Cooper's Cards

July 2, 2017:

I met Cooper for the first time in January. I live in the east village of Manhattan, three blocks south of Thompkins Square Park. It’s a little three-block park that spans from Avenue A to Avenue B. I’ll often walk through it after a stressful day at work or on the way back from picking up dinner on 1st ave. The park is small, but when you live in Manhattan, any extended plot of nature is greatly appreciated.

Thompkins is home to a wide variety of life. This includes trees that have grown above the apex of all surrounding buildings. That isn’t incredibly difficult seeing as though there isn’t a building in the east village over six stories. I have no idea why that’s the case, but it does give you a nice view when you look up from the street, especially if you’re like most New Yorkers and have undiagnosed OCD and like all their roofs to be the same height. Maybe that’s why they did it in the first place actually. I can confidently say from living in New York my whole life that New Yorkers have not and will never change.

The park is full of luscious grass and dying grass, thick bushes, and thin trees. It’s visited by crows and robins, black and grey squirrels, and every type of person you can imagine. One afternoon, on my way back from the McDonald’s on 1st ave, I decided to take in some nature and walk through the park.

I entered on 9th street and avenue A, checking out the normal inhabitants of the park. There were a few kids and some younger men playing basketball on my left on the border of 10th street. I took a right and made my way past the dog park. At this time of night on a weekday, especially during the winter, the dog owners were less than inclined to come to the park, so it was relatively barren.

The further down in the three-block park you get, the more the lights dim. This was mostly due to the city’s massive backup of maintenance problems. A few lights in a small park downtown were not high on a list of broken traffic lights and leaky underground steam pipes.

The darker it got, the more people I would notice making themselves comfortable on the park benches for the night. There was one man with a shopping cart on my left. He settled down in the midpoint between the two closest lights, monopolizing the darkest spot so he could sleep the easiest.

I approached the end of the park where the lights were beginning to pick back up. I had three benches left until the exit on 7th street and Avenue B, but something caught my eye before I could exit. Sitting on that bench was a man, bundled up in tattered black jackets and blankets. He was wearing a grey beanie and a Yankees bandana around his chin revealing only a small patch of dark skin between his eyebrows and nose. Everything else was covered except for his hands, which were shuffling a deck of pristine, blue bicycle playing cards.

I slowed down a few benches before I got to him, walking at half pace as I approached the mysterious shuffler. The city outside the park never tires, but the only sound I could pick up was the riffling of those cards against the cold bench. I wondered at first if I’d somehow entered a scene from a movie and this man was a genie who granted wishes by shuffling.

“Hey bud,” he said after noticing me staring at the cards in his hand. There was something mesmerizing and inviting about them. The way he was moving them around his hand made it seem like the cards were a part of his hands. Like if one fell down you would see blood and we’d have to drive this man to the hospital to get it surgically repaired. My eyes were locked on the cards and didn’t rise to his eyes until far later than they should have. “Wanna see a magic trick?”

I wasn’t 100 percent convinced he wasn’t a genie. This was the strangest sequence of events I’d ever experienced on the streets of New York- or I guess in a park in New York. And that’s including anything someone’s ever said to me on a subway car in the middle of the day. I once got asked what my credit score was, and when I lied about it, someone appeared from the other car with a cake that said “Credit Score!” on it, and started singing happy birthday to me. They never asked for my name so the last line was “happy birthday to-” and then each of them said a different name that wasn’t mine. What do you do in that situation? For starters, I did not eat the cake. The rest is a big blur.

This wasn’t a crew of weirdos on a train though. I’ve always liked magic tricks, and he seemed like a kind man. His only possessions I could see were the clothes he was wearing, his cards, and a photo in a cracked frame of a young girl. The frame leaned against the back of the bench between me and him. She was looking right at the magician’s hands.

I was half hoping that this guy was about to spawn a winning lottery ticket or a really cool football in an effort to convince me that he was a genie. “Sure,” I said with a bit of pep in my voice. I noticed his cheeks rise up towards his eyes. He looked genuinely excited that I agreed to watch his trick. He shuffled one last time. Then he fanned out the deck and raised it to my hand level.

I reached out for the flurry of cards and touched the middle of the deck. They were silky to the touch. I decided on one began to pull it out. My fingers slipped off on the first try and whichever card I picked snapped back into the pack.

I went back in. I think I grabbed the same card this time, making sure to squeeze tightly but not damage it. I picked one up, looked at it, and returned it to the middle of the pack as close to where I took it out as possible. It was the three of clubs.

The man in the tattered clothes smiled at me again and started shuffling. “So what’s your name little boss?” I wasn’t offended by hearing myself called “little boss”. I thought it was endearing. I’ve been called little before. I’ve looked like I was fourteen since I was twelve. I hit a very small growth spurt in seventh grade and didn’t get another one. I ended up a little over 5’-9”.

“Brian,” I said. He never called me Brian a single time. He shuffled and cut a few more times to get my card lost in the pile. He told me that this was called the ‘silly shuffle’. He began taking cards off the top of the deck and flipping his hand each time so that every few cards the pile changed from face up to face down. In the end, he had a completely randomized deck. Some cards face up and some face down.

“Alright little boss, the silly shuffle gives three different possibilities. First, there’s a face-up card and a face down,” he pulled the deck apart and showed me an example. “Then there’s two face-up cards,” again, he provided proof. “And last, there’s two face-down cards.” He showed me the middle of the deck where two cards were face-down and put the two halves back together. “Now wouldn’t it be crazy if the deck fixes itself? Well actually, it’ll mostly itself.” He fanned the cards back out in his hand, revealing the entire deck of face-up playing cards- except for one.

“Go ahead little boss,” he said. “Flip it.” I turned over the face-down card revealing my three of clubs. I handed that card back to him and he placed it on top of the deck and got right back to his shuffling.

“How’d you do it?” I was impressed. I thought back to a time when I’d seen a card trick or two on The Tonight Show and wanted so much to figure out how he did it. I looked further into those ones. I wasn’t gonna let an internet magician break my mind. After a quick internet search, I realized that the tricks they did were pretty simple. They just involved one or two big sleight of hand moves mixed with some misdirection from the magician’s eyes. I tried to think of what this park magician did and figure it out myself, but nothing came to mind. My curiosity was getting the better of me.

“A magician never reveals his secrets.” The most annoying thing a magician can say.

“Did you switch out the decks?” A difficult trick that I’ve seen other magicians do. The way this guy was handling his cards, I didn’t think it shocking that he would be able to pull it off.

He laughed. Only a short chuckle, but it was clear how much I was amusing him. “Haha, I’ll tell you what. Come back again this week and I’ll show you another one. If you can guess how I did it I’ll show you how I do them all.”

I smirked. I liked this guy. I’d never spoken to a homeless man in this much depth before. They never really have a lot to say on top of a quick request for money. He didn’t ask for money, just company. “You got a deal. Have you eaten tonight?” His smile vanished. He lowered his head and looked at my chest while he solemnly shook his head.

I reached into my bag of McDonalds, grabbed the double cheeseburger and fries and handed it to the bench magician. “Oh no, are you sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I always get extra when I go to McDonalds. I’ve got enough for myself.”

“Haha yup, I hear that. Thank you, little boss. You know, I used to work at McDonalds. There were a lotta homies like you who did that same thing.”

“Did you really? What was it like?” I know it was a weird question, but the first question that came to mind didn’t seem like an appropriate thing to say given the situation.

He took fry out of the bag which he’d placed on his bench on the other side of the picture and ate it. “Everything sucked except the food.”

“So that’s why you quit?”

“That’s a longer story,” he said before stuffing two fries into his mouth. His tone changed here. Up until this, he’d been upbeat, but he delivered that sentence like someone would come after him if he shared the truth.

“Understandable. I didn’t catch your name by the way.”

“Cooper.”

I was getting busy at work but managed to see Cooper a few times a week. He’d show me a card trick, I’d try and figure out how he did it and be wrong every time. I was fine looking up the solutions to David Blane’s tricks but I always felt wrong about looking up Cooper’s. I wanted to just guess one right and feel a sense of accomplishment, and I think I wanted Cooper to be proud of me too.

By the time February hit, I’d seen five of Cooper’s tricks and guessed none of them correctly. I was like Penn and Teller if they went to culinary school instead of the magic academy. I would go to first ave and patronize a different restaurant at least two times a week, buying twice the food I normally would and giving half to Cooper on my way back. I would try to stick to Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday but would often miss Thursdays because we tend to have late deadlines at work.

Cooper was especially a fan of the Korean barbeque chicken fingers I would get. He’d apparently never had them before, so I tried to go to the Korean bbq place more often. His favorite meal was soy garlic Korean fried chicken fingers with crispy steak fries and an Arnold Palmer from the bodega nextoor. I was happy that he liked it so much cuz that’s my favorite too and it gave me an excuse to go more often.

When we got to March, I noticed something change with Cooper. It wasn’t a big change. He still wore the same jacket, pants, hat, etc. The only difference was the deck of cards. Once the blue one started to get stale he switched it out for a brand new red one.

It was March 13th. I had seen twenty-eight of his tricks, never guessing a single one right. It was a Korean bbq day. We’d gotten Cooper’s favorite meal and I decided for the first time to sit with him and eat. I planted my butt down on his right and put my food on my right.

“So where’d you learn all these tricks from?” I’d been curious about this for over a month now, but only now felt comfortable enough with him to ask. I didn’t know what I was gonna hear. There aren’t usually happy stories that result in a person living on a park bench.

“My pop taught me. Long time ago.” That was the extent of the explanation. He looked straight forward as he said it, then took a bite of one of a tender.

I picked up a tender to do the same, but due to a slight lack of coordination, I hit myself in the side of the mouth and it fell to the bench and slid beneath Cooper’s blanket. “Oh, my bad. I’ll grab that.” I reached down to lift up the blanket and was a little shocked by what I saw.

There was an empty medical syringe with a thick piece of fabric wrapped and tied around it next to an unopened pack of green bicycle playing cards and a small bag filled with a grey substance. He saw that I noticed and took a deep breath. No big reaction. No attempt to hide it.

“Cooper,” I was still looking at the contents below the blanket. “What is this?”

He took another deep breath. “That’s the reason I don’t work at McDonalds no more.”

“How long?”

“This ain’t none of your concern little boss.”

“Cooper. I-”

“Let me worry about this, alright? It ain’t none of your concern.”

I said “okay,” grabbed my food, said goodnight, and headed back to my apartment.

I had no experience with anything like this. I didn’t know anything about it except for what I learned in health class in high school. Cooper was better than that. He’s a decent person, and decent people don’t do things like that. At least, that’s what my health teacher told me.

The first thing I did when I got home was hit the internet. It didn’t take a lot of searching to find a few homeless shelters in New York City that also offer rehab programs. I downloaded the files and emailed them to myself so I could print them out at work the next day.

March 14th. I walked up to Cooper with two Mcdonalds meals and five sheets of paper. I stood right in front of him and handed the papers over. “What is this?” He asked.

“Cooper, you’re a smart guy. You don’t have to live like this. They have programs that can clean you up and get you on your feet. You can get a real job and an apartment. And you can get a computer and learn some more card tricks. And maybe you can see her again.” I gestured to the photo on his left. It hadn’t moved in two months.

He glazed over the first page and crumbled up the stack of papers, then grabbed the photo, placing it on his lap to get a better view. “Nah, little boss. It ain’t gonna work.”

“How would you know without giving it a chance? That’s what these places are here for.”

He thought hard about what to say next, leaving me in suspense for a few seconds. “Cuz that’s how I got a job at McDonalds.”

I looked over at him with bewilderment. I had no idea what he meant by it. He’d apparently been to several of these places before. The first time was three years agol. He was living with his sister and baby niece in the apartment that their mother left them. He was working as a night security guard at a movie theater. A job which he absolutely hated.

“I got into it after high school. One of my boys gave me a hit and I got hooked fast. Sis found out and sent me to one of these places for the first time. It was hell.”

He went through withdrawal for the first time in rehab. He got through the hard part after a gruelling few months, and convinced the workers and himself that he was over it. He got out after six months. They told his theater that he was cleared for work and they allowed him to return.

“I went back to my crap life. I could barely ever even see my niece cuz I had to go off to work before she got back from school. Her name’s Denise. She was five when I went for the first time. Without her in my life, only one thing ever made me happy, so I went right back to it and ended up right back in that hell hole.”

He was in for a full year this time, double the normal rehab sentence. He spent his days in meetings with people he couldn’t stand, eating the same food every week and missing the only things in his life that he cared about. He would get to call his niece only when they allowed him to use the phones. He spent all his free time teaching himself new card tricks and flares.

“They didn’t heat the rooms cuz they thought the body heat of fifteen of us would be enough to warm us up at night. They don’t know nothing. When one of them would throw up in the room they’d wait till morning to clean it. I went through hell for a year so they could give me a good word with goddamn McDonalds. I was working half at night and half during the day. I was seeing Denise way more than I ever did. I don’t know why I did what I did.”

He went right back to the drugs. This time, when his sister found out and tried to put him back into rehab, he refused. He stopped going into work, cashed his last paycheck, and took it with him when his sister kicked him out.

“She lets me go back in once a month to shower and spend an hour with Denise as long as I’m not high,” he struggled through this last sentence. His voice started to shake. “Says I’m a bad influence on her. She loves magic tricks. You should see her little face when I show her one,” he let out a sad, little giggle. “It kinda looks like yours- confused but impressed.” He looked up at me and caught my eye. His eyes were tinted red, beginning to fill with water. “This is where I belong. It ain’t gonna change. I really appreciate you coming around man. But you gotta let this go. No one’s saving me”

It didn’t feel right to say nothing, but I did. I nodded and told him I’d see him later. I went back home and ate my McDonalds in silence, distracted by thoughts of how I could help Cooper- a guy who didn’t want to be helped and maybe couldn’t be helped. What could I possibly do? I absolutely didn’t know better than the professionals at the rehab center. If they weren’t helping him, nothing would.

I kept visiting like I’d been doing for a few months. Each time I would bring him some food, he’d show me a card trick, I’d guess incorrectly how to do it and I’d head back. I never brought up our conversation from March 14th. Every once in awhile, his equipment would stick out from beneath the blanket. All I could do was glance at it and avert my gaze as fast as my neck muscles would allow.

I kept it up until June 17th. I got four slices of pizza from the dollar pizzeria on 2nd ave and entered the park. The days were getting longer. There were a few more dogs in the park than usual. The robins had returned and a scurry of black squirrels ran up the big tree in the middle of the field.

I took my usual route to Cooper’s bench and for the first time in over five months, Cooper wasn’t there. All his things were gone too. No cards, no picture of Denise. I’ve been going back every other night for two weeks now and haven’t seen him yet. I hope he’s okay. I won’t pretend I know him, or even have the slightest clue as to what’s going on in his head. I hope he comes back soon, not to live in the park, I just want to see my friend again.