Just a Little Magic Ch. 03

If the person's thoughts were organized, it felt like being forced to listen to a loud person on their phone. Thank you very much for sharing your personal business with us - and it ain't all that interesting.

There were exceptions. Neither Lillian nor Janine had ever warned about the possible dangers of listening to people's unguarded moments. Some people are just ... sad. Or messed up. My heart went out to them.

Sometimes, I was even tempted to help. There are people who are just crying on the inside, damaged and ... broken. I was just smart enough to know that an 18 year-old ex-virgin who's trying to learn magic is probably not going to be much of a life coach.

And then there was the day that I did intervene. I was reaching out to a reasonably cute girl of about my own age, wondering if she'd noticed me when I got on the bus.

She hadn't. She was too wrapped up in her own fear. She was terrified. Of someone else. The poor girl was afraid to get off the bus, imagining that this guy was going to follow her home. Her imagination was running wild with all the possible horrible things he might do to her. Screaming at her, or grabbing her roughly were the least of them.

Ex-boyfriend. Bad breakup - I got that much. The rest of her fears were tumbling all over themselves like laundry in a dryer.

The source of her terror had to be nearby. I took a quick look at the back of the bus. There he was. Arms crossed, glaring at the back of her head.

I switched my concentration to him. It wasn't hard to pick up his thoughts: he only had one. 'Fuckin' bitch, fuckin' bitch ...' repeated over and over.

This guy might be dangerous - to her, anyway. He didn't scare me much. He wasn't very big, and didn't look very strong. It didn't matter, though: he was deliberately stalking and terrorizing this defenceless girl, and I decided to do something about it.

I got up, and went over to sit down beside the girl. She was so startled, she jumped.

- "It's okay." I said. "I'm a friend. Of yours - not of his. Yeah, I know he's back there."

Now the poor girl looked terrified and confused.

I handed her my wallet, and showed her my I.D.. "My name is Peter Grey. See the picture on my driver's license? I know - it's pretty bad - but that really is me."

"Look - I'm just going to get off the bus when you do, and walk you home, okay? That's all. He won't do anything if I'm there. Nothing bad is going to happen today. Not as long as I'm with you."

It might have been my naked sincerity, or my singular craziness, but the poor girl calmed down a bit. I got her to tell me her name - Lynn - and found out that her mother was home.

We got off the bus at her stop, and walked down the street together. Yes, stalker-boy was following, but at a distance.

I chatted with Lynn asking about her family - did she have a father? An older brother? It turned out that she had three older male relatives. She just hadn't told them about her ex because she wasn't be supposed to be dating at all.

- "You should tell them, Lynn. Even if you get into trouble, you need your family on your side."

She seemed to take my advice to heart. At the door to her house, she stopped.

- "Th-thank you."

- "You're welcome. Lock the door behind you - just in case."

- "I will." With that, she went inside. My job was done. I felt like Batman for a brief moment. Actually, this sort of semi-heroic act felt more like something Robin might do.

As I turned to leave, Lynn's ex came walking by, still glaring, to get a better look at me. On impulse, I pulled out my phone and snapped his picture.

- "What the fuck?" he snarled.

- "Anything happens to her - and your picture goes straight to the cops."

That was pretty much the end of my little tale. Janine was frowning at me.

- ""That was an incredibly stupid thing to do."

Her mother reached out and put a hand on her arm. "I think he was very brave." said Lillian. "Yes, he should be more careful. But all's well that ends well, I think. This time."

They decided to teach me - right away - what might happen if tried to mind-read the wrong person.

- "You never know." said Janine. "Anybody could have talent - and they might know how to use it. So we're going to show you what that might look like. Try to read my mind."

- "Really?"

- "Go ahead. Whenever you're ready."

I concentrated, and reached out for her thoughts. Janine was looking away from me. But I still ran right into a stone wall. That's exactly what it felt like: a solid wall. Too high to see over, too long to go around.

"I knew you were coming." she said.

- "Try waiting a few minutes." said Lillian."Longer, if you can. Janine and I will just sit here, watching television. It's much harder to keep your defences up with a TV on. See if you can catch us unaware."

- "Okay." I settled down to watch the show, determined to wait until after the next commercials before I tried again.

Janine first - she seemed to have become engrossed in the show. The moment I reached for her, though ... the wall went up. Instantly. If I could have slowed it down - and watched it in slow motion - I had the impression that I could have seen the stones piling up, one atop the other, and spreading out in every direction.

Lillian didn't appear to have noticed. I reset myself, and concentrated on her. For a moment there, I thought that I saw something ... and then a curtain was drawn. It was followed by thick drapes, and then a flexible metal door, like you might see pulled down outside a downtown shop at closing time.

Neither of them seemed angry that I'd failed.

- "If that happens with someone else, though," said Lillian, "you have to back off right away. Immediately. Then you can apologize, or run. An apology is more proper, though."

- "I don't understand, Lillian. How can I read your mind when we're doing the card tricks?"

- "Because I let you see what I want to, Pete. Here - try again."

I reached out again, a little more tentatively. I saw an image of an open doorway, as if there was a room behind it. I could hear Lillian's voice: 'Eight of clubs, four of diamonds ... and what else is back here?'

I crept a little closer - mentally. Just as I got the point where I might see something inside that room, the curtain swept closed - followed by the heavy drapes.

- "Wow!" I was honestly impressed.

- "We can teach you to put up your own defences." said Janine.

And they spent the better part of the next three days doing exactly that.

***

Mom was worried about me; I hadn't tried very hard to find a summer job.

- "Don't worry about it." said Janine. "There are other ways to make money."

- "Legal ways?"

- "Of course. Crime doesn't pay, Pete - didn't you know that?"

We were going to need money - I knew that. Neither Janine nor her mother appeared to have a job, and I didn't ask. But all three of us needed cash, for living expenses, to jazz up my magic act, buy costumes and such. Eventually, we were going to need serious dollars for travel and expenses. How were we going to do that?

- "Are you going to find out the winning lottery numbers?" I asked.

Lillian shook her head. "When I look into the future, I see people - not things. I can't just go forward in time, and read the results in a newspaper."

- "Couldn't you just follow the person who draws or announces the numbers?"

Mother and daughter exchanged a look.

- "Okay, Pete." said Janine. "Mom won a lottery years ago. It was a big one. Enough to buy this apartment outright, and to take care of us for a while. But doing it again? That would attract far too much attention. We don't want to be subjected to that degree of scrutiny."

- "What if I won it?" I suggested.

- "No. Five years from now, you're going to be world famous. Some of your fans - and maybe some journalists - are going to start digging into your past. 'Mentalist wins lottery' is not the kind of headline we want."

I wasn't entirely convinced, but they talked me out of the lottery idea.

- "So it's back to the original question: how are we going to make money?"

- "Have you ever played poker?" asked Lillian.

They taught me Texas Hold'Em, 5-card stud, draw poker, and a whole slew of other varieties. It didn't really matter; poker is a remarkably easy game when you know what your opponents have.

In this case, it wasn't quite like hearing their voices - it was more like looking over their shoulders, seeing exactly which cards they held. I had a few qualms about that.

- "Isn't this cheating?"

Janine sighed. "Pete, you have three queens."

- "What? You're reading my mind?" I should have felt something, should've been able to raise my defences.

- "I don't have to. When that ten came up on the river, your eyes gave you away. You saw that there was no possible combination to make a straight or a flush. No card higher than your queens. Your fingers twitched, and you glanced at your chips, trying to figure out how big a bet you were going to make."

"Those are tells. Any pro who sees you do that is going to figure out what you have. See? Reading tells, reading minds ... not that different, are they?"

I wasn't sure that I agreed, but I was crazy about her, so I didn't argue the point. Janine had fucked me twice in the week after my Prom, and twice the week after that. If she was really pleased with my progress, she blew me, first. Otherwise, I had to go down on her to get her 'warmed up' - which was no hardship at all.

Lillian continued to tutor me in magic, while Janine taught me how to walk, talk, and dress. "Clothes make the man." she reminded me.

- "I never really bought into that."

- "How about this, then: You need all the help you can get."

She also trained me in composure, which basically consisted of smiling mysteriously while keeping my mouth shut.

"If you're not sure what to say, don't say anything."

She taught me patience, too. "Slow down! What's your hurry? Nothing is going to happen until we get there."

Janine reinforced that lesson by promising that we would have sex as soon as we got back to her place - and then proceeding to make me wait.

- "All good things ..." she would remind me.

- "I know." I could afford to take it in good humour: I was an 18 year-old, having regular sex with the most beautiful woman in the Greater Metro area.

***

Janine hosted a small poker party. The two of us, plus 5 other people. She coached me, beforehand.

- "I'm your out - understand? You can lose to me. They'll get suspicious if you win every hand. Lose some small pots here and there. Don't be afraid to bluff and get called - especially by me. If you get caught a few times, it'll make it more likely that they'll call when you do have the nuts."

One of the players was a girlfriend of hers, named Eva. She was pretty enough, I suppose, but she couldn't hold a candle to Janine. The other four were college-aged guys, named Mirek, Scott, Rick, and Weed (I never learned his real name).

I was definitely the odd man out. They all knew each other, and I was by far the youngest person there. Janine was only a few months older than me, of course, but no one would ever have guessed.

As I said before, poker is remarkably easy when you know what the other players are holding. Scott was quite aggressive, early on; I called his bluff once, with only a pair of threes (he was going with a King high). He was incredulous - but he did reach for his wallet to buy more chips, and get back in the game.

My cards were awful. It can be a frustrating game, when your hands resemble feet. I bluffed anyway, as Janine had suggested. Won two, lost two (one of those to her).

Poker can also be extremely frustrating when you go into the river, or the last draw, knowing that you have the best hand, only for your opponent to fill an inside straight on the last card.

I have to admit, though, that I was a bit distracted by the players' other surface thoughts. I wasn't skilled enough, yet, to immediately separate thoughts about cards from other information, from idle musings to stream of consciousness bullshit.

Mirek was singing to himself - the same song, over and over. Both Scott and Rick were picturing Janine naked. They'd both had sex with her before. Rick was pissed off because she'd only fucked him once, and then dumped him. Scott was hoping for a repeat - tonight, as a matter of fact.

Weed was thinking about Eva, who was the most troubling of all, because she was thinking about me. No, not in that way. She was wondering what I was doing here. I didn't play like a mark, which confused her. Why was I here, if it wasn't to take all of my money?

She was also remarkably perceptive. Sitting on an open-ended straight draw, she was trying to guess what I had. What does the dweeb have? Kings? Have to remember to ask Janine what he's doing here. High pair? Shit!

Eva didn't hit her straight, and had to fold. I'd been holding Queens. How had she known?

When they finally called it quits, around 4 a.m., Janine was up $50. Eva had won $100. The four guys had all lost - to me. I had $350 in winnings.

- "Off night for you, Janine?" said Eva. I got the impression that my tutor was usually among the bigger winners.

The four guys went home disappointed (except for Weed, who was both drunk and high). No nookie for them, and they'd lost heavily to a teenage geek.

When they were all out the door, Janine gave me a big hug.

- "Easy, right? she said.

- "Except for Eva. She knew what I had, half the time. She was also wondering why I was here at all."

- "That's fine. You knew better than to bluff her - and I'll tell Eva about us eventually. But you did really well, considering how shitty your cards were for most of the night."

- "You were reading my cards?" I wondered why I hadn't sensed her reaching into my mind.

- "Duh!" she said. "I didn't want to win from you too much. Or lose to you."

- "Were you ... reading the other players' ...?" Even as I asked, I knew that she had.

- "Look, Pete ... I had a short relationship with Scott. And a one-night stand with Rick - which was a mistake. Those are over and done with. Both were before you. Don't get your shorts in a knot, okay?"

- "I won't."

- "What you and I have - what we're doing, long term ... it's too important."

She kissed me, and looked me in the eye.

"I'm wiped now." she said. "But how about a dinner for two, Monday night?"

- "I think I'm free."

***

Janine organized another 'friendly' game three weeks later. She wanted to make sure, she said, that my modest success the first time was no fluke.

- "Take them for everything they have, Pete." she told me. "Don't worry about offending them - you'll never see any of them again."

It wasn't all that friendly a game. Eva was still aggressively trying to figure me out. Scott and Rick were still focused on Janine. Bryan and Raman, two new players ... well, I didn't like any of their thoughts about Janine - or about me.

They didn't like me much, either - especially after I won $800 from them.

***

While I studied and practiced poker, Lillian and Janie were also helping me to prepare a routine of some kind for my magic shows. I could read minds - but how was I to turn that into an interesting show?

- "He needs a name." said Janine.

- "I like Peter Grey." said Lillian. "Not white, or black magic. Grey. Until we think of something better, anyway."

I needed to choose some style elements, too. That was one reason they'd sent me that DVD when I was 14 - so that I could see some of the great performers, and begin to think about a style I might adopt.

I loved Apollo Robbins and Shin Lim - I just couldn't do what they did. I wasn't as glib as Robbins, or as charismatic as Lim, and I certainly couldn't match their skill.

- "That's true." said Janine. "You suck at sleight of hand."

I wasn't going to be David Blaine or Criss Angel, either, with their air of mystery and danger. Escape artistry wasn't for me. Frankly, some of their stunts just plain terrified me.

After watching Lance Burton do a crazy trick on a giant roller coaster, I was completely convinced that that style wasn't for me. He seemed to escape the path of an onrushing car at the last split-second. Then I saw him interviewed afterwards. Burton looked straight into the camera.

- "I was stupid." he said. "I was really stupid."

Mentalism was going to be my thing - only, how was I going to make it exciting? If it wasn't cool, or dramatic ... how would that attract women? Specifically, the women I was trying to save.

*****

[1] Screaming Jay Hawkins did the original. Annie Lennox covered it, as did many others. Nina Simone's version is a classic. Creedence Clearwater Revival did a nice job of it, too.