Esprit Home
Esprit Fall 2008 Home
Awards
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Contents
Front Cover:
gone
Inside Front Cover:
Metropolis
Windowed World
Sincerely, Holden Caulfield
From My Wanderings
Untitled
Meeting Marge
Volume IV
Mosaic Reflection
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
Untitled
Whitman's Words
Metacliché
Stagnation
no school today
"Where's the Beef?": A (Very Close) Critical Reading
Untitled
Cranberry Sauce
Cast
Broken Muses
Majestic
Astigmatic
Inside Back Cover:
Verticalité
Back Cover:
Sprite
|
|
Meeting Marge
CJ Libassi
Certain truths are best conveyed when you’re
face down in the snow and bloodied by a punch of the sort often
regarded as noble or glorious. The sort you always dreamed of leveling
on someone whose
despicability rose at least to the level of puppy-kicker. It is
precisely this quality in the punch that creates a curious dilemma for
the recipient. You can either fight back and further enrage the
torch-wielding masses that stand behind the righteous hero or surrender
and face the lowly reality of who you’ve become. It was, in some
lucky cases, a predicament held in abeyance by unconsciousness. That
is, if the punch lands squarely and with enough force. And hers
certainly had.
John could be found to be a generally agreeable
person with a commendable degree of concern for the well-being of
others. A man of medium stature, without any notably distinguishing
characteristics, John
had never found himself to be particularly memorable to those who passed through his life with any low frequency.
He worked full time at his father’s magic
shop. Terry’s Tricks on Main had been a staple of the downtown
area for some forty years, ever since “Terrence the
Trembling’s Famous Magic Show” had paid
such dividends as to allow its star to settle down. Considering
Terry’s debilitating fear of public speaking, the tour that
eventually funded the shop had benefited from disproportionate success.
Many people attributed this success to a stretch of shows that sold out
thanks to an untrue, yet pervasive, rumor that the ominously named
magician ended every show by juggling axes.
In its early years, the store had a similarly
favorable fate, earning rapid fame throughout the tri-state area as the
afterhours site of a prominent prostitution ring. It seems a
particularly inspired local entrepreneur, recognizing both the prime
location and androgynous name of the store, ventured the investment of
renting the apartment directly above the shop, figuring it a small
expense for the opportunity to own the first ever openly-advertised
studio apartment of ill-repute.
Terry, quite oblivious to the nature of his
tenants’ endeavors and his store’s complicity in them,
contributed to their eviction only accidentally. In response to his
report about the large quantities of prop handcuffs missing from his
shop, the police began an investigation that finally led to the
downfall of the single most successful prostitution business in the
history of the city.
The store’s sales took off after this. The
place had become an unofficial cultural landmark, and the remnants of
this notoriety accounted for much of the store’s business years
later when John took over. However, ever since he’d inherited the
business, he had noticed an especially rapid decline in sales. Without
his father’s odd luck and even odder enduring reputation as the
most successful magician in the city’s history, the viability of
John’s occupation in this field seemed increasingly bleak and his
permanent ownership of a gross of fifty-foot multicolor handkerchiefs
increasingly likely.
One Friday night after closing, John made his usual
pilgrimage to Semele’s Diner to bury his week in an omelet and
half a pot of coffee. Mr. Semele seemed contented to provide this small
reprieve to patrons such as John. Despite his hobble, Mr. Semele moved
confidently behind the counter, sure that his steps would land, though
unconcerned where. His body bore proof of the difficulties he had
endured, a frightening reality his temperament somehow rejected. He was
a man of lessons learned, never straying far from the sign above his
grill that read:
In Mystery
There Is Life.
The exploits
of Mr. Semele’s drunken son were known well by John, whose father
had enjoyed a long friendship with Mr. Semele ever since their
respective places of business opened on Main St. together in the summer
of 1963. Of the stories that had earned Donny Semele a tremendous
reputation, the one of his attempt to frame his grandmother for a rash
of robberies throughout the city enjoyed a unique place atop the list.
Though no details had been officially released to the public, much
speculation had concluded that Donny’s downfall could be traced
to the fact that, though uncommon in serial robbery, he had chosen to
leave a calling card. So the story goes, he had plotted to take
advantage of his grandmother’s well-documented (through several
strongly worded letters) disdain for her medical insurance company.
Having broken off a different tooth from an old set of his
grandmother’s dentures to leave at the site of
each crime, he hoped to engender a theory involving a rogue old woman,
tired of the responsibilities of dentured life, hell-bent on getting
money for the dental implant surgery the insurance company had so
disparagingly called “elective,” leaving her oppression in
pieces along the way.
However, the police, finding credence in the
woman’s testimony that her confinement to a wheelchair would not
allow her to reach the cash register in many of the places that had
been robbed, cleared her of all suspicion and focused instead on all
those who had access to the dentures. It was not long until Donny was
found out. Obviously needing the money to feed his many habits, which
too frequently included visits to the apartment above the magic shop
while it was still operational, Donny was sentenced to six months in
jail. In a gesture that fortified their friendship, Terry had given Mr.
Semele all the money he had received in the settlement from the stolen
handcuffs, in hopes that some of the money Donny had stolen from his
father would return to its rightful place.
While the financial toll his son had taken
prevented him from retiring, Mr. Semele, oddly enough, seemed to be
driven by his crisis into a love for his job that made this consequence
less cruel. John was glad to contribute to this enjoyment where he
could by agreeing to show Mr. Semele whichever new trick had recently
come into the shop.
After completing his meal and third cup of coffee,
John once again fulfilled Mr. Semele’s request. Tonight’s
trick was a simple card trick that came from a newly stocked
compendium, “The One Hundred Best Card Tricks for Beginner and
Intermediate Magicians.” This trick involved a particularly
dramatic reveal, and Mr. Semele was especially astonished. Nonetheless,
the encounter ended as every other had.
“Really great, John. Really, really great.”
“I’ll show you how it’s done, if you want.”
“No, no, no.”
“Oh come on.”
“No. Your father was always the same way.
Neither of you are much in the way of keeping secrets like magicians,
even if you can do the tricks.”
“He’s right,” shot a voice from the end of the bar.
Noticing her for the first time, John turned to
find a woman, dressed simply, but not unfashionably, and looking
slightly disinterested. As Mr. Semele was eternally trying to save on
heat, the cold of the diner
had forced her to remain in her maroon jacket. The color suited her
well, though she seemed uncomfortable with the coat’s restraint.
“Um, okay? Did you even know my dad?” asked John.
“No. But if he’s the one that taught
you, then it’s clear he didn’t have it either,” she
responded.
“So, what? You have to keep secrets to be a
good magician? And I’ll have you know that my dad was the first
and only famous magician this city has seen.”
“Impressive.”
“Listen. Who are you to come into this place
and insult our entertainers? What does it even matter to you?”
“John,” interrupted Mr. Semele,
reappearing from the kitchen into which he had apparently disappeared
during the exchange. “Time to close up. Beat it. You too, please,
ma’am.”
As they departed, John was first down the front steps into the
parking lot. A pang for the honor of his and his father’s vocation compelled
him to call back to the woman.
“I’m just not one of those selfish
magicians that hoards the secrets. Neither was my father. That’s
why his passion was in his store. You may have heard of Terry’s
Tricks. Well, yeah, Terry. That’s my dad,” sputtered John.
The woman, almost reaching the only other car in
the lot, paused, turned and approached John with a pace that suggested
impatience.
“Yes. I have heard of Terry’s. In fact,
I recently got a dove there that died two days later. Mid-trick.”
By the time she finished the sentence, she had halted a foot in front
of him.
“You know we don’t guarantee our
animals. We’re always very clear about that,” protested
John.“We can’t possibly be expected to know the lifespan of
each animal we sell.”
“Shows exactly your view on magic. Always
focused on the practical side. No sense for the wonder, or, in the case
of this poor child and all his horrified friends, the lack thereof. And
that was exactly my criticism of your style in there. You have no sense
for the audience. For what they will see when you do a trick.”
“Oh,
save it, lady. Get over yourself. There’s never any magic.
It’s all just illusion. And what is this, anyway? Do you stalk
all the people whose service you find unsatisfactory?”
“I didn’t stalk you. I recognized you
from the store. And then you started doing that stupid goddamn card
trick and I knew I had to say something. For the sake of magicians
everywhere.”
“Yes. Right. Because a profession that comes
between cake and presents screams integrity. My apologies.”
“And yet, you’re employed in the business.”
“It’s what I know.”
“That’s just it, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“You and what you know. You seem to love each other enough. You oughta get married.”
“So what, you work for jokes instead of money at these kids’ parties?”
Enjoying the silence this remark induced, John
watched the woman’s anger grow, though her tone did not reflect
it as her body language did.
“You may, someday, find yourself experiencing
something you neither understand nor can hope to understand. And you
may even enjoy it. If that day comes, don’t blow it for yourself
by demanding of it something you cannot ever have,” she said
calmly.
“And what’s so wrong with wanting to know?”
“Nothing, as long as you don’t see it
as separate from the wonder. You’re one of those magicians who
learns the skills just so they can get the secrets and stop wondering.
You have no regard for what encountering that type of wonder is all
about, or what it means to put more of it into the world. You know, no
one thinks you’re performing actual magic up there. Everyone who
watches a magician watches first to see if they can figure out how the
trick is done. But when they run into a trick that they want so badly
to figure out, but can’t, that’s when they’re
impressed. They know they have seen skill. They just don’t know
the full extent of it.”
“Unless, of course, they see a dead dove instead.”
It was perhaps luckier for him than he deserved
that the blow from the punch landed him on a pile of snow. He heard the
woman’s footsteps fade with his consciousness. |
|