Compass Monkey
Let's call it a crisis of faith.
He was what they called an "adult magician."
'They' being the Yellow Pages.
It entailed going around to people's houses, pulling the odd trick or two, sometimes having to disappear his clothes. As stripper acts went, he thought it was quite impressive and not your ordinary run of the mill strip-o-gram. Of course, most of the parties wanted him to pull naked women out of thin air, but that thing's just not the easiest thing to do.
Oh, sure, it could be done. Hell, pulling rabbits out of thin air was more difficult than a naked woman. And pulling them out of a hat counted as pulling them out of thin air, which may surprise a lot of people. Hats, handkerchiefs, and any sort of container made out of wood, plastic, or earthenware counted as thin air. Actually, earthenware was controversial and perhaps borderline, in a lot of books, but he considered it all the same skill. So pulling rabbits out of the ether was immensely more difficult than women. For one, they squirmed. Naked women squirmed, too, but you generally got the chance to calm them down by talking to them a bit and they squirmed considerably less. Plus people were a lot less inclined to examine the air intently if it were expected that a rabbit, instead of, say, a naked woman, were to be produced. And when people concentrated too hard it made it very easy to do magic, as it were. For another thing rabbits pooped a lot more than naked women. Or at least has less qualms about doing it right before, during, or shortly after being produced from thin air. And a stage littered with rabbit pellets with more dropping as the show goes on is not exactly everyone's idea of great entertainment. Least of all, probably, the host's.
The trouble with pulling naked women out of the air was largely regulations and lots of red tape. Most associations of magicians wanted to avoid the somewhat grey moral ground of pulling people out of the air. It was sort of like the parallel debates about the ethics of cloning humans and testing on laboratory animals. Only you weren't cloning anyone, and no one or thing really got hurt, unless you count the occasional dropped rabbit of pigeon. And let's face it, dropping a pigeon isn't that big a deal. Because they can fly. You might not think it, when the damn things waddle in front of you for three blocks without thinking to fly up and out of your line of travel, but they can. You may have met magicians individually, and, if you've ever attended a party at which they had booked a magician, you probably have, as booking more than one magician is kind of a crapshoot depending on the chemistry between the two magicians and their particular specialities. And besides, booking more than one magician was usually cost prohibitive. The associations made it that way so people wouldn't have to consider chemistry and all that too often. And if they had the money (and not the sense, it was implied) to book two or more magicians, well, they got what they deserved, it had to be said. The point is magicians, when they get together, are generally a pretty conservative bunch, who don't go in for seemingly frivolous pursuits such as pulling naked women out of the air. He guessed that was the way it was with scientists, too, because otherwise they would have actually seen the invention of "The Nude Bomb" (like the one of the film of the same name) long before... well, just about anything else he could think of.
So he felt under-appreciated, sure, but he figured most people's jobs were like that. And at least with his he got to do something he loved. And he had pretty decent hours. And, let's face it, he got to attend a lot of parties he wouldn't otherwise attend. Of course, if he were invited he probably wouldn't accept invitations to some of the parties that booked him, but at least it got him out of the house. And beggars can't be choosers, as his mentor always told him. His mentor was a ventriloquist, which was odd, but, then, people would be surprised at the crossover skills that can be applied to both professions.
In fact, his job was the one thing that really made him happy in life, even with the sometimes stifling association's rules and regulations. After all, his job was where he met the girl he was about to propose to.
She wasn't one of the naked women he pulled out of thin air before getting reprimanded by the local head of the union. She was actually a pizza delivery girl. She was delivering pizzas in the same neighbourhood he was working, and they met at a lot of parties for a few months. And once, while she was waiting around for everyone to get enough money together to pay her for the pizzas she caught a bit of his act.
He had noticed her some time earlier, as he generally always noticed new people coming in the door. They could usually be used in some way to either distract the audience or provided just that little bit of different energy to the room. Enough to make a good act great, in her case. He always went for the slightly bigger... punch, when she was around.
And that, this evening, was the problem.
Pulling the baby orangutan out of his trousers for an encore, when she showed up at the door that one evening, with a note addressed to her with his phone number and a little invitation out to dinner Wednesday evening, which the orangutan was supposed to deliver to the pizza girl as a cute end to the evening's entertainment, he should have known he was perhaps going overboard. After all, a dove might have been easier to control. Hell, a naked woman would have been easier to control, and then that would have distracted the house full of old bankers he was entertaining that evening.
But as the orange-furred little guy sprang away and towards the door he knew it wasn't going to be all right, he could feel it in the pit of his magical stomach.
Her eyes widened in fear.
And then they were gone, orangutan and girl, out the door, out of his life. And he was going to have to file a lot of paperwork with the association.
disclaimer:
And thus ends another week's episode.
We'll see you all again next week.
Unless we don't, in which case we'll send someone round your house anyway, just to make sure you're okay and maybe hand out a printed copy of next week's issue.
Be good, and don't stop and sniff the roses if there's a huge number of people walking behind you... just try and snag a couple as you go merrily along.
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