I’m not superstitious.
It is only the lack of proper information, or some crap to influence other’s decisions.
Got the lighter ready in my hand, spitting sparks. It starts to snow with big fluffy feather like flakes. My cig is the only hot thing on me now.
Ira wastes my time, again. He’s late. Stressed X-mas shoppers bump into my shoulders, trample on my feet. Not one of them mutters a ‘sorry’. Ugh, so many nauseating songs filter through the shop entrances. It’s my third time round his block, and my toes are ice cubes. I need a hot coffee.
He’s supposed to show up forty minutes ago. The entrance to his apartment building is a desperate kind of shabby. Not at all what you’d expect from an actor on the fast lane. He isn’t answering the bell. He isn’t answering his phone either.
It’s not that he wants to be picked up, or something… I walk him down to the theater, cause he gets mugged. The first couple of times he goes on his own, he gets beat up and robbed. Not good showing up with a bloody nose and a black eye, when being the lead.
Theater folk is superstitious. He’s jinx. That’s what everybody says. I say, he sticks out like a blinking neon sign for disaster. But nobody gives a damn about what a janitor says. So they pay me instead. I get him safely to the rehearsals. Easy bucks, really.
Finally! His brown jacket and red cap would fit any hobo around.
Ira says he’s cursed.
Bullshit! His grave look stops me from laughing my head off. His nervous hands run around his chin and breast to hide in his pockets.
So I ask him, I ask about his bad luck, ready to burst in disbelief. He says, it’s his old man’s fault.
One day, him being a toddler, he wanders off and disappears into the woods. They can’t find him, for three days. They are about to give up, when a huge white crow appears. His granddad shoots that bird. It falls to the ground. They go look for it, and that’s where they find him. Unconscious. Hurt.
He shows me. He pulls down his zipper, tugs his long orange scarf away. His T-shirt slides down, revealing his pale chest. A small circular snow-white scar flashes on his breastbone. Grievous look settles in his otherwise young face.
I almost fell for that. An actor, I remind myself. He’s pulling my leg. White crow, my ass!
His granddad taints his destiny that day. He says to no one in particular. He can’t fly away from trouble anymore. Ira believes it. He really believes it! I can only pity him for such nonsense. He’s disappointed, I don’t swallow his bogus story.
I offer him a cig instead.
The tortured howl of an engine and shrieking tires roar right behind us.
