Page 50 - Unlikely Stories 4

The Magic Clown

normally would be, miles away. Then I broke out in a cold sweat,
unable to suppress the possibility that the genie was real.”
Tony paused to wipe a bead of sweat from his brow.
“After I calmed down I realized I had ignored the most obvious
explanation: the lamp must have exploded when it was heated and I
had gone into some kind of shock during which I’d hallucinated the
whole thing. I swore off an assortment of stimulants, cleaned up the
mess and went back to what I usually did at the kitchen table—
studying the want ads in the local paper for a job. Did I tell you I was
unemployed? Almost unemployable. No technical skills, no degree to
get me past the door to an entry-level white collar position, no history
of holding a job for more than a few months. I had little in the way of
savings and buying that lava lamp was an unnecessary diversion from
the real world—you know, it’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want
to live there.”
The prematurely old man paused, gauging his stale witticism’s effect
on his listener. Ann nodded, her smile down by the time her head was
back up. He hastily continued.
“Yes, well, to jump ahead to what might interest your readers, I
wasn’t having much luck finding work and a few days later I was
sitting in front of my TV, killing time. A magic show came on, some
special from Las Vegas or Hollywood, I don’t know where, and the
close-up guy was flinging cards right and left from both hands plucked
out of nowhere. His sleeves were rolled up, dozens of cards were in
the air, but he was getting nothing more than polite applause.
Apparently this was an old trick requiring nothing more than manual
dexterity and a few thousand hours of practice. The audience—
including me, of course—was waiting for something more spectacular
involving sex and violence, and these card tricks were just filler. For
some reason I started mockingly mimicking his patter and his hand
movements. Pow! Cards suddenly began flying from my fingers,
whacking the walls and ceiling. Let me tell you, Miss—uh, ma’am, that
was a greater shock than the genie’s apparition. I sat there stunned for
quite a while. I can’t remember the rest of that TV program.”
He shook his ill-kempt head, dislodging a few scalp flakes.
“And then?” said Ms. O’Malley, failing to sound engrossed as she
mentally measured the diameters of the recorded and unrecorded
spools on her tape recorder.
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