Nod.
“Listen, I’m facing a real problem and it would mean just the world to me if you’d kind of help out.”
“Depends.”
“See, Lucas—that’s my twerp of a kid brother—Lucas is having an eighth birthday a week from Saturday and Mom said it was time I pulled my weight so she’s cooking but I have to handle keeping them quiet. So if I paid you, would you do a magic show?”
“Never done one.”
“I can spring for two dollars.”
“It’s time for my debut.”
Not much of a line but it made her smile.
Ahhhhhh.
He spent the intervening days working out his routining. Start with the flashy stuff or save those for the end? If you started big, you could lose interest before you were half done. If you started small, you might never get half done. Corky did a lot of list-making. Probably eight-year-olds were a tough audience so what he decided to do was only flashy stuff, one climax to another, constantly knocking them dead.
Peg introduced him.
Corky stood behind the pinned up sheet in the basement of her house by Lake Melody. He was wearing his top hat and magician’s cape and carrying his wand and he listened to the commotion out front as the dozen kids got seated. And suddenly, it was very hard to breathe. He inhaled a few times, cleared his throat. Ahead of him Peg went, “Say hello to Corky Withers,” unpinned the sheet, and he was on.
“Man-zelle,” he said and bowed to Peggy. He smiled at the children. “Mes amis.”
“Why is he talking that way?” one of the kids in the middle front said.
“Shut up, Lucas,” Peggy said. “He’s a great French magician.”
“I thought he went to school right here.”
“He happens to now,” Peggy answered, “but he’s spent a lot of time in France, so just zip it up, Lucas.”
Corky brought out two billiard balls from his cape and held them high. “ ’ooo would like to play zee beel-yards? Eet is impossible, non? Parce que zere are needed three balls for to play zee beel-yards. Voilà!” Corky made a big gesture with his left hand and while they followed that, he pushed the billiard ball shell into position with his thumb so that when he held his right hand high, it looked like there were three balls now.
“Terrific,” Peggy said, leading the applause, or doing her best to, because no one else did any clapping.
“I got that trick, it’s a shell,” the one next to Lucas said.
“Mais non,” Corky got out.
“Then throw us the three balls,” Lucas said.
“Fat lip time is coming up,” Peggy said. “Anybody interested?”
Corky got out the disappearing cigar. “When some-one try to smoke in mah pre-zahnce, I am poo-lite. I ask, s’il vous plaît, out wiz zee see-gar. Eef zay say oui, I do nozzing. Eef zay say non—” and he clapped his hands together, raising the right one higher, the one with the cigar, because that activated the gimmick on his inside sleeve and pulled the cigar up and out of sight. You had to do it just right to give the impression of disappearance with any skill at all, and Corky knew as he made the move that he’d never done it better. Peggy clapped. Corky bowed.
Lucas farted.
Uproar. Shrieks and screams and when Corky tried to begin the mystery of the bottomless milk pitcher there was no way of being heard, and he tried going on until Lucas belched and that set off a chain belch reaction that went on until Peg struck like an avenging angel, grabbing her brother by the neck, dragging him up to the stage crying, “Get the stuff Corky—now,” but Corky didn’t get it and Peg said, “The French stuff for God’s sakes, the stuff you demonstrated in science class, the stuff that freezes your tongue to the roof of your mouth” and now Corky managed, “The French freezing stuff, right,” and as he started off Lucas was screaming, “Don’t do it—don’t freeze my tongue” but Peg was having none of it, saying, “It only lasts an hour, you’ll love it” and then Lucas was going, “I’ll be so quiet, I will I will, gimme a chance please!” Eventually Peg relented.
And the rest of the performance went wonderfully well.
“Sorry it couldn’t be more,” Peg said, when it was over, the basement quiet now, the children upstairs eating. She handed him the two dollars.
Corky shook his head “no.”
“C’mon, a deal’s a deal.”
“Please.”
She looked at him. “Hey you mean it.”
Nod.
“How come you’re so quiet?”
Shrug.
“Boy, you’re just as weird as they say—”
“—who says I’m weird?—”
“Gotcha that time.” She smiled. “Nobody. I was only trying to get a rise out of you.”
“Do people?” he wondered, since it was something he suspected all along to be true.
“You are awful quiet, Corky.”
“Nothing much to say.”
“Okay.” She helped him gather up his tricks and boxes, put them into a shopping bag so they’d fit neatly. Then she walked him to his bicycle. “Bye, Corky, thanks.”
He nodded, started riding off.
“And you’re good,” she shouted after him.
“Gonna be,” he shouted back. “Someday …”
* * *
After that they always nodded in the halls, and if there was anything to talk about, spoke. He helped her with her homework sometimes—she spelled atrociously—and tried to make himself, unobtrusively, handy, and there were times when he was almost positive she liked him.
That summer Mutt got him a job chopping lettuce at the G. A thousand guests a night, salads twice a day, it made for a busy summer. He made up his poem at the start of the second week to stop from going mad.
… Peggy Ann Snow
Peggy Ann Snow
Please let me follow
Wherever you go …
It wasn’t much of a poem really, but then he never fancied himself to be a poet. And regardless of its merits, it was a lot better than others he tried.
… Beautiful Peg
Beautiful Peg
Don’t go away and forget me
I beg …
P. B. Shelley didn’t have a lot to worry about …
It was natural that, sooner or later, she would take up with Ronnie Wayne and that fall, she did. Corky wasn’t even jealous, that’s how natural it was; Ronnie Wayne had it all. His nickname was “Duke” and he was a senior and he had his own car, a convertible. That was nothing. His father ran the most successful real estate operation in Normandy. Still nothing. Ronnie “the Duke” got decent grades in school without cracking a book, he could shoot pool better than the poor kids, he was more popular than any other senior but best of all, at that time, in the year of our Lord 1959, he looked shockingly like Elvis Presley.
“Withers,” he whispered one autumn day. “Take this to Stuck-up.”
“Who?” They were in the school library, study hall, everyone in their own seat and no moving around, a rule that didn’t apply to Corky, since he worked in the library for extra money and besides, Miss Beckmire, the librarian, liked him, probably because he had a sweet face and was always polite and could read faster than anybody else in Normandy High.
Duke held out the note for Corky. “Snow, for chris-sakes.”
Corky took the folded paper and strolled the length of the enormous room, dropped it on Peggy’s desk. “From the Duke,” he whispered.
Peggy unfolded the note, read it, then got out her pencil and scribbled a reply on a sheet of paper of her own. She stopped in the middle, whispered, “Is conceited i-e or e-i?” He told her, she finished the note, folded it, and he took it back to Duke.
There were three complete exchanges that study period, three again the next day, culminating in Duke taking Peggy out for Cokes after school. Corky stood by his bicycle and watched the parking lot as Duke tore out toward town. The top was down. Peggy’s dark blonde hair was blowing. Corky felt, no question about it, really good about the
whole thing.
Peggy’s right, you are weird, he told himself.
And peddled home.
He passed notes between the two of them for all that week and well into the next, and if Miss Beckmire suspected, she didn’t do anything. And the second Wednesday, Peggy invited Corky to come along.
They went to The Hut, which was only the biggest and busiest place in town as far as the high school was concerned, and they had Cokes and Duke ordered a plate of crisp fries and they devoured them so fast Duke had to order another.
Corky sat there, trying to not look impressed. But it was hard. My Corky, why shouldn’t it be, you’re sitting between the prettiest girl and the most popular boy and they invited you.
They did it several more times that October and afterwards, Corky made quick notes when he got home, because probably he had never had better times than those and you never knew how long they’d last.
Mutt got fired before Thanksgiving. He’d been becoming increasingly morose ever since Willie’s crash, and one day he just slugged the head of the gym at Grossinger’s and wised off to a couple of the customers who tried to intervene, and you didn’t do that kind of thing and expect to stick around.
He lucked out though, latched onto an opening at a private club in Chicago near the Loop, and it was amazing, after living all those years in one place, how fast you could leave when there was nothing holding you back.
His last day at school, Corky went to Peg’s house to say good-bye, and give her a wooden heart he’d whittled but it was cheerleading practice afternoon, so he went to the girls’ gym and waited outside. It was after four when he got there and after five when the first girl left.
It wasn’t Peggy.
Corky waited. It was getting cold now. Inside the lit building he could hear the cheers going on over and over, getting perfect so that the Normandy Tigers might somehow beat the Liberty Wildcats in the final grudge game of the season. The darkening afternoon was filled with strident voices:
Look out (clap-clap-double clap)
Here we come
We’ve got those Wildcats on the run.
So
Look out Wildcats (double clap twice)
The Tigers (clap)
The Tigers have (clap-clap)
CLAWS.
(hey-hey)
Corky walked around the front of the building awhile, always glancing back to the door, checking to see no one came out. The wooden heart was burning in his hand now. It was stupid. Making it was stupid, waiting was stupid.
No one came out.
Five-twenty.
Five-forty-five was when he took the heart, threw it as far as he could, away for now and ever.
Going on six.
Look out (clap-clap-double clap)
Here we come
We’ve got those Wildcats on the run.
So
Look out Wildcats (double clap twice)
The Tigers (clap)
The Tigers have (clap-clap)
CLAWS.
(hey-hey)
“Corky?”
“That you, Peg?” He sauntered over in the dark, smiled at her. “Boy am I ever lucky, running into you.”
They started away from the gym.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Cheerleading practice.”
Corky nodded. “Well I’m sure glad I got the chance.”
“Chance?”
“Family’s kind of heading on. Mutt got a big break in Chicago.
Her turn to nod.
He could tell from the way she did it that she knew. “You heard I guess.”
“About the thing at Grossinger’s? I’m really sorry.”
“Well, he’s a scratchy guy, it was bound to happen.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“So I’ll see you, Peg.”
She started away.
He watched in silence.
She said “oh” out loud then, and spun in the night, running into his arms. “I just realized something awful.”
“What?”
“I’ll miss you.” They stood like that awhile.
(hey-hey)
MERLIN
The giant kept falling up the stairs. He would land hard, sit puffing, rise, try another step or two, then his balance would go and he would fall again. He never lost his temper, didn’t seem to mind the time the trip to the second floor landing took. It was as if the only way to make it was up, then down, gather strength, then onward and upward again.
Scared, Corky watched from the second floor shadows.
The giant made it to the top step, panted awhile. Then he reached an enormous hand into a jacket pocket, fumbled around. The hand eventually came out empty. Now it was the turn of the other hand to try the left jacket pocket. Empty. “Fug,” the giant said. Then he grabbed hold of the top of the banister, stood. His right hand tried his pants pocket and the giant soon nodded, took out a key, lurched to the nearest doorway, pushed the key in the lock. Or at least that was the theory. He missed again and again, sometimes coming closer to the keyhole, never close enough to attempt insertion. The key slipped from his fingers and bounced along the floor. The giant bent for it, a mistake, tumbled down hard, lay there.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Merlin,” Corky said, and he dashed out of the shadows, picked up the key, unlocked the door, helped Merlin up, guided him inside, found a wall light, flicked it on, moved the slumping giant to the sofa, went back, flicked the room to darkness.
The giant awoke hours later, parched. He made it to his feet, made it to the kitchen, got a glass, drank. Then he returned to the couch and closed his eyes.
“Would you like me to make you some coffee?”
On went the couch lamp. The giant looked at the kid. “How’d you get in here?”
“I brought you in here.”
“Oh.”
“Maybe an Alka-Seltzer? I could run out and try and find a drugstore. Someplace is sure to be open.”
“What are you, some kid genie?”
“Nossir, my name’s Corky Withers and I want to be a great magician like you.”
“A dumb genie, just my luck,” Merlin said. Off went the couch light and he slept.
When he awoke next it was late morning and breakfast was ready. Coffee and toast anyway. Merlin sipped the dark liquid. “Okay, down to cases, what’s all this?”
“Nothing. Only what I told you already. I want them to never forget me. I want them to hold me kindly in their hearts.”
“Where’d you hear that shit?” Merlin wanted to know.
“You wrote it. Classy Classics Volume I. I’ve got the whole series, all four pamphlets.”
“Supposed to be twenty. Fugging publisher skipped on me.” Merlin shook his head. “I’m not up to private students anymore. Usually all you get is bimbo psychiatrists who use it for therapy.”
“You don’t understand, Mr. Merlin. I’ve got to be great. I’m very good now. Better than practically anybody. But I’m not great yet. That’s why I’ve come to you.”
“You do close-up magic?”
“Yessir.”
“Do me something.”
Corky got out a quarter, put it in his right hand, thumb palmed it, closed both hands, blew on them, opened his hands empty.
“Shitty,” Merlin, Jr. said.
“When you say shitty, you don’t mean shitty, you mean not great, right?”
“I never saw a worse thumb palm. You’re an amateur, kid. Who’d you study with?”
“Books mostly.”
“Do a drop vanish.”
Corky did one.
Merlin just looked at him.
“Shitty?”
Merlin nodded.
“Cards are more my specialty.”
“Amaze me.”
Corky pulled his pack of bicycles from his Windbreaker jacket, held them out. “Want to examine them?”
“Get to it.”
“Okay, do you know Paul Le Paul’s Double Deuce?”
&nb
sp; “Get to it I said.”
“Ordinary deck. I’ll shuffle the cards.” Corky did a faro shuffle, followed up with the Hindu.
“Shitty.”
“I didn’t do the trick yet.”
“And you’re not gonna, not for me, I got a weak stomach.”
“I’m not that bad.”
“I’m sorry kid; y’are.”
Corky put his cards away in his Windbreaker jacket.
“What’s your name again?”
“Corky Withers.”
“Withers—look around you. This pit is my home. The Collier Brothers would be happy here, but I’m not.”
Corky glanced around. It was a small apartment, living room, a bedroom, kitchenette and bath. And crammed. Corky had never seen so much magic apparatus in his life. There were shelves full of magic books, boxes piled all over. Vent dolls and egg bags and top hats and gimmicks, fakes and pulls, escape boxes, silks of every color and size.
Corky thought it was kind of terrific.
“Magic’s on the skids, Withers. Before my dumpling died last year—” he pointed to a photo of a round, smiling woman “—we had to travel ten months a year to survive. Ten years ago we had to travel four. Once I could stay right here in Los Angeles and eat steak whenever. So what I’m telling you, kid, is why not get yourself an Edsel franchise, you’ll do a lot better. Corner the market in cable cars, if you want. But ride clear of this.”
Corky shook his head.
“I’m talking to you ’cause you’re a handsome kid, you got a sweet look, you made me coffee. I’m leveling, believe that. I, Hymie Merlin, Jr., am as good as the game. That’s no shit gospel. I been forty-two out of fifty years in magic. And why have I failed?”
“You haven’t failed.”
“I’ll trade you bank accounts blind, the Rockefellers wouldn’t make you that offer. Why is because of what magic is and that’s one thing and one thing only: entertainment. Why can’t I entertain? I’m charming, I got good patter, the magic’s as good as the game.”
“I don’t know.”
“Take a peek at my face, Withers.”
Corky looked at the huge nose and the wide eyes and the wild hair and the bad mouth with one corner always turned down.
“I’m ugly, Withers; I got a puss stops clocks. I can’t get on the tv, I can’t do schtick with kids, I survive on a limited market. Now, how do we know that if you get great like me, if you spend those years, maybe you won’t be ugly but maybe you won’t have charm. Maybe you’ll eat your guts out seeing guys who can’t do shit getting all the marbles ’cause they got charm. You got charm, Withers?”