Chapter One
Reluctant as I am to begin this tale on a sour note, knowing how a reader likes a cheerful story, I nonetheless must report that on that particular Sunday evening in 1928 I was five weeks short of the time my father's curse would kill me.
On that evening in question, arriving on the pier in Venice, California, wearing my dad's fancy tux, desperate for rent money, I was in trouble as only a young fellow can be in trouble when he's closer to dying than he is to living.
My cousin Megan, a witch who knows of such things, says there is always a way around a curse. All I had to do was find that which cannot be found. So there you go. A little optimism. Find what cannot be found. No problem at all.
What's that you say? How do you find something that cannot be found?
Well, that's the problem, isn't it?
But not to dwell on these things. I am here to tell a story, not to make you feel all miserable, although a little sympathy for yours truly wouldn't be out of place, I don't think, since what I am about to relate doesn't always put me in the best light. Better to get you feeling sorry for me right off the top, I would say. That way, farther down the line, you'll be more willing to overlook my considerable shortcomings.
My first customers happened along a few moments after I set up the small sign I'd had specially painted. It's not every night a fellow shows up on the pier in white tie and tails. It's like my dad always said, you look at a man in a tux and everyone sees a gentleman---and everyone takes a gentleman seriously.
They had to be sisters, ten and twelve I would say, not great prospects, but better than nothing. They looked like they'd just been ironed, and they both had dark hair done up in luxurious ringlets, cheeks rosy, and eyes bright with fascination, willing to believe anything.
Well, just about anything.
"You really a magic man, like the sign says?" asked the older and more forward of the two.
"Why would I say such a thing if it wasn't true?" I demanded, adding the twinkle to my eye. "Don't I look like an honest fellow to you?"
"Not exactly," said the older girl.
I chose not to take offense, for if the truth were to be told, I am not such an honest fellow. But that's the point, is it not? To convince folks you are what you aren't.
"On this pier they don't allow us to tell lies," I reassured her. "You are in luck, for I am indeed a magic man. Brae Orrack by name, magic man by trade and inclination. What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Pauline, but I ain't your sweetheart. Mom says I'm too young for sweethearts."
"Right she is about that," I said. "And what about your sister here?"
She was the smaller of the two, and shy, given to gnawing away at her knuckle as she stared up at me through thick eyelashes.
"How do you know she's my sister?"
"That's why I'm a magic man, you see. I know these things."
"Then you should know her name," Pauline replied reasonably.
"It's Annie," I said.
The eyes of the little girls grew larger, and the revelation had the effect of drawing Annie out of her shyness, and even convinced her to cease gnawing on her knuckle. "How did you know?" Annie asked.
"Magic," I said. And good eyesight that allowed me to see the name on her charm bracelet. But they didn't need to know that. Much of my largely misspent life was caught up with persuading folks young and old that I knew a good deal more than I actually did. It's a talent often overlooked, but one that should never be underestimated, particularly in a young fellow untried in the world, but meaning---with the help of smart evening clothes---to give the opposite impression.
"Okay, so you're a magician," said the older girl, Pauline. "Like the guy Annie had at her birthday party last year."
"He made eggs come out of kids' ears," affirmed Annie. "Can you do that?"
"And he wore a scarf around his head, too," chimed in Pauline, as though that were the clincher.
"You must understand, there is a great difference between a magician and a magic man," I said in my most authoritative voice.
"There is?" said Pauline.
"Indeed. A magician knows tricks, sleight of hand, how to deceive the eye. A magic man, on the other hand, is a highly trained individual knowledgeable in the dark art of conjuring."
"What's conjuring?" demanded little Annie.
"Turning stones to bees, that's conjuring," I said.
"You can turn stones to bees?" Pauline sounded dubious.
"Where I come from, that's about the first thing you learn."
"We're from Encino," said Annie. "They teach us to mind our manners and not to speak until we're spoken to. Nothing about turning stones to bees."
"That's the difference," I said. "I come from the land of magic and superstition, a place where the power of Satan and the evil eye transfix everyone, where always it's the funeral plumes and never the bridal roses, where the curse on souls and the getting of revenge endures over love. It is the land that ruined my youth and haunts my life."
"Boy, that doesn't sound much like any place around here!" Pauline said.
"Is that why you left home?" demanded Annie. "Because it was so awful?"
"That was one of the reasons all right. But I also left because I had to find that which cannot be found."
"What's that?" Pauline wanted to know.
"Love," I said.
They both wrinkled their faces. "Is that something you can find?" asked Pauline.
"I have to believe it is."
"Doesn't sound like much fun," said Annie.
"So far it hasn't been," I admitted. "In all honesty, I'm not even sure what I'm looking for. Alls I know is that I have to find it in the next month."
"Why?"
"Because if I don't, the curse my father put inside my body will kill me."
They stared at me for a long time. Annie spoke first. "Your daddy doesn't sound like a very nice person."
"I'm afraid he's not," I said.
"Is your father here?"
"Thankfully, no," I said.
"Where is he?"
"A long, long way from here."
Indeed John Orrack or, as we knew him, the Great Orrack, was so far away it might as well have been another planet. And I wasn't exaggerating when I said it truly was a place of darkness, where the funeral plumes smothered the bridal roses every time. It haunted my life, haunts it to this day, in fact. I was lucky to escape although, of course, I did not really escape at all.
Still, being cursed and on the run had led me to this wondrous place, and so I couldn't be too bitter, I suppose. Before arriving in Venice, California, I had barely even heard of a roller coaster, let alone actually seen one. In fact, before I got here I thought the only Venice in the entire world was the one in Italy, and I'm willing to bet Megan thought the same thing. Fancy my surprise then upon arriving and finding there was a second Venice, for all I knew more impressive than the first.
Here, they had roller coasters everywhere, and from what I hear the Italian Venice has no roller coasters at all. The roller coasters had names such as the Giant Dipper, Some Kick, High Boy, and the Chute. There were fun houses, miniature auto speedways, roller-skating rinks, flying planes, Ferris wheels, and carousels. There was the Toonerville Fun House, a Glass House, a whip ride, and a Dragon Bamboo Slide. There was billiards and bowling and you could dance all night and on Sundays, too. Dancing on Sundays. Impossible. I'd never heard of being able to do anything on a Sunday, let alone dance. Mind you, at the Venice Ball Room, beneath the big American flags, the hanging lights, and the red, white, and blue bunting, attendants kept a sharp eye. Any couple on the polished hardwood floor spotted with their cheeks together was politely tapped on the shoulder and ordered to move apart.
In this fantastical Venice, I had rented a room on the second floor of a pink boardinghouse that backed onto the Cabrillo Canal, part of the network of waterways created by a cigarette manufacturer named Abbot Kinney. He wanted a California Venice just like the Italian Venice, and since he was richer than anything imaginable, he could damn well get what he wanted. Imported gondolas glided along canals forty-feet wide, filled four-feet deep with seawater forced in by the high tides and retained via a series of locks. There were arching footbridges and an elegant hotel called the St. Marks with columns and arcades reminiscent of a doge's palazzo, where hot salt water was piped into each room. Not that they would ever have allowed the likes of me into them, of course, but these are the stories you heard, and I had no reason to discount them. There was also a restaurant shaped like a Spanish galleon where each night an armor-suited trumpeter appeared to sound the end of the day.
On the weekends, thousands packed themselves onto the beach under umbrellas, luxuriating in the sand and a broiling sun, awaiting the evening and the good times to be had in such abundance on the Venice and Ocean piers. Now they swarmed past, headed for the farthest reaches of the pier. Particularly popular that summer was the Some Kick that dominated the far end. Everyone wanted a ride on it. The young men and women dressed formally for the occasion, the men wearing jackets and ties, and a hat of some sort. Straw boaters were popular that year, although the fedora remained a staple. The women, too, almost invariably wore a headpiece, silly little straw hats being popular, perhaps to match the straw boaters of their male escorts.
By now I'd attracted a few more customers; a guy in one of those straw boaters, trousers held with suspenders, a smile a little too crooked, and eyes a little too bright. His corpulent girlfriend was all done up in rouge and lipstick so that her face in this light looked as though it was made of wax. There was an elderly couple; him rail thin and slightly stooped so as to more easily talk to his tiny wife, who tottered like a windup doll. I liked the elderly couple. They looked as though they might believe anything, even a magic man on a Venice pier. These were curious things of which I spoke, things not generally heard amid the clang and clatter of roller coasters.
"He can turn stones to bees," little Annie announced to the crowd.
"Let's see you do it," said the guy in the straw boater.
"Ah, you see," I said, "that's the part of all this that costs."
"This is crazy," said the guy in the straw boater. "This guy's got as much chance of turning stones to bees as I do of turning my farts to gold."
Exactly what I wanted to hear; a man who sees easy money in the offing is the man with whom I can do business. "You may be right, my friend. But one dollar says you aren't."
"A buck, huh? You don't turn that stone into a bee, you pay me a buck, that it?"
"My misfortune to have encountered a formidable mathematician this evening," I lamented.
"I'll take some of that," said the old gent. He slapped a one-dollar bill down on the table.
"Guess I will, too," said the guy in the straw boater.
"We don't have any money," said Annie mournfully.
"Don't worry about it," I said, giving them a sympathetic smile. "I'm sure there are lots of other well-heeled folks here this evening delighted to finance such an amazing spectacle."
That created a general murmuring among my listeners. One thing to hear a fellow go on when it's not going to cost; another to lay money on the line. Still, there was the prospect of reward if I failed to deliver. And after all, when you think about it, who in the world could ever turn a stone into a bee? It began to look to most of these folks like that easy money you always hear about, the stuff the movie stars and railway tycoons are always showered with, but never the ordinary fellow like you or me. Three other gents soon plunked down their hard-earned dollar bills.
I reached into my pocket and withdrew three round stones, placed them in the palm of my hand, and held them out to little Annie. "I want you to pick one of the stones."
She hesitated, and then grabbed the middle stone. "Good," I said. "Now I want you to toss it as high as you can into the air."
"Hold on," said the guy in the straw boater, stepping forward and snapping at those suspenders of his like he was the most important gent in the world. "How do we know this isn't some sort of setup---you in cahoots with these here kids?"
The overweight doll-face with him looked tremendously impressed. I gave them one of my best smiles.
"All right, sir, then by all means, take the stone from the child's hand, and toss it into the air for me."
"How about I pick another stone?"
"You'll disappoint a sweet little girl, but go ahead."
He chose another stone from my palm, turned it over in his fingers a couple of times so as to ensure it contained no bees, shrugged, then heaved it into the air.
The stone looped up into the starry California sky, and then started to arc downward. It wasn't necessary for me to do anything, since all these things are accomplished by the mind, but a little showmanship never hurts. After all, it's all show, isn't it? You don't really believe a fellow such as myself, cursed and dying as I am, could actually turn a stone into a bee. ‘Course not. You're smart enough not to buy such a preposterous claim on your common sense, I'm sure. I'll fool these other suckers, not you.
So I threw out my arm, and the stone exploded in a tiny puff of smoke. There was the sound of buzzing, and the bee zipped past the end of the nose of the guy in the straw boater, causing him to jump back in alarm.
A series of gasps and squeals went up from my little audience, accompanied by delighted applause from Annie.
"Well, I'll be damned," said the guy in the straw boater as I collected my money.
A slim woman, the perfectly dressed type who would only tolerate perfectly dressed daughters, appeared and called out to Pauline and Annie. "We have to go now, mister," said Pauline. She took her sister's hand, and started off toward their mother. Annie pulled away long enough to say, "Good luck, mister. You know what?"
"What, Annie?"
"I really do believe you are a magic man."
"Then you've made me a very happy man indeed," I called after her. Their mother took her daughters' hands and whisked them off to what I hoped would be a life for them as perfect as their clothes. Alas, that's not quite the way it works, now is it? But one can live in hope.
The other onlookers began to drift off. The overweight woman pulled at the sleeve of the guy in the straw boater, but he didn't want to move. He snapped at his suspenders, and watched the bee as it continued buzzing around. "There's a trick," he pronounced. "Got to be a trick. There's always a trick."
He showed me another dollar bill. "It's yours. All you got to do is tell me how you do it."
I smiled. "Maybe you should consider this, my friend: maybe the trick is, there's no trick at all."
"What are you trying to say, all this hooey you been feeding us is true? You really can turn stones to bees?"
I allowed my smile to grow wider. That only served to agitate him.
That's when the cop appeared; a skinny guy, the brass buttons of his hip-length blue tunic done right up to his chin despite the evening heat, the big badge flashing on his chest, the midway light reflecting off the visor of his cap positioned just so atop his fat head. Ah, for a world where the flatfoot doesn't make his appearance when you least want him. I would actively campaign for such a world myself, and I suspect I would quickly gain many supporters.
As soon as the guy in the straw boater spotted the cop, he started waving his hands. "Hey! Over here! This son of a bitch is trying to cheat me!"
The cop had the face of a weasel and the suspicious eyes of his kind. "What's going on?"
I tried to look as innocent as I possibly could, an impersonation that in the past I have not proved to be very good at.
"This guy swindled me out of a buck, that's what's going on."
I might as well have been caught red-handed holding up a bank. The cop gave me the up-and-down with those suspicious eyes, before inspecting my little sign.
"Right, you're a magic man," he said with a sneer. "You got a permit to be out here on the pier?"
"Didn't know you need a permit," I said.
"The guy got five bucks from me and a couple of other poor suckers," the guy in the straw boater said. "Police should be out here protecting people from this sort of shakedown."
I still had the money in my hand. The cop helped himself to it. "Better let me have that," he said.
"That's my money," I said in an agitated voice.
The cop knew of these things. He immediately saw the desperation on my face, and knew that he was about to win this nothing encounter, and I was going to lose, as guys like myself always lose. He touched at the shiny peak of his official cap. "You want to spend the night in jail, pal, open your mouth one more time."
And, of course, I did not want to spend the night in jail and therefore I kept my big yap shut. I longed to brain the bastard, let them both have it, and there was a day when I would have done just that. But that was another day, not today at all. Today, I kept quiet and contented myself with a suitably sullen look.
The cop had seen lots of sullen young fellows like myself, and could have cared less. He handed the money over to the guy in the straw boater. "Shouldn't allow shysters like this out here, shaking down decent folks," the man in the straw boater snarled.
The cop was looking at me in a different manner, seeing that something had happened to my face. "What's the matter with you, pal? It's like all of a sudden you're not here."
The bitter taste of almonds filled my mouth. The air went out of me and I found myself down on one knee, holding my stomach trying to get my breath back, a pain so deep and abiding that it took on a life of its own, as though it were happening to someone else. I rolled onto my side, going into a convulsion so intense my soul floated away from my body, at least that's how it felt. I peered down at myself twitching away and marveled at my dad's vengeful brilliance, the endlessly slow way in which he had decided to kill me. The cop bent over me and the shine of the brass buttons of his uniform seemed blinding. From a distance I heard him say, "You all right there, fella?"
"He's faking it." The guy in the straw boater was tensed forward so that his belly folded out over his waist, hanging between those suspenders like a beach ball. His girlfriend held her hands carefully on either side of her face, so as to seem shocked without disturbing her makeup.
The cop's sympathy was short-lived. He only had so much to give out each night, and he was unwilling to waste much of it on me. He said, "On your feet. Hear me? On your feet!"
I reentered my body in time to be jerked upright. The almond taste melted away and the spasms began to subside. I felt tired and confused, not sure where I was. But here was the cop to remind me. He was tough, this cop, particularly when it came to handling the poor and the sick. "Get off the pier. I don't want to see you here again, understand?"
He shoved me and I staggered away. I saw the old gent and his wife, curiously fragile now, as though they might break apart right there on the pier. They quickly turned their backs.
Then, unexpectedly, the almond taste returned. I clung to the railing as I went-into another convulsion, gritting my teeth, no choice but to ride it out, lamenting my misfortune at having ever been born. My father's curse was inside me. The attacks would only grow worse. I was a dead man.
Copyright © 2006 by Ron Base
