Magician's Stooge

While surfing through the bottomless pit of useless drivel on the TV today, I came across a documentary about magician's assistants. It was called, "The Woman in the Box", and it was about stage magic from the unique perspective of the women who helped magicians pull off their illusions. That's when it all came back to me. (Here's where I would insert a rolling harp arpeggio if I had one, but then, this is a blog not a movie.)
I'm not sure if they still do this, but the high school that I attended in the late sixties would have what they called "assemblies" about 4 times a year. Everyone attended, all four grades, and they were a nice break from the routine of classes. Held in the auditorium, they would sometimes show an old movie, or feature some sort of speaker. This time however, they brought in a magician. Why, I'll never know, but I have to say that this was the "Mother of All High School Assemblies."
I can't remember the magician's name, but he was very very talented. He worked with birds - lots of them; and handkerchiefs, and levitaded things and made stuff disappear - you know the usual fare. Above all though, he was a good showman, and within an hour's time, he had everyone clapping and cheering and believing that the laws of physics were fun to break.
Just when you thought that he had reached the climax of his show, he dialed it down. There in the confines of a single spot light, he started to tell us about his profession.
The magician stated as a matter of fact, that the majority of his craft was creating illusions through slight of hand. Misdirection was his principle tool. If he could get everybody to look "here", then he could pull off the stunt "there". To illustrate how this worked, he needed a volunteer from the audience.
As I sat there in the dim of the house lights, I looked around to see which brave fool would raise their hand, and I heard him say "you sir." To my shock, I turned my attention toward the stage to find him pointing directly at me. I immediately replied not with words but with body language. Simultaneously raising my eyebrows, lowering my chin and ever so sheepisly touching my sternum with my index finger, I heard him say, "yes, you sir ... six rows back." A cursory count of the five rows in front of me confirmed the dread that was boiling in side of me. I had just been fingered by a man of great cunning to join him on stage for some fateful purpose about which I was completely ignorant.
By the time I had arrived on stage, the magician's assistant met me with a smile and wooden folding chair, upon which she motioned for me to sit. After the usual pleasantries, he dove right into his demostration of the simple workings of slight of hand. My job was to bust him, and I was certain that I could. I watched him remove a single tissue from a box, and then ball it up by rolling it between the palms of his hands. Holding the wad directly in front of my face, he said, "now watch carefully." As he closed his hand around it, I thought to myself, "this is easy", only to find that when he opened it again, the kleenex had disappeard. The uneasiness that I felt was aggrevated by the sporadic laughter of the audience. The magician asked, "did you see it?" "Well, it was there, and then.....it was gone," I stammered. He said, let's try it again." Seven futile attempts later, with the entire student body of Riverside High School rolling in the isles, he instructed me to look on the floor behind my chair. There they were, seven white facial tissues, glowing in the spot light. I could feel my face turning red as the magician explained to me that he had simply tossed them up over my head. I had been had, and it was great! I don't think I've ever felt more alive.
Having proved his initial point, the magician moved on to "the rest of the story." He implied that some magic was difficult, if not impossible to explain, as is anything mystical or surreal. Figuring that he was done with me, I slowly started to side step stage left. He caught me out of the corner of his eye, and like a traffic cop with flair, he raised his right arm and said, "stop, I'm not done with you." Just then his assistant appeared with several polished steel rings about 14 inches in diameter. Striking a pose center stage, she held them above her head, and after a half pirouette, placed them on the stand behind her.
The magician grabbed two of the rings and beckoned me center stage. He handed them to me and then asked me examine them carefully. They were two precision-machined hoops of solid steel, identical in size and weight, with no gaps, seams, hinges, hair-line cracks, flaws, imperfections, or anything else that could explain what I was about to witness. Holding them at a comfortable distance from my eyes, once again he said, "now watch." Slowly and deliberatly, he rubbed them together. I heard a slight whisper of steel sliding against steel. There's no explaination for what I saw. Two separate rings became joined like links in a chain. Once again the magician asked, "did you see it?" "No." I had to be honest. It was like I had fallen asleep for a second. "Ok," he said, "watch carefully." As easily as he conjoined them, he separated them. I was being deceived, and my eyes were complicit in the matter. Again and again, his question was simple. "Did you see it?" "No" was my simple reply.
As a cat toys with a mouse, he soon grew tired of me, and turned to his assistant. One by one she tossed the other rings to him, maybe seven in all. One by one he popped them together, and then one by one, he took them apart. He could even juggle them, and this elicited some sporadic applause, which grew and grew untill finally, standing there with a chain of rings stretched out before him, he gathered them together in one hand, and tossed them into the air. A thunderous crescendo of shouting and clapping accompanied the rings in flight, while we all watched them come apart, crash to the stage floor, and then scatter to the wings.
With one fluid motion he bowed low to the assembly, straightend up smiling, and then stretched his hand toward me, as if to say, "well done, my good and faithful servant." A roar erupted from the crowd. I was buzzing inside with adrenaline and endorphines. His assistant scrambled to recover all the rings and then led me by the arm to the short flight of stairs that led to my vacant seat.
Surely, there could be no more. But as the applause died down and the stage lights dimmed, he stood there in that solo spotlight, and thanked us. He was grateful that a thousand kids would take time away from their exciting classes to watch him work. He thanked the school administrators for their kindness. He thanked his lovely assistant and then, I swear he started to cry. On cue, she handed him a pink, silk scarf that he used to blot his tears. But then, with a wink and a wry smile he stuffed the scarf into his fist, disposing of it as only bona fide magicians can. I thought, "No, he can't end with this. Any magician can do that." It was then that I noticed band music softly playing in the house speakers. With slow, deliberate movements he would make the pink scarf appear and and then disappear again. The music grew louder throughout his routine. I know it now as John Phillip Souza's "Stars and Stripes Forever", and whenever I hear it played, I remember what amazing things he did that day. The pink scarf turned up again, peeking out of the lapel pocket of his tuxedo. He looked down at it and then back at the audience. Slowly he lifted it from its hiding place only to find it tied to a green one. And then that scarf was tied to another, and another... You've seen the routine before. Feverishly, he extracted the entire trane of silk that had been hidden on his body, and it lay in a waste-deep heap before him. But he wasn't finished yet. Reaching into his breast pocket, he pulled out an American flag - a really big American flag. It was the kind they fly over baseball stadiums and car dealerships. It was so big that he needed his assistant to hold up the other end. With the music reaching its climax, the two of them bundled up the flag, and from within the depths of its folds, he pulled out an American bald eagle. Holding the bird above his head, and carefull to avoid its enormous flapping wings, the magician saluted the audience that was now on it's feet, shouting and clapping to the marching rythem of his patriotic finale.
To this day, I'm not sure if I believe in magic. But what I witnessed on that day was something truely wonderful, and magical through and through.