Magic Is Dead, page 26
I had been practicing my trick over and over again in preparation for Vegas. Naturalness of motion, I told myself. Confidence. Timing. Pacing. Ramsay and I talked about the trick on FaceTime, and he gave me a crucial piece of advice: don’t telegraph your moves. This is a pervasive problem with newbie magicians and I was falling into the trap. Sometimes my nerves got the best of me. I knew when the sleight was a few seconds away and, as I mentally prepared to execute the move, my body language shifted, reflecting this internal planning. When this happens, the spectator can sense that something is afoot, that a dupe is on the horizon. Ramsay said to not think too much, to just act natural, to always remember that I am in control and that a trick is a journey on which I am taking the spectator. And now, standing in the MGM Grand and waiting for Adam, it was time to put up or shut up.
After a few minutes, Adam sauntered through the cluster of slot machines. Sleepy-eyed, in the hideous plaid cargo shorts that Ramsay and I always tried to convince him to stop wearing,* he greeted me with a lazy “Hey, dude” and a sly smile. Adam and I chat frequently, and I could tell he was overworked. Not only does he run the Ellusionist team, but he also performs regularly, had to put in months of preparation for his Penn & Teller: Fool Us appearance, and was finalizing his book about creativity, which he hoped would parlay into a lucrative keynote speaking career.*
But he always made time for me, and I felt a sense of pride knowing that he got out of bed a little earlier than needed to give me a shot at releasing a trick of my own making—of achieving my little dream. He came down from his room with Lloyd Barnes (the Six of Spades), an Ellusionist employee from the United Kingdom—equally sleep-deprived, with dark circles under his eyes, but nonetheless prone to a quick joke and a gut-shaking laugh—who had flown over the night before. Lloyd was acting as the company cameraman for this trip. We scuttled over to the nearest Starbucks for a much-needed pick-me-up.
“I’m really excited to see your trick, man,” Lloyd said as we waited in line.
“Yeah,” Adam chimed in, smiling. “It better be fucking good.” We all laughed. Adam paid for our coffees and we headed for the elevator. We got off on the twelfth floor and walked to the end of the hallway. Adam slipped his key card into the slot and opened the door, revealing a massive two-bedroom, two-bathroom suite. The entrance led into a wide-set living room, a gray L-shaped couch in its center. The city’s Strip beamed through the other side of floor-to-ceiling windows. A big, complicated-looking camera perched atop a tripod, and a large light cradled in a softbox stood off to the side, all ready to go. I tossed my backpack onto the couch, unzipped it, and took out my decks of cards, each one equipped with the gimmicked short card and a duplicate. It was go time.
“Well,” Adam said, looking at my cards. “Let’s see it!”
Adam and I sat at a small table next to the master bedroom. I took the cards from the box, riffled through to find the blank card, and placed it on the table. I took out my marker, handed it to him, and dove into the patter that I had been practicing. I was clear and crisp with my prose, enthusiastic in its delivery, smooth through sleight of hand, and determined in my acting as the trick geared up for its reveal. At the end, I acted as if I had messed up the trick—a last-minute ploy I threw in, recommended to me by my friend Franco Pascali just a few days earlier—that made the twist ending that much more delicious. When Adam finally opened the box, revealing that his chosen card had magically switched places with the one in which he signed—inscribed with “Carter,” his son’s name—a broad smile spread across his face. Lloyd, too, stood off to the side, his cheeks reddened in excitement and surprise.
“Dude, it’s great! I love it!” Adam said, laughing to himself, almost in disbelief, tossing the card down onto the table. “Shit, I would perform this at a gig. Let’s film it right now. I have to go make some phone calls, but can you and Lloyd get it in, say”—he checked his watch—“the next hour or so?”
I was elated. Yes, yes, I told him. Of course.
I looked over at Lloyd, who nodded in agreement. “We’ll tackle it,” he said. “No sweat.” Adam left the room, and Lloyd and I brought my cards and the tools needed to make the gimmick—a razor blade and plastic ruler—over to the set, in front of the camera. I sat on the couch, cards in front of me, while Lloyd turned on the camera, adjusted the lighting, and focused the lens. He gave me a thumbs-up, signaling we were rolling, and I launched into the secrets behind the trick.
“What’s going on, everyone!” I began, a bit overenthusiastic, my hands flailing like a deranged game-show host. “Ian Frisch here! This is Flipside. It’s a highly deceptive, transposition effect with a best-friend plot, something that I have been working on for about a year. It’s my first offering to the magic community, and I hope you enjoy it.”
I explained how the effect worked, slowly going over every detail a magician would need to perform it himself or herself. It felt so natural to explain the trick, its narrative and framework, its nuances and light touches. I had lived this routine for almost a year, tinkering with it nearly every day. It had a set of fingerprints that only I knew, and I tried my best to translate all its nuances. After a while, I barely noticed that a massive camera was pointed in my face and bright lights surrounded me. Hell, it barely registered that I was on the top floor of the MGM Grand, in a massive two-bedroom suite, translating to the magic community an effect that I had invented. My notebook, which I had normally kept stuffed in the waist of my pants, ready to take notes at a moment’s notice, lay unopened on the table behind me. It was just the cards and me now.
Lloyd and I filmed for about forty-five minutes and, after we wrapped up, he asked if I would stay on camera for an interview, part of a longer project for Ellusionist. They were creating a documentary of sorts, he explained, about how people first got into magic. It was strange: I had never really reflected on the absurdity of the past two years. We talked a bit about experiences that probably didn’t overlap with that of other magicians: the fact that I had stumbled into this world as an adult, became a close confidant with the underground elite, and wholeheartedly fell in love with magic—enough of an obsessive reaction, obviously, to invent a trick of my own in just under a year. Adam came back into the room and interrupted us, a hurried look on his face. He told Lloyd that they had to film their next project in thirty minutes.
“You guys get everything you need up here?” he asked me.
“Yeah, Adam. Ian killed the explanation—really great,” Lloyd said.
Adam nodded. “Great, awesome. Okay, so,” he went on, turning his attention to me, “do you want to meet us at the Orleans tonight to film live performances of your trick?”
My heart jumped into my throat. “Live performances?” I asked.
“Yeah, dude,” Adam said, rolling his eyes. “You gotta perform the trick for real people, in a live setting. We have to get some genuine reactions. You think you can handle that?”
“Uh, yeah, yeah, definitely,” I said, shifting in my chair, trying to act confident. “Sure. No problem.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon at the poker table. I needed to distract myself. Adam, Lloyd, and I planned to meet at the Mardi Gras Bar at 8 P.M. to film three live performances, and I knew the anticipation would drive me insane if I didn’t stay busy. So I took out three hundred dollars from the ATM, exchanged the bills for chips, and plunked down in a chair.
There’s something oddly calming about deception at the card table, a comfort that comes with hiding behind a stone-faced glare, trying to pretend you’re someone you’re not. I thought of my mother while I played, and even called her during a short break to update her on my progress (down $60, but hopeful!) while I woofed some food. When I returned to the table, I remembered a trip we had taken just recently to Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut.
It was Mother’s Day. We spent the night playing cards and we both lost money. Just after one in the morning, we decided to call it quits. We walked to the car to drive back to our hotel. She sparked a cigarette.
“I’ll tell you what I thought right after I doubled my money,” she said. “All right, Mom, you need to get up and walk away.” She paused. “But then I thought, fuck that, I always have to do the right thing. I’m tired of being the mom. I don’t want to be Mom.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because I want to be Pam. I don’t always want to do the right thing for other people. It’s been my whole fucking life. I don’t do anything for myself. It’s always self-sacrifice.” She took a long drag.
I knew what she was thinking. Poker was her escape from all that.
“Playing cards lets you be you, doesn’t it, Mom?”
“One hundred percent. When I am playing, no one else is there, it’s just me and my own decisions. It’s my choices. I don’t want to have to think about making the right choices for everybody else.”
“Do you think life is a constant battle between those two things? Trying to be the most complete version of yourself while also trying to understand that other people rely on you, that you have expectations to live up to?”
“Only if other people rely on you,” she said.
“But people have always relied on you.”
“Then I have never been a complete version of myself. Ever. Because it’s always been about somebody else. Always. I just get the tidbits if they fit the mold. It was the same way with your father. It was all about him and his vision. He would call me constantly, at any time during the day, and have these ideas. I was supposed to just jump and do all the research and find out everything about his ideas. And that was fine, and that’s what I chose. I made that choice, right? It was fun and exciting, building a life with him—we had a real purpose.”
“Do you regret that choice?”
“No. Never. I wouldn’t have you guys, my kids. How could I regret that?”
“You told me once that dad haunted you.”
“For a long time—thirteen fucking years. He wouldn’t fucking leave me alone. He would just be there, or appear in my dreams, but he would never let me touch him. He was angry at me for what happened. Every time I would have a dream about him, or feel him in the room, all he wanted to know was: I need to go to work. Where’s my business? I just wanted to kiss and hug him.”
“What happened when it stopped?”
“It was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. And I stopped crying. It took me thirteen fucking years to stop crying. I woke up one day and he was gone. He just wasn’t there anymore. And, Ian, it was like someone took a building off my chest. I was glad for myself, but I was hopeful that he was also able to move on. So, in that sense, I was glad for him, too. You know, he wasn’t ready to go. He was a young guy. He had so much happening. The business. The house. You guys. He just wanted answers.”
“I sometimes wonder how our lives would be different . . .” I said.
“So do I.”
“Different in good and bad ways. It’s hard to explain this to people.”
“You can’t.”
“I sometimes say, I am kind of glad it happened, in this strange, demented way, because I am happy with the man I’ve become.”
“Ian, I am telling you, you would not be where you are today if your father was alive. He wouldn’t have allowed you the space that you needed to thrive and become the person you are today. He wouldn’t have done it. He couldn’t have. He was very rigid in his thinking: This is what you do to get ahead, and these are the rules. I don’t fault him for that—it’s what he did to make it in life, to escape Ohio, to build a healthy family—but he would not have given you the freedom that I did.”
“After he died, did your plan for my life change?”
“I was always fearful for you. I was very worried that you would not have him in your life. He was very smart. He was very much like you, very driven like you. I mean, you are his son. Hands down. But I believe that you flourished as the person you are without him. So, all things happen for a reason. Life is all ‘what-ifs,’ and you just can’t let those control you.”
“I guess I always just wonder if I would’ve been happy, or happier than I am now, if he didn’t die. Would I be as fulfilled? I’ve had so many adventures, you know? I’ve realized I was able to become my own man without the necessity of his presence. And I feel really good about that.”
“I know you do. He would not have understood, though. He wouldn’t have given you the freedom to go on the adventures you had, because he wouldn’t have understood their value. He just believed that his way, just like you do”—she laughed—“was the best way.”
“I mean, what have these past two years really been about for me? Not really about magic, or magic tricks, or hanging out with these cool people. I have done something kind of remarkable and it’s all because of me, trying to become a man that I’ve alone created.”
She tossed her cigarette butt into the street and rolled up her window. She looked at me.
“Yes,” she said. “I say this with my whole heart, Ian: you’ve turned into the man you were supposed to be.”
Throughout our conversation, I didn’t even realize that we had become lost. I pulled over, made a U-turn, and tried to find our way again.
That afternoon in the Orleans, I was full of thoughts about my mother, myself, and the members of the52. I had come to know the histories of my new group of friends so intimately, with such transparency and honesty, that I couldn’t help but connect them with my own life. Magicians use magic, deception, and trickery as vehicles of escape, as a way not only to distance themselves from the hardships of their pasts—Ramsay’s militaristic and ping-ponged upbringing, Madison’s internal demons, Laura’s tumultuous adolescence, Jeremy losing his father, Xavior with his mother’s cancer and his life on the streets—but also as a means of reinvention. The same had been true for me. After my father died, I tried my hardest to distance myself from any sliver of his existence. I didn’t want to work a blue-collar job. I didn’t want to go to Dartmouth, like he planned. I didn’t want to live in a small town. I moved to New York City, became a writer, and decided to tell stories for a living. Like poker with my mother, my own journey in life has been a way to try to heal the hardships of my past. Magic can also aid in that purpose because, at its core, magic has always been something with the ability to repair damage. It promises reinvention and hope—things I also longed for. It’s not that I fell in love with magic itself during the past two years, but rather with what it represented: a tool to both better understand the world around you but also, when flipped around, to have a firmer grasp of yourself—your goals and your shortcomings. For an art form built upon deceit, you sure as hell had to be honest with yourself to be successful at it—for it to mean anything at all.
The bet came around the poker table. I peeked at my cards and stared at the man across from me. I paused. I peeked again, grabbed a stack of chips, slid them into the middle, and waited for the next card to be dealt—hiding, as best I could, behind the shimmer in my eyes.
Half an hour before I was supposed to meet Adam and Lloyd at the bar, I went upstairs to my room to get my cards. I sat down on the edge of the bed and rehearsed the moves and patter again. My hands shook. My mind raced. Night had fallen, and the cheap bedside lamp glowed a sickly yellow. I dissected my routine, scrutinized it, poked holes in it every possible way I could. Sure, I had performed it well enough to get Adam excited, but he’s a friend. This was different. In less than an hour, I had to go downstairs, grab random people, and fool them—on camera. If I didn’t nail it, the trick couldn’t be released. We needed to finish the project tonight. The thought of having to be a real magician, for even ten minutes, made me sick.
I tossed the deck onto the bed and dropped my head into my hands. I thought back to the dark alleyway and the long nights in Blackpool; the thumping clubs in London; the crusty motel room in Buffalo; the look on Bourdain’s face at the bar in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. And then I realized that magic, either as a single trick or a lifelong dedication, is a journey. I realized that the sleight-of-hand moves done during my trick, my largest vulnerability, are only a small piece in the larger whole of sharing a magical moment with someone. Magic is about experience. It’s an art form that pokes at the brain and tugs at the heart. The spectator isn’t privy to the moves; they aren’t looking for them. They have no preconceived notion as to what is about to happen. They are really here for me; the magic is just a vessel that allows me to share a story with them. That’s what I needed to do, I realized: just be myself. It was who I had been trying to be all along.
I chucked the cards into my backpack, got into the elevator, and made my way down to the bar.
The casino was packed with magicians. Dozens of them milled about the Mardi Gras Bar, showing each other moves and new routines. Drinks were flowing too: whiskey, beer, tequila, vodka. It was the last night of the convention and everyone was looking to relax. Ramsay, Jeremy, Xavior, and Laura all were there, chatting with friends old and new, excited to be sharing time with each other. Adam and Lloyd came down, camera in hand.
“You ready, dude?” Adam asked.
“Let’s do it,” I responded. We cleared off a small table on the far side of the bar, and Lloyd set up the shot while I took out a deck of cards. Adam walked over to a cluster of people and asked if any of them would like to see a trick and be filmed for a project. A hippie-looking couple, here not for magic but on vacation, agreed to participate. Adam brought them over, and Lloyd gave me the thumbs-up. We were rolling.
“Hey, how are you both doing?” I asked, shaking their hands, introducing myself. “Thanks so much for agreeing to be a part of this. Okay, so I need one of you to be the main player. Who wants to take the reins?” They looked at each other, and the man stepped forward.
