The Magic Touch (7 page)

“Rose?” he asked. “Where does the magic come from?”

She looked up toward the sky, too. “I think at its source it comes from God. When I first joined the Fairy Godmothers I worried that doing magic might take me farther away from God, in spite of the name, but I think it’s brought me closer instead. I did a little experimentation. I thought that if magic was an evil thing, you couldn’t do it in a church or a synagogue, or saying the holy name. So I said prayers while I was granting wishes.” She smiled a little sheepishly. “I did a few good deeds while I was in churches and synagogues. Lightning didn’t smite me down, so I have to guess it’s all right with Whoever up there. In my personal opinion, what we do is a
mitzvah
,
a good deed. How the Union channels the magic to our wands is from a vow made hundreds of years ago to help every child. A miracle is vouchsafed to each and every youngster at some time in his or her life. Where the miracle doesn’t happen on its own, we give things a little push. It’s all in your manual. You should read it.”

“I will,” Raymond promised.

“Here we are,” Rose said, turning off the walk toward a yellow brick three-flat on the side street. “This is home!” Ray looked at the building, the glass door flanked by plantings of tulips and evergreens and little trees with their roots buried in colored pebbles, three long skinny mailboxes with the names and doorbells set above. It was a nice place, in a pretty nice street, but not special. There was nothing at all to tell that a fairy godmother lived here. And he was surprised to note how close it was to the neighborhood where he lived.

Rose turned to him. “Well, thank you for bringing me home, Raymond. Do you want to come in? I think I have some pop in the fridge.”

“Uh, no, thanks,” Ray said. “I’ve got to go.”

“Fine, then. I’ll see you again on, say, Thursday, all right?”

“Yeah, okay, Thursday,” Raymond said. “No, wait a minute.” Once he might let her run things, but not twice. He didn’t know what he was thinking of. Didn’t he just promise himself he’d be in charge of his own life? Did he want to devote hours on several nights a week to unpaid volunteer work, however unique and uncanny? He had college expenses to think of. When would he see his girlfriend? His friends? And yet, he thought of the faces of those kids when he and Rose helped them. And doing magic—it had been cooler than dry ice to walk through a wall and stand on thin air. Nobody in the history of the world had ever had so many incredible things happen to him in one evening. “Friday. I’d rather go out Friday,” he heard himself saying.

“All right,” Rose said, at once, without any complaint. “Friday is fine with me.”

“Yeah,” Raymond said, then stopped. Had she given in too easily? Was the matter not sufficiently important to start a dominance battle, or did she mean it when she said he could make some of the decisions? Was she telling the truth about making this a partnership instead of just a plain student/teacher relationship? That’d be too much to expect. “I guess. Uh, Mrs.—Rose, what are you gonna tell my grandma?”

“I’ll tell her what a fine young man her grandson is,” Rose said, with a smile on her face. She took a key out of the door and stuck it in the lock. “See you Friday, Ray.”

“’Night, Rose,” Raymond said, turning away. He wondered again just for a moment if she was humoring him, letting him have his way. He’d have to see on Friday. Yeah, Friday. In the meantime, he had a lot to think about.

Chapter 7

Walking hunched over with his hands in his pockets, he didn’t see Hakeem and Zeon as they fell into step beside him. He was so preoccupied he didn’t even smell the smoke of their cigarettes until Zeon leaned over and blew a plume of it into his face.
I wasn’t paying attention
,
he thought, coughing and batting at the air to the others’ great amusement.
That can get me killed.

“Hey, Ray,” Hakeem said, giving him a full-cheeked grin.

“Hey, man,” Ray said, putting up a hand for a friendly salute. He and Hakeem had been best friends since they were babies. They had gone all the way through school together. Hakeem was exactly one inch taller and five pounds heavier than Ray. His cheeks had always been prominent and round, even though he grew out of the last of his baby fat years ago. Aunts and grandmothers couldn’t help but reach up for a pinch. Hakeem stood it like a gentleman, but he cursed about it in private with Raymond. They had big dreams as kids, vowing to go to medical school or law school or invent something fabulous and become rich, important men. Things being what they were in the neighborhood, neither of them had put their whole hearts into making the straight
A
’s necessary for any of the showcase programs. Their teachers were openly disappointed in them. Ray had kept plugging at his schoolwork, urged by his family to go to college and make the best he could of himself anyhow. Hakeem had given up and was falling back. As much as Ray tried to pull him along, he began to think he was losing him to the street. Hanging out sure was easier than trying and failing, but it went nowhere. Ray thought his smarter best friend would know that in his heart, if not his head.

Zeon was somebody Hakeem had started hanging out with a few months before. Hakeem thought he was all right, but Zeon gave Ray the creeps. He was a member of the Riverside Jackals. Ray was afraid he was going to try and recruit them into the gang whether they wanted to join or not. Ray’s parents worried about the gangs, and for good reason. People who turned them down sometimes ended up dead in the alley. Ray had managed to stay out of their clutches in a friendly way so far, but it looked like Hakeem was drifting in. Every time Ray tried to discuss it with Hakeem, Zeon would appear out of nowhere and get in the way. He was dangerous, six or seven inches taller than Ray, and built across the shoulders like a professional football player and with hands like huge, black spiders. He had long eyelashes that would look effeminate on a smaller guy, but instead made him look more sinister. So far he hadn’t used any real threats or violence on Ray, but Ray was always wary that that would come next if he kept saying no or prevented the Jackals from getting Hakeem.

“Saw you walking around with the old white lady,” Zeon said. “What you doing with her?”

“Nothing,” Ray said.

“Running
errands
for her?” Hakeem nudged the other, grinning lasciviously. “She want a little special company? Likes ’em young, does she? I saw Antoinette tonight. Should I tell her you’ve got somebody else and she should start dating other guys?”

“Chill it,
Darrell
,”
Ray blurted out. Hakeem made a face. That was his birth name. Hakeem had changed it when they went to junior high to sound more cool, and tried to persuade Raymond to change his. Ray had pointed out he was named for Ray Charles, and who could be cooler than that? Besides, Raymond meant “king of the world.” “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Mrs. Feinstein’s a friend of my grandmother’s. You dissing
her
now?”

Hakeem, like the other boys on the block, had a healthy respect for Grandma Eustatia Green. He held up his hands in surrender.

“No, no, of course not, Ray. So how come you’re spending time with the old lady and not with us? You dissing us? You disrespecting your own ’hood?”

“No,” Raymond said, weary of the argument and of the television slang that had come into their way of talking. The gate of his house was about fifty yards ahead. He could make a quick escape if things started to get hairy. There was a light in Grandma’s room upstairs, but none in his folks’ room. Were they downstairs watching TV, or out? The front door would be locked at this hour. Grandma didn’t like strangers in the house after dark. Could he get inside without having to ask the other two in? He tried to push past, and the two of them blocked his way. “Come on, man, I’m tired. I need to sleep.”

“Old lady wear you out?” Zeon asked, a fierce and dirty grin on his face.

With difficulty, Raymond held his temper. “That’s not it. My grandma made me join this group, see? A charity group.” Hakeem and Zeon both groaned in sympathy. “The old lady’s in the group, too. I was just walking her home. Streets aren’t safe, or haven’t you heard?”

The guys just thought that was hilarious. They laughed and slapped each other on the backs. “Yeah, we heard something like that,” Zeon said. “Well, don’t you try and avoid us. Don’t you try, or we might have to take steps, you know?” He snapped his fingers under Ray’s nose.

“Yeah, man, I know,” Raymond said, feeling the tightness in his stomach. It took all his courage not to flinch or back away.

“You coming out later, Ray?” Hakeem asked, hopefully. He didn’t look at Zeon.

“No, I can’t,” Ray said, trying not to look at the gangbanger either. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Hakeem said, then hesitated, turning to look fully into his friend’s eyes. “Hey, Ray?” Raymond saw that the pupils had dilated hugely. He recognized that his friend was strung out, and felt horribly uncomfortable. “You got any money? I need … something.”

Ray backed away involuntarily, and saw the hurt look on Hakeem’s face. “No, man, I don’t have any.”

“You could get some from your mama,” Zeon said, urgently. He also showed dangerous signs of drug withdrawal.

“No. I can’t.” He said that with as much finality as he dared, and Zeon stood back, hugging himself under his athletic jacket. Hakeem grabbed his arm.

“Okay,” he said, “but you get me some next time, you hear me? I need it.”

“That junk messes you up, Hakeem,” Raymond said, seeing a ghost look out of his friend’s eyes. It terrified him, knowing that someone he’d been babies with could die so young. “It’s poison. You know that?”

“Yeah, I know, man. Stop nagging me. Everyone is nagging on me. You sound like my mama.”

At last they let him go inside. As quietly as he could he locked the dead bolt, but the faint
snick
gave him away. He walked upstairs listening to the derisive, too-brittle laughter of the youths in the street.

It was painful to see Hakeem turning into a street punk. Gangs had taken almost every one of their friends. He and Hakeem had been the last holdouts, and now he was alone. It had seemed like forever since the last time the two of them had sat around talking about the relative merits of their favorite sports figures, or just hanging around and having a good time. Now all of a sudden, there was the complication of drugs, maybe weapons, maybe turf wars. All of it was undesirable and dangerous.

Raymond had promised his family to keep out of the gangs. He did his best to avoid entanglements, but the neighborhood was changing. It got harder and harder every day to go around and mind your business. He wished it was still like the community it had been while he was growing up, but there seemed to be knives and guns and drugs everywhere he turned. The family couldn’t afford to move. His mother and grandmother prayed he would get a scholarship to an out-of-state college, but his grades, while good, were unspectacular. Financial aid was the only way for him to attend a good four-year college one day. His dream, medical school, was right out of the question. In the meantime, he was scheduled to attend Roosevelt College that fall, right there in the city. Roosevelt was cheap enough for his wallet but close, too close to the gangs. The bangers didn’t like a man to get an education. They wanted everybody to be equal but lower than the leaders.

If only the Crandall’s could have found a way to pay for a four-year college. If Ray got a top-rated education, he could get a really good job, and the faster he could earn the money to move the family to somewhere better. But there was never enough money for fancy extras. Plenty of people were worse off, he knew. He saw them on the streets, on TV, and in the newspapers. Their church was a link in the Public Action to Deliver Shelter network that hosted the local homeless one night a week, and he’d done his part in helping to make beds and meals for people who had nothing.

“I’m grateful, God, you know I am,” Ray said a silent prayer. “I just wish we were a little richer.”

His parents both had good jobs, but everything a big family needed cost so much sometimes Raymond felt as if his family was just holding on. They didn’t take fancy vacations. Mama kept her three kids down to one name brand, designer item a year, like a pair of Sports Figure sneakers. If only he’d stuck to his studies, or been a super brain, like Hakeem had been before he’d started hanging around with the Jackals. Ray carried a part-time job with the Chicago park district (which was full-time now that it was summer and he had graduated) and took on other odd jobs to buy clothes and records. He kicked in the rest to help out the household kitty. Ray wished he hadn’t blown any of his share on clothes and saved every penny. He could have used it as part of his tuition to Howard University. Antoinette was going there. The two of them sighed that they’d be separated in September, but there was nothing he could do about it this year.

He wondered if the FGU could help him find money so he could transfer in his sophomore year. Maybe that benefit plan they talked about could stretch to give him a good start in life. They wanted to do good for kids, and he was pretty certain he hadn’t had
his
miracle yet. He would swear to work off the loan in granted wishes in Washington, D.C., if they gave him a referral to the local chapter.

It would be terrible to leave Hakeem behind, but it looked as if Hakeem was already gone. Ray felt a deep, aching sense of loss. Could he use the magic to stop his friend craving drugs and pull him away from Zeon and the Jackals? But, no: Rose talked about impinging on free will by doing too much by magic. He didn’t want to interfere with Hakeem, take over any of his personal liberty. It was frustrating to have the ability to do something special without it applying to the people around him who needed extra. To make a wish that Hakeem stop taking drugs might result in him being arrested and put on a rehab program. In any case, he’d hate Raymond forever, exactly the opposite of what Ray wanted.

The sound of soft breathing from the other bedrooms told him that Chanel and Bobby were safely asleep. That was good. He didn’t want to have to answer their questions about his evening out yet. He didn’t know what he’d tell them. Quietly, he crept into his room and eased the door almost shut. It creaked on its hinge, and Ray winced. A little sigh came from Chanel’s tiny room. Ray listened with his ear to the door, wondering if the sharp noise had woken her up. No. He heard the rustling as she turned over and settled down into deeper sleep. Whew!

Raymond took the little wand out of his pocket and put it on his desk. He looked at it while he changed from his good clothes to the T-shirt and gym shorts he wore to sleep in. Such a funny, ordinary-looking thing, no more than a stick painted blue with a cookie-cutter star the size of a quarter on top, but just touching it gave him that fabulous feeling of goodness. He almost forgave the wand for looking like a thirty-nine-cent pencil. In a way he was sorry it would be almost a week before he’d be using it again. In the meantime, where would be a safe place to put it?

Ray looked around his small room. There were few places that he considered safe for anything private. His little sister, Chanel, had a typical eleven-year-old’s views about property. If she thought he had something she needed, she rooted through his desk and dresser with a perfectly clear conscience. His parents seemed to think her taking his possessions and leaving his room a disaster was cute. He thought it was a menace. Who knew what kind of havoc she could wreak with a magic wand? His desk was unsafe, since it didn’t lock. Same for his dresser. If he put the wand under his pillow, it might roll out during the night or, unthinkably, get put into the wash when his mother stripped the beds. No, he decided the only good place to keep the wand was where he’d had it all evening. He put it back into the jacket pocket and zipped it closed. There, it was secure. The funny thing was he could still sort of feel the goodness even though he was no longer in physical contact.

He slid into bed and folded his arms under his pillow, cradling his head and staring up at the ceiling. In his mind’s eye he kept seeing the faces of Rose and those children over and over again. So much had happened in one day. Ray felt absolutely exhausted. He closed his eyes only to have them pop open again with excitement. If only Zeon hadn’t been there when Hakeem dropped by. He would’ve had to swear Hakeem to secrecy, but it would have felt good to share his experience with his best friend. Or should he call Antoinette? No, she’d be in bed, too. He sat up, folded the pillow in half, turned over on his side, and tried again to settle down. In his mind he saw those pink-and-purple skates and heard Clarice’s wondering voice say, “Are they really for me?”

There was a soft tap at the door. Ray sat up straight in bed.

“Come in,” he called.

“Hello, child,” his grandmother said, swinging the door open a few inches. “I could feel clear across the house that you wanted to tell someone something.”

Ray replied with alacrity. “I sure do, Grandma.”

O O O

“Hey, I thought you said he was flush,” Zeon complained to Hakeem as they strolled away from the Crandall house. “He got nothing. Or he
say
he got nothing.”

“If he says it he means it,” Hakeem said, crossly. “Don’t you call him a liar. He’s my brother, Zeon.”

“Yeah, but he don’t act it.” Zeon rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “He ought to be giving you what he’s got. We better score something quick. I’m starting to feel bad, you know?”