The Magic Show

The Magic Show

By Flint Keller

When I was seven I went to a magic show. An illusionist. This was a long time ago.

            I lived with my parents on a small farm in Minnesota, fields all around for running and playing in, chickens in the coop out back, wood ducks on the pond, two cows and a small herd of goats. My mother had convinced my father the goats would be profitable. At first my father didn’t think anyone would buy goat dairy products, but there proved to be a big market for organic goat cheese and milk at the Whole Foods markets, farmer’s markets and co-ops that offered healthy alternatives for wealthy people.

            Once my mother got my father on the right track she went back to writing children’s books in her upstairs study and left most of the farming to my father and two hired men from town. My chore was to collect eggs in the mornings before heading off to school, and in the summer to do the same, help a little and “run and be a kid.” During the school year my “job” was my schoolwork.

            At the end of summer, just before I had to go back to school, was the Minnesota state fair. The fair was the highlight of my year. It was a whirlwind. An adventure for every sense. There was the smell of every kind of food wafting through the air—corn dogs, Martha’s chocolate chip cookies, blooming onions, French fries, pork chops, egg rolls, you name it, I smelled it. And tasting all this food, another story altogether. I loved being squeezed between two friends or against my father on the Scrambler on the midway, there was a funhouse, cat and mouse, climbing walls, and Ferris wheels. The fair had music shows for my parents, and for me something new and different at every corner: BMX bikers flipping and turning, wood working workshops for kids, a fortune telling tent, a butterfly world, deep fried Snickers bars, you name it, it was there.

            Shows were not my favorite, but this year, my mother’s hand in mine, my father said, “There’s a magic show in the Education Center.” He read from the program, “Marvin the Magnificent will mystify the masses, amaze the mortal mind with old world magic and a bit of the new. Shows at 10:00, 1:00 and 4:00. Don’t miss this show good for all ages!

            “Want to go Bud?”

            “Yeah!”

            I loved magic. I read books on Harry Houdini, and doing magic tricks (and I hardly read anything), watched specials on TV, tried various tricks for my parents and friends. I was horrible, but my parents clapped anyway. My friends were tougher critics so I stopped doing tricks for them. But I’d never seen a live magic show. I was bursting. The Minnesota State Fair was the best!

            “Let’s go now,” I said.

            “It’s only 8:00,” my mother said.

            “Let’s get a blue plate special breakfast then see what time it is,” my father said. He loved the breakfasts over at the Local 651 dining hall.

            I barley tasted my pancakes, orange juice and bacon. Magic was on my mind. The crowds were a little thicker when we came out from breakfast, but nowhere near what they’d be later in the day. By 12:00 the streets would be a sea of people; I’d only get a glimpse of how many when we reached the top of some hill. Mostly I was just mashed between bodies. But at this early hour the streets were still passable without having to shove your way along.

            We made our way to the Education Center. It took forever. My mother stopped to look at some hand woven sweaters and scarves and talked to the weaver woman for ages. We all got a drink of free water in the little cone cups from the Culligan water booth.

            Around the corner was the Education building.

            It was still early when we got there, so my parents looked in the glass cases at the arts and crafts done by kids from all over Minnesota. I pulled and pulled and finally we made our way to the Education stage.

            I’d seen one show in here before. A group of dancers from a local school and it was boring. But this, this promised to be something special. The place was filling up but we found three seats six rows up on the left side of center. I sat on my knees between my father and mother nearly bouncing out of my seat.

            On the stage, right in the center, was a small table with a black cloth covering. In the center of the table was a fishbowl with two goldfish swimming in idle circles. Next to the table was a large black box with Marvin the Magnificent in big swirly white letters. There was a stool next to the table. On the back of the stage in one of the corners was a box almost the size of the table. It looked like it was made of plexi-glass, sort of like a big square fishbowl, but I wasn’t exactly sure because the back walls were black and a black curtain on poles hung just behind the box.

            “What time is it?” I asked my father.

            “9:45.”

            The next fifteen minutes took years. I watched the fish dance around in their bowl, moms and dads and their kids crowd into the auditorium, and tried to get a glimpse of Marvin the Magnificent.

            Finally at what must have been 10:00 the lights dimmed a little, the crowd quieted and a man on a unicycle spun out from the corner opposite the black box. He rode in a wide circle dressed all in black like everything else on the stage. In a flourish, out of nowhere, a bunch of red, yellow, orange, green and blue flowers sprang out of his hand. He pretended to sniff them then tossed them to a lady in the front row and bowed while still spinning on the one wheel. Everyone clapped. I, like crazy. He circled more on the unicycle and from somewhere behind a curtain someone tossed him one, two, three, then four juggling pins. He spun them above his head, behind his back, in one hand, two. My hands already ached from clapping so much. My parents both clapped too and they grinned at me when I looked up them. My dad rumpled my hair, “Enjoying it?”

            “You bet!” I said.

            He spun to a stop and while coming effortlessly to two feet caught the four pins and took a bow in one fluid movement. That was it about him, I could tell already: he was smooth. Like it was a dance he was performing up there.

            Out of the box came a small red ball. He asked for a volunteer from the audience and my hand shot up like a bullet. He picked a girl from the front row and she came up on stage grinning wide. Marvin the Magnificent had her check out the ball.

            “An ordinary ball,” he said.

            Were those the first words out of his mouth? I think they might have been.

            The girl checked out the ball, nodded to us in the audience and tossed it to the magician who when he caught it instantly produced two, three, four, a dozen identical red balls. They were flowing like water from his hands spilling all over the stage then like a waterfall over the edge and onto the floor.

            He did many other amazing tricks and I was already planning to ask to come back to the 1:00 and the 4:00 show. I would skip the sky ride, the ferris wheel, a pork chop on a stick, anything to see it all again.

            Finally he faced us, looked right into my eyes. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls what a wonderful audience here at the Minnesota State Fair. It is my first time here, but I cannot imagine a better audience. I will be back!”

            The crowd cheered wildly.

            “I have for you my finale. I am sure you have been wondering about my fish friends, Goldy and Sam.” There were a few, “yeahs, and uh, huhs.” I sat up higher on my knees. “I need a volunteer from the audience.”

            For the thousandth time my hand shot up and I thought he glanced my way, but no, a little boy from the row in front of me, near the aisle marched proudly to the stage. The boy climbed onto the stool with Marvin the Magnificent’s help. The magician told the boy to put his hand into the water. The boy looked out to his mother who nodded at him then he gleefully swished his hand into Goldy and Sam’s tank. The fish circled around avoiding the intruder. Marvin gave the boy a towel, waited for the boy to take a seat, then holding the very same towel he flourished it for a moment or two over the bowl and Sam and Goldy were gone.

            The audience went crazy. Applause shook the place. People whistled and stamped their feet. It was awesome!

            Marvin the Magnificent took a bow and turned to go.

            “Hey,” a man’s voice boomed out, “what about the box?”

            The magician stopped halfway upstage, looked back at the now quiet audience, his face was full of self composure. I didn’t know it is such back then, but that’s what it was: this confidence that oozed out of him.

            He took a step toward us. “The box?”

            It had been sitting there the entire time, but he acted like he barely knew what the man was referring to. “Have we time?” he asked no one in particular. “Would you all like to see the box?”

            The audience called out yeses, and whistled.

            I craned my neck to see the box coming forward as if on it’s own.

            Marvin the Magnificent took his time unlocking about ten padlocks from this metal rim along the top of the clear box letting each one fall to the floor with a loud thump. Without saying a word he reached his arm into the aquarium like tank and pounded the sides fiercely. He invited not kids but men to come up and inspect the tank. They did like he did: pounded the sides, the lid on the floor, checked the padlocks and the keys.

            Then the Magician turned toward us. “Many would expect me to get into the tank, perhaps cuffed, and then behind a curtain release myself. A good trick. But done. Another possibility would be that I take one of my assistants and place her into the box. Again a good trick, but also done. No. I will have a volunteer come up from the audience, lock him or her into the tank and then in seconds, mere seconds, I will have the participant standing free when the curtain is dropped. Now, that I will venture, you have not seen before.”

            The place was dead quiet.

            “First, we must get rid of these keys. I need a volunteer to bring someone in from outside.” He picked a man near the back who came back in after few minutes, during which time the Magician explained to us that the keys would be sent on the Sky Tower, a full ten-minute ride. He gave the man the keys, a ticket for the Sky Tower, and sent him away.

            “Now for that volunteer. Someone brave enough to go into the tank, but also smart enough to know that I would not allow him or her perish in box with its diminishing air supply. You have seen my magic; who will come up?”

             My hand shot up like it did every other time he asked for a volunteer. This time Marvin the Magnificent turned slowly scanning the raised hands and pointed at me.

             At me!

             I only got halfway up off my knees when my mother’s hand on my shoulder stopped me. She held me there and shook her head.

             I could see from the look in her eyes that arguing would do nothing. I slide back into my seat figuring I would punish my mom by being silent the rest of the day. I didn’t even see the lucky kid who got picked until he was stepping into the box.

            I couldn’t miss the trick.

            He was about seven like me. He had blonde hair and wore a Green Bay Packers jersey with Brett Favre’s number on it. He was smiling from ear to ear and I would have been too. How cool was that?

            He crouched down into the box and it looked a little cramped, like the box was smaller than it looked at first. When the Magician and his assistants started clicking the padlocks into place his grin faded a little bit.

            The audience was silent.

            Two assistants picked up the ends of the black curtain and climbed ladders on each side of the box holding the curtain in front of the box.

            The Magician stepped behind the tank and we expected, even though the keys were twirling high above the fairground, the curtain to drop in a matter of seconds and the boy and the magician to be standing there. Grinning.

            That didn’t happen.

            After what felt like a minute or two, the audience shifting in their seats, mumbling to each other, coughing, the two assistants looked back. Their pasted on smiles broke into instant looks of worry and they didn’t look back at us.

            From behind the curtain we heard, “Well help me down here!” Marvin the Magnificent’s voice wasn’t so cool.

            The curtain dropped as the assistants practically fell down the ladders to help the magician. The boy inside was panicking: he pounded the glass walls, and his mouth was open in this pure terror shout that none of us could hear. What we did hear was the Magician.

            “The damn pins are jammed. They’re jammed.” He pulled at something we couldn’t see above the locks. The assistants too were pulling at these unseen pins on all sides of the box.

            The boy screamed and screamed, pounded and pounded. He was bright red and his father and mother were on the stage now screaming at the magician. The whole place was in an uproar.

            Then someone started ushering us out the back door where sunlight flooded in and shook up my eyes. The last thing I saw when I looked back was all these people pushing at the box, someone with a huge hammer, and someone else screaming at that person and holding their arm before they could strike the box and the boy slowly fading into a small pile on the bottom of the box.

            We were pushed out into the sunshine. Into throngs of people laughing, eating cotton candy and ice cream, pushing strollers and holding hands. They knew nothing of the boy in the Packer’s jersey all alone in that box.