Chapter 4: The Great Paris

12 September 1974, Minneapolis

“I HAVE THREE SILVER CUPS. They’re made of sterling silver, which to you, of course, may be unimportant. To me, it’s important. I paid for them. But you can see that they are cups, and that they are empty. Nothing in this cup. Nothing in this cup. And nothing in this cup.”

Blinding pain flashed behind the magician’s eyes. Momentary loss of memory. He forgot where he stood or what his hands were doing. On stage, however—in the eyes of his audience—he kept up his constant patter as his hands automatically executed the moves that entertained. As the flash of pain subsided, he was surprised to find his hands deftly maneuvering the objects on the table, and the audience laughing at the joke he had just made.

“What’s important to you is not that the egg is silver, but that it fits under any one of the cups. I see you are skeptical. So, let’s get a volunteer up here to verify my claim. Who’d like a chance at stardom?”

A dozen hands shot up around the smoky little club. The Great Paris scanned the room for a likely candidate. That one was too drunk and might cause problems. Magic in bars and nightclubs was risky enough. He walked a fine line between providing entertainment and making the audience an adversary. He guessed it was just bad breaks that brought him to this level of entertainment instead of playing showrooms in Las Vegas. He certainly didn’t believe in fate. But it was a living and he did what he wanted to do. He shook the headache from behind his eyes and called on the man in the three-piece striped suit. There was one thing Paris disliked more than three-piece suits, and that was stripes. The gold watch fob connecting the vest pockets would provide a nice touch as he’d seen the man looking at his watch frequently during the evening. Paris wondered if he was that anxious to see the show end or if he just wanted to show off his watch to his companions.

“All I’m going to ask you to do is keep your eye on the egg. Everyone can see it as I place the silver egg on the table and place the silver cup over the egg. Right? You, sir, are up here close and personal so you can keep an eye on exactly which cup the egg is under.” Paris paused with his hands over the top of the three cups. “By the way, do you have the time?” he asked. The man automatically reached for his pocket watch.

“Yes,” he said, as he opened the case. “It’s ten thirty-five.”

“I like to keep track of how long this trick takes from time to time. It varies.” The man dropped his watch back in the vest pocket and returned his attention to the cups.

“Now, which of the cups is the egg under?” Paris asked.

“This one.”

“Perhaps we went too fast. I distinctly remember telling you that I was placing this cup over the egg. You see? There is nothing over here.”

There were a few titters from the audience. It was an old trick practiced on street corners around the world, but it was working well. Fortunately, it was also a trick that his hands could work without his mind. The headache had hit shortly after he got off the train yesterday and hadn’t let up. The train, at least, was a place where he could rest from it. It had been his chosen mode of transportation ever since he hit the road. The clacking of the wheels over the uneven rails that spanned the country lulled him into sleep and drove the headaches away. The thought flitting across his mind in the nightclub gave Paris a little relief from his headache and his eyes cleared.

“Now, which of the cups is the egg under?”

“This one,” his volunteer said confidently.

“Maybe three cups are too much for you to keep track of. You see, the egg is over here.” The party at the man’s table was laughing out of control. Paul seldom had bad thoughts about his volunteers, but somehow hoped the party included the man’s boss. “Tell you what. Let’s set this cup aside and only use two cups. Now which cup is the egg under?”

“This one,” he said a little more hesitantly.

“It’s good to see you’re paying attention because as you can see, the egg is indeed under this cup.” There were more titters from the audience as Paris lifted the cup to show nothing under it. “I seem to have lost track of it myself. Would you mind looking under the other cup?”

“It’s not here,” his assistant said as he lifted the cup and looked inside it as well.

This time, light applause erupted from the audience. Paris was confident of the disappearing egg trick now. If he could only make the headache disappear with the egg. “Did you take my egg?” Paul demanded.

“No!”

“It’s in the other cup!” The shout came from a thick-lipped man sitting nearby. Just the type expected to mouth off and try to ruin a good trick. One too many drinks had crossed those lips, making an otherwise dull and harmless brain think it had a sudden gift of wit and entertainment.

“Would you check the other cup, my friend?” Paris appealed to his volunteer, making the man a coconspirator. His volunteer picked up the cup that had been set aside. He double-checked inside the cup.

“It’s not here.”

“I’m baffled. You didn’t take it?”

“No.”

“You don’t have it. I don’t have it. I’m a little confused. This has never happened before.” The audience laughed at the nonsensical dilemma, certain Paris would make the egg materialize out of thin air or pull it from the man’s ear. “Well, thank you for your assistance. Nothing ends a trick faster than a lost prop.” The man had one foot on the step down from the stage when Paris put a hand on his shoulder. “By the way, just for the record, what time is it?”

The volunteer pulled the chain from his pocket. At the end dangled the silver egg. The audience roared. The man fumbled for words as he watched the egg swinging from the chain in his hand as if this illusion would go away and his watch would appear. He glanced around to see if Paris had the watch.

“Where’s my watch?”

“You take my egg and want me to keep track of your watch?” Paris leaned over conspiratorially as he took the egg from the man’s watch chain. He stage-whispered, “I spotted it a bit ago. I thought sure you’d find it and the jig would be up.” Paris led the man back to the table and pointed at the third cup. “That’s what our friend over there thought was a silver egg under this cup.”

Paris reached for the third cup and dropped the pocket watch out of the impossibly small cup into its owner’s hand. The audience loved it and suspected the volunteer was an accomplice. All but his own table where his companions were still laughing at him as he sat down. Paris wished he could sit, as well. His hands had begun to shake and he almost dropped the watch on its last pass. He would have to alter his routine and conclude the show a few minutes before eleven. He could never do the scarf tricks or handle animals with his hands shaking like this. The pain in his head was incredible.

“You see, nothing ever really disappears. It just moves from place to place,” he said turning over the three cups one at a time to show the egg move from one to the other. A young woman sitting alone in a far corner of the room near the light booth looked up suddenly at him and he caught her eye. It held there for a split second before he forced himself to continue.

He had noticed her early in the show. The lighting tech had arranged a chair next to his stand and Paris wondered if she was his girlfriend. She looked so out of place in this crowd. In this split second that they shared a glance, Paris was startled by a fantasy that momentarily took the place of his headache and he set his course of action quickly.

“I need another assistant from the audience for this next little trick. You notice I said trick, for magic is all in your head. I wonder if the young woman sitting over there would join me for this. Miss?”

The young woman looked startled and glanced toward the light booth, but stood and started toward the stage. Paris picked up a deck of cards and began to shuffle, flipping half a dozen accidentally on the floor. He quickly gathered up the cards and offered his hand to the young woman as she stepped up to the stage.

“If you are going to do a trick with cards, it helps to play with a full deck,” he said. He handed the cards to a man sitting at the table directly in front of the stage. “Sir, would you mind counting these to make sure there is a full deck there. You can verify that this is an ordinary deck of playing cards and shuffle them up a bit if you would.” He led the young woman to the center of the stage. He wasn’t sure what he expected when he took her hand, but he was amazed to have it held in his. It wasn’t cold and clammy, as many were that he took to lead to the stage, nor was it hot and sweaty. It was warm and grasped his hand with gentle confidence. His forced stage smile thawed into something more genuine.

She stood quietly where he directed her, and he retrieved the deck from the man who had been vigorously shuffling. The cards fit his hand better now as it had stopped its momentary shaking. He zipped through the cards quickly twice to bring them into the order he wanted. He felt better about this trick already.

“And what, may I ask, is your name?”

“Serepte.”

“That’s beautiful. I’ve never met a Serepte. They may suspect you of complicity. They always do.” She smiled at him. It was a beautiful name and a beautiful smile. It sounded like it should have a beautiful romantic story behind it. It was a name he would like to hear again. And would like to speak frequently.

“I’m going to ask you to cut the deck and show all the audience the card that you cut to, then put it all back onto the pack.” The instructions were obediently carried out. He watched her hand move across the cards. It was as beautiful as her name. She wore no jewelry. The fingers were graceful and looked, to his eye, like the hands of someone skilled in their use. What did she use them for? An artist? Another magician? That would be a jolt.

“This is an amazing feat of telepathy. The trick is to make you, the audience, believe it is only a trick and not deep magic of the ancient past. The only reason I include this trick is so I can sit down.” How true. It will be pleasant, as well, to learn the woman’s hands better. “Serepte, I’d like you to stand right behind me. I’ll shuffle the cards again to make sure that the card you’ve selected is good and buried. Now, I want you to concentrate on the card that you selected and I’m going to pick it out of the rest of the pack. If you would place your hands on my forehead and concentrate on the card, please.”

She placed her hands on his forehead from behind and he began to relax. At last he could sit down. Flashes of the years he’d been victim to this infernal headache crossed his mind. As far back as he could remember, but recently, more frequent than ever. Twice in the past month he dropped significant tricks in his show because his hands were shaking. He kept telling himself he’d see a doctor after he got home from this tour, but this tour never seemed to end. Home was in his trunk. The very thought of doctors, hospitals, and the sterile white environment repulsed him. The thought of replacing the smell of cigarette smoke with the smell of iodine was little comfort. They would tell him what he already knew. Traumatic amnesia. He would have pain until he remembered.

“I see that you want me to display five cards on the table,” he said as she held her hands soothingly on his forehead. He turned up the first five cards on the deck and displayed each to the audience before laying it face down on the table. “And yes, I am getting your message clearly now. The next card I turn over will be the card you selected.” He ran his hands over the deck and people in the audience tittered. They knew he had already displayed her card and discarded it. What they did not expect was that he reached to the cards on the table and turned over the third one he had discarded, the seven of spades. The audience applauded their appreciation more for his having misled them in believing he had already passed the card than for his selecting the correct card.

“That worked so well, I’d like to try going deeper into the subconscious with you, taking our audience into the trance so that they can communicate telepathically with us. You shall become our medium, Serepte. Let us see if you can transfer the thoughts of the audience to me without having seen the card yourself.” He shuffled the cards and held the deck in the palm of his hand. “I would like you to cut the cards and display the cut card to the audience without looking at it and without showing me.”

Serepte lifted a third of the cards from the deck and displayed the bottom card to the audience before placing them back on the pack in Paris’s hand. Another blinding flash of pain caused Paris to squeeze his eyes shut. He took a deep breath. It would all be over soon and he could get an ice pack.

“Now if you would return to your position with your fingers on my sweaty brow, I would like the audience to focus on the card you selected and see if I can find it in this standard pack of fifty-two playing cards.” He shuffled the deck and she stepped behind him. She seemed hesitant to put her hands on his forehead, but Paris scarcely noticed. He was having difficulty with the cards again. His vision blurred and his stomach rose as he felt the sharp premonition of a trick about to fail.

Then he felt her hands. The cards didn’t fall to the floor. The pain subsided. It was such a complete draining of the tension in his head that he felt faint for a moment. His eyes cleared and he returned to his patter. He’d complete the trick and do some quick spot changes then leave the stage.

“You over there,” he pointed vaguely. “Quit trying to send me a false message. That’s not fair.” He waved his hand over the deck, fanned the cards and drew one. “And the card was this one!” he said, displaying the four of hearts.

Applause greeted the card and Paris smiled. Serepte lifted her hands from his head and with them went the last sensation of the fleeing headache that Paris had been fighting all night. He was flooded with the sensation of wellbeing that replaced it. He bowed and led her to the edge of the stage before he turned to look at her.