Small towns in rural Vermont don’t have hotels. You can say it’s because no one wants to stay there, but it’s more because of people like my mother. She worked for the local music hall and made it clear that her guest room was always available for one of the performers to use while in town. Over the years we had violinists, opera singers, Shakespearean actors, cellists, folk singers, pianists, storytellers, fiddlers, Celtic drummers and classical guitarists, but until one particularly sunny day when I was 12, we’d never had a puppeteer.
He drove up while I was falling down in the front yard (something I did to keep myself as dirty as possible) in a car adorned with floppy clown characters attached to the roof of his car. They flailed in the wind and flopped forward as he jammed on the breaks. My mouth was stuck open as I looked at his car, then my parent’s car, and wondered why we hadn’t bought the car with puppets on it. To a twelve year old, a car without puppets all of a sudden seemed pretty lame.
The driver side door flung open and a tall lanky guy wearing sandals, shorts and a white shirt covered in stains hopped out. He stood, looking around the yard and house, with a face of disappointment.
My mother jumped up from her seat on the porch and walked towards him, welcoming him with an outstretched hand. After a few pleasantries and the comment, “This town really has nothing in it, huh?” he opened the trunk to gather his things.
I raced towards the car at the sound of the trunk popping, hoping to help carry a bag and perhaps garner a tip from the guy. When he saw me he said, “Why the hell are you so dirty? Get away from my car.” I told him I lived here and would help him carry his bags, but he said, “I don’t know if you can get this, bud. It’s a bit heavy.”
Before I could argue, he wrestled out a large black case that filled up the entire trunk. It looked like a small coffin with a handle on it and I immediately wanted to see what was inside. 
As he lugged the case into the house he asked me to get him a bottle of beer. I sprinted to the fridge while he dragged the case into a corner of the kitchen and sat down, exhausted. When I brought him the beer, he slipped it into a koozie he kept in his back pocket with the phrase, “Eat, Drink and Sleep Pussy,” on it. Before he could finish his first sip, I’d already unloaded a barrage of questions on him.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Right there on the side of car if you can read,” he said as he pointed towards his car.
There on the side of his car, in big red and yellow letters was the name, MAGIC STEVE.
“You do magic!?” I asked.
He took another long sip of beer and said, “No. I hate magicians. They’re nothing but cold blooded retards.”
Not sure of what that meant I asked him if he kept his dummy in his case. He said, “Dummy? What? No, I’m not a ventriloquist. Do I look like a pedophile to you?!”
Completely unsure of how to answer that question I asked, “Why do you use that thing?”
“This?” he said as he pointed to koozy.
I nodded.
“Son, my profession is my hands. You wouldn’t want me to break this bottle and slice up all the meat in my hands, would you?”
As he said this, he opened his hand and I noticed a few faded scars.
“Why don’t you use cans?” I asked.
He finished his beer, motioned for me to get another one and said, “I’m a performer. I’ve got an image to uphold.”
I was enamored with Magic Steve. I loved his carelessness, his rudeness, his bravado. Even though I was only 12, I had decided on the path for my future. Over the next few hours, I studied Magic Steve in every way, hoping to one day become him. I followed him around with a little note pad making observations. Any given page would have read something like:
- Answer the phone by saying, “Time is money, I got time so hand over the money.”
- Everything can be eaten in 3 bites.
- Don’t practice.
Magic Steve had been eating and drinking beer consistently since he arrived, but he still kept asking what was for dinner. When my mother told him, Magic Steve simply held up his hand to silence her and said, “I have a few dietary restrictions.”
Later my father asked me if I wanted to play some catch, but I informed him that, unfortunately, I had a few dietary restrictions.
At dinner, I found out that dietary restrictions means only being able to eat filet mignon, artichoke hearts and garlic mashed potatoes. Apparently Magic Steve was allergic to inexpensive meats and starches that were lumpy. After every bite, Magic Steve took his fork and examined the steak, “You sure this isn’t a London Broil?” He asked. After the tenth time of reassuring him it wasn’t, my mother asked what it was about inexpensive meats he was allergic to. Magic Steve paused from picking his steak and said, “Sulfites.”
Magic Steve passed on desert and decided to head up stairs to take a shower. When he shut the bathroom door, I realized it was the first time I’d taken my eyes off him since he’d arrived. I returned to the kitchen and helped my parents clean up. As I handed my father pieces of silver wear, I asked him if he noticed how animated each piece looked as I handed them to him. My father rolled his eyes, looked at my mother and said, “At least we don’t have to worry about him bringing girls home when he’s older.”
Once all the dishes had been cleaned, dried and put up, we escaped to the outside porch as Magic Steve continued to shower. I asked my father what he thought was taking Magic Steve so long and my father chuckled and said, “I think he’s in there practicing with his puppet.” My mother playfully smacked him as I craned my neck into the kitchen window to see his case of puppets unopened.
After a few minutes, my confusion drifted away and was replaced by the fantasy of people cheering as I brought playful characters to life. I imagined myself becoming this mysterious puppeteer who fans would desperately seek out, but would forever remain elusive. Then, after submitting a puppet show to my parents, the Boston Red Sox and the President of the United States, the world would rejoice in harmony, as the graceful fluttering of my hands brought world peace and a World Series title to the Red Sox.
The next day in school I referred to myself as Magic Patrick and bragged about how puppetry was the only true art form. All the teacher’s lessons that day felt like vague whispers floating past me as I could only think about getting home and learning more from Magic Steve before he had to go to the music hall for his performance.
When I got home, Magic Steve was on the couch, wearing nothing but coffee stained boxers with a beer in his koozie and another 4 empty bottles on the coffee table. I threw off my backpack and screeched, “Hey, Magic Steve!”
“Hey, it’s the dweeby kid,” he muttered under his breath without taking his eyes off the TV.
I sat and watched Magic Steve flip channels for the next two hours, trying to make a mental note of which commercials he paused on the longest. At 6:00, my mother popped her head into the living room and said, “Steve, they’re looking for you down at the music hall. Show starts in an hour.”
Magic Steve gave out a frustrated whimper, tossed the remote onto the coffee table and peeled himself off the couch. My mother went back to the kitchen and made a phone call, when she came back to make sure Magic Steve was almost ready, she found me sitting in the crevice he had created, holding an empty beer bottle with the koozie in my hand. The shriek my mother let out almost made me drop the bottle, but as she took it out of my hand, I asked her if she noticed how steady my hands were.
“That’s it,” she said as she swallowed up the beer bottles in her arms and stormed into the kitchen. Not sure what I had done wrong, I prepared myself for punishment. ‘That’s it,’ was always followed by punishment. She could ground me for a month, take me off the little league team, make me wear my underwear on my head to school, whatever, I could take it. Just as long as she didn’t stop me from going to Magic Steve’s show tonight.
As I was trying to figure out a way to climb out of my bedroom window and down the side of my house if need-be, my mother came back into the living room with a bowl full of skittles and a giant glass of root beer.
Since we were never allowed candy or soda, I was stunned. Before I could ask her where the candy came from, Magic Steve came into the living room and said, “Sweet, candy!”
He plunged his hand deep into the candy bowl, pulled out an entire fistful of skittles and shoved them into his pocket. My mother took the remote and turned the TV to the Red Sox game and shot me a contrived smile.
I didn’t know why the candy was in front of me, but I knew that the more I questioned it, the less likely I’d be able to shove it into my belly. I ate handful after handful as if I were trying to hide evidence. Every moment my glass came close to being empty, my mother came in to refill it. Each time, the same smile was shot my way.
After the first inning, I’d finished the skittles and was now eating the box of devil dogs that had mysteriously appeared. I hadn’t seen my mother bring them in, but since they were there, I proceed to shove them into my face.
As the third inning came to a close, my mind shook and my body was about to explode. I’d never felt such a sugar rush and all I wanted was more. I ran into the kitchen, after running up and down the stairs just for fun, to find my mother looking through the cupboards. Her lips were pursed as she pulled a box from the shelf, read the ingredients and shook her head.
For some reason, I started screaming the alphabet, amazed at how quickly I could do it. Since my mother didn’t seem to notice me, I decided to show her quickly I could swing my arms around. She continued to look through the cupboards.
My eyes danced around the room as if they were only taking snapshots strung together to create a choppy moving picture. My feet felt like dancing, so I danced. Suddenly, my clothes seemed unnecessary and I quickly stripped down to my underwear.
I had an urge to shake my hands, but before I could decide how I wanted to shake them, I noticed they were already wildly convulsing as if I were trying to wave to every single person in a crowd of thousands.
My mother finally turned to me with a spoon in one hand and the sugar jar in another. “Here, eat this,” she said.
My brain received a signal that said, “Sugar! Sugar is our friend!” and I frantically attacked the sugar jar.
The next thing I knew, I was laying on the living room floor with my mouth wide open and lightly stuck to the carpet. In the background I heard the announcer on TV say, “The Red Sox continue to struggle as they lose their 5th straight game at home.” My head pounded. My eyes would not focus.
Gradually, the world came back to me and I started to wonder why my socks were dirty, as if I’d been running outside. Like a Polaroid, my mind slowly revealed an image of me running down the street trying to find a car to race. I wiped my mouth off with the back of my hand and realized hours had passed. I’d missed Magic Steve’s show.
I was so embarrassed that I didn’t even get out of my room to say good-bye the next day. I just starred out of the window and watched as he backed out over our mailbox, put a few dollars in it and drove off. Later that day, I could hear my parents arguing in the kitchen. I wasn’t sure what it was about, but I kept hearing my mother say, “I had to! It was for his own good.”
Years later, I figured out what she meant. It’s easy to idolize someone for all the wrong reasons and when your child looks at someone who uses their dirty boxers as a pillow when they pass out in their car and thinks, ‘I want to be like them,’ you’re allowed to take drastic actions. It wasn’t long before I forgot about my desire to become like Magic Steve. I quickly returned to my unrealistic and psychologically damaging dream of becoming the shortstop for the Red Sox. However, every time I turn on Sesame Street or watch one of the original Star Wars, I think of Magic Steve and how sometimes it’s better not to know the man pulling the strings.
