PART ONE: Confronting Disappointment

There is tragedy in the pulsating and leering climate that comes out of adult antipathy towards young boys who are approaching adolescence,…..the ones who have no requisite physical feats and abilities to distinguish them. It was really that way in my small town in the 50’s, where the dads who had tested their own physical limits in war, had returned, triumphant, with glazed eyed admiration for physical strength, a suppressed, but energetic sexual appetite, and most important of all, excellence in sports. A good, successful boy was one who could dispatch his uniformed, helmeted pursuers with natural agility and homegrown toughness…A broken bone or two was always the decoration that could assuage the mean temper of townsfolk, turning surly barbers, farmers, shop owners and other business people into gushing admirers and kid-athlete worshipers.

Then………there was the collection of the young boys who were tiny tycoons in the business of letting down their fathers. We were smallish, skinny, gawky, and worst of all………sensitive.

In our Freshman years, at any game, in any season, we shone brightly in our ability to sit out the action, thwarting various coach’s attempts to give us chances to join in the action……… only after our teams were so far ahead that the “bench bunch” could not fuck things up too badly.

I was a master at the under-whelmed reaction when a coach would want to put me on the football line where I felt I could meet sudden death, or end up in one of those big, hulking Iron Lungs……….”no thanks coach!”

As freshmen, we were content to let the bigger, stronger upperclassmen form the standard of supreme physical sacrifice, around which fawning cheerleaders, parents, teachers and furloughed soldiers might congregate, swapping stories of grand, overblown proportions. In the time leading up to our high school careers (the ages of 12-16), our little group of enduring bench-warmers had to decide what type of distinction could wrest the attention away from the hulking lot of braggarts and bullies.

In middle school, several years before our disappointing bodies would change toward the service of sweaty athletics, we prepared ourselves for moments of distinction in forms other than sports. This was our noble goal. Our ambitions required research and a practice of non-lethal skills, calculated to hold anyone in awe of our spell, especially the grownups that were in positions of power and beneficence.

Puzzles, slight of hand tricks, and feats that challenge the “rational eye” can be the most empowering things in the abilities of a curious kid. There has always been an invisible space where the adolescent mind dwells……..far out of the reach of controlling adults. Traditional Magic, or Illusionism as it is called now, offers far greater ways to impress ones peers and surrounding grownups than feats of strength, endurance, or even intellectual prowess.

I knew the fantastic supremacy of simple magic firsthand. I had sat next to a professional magician at a party when I was 10. The tricks in themselves were thrilling enough, but not nearly as exciting as the effect it had on everyone who watched. It was a miracle to me that a few simple tricks could get ovations from everyone, adults, hulking bullies, big brothers, sisters, and pretty girls. The performer was the GOD of the moment………..........what a thrill that must be!

The week I was to turn eleven, our Cub Scout pack sent out a newsletter asking the scouts to sign up for performance night. This was to take place in two weeks. The theme of the performances was to be, “Magic!” My perverse excitement over this made my mom worried; she looked at me with a funny sternness as I rifled through my comic books.

“Gare, what are you up to?”

I found the issue I was looking for...........

“Here, Mom! I want this for my birthday!”

I handed her the comic book open to the half page ad for a “Magic Kit.”

The ad featured a magic wand that could disappear, a floating mummy figure, and a talking, magic number container. Extra items were listed as, “and other items.”

I imagined some of the other items being: The secret for making yourself levitate, or how to make yourself invisible. With the fullness of my imagination, and the utter lack of bigger kid experience, I imagined a world of possibilities…….. I would perform before all the scouting families. From my vivid fantasy, I saw myself taking my show on the road, performing in great halls, with distinguished audiences…….the president, the queen…….Mickey Mantle……

After countless visits to the post office, where the postman had come to expect my visits, eventually just shrugging as he saw me coming in the door, the package finally came. It was smaller than I had expected, and the corners were scrunched in. I ran home and opened it. On top of the packed items there lay a booklet. I opened it and found it had nothing but blank pages.

“What?”………..Mom, look at this!”

My mom and brother came into the room. Mom picked up the booklet.
“Oh honey, I’m sure they made a mistake in the printing on this copy.”

My brother, who was wise for his 13 years said, “Maybe it’s written in disappearing ink. Here…….let me see it.”

He took it over to the stove and turned a gas burner. He held the pages just above the flames. He looked back at us over his shoulder.

“Sometimes the ink is sensitive to heat…..you just have to warm it up.”

When he turned back to look at the booklet, one of the pages caught fire.

“Crap!..........CRAP!..........”

He threw the booklet into the kitchen sink and turned the water on, as my mom, horrified, lunged toward the sink.

I was shocked, fascinated, then angry………"Mom!"

I could see Mom’s face as she tried to suppress laughter. She made an obligatory speech to my brother and turned off the sink. She pretended to scold him, when he reached in and pulled out the pathetic, wet booklet, thumbed through the charred pages and said, “Wait, here……..I……. I can read something……”

“What does it say?” I was mildly exasperated, Mom and my brother’s antics chasing away my anger.

My brother squinted. “Do not expose pages to moisture or heat.”

When the excitement died down, I continued unwrapping the box. Further inside I fund a cylinder shape, with newspaper around it. I unwrapped it to fine a black, shiny thing that looked like a cylindrical container of some sort. It looked like some sort of alien object. It had a fine, lacquer surface, with a strange dimple near one end.

By now Mom was out of the room and my brother stood watching me open things.

“That’s your magic wand dip-shit.”

“Wah?.......no sir…….” I began to think the whole box was a mistake. I held the cylinder and looked closely at one end.

“Shit-head. Look…….you just press this.” He pressed the dimple and the cylinder shot open into a longer rod, hitting me in the left eye.

“Ow!........leave it alone!!!” I felt the sharp pain, but luckily my reflex was swift and the lacquered end struck my closed eye. Mom was outside hanging up clothes, so she didn’t hear my brother’s laughter, and my wailing.

“Go away!” I was so fed up with my brother’s harassment……..it was important for this to be my experience. The kit was mine!........mine!

I went into the bathroom and saw redness around my eye. My brother followed me.

“The only kid in the world who got beat up by his Magic Kit.”

With that pronouncement, along with my brother’s laughter, I felt a not-to-unfamiliar need withhold my acknowledgement of the hilarity of the situation, and as I tried to suppress my own laughter, I blew snot out my nose.

“Watch boogers magically appear!......”

He made a gesture like a stage performer.

We both stood in the bathroom, experiencing the real magic of the bliss my bungling had created. The other contents of the package were cruddy and slightly damaged, but our laughter at that moment was real and true.

The Cub Scout Performance Night was approaching, and the magic kit was crap. I was already signed up, so I had to really think hard about what I could do.

That night I had a very clear dream, the type of dream where the dreamer knows he is dreaming, and keys to problems in our waking life are tangible things that fly past like slow, horizontally floating birds. In the dream, I followed a flock of them with my gaze, then I caught one, and its secrets gave me the solution.

_{To be continued.........}