For My Next Trick… (sample)
Last week I made my boyfriend disappear. Okay—that’s a gross exaggeration—I admit it. He wasn’t really my boyfriend. Just another false start. hey casey, he texted, I’ve really been having a good time with you Abracadabra… but u know I wanted to keep it casual and I think you want more than it is . . . magic words coming. I think we are just to different people Watch closely. (And yes, he did spell that word wrong. Or spelled the wrong word correctly, whatever.) so I think maybe this is goodbye Seeing is believing, ladies and germs. “Wow,” pronounced my roommate, reviewing the texts. “Wow, indeed,” I concurred, which remains my opinion. “I sure know how to pick ‘em.” “But you don’t pick ‘em,” Melissa shot back. “You wait for them to come to you. Isn’t it time you went after what you want?” “Maybe you’re right,” I said, just to not have an argument. “Course I’m right,” chirped Melissa, padding off toward the bathroom. “Now don’t give this jerk another thought. Least this saves you the ride on the G train.” I actually never minded the ride to and from his dump of a place. Sure, the G train’s slow and dirty and it’s kinda full of creeps, but it gave me time to think, and I’ve got thinking to do now. Things to turn over in my overactive brain while I practice all my knots and double lifts. (A double lift is when you turn over two cards in a deck when it looks like you’re only turning one.) (A knot is a knot.) (I did mention that I’m a magician, right?) (Well, I am. And so it’s weird that I’m not handling this well. I’m supposed to be used to situations where things aren’t as they appear.) For my next trick, I will find a guy who gives a crap about me. Hold your applause until the end.
Here’s what my business card looks like:
Here’s why everything on my business card is a lie: I’m probably not The Amazing Cassandra. There’s probably other magicians called that. I didn’t pick the most creative sobriquet. I don’t know if I’m ‘amazing’. I mean, I ain’t bad, but magic is one of those things you can study forever and then watch someone really good and want to chuck it all in and die. My name is not Cassandra, more’s the pity. It’s Casey. Which isn’t short for Cassandra, or for anything. My folks just named me Casey. Fine, I like it, I look like a Casey, I think, but it’s not a good magician name. It’s not a grown-up name in any context, really. What if I run for governor some day, or go for my master’s in particle physics. Pretty tough to run a global corporation with a name for a kid in a baseball cap and pigtails. But back to the lies. I’m not an illusionist. (This is embarrassing.) An illusionist means a big stage, a full-scale act, a production. I play with cards and coins and whatever I can pack into one beat-up box. But I was pretentious in college, and figured, use the fancy word, dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I’ll fix it when I make more cards, I swear. Also, on the topic of employment nomenclature: as a lie of omission, this card ignores my ‘real’ job (don’t ever call it that around a performer). It should really say Magician for Hire and Administrative Assistant for Shitty ‘Media Strategy’ Company That Doesn’t Have Actual Clients. It was either that nonsense or wait tables. More lies: The next line, Parties, all that, makes it sound like I work more than I do. Most of my gigs are And More! The best random gig I ever worked was a trade show booth, which covered a month’s rent and proved that you can relate any magic trick back to industrial cleanser. The worst random gig was a frat whose residents, I understand in hindsight, expected me to strip. New York, NY… well, really, outer boroughs. Forget a corner penthouse on Fifth Avenue. I’m not even near the other Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn. Will Travel… call it Could Travel, But Probably Won’t, ‘cause I don’t have a car. Again, Brooklyn. The rest is true. The area code on my phone lets you know I’m from Ohio. Speaking of numbers, here’s a trick. Here’s an easy one. Think of a two-digit number. Any two-digit number at all. Concentrate. Add together both digits. Subtract the total of that from your original number. Really visualize it… Okay. Take your new number and add all its digits together. Think hard now… You got nnnnn… nnnnnine, right? It’s not a great trick, but I can’t do much else without props.
Wednesday night. It’s the one-week anniversary of no longer kind of sort of dating what’s-his-name who dumps a grown woman by text. Our cable goes out minutes after my roommate and I sit down to watch a show that we no longer enjoy but keep up with out of obligation. “Well,” Melissa says. “What do we do for fun now.” It’s more an observation than a question. I murmur: “I could make something else disappear.” “Oh, you learn something new?” “Actually, yes.” I can feel the sides of my own mouth bending in mischief. “I’ve been using my single time productively.” She just grins. Magic time.
This concludes the free sample, but you can buy the full story at this link! . . . |