Fred Marcuso stood before a large bathroom mirror. The sink in front of him was clean and dry, with the exception of a sparkling green bowtie. He picked it up and gingerly flipped it through his fingers, then placed it around his neck.
“You look gawd awful!”
Fred Marcuso glanced back at Marni, his wife of eighteen years. She struggled to cover herself with a skin tight black skirt. He smiled. She had finally returned to him and embraced his inequities.
“It’s our daughter’s sweet sixteen birthday party and you – you want to do magic?”
It is our last sweet sixteenth.
Fred pulled a single long-stemmed rose from beneath his green cumber bunt and presented it to her. He pursed his lips together.
“What will the guests say? Look at the stupid leprechaun? What’ll he pull from his bottom now?”
Marni disregarded his gift and nonchalantly stepped on it. Fred Marcuso smiled.
I have been practicing.
“Emily does not care about magic. It’s her birthday and –“
Emily Marcuso looked on and laughed, partly in hysterics and another in embarrassment at her father.
“Come along Emily. Guests should be arriving at anytime. Let’s leave David bloody Copperfield.”
“Can we lock ‘im in the room?”
Fred Marcuso sadly stood alone. His eyes suddenly drooped. A melancholy that was veiled behind the silly smile lay revealed. In front of the mirror again, he began performing - pulling from the sleeve of his right arm, a multicolored cord. The faster he pulled the longer it seemed to become. At his feet, there formed a perfect coil of rope, the length of which was impossible to tell.
An easy trick.
One of the five-thousand sunny faced pink and white balloons – a pink one – caught Fred Marcuso’s eye as it wafted skyward. Loosed from the crowd. He spent money he did not have and time he had too much of, for this day. Emily would hopefully not forget it.
Fred Marcuso’s posh little neighborhood looked empty. Foreclosures. People lived beyond their means. They, including the Marcuso’s, waited for banks to retrieve their properties like old trees await the axe.
Fred Marcuso stepped out of the bathroom and straightened his jacket. Guest began arriving. Their house filled with hormonal teenagers. Spin the bottle. Truth or dare. He reminisced about his pock-marked teens. So very lonely.
An older motorcar drove into the neighborhood and parked. Fred watched as the woman, Linda Smythe pulled the visor down and checked her smile. She played sincerity like a well-worn violin.
Sigh.
“You invited Jenny Smythe? Why?”
“I felt sorry for her.”
Sorry? I cannot imagine.
The Smythe family did not need to live in a posh neighborhood. The Smythe family did not need a fancy motorcar. Mrs. Smythe never lusted over Lewis Smythe’s boss. Jenny Smythe respected her father, and Lewis Smythe loved his family.
Marni approached the motorcar. She wiggled over to Lewis and kissed him on the cheek, then hugged Linda and Jenny.
Fred Marcuso watched. A violin smile accompanied his bright green tuxedo.
Fred Marcuso, magician, had everyone sit as he began his performance. The kids – eager for spin the bottle – rolled their eyes. Suddenly, out of his brilliant-green top hat, he pulled an enormous rabbit, and then some clanging, and then –
“Flowers for Emily!”
Fred Marcuso’s act was nothing short of amazing. He performed a supernatural feat of levitation, and proceeded to eat a sword which he later produced from his bottom without ripping his trousers.
“Now, if my lovely Marni would please come to the stage and lie on this magic table.”
Marni Marcuso reclined on the table, and Fred lofted a bright green blanket over her. He performed a magic incantation, and then dropped a napkin over the blade of his sword, where it became two separate pieces – proving it to be quite sharp indeed.
“Oh.”
Fred Marcuso took a drink from a small metal flask taken from inside of his jacket pocket. He whispered into Marni’s ear, and proceeded to drive the blade through her and the table, as though it were a piece of birthday cake. Marni, oblivious to it all, continued to display her permanently wretched smile –and would forever more.
Fred Marcuso, father and magician, stepped through the separated torsos and bowed.
“A split personality!”
A nervous laughter and applause ensued.
With a broad, satisfied smile, Fred Marcuso dropped dead.
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