Street Magic: Stories and Tales

By Mary B Banks

Street Magic is a collection of nine short stories that blend gritty reality with the unusual. You will meet Mr. Jones, an African-American prophet; Darlene, a girl who casts love spells; Janie and Keisha, two inner-city teenagers who rescue an abandoned baby; Helene Fulton, an outcast in a conservative town; and Miss Thompson, a woman yearning

• Language: English
• Publisher: La Muse Press, LLC
• Release date: May 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780983549710

Mary B Banks

Mary Beatrice Banks grew up in Baltimore, MD. As a child, she loved to read Beverly Cleary and R.L. Stine. Banks, a Baltimore City College alumnus, graduated from Johns Hopkins University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in the Writing Seminars in 2007. After her undergraduate studies, she entered the MFA program in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts at the University of Baltimore and graduated in May 2011. She is the owner of La Muse Press, an indie publishing house that is dedicated to showcasing the works of minorities and women.

Book preview

testimony

Ladies and gentlemen, you know me as the one who fucked up mankind. I’m the one who ate the forbidden fruit and therefore, mankind is messed up and fucked up all because of me. And for that reason, women are treated like poor Orphan Annie rag dolls with lint in their dingy dirty red hair. Now, when I think about it, we are treated worse than that. More like disposable, pretty, nasty trinkets that men lick, kiss, cuddle and fuck depending on their ever-changing moods. Sometimes, they call us their sweet little princesses, and they squeeze our soft pink cheeks, and we blush, and feel we are the luckiest girls in the entire world. That we must have been perfect angels to deserve such great men who treat us like priceless rubies. Other times, they stomp on us, smashing, crashing our soft defenseless bodies against beige walls, splattered with our blood, saliva, ripped skin, and dried tears. Fragments of our souls are shattered in heaps like broken glass and defaced pyramids on the piss-stained carpet and they laugh at us—these once sweet men—and say they can get another one of us because pretty faces come a dime a dozen, bitch. And five minutes later, they say oh baby, I didn’t mean it, you know I love you while they give us one last good kick to our cracked ribcages. And they tell the biggest lies—how they got money, how they’re good in the sack, how big their willies are, how they’ll love us for eternity—don’t believe them, ladies. They are worst than Pinocchio—their noses are as long as the earth’s circumference.

But the biggest lie that they done told to the world is that I am the cursed one because I gave Adam the apple, and that’s the reason why we, women, are treated like funky three-day-old garbage filled with diarrhea-filled baby diapers, bloody sanitary napkins, and booger snot rags. Well, let me tell you something, sweetie pies, all of that is a crock of bullshit the size of melons. I didn’t eat that damn apple! I mean, I did, but I was forced! Tyrone tricked me (yeah, that’s his real name—Adam is his middle name). And my real name is Yvette, but you know me as Eve, the sinner, the reason why this world is falling apart, why the hole in the ozone is getting larger by the minute, why grown men rape little girls, why you got fired at your job, why your FICO score is 400, and why your man treats you like shit, and beats the living daylights out of you. I know right now you’re telling yourself, that bitch crazy—she lying through her crooked teeth—but I’m telling you the truth, honey. Since we on coming clean and all, I’ma tell you I ain’t that white lily rose girl that you see in the Bible, looking all prim and proper with her straight blonde hair blowing in the wind, her pink lips puckered in a pout, and her milky complexion looking like a tragic, dainty little flower. I don’t know who spread that lie—that I look like that—probably Tyrone. See you got it all twisted. I’m the color of rain-soaked earth. When the rain hits the ground, I get darker and darker by the minute. Between my legs, there is fertile soil that planted civilization. I am mother of the universe. So when you see the color of clay, you are seeing me, my reflection. I am the color of the beginning. I am as old as the wind, as old as the ocean. I am so old I done seen the birth of your great-great-great-grandmamma. I am the beginning and I’ma tell you my story from the beginning. What you say? You ain’t trying to hear? Girl, you better sit your tail down and listen to the real story, and pay close attention ‘cause I am only going to tell you once. And once I’m finished, you pass this story along, okay? ‘Cause I’m tired of being the scapegoat.

On that day, I was lying in the garden. My naked body was engulfed in the green, dewy grass. It wasn’t as hot as it usually was and the mosquitoes weren’t out yet. I was enjoying the sweet, wonderful scents of the blossoming yellow and purple flowers. Beads of moisture caressed my plump behind, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tyrone picking apples from the tree the Voice warned us about. Okay, let me interrupt my own story and tell you how handsome Ty was. Tyrone Adam Manchild. He had smooth ebony skin the color of blackberries—you know, the ones you picked at your Granny’s house down in Virginny and she’d tell you, you better stop eating them ‘cause no man wants a fat wife. His body was chiseled like Adonis. There were so many rips in his abdomen that you could place your finger in the rips and trace all around his tummy like Connect the Dots. He had hair like