Orson Scott Card - Magic Street

Magic Street

Orson Scott Card

To Aaron and Lauren Johnston, who show us that magic can be funny and hopeful—a light

in the darkness, conjured out of love

CONTENTS

1. Bag Man

2. Ura Lee's Window

3. Weed

4. Coprocephalic

5. Baby Mack

6. Swimmer

7. Neighborhood of Dreams

8. Skinny House

9. Captive Queen

10. Word

11. Fairyland

12. Motorcycle

13. Property Values

14. Playing Pool

15. Yo Yo

16. Preacher Man

17. Wish Fulfilment

18. Witch

19. Council of War

20. Wedding

21. Fairy Circle

22. Breaking Glass

23. Slug

24. Changeling

25. One

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

BAG MAN

The old man was walking along the side of the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, gripping

a fistful of plastic grocery bags. His salt-and-pepper hair was filthy and hanging in that sagging parody

of a Rastafarian hairdo that most homeless men seem to get, white or black. He wore a once-khaki

jacket stained with oil and dirt and grass and faded with sunlight. His hands were covered with

gardening gloves.

Dr. Byron Williams passed him in his vintage Town Car and then stopped at the light, waiting to

turn left to go up the steep road from the PCH to Ocean Avenue. A motorcycle to the left of him

gunned its engine. Byron looked at the cyclist, a woman dressed all in black leather, her face

completely hidden inside a black plastic helmet. The blank faceplate turned toward him, regarded him

for a long moment, then turned to the front again.

Byron shuddered, though he didn't know why. He looked the other way, to the right, across the

lanes of fast-moving cars that were speeding up to get on the 10 and head east into Los Angeles.

Normally Byron would be among them, heading home to Baldwin Hills from his day of classes and

meetings at Pepperdine.

But tonight he had promised Nadine that he'd bring home dinner from I Cugini. That's the kind of

thing you had to do when you married a black woman who thought she was Italian. Could have been

worse. Could have married a black woman who thought she was a redneck. Then they'd have to

vacation in Daytona every year and listen to country music and eat possum and

potato-chip-and-mayonnaise sandwiches on white bread.

Or he could be married to a biker like the woman still revving her engine in the other left-turn

lane. He could just imagine getting dragged into biker bars, where, as an African-American professor

of literature specializing in the romantic poets, he would naturally fit right in. He tried to imagine himself

taking on a half-dozen drunken bikers with chains and pipes. Of course, if he were with that biker

woman, he wouldn't have to fight them. She looked like she could take them on herself and win—a

big, strong woman who wouldn't put up with nonsense from anybody.

That was a lot to know about a woman without seeing her face, but her body, her posture, her

choice of costume and bike, and above all that challenging roar from her bike—the message was

clear. Don't get in front of me, buddy, cause I'm coming through.

He only gradually realized that he was staring right at the homeless man with the handfuls of

grocery bags. The man was stopped at the edge of the roadway, facing him, staring back at him.

Now that Byron could see his face, he realized that the man wasn't faking his rasta do—he was

entitled to it, being a black man. A filthy, shabby, rheumy-eyed, chin-stubbled, grey-bearded,

slack-lipped old bum of a black man. But the hair was authentic.

Authentic. Thinking of the word made Byron cringe. Every year there was at least one student

in one of his classes who'd mutter something—or say it boldly—about how the very fact that he was

teaching courses in nineteenth-century white men's literature made him less authentic as a black man.

Or that being a black man made him less authentic as a teacher of English literature. As if all a black

man ought to aspire to teach was African studies or black history or Swahili.

The old man winked at him.

And suddenly Byron's annoyance drained away and he felt a little giddy. What was he brooding

about? Students gave crap to their teachers whenever they thought they could get away with it. They

learned soon enough that in Byron's classes, the students who cared would become the kind of

people who were fit to understand Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Grey, and—of

course—Lord Byron himself. That's what his good students sometimes called him—Lord Byron. Not

to his face, because he always gave them his withering glare until they apologized. But he reveled in

the knowledge that they called him that behind his back. And if he ever let anyone see his poetry,

perhaps they'd discover that it was a name he deserved.

Lines from one of his own poems came to his mind. And from his mind, straight to his lips:

Into my chariot, whispered the sun god.

Here beside me, Love, crossing the sky.

Leave the dusty road on which you plod:

Behind these fiery horses come and fly.

No matter how fast we go, how far, how high,

I'll never let you fall.

All your life

On earth you've crept and climbed and clawed—

Now, Mortal Beauty, be my wife,

And of your dreams of light, I'll grant you all.

The bag man's lips parted into a snaggle-toothed grin, and he stepped out into the traffic,

heading straight for Byron's car.

For a moment Byron was sure the man would be killed. But no. The light had changed, and the

cars came to a stop as he passed in front of them. In only a few moments, he set his hand to the

handle of Byron's passenger door.

It was locked. Byron pushed the button to open it.

"Don't mind if I do," said the bag man. "Mind if I put my bags in your back seat?"

"Be my guest," said Byron.

The old man opened the back door and carefully arranged his bags on the floor and back seat.

Byron wondered what was in them. Whatever it was, it couldn't be clean, and the bags probably had

fleas or lice or ants or other annoying creatures all over them. Byron always kept this car

spotless—the kids knew the rules, and never dared to eat anything inside this car, lest a crumb fall

and they get a lecture from their dad. Sorry if that annoyed them, but it was good for children to learn

to take care of nice things and treat them with respect.

And yet, even though he knew that letting those bags sit in the back seat would require him to

vacuum and wash and shampoo until it was clean again, he didn't mind. Those bags belonged there.

As the old man belonged in the front seat beside him.

The motorcycle to his left revved one last time and whined off up the steep road to Santa

Monica.

Behind him, cars started honking.

The old man took his time getting into the front seat, and then he just sat there, not closing his

door. Nor had he closed the back door, either.

No matter. To a chorus of honks and a few curses shouted out of open car windows, Byron got

out and walked around to the other side of the Lincoln. He closed the back door, then reached in and

fastened the old man's seat belt before he closed that door, too.

"Oh, you don't need to do that," murmured the old man as Byron fastened the belt.

"Safety first," said Byron. "Nobody dies in my car."

"No matter how fast we go, how far, how high," answered the old man.

Byron grinned. It felt good, to have someone know his poem so well he could quote it back to

him.

By the time he got back to the driver's door, the cars behind him were whipping out into the

leftmost turn lane to get around him, honking and screaming and flipping him off as they passed. But

they couldn't spoil his good mood. They were jealous, that's all, because the old man had chosen to

ride in his car and not theirs.

Byron sat down, closed his door, fastened his seat belt, and prepared to wait for the next green

light.

"Ain't you gonna go?" asked the old man.

Byron looked up. Incredibly, the left arrow was still green.

"Why not," he said. He pulled forward at a stately pace.

To his surprise, the light at the top of the hill was still green, and the next light, too.

"Hope you don't mind," said Byron. "Got to stop and pick up dinner."

"A man's got to keep his woman happy," said the old man. "Nothing more important in life.

Except teaching your kids to be right with God."

That made Byron feel a little pang of guilt. Neither he nor Nadine were much for going to

church. When his mother came to visit, they all went to church together, and the kids seemed to enjoy

it. But they called it Grandma's church, even though she only attended it when she came to LA.

Byron turned left on Broadway and pulled up in the valet parking lane in front of I Cugini. The

valet headed toward his car as Byron got out.

"Just picking up some takeout," he said as he handed the man a five-dollar bill.

"Pay after," said the valet.

"No, don't park the car, I'm just picking up a takeout order."

The man looked at him in bafflement. Apparently he hadn't been here long enough to understand

English that wasn't exactly what he expected to hear.

So Byron spoke to him in Spanish. "Hace el favor de no mover mi carro, si? Volveré en dos

minutos."

The man grinned and sat down in the driver's seat.

"No," said Byron, "no mueva el auto, por favor!"

The old man leaned over. "Don't worry, son," he said. "He don't want to move the car. He just

wants to talk to me."

Of course, thought Byron. This old man must be familiar to all the valets. When you spend hours

a day at the curb in Santa Monica, you're going to get to know all the homeless people.

Only when he was waiting at the counter for the girl to process his credit card did it occur to

Byron that he spoke Italian and French, and could read Greek, but had never spoken or studied

Spanish in his life.

Well, you learn a couple of romance languages, apparently you know them all.

The food was ready to go, and the card went right through on the first try. They didn't even ask

him for i.d.

And when he got back outside, there was his car at the curb, and the valet was inside, kissing

the old man's hands. By the time Byron got around to the driver's side and opened the back door, the

valet was out of the car. Byron put the takeout bags on the floor, stood up, and closed the back door.

The valet was already walking away.

"Wait a minute!" called Byron. "Your tip!"

The valet turned and waved his hand. "No problem!" he called in heavily accented English.

"Thank you very much sir!"

Byron got in and sat down. "Never heard of a valet turning down a tip," he said.

"He only wanted to talk to me," said the old man. "He worries about his family back in Mexico.

His little boy, he been sick. But I told him that boy be fine, and now he's happy."

Byron was happy, too. "Well, friend, where can I take you?"

"You go right on home," said the old man. "Don't want that dinner getting cold."

"Oh, it'll get cold no matter what we do," said Byron. "At six o'clock, doesn't matter if I take

Olympic or the 10, traffic just takes time."

"Take the ten," said the old man. "Got a feeling we zip right along."

The old man was right. Even at the junction with the 405, the left lanes were moving faster than

the speed limit and they made good time.

Byron thought of lots of things he wanted to say to the man. Lots of questions to ask. How did

you know the valet's son was going to be okay? Why did you pick my car to ride in? Where will you

go from Baldwin Hills, and why don't you want me to take you there? Did you make it so I could

speak Spanish? Did you speak Spanish to the valet?

But whenever he was about to speak, he felt such a glow of peace and happiness that he

couldn't bring himself to break the mood with the jarring sound of speech.

So the old man was the one who spoke. "You can call me Bag Man," he said. "That's a good

name, and it's true. It's good to tell the truth sometimes, don't you think?"

Byron grinned and nodded. "Be good to tell the truth all the time."

"Oh, no," said Bag Man. "That just hurts people's feelings. Lying's the way to go, most times. It's

kinder. And how often does truth really matter? Once a month? Once a year?"

Byron laughed in delight. "Never thought of it that way."

Bag Man smiled. "I don't mind if you use that in a poem, you go ahead."

"Oh, I'm not a poet," said Byron.

"There you go," said the old man. "Lying. Never show those poems, never admit they even exist,

and nobody can say, This is all too old-fashioned, you're not a real poet."

Byron felt the hot blood in his face. "I said it first."

Bag Man laughed. "Like I said!" Then he turned serious again. "Want to know how good you

is?"

Byron shook his head.

"Every bit as good as you hope," said Bag Man.

Relief washed over Byron and brought tears to his eyes. "But you've never read anything of

mine."

"How could I?" said Bag Man. "Can't read."

"You're kidding."

"I may lie, but I never joke."

"Were you lying just now? What you said about my poetry?"

"No, sir."

"What about right then, when you said you weren't lying?"

"That was a lie, of course," said Bag Man. "But don't let logic spoil things for you."

Byron was aware of a strange feeling in his stomach. Nausea? No, not really. Oh, yes. It was

anger. A kind of distant, faraway anger. But he couldn't think why he might be angry. Everything was

wonderful. This was a great day. Not a speck of traffic. Not a light against them.

Coming down La Cienega he noticed See's Candies. Still open. But he mustn't stop. Dinner hot

in the back seat.

He got out of the car and went inside and got a one-pound box of milk patties, those little disks

of chocolate-covered caramel. It took forever for the woman to fill each little crinkled-paper cup.

And when he got back to the car, he was really pleased to see how delighted Bag Man was to

receive it.

"For me?" he said. "Oh, you just too nice, my man." Bag Man tore open the paper and put two

patties in his mouth at once. "I never get this down in Santa Monica."

"They have a Godiva's in the mall at the bottom of the Promenade," said Byron.

"Godiva's? They too rich for my pockets."

There was something wrong with the logic of that, but Byron couldn't think what it was.

Byron drove through the flat part of Baldwin Hills. Modest homes, some of them a little tatty,

some very nicely kept—an ordinary neighborhood. But as they started up Cloverdale, the money

started showing up. Byron wasn't rich and neither was Nadine. But together they did well enough to

afford this neighborhood. They could have afforded Hancock Park, but that would be like

surrendering, to move into a white neighborhood. For a black man in LA, it was Baldwin Hills that

said you had made it without selling out.

Au-then-tic.

"This magic street," said the old man.

"What?"

"I said, this is Magic Street," he repeated. "Can't you feel it? Like standing in a waterfall, it's so

thick here."

"I guess that's one of the senses I didn't get when God was handing them out," said Byron.

"Pull up right here," said Bag Man.

They were at number 3968, an elegant white house with a tile roof and a triple garage. It was the

last house before the hairpin turn, where no houses stood.

Instead, there was a grassy green valley that stretched about a hundred yards before it ran into

the thick woods at the base of the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area. Not that anybody did any

recreating there. It was kept clear because when it stormed, all the runoff from the whole park was

funneled down a concrete drainage system to collect in this valley, forming a lake. And right in the

deepest part was a rusted tube sticking straight up out of the ground. Must be two feet across, or so it

seemed to Byron, and eight feet high. It was perforated at about shoulder height, so water could drain

into it when the lake got deep enough.

That's what it was for. But what it looked like was a smokestack sticking straight up from hell.

That's what Nadine said when she first saw it. "Wouldn't you know it, up in the park it's all so

beautiful, but down here is the anus of the drainage system and where do they put it? Right in the

nicest part of the nicest black neighborhood in the city. Just in case we forget our place, I suppose."

"It's better than letting the rainwater run right down the streets and wash everybody out," Byron

told her.

That earned him a narrow-eyed glare and a silent mouthing of the word "Tom."

"I wasn't defending the establishment, I was just saying that not everything is racism. The city

puts up ugly stuff in white neighborhoods, too."

"If it was a white neighborhood they'd make a playground and that pipe would be brightly

painted."

"If it was a playground, then every time it rained the children would drown. They fence it off

because it isn't safe."

"You're right, of course," said Nadine. And that meant the argument was over, and Byron had

lost.

But he was right. The pipe was ugly, but the meadow around it was pretty, and the tangled

woods behind it were the closest thing to nature you'd find in the Mexican-manicured gardens of the

City of Angels.

Bag Man sat patiently. Finally it dawned on Byron what he was waiting for.

Byron got out of the car and opened the door for the old man. "Why thank you, son," said Bag

Man. "It's not often you find a man with real manners these days. Why, I bet you still call your mama

'ma'am,' am I right?"

"Yes sir," said Byron.

The old man leaned on him as he got out. "I leave my blessing with you, son," he said. "I bless

you in the blessed name of Jesus. I bless you for the sacred sake of your mama's mama, who never

lived to see your face, but she loves you in heaven all the same, son. I hope you know that. She's up

there pestering God to watch out for you. How do you think you got tenure so soon?"

"Affirmative action," said Byron, even though it wasn't true. It was what he always said to other

professors when they asked him questions like that. It wasn't even a joke anymore, just a habit,

because it was so fun to watch the white professors look at him without a clue how they were

supposed to answer when a black man said something like that. He could see their brains turning the

alternatives over and over: Is he joking? Or does he mean it? Is he a Republican? Or does he think

I'm a Republican? Is he making fun of me? Or himself? Or liberals? Or affirmative action? What can I

say that won't make me look like either a racist or a politically correct brown-noser?

But Bag Man just grinned and shook his head. "Here I tell you about your mama's mama and

how she love you, and all you answer me with is a joke. But that's okay all the same. I don't take

back no blessing once I give it."

"Thank you for your blessing, sir," said Byron. "And for my grandma's blessing, too."

"Well, ain't you the polite one. Now you just go on home and have dinner with that sweet

pregnant wife of yours. I'll be all right here."

So Nadine was pregnant—and hadn't even told him! Wasn't that just like her, to keep a secret

like that.

Byron watched Bag Man walk right up to the chain-link fence and open the gate and go on

through into the meadow. Then he knew he shouldn't watch anymore. So he closed the passenger

door and walked back to the driver's side and got in.

Not two minutes later he was pulling through the electric gate into his driveway and waiting for

the garage door to open. Nadine's car was there, and it made Byron happy just to see it.

And then, suddenly, it wore off all at once, and the anger that had seemed so far away just

moments ago now erupted. He beat on the steering wheel with his open palms until his hands hurt.

"What did you do to me? What did you do to me?" He said it over and over again as he thought

of that man just getting in his car as if he had a right, and the way he made Byron do things and say

things. Making him buy See's chocolates for him! Saying Nadine was pregnant and he believed it!

Was Bag Man a hypnotist? In the moment when Byron looked away from that motorcycle mama,

was that when Bag Man caught his eye and hypnotized him without him even knowing it?

If I see him again I'll run him over even if they put me in jail for it. Nobody ought to have power

like that over another living soul.

Word, his ten-year-old son—named for Wordsworth—came through the door from the house

and rushed to Byron's car window. The boy didn't look excited, he looked worried.

Byron turned off the engine and opened the door.

"Dad, there's something wrong with Mom. She's really sick"

"All right, I'm on it." Byron headed toward the house. Then he stopped and looked back at

Word. "Son, would you get dinner out of the back seat?"

"Sure," said Word. "I'm on it." And without a word of argument, the boy headed right back to

get the sacks from I Cugini. That's when Byron realized that whatever was going on with Nadine,

Word thought it was serious.

She was in the bedroom and when he knocked on the door, she said, "Go away."

"It's me," said Byron.

"Come in," she said.

He came through the door.

She was lying on her back on the bed, naked, breathing rapidly. Or was she crying? Both. Short

sobs.

She wasn't just pregnant. She was as big as she had ever been with any of the children.

"By, what's happening to me?" she said. She sounded frantic, but kept her voice low. "I just

started bloating up. An hour ago. I got home from work and I had to get out of my clothes, they were

strangling the baby. That's what I kept thinking. Only I'm not pregnant, By."

He sat on the edge of the bed and felt her stomach. The skin was stretched as tight as it ever

was at the peak of pregnancy, completely erasing her navel. "You sure feel pregnant," said Byron.

And then, without thinking, he blurted: "That son-of-a-bitch."

"Who?" she said. "What are you talking about?"

"He said you were pregnant. He called you my pregnant wife."

"Who? Who who who who?"

"I don't know who. A homeless man. I gave him a ride home. I gave him a ride here."

"You let a homeless man into our house?"

"Not our house, I dropped him off at the bend. But it was crazy. I did whatever he wanted. I

wanted to do it. He made me want to. I was thinking he hypnotized me."

"Well this isn't hypnosis, is it," said Nadine. "It hurts, By." Then her body tautened. "Merciful

Savior make it stop!"

Byron realized his hand was cold and wet. "Baby, I think your water broke."

Orson Scott Card - Magic Street

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