The Second-Best Magician in Rhodes, New York
/Tobiah Black
My friend Max used to be the best magician in Rhodes, New York. His showmanship left something to be desired, but the tricks themselves were legit. None of that cheap slight of hand stuff. Max was the real deal. He hated being called a wizard—said Harry Potter had given them all a bad name. But that’s what he was. When Max made a quarter disappear, it disappeared. Gone. Which was honestly kind of inconvenient come laundry day.
Rebecca always asked him why he couldn’t be a bit more of a performer. Sell it a little bit. Add an exclamation point to the end of his “prestos.” But that just wasn’t Max’s style. He needed to say “presto” in order for the tricks to work, of course—but a quiet, measured “presto” worked just as well as a zany, yelled “presto.” And Max just wasn’t the zany type.
It’s not that he didn’t like his job. True, sometimes he got tired of being a birthday party accessory, lumped in with the clowns and balloon animals and piñatas. And sometimes you’d run into an overbearing parent who wanted to direct the show. But, on the whole, Max liked his work.
But there was one big problem. When you’re hired for some kid’s birthday party, levitating a volunteer or scrambling an egg in its shell is all well and good. But there’s really only one thing everyone expects to see—a rabbit coming out of your top hat.
Max had never managed a rabbit. The best he could pull out of his hat was a fidgety, underfed squirrel. Just a regular eastern grey squirrel, white belly, obsidian eyes, its tail a little worse for wear, no longer bushy, like an old toothbrush. He assumed it was the same squirrel every time but who knows? It looked the same. He’d say “presto” pull the scraggly squirrel out of his top hat and hold him out to the audience, looking like one of those big grey stone age cell phones. After a show, he’d just take the squirrel out to the sidewalk and let it go. Squirrels can take care of themselves, right?
So when Jeremy Cippolini showed up with his purple cape and his wispy seventeen-year-old mustache and his rabbit—which he’d named Rabbit Downey Jr. and kept in a kind of bag, specially designed, that hung below his magician’s table—it didn’t take long before Max’s work slowly started drying up.
* * *
The morning it really started to unravel, Max was in his apartment above the Plaza Diner on Route 22, sitting in his boxers on the thin blue cushions of his dirty couch, watching Planet Earth when the phone rang.
Jeanne Neumann had been Max’s and my chemistry teacher in tenth grade. She was frantic—something about a bouncy castle cancellation. Max gave her his usual rates—fifty dollars for half-an-hour, seventy-five for an hour. (Rebecca, overhearing him make a similar offer once, had said he sounded like a hooker.) Mrs. Neumann said an hour would be amazing.
Max stood up and walked to the window. Across the street an inflatable Airdancer whipped back and forth in the winter wind in the parking lot of the Toyota dealership where Rebecca worked. The sun was already going down. Sitting in my apartment in Los Angeles all these years later, I can still picture that time of day in that time of year in Rhodes. The last glints of light catching those mounds of frozen, dirt-speckled snow that always reminded me of mint chip ice cream.
He dialed Rebecca and began to gather his gear. Top hat, deck of cards, multicolored silks. “Presto,” he said, holding the top hat in front of him as the phone rang. The squirrel appeared, looking nervous, as all squirrels do. Max sat it on his shoulder and stroked its head with his index finger, feeling the ridges of its tiny skull. He picked up a Cheez-it that he had first noticed on the floor under the TV three weeks earlier and gave it to the squirrel.
Rebecca picked up the phone: “What’s up?”
“Can we meet a little later? Like eight maybe? I just got a gig. My old chemistry teacher, Mrs. Neumann.”
Rebecca sighed. “At the diner?”
“Sure.”
“See you there.”
The squirrel hopped off Max’s shoulder and darted over to the windowsill. It sniffed around for a moment before squeezing itself through a space left between the air conditioner and the window frame that Max had tried to stuff with an old sweatshirt.
Max opened the door to his apartment and was hit by a gust of greasy air flowing up from the diner’s kitchen. Frozen fries hit hot oil with a sound like someone crumpling up wrapping paper. He stood at the top of the rickety back stairs and pulled the door to his apartment closed behind him. He didn’t bother to lock it. The artificial wood paneling and hollow core wouldn’t have taken much more than a nudge to break through if anybody really wanted to steal his dirty laundry or Salvation Army TV.
He got to the party late. It had taken him twenty minutes to chip the ice away from the tires of his tan Toyota Corolla with its cellulite body damage. The driveway of the Neumanns’ ranch house was overflowing with Subaru Outbacks, Dodge Grand Caravans, Honda Pilots. He parked his Corolla down the street.
He knocked on the door, top hat in hand. The muffled sound of the party wafted through the wall like a TV turned down for a not-very-important phone call.
Jeanne Neumann opened the door.
“Hi, Mrs. Neumann.”
“Oh!” she said, vertical lines of confusion appearing between her eyebrows. Max glanced over her shoulder at the living room. The coffee table had been pushed aside to make room for twelve or fifteen cross-legged kids. Max saw a flourish of purple. An adolescent voice cracked as it rose above the party din. “Presto!” A wave of awed shrieks as an apparently severed rope was restored to wholeness.
“I’m so embarrassed,” Mrs. Neumann said.
“Cippolini?”
“Tim was supposed to call you back. We were both calling anyone we could think of when the bouncy castle canceled. I didn’t realize he had already reached Jeremy.”
“I can see the quarters he’s palming from here.”
“Tim!”
Tim Neumann walked up to the door. He forked a yellow icing rose into his mouth and scratched at the tufts of hair ringing the pointy gold birthday hat perched on his head.
“What’s the problem, hon?” He saw Max. “Hey, aren’t you—”
“You were supposed to call Max Urquhart to tell him we wouldn’t be needing him for the party.”
“Ah, shit. I’m sorry, Max. You came all the way out here? Maybe you and Jeremy could do the show together.” Tim took another bite of cake. “Let him take care of the rabbit part though.”
“That’s all right. I’ll just go home.”
“Let me get you a slice of pizza at least.”
“Nah. Thanks though.”
“He’s got a lot of volume on those ‘prestos,’ doesn’t he?”
“Is the volume of a ‘presto’ the only thing that matters?” Max mumbled.
At the word “presto,” Max’s top hat rustled. A pair of obsidian eyes swam up out of the darkness. The squirrel squirmed over the brim of the hat. Tim Neumann tried to dodge it and dropped his paper plate to the ground, splattering icing across the rug.
“Sorry,” Max said, scrambling after the squirrel. The parents who ringed the edges of the party looked over at the commotion. The squirrel darted towards the living room. One of the kids shrieked. The rest followed suit and began to scatter.
“What the hell, Urquhart?” Jeremy Cippolini said. “Trying to sabotage my show?”
“Grab him!” Max yelled.
Jeremy took a cartoonishly large step. His black leather boot came down on the back of the squirrel. A thin streak of squirrel blood lashed against the trailing velvet cuff of Jeremy’s purple cape. The squirrel’s twisted body twitched once before going still.
A collective gasp drew all the oxygen out of the room. Jeremy looked up at Max. “My bad, man. I was just trying to pin it.” Max walked over and picked up the broken squirrel, holding it like an offering in his cupped palm. One of the parents began to usher the kids out of the room, whispering something about rabies.
“I can, um—get you a new one?” Jeremy said without conviction. “Do they sell squirrels at the pet store?”
* * *
Max sat in a booth near the front of the diner below his apartment, waiting for Rebecca. A menu lay open on the table in front of him, its laminated edges peeling apart and curling into dirty plastic petals. The menu was impossibly long. Famous Overstuffed Sandwiches; Buttermilk Pancakes with 2 Eggs, Bacon, Sausage, and Ham; Motzah Ball Soup Every Day; Shrimp Scampi. The pictures of the food were faded, washed out. Not that the pictures had ever looked much like the food you actually got anyway.
He was staring out the window at the parking lot when Rebecca slipped into the seat opposite him.
“I can’t believe it. He really stepped on it?”
“I’m sure those kids were traumatized.”
“How about you?”
“Maybe it’s a sign. Get a real job. You think it’s too late to try law school?”
“Come on, Max. This is your thing. Can’t you make the squirrel reappear?”
“I don’t know how these things work.”
Rebecca patted Max’s hand. “I’m sorry. I know you were attached to him.”
“I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”
Rebecca opened the menu. “I could see if there’s something at the dealership.”
“You think?”
“Sure. A bunch of people quit after the whole airbag recall debacle.”
“Maybe.”
“What’s to lose? You’ll need something soon anyway. Don’t get me wrong. It’s awful, soul-crushing corporate garbage. Wait till you watch the training videos. But it’s something. And we’d get to work together, sort of. I’ll get you an interview next week.”
“I’m starving,” Rebecca said, craning her neck around to find the server. “What are you getting?”
“I was thinking about the shrimp scampi.”
“Who orders shrimp scampi at a diner?”
* * *
Max straightened his tie and pushed through the glass doors that led into the showroom of the Toyota dealership. The room was two stories tall with glass walls and white floors. His footsteps echoed like he was walking through an empty church.
He waved to Rebecca. She walked over from her desk.
“Is this jacket too big?” Max asked.
“Yes. Nervous?”
“I’m just worried I’m not qualified.”
“You have performance experience. Being a salesman is basically the same.”
“But that was the part I was worst at.”
“They don’t know that. The woman you’re meeting with is Sandy Macklin. Her aunt owns the dealership, so if you can get in with her, you’ll be on your way.” Max took a deep breath and let it out in a long silent whistle. “You’ll be fine,” Rebecca said. “Let’s go back there.”
They walked past the front desk to a cramped office. Rebecca knocked on the doorframe of a half-open door. “Sandy?” she said. “This is Max Urquhart.”
Sandy stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Max.”
“Nice to meet you, too.”
“I’ll leave you two to it,” Rebecca said.
Max sat down in a chair across the desk from Sandy. She flipped through a manila folder and pulled out his slim resume.
“So you’ve been working as a magician since college. You can make a living doing that?”
“Not a good one.”
“What kinds of tricks do you do? Pull a rabbit out of a top hat?”
“A squirrel.”
“I prefer rabbits,” she said, making a note.
“Most people do.”
“Where does it come from?”
“My top hat.”
“A secret compartment?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”
“A magician never reveals his tricks, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“But you don’t do magic anymore.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Good. There are certain rules and regulations you’ll have to abide by. Not bringing squirrels to work is definitely one of them. But the main thing you need is enthusiasm. Success in sales is entirely linked to genuine enthusiasm for Toyota products. Do you think you would have that enthusiasm?”
“Sure—I drive a Toyota myself.” Max pointed at a wall that seemed to be in the general direction of the parking lot. Sandy looked at the wall, following his pointing finger. “A Corolla.” She looked back at him. “I’d really like to upgrade to a Camry though. Some day.”
Sandy looked at her watch and stood up. Max stood up too, pushing his chair back into a bookshelf full of H.R. manuals in blue three-ring binders.
“We’ll start you off on a six-week trial,” Sandy said. “Then we can review.” She put Max’s resume back in her manila folder, flipped it shut, and stuck her hand out to Max. “Welcome to Macklin Toyota of Rhodes.”
Max didn’t mind working at the dealership. He started off answering phones at the front desk. Occasionally, a customer would remember having seen Max at a birthday party and ask him to do a trick. He would politely decline, and after six weeks Rebecca began to train him on sales.
He was better at it than he expected to be. He read diligently through lists of specifications for each car until he could recite them by heart. He learned to check how expensive a customer’s shoes were to see how many upgrades they would tolerate. A year and a half in, he was named employee of the month, and it made him prouder than he cared to admit. He even developed a certain affection for the cars. In the late afternoon, he’d look out through the glass walls of the showroom to the parking lot. The white cars nearly blinding. The black cars sleek like fish.
He moved in with Rebecca (she couldn’t stand the thin layer of grease that seemed to coat everything in Max’s apartment above the diner), and he never mentioned magic if he could help it. But sometimes, when Rebecca was out, he would slide out the box he had stashed under their bed and take out his top hat, putting his face very close to it, his chin grazing the brim.
“Presto,” he would whisper, but the squirrel never appeared—at best, a cockroach would scuttle over the rim of the hat and escape into a crack in the wall.
* * *
“Max! Look who’s here.”
Max looked up from his desk, where he had been extolling the virtues of the Avalon’s rearview camera to an elderly couple. (“I have a herniated disk in my neck, makes it hard to turn to the right,” Max would say, although it had long since healed. “I thank the engineers at Toyota for the rearview camera every day.”)
Max told the elderly couple he’d be right back and went over to Rebecca’s desk where Mrs. Neumann was sitting, twisted halfway around in her chair to look at Max as he approached. “I didn’t know you were working here,” Mrs. Neumann said. “How wonderful to see you.”
“She said she used to teach chemistry at Rhodes High,” Rebecca said. “I asked if she had ever had you in her class.”
“She certainly did,” Max said, shaking her hand. “I hope Rebecca’s taking good care of you.”
“Oh, yes. I’m just looking for a used something I can toddle around town in. These winters have rusted out my old Volvo.”
“Yeah, the salt,” Max said.
Max wasn’t going to mention the party, and Rebecca hadn’t remembered. It was Mrs. Neumann who lowered her voice and said, “You know, I never really had a chance to apologize for—you know.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Neumann. It wasn’t your fault. And it’s in the past now, anyway.”
“I’m glad you’ve landed here. It sets my mind at ease. The magician thing never really did suit you, did it?”
Max blinked. He swallowed and looked at the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Neumann said, looking at Rebecca, alarmed. “I didn’t mean—you just didn’t seem to—I thought you didn’t enjoy it, from what I could see.”
Max ran his tongue along his top teeth. He looked over Mrs. Neumann’s head, through the tall windows at the neatly planted sweetgums that lined the parking lot.
“Max?” Rebecca said. “You OK?”
“Presto,” Max said quietly. The lease agreement on the desk in front of Mrs. Neumann fluttered into a white dove. It took a few tottering steps, then leaped into the air and swooped to a high corner of the showroom before fluttering down and perching on the water cooler.
“Now, Max,” Mrs. Neumann said. “I said I was sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” Rebecca said, standing up. “This is a good thing. A very good thing.”
“Presto,” Max said, and one of the armchairs in reception sprang into a kangaroo and bounded towards Rebecca.
One of the two new receptionists picked up the phone. “Sandy, I think you better come out here,” he said.
“Don’t be a killjoy, Derrick,” Rebecca said. “He’s not hurting anybody.” She scratched the kangaroo behind its ears, and it put its front paws on her shoulders.
Sandy walked into the showroom and looked around. She walked over to Rebecca’s desk. “Max—remove these animals from the premises immediately.”
“I’d better get going,” Mrs. Neumann said, her voice shaking slightly. She pushed herself to her feet, gripping her handbag so hard her knuckles were going white.
Sandy put a reassuring hand on Mrs. Neumann’s shoulder. “If you just wait a moment, we’ll have this cleared up in no time.”
“But the lease is on the water cooler,” Mrs. Neumann said distractedly. “We’d have to fill out a whole new one.”
“Presto,” Max said, and a Rav4 lumbered into a rhinoceros.
“Do you even know how to control these animals?” Sandy said. “They could be dangerous.”
Max turned his palms to the ceiling, like a conductor coaxing a crescendo from an orchestra. The rhinoceros stood up on its hind legs and made an elaborate bow to Sandy, before charging through the open doors of the showroom and out onto Route 9H.
Through the glass windows of the showroom, Max surveyed the parking lot. Corollas, Celicas, Tundras, Priuses, Land Crusiers, and, of course, the Camrys. A full spectrum of Camrys: cream-colored Camrys, maroon Camrys, dark blue Camrys with mica-like flecks. “Presto,” Max said: rabbits, dozens of them, the gloss of their fur replicating the colors of the cars they had once been.
“The stapler,” Rebecca whispered.
Max turned and stared hard at the stapler on Rebecca’s desk. It began to hum and chatter in place. “Presto,” Max said, closing his eyes.
Max’s squirrel flashed into being, sitting regally between the coffee cup full of pens and the stack of post-it notes. The squirrel twitched and looked around nervously, holding its tiny paws up to its mouth. Max opened his eyes. The squirrel leaped off the desk and into Max’s arms. Max caught him and tucked him into the crook of his left elbow like a tiny football.
* * *
I’d love to tell you that Max went onto a big career in Vegas or had a bunch of TV specials or something. But after he got fired from the Toyota dealership, he just went back to doing birthday parties around Rhodes. (Sandy had wanted to fire Rebecca too, but her aunt said Rebecca was too valuable an employee, and soon after Sandy went to a Change Your Life with Real Estate seminar and moved to Tucson.) Plenty of people still hired Jeremy Cippolini—he had that big theatrical voice, and the kids generally couldn’t tell the difference between a palmed quarter and one that had genuinely disappeared anyway.
And if you wanted a rabbit, you still had to go to Jeremy. Max ended every show with his squirrel.
Author’s Note: I got the idea for this story in 2013. If you call it an even eight years, that’s 2922 days, accounting for two leap years. Amortizing the word count of this story over that period, it works out to an average of just over one word per day. It's not the most efficient way to write.
Tobiah Black is a writer and documentary producer. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tilted House Review, The Molotov Cocktail, and Points in Case. He also hosts the history podcast Artifactual. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and cat. www.tobiahblack.com
