Your weekly irregular dose of fabulous1 fiction
Week #5 - He Disappears
Saturday, 05 Jan 2008 18:17
I don't remember where the idea for this came from, although it definitely came from somewhere. I like the tone I found for it.
He Disappears
The Amazing Ricardo pauses and scans the crowd, his right arm thrust dramatically out toward the Box of Mysteries. It's been a tough night. The comedy club is maybe half full and except for a few of his friends sitting at a table close to the stage, none of the patrons are here to see him. Earlier this evening, the comedian who was supposed to perform had thrown a temper tantrum over some clause in his backstage rider that hadn't been fulfilled. He'd stormed off, past history suggesting he was going to make the news tomorrow after a drinking binge. Eddie, a friend of Richard's and the owner of the club had hastily arranged the magic show, probably after he'd been unable to find a local comedian to fill in. The crowd that was here consisted of the people who'd demanded free drinks because the headline performer hadn't shown. Marcia, his assistant, swings a torch in the air over her head. She's trying to be dramatic, but she's just one of the servers at Eddie's club. Marcia doesn't really have a flair for stage performance but at least looks great in her sequined get-up. Richard's regular assistant is working at a dinner theatre tonight; there wasn't enough notice for her to find someone to cover her shift.
"Oh don't you worry, dear audience members. I won't even be singed, thanks to the art of translocation, which I learned years ago from a Navajo shaman...along with a healthy respect for peyote." He at least gets a few laughs for that.
Richard can see Eddie, standing just off stage chewing on his thumb. Eddie had insisted on his disappearing trick, had even offered Richard an extra hundred bucks to do it (plus paint and materials to replace the Box of Mysteries) but nevertheless had been nervous and grouchy ever since they disconnected the smoke detectors around the stage that afternoon. Hopefully there were no fire inspectors in the audience. The Box of Mysteries made Richard nervous, too, but things had been lean lately and the cash was needed.
Richard takes a couple of steps towards the Box, then spins to face the audience again. "For most men, this trick would be a death trap but let me again assure you that you needn't be concerned for my safety. I -"
Someone shouts, "How about you move your box off of the trap door?"
A grin spreads across Richard's face. In smaller crowds, there's usually a heckler.
"Why don't you come up on stage and help me carry it, sir? I'd hate to put my back out before my finale."
The guy comes up on stage to hooting and cheering and Richard theatrically checks his watch while the guy walks around the stage, tapping his foot and scrutinizing the floor. When he's satisfied, they carry the Box of Mysteries and set it down close to the front of the stage and off-centre to the left.
"Thank you, sir," says Richard as the man retreats to his seat, "I hope now you'll trust in the veracity of my powers." Eddie is looking aghast but Richard ignores him.
Marcia sets the torch down in its holder, wraps the chain around Richard's wrists and secures them with an oversized padlock. She forgets to tug on the padlock to demonstrate it is locked but it doesn't really matter. The chains are just for show, part of the formula for a disappearing act. Audiences won't take you seriously without chains.
"Ladies and gentlemen - the Box of Mysteries isn't for the faint of heart. Those of you who are prone to nightmares, this would be a good time to settle your bill." He steps into the box and closes his eyes so he concentrate. Also, this way he won't see if anyone takes the offer and walks out.
Marcia closes the Box of Mysteries and locks it. She picks up the torch, walks one complete circle around the Box and then holds the flame to the it. The painted wood bursts into flame immediately and Marcia takes several nervous steps backwards. Eddie waits about two seconds instead of the ten they'd discussed before running onstage with the fire extinguisher.
When the flames are out, Eddie breaks off the lock with a hammer and the Box of Mysteries swings open to reveal nothing inside but the chain and padlock lying on the bottom.
Richard opens the door to his apartment. Inside it is dark; Abby must be in bed already. He hangs up his garish red stage suit in the hall closest and slips sixty of the hundred extra dollars Eddie gave him into Abby's jacket. He yawns, thinks about tip-toeing to the kitchen for a beer when his girlfriend calls.
"Ricky? Come to bed." She sounds sleepy but there is also a bit of a tease in her voice.
"I'll be right in, " he says, rubbing at the remains of the glue that had affixed the fake mustache he wears on stage.
"You're not mad I didn't come to the show?"
"You've seen it a millions times before."
In their bedroom, she's burned some incense and had has the lights dimmed. He steps through the doorway and flicks the lights all the way off and pulls off his shirt.
"You never used to turn out the lights."
"I'm turning into a prude in my old age. And this way you can't see how flabby I'm getting."
"How was it tonight?"
"Not bad, all things considered. I did my disappearing act. Maybe even blew their socks off."
At the foot of the bed, he kneels, reaches under the covers and begins massaging Abby's feet.
Later, after she's asleep, Richard slips out of bed and pads to the bathroom. He locks the door and flicks on the light. Tugs at the bags under his eyes and splashes cold water on his face. He lifts his right hand up in the air and prods along his ribcage under his armpit. It feels perfectly normal and solid to his touch, but in the harsh lights around the vanity mirror, he can see a patch on his body that is ever so slightly less opaque than the rest of him. Richard thinks he can almost make out the towel rack behind him but it could just be his imagination. He swivels his upper body to look at the patch from another angle.
"Not all of you came back," he says aloud, then sighs and goes back to bed.
The next morning, Richard wakes up later than Abby and dashes to the bathroom to shower before she can get a look at him. He comes out of the bathroom fully dressed.
"Your agent left a message this morning. Wants you to call him," she says as she hands him a cup of coffee.
"Did it sound like good news or bad news?"
"He just said to call. I don't think he'd call first thing in the morning to say your career was finished."
"You don't know Thomas."
He picks up the phone and hits the speed dial button - number four - for his agent. But the news turns out to be good. Someone in the audience last night wants the Amazing Ricardo to perform at a couple of functions at his company.
"You need to do something about the name of your disappearing trick, though."
"What do you mean?"
"The Box of Mysteries is a lame name. I'm a good agent but you need to meet me half way."
Richard cups the phone with his hand and says to Abby, "Thomas says that 'the Box of Mysteries' is a dumb name."
"He's right. I've been saying it since you started doing it."
Richard sighs and says to Thomas, "Fine - I'll see what I can come up with."
And so begins for Richard one of the longest stints of steady work for the Amazing Ricardo. After the company functions, he's lands some shows at local fundraisers, a couple weeks of performances at a local eclectic festival and some others. The highlight of his shows is his disappearing trick, which his agent now calls the Fiery Coffin (it sounds more like a drink name or perhaps a sexual position to Richard). They make the trick more and more elaborate; now the box is suspended off the floor by a chain. A local newspaper does a story on Richard, along with ample speculation on how the Fiery Coffin is executed. He even begins to get gigs in other towns.
"You're not having any trouble breathing?"
"Nope. Not at all."
"Part of your lung should be missing."
The doctor is holding a pen and pokes it into the wedge of space on the right side of Richard's ribcage. It looks like someone has scooped out a piece of his body, about the size of an apple. He leans down so he can look at the gap straight on. "When I look into the hole I just see the wall on the other side of you. Like, from that angle, it's as though you aren't there."
"There's another patch on the inside of my left thigh. It's not gone yet though. It's just sorta fading."
"Just be glad it isn't a little higher up."
"Oh ha ha, Trent. Thanks for the helpful advice."
Doctor Trent Scott cleans his glasses on his scrubs. Richard tracked down his old friend in the middle of his shift at the hospital. Richard sits on a bed and Trent has pulled the curtain around to segregate them even though the rest of the room is unoccupied.
"Well I'm not sure what you want from me. They didn't cover disappearing bodies in medical school. If this were happening to me, I'd be as likely to go and talk to a magician about it as a doctor. When did it start?"
"A couple of months ago."
"And you figure it's related to your disappearing trick? Listen, I don't even believe in magic and - "
Richard points at his gap. "So you do have an explanation then?"
Trent sighs. "I've got no fucking clue. Have you talked to the guy who taught you the trick?"
"Can't. He died of liver problems a few years ago. He was a drinker." The doctor nods. "He didn't mention anything about pieces of your body fading away."
"Have you thought about not doing the trick?"
"It's pretty much the only reason people come to my shows. And I guess I figured I'd eventually get over it. Like a cold."
"Well, Ricky, about all I've got for you is: get some sleep and drink plenty of liquids."
"I don't care what you tell them. I'm out. I'm done. I'm not doing the Fiery Coffin anymore. I guess I'm retiring. No, I don't know what I'm going to do now."
Richard is lying on the bed in his hotel room, phone in one hand and with the other he's fingering the new gap in the back of his head. It's about the size of quarter. He's been wearing toques and baseball caps even indoors to cover it. Luckily he's been on the road so much lately that it hasn't been too hard to hide it from Abby.
"Fine. Call me in the morning if you want, but I'm not going to change my mind."
He hangs up and flips through channels on the television for a while. He thinks about calling Abby but falls asleep before picking up the phone.
Richard is the sort of person who is groggy for several minutes when he first awakes; often he has only a vague notion of who he is until his first cup of coffee in the morning. As such, he tends to take his early morning confusion in stride. This is why he yawns, sits up, stretches and scratches his bum before he realizes he's lying on a pile garbage bags in an alley. He stands up, shivering. It's far too chilly to be barefoot in an alley, wearing boxers and a t-shirt.
He walks to the street, looks around and sees the alley is beside the hotel Thomas booked him into. The hotel he was reasonably certainly he had fallen asleep in.
"I don't feel hungover," he says aloud.
"You look like you had quite a night though, " answers a guy passing him on the sidewalk.
Richard tries to ignore the stares as he walks into the lobby of the Holiday Inn and up to the front desk clerk, who is looking a bit nervous at the man coming towards him.
"Hi. I'm Richard Zawadski, in 404. I think I'm locked out of my room."
The hotel manager escorts him to his room and unlocks it for him and follows him in. Richard fishes his drivers license out of his wallet and shows it to the manager. He glances between it and Richard several times before finally saying, "Do try to remember your security card when you leave your room, sir."
"I will. I'm sorry about the hassle."
"Not at all, sir."
The manager leaves and Richard looks around the room. Everything looks the way it should. The bed hasn't been slept in but he was laying on top of covers when he fell asleep. The little bottle of Jack Daniels from the minibar is still sitting beside his glass on the lamp stand. The ice has long since melted. His jeans and socks are still lying where he kicked them off. The alarm clock reads a half past noon.
He sits down on the bed and doesn't move until his phone rings. After berating him for not answering his calls all morning, Thomas claims that the producer of the television show he is booked to perform on tonight is threatening a lawsuit if Richard doesn't perform.
"Fine. I'll do one more show and then I'm out. I'm serious, Thomas. I'm finished with this magic shit."
Abby has to wait forty-eight hours before the police will accept her missing person report. Her last contact was when he called her right before going on stage on the television program.
Her parents insist he's run off with some slut he met on the road.
"He said he loved me before he hung up, " she says to her mother over the phone.
"He probably felt guilty, knowing he was going to run off after the show."
She hears the beep of the call waiting. She wants it to be Richard but ever since the story of the magician who disappeared during a performance made the national news, reporters haven't left her alone.
4 responses to "Week #5 - He Disappears "
Karen wrote:
Saturday, 05 Jan 2008 12:18
That's awesome. I like how I thought I knew what was going to happen and when it did it was more amazing than I thought it would be. And that's a good thing.Debs wrote:
Sunday, 06 Jan 2008 03:51
Hehe, I knew where it was going too, this was a great read!D.J. wrote:
Sunday, 06 Jan 2008 23:08
You're coming up with some really fun ideas. Keep up the good work, sir!Beela wrote:
Tuesday, 08 Jan 2008 14:04
!! That's a good story, but I felt bad that he vanished. :(
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