do not misguide the movements of my feet

  You who translate yesterday’s words into novel utterances

  Do not undo me

  I bear your sacrifice

  Clarence rolled his eyes.

  Shaking her powwow jingle dress, Star Deer lit a bunch of sage in front of him. “Chippewa elders teach us always to purify a place and the people who have gathered — before any ceremony. I’m not Chippewa. I am Cherokee. I honor their wisdom. Sage smoke drives out bad spirits and bad feelings.” Star moved slowly around the room. When she reached Clarence again, she pulled out a braid of sweetgrass. “Sweetgrass calls in the good spirits. Gather the smoke to you. Rub it against your body.” She whispered, “If you can’t go with the spirit thing or the theatre thing, think of yourself as activating the placebo effect.”

  Clarence snorted, but drew the smoke toward him. Iris opened the door to reveal a shadowy figure filling the frame. A page from The Chronicles come to life, the Wanderer was here and not here, fuzzy as a weak broadcast, then sharp as a spotlight. Breath on fire, skin turning to crystals, eyes flickering between rainbows, the Wanderer stepped over the threshold, through the spaces between things and onto the scuffed gray linoleum floor. The Wanderer might have been naked except for the ide Ifa on one wrist and a lightning bolt headdress. Nobody quite knew what they were seeing.

  True and not true.

  “You theatre folks sure know how to make an entrance.” Kevin applauded the special effects.

  “Hot dog, one of Raven’s pictures coming to life,” Aidan said.

  “We’ve been walking around in his landscapes for a while, sugar,” Redwood said.

  “Thank you for the end of the story, for giving me back to myself.” The Wanderer pointed at The Chronicles and faded a little. “What destiny will Raven Cooper choose?”

  Cinnamon shrugged. “Not knowing is torture!” She danced the Wanderer right up to the bed and headed back to Klaus and Marie. Outside in the hall, Opal hid under a busted light, wiping away tears. “We’re all here, Daddy,” Cinnamon said.

  Raven opened his eyes at that. He looked disoriented, confused. His gaze drifted through the room, not settling on anything.

  “Good to see you son.” Aidan wrapped Raven’s right hand around the walking stick he’d carved — wind-storming into a Georgia swamp. Leather strands of beads cascaded down the side.

  “Sorry I stayed away so long.” Redwood put Raven’s favorite brush into his painting hand and then handed Iris a mojo bag.

  The smell of rum stung Cinnamon’s nose. The Squad helped the elders collect nine ornery things: a busted banjo string, an elephant hair, a splinter from Ariel’s broken wand, goober dust from Sekou’s grave, a poison mushroom, truncated definitions on half a dictionary page, a rock from the badlands, Opal’s last cigarette butt, and a broken crow feather. Iris placed this mojo around the Wanderer’s neck.

  Star finished smudging the room. Marie smoothed Sekou’s thunderbird shirt under her billowy robes. Her hair was held back from her face by a grandmother’s jade comb and the Oshun comb she shared with Cinnamon. Klaus sneezed as Star danced sweetgrass smoke by him. He waved Sekou’s bear claw in the air. Cinnamon felt shy in her Yoruba and Fon finery, but didn’t let on. They whirled their robes into a tangle and let them float to the ground. Aidan played furious licks on the banjo.

  “Sacrifice means to give up one self for another.” Cinnamon launched her center of gravity at Marie and pivoted across her muscular back. Klaus dropped to the floor and snagged Cinnamon as she flew over Marie’s shoulders. Rolling with their momentum, Cinnamon shifted to the ground and lifted Klaus who caught Marie with the edge of his shoulder. After that it was hard to say what happened: fast Newtonian physics processed below consciousness into thrilling art. They landed too out of breath for singing. Aidan and Redwood had to go one time through the song as a duet.

  Can’t help loving somebody

  Who can soar, who can fly

  Who can take your spirit up in the sky

  A black bird with a broken wing

  Hopping down there on the ground

  Why’s that ole black bird sticking ’round

  Ain’t got nothing good to sing

  Can’t help loving somebody

  Who can soar, who can fly

  Who can take your spirit up in the sky

  Black bird sing a worm in my ear

  Can’t get the tune to leave me alone

  Black bird sing a worm in my ear

  Hear it all day and all night

  Black bird flap that ole broken wing

  The pain sure get him to sing

  Black bird, black bird

  Can’t work the wind to take flight

  It’s the song black bird get to soar

  It’s the song black bird get to fly

  Black bird take my spirit up in the sky

  Even Clarence was dazzled. He clapped his hands and looked from Lexy over to Raven, who jiggled the wind staff, his eyes tracking everybody. His facial muscles twitched, forming a
grin or a grimace. Opal stepped over the doorframe, wheezing burbly short breaths. She clutched one of Raven’s paintings to her gurgling chest.

  Iris pressed Lexy toward her. “Go on now.”

  “We’ve been missing you around here.” Lexy beamed at Opal. “We’re celebrating. Mr. Cooper is a thirteen on a scale of three to fourteen, on his birthday.” He pulled Opal close to Cinnamon, Klaus, and Marie. “Dr. Elliott said he might show up, all of him, any time now. A shame for you to miss out on any of that.”

  “You were a friend of my son’s,” Opal said.

  “I uh,” Lexy teetered around a maze of emotions. “We were more than friends.”

  “Yes. That too.” Opal squinted at Lexy. “You’ve gained a few pounds. Didn’t recognize you at first.”

  “We never met before, officially. Only here.”

  “Sekou had a picture of you two.” She handed the photo to him.

  “What else you got there?” Redwood said.

  “You started too soon.” Opal turned to Cinnamon. “Becca’s still looking for a parking space.”

  “No, Ma’am, she’s right here.” Aidan nodded at Becca striding in.

  “I been at this nursing home plenty, you know,” Opal said.

  “We are grateful,” Iris said. “And so glad you are here now.”

  Raven gurgled and everyone got still, holding one breath together.

  “Show us what you brought, Mom,” Cinnamon said. “Please.”

  “Raven is someone who sees things beautiful.” Opal turned the painting around: a spiral galaxy of colors, shadows, and ghosts morphing into creatures, musical instruments, flying machines. “He was working on this before…” Opal halted. “He sees things beautiful. When he looks, the beauty is there, vivid, clear, and he paints that.”

  That’s number thirty. Sekou was here! Marie and Klaus heard him too. They held up the title: Kitab al-jabr wa’l-muqabalah — The Book of Restoring and Balancing.

  “Raven painted my memory back,” the Wanderer spoke softly, flickering across the dimensions.

  The wind staff spilled out of Raven’s grip. Clarence picked it up and curled Raven’s fingers around it again. “This is going to be very hard.” Clarence had tears in his eyes. Iris put an arm around his shoulder.