April Shadows

  I avoided going to the theater and confronting Russell for as long as I could, but when it was time for the performance. I had to accompany Uncle Palaver. Russell was there backstage. He didn't say anything to me. He just smiled, wagged his finger, and walked off to give someone orders. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn't going to say anything to Uncle Palaver.

  He ran through the same performance, only at the end, with me now activating the doll, he made a far more dramatic exit. Heads turned in surprised when he charged up the aisle and out the front door, slamming it behind him. He glanced surreptitiously at me as he flew by, but everyone's attention was centered on him, and then, in confusion, they turned to the doll. He had made a point of my counting to at least sixty. The audience actually began to stir restlessly. I could see it in their faces. They were all wondering what was going on. How long were they supposed to sit there? When would he return?

  Then I pressed the first button. and Destiny came to life. To me, the applause that followed seemed louder and more vigorous than the applause the night before. Uncle Palaver returned and walked down the aisle bowing. He smiled my way, and I knew I had done well.

  Afterward, as we were packing up. Russell approached from behind me and whispered, "I saw what you two did. Sneaky." He laughed at my surprise. "Stay cool," he said. "Maybe when you return, if you return, you'll be more experienced."

  In what? I thought. Destroying myself? No, thank you. Russell Blackman,

  We got everything settled in the motor home. and Uncle Palaver decided he wanted to get under way as soon as possible.

  "You did real good. April, real good," he told me. "I might start thinking of other ways to bring you into the show."

  "Really? I'd love that." I told him, and decided I would get my weight down so I could fit into that silver-sequined suit soon.

  He went to his cabinet and took out his bottle of bourbon. After a quick swig, he said he was going to drive most of the night. He saw my eyes go to the bottle of whiskey.

  "Don't you worry about it. I don't drink much when I drive. Just one to get me calm is enough."

  We had a number of performances on the schedule that would take us to Northern California, eventually reaching the Napa Valley area by late spring. The distances between venues were not great, but he said he liked to have time to relax before a show. I went to bed and let the movement of the motor home rock me to sleep. Sometime before morning, I woke and realized he had parked the motor home in another supermarket parking lot. I saw the light was still on in the living room and could just make out the bottle on the table and his legs on the sofa. The bottle looked nearly empty.

  How long before I had arrived had he been drinking like this? I wondered. How long could he continue to drink so much every night? I was afraid to be critical of anything, but when I woke up again and saw him hovering over a cup of coffee, I wondered aloud if he were suffering from a hangover.

  He laughed. "Naw, never do. I don't drink that much," he said. "Just enough to take the edge off. Don't worry yourself. I'm fine."

  Nevertheless, before we left the area the next day, he made sure to buy himself six more bottles of bourbon and store them in the closet. During the days, he taught me some of his tricks, especially the simpler sleight-of-hand ones such as the self-tying

  handkerchief, the cut and restored string, the coin through an elbow, and something he called the Houdini Rubber Band Escape, which made it look as if he caused a rubber band to jump magically from his forefinger and index finger to the last two on his hand, and then he showed me the vanishing knot trick using a handkerchief. Finally, he showed me how to do one he had performed often at our house, delighting even Daddy. It was called the Unbreakable Match. He would put a wooden match into a handkerchief, ask me or Daddy to break it, and after we had, he pronounced some gibberish, and, voila, the match was whole again. The secret to this was simply to have two wooden matches, one concealed in the hem of the handkerchief.

  These weren't tricks he used onstage, but he explained that from time to time, he performed at conventions or was part of a group of entertainers hired for elaborate parties. The tricks, as old and as simple as they were, were still favorites, he said.

  It took me a while to get them all, but they were just illusions and, eventually, easy for me to do. I had mixed emotions about it as he showed me the secrets or the techniques. When I was little. I loved believing in magic and in Uncle Palaver's powers. Now that he was revealing that it was all fake in one way or another. I felt disappointment slipping in under my sense of accomplishment.

  In the end, there was no magic, no real wondrous events after all. Everything was simply an illusion. Uncle Palaver was falling off the pedestal on which I had placed him. One part of me clung to the idea that he was still exceptional. He had a talent for performing all the illusions well, and that was something of an accomplishment, but another part of me, perhaps the dreamer, the child in me, suddenly saw him as a phony, a liar, a deceiver. It was all false, untrue. I suppose the closest comparison I could make was when I, or any child, suddenly realized Santa Claus was a fiction.

  "You'd better watch yourself. You'd better not shout," was no longer a viable warning. Gifts were just gifts. Wishes didn't really matter. Yet, ironically perhaps, when we became older and were parents, all of us would tell our own children the same stories, the same fantasies. Somehow, inside us, we knew that. for a while at least, it was precious and important to believe in fairy tales.

  Watching Uncle Palaver drink himself to sleep every night, knowing the secret behind every illusion he performed on the stage, pushing the transmitter buttons, and fooling the audience myself into believing something wondrous had just occurred gradually hardened and saddened me I gazed into the faces of the various audiences we faced night after night on the road. Grown-ups and children alike were so desperate to believe, to escape from the world in which they were living. I could almost hear them thinking. Please, do something to help me believe there is more than this, so I can go home tonight dreaming and remembering my childhood faiths.

  In a true sense. Uncle Palaver was able to do that for them. April, respect and admire him for that, I thought and urged my inner self. However, there was another voice, bitter, laughing, angry, warning me to open my eves and stop fooling myself. The journey you're on has an end, too, this voice said, and one day, you have to look. into the mirror and see who you really are and realize -what you're really doing with your life. This isn't the medicine -wheel, and it isn't the wheel of fortune, April. It's just a wheel. You're only going in circles and getting nowhere.

  At one of our stops, I sent Brenda a letter with the address Uncle Palaver had given me for her to send whatever she was supposed to send me. Things were forwarded from there to our stops in advance. The second check that arrived had a letter with it. I had been on the road with Uncle Palaver for months now. I had lost some weight and had tried on the sequin suit. Celia had been right about one thing: my body was developing rapidly, almost as if it had just remembered it should. The suit fit. but I didn't like the way my thighs still bulged. so I decided to keep it in the closet for a while longer and wait before accompanying Uncle Palaver onstage to hand him tricks or crawl into that magic box.

  The letter from Brenda was short but left me feeling sad for her. I went up into my bunk and just looked at her handwriting on the envelope. Finally. I had the nerve to open and read it.

  .

  Dear April,

  Enclosed is a check for your month's

  allowance. I have arranged with Mr. Weiss, our attorney, to have these checks forwarded directly from his office from now on. The reason is, I have decided to drop out of college. I know you will be shocked about it, but I'm not giving up sports. I'm turning professional sooner than I expected, and I've decided I can always return to college to finish my degree when I want or need to do that.

  I especially would like to avoid seeing Celia these days. She has found someone new, and it se
ems I can't avoid running into them all the time. It not like me to run from anyone or anything, and I'm not. I've just decided I'm happier on a court floor than a classroom floor .for now.

  And you were right about this house. To come home to it and be alone in it is very depressing. At times, I find myself envying you. Maybe you did make the right decision. Who knows?

  Sometimes, I just sit and think about all that has happened to us so quickly. It seems like a dream. The other day, I saw a father and his young children playing basketball in their driveway, and I thought about Daddy and those days when he and I were at it with such fury. We exhausted each other, but somehow, afterward, I felt closer to him than ever. It was lust a look in his eyes that to me was better than a kiss.

  Anyway, watch for me on the sports pages. The next win is for you.

  Brenda

  .

  It was nearly a full minute before I realized I

  was crying. The tears were streaming dawn my cheeks and dripping off my chin. I put the letter back into the envelope and then put it under my pillow. I would read it often, because when I did. I could hear her voice clearly in my head, and it was as if we were still living together, still sisters. A part of me longed for that life, regardless of how unhappy I had been and how far I had fled.

  In spite of what I had always fantasized about Uncle Palaver's life, it became patently clear to me that he, just like people who were settled in one place, followed a daily and often monotonous routine. He often did most of the driving during the night but always seemed to pull aver before morning so he could sit and drink or go back to the bedroom and replay the conversations tapes he had made with Destiny. Of course. I knew these were fictitious conversations. Her voice was his voice projected through the doll. Whether they were from memories of actual conversations or not. I did not know. Regardless of what I had anticipated and hoped, he did not volunteer information about Destiny and him.

  I tried through subtle questions to find out more. "When did you meet her?" I asked, and he

  simply replied. "Sometime ago."

  "Where?" I followed, and he said. "At one of

  my performances."

  "What brought you two together?"

  "It was magic," he replied. "Simply magic." He would then take on a dark, cold look, as if

  he had somehow sunk deeper into his own body. He

  didn't reply to any additional questions, and the look

  on his face frightened me enough to drop the subject.

  After a while, he would snap out of his reverie and

  talk about the next town, the next audience. He spent his days practicing his illusions and

  thinking up new ones.

  "The good thing about being on the road," he

  told me. "is that for each audience, your show is

  brand-new. I either don't return for some time--

  years, in fact-- or it's for the first time. That way,

  everything is a real surprise."

  I asked him about his cruise trips and

  performances, and he did talk at length about them,

  the places he had visited and the friends he had made. "But these are temporary friendships," he

  added, "The ship moves on after you disembark, and unless you get back on that ship soon afterward, the

  names and faces dissipate like smoke in a short time." It occurred to me that he really didn't have any

  close friends. When I asked him about it, he nodded

  and admitted that was one terrible disadvantage to

  being on the road and being a performer.

  "The only people I stay in contact with these

  days are my booking agent, my lawyer, my

  accountant, and some theater owners I know and will

  see from time to time. I don't really speak to anyone

  from my past. Destiny," he said. "She's the closest

  person to me now, now that your mother is gone." "You have me. too. Uncle Palaver," I reminded

  him, and he smiled.

  "Yes. I have you, too. But you can't stay with

  me forever and ever. April. After this performing

  season, you have to think about your own future.

  College maybe. huh?"

  "Maybe," I said.

  Even the idea of thinking about a future

  frightened me. What would I do? Where would I go?

  Why couldn't I do this forever?

  As time passed. I realized Uncle Palaver was

  drinking more and more. His complexion took on a

  pale yellow glow, and he was not eating well, either. Even though his face was gaunt, his stomach seemed to swell. He complained about his pants not fitting him, as if it were the fault of his pants and not his fault. but I noticed his arms and legs were swelling as well. For hours during the days now, he would retreat to the bedroom and sleep beside his Destiny. I would peer in and see him lying there, his arm embracing the

  doll.

  Once, I was embarrassed and shocked to

  discover him totally naked beside it. It actually

  frightened me more than shocked me. I closed the

  door as quickly as I could and made up my mind

  never to spy on him again. For his part, he didn't

  appear to notice or care about my observations. He

  talked about Destiny's illness as though it had just

  recently been diagnosed, and he always retreated to

  his lecture about people who loved each other

  standing by each other through thick and thin. If he

  realized he was living in an illusion, he drowned the

  realization in his drinking. For him, it seemed to be

  the answer.

  One day, however, he drank a little too close to

  a performance. For the first time since I had joined

  him, he fumbled and messed up an illusion so badly

  the audience actually gasped. He got hold of himself and completed the performance. but I could see the

  theater owner looking at him suspiciously afterward. I thought about warning him, talking to him

  about the drinking, but every time I started the

  discussion, he grew tight-lipped and slightly angry. I

  was sure that if I nagged him about it, he would surely

  choose the whiskey over me and ask me to go home. I

  even considered hiding his whiskey in the hopes he'd

  forget and think he had run out of it, but despite his

  stupor, he always was quite aware of what was going

  on around him. It was troubling. but I didn't know

  what to do.

  And then, one night, after he had brought the

  doll back to the motor home and placed it in the

  bedroom, an idea occurred to me. It was a little

  frightening even to consider doing it. I was worried

  about his reaction. He could easily think I was teasing

  or mocking him, and it would surely make him very

  angry at me. It could be the cause of his asking me to

  leave, but witnessing his continuous degeneration was

  enough to give me the courage and the reason to do it. We were sitting in the living room having a

  light lunch and watching television. He had messed up

  one of his tricks again the night before but had

  recovered before the audience realized it. Of course. I knew immediately. It put him off his rhythm, and he actually cut the performance short. going to our finish ten or fifteen minutes before he was scheduled to do so. I didn't say anything about it to him, but the theater manager asked him if everything was all right. I heard him say, "You seemed a little distracted

  tonight."

  Uncle Palaver assured him he was fine and

  blamed any loss of rhythm on his introduction of a

  new trick. Of course, there was nothing that new in

  the act. and I c
ould see the manager knew it. too. He's

  going to lose bookings, I thought. It was inevitable. My voice was actually trembling when I began,

  but I was determined to try. "When you were at the

  supermarket this morning. I heard Destiny call for

  you." I said, and he turned to me slowly, a smile

  freezing on his face.

  "What?"

  "I was sure I had heard her. so I went to the

  bedroom to see what she wanted, and we had a nice

  talk about you."

  "What kind of talk? What are you talking about.

  April?" he demanded.

  My heart thumped, and my breath caught in my

  throat. but I gathered strength and determination and continued. "She said she was worried about you, warned you were worrying too much about her and

  because of that maybe drinking a little too much." He stared at me. I held my breath. Would he

  scream, shout, tell me to leave?

  "Aw," he said, waving his hand. "She worries

  too much. I'll speak to her. She's always picking on

  that. I know when too much is too much." he said

  firmly.

  I hoped I had put something in his mind.

  though. If he believed Destiny wanted him to cut

  down, he might do it.

  He continued to eat and watch television and

  then suddenly stopped chewing and turned sharply to

  me. I held my breath again.

  "Don't you go counting my drinks and telling

  her anything," he warned.

  "I won't. She knows what she knows herself." I

  said.

  He considered my answer, nodded, and

  returned to watching television.

  My risky idea didn't have much of an effect on

  him. however. If anything. I thought his drinking got

  worse. I kept track by the number of bottles he drank

  and bought and saw it was increasing. Then I noticed

  something even more frightening.