Assignment # 2 Rewrite 1: Transitions

I put my camera down and smile at the mime, trying to dispel the thoughts. It is Labor Day weekend and Venice Beach is teeming with mimes, pirate trailers and Bob Marleys. A girl, possibly in her teens, stands in front of a banner that reads Most Flexible Girl in the World, and twists her elbow several times like she were squeezing water out from a wet towel. People woot for her, oblivious to the evident gloom in her eyes. Can no one see how miserable she is? I wonder, and walk across to Waterfront Café. That ungodly morning on Barcelona has come alive once again, and I can’t stop thinking of the Fairy mime. I order a large Shiner Bock...  

Twisting the brassy arch of her crown to set it straight, she cinched it to her head. The shine on her heels waned as she walked south on the smutty Las Ramblas. It was her turn in the month to mime on the spot outside Hotel Royale, which enjoyed an affluence of passers-by—the ambit of the highest wage along all of Ramblas.

I watched her as she set up her repertoire—a money barrel and a taboret to sit on—on the cold, hungry street, her body barely protected under her arabesque fairy-gown. She unwrapped her make-up kit and, like the gradual revelation of stars in a sky, metamorphosed slowly as silver dust on her eyelids and pink rouge on her cheekbones transformed her into a fairy. She blew onto the star of her silver-wand and wiped it clean with her petticoat.

I can still smell the Magdalenas that came fresh off the oven at the café that morning, and the torrijas—the Spanish excuse for a French Toast, but more suited to my taste. The wind is chilly and I hug my sweater tightly around me dreaming of the café con leche, trying to fight the memories from that day.

The clock struck nine in tandem with the sunrise and, almost like an impalpable wrapping on South Barcelona had unfolded, a gradually rising flood of people pervaded the street. Lovers flitted by, stopping in front of beaneries, speculating if breakfast was affordable. Little girls wended their way through the crowd, dogtrotting by their parents, every now and then straying from their guardrail for an ephemeral joy of touching her. 

A Golden Man stands outside the café all by himself. He receives occasional glances from tourists but no one bothers to take pictures or fling him a penny. There are no little boys trying to make him laugh like those on Las Ramblas, who imitated the Walking Mime ‘with a flying tie’ or tickled him to make him budge. Their parents eagerly flung twenty-pence into his bucket, and fervently pulled their brood to the Tree-Man to click pictures of their children with their arms around ‘the tree’. Tiny fingers tugged at the parents’ exquisite attires towards the Mean Pirates, begging to be allowed to hold their shiny swords and pose between them, to feel brawny for a fleeting second. Their mothers hesitantly looked on and took pictures while the fathers found satisfying pleasure in seeing their little boys—whose voices hadn’t cracked yet—behave like brave soldiers. They happily dropped him a euro.   

Little girls loved her the most. They sat on her lap, and shared their dreams with her, asking her to wave her magic wand on their little heads and sprinkle magic dust on their pretty long curls. Their parents dropped a euro and the girls left with an impassioned faith. If a girl asked if she could have her white gown, she would convince the girl that God would gift her the dress if she did good deeds. 

Her gloom was palpable. I offered her a cup of coffee later [at break] and we chatted. It broke her heart to do this, she told me artlessly, after we had talked about her gown and her wand. Other mimes didn’t lie to little children to bring a smile on their faces like she did. They didn’t make promises to frail hearts. But she had to do this to pay off the honcho—a moneylender who had lent a huge sum to her [now] imprisoned father. She believed that she was the cruelest mime of all. Her heart sank every the evening when she collected the highest wages of all the mimes and emptied her barrel of sins into the hands of the honcho. I listened as she let out her emotions unrestricted, almost as if oblivious to my presence, almost as if this was the first time anyone had ever talked to her about her.

A Tree-Man walks past the café, followed by a horde of children [probably his own]. I think of the horrific tales she had narrated to me that morning. About the other mimes, and the prostitutes, and I remember how I’d sat there listening helplessly, thinking that something needed to be done about it. And I had done something. I had walked away. I was 19.

I walk outside to the Golden Man and take his picture. His money barrel is empty. I drop in a few dollars, knowing it’s not enough, but it's something. Then I return to the café and gulp down my beer. A child [most likely a foreigner] poses with the Golden Man, and his parents fling a coin. I look outside into Venice, wondering if the fairy paid off her debt in time, and if the prostitutes still arrive promptly at sun-down. Or if someone did something about it.