Dear diary,
After leaving the mall, I find some supplies by the roadside and build an exact replica of the 1902 Studebaker Electric; then I use that to go pick up my new assistant Tara at her apartment in the Bronx. I call her beforehand using the telephone booth from The Birds (1963), of course, to make sure she’s still interested in traveling the land with me and performing Magic Shows. She answers on the first ring and sez:
“I am ready and willing; my suitcase is packed. Let’s rock.”
So we drive our Studebaker until its battery loses charge in an Iowan cornfield.
“Look how lucky we are,” sez Tara, my magician’s assistant; “there’s a brown brick building in the midst of this field where people are gathering — see how they’re streaming into the place from the surrounding small towns? We should put on an impromptu Magic Show there, just to test out our skills. Let’s review the plans that we wrote down on our napkin yesterday in the Food Court.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say, using my scented pocket square to dab a tear from my eye (I was weeping because I felt disheartened until Tara pointed out this possibility); “I wonder what this building is, and why it’s situated in the midst of a cornfield — my guess is that it’s either a Tire Store, a Church, or a Suicide Prevention Clinic.”
Trick #1
So we enter the building and note that it smells strongly of rubber. I climb onto one of the many folding chairs that riddle the sales floor and raise my voice to address the multitude that has gathered:
“Countrywomen, I ask for only two hours of your time. My name is Bryan Ray; I am a Magician by trade. My assistant Tara here will walk around gracefully to each and every one of you, holding out her sunhat at purse-level. Please give what money you can — our show is publicly funded. What I’ll be doing in the meantime is setting up the stage and preparing to accomplish this evening’s trick.”
“You specified that we should place ONLY paper money into the lady’s sunhat,” a voice sez from the back of the audience; “but will you also accept all of our golden caesar coins?”
“Yes, pure gold caesars are welcome also,” I say, while opening the drawstrings of my Death Bag and pulling out a table. Then I pull out a small stage, and a curtain rod and some red drapes. Finally I pull out a handsaw.
“OK, I’m ready whenever you are, dear Tara.”
My assistant Tara hastens to the stage, holding her hand over the top of the heap of coins and bills that now overfill her sunhat, to slow the flow of money that keeps blowing away.
This initial evening of trickery does not go well for us. After the show, when reviewing what went wrong, so as to improve our routine for the next performance, Tara and I fix upon the following list of things to work on:
We should think of a better trick — one that is more interesting.
We should turn off my lapel microphone when I do the sawing, so that the audience cannot hear it.
We should limit our crowds to 100 people, at most, so that Tara can get to them all during the “distraction” aspect of the show.
What happened was this. After setting up the curtain rod in front of the table with the drapes open, I said to the crowd:
“Now, behold, this table here is long: it is made of wood and painted black. I will magically cause it to split in half — that shall be my trick. In the meantime, Tara will come and embrace each of you, while I close these drapes and engage in casting the spell that shall work this sorcery.”
Then I drew the drapes closed, so that the audience could not see me, and I picked up the handsaw and began to go to work on the wooden table. Meanwhile Tara moved her way thru the crowd, enchanting each member of the mass with her conversation skills. When she had successively chatted up about a third of the multitude, I announced from behind the drapes: “Lo, it is finished!” Then I snapped open the drapes, revealing the long black table, now severed in twain.
A collective “Ooh!” arises from all who are present; and this vast sea of witnesses now erupts into thunderous applause. Above the loud clapping, one voice shouts from the back: “How did you do that!?” And, while bowing repeatedly, I look up and wink and shout back: “A magician never reveals his secrets!” Then I place the handsaw back into the Death Bag, as well as the curtain rod and the drapes. But I leave the stage behind, along with the severed table and the sawdust, as tokens for the townspeople to remember me by, and for future ages to marvel at.
As I said, when reviewing the above performance in our hotel room together after the battle, Tara and I decide that this trick is no good and that we need to improve it drastically. Even tho this particular crowd went wild for us, we don’t want to run the risk of a nastier audience rejecting our routine. A less sweet-natured assemblage of faultfinders might tear us to pieces, if they guessed correctly what makes the illusion work. So it is fortunate that Tara and I are our own harshest critics: this helps us remain at the top of the “Best Ever” list in Most Respected Magicians and Assistants Magazine; and it ensures that we run a tight ship and a really good show.
Now, before we make it to the hotel this night, when we’re walking out of the brown brick building back to our Studebaker, we (Tara and I) both remember at the same time that the car ran out of electric charge — that’s the whole reason we stalled in this cornfield in the first place. So we both drop to our knees and supplicate the heavens, in vain. Then I say to my assistant Tara:
“What should we do?”
And Tara stares hard at the ground and thinks for a long while; then she replies:
“Let’s put the Death Bag into the Studebaker and try to start up the vehicle and drive it nevertheless — who cares if its power is drained! — we’re professional illusionists, aren’t we? It’s worth a shot.”
At first I regard my assistant with a look of disbelief; but then, slowly, my countenance changes, as I seem to be gaining faith in Tara’s suggestion.
“Alright, let’s try it,” I say.
So I toss my Death Bag into the back of the Studebaker; and Tara hops into the passenger side, while I climb up and sit in the driver seat. We gaze at each other and then down at my hand that is poised over the “Start” button. Holding my breath, I finally press it… and the Studebaker starts!
We cheer and drive in the direction of the Bates Bed & Breakfast. We stay there for a few weeks, discussing how we can improve our repertoire. We go through a whole dispenser of napkins, drawing up our plans. Then we head back out onto the road.
The “Brave Patriotic Freedom” Trick
Our first stop after the near-disaster in Iowa is a place within Lake Michigan. The underwater venue was built to resemble a giant bubble of air. Entering this clear dome arm-in-arm with Tara, the audience daintily applauds.
“I don’t like how polite their clapping sounds,” I whisper to Tara, my assistant, as we’re climbing the rope-ladder to the stage.
“Don’t worry,” she replies; “our trix are Teflon now.”
Then we perform the number where Tara wheels out a stand that has a small, cathode-ray television upon it. She switches it on, and its screen displays a live satellite image of the Statue of Liberty. Then I open my Death Bag and place it over the top of the TV; and when I remove it, the audience is shocked to see that the Liberty Statue has been sent back to France.
Then France uses a giant cruise ship that has a tennis court on its upper deck to re-gift the statue to England, but German submarines intercept the shipment: they shoot steel-corded grappling hooks at the statue and drag it back to an underground bunker.
Then I ask the audience to try to refrain from blinking while I do this next part of the trick, so that they can know that I’m a true voodoo doctor and not simply attempting to fleece them. (At this point, Tara goes from customer to customer within the paying audience and parades before them wearing a sheepskin one-piece.) Now a mechanical owl named Bubo flies out of my Death Bag, and I pretend that this isn’t a well-planned part of the act. The bird retrieves the Statue of Liberty and returns it to its home island, and then Bubo uses his beak to peck loose and toss away the National Security Microchip that has been implanted on the neck of the famous green dame. Now this Microchip (it should really be called a Macro-chip, since it’s roughly the size of a Volkswagen) flies thru the air so far that it passes outside of Earth’s atmosphere; and we trace its journey on our stage monitor while it goes frisbeeing thru the outer spaces, in search of a new victim.
This second trick goes over really well. We get huge applause from the Lake Michigan audience in the vast clear dome where we performed the routine.
Bonus Trix
Next we travel to the West Indies and do a trick where I drive a red motorbike into a river of gasoline that terminates in a waterfall. I intentionally speed off the end and plunge into the giant Moloch Head from Metropolis (1927), whose throat has been equipped with fourteen extra deadly flamethrowers, but the bike doesn’t explode. Then we hand out boxes of candy mints to the audience, while I’m helped back out of the mouth, and they all shout “Bravo!” (My assistant Tara wears a glittering gray robe throughout this show.)
Then we go to Texas and do the shell trick, where I place three seashells on the table and hide an oil derrick underneath one of them; then I ask the audience to guess where all the toxicity and corruption is coming from, after I’ve shuffled the seashells into the ocean; and a guy in the front row, who thinks he saw me hide the derrick in my sleeve, shouts out: “You cheated!” Then Tara pulls out a fire-hose and sprays chocolate syrup into the crowd (this is supposed to symbolize crude oil, tho it looks like blood when filmed in glorious black-and-white), each drop of which our patrons are allowed to exchange for a stack of U.S. dollars at the exitway.
From this point on, our Magic Show really starts to get entertaining. We hone our trix so that they’re absolutely perfect. (And, just for the record, our Studebaker Electric never did need to get re-charged — ever since that first stall-out, it has continued to get us from event to event with no problems.)
Next we go to Montreal in Québec, and we do a routine for the birthday party of a famous mob boss. I blow up a balloon and hand it to my assistant Tara. She then sashays around and shows the balloon to all the audience members, asking them to go ahead and try to pop it. These mobsters jab at it with switchblades and syringes, but nothing manages to pierce the balloon’s mysteriously thick skin. Then Tara comes back onstage and hands the balloon back to me (she is wearing a tailored blazer and sequined pink bloomers, by the way) and I twist the semi-inflated object artistically into the shape of a grizzly bear; then I pull out a handgun, aim it between the eyes of my balloon animal, and fire a shot. The balloon pops and a vampyre bat flies out. This living creature then hovers over my head, and a voice from the intercom announces over the ceiling speakers as follows:
“Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.”
Then the bat flies out of the house thru one of the windows, breaking the glass. Tara now goes walking to and fro among the mobsters, and they all press their lips to the emerald ring on her outheld hand; then she goes to the back of the room where the mob boss has died of fright, and she gently closes his eyes. Also in attendance are two full choruses of dancing girls and a bevy of female news-readers — these are all the spouses and mistresses of all the other mobsters — so Tara offers a little white card to each of those wives and wenches that she likes best; and on these cards is printed a formal invitation to this evening’s afterparty. And all these women end up attending in their very best outfits; and they let down their hair.
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