To Come and Go Like Magic Read Free

powder on a moth’s wing. Light enough to float away.

S and Without Stones …
    Miss Matlock brings a Ball jar of sand to school so we can see and feel the African desert. She says the tiniest of these particles floats across the ocean from Africa and lands on our doorsteps.
    Willie Bright raises his hand and says this looks like plain old riverbank sand. “It’s got little rocks in it,” Willie says. He sits with his arms crossed and eyes glued to the teacher. His shoes have holes and his pants are too short and his curly yellow hair looks like it’s never seen a comb.
    Willie Bright is a welfare. He lives with his momma and little brother and sister and a crinkly old grandma on a hill across the meadow from our house. His daddy ran away when his little brother was born. I guess if you’re that poor, one more kid won’t turn the grass any greener.

    At bedtime the desert is still on my mind. I dream of a camel walking down Persimmon Tree Road with a manin a blue robe perched like a king between the two humps. When they get to our porch, the man asks for a drink, so I run to the kitchen and bring back a pitcher of ice water. After he takes a long swig, he points to the place where the river and the mountains are supposed to be, but there’s nothing but a long stretch of sand with the road running through it.
    “Do you know what’s out there?” he asks, blinking at the sun.
    “Sand,” I answer. “Sand without stones.”
    The camel rider laughs like some wild animal, and his black eyes dance across my skin in a peculiar way that makes me feel uneasy. He bends down till he’s almost at my face and I can feel his hot breath blowing in my eyes.
    “All the dreams in the world are waiting there,” he says, “but you must watch out for the wind. It can take your breath away.”
    I see only sand and sky and so much light it hurts my eyes. I want to ask more about the desert, but I’m in one of those dreams now where you work your mouth but the words won’t come out.
    “Come with me,” the man says, his blue robe blowing in the breeze.
    In real life I’d never go near a strange man, but a dream is a dream.
    When the camel starts to turn away, I grab on to the flying tail of the man’s robe and we head down a road that stretches through the desert like a thread in a sandbox.
    Suddenly, the second we’re about to cross over a high dune where I won’t be able to see Mercy Hill anymore, I wake up. Catching my breath. Trembling.

W illie Bright …
    Willie Bright says he never believed in Santa Claus, not even when he was in kindergarten. Not for one minute.
    “Who d’you think brought all those presents?” I ask. I’d wondered about flying reindeer and all that stuff, too, but Momma explained that Santa Claus was the good spirit of Christmas and if I didn’t believe in the good spirit, I might not get anything, so that kept me on track for years.
    Willie Bright laughs and says he didn’t get presents. Not even one.
    I tell him it’s hard to imagine an empty floor under the Christmas tree.
    “Ha,” Willie laughs. “Not for me. We’ve never had a tree.”
    We’re at the school-bus stop and it’s so cold I have to keep my hands in my pockets.
    “I forgot my gloves,” I say, changing the subject away from Santa Claus.
    Willie tells me he doesn’t have any gloves to forget. So I look for still another subject. We’re the only ones at the bus stop. The other kids have all been taken to school because it’s too cold to stand outside.
    “Pop would’ve taken me to school,” I say, “but he had to go to work early because Mr. Simms is out of town.” When Mr. Simms is away during the cold weather, the school bus is always late. It’s like the driver plans it that way.
    Willie has to stand in the cold and the rain and the snow every day. They don’t own a car because his mother can’t drive. She takes fits. When a spell comes over her, she falls down right where she is and doesn’t even know she’s