The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show - Ariel Gore [8]
All of us onstage, the baby watches from behind the curtain, and Paula croons her final winged traveling song, breaking the trance.
Shooting stars of applause and “Hallelujah!”
The audience doesn’t want to leave. They only file out when all the house lights come up and fortunes are promised in the lobby.
We all know the drill by now.
My fellow travelers break down the set.
Lupe sits at her card table, studying palms and handing out predictions of romance and abundance.
No one expects me to work after a performance. “Let her eat,” they say.
I devour the cold fish-and-chips from Barbaro’s greasy doggie bag, douse every bite with malt vinegar from little plastic packets, lick the salt from my fingers, dig into the plastic container of mustard greens.
“Taste good?” Manny wants to know. He’s a dimple-cheeked cherub.
“Divine,” I mumble, stuffing a few more fries into my mouth.
“You talk with your mouth full!” he squeals, delighted. He climbs up onto a wooden chair. “Butt-ass!” he screams, leaping off the chair. He lands on the floor with a thud. “I’m a superhero,” he insists, scrambling to his feet. He climbs back up onto the chair, looks suddenly serious. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” he says in a low voice, mocking Madre Pia. “The earth was without form and void!” He jumps off the chair again, this time flailing a little before he hits the floor. He stumbles, falls forward, starts to cry. “Where’s my mommy?” he sobs.
I shove the last fries into my mouth. “She’s out in the lobby, honey. Are you okay?” I move to comfort him, but he takes off wailing, “Moooommmy!”
Sometimes we all feel like Manny’s parents. We feed him jelly sandwiches and applesauce from glass jars, read him cardboard books about animals that can talk, help him piece LEGOs into spaceships. We carry him on our shoulders and hips, but we’re fooling ourselves. When it comes to a skinned knee or a bumped head, there’s only one woman in his life: “Moooommmy!” Who else but Lupe could rock him just so, coo as if no one else had ever suffered?
I lick the salt and grease from the bag. Delicious.
“Want to get a drink across the street, hmm?” Madre Pia asks. She hasn’t washed off her makeup, but she’s wearing a simple white T-shirt and big black overalls. Her shoulder-length brown hair is damaged from too much dyeing and straightening. “Magdelena and Paula are coming.”
I shrug. “Did we make any money?”
“Five hundred bucks.” Madre smacks her lips.
Not bad. Fifty for each of us and the rest for the travel fund. “Then why not?”
A ruddy-faced drunk dances in the doorway of the Worker’s Bar. “We’re pregnant!” he sings. “I’m fifty years old and I’m finally going to be a dad!”
We laugh, congratulate him as we push past.
The place is smoky but well lit. A few dozen locals in jeans and flannel shirts sip their pints and gossip.
We sit down at the bar, order three Vodka crans and a double shot of whiskey for Paula. “Best show we’ve done in years,” Magdelena sighs. And she’s right. On an average night we’re musicians and magicians, entertaining the worn-out hippies, lapsed Catholics, and world-weary punks of small-town America. Everything is plagiarized, but creative plagiarism can be amusing. On a good night, we perform our acts more seamlessly. There’s nothing like a resurrection metaphor—a revelation of transcendent spirit—to soften granite hearts. But on a night like tonight, something exquisite rises from our shoulders. We’re not performing anymore. We ascend like water walkers, and the spectators need no inner tubes. If Magdelena can fly without wings, if Madre can levitate three hundred pounds, if Barbaro can breathe an inferno, if Paula can grow a beard and still sing like Norah Jones, if Tony can recall the masterpiece of “A Love Supreme,” if I can bleed without dying, rise up like some kind of phoenix, then surely even you can transcend your cobalt depression, get sober, shrink a tumor, remember the way you once loved life, burn out your tangled nest of regrets.