Page 49 - Unlikely Stories 4

The Magic Clown

redo their mistake: no more wishes. And maybe that one wish turned
out to be something really horrible, like King Midas or that Greek
woman who asked for eternal life but forgot to add eternal youth. The
only way to beat that was to ask for an unlimited supply of wishes, and
only the genie had that power. Asking the question the wrong way
would not work, either. So I came up with this: ‘Genie,’ I said, ‘I want
to do what you do—I want to perform magic.’ I have thought about
that phraseology many times since, and I have not been able to come
with anything free of loopholes. Language is too leaky a vessel to
contain such a powerful solvent.”
Riga’s interviewer eyed her recorder. “Just a minute—I have to turn
over the tape.” While stopping, removing, flipping, inserting and
restarting the cassette, she fleetingly wondered if the psychological
angle could be played up. It was certainly no secret that people paid to
see the illusion of conjuring because they retained an infantile wish for
omnipotence, and stage magicians had the talent to project that ability
in a socially acceptable context. That con artists and cult leaders
employed the same techniques was a source of repeated
embarrassment to professional magicians trapped between
maintaining their trade secrets and revealing them to debunk those
who misused them. But neither the legitimate stage magicians nor
their shady cousins would ever risk alienating an audience by
presenting an in-depth analysis of its gullibility. Ms. O’Malley decided
not to probe her subject’s early childhood experiences.
“Please continue.”
“Ah, where was I? I can remember long-ago events quite well, but I
can’t tell you where I was in the sequence of relating them. Let’s see. I
didn’t think the genie was real, I tried to come up with an unbreakable
request for absolute power, and then…yes, and then the voice said its
final words: ‘That’s not what I do, but you shall have that ability.’
Then the great shimmering mass of green light hovering in front of
me suddenly collapsed into itself, just imploded in a fraction of a
second, and all was quiet. I called out, ‘Okay, you guys, you can come
out now. Very well done.’ I waited for a minute, contemplating the
remains of my two-dollar purchase. Silence. I got up, looked around
my apartment and out in the hall. Nobody there. I searched for hidden
microphones or speakers. Nothing. I telephoned several of the people
who could have been capable of such a prank. They were where they
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