Wizard of the Pigeons (3 page)

He paused at the pay phone on the way out, to put the receiver to his ear, then hit the coin return and check the chute. Nothing. Well, he could not complain. Magic was not what it once had been. It was spread thinner these days; one had to use it as it came, and never quite trust all one's weight to it. Nor lose faith in it.

He stepped back into October and the blueness of the day fell on him and wrapped him. The brightness of it pushed his eyes down and to one side, to show him a glint between the tyre of a parked car and the kerb. He stooped for a shining silver quarter. Now, two more of these, and a dime, and he could have his evening coffee in Elliott Bay Café, under the bookstore. He slipped it into his shirt pocket. He took two steps, then suddenly halted. He slapped his pocket, and then stuck his fingers inside it and felt around. The tarot card was gone. Worry squirmed inside him. He banished it. The magic was running right
today, and he was Wizard, and all of the Metro Ride Free Zone was his domain. He believed he would find two more quarters and a dime today.

A sidewalk evangelist with a fistful of pamphlets caught at his arm. ‘Sir, do you know the price of salvation in Seattle today?' He flapped his flyers in Wizard's face.

‘No,' Wizard replied honestly. ‘But the price of survival is the price of a cup of coffee.' He pulled free effortlessly of the staring man, and strolled toward the bus stop.

Rasputin sunned himself on the bench, making October look like June. He was wearing sandals, and between the leather straps his big feet were as scuffed and grey as an elephant's hide. His blue denims were raggedy at the cuffs, and the sleeves of his sweatshirt had been cut off unevenly. His eyes were closed, his head nodding gently to the rhythm of his music, one long-fingered hand keeping graceful time. Black and Satisfied, Wizard titled him. Blending in with the bench squatters like a pit bull in a pack of fox hounds. The benches near him were conspicuously empty of loiterers. Wizard shook his head over him as he sat down at the other end of the bench.

Rasputin didn't stir. Reaching into a pocket, Wizard drew out a crumpled sack of popcorn fragments. He leaned forward to scatter a handful. Rasputin shifted slightly at the fluttering sound of pigeon wings as a dozen or so birds came immediately to the feed.

‘Don't let them damn pests be shitting on me,' he warned Wizard laconically.

‘Wouldn't dream of it. Don't you think you should carry a radio or something?'

‘What for? So folks would quit looking for my headphones? Ain't my fault they can't hear the real music.
They too busy covering it up with their own noises.'

Wizard nodded and threw another handful of popcorn. Rasputin's hand danced lazily on the back of the bench. Muscles played smoothly under his sleek skin, sunlight played smoothly over it. The day arched above them, and Wizard could have dreamed with his eyes open. Instead, he asked, ‘So what brings you to Pioneer Square?'

‘My feet, mostly.' Rasputin grinned feebly. ‘I'm looking for Cassie. Got a present for her. New jump rope song. Heard it just the other day.'

Wizard nodded sagely. He knew Cassie collected jump rope songs and clapping rhymes. ‘Let's hear it.'

Rasputin shook his head slowly in a graceful counterpoint to the dance of his hand. A passerby slowed down to watch him, then scurried on. ‘No way, man. Not going to repeat it here. Sounded new, and real potent in a way I don't like. Gonna tell it to Cassie, but I'm not going to spread it around. Won't catch me fooling with magic not mine to do.' Rasputin's words took on the cadence of his concealed dance, becoming near a chant. Wizard had known him to speak in endless rhymes, or fall into the steady stamp of iambic pentameter when the muse took him. But today he broke out of it abruptly, the rhythm of his hand suddenly changing. A grin spread over his face slowly as he gestured across the square to where a woman in a yellow raincoat had just emerged from a shop.

‘See her? Walking like rain trickling down a window glass? She makes love in a waltz rhythm.' A black hand waltzed on its fingertips on the bench between them. Wizard glanced from it to the tall, graceful woman crossing the square.

‘That doesn't seem possible,' he observed after a perusal of her swinging stride.

‘The best things in this life are the ones that aren't possible, my friend. 'Sides, would I lie to you? You don't believe me, you just go ask her. Just walk right on up and say, “My friend Rasputin says you can make a man's eyes roll back in his head while your thighs play the Rippling River Waltz.” You go ask her.'

‘No thanks,' Wizard chuckled softly. ‘I'll take your word for it.'

‘Don't have to, man. She's one generous lady. Picked me up off the bus one rainy night, took me home and taught me to waltz horizontal. Kept me all night, fed me breakfast, and put me out with her cat when she left for work. Best night of my life.'

‘You never went back?'

‘Some things don't play well the second time around; only a fool takes a chance at ruining a perfect memory. 'Sides, I wasn't invited. Kinda lady she is, she does all the asking. All a man can say to her is “yes, please” and “thank you kindly.” That's all.'

Wizard shifted uncomfortably on the bench. This kind of talk made him uneasy, stirring places in him better left dormant. ‘So you're looking for Cassie,' he commented inanely, looking for a safer topic.

Rasputin gave a brief snort of laughter. ‘Did I say that? Stupid way to put it. No sense looking for her. No, I'm just waiting to be found. She'll know I got something for her, and she'll come to find me. Don't you know that about her by now? Think on it. You ever been looking for Cassie and found her? No. Just about the time you give up looking and sit down someplace, who finds you? Cassie. Ain't that right?'

‘Yeah.' He chuckled slightly at the truth of it. ‘So what you been doing lately?'

‘I just told you. Getting laid, and listening to jump rope songs in the park. How 'bout you?'

Wizard shrugged. ‘Not much of anything. Little magics, mostly. Told a crying kid where he'd lost his lunch money. Went to visit Sylvester. Saw an old man hurting on a street corner. Asked him the time, the way to Pike Place Market, and talked about the weather until he had changed his mind about stepping in front of the next bus. Was standing in front of the Salvation Army Store and a man drove up and handed me a trenchcoat and a pair of boots. Boots didn't fit, so I donated them. Trenchcoat did, so I kept it. Listened to a battered woman on the public dock until she talked herself into going to a shelter instead of going home. Listened to an old man whose daughter wanted him to put his sixteen-year-old dog to sleep. Told him “Bullshit!” Old dog sat and wagged his tail at me all through it. That's about it.'

Rasputin was grinning and shaking his head slowly. ‘What a life! How do you do it, Wizard?'

‘I don't know,' the other man replied in a soft, naive voice, and they both laughed together as at an old joke.

‘I mean,' Rasputin's voice was thick and mellow as warm honey, ‘how you keep going? Look how skinny you getting lately! Bet Cassie don't appreciate that in the sack; be like sleeping with a pile of kindling.'

Wizard shot Rasputin a suddenly chill look. ‘I don't sleep with Cassie.'

The big man wasn't taking any hints. ‘No, I wouldn't either. No time for sleeping with something that warm and soft up against you. You don't know how many times
Euripides and I sat howling at the moon for her. Then you come along, and she falls into your lap. Her eyes get all warm when they touch you. First time she brought you to me, I saw it. Oh, oh, I say to myself, here come Cassie, mixing business with pleasure. Now you telling me, oh, no, ain't really nothing between us. You sure you wouldn't be telling me a lie?' An easy, teasing question.

‘I don't do that.' Wizard's voice was hard.

‘Don't do what?' Rasputin teased innocently. ‘Screw or tell lies?'

‘I tell lies only to stay alive. I tell the Truth when it's on me.' Ice and fire in his voice, warning the black wizard.

‘Say what?' Rasputin sat up straight on the bench, and his fingers suddenly beat a dangerous staccato rhythm on the bench back. Wizard felt his strength gather in his shoulders and watched the play of muscles in the black hand and wrist on the bench back. He felt the edge and dragged himself back from it. This man was his friend. He forced his voice into a casual scale.

‘Remember who you're talking to, Rasputin. I'm the man who knows the Truth about people, and when they ask me, I've got to tell them. I have my own balancing points for my magic. One of them is that I don't touch women. I don't touch anyone.'

‘That so?' the black wizard asked sceptically. Wizard looked at him stony-eyed. ‘You poor, stupid bastard,' Rasputin said softly, more to himself than to his friend. ‘Drawing the circle that shuts it out.' He flopped back into his earlier, careless pose, but his dancing fingers jigged on the bench back, and Wizard felt his awareness digging at him.

The pigeons roared up suddenly around them, their
frantically beating wings swishing harshly against Wizard's very face. Cassie stood before them, slender and smiling. She was very plain today, dressed all in dove grey from her shoes to the softly draped cloth of her dress. Her hair was an unremarkable brown, her features small and regular. But when she flashed Wizard her smile, the blue voltage of her eyes stunned him. She proffered him a couple of grey tail feathers. ‘Nearly had myself a pigeon pie for tonight,' she teased, tossing the feathers in his face. Wizard winced, fearing there was more truth in her jest than he approved. ‘Come on,' she cajoled, sitting down between the men. ‘If lions are majestic and wolves are noble and tigers are princely, what's so cruddy about a person who snags a few pigeons for a meal now and then?'

She bent suddenly to wipe a smudge from her shoe, and Rasputin grabbed Wizard's eyes over her bent back. ‘Stupid shit!' he mouthed silently at Wizard, but composed his face quickly as Cassie sat up between them. She gave her brown bobbed hair a shake, and the scent of wistaria engulfed Wizard and threatened to sweep him away. But she had fixed those eyes on Rasputin and pinned him to the bench. ‘Give it to me!' she demanded instantly.

‘Right here?' His reluctance wasn't feigned. ‘It's a heavy one, Cassie. Bad. I didn't like hearing it, and I don't like repeating it.'

‘All the more reason I should have it. Out with it.'

‘It was these two cute little girls, one in pigtails, down in Gas Works Park, and they were jumping rope, and I was hardly listening, cause they was doing all old ones, you know, like “I like coffee, I like tea, I like boys, why don't they like me?” and “Queen Bee, come chase me, all around my apple tree…”'

‘Oldies!' Cassie snorted. ‘Get to the good stuff.'

‘It didn't sound so good to me. All of a sudden, one starts a new one. Scared the shit out of me. “Billy was a sniper, Billy got a gun, Billy thought killing was fun, fun fun. How many slopes did Billy get? One, two, three, four…”' Rasputin's voice trailed off in a horrified whisper. Wizard's nails dug into his palms. The day turned a shade greyer, and Cassie rubbed her hands as if they pained her.

‘It has to come out somewhere,' Cassie sighed, ripping the stiff silence. ‘All the horrors come out somewhere, even the ones no one can talk about. Look at child abuse. You know this one, so it doesn't bother you anymore. But think about it. “Down by the ocean, down by the sea, Johnny broke a bottle and blamed it on me. I told Ma, Ma told Pa, and Johnny got a licking with a ha, ha, ha! How many lickings did Johnny get? One, two, three,” and on and on, for as long as little sister or brother can keep up with the rope. Or “Ring around a Rosie” that talks about burning bodies after a plague. Believe in race memory. It comes out somewhere.'

‘“When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,”' whispered Wizard.

‘“Take the key and lock her up,”' Rasputin added.

The day grew chillier around them, until a pigeon came to settle on Wizard's knee. He stroked its feathers absently and then sighed for all of them. ‘Kids' games,' he mused. ‘Kids' songs.'

‘Jump rope songs they'll still be singing a hundred years from now,' Cassie said. ‘But it's better it comes out there than to have it sealed up and forgotten. Because when folks try to do that, the thing they seal up just finds a new shape, and bulges out uglier than ever.'

‘What do you do with those jump rope songs, anyway?' Rasputin demanded, his voice signalling that he'd like the talk to take a new direction.

Cassie just smiled enigmatically for a moment, but then relented. ‘There's power in them. I can tap that magic, I can guide it. Think of this. All across the country, little girls play jump rope. Sometimes little boys, too. Everywhere the chanting of children, and sometimes the rhymes are nationally known. A whole country of children, jumping and chanting the same words. There's a power to be tapped there, a magic not to be ignored. The best ones, of course, are the simple, safe-making ones.'

‘Like?'

‘Didn't you ever play jump rope? Like “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch the ground. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, go upstairs. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say your prayers. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say good-night.
Good night!
”'

The last words she shouted as gleefully as any child ever did. Both men jumped, then smiled abashedly at one another. The simple words were full, not of awe-inspiring power, but of glowing energy. When Cassie chanted them, her voice made them a song to childhood and innocence, suggesting the woman's magic she wielded so well. Wizard and Rasputin exchanged glances, nodding at the sudden freeness in the sky and the fresh calm that settled over them. They settled back onto the bench.

‘Something bad's come to Seattle,' Cassie announced suddenly.

Rasputin and Wizard stiffened again. Rasputin's feet began to keep time with his hand, to dance away the threat
that hovered. Wizard sat very still, looking apprehensive and feeling strangely guilty.

‘What you want to be saying things like that for?' the black wizard abruptly complained. ‘Nice enough day, we all come together for some talk, like we hardly ever do, I bring you a new jump rope song, and then you go “
Boogie-boo!
” at us. Why get us all spooked up when we just got comfortable?'

‘Oh, bullshit!' Cassie disarmed him effortlessly. ‘You knew it when you came. That jump rope song scared the shit out of you. You knew it didn't mean anything good when kids in the city start singing stuff like that. So you brought it to me to hear me say how bad it was. Well, it's bad.'

‘Just one little jump rope song!'

‘Omens and portents, my dear Rasputin. I have seen the warnings written in the graffiti on the overpasses and carved on the bodies of the young punkers. There are signs in the entrails of the gutted fish on the docks, and ill favours waft over the city.'

‘Just a strong wind from Tacoma,' Rasputin tried to joke, but it fell flat. The small crowd of pigeons that had come to cluster at Wizard's feet rose suddenly, to wheel away in alarm. Startled at nothing.