A Touch of Magic
9 The Judgment of Paris
14 September 1974, early evening at the apartment
In the Minneapolis apartment, three women gathered near Serepte in the living room of the apartment. Furniture was hastily moved back and a large cloth was spread in the center of the room. Wayne had been working on this masterpiece for five years as a sacred space they could spread out anywhere, but especially where using chalk would either irrevocably mess up the house or would leave traceable remnants where they didn’t want to be traced. It began with a pentagram in the center, representing the five points of their circle. Radiating from the five points various mystical symbols Wayne had dug up were inscribed. Each of the priestesses had also added personal signatures with their name signs and other symbols. In short, Wayne was creating a great mandala.
Though the wheel might never be completed, it served as a focus for Serepte’s frequent need to release pain. It had been going on for five years. Meaghan handed Serepte her flute as the girl settled into the center of the circle. The others had not yet seated themselves around her when she began to play. Lissa brought an aromatic tea to the group and poured cups as they settled around Serepte. Judith arrived, panting slightly, and simply shook her head. They’d known she and her friend could never catch the demon man. Judith returned and took her place on the circle. She sipped her tea and smiled her thanks at Lissa.
Wayne, of course, would not join them—at least not until the shows were over tonight. Right now, he was probably waiting for the one bus that would get him from his East Bank opera workshop to his job at The Showbox. Minneapolis was not an inexpensive place to live so all members of the circle worked. All to support the young woman seated among them, playing her flute.
The four women began to silently sway to the strange sounds of Serepte’s flute and occasional vocalizations. The tones from the instrument filled the room, drawing the circle in close while seeming to give it infinite expansion. None of the other women were musicians, but they had learned, as had Wayne, to mimic Serepte’s vocalizations. When they joined their voices to Serepte’s flute, it was not fit for an orchestral hall, but might have been a meditative piece in a chapel. They felt the spiritual power that she placed behind every note. The rhythms, the tones, filled them with images of a distant yet present reality. They were transported into another dimension, riding the tide of her music. And as they stood gazing into that alternate reality, the music increased its force and power. They could see the pain Serepte had accepted into her body after the accident escaping toward that open pathway. Some bits of the pain skipped away from her like children running to a playdate, while other bits seemed to linger, caressing her tear-stained face with tendrils that were reluctant to leave.
Yet, ultimately, every trace of the pain had started down the path to its own world. The music faded and the images in their minds slowly closed as if behind a fog. The women struggled to get one last glimpse into the reality they had seen opened before them and then rushed to catch Serepte as she collapsed backward, her flute falling from her limp arms.
Lissa, the largest if not strongest of the four, scooped up the featherweight Serepte in her arms and carried her to bed. By the time she and Judith had the girl resting, Elizabeth had returned with another round of tea. Meaghan had lit incense and candles in the room; combined fragrances of sandalwood and vanilla floated on the air.
“We lost him, of course,” Judith whispered. “We should never have been so far away.”
“We don’t want to intrude,” Elizabeth said. “She is chafing under too much supervision, even with an incident like this.”
“Still… If anything happens to her, I will never forgive myself. Especially if that is The Blade out there, as I suspect it is.”
“We need to take some hope from that,” Lissa said. “If he was trapped in the same time warp that Serepte’s father was caught in, there must be a pathway opening in order for him to get here.”
“Let’s do the time warp again,” Meaghan sang from The Rocky Horror Picture Show that played at the Uptown every Saturday night at midnight. There were a few chuckles in the group as they remembered their first viewing of the film amidst the costumed crowd that sang all the lyrics in the movie. “I’m going to go see that magician tonight,” Meaghan said. “He’s enchanted our princess and I want to see if there is a way to break his spell.”
“I’d go with you, but I think I should stay here,” Judith said. She reached over and softy petted Serepte’s hand.
“’S okay,” the girl mumbled. “Just need to sleep a while.” She squeezed Judith’s hand and then drifted back to sleep.
“What about Lil?” Meaghan asked. “It would be nice to have company and I’d love to get to know her better.”
“Only if you want the spotlight on you,” Judith laughed as all but Elizabeth and Serepte left the room. “Not that Wayne would intentionally focus on you, but that girl attracts attention. I’m not sure she can function unless she has that broadsword strapped to her back.” Judith looked at her friends and then stepped forward to kiss Meaghan soundly. “She’s what I would be if I did not have our circle to calm me.”
“If you think you are okay here, I’ll go with Meaghan,” Lissa said. “I think we can disguise ourselves effectively. He’s never seen Meaghan and only saw me in my waitress role.”
“You’re the best, doll,” Judith said and repeated her kiss with Lissa.
“Mmm. You know, it doesn’t always have to be associated with raising power,” Lissa murmured. “You’re always welcome to join me in bed.”
“Not tonight… But maybe tomorrow,” Judith whispered back. “I think Meaghan has an itch she wants Wayne to scratch.” They turned to look at their blushing friend.
14 September 1974, evening at The Showbox
Paul shielded his face slightly from the scrutiny of the security guard at the stage door of the club.
“Had a little tangle with a bicycle while I was walking around the lake,” Paul admitted.
“You need help? We could get a doctor here.”
“No. Really, I’m fine. Nothing a little extra makeup won’t cover. Thanks.” Paul went directly to the dressing room and stripped down to his boxers. He looked in the mirror and saw what the security guard had seen—dried blood down the entire left side of his face. “Yeah. Extra makeup and a full facemask,” Paul wryly commented to himself. He gingerly began to wash the dried blood from his face, hands, and legs. As the blood dissolved in the drain, though, Paul kept looking for the damage he knew should be there. There was no sign of the cut he knew should be on his forehead to produce so much blood. No skin on his knees was peeled back. He poked gently at his ribs where he remembered the skater had hit him, but found no tenderness and no bruising. “What in the name of…?” He reexamined himself in the mirror and turned to see every angle. Nothing. No sign of bruise, cut or scrape. Shaking his head, Paul began to dress for his show.
A knock on his door called his attention and he opened it.
“Hey,” the theater tech said as he came in. He was talented at what he did and even with a couple of impromptu tricks that were outside the normal lighting last night, had managed to follow him with a spot.
“Hi, Wayne. Come on in.” Wayne sat on the sofa while Paul busied himself with makeup at the dressing table. This was a good venue and had hosted performers of much higher caliber than The Great Paris. He’d even found a bowl of fresh fruit in the room that was replenished each evening.
“Don at the stage door said you looked pretty banged up when you came in. I don’t see any of what he was talking about. Do you need anything?”
“No. I think the blood he saw must have been the other guy’s. Not a scratch on me.”
“Mmm. Lucky. Thought you might like to see this. You got a review in today’s paper. Not bad, either.” He grinned a wide and welcoming smile at Paris. “By the way, we’re fifteen minutes from curtain. Any special lights you’d like tonight?”
“No,” Paul said, scanning the review. “Just keep as much as possible to the high angle lights so they aren’t directly in my eyes when I’m looking at the audience. I like to see the people I’m performing for. I know you need to use the followspot on me when I step off the stage. That’s good.”
“You surprised me with that last night. Plan on it again tonight?”
“Sorry about that. Yeah, if the audience seems as into it as they were last night. I’ll check in with you between acts if I’m planning any big changes.”
“Oh, you might be interested to know that they upped the cover for tonight’s show. Instead of $5 to get in, it’s $10. And it looks like it’s a full house.”
“I guess that’s all right. You know I get a percentage of the cover and drinks as incentive.”
“Well, there’s a point of diminishing returns. They expect that more people are going to stay from one set to the next and they won’t be able to seat as many later. I’ll see you in a little bit.” Wayne left the dressing room and headed for his light booth and the beginning of the show.
Paris liked Wayne. He really had a feel for the performance and knew his light settings well enough that he didn’t need to experiment in order to find the right effect. Paris controlled his own sound with buttons and levers beneath the table. His shiny patent leather shoes that he wore with his tux had ballet slipper soles so he could feel the switches and manipulate them with his feet.
He sat down to read the review. ‘A Touch of Magic—An Enchanting Evening.’ Not a bad headline. He wasn’t often reviewed when he performed. Most of his stands were too brief to be benefited by a review. The critic must have walked out on something else and came to the club last night for a few drinks. The review was positive and Paris could see why management upped the cover charge. The reviewer liked the style and thought the approach was fresh and clean. The article concluded, though, by stating that the nature of the club was such that many new people arrived before the final act and that a few of the tricks had been repeated. He hoped that in future performances, the magician would keep fresh new material in for all three acts as he was certain people would be staying for the entire evening.
He'd done an adequate show and received an adequate review. It would adequately increase attendance tonight. Paris hated being adequate. He was only just enough to fulfill a need. It was especially irritating when Paul realized the critic had attended the preview on Thursday but released the article for the Saturday entertainment guide. He’d been much better Friday night. The critic should be forced to write his or her column with the kind of headache that Paris had performed with that night. He could see then how spectacular the adequate could be.
Well, tonight was different. The article was just enough to call all his energy back to his work. Tonight, he was well. The only sensation he remembered from the day was Serepte’s kiss. That alone was enough to start the adrenalin pumping into his blood stream. He had tricks he had not used in a long time, but it was time to roll out the big guns.
Many magicians had made their reputations based on levitation acts. Some levitated people, animals, and even automobiles. Paul had learned early in his career that he could create levitation illusions using small objects. The illusion included chanting a hypnotic chorus of nonsense syllables and rapid skillful movements of his hands. He learned that he could keep an object afloat in the same way that a spinner kept twenty plates spinning on poles. It was all about where the hands were and how they moved. The gibberish syllables had been a part of his learning new language skills. When he was rescued, he had a pubescent body and no memory. He had no language and no recollection of who he was. He was like an infant being trained by his adoptive family. But his hands knew how to move and how to do sleight of hand.
His adopted mother was a Yankee conservative and the act frightened her. So effective was the boy’s gibberish and hand movements that she thought he must be demon-possessed and made sure he was in her Congregational church at every opportunity. She forbade the practice of this trick and use of his gibberish language. Still, he kept his notes—his memory—of the trick.
As he thought of the old trick, he found the syllables coming back to him, much like the harmonies to Serepte’s humming this afternoon. He closed his eyes and pictured the apple in the fruit bowl floating toward his hand. He had to make it real in his mind. He saw it. He felt it. Firm and solid in the palm of his hand. Then he let the image go. He gathered up the items he needed for his first act and headed for the stage. Before he left the room, he picked up the apple and took it along. They wanted a spectacular conclusion; he would do his best.
His first set was a pleasure. The house was full, with extra chairs having been pulled up to some of the tables. Tables had been moved onto the dance floor that was often the focal point for music acts. He kept the tricks simple, but clean and exciting. He found that his line of dialogue with the audience was far more glib than usual, giving and taking comments. He disliked magicians that talked faster than their hands moved, but when it was smooth and returned in a kind of banter with the audience, everyone had more fun. He had an instant rapport with nearly everyone there. He concluded with a juggling act in which the beanbags seemed to disappear into thin air as he juggled. When he had convinced everyone that he was pantomiming, he tossed them into the audience and they landed at four different tables, as solid and real as they could be. It was a solid conclusion to the act and he left the stage to a round of applause.
When he began his second act after a thirty-minute intermission, he was surprised to see there had been little turnover between acts. More people had arrived after theaters let out and crowded the bar area. A few had even moved into the main floor and stood along the walls. It registered on Paris that he would be unable to repeat any first act tricks if the crowds didn’t turn over. He quickly inserted a ring juggling act that he would not need in the third show if he went with the apple trick. Perhaps his action had just cemented his dependence on the apple trick in the final act.
He was swept by a new wave of excitement as the second act closed and the audience gave him their ovation. He had seldom held a crowd so captivated as this one. He was feeling great and reached back in his mind to call back tricks that he had not used in years. No one was leaving and waitresses were struggling to get through the crowds with drink orders. People held their seats, even though it looked like this intermission could go long, just to get everyone served. It was an opportunity he could not pass up. Instead of returning to his dressing room between acts, he left the stage and moved among the tables. He seldom felt well enough to get close to people, but tonight, he felt that he had enough health and goodwill that he could spread it around to everyone he touched. He wanted to be close to the people that he was entertaining. He talked to parties at the tables and did simple tricks at each one. His own confidence shocked him. It was risky to bring tricks down to point blank range. He flipped card tricks and coin tricks, a different one at each table.
At the back of the room, he stepped out of the spotlight Wayne had used to keep him highlighted as he worked the floor.
“I’m changing up the last act,” Paris whispered to him. “I’ll need lights to come down as far as possible with just a blue pool on me. I’ll try to stay mostly in one spot. Can we do that?”
“I’ve always liked improv,” Wayne laughed. “Management is ecstatic. Two of the owners came in an hour ago and got drafted to mix drinks behind the bar. It’s been a profitable evening.”
“Well, let’s hope I don’t screw it up with this last act,” Paris returned.
“Hey, cutie,” a passing waitress said. “Here. Tips are good. You deserve a cut.” She pressed a five-dollar bill into his hand. He neatly returned it to her apron pocket without her knowing it and began working his way back toward the stage, still stopping at tables and chatting with patrons. He’d begun reciting his mantra to the audience as he moved among them, assuring them that “The magic is all in your head. Everything is an illusion.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Wayne announced as Paris mounted the steps, “returning to the stage at The Showbox, we proudly present The Grea---t Paris!” To look at Wayne up close, Paris thought, you would never expect he could put on such a radio announcer voice. He really drew out that one syllable. Paris bowed to the audience and moved his hand in a silent salute to the light booth for Wayne’s introduction.
Paris never lifted his voice to silence the audience. He moved from stage left to stage right engaging their eyes as the houselights came down. He juggled as he faced them. Some thought he was using just one ball as it popped constantly from his right hand to his left and seemed to disappear, only to jump from his right again. Gradually, the speed increased and people could see two balls in the air at once, but they still never seemed to leave his left hand. They always went from right to left. As the speed continued to increase, people could see three balls and then four or five. They created a fountain from his one hand into his other. Soon the fountain slowed and eventually only one ball could be seen. It popped one last time from his right hand into the left and disappeared.
Paris moved to his table as the lights began to tighten on his location and fade from the rest of the stage. He rolled a sheet of paper on the desk into a tube and looked through it at the audience. Holding the tube in his left hand, he probed one end with his right and struggled a moment to bring forth a red scarf. Then a blue. Then a yellow. The scarves kept coming from the hollow paper tube, one after another. Soon he had a pile of scarves lying on the table in front of him. Wayne completed the dimming of lights and Paris stood in a blue pool with a followspot tightly focused on him. Paris controlled his music with a foot pedal and focused the audience in the same way as the gradually fading light.
Focus. That was the name of the game. Get the audience uniformly focused on one spot and you could do whatever you wanted anyplace else. He had carefully selected the music for this scene from a record of Shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute. It was meditative—mystic. It held no climaxes or discoveries of itself and allowed him to improvise on the mystical maneuvers of the music. His focus was sharp. In the short time since this set had begun, the audience focused entirely on his hands without his having spoken a word.
The scarves lying limp on the table began to rise out of the pile to form a rigid wall of veils from end to end. He parted the curtains of his new miniature theatre, raised a black veil up in front of it, and when it had been lifted, a rabbit sat sniffing the stale nightclub air around him. Paris spun a white scarf around his head, bringing it floating down like a parachute over the rabbit. It settled flat on the table in front of him. There was no sign of the rabbit. He lifted the scarf and showed both sides of it. On one side was an imprint, black on the white silk, of a rabbit. On the other side, was a white imprint on a black scarf of a dove. He shook the scarf toward the audience and the dove seemed to lift from it and take shape in the air. It flew once around his head and lit on his shoulder where he fed it a treat.
The audience was beyond applause. They were mesmerized and greeted each new move in this silent act with breathless gasps usually reserved for high wire acts or the flying trapeze.
The dove flew from his shoulder toward the audience then turned and swept down toward the wall of veils. Grabbing the corner of one, it rose again with all the scarves trailing behind like the tail of a great kite. The dove circled the room once and disappeared backstage.
When Paris finally spoke, the audience visibly moved forward in their seats to hear him. He scarcely whispered and no one wanted to miss a single word. Focus. With his voice, he drew them in tighter to the circle of light that surrounded him. No distractions. The waitresses had long since stopped moving with the steady flow of drinks from the bar to the tables. He was lucky not to have any drunks in the audience and that no sirens or city noises intruded on the silence. Everything was focused on his hands and his quiet voice.
“The magic is all in your head,” Paris whispered. “There is a whole magical world in your head waiting to escape and become real in this circle of light. All the magic you see is simply the illusion created in your mind taking shape and gaining life. Even your own body grows from that seed of magic in your head. Every magical breath you take begins in your head. And if you all breathe in unison, your lungs can be seen on the table. In. And out. In. And out.” As he spoke, the audience unconsciously began breathing in cadence with his words. As they did, a last remaining scarf on the table rose and fell with their joint breath, rising higher and higher with each. “In and out. Your breath fills this scarf and now that it is full, I will cut it loose and let it—with all our cumulative cares, float away and leave us relaxed and at peace.” The scarf lifted from the table and floated upward into the black space beyond the lights.
“And it all started in your magical mind. We are all weightless. We float, losing the sensation of having a chair beneath us. I found a tennis player when I visited you during intermission. She knows how a tennis ball bounces. But even that is controlled by the magic in your head.” He produced a tennis ball and bounced it once on the table. It rose back to his hand. “The breath of your mind controls the bounce of this ball. In and out. In and out. The ball will bounce only as fast as you breathe.” This time the ball bounced, but seemed to linger on the table before rebounding to his hand. The next bounce seemed to travel more slowly both down and up. “And here you will find the ancient secret of the mystics to levitate objects. Take a breath and hold it.” The audience held its breath as if only one person were in the room and that person was tied to the cadence of Paris’s voice. The ball hit the table, paused, rose, and stopped in midair.
“Exhale,” Paris said. The ball dropped with the explosion of air from the audience. “Your magical mind has shown you the secret of how it keeps the world together.” Paul held the tennis ball on the palm of his hand. “Now everyone simply blow on the ball and send it back to your imagination.” The audience blew and the ball disappeared from Paris’s hand.
Paris began to speed up the action by grabbing an object seemingly out of thin air and pressing it through his other palm. First a coin, then small balls. They grew in size until he snatched fruit out of the air and pressed it into the palm of his right hand making it disappear.
Then everything froze. His left hand, held palm out, stopped an apple. The finger of his right hand pressed the apple against his palm and he spoke.
“The magic is all in your head,” he said just loudly enough to be heard through the silent room. “Can you believe what you’ve seen? Why did this apple stop where everything else simply disappeared? Did you stop believing? How powerful is your mind? Concentrate on the apple. Call it to you. Make it lighter than air in your mind and it will float, float, float upon a cushion of air. And it will ride the air, floating toward your special magical place, to be the magic that is in your head.”
Paris began to sing softly. At first the audience put together bits and pieces of words they strained to hear. But before them, Paris danced with his hands in the air around the apple. As he danced with the apple, it floated up and away from his hands and danced in the air. It lit on one hand and then a shoulder and then floated before his face. Paris moved from his static pool of light to the edge of the stage with the followspot now tightly focused on his hands and the floating apple. The other lights faded as Paris stepped down from the stage with the apple still floating in the air before him.
As he sang, his hands never stopped moving. The song had no words at all now, but only nonsense syllables joined together to weave a pattern and a design in the ear as his hands wove for the eyes. The song painted the image of the floating apple in their minds. It lit on the back of Paris’s hand and then, like a butterfly, it lifted and settled on his left. At last, it came to rest on the fingertips of his right hand. The song drifted into silence.
“Apples are magical. It was with an apple that Eve tempted Adam. Melanion used golden apples to distract Atalanta in their race for love. It was an apple that was Bran’s passport to the underworld, and an apple was the prize for the most beautiful goddess. It was not Paris who chose Aphrodite, but the apple itself, presented by Discord. And thus, tonight, the apple will return to the most beautiful woman here of its own accord.”
He drifted into song again and the apple lifted from his fingertips into the air. He breathed the song across it and it floated, out over the audience, hung a long moment in the air and descended down to a table near the center of the room. It bounced lightly on the table and as if suddenly regaining its weight and substance, it rolled clumsily to the edge of the table and stopped between the two women Paris had picked out early in his show.
“Ah! Discord strikes again. You must decide between you. It is the judgment of Paris.” Both women reached for the apple and turned to glare at each other and then laugh.
The spell was broken with the women’s laughter and they claimed the prize together before pressing it between them and each taking a bite. The audience applauded first the young women and then the apple and then The Great Paris. The spell had been complete. The audience, to a person, had perceived the floating apple. They were certain that it had been weightless only moments before, swore that it had been only a balloon. The applause thundered more. They stood. Paris, having returned to the stage, smiled and bowed. He hoped the apple had found the critic’s table, but was satisfied that he had a spectacular conclusion to his show.
At last, he raised a hand and the audience quieted for his final salutation. He pulled it from far back in his memory as he shook a scarf to reveal his dove once again. The dove circled the room and returned with a flower in its beak from one of the tables. At last Paris spoke.
If I, but shadow, have offended,
Think but this and all is mended—
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
Not more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend;
If you pardon, I will mend.
With that, The Great Paris made a sweeping bow. The dove swept from his shoulder and delivered the rose to a nearby table. There was a flash of smoke and Paris was gone.
Applause erupted again. Cheers. Stomping feet. Whistles. Paris heard it from his dressing room but did not return to the stage. He was a bit embarrassed about the trick now that he thought about it. The hypnotism had been flawless. Not a person in the audience would leave disbelieving the magic. But he struggled with the ethics. Perhaps it was always the case, but it seemed fairer if Paris tricked the audience than if he let them trick themselves. He knew magicians who held the opposite belief. Nonetheless, it almost smacked of dishonesty.
He found a waiting taxi and was gone before most of the crowd had departed, many staying to finish their drinks. It had been a spectacular evening. He would take credit for it when his heart stopped pounding so loudly.
Comments
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