Meg Pokrass

Trick

a.

One of the Magician’s tricks was called “One Two Three Squiggle” — Plastic cans turned into a pile of fur­ry cater­pil­lars! He watched the fat white cater­pil­lars crawl toward warmth and felt like God.

b.

It was 1am in the Star Crumb. He had pulled the rab­bit out of his hat and, unfor­tu­nate­ly, it has pooped in great quan­ti­ty. Rabbit pel­lets explod­ed onto the stag­ing area. The crowd laughed and burped. Someone squealed.

c.

On hol­i­days, the magi­cian wore a corset, which accen­tu­at­ed his slen­der waist. He had long ago applied for a sex change oper­a­tion, and had been reject­ed. His request had been thumbed-down by men­tal midgets who were always in charge (it seemed) of such matters.

d.

He depend­ed on anti-depres­sants to remain spunky, and he took them reli­gious­ly. Some days he felt exhil­a­ra­tion. On hol­i­days he would wear expen­sive silk under­neath his oth­er clothing.

e.

His assis­tan­t’s breasts were bub­ble-round. This was her most attrac­tive fea­ture — a fea­ture that con­vinced the magi­cian to hire an oth­er­wise skin­ny and ner­vous girl.

This obses­sion with his assis­tan­t’s breasts led to the magi­cian’s most well known trick, one he called “Pufferfish”, in which he would coax the assis­tan­t’s breasts away from her body… call­ing them like lit­tle dogs. He would say “Here pup­pies!”  The breasts would come.

He called them Ursula and Miranda.

The crowd sang songs, cursed, and some­times yodeled.

f.

Nights after shows, he felt an ache he attrib­uted to lone­li­ness. He was not sure if it mattered.

The magi­cian swore under his breath, over and over, walk­ing around the frozen city at 3AM.

He spit the words “spaz”, “spanky” and “Spooze” — watched them spray like new birds.