The Street Magician

TW: familial violence

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“My good man, would you mind checking your wallet for the card?”

“How?” the man asked, bewildered. He pulled the ace of spades from the photo pocket in front of his credit cards. “You never touched me, how did it get in there?”

“Magic, ladies and gentlemen,” the young man announced with the voice of an old showman. The gathered people gasped and clapped, slowly moving on from the magician’s show.

Through the throng of people, a small child with bare feet came zipping past the legs of adults who were too absorbed in their own goings-on to notice the little urchin at their feet. She didn’t stop running until she reached the magician. “Tolkien,” she yelled, breaking through the crowd. “Tol.” She tugged on his pant leg.

“Lini, what’s the matter?”

“Oh, Tol, come quick! It’s Wes! He’s gone now too. Tol, please help us.”

“Take me to where he slept last night. There has to be some sign of who did this.”

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The pitter-patter of Lini’s bare feet was drowned out by the clunking of Tolkien’s heavy leather boots as he followed the girl into the underpass. In these shadowy shelters, the wandering children of the city made their home. Some years ago, the population of the areas around Greater Abilla expanded so quickly that the two-lane country roads could no longer contain all of the traffic. A raised highway crossed over sections of now-obsolete roads, and left large concrete shelters – like this one on Watercrest Road – that the homeless kids adopted as their homes.

“Wes,” Tolkien called, although he expected no response. He strode to a small pile of blankets, and jars containing all matter of specimen that the young boy enjoyed collecting. Next to these was a stash of “Glosettes” chocolate-covered raisins. “How did it happen this time?” he asked Lini.

The little girl confidently explained how she had come to show Wes a group of tadpoles she had found in the nearby pool, only he wasn’t there when she arrived. That had been yesterday. “I waited all night for him,” she said. “It got too dark and I got scared. I thought he would get scared too and come back home. Maybe he’s lost.”

“Children with no place to live never get lost,” Tolkien responded sadly. “They can’t be lost if they have nowhere to belong.”

“Oh” was all she said. He knew that her little mind couldn’t understand what he meant. To her, this was just another new fact that he was teaching her: homeless children don’t get lost. Perhaps she didn’t know what it felt like not to belong anywhere. Perhaps her home was the street. Tolkien could still remember when he’d had something more than just the ground underneath him and the clothes on his back. But he also knew what it felt like to have the freedom of being on the streets – that freedom that belonging could never provide.

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The smell of whiskey. The sound of shattering glass. Shards raining down on the floor behind him. “Good-for-nothing bastard!” the man yelled. “The next one goes right through your shoulder.”

His son huddled against the wall, fragments of glass still clinging to his sweater. The tears fought to escape from his eyes, but he made sure that his dad would not hear him sob. This was not the first close call, and it would not be the last. His father was an irresponsible monster with a penchant for drinking. Although only ten, the boy realized that this was an all-too-common problem for children with single fathers. Or, at least, for the children of single fathers in the stories he read.

Dev was like all the others. He did not want a son because a son was a liability he couldn’t afford. His work was shady, and the pay was sporadic at best. A child tied him down and prevented him from doing what he wanted to do with his life. But it was his own fault that he was stuck in this situation, so he took out his anger on the boy. He was just like all the rest, his son thought. But was he?

“The Divine Devereux” was an infamous mystic in the carnival circuit. A con man, he preyed on people’s desperation to believe in some kind of magical, spiritual power. The man stirred up trouble and racked up debts wherever he went. And his poor son was dragged along for the ride.

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Tolkien strode back out into the light, his navy trench coat billowing as a gust of wind caught the open flaps. Lini shivered at the wind. “What now, Tol?” Lini asked.

These kids were his family. They looked up to him. Something needed to be done. “Now,” he said, “it’s time for a show. Gather some of the others and meet me by the fountain in the square at Fernbrook and Strange.”

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Tolkien ran his hand through the shaggy blond hair that insisted on blowing in his face. Perched like an owl on the edge of the fountain, the young man watched through the crowd for his mini urchins. He needed them to arrive before he began his performance. Then, once people had gathered into a crowd, the children would become his eyes and ears. They were good for gathering information because they went under the sightline, quite literally, in a crowd of strangers.

Tolkien was more on edge than he had ever been. His life was rarely easy, but the danger of living on the street seemed more real now than in all his time as an orphan. Reaching into his coat sleeves, he checked that his throwing knives were tucked safely into place. He continued his check, reaching into the top of his combat boots, under the pant legs of his faded jeans. Last was the switchblade that he kept in the pocket of the grey hoodie that he always wore under his coat. He knew what it felt like to be defenseless, and he was determined never to feel that way again, so he was prepared to defend himself by any means necessary. Tolkien had actually added the knives in his pants and boots only a few years before, when he became the guardian for all of the city’s poor and homeless younglings.

Spotting a handful of girls and boys emerge from a side street with Lini at their head, Tolkien leapt from his crouched position to stand on the low stone wall. Sparing a glance for his helpers, he signalled that they needed to be ready. He rubbed his hands together nervously to warm his fingers, which stuck out of the cut-off gloves.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. As he flourished a large silver coin above his head, the children dispersed themselves amongst the watchers, pretending to have been drawn in by the spectacle just like everyone else. “Today you will see that magic is more than a mere fantasy.” He flipped the coin off of his thumb and it splashed into the water behind him.

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I assure you,” Devereux said in his mystical way, “my powers are as real as the sun in the sky. Don’t believe me? Let me show you.”

The young woman laughed half-heartedly, the smile lighting up her soft features and dark eyes. She grabbed her friend’s hand and came excitedly into the open-faced tent. They sat across from the false mystic on little stools that didn’t match the folding table they accompanied.

‘I can see that you have a secret,” Dev said to the excited girl. “Let us see what the runes can tell us. Boy, bring the runes.”

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When the twittering voices of the girls had faded, Dev slipped through the dividing curtain into the larger back room. “What were you doing back here, boy? When I say that I sense a spirit, you’re supposed to flick the lights. And can’t you bring my things any faster?”

“That’s not my name.”

“What was that, boy? Speak up!” The man slapped the boy across the face. “I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

“That’s not my name!” He was shouting by the time he got to the last word.

“That’s not your name, now, is it, boy?” The way he said “boy” was like spitting poison in his son’s face. “Tell you what – names don’t matter. A name’s a useless tag. You can have whatever name you want, doesn’t matter to no one else. Look at me! Everywhere I go I am someone else. I’m called whatever I want to be called.”

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“Did you see how he bent that stream of water? How did he do that?” Tolkien grinned listening to his mystified viewers as they wandered away. “Tol, Tol, you have to come quick!” A boy, about 6 or 7 years old, took Tolkien’s hand and led him across the square to a message board with a collage of posters and flyers on it. Then the boy – Chase was his name – told the magician and his young followers about the man who had approached while he was standing there with Hugo. Hugo, several years older than Chase, had been there to make sure that the younger boy wouldn’t get caught up in the crowd. Chase described the man they saw: short, portly, and grey-haired. He spoke with an odd drawl, asking if the “young men” (Chase liked being called that) enjoyed magic shows, and would they like to perform their own acts someday? Chase couldn’t remember the rest of the conversation, not for a lack of trying. All he knew, he said, was that the man wanted Hugo to check out a new circus. Then he got distracted by Tolkien releasing a dove from his sleeve, and when he looked back, Hugo was gone.

“Circus? What circus?”

“I dunno, Tol. He said it just got to town.”

Lini, who was standing at the back of the group, reading the flyers as best as she could, turned to face the magician. “Tol, I think this one says something about a circus. I don’t know some of these words, though.”

“Remember what I taught you: go slowly and sound it out.”

“Okay.” She read slowly. “One week extravaganza. Old-fashioned circus. Acrobats, animal acts, bally girls, psychics, and more. Come see a one-of-a-kind circus you will never forget.”

“There must be something about this circus that can tell us where our missing family has gone,” Tolkien said.

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The carnival train lurched into motion, tipping the fourteen-year-old boy reading near the door of a rickety old car. In the rest of the train, he heard the carnies shouting and laughing cacophonously. An adjoining door burst open, letting in the roar of the wind and the clacking of the tracks along with the raucous of partiers moving through the train.

One of the jugglers stopped to question the youth. “Oy boyo, whatcha reading?”

“The Return of the King. Third time I’ve read it.”

“You must really like it. Not my cup of tea.”

At the rear of the drunken parade came the teen’s father, who stumbled into a corner and sunk to the floor. “Boy, quit reading that nonsense. I need you to practice the act. I can’t be seen in this next town. I owe some bad men a lot of money. It’s for that…that time I…I took? No, I cheated…it’s…” Dev struggled to hold his eyes open at the beginning of his speech, and by the end he had passed out completely.

“No, father. No, I will not stop reading. Reading is the only way to get away from you. And I don’t want to do your job. I am done looking after you!”

The boy grabbed his bag of books and cards, looked around the car, and jumped from the train. He rolled into the underbrush, losing his satchel to a grasping branch. Collecting his only possession from the bush, the boy set off for Greater Abilla on foot.

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The family of young vagrants tramped across the open field to the red-and-white circus tent. They saw a small amount of movement inside and out of the great canvas structure. “The circus doesn’t open until tomorrow, so try not to wander too far and get yourself in trouble for being on the property,” Tolkien warned.

The young man ducked under the entry flaps and came into a stuffy space with only a dim, filtered sunlight coming through an opening in the top. Turning aside, he found a separate area of the tent where acts would prepare. A row of cages lined the walls. Behind rusting bars were large cats, horses, and elephants, lethargically laying in their own filth. Then Tolkien spun around and noticed the cage-like wooden structure that housed a number of dirty children. A handful of boys and girls slept huddled together on a bare wooden bunk. They looked beaten and weak. “Wes?” Tolkien enquired. A small head popped up at the front of the group.

“Tol…Tolkien? What are you doing here?”

“I came to find you. What happened to you?” he paused. “I was worried.”

Wes apologized, saying that he had been coaxed here by a man promising food and shelter.

“Who is he? Wes, who brought you here?”

“That would be me,” a deep voice responded from behind. “Cornelius Dara, ring master. And who might you be?”

“Tolkien. And these kids are my family.”

“Tolkien. That’s not your real name, is it?” The ring master laughed.

“Doesn’t matter, does it? That’s what people call me.”

The ring master strolled past Tolkien, who refused to turn and keep his eyes on the man. “Well, Tolkien. I don’t know what you want from me. Your ‘family,’ as you call them, are my new performers. I have recruited children from all over the city. I offer them a better life than they could get on the street, if they perform for me. You’d be surprised by how talented these young ones can be. Quick learners. Available and willing.”

“Because you trick them! What you offer is no better than what they had before. At least on the street they were free to do what they wanted, and they weren’t exploited for entertainment.”

“I rescued them!”

A scream broke the tension. The men spun to face the opening in the tent wall. “Help, please,” a boy cried.

“Hugo,” Tolkien whispered in shock. He ran out into the field where a fenced-in enclosure was caging in a scarred, gaunt tiger and a frightened, bleeding adolescent. “Hugo, what happened?”

‘I was trying to train the tiger. He told me I could be the cat trainer. But when I whipped it, the cat slashed my chest. Tolkien, please help me!”

With an angry glance at the ring master, Tolkien leapt into the enclosure and picked up the whip. He used it to force the tiger back while Hugo climbed over the fence. The magician dropped the whip and pulled out his switchblade, keeping it between himself and the cat in case it jumped at him.

Hugo couldn’t stop shaking. Tolkien led him back to the tent, where he found some linen sheets on one wooden bunk and tied it around the boy’s trunk. Hugo desperately tried to explain. “He promised that I would have food and shelter. He said I might even get paid! I thought I could be a performer like you. But it’s scary here. He doesn’t care about us, he just cares about making the circus look good. Look at the others! They’re as sick and dirty as the animals. I wish I’d never come, but he threatens us if we try to leave, and the kids know there’s no protection on the street.”

“Of course you have protection. For years I have looked after you, and I won’t stop.”

Hugo’s eyes went wide as he looked over Tolkien’s shoulder. “Tol, look out!”

Tolkien turned and brandished one of the knives from his sleeves. The tiger bounded right at them, landing with its underside on the knife point. As the cat collapsed, Tolkien was forced to release the knife and move out from under the creature’s weight.

“My precious cat!” Cornelius yelled. “You killed my cat!” The magician and his boy noticed with fear that the ring master was carrying the wicked whip. “How will I keep my circus going? I really can’t let you take my performers now!” Cornelius drew closer, cracking the whip.

Tolkien picked Hugo up and placed him on an empty bunk before turning back to Cornelius. He found that the older man had rolled the tiger over and, with all his might, pulled the knife from its chest, before rounding on Tolkien.

There was a flash of metal, and the thunk of a knife hitting flesh. Cornelius sunk to the ground as the blade that Tolkien had pulled from his boot landed in his neck. “I’m sorry,” Tolkien said, “But you tried to hurt my family.”