Free The Invention of Flight by Susan Neville Page B

figure out how to do it, I said. I know it’s an illusion.
    He took my hand and led me to a flat gravestone, pallid white and cold. He chanted
Johnny Johnny
and I lay down on the stone. The letters were indented deep in the rock; I could feel someone’s name and dates digging into my back. He lay down, brown curls near my lips, the wooden ring burning on my thigh. Over his shoulder was the tree, its leaves silver, fruit as bright and hard as crystal marbles, cat’s eye marbles in my hands, the clicking limbs. Johnny jump up, be nimble, be quick. I rolled over onto the grass. His back on the stone, he said that might be what death feels like. If it does, then it’s not so bad, I said, and I brushed the wet hair back from his eyes. He said Johnny Appleseed had planted the apples because he had been afraid to leave the land to the dead things, the wild things. That his own destiny was to face them, that he was building a power, that there was no security for him. He grippedmy hand and stared at the sky; it was filled with clouds and moving with a violence. I could sense that the emptiness frightened him. The cemetery was quiet. Then he threw his legs into the air in an arc, did a kip to his feet, and pulled me up with him. I fingered the ring clutching my wrist. Mirrors, I said. You must do it with trick mirrors.
    He came once to watch me where I worked, coming in late after I’d finished most of my set, wearing the hat with the gunmetal stars and jeans and a muslin shirt and a floor-length apron with stenciled colored moons and seaweed on the bib. He asked for a table up front and the waitress gave it to him. He ordered a pitcher of sweet cream and ten ounces of bourbon. His table was in the light from the stage; he sat in the shadow. All I could see were his disembodied hands pouring the cream and bourbon into a glass, lifting the glass into the air and setting it down. The place I worked was decorated like a speakeasy—dim lights, waitresses in flapper costumes, pictures of gangsters on the wall. I was dressed like a moll in a red satin dress, greasy red lipstick. I carried a plastic carbine. I sang old jazz, mostly Billie Holliday and Bessie Smith, sometimes some of my own songs that I wrote to sound like that same style jazz. I was glad he’d come because it seemed to be my chance to mesmerize him. The satin dress molded my body with stripes of moving lights, clung tightly to my hips. There was a slit up the side to my waist and I wore a black leotard and black hose, though it was difficult getting the hose through the wooden ring on my thigh. My voice wasn’t great, I knew, but was throaty and rich andmy movements were good. Men were always coming up to me after the show, wanting to give me a ride home. I had always said no. I sat on a round table and did a turn, easy with the satin dress. I lay back on the table, legs crossed, carbine on my knee. I caressed the microphone with my finger as I sang, looking over to the table where Johnny was sitting.
    If I should get a notion
    To jump right in the ocean
    Aint nobody’s business if I do.
    I slid off the table and walked over to Johnny. I stroked his hair with the point of the carbine. It tangled in one place and I pulled it out gently. I still couldn’t see his whole face, just half of it with a reddish glow from the floor lights. He was half smiling, elfin. The stars on his hat glowed red, more like planets. I walked away and did a few grinds as I sang, something I don’t usually do. I walked over to the upright piano and played with the band during the riffs. I looked at Johnny’s table, the glass still rising and falling as if by levitation. Suddenly his fingers began to move fast, at the same rate as mine moved on the piano keys. I looked and gold coins began to slide out from between his fingers and clatter on the table. More and more coins appeared in the air. He dropped handfuls; they formed a mound in front of him. I