The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show - Ariel Gore [7]
Barbaro the stranger is the shadowed figure tiptoeing across the stage, a canvas bag slung over his shoulder. Tall and muscular, he has the light step of a dancer, the strong jaw of someone who could teach you how to laugh. He glances right and left, nervous and searching.
“We welcome you to the realm of the blessed,” Madre whispers unseen.
Barbaro the stranger gazes upward, confused, as if he’s looking for a body to go with the voice. He takes cover in a far corner of the stage.
No words necessary now, the saxophone rises.
Magdelena, wrapped in a tight orange bodysuit, leaps from the highest platform, grabs her trapeze bar, swings up into a double somersault. She loves to fly, Magdelena does. She soars across the stage like a bird in the firmament. Unprotected by safety lunges, she lives for the crowd’s awe-drenched gasp, hangs in the suspended pleasure of her aerial ballet.
Barbaro the stranger watches, reverent. He reaches up as if longing to join her in the sky, but Lupe, dazzling in her sequined virgin blue dress against the darker blue backdrop, shoos the stranger away. She waits to catch Magdelena’s slim body as—swoop—she somersaults back to earth.
The curtain falls.
In the dressing room, I hand Manny off to Paula, leave them singing the ABCs as I join Magdelena, Tony, and Lupe onstage. The curtain rises on our small circle of friends singing off-key and clowning, making music and dancing, drinking and laughing.
Barbaro the stranger stands in the shadows, watching, but each time he starts to approach, we push him away. Outsider. He rustles in his bag, produces a carnival mask, tries to get the revelers’ attention, but we’re focused on our own small world.
Tony picks up his saxophone, plays us a few notes, then launches into a narcotic lullaby.
The friends sway sleepy, lights dim.
All quiet in the theater. Shhh.
Then a sudden clamor from stage right. Madre’s heavy footfalls. She’s all in black as she grabs me from my sleep and drags me away. Barbaro the stranger is the only witness. He rushes to rouse the others from their heavy sleep. He points, panicked.
The curtain falls.
I take my place now, center stage.
Curtain up and the lights are a blinding wall of white. I extend my arms, crosslike.
The bass line like a heartbeat and the friends come rushing with the stranger, but they’re too late.
I close my eyes and force my appetite up from my belly and into my head, my mind empty of everything but the hunger. I press it out through my shoulders, through my muscles and veins. I feel the blood as it courses down my arms like a lava flow. I tremble, just a little, before my palms split open.
A gasp from the back of the house.
A sudden flash, unexpected, and I’m distracted, but just for a moment. I hold my pose as Tony’s molten sax climbs, then collapse into Lupe’s arms.
A moan from the front row. Lights lowered and blue.
A great wind-sound and here’s Barbaro the stranger, dancing a slow dance around my body and blowing flames of grief, illuminating the dusky stage like a thousand halos.
Saint Paula sings, this time like a mantra with the sax to guide her.
My companions watch as the stranger pours wine red juice into my mouth. Madre Pia, dressed in white now, lifts me from behind and I stand, resurrected. Madre keeps rising: up, up, up. She hovers above the stage, shining like a prophet in her levitation. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” she whispers, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled…Blessed are the peacemakers, and the tree-sitters, and the cross-dressers, and the beggars, and the loafers, and the gamblers, and the musicians, and the circus performers, and the mothers, and the children, and the teachers, and the artists, and the workers, and the seekers, and the wanderers—for we shall all be called the children of God.” Madre rises higher. “Embrace the mystery!”
Now Barbaro is one of us, blowing