The Real Thing

by Marina Simcoe

  The camera zoomed in on his face then, and I got a clear view of his eyes through the slits of the mask.

  Suddenly, I knew exactly what he was feeling. His eyes said it all.

  He was bored.

  His head was tilted slightly to the side, and his eyes weren’t focused on anything in particular. He wasn’t looking at the edge of the opposite roof — his destination — nor was he looking down, watching his steps. His eyes had that vacant look, as if he was stuck in traffic or stood in a grocery checkout line, waiting for the time to pass.

  How could he not feel what everyone else felt at that moment? My own skin buzzed with excitement for him. He literally stood on top of the world right now! He should be enjoying the highest high possible in his occupation. Surely, weeks or even months of planning had been spent to bring him to this point! He was pulling off the perfect illusion in front of hundreds of thousands of live spectators and numerous TV cameras. Why did he look like he’d rather be anywhere but here?

  Once the question entered my head, it refused to leave. It continued to buzz at the back of my mind all through the night — like an annoying fly — demanding my attention.

  3. Back to Reality.

  “Hi, Lannister. Did you miss me?”

  My grey tabby cat sauntered into the hallway to greet me when I returned home to Toronto the next evening. It wasn’t his habit to be affectionate. Usually, he just ignored me between his mealtimes. He must have actually noticed this time that my absence lasted two days. Either that or his pet feeder was running low on food.

  Lannister was a stray I found outside of my apartment building about two years ago. I had no idea where he came from. In Toronto, you were ten times more likely to run into a family of raccoons crossing the street at night than to find a stray cat.

  The pet shelter where I took him had no information, so I ended up adopting him, even though I could hardly afford to keep a pet. Lannister was as cuddly as a rabid porcupine, and I didn’t think he had any chance of being adopted by anyone else.

  I’d been halfway through watching the new season of Game of Thrones when I found Lannister. Somehow, the way that cat looked at me reminded me of the cunning and backstabbing personalities of the Lannister family — hence his name.

  The cat turned around and walked straight to the kitchen. I tossed my travel bag in the corner and followed him, thinking that I should probably add a bag of cat food to my grocery list this week. It was amazing how much food he could eat considering he was an indoor cat now and spent most of his time napping. The cost of cat food added a sizable expense to my already stretched-to-the-limit budget.

  After getting my university degree, I was lucky enough to get a job in operations with a major transportation company. However, my expenses always managed to run slightly ahead of my salary, so I held onto my retail job too, just to help make ends meet.

  The part-time job of a sales associate in a shoe store didn’t offer much in terms of intellectual stimulation, but it did pay my bills while I was a full-time student. I still needed it now to help with student loans and other things that my regular salary didn’t cover. The forty percent employee discount on already reduced shoes was a huge incentive for me too.

  I fed Lannister — who immediately forgot about my existence again — and logged onto my laptop to check my email. I deliberately left the laptop at home and had my cell phone off while I was gone. I knew that an email from my mother was long overdue, especially after the over-the-top lavish Christmas gifts we got from our parents last month.

  Sure enough, there it was. She never asked me for money in person or by phone. She preferred to do it through email instead. Maybe because this way, she didn’t have to hear my voice or see my face, and therefore didn’t have to deal with whatever reaction she thought she might find there. Or maybe it was because this way, she felt she gave me the choice to delete and ignore her email; if I did reply, it would be because I wanted to, not because I had no other option.

  Was there any other option though? I knew my parents had to remortgage their house when they needed to pay for my brother’s rehab treatment. Long before that, they already struggled to pay their monthly bills, thanks to my mom’s spending habits that got out of control time and again. I knew that my father’s genius math skills remained purely academic, rendering him either unable or unwilling to deal with their financial situation. Instead, he gave my mother free reign of their accounts and credit cards, and now they could barely afford the house where my brother and I grew up.

  The house was one of the reasons why I could never ignore my mother’s monthly emails ever so subtly asking for money. It was my childhood home, the place where my family gathered every holiday. I would hate to see them sell it.

  The other reason of course was that they were my family. I was the oldest child. At the end of the day, I felt responsible and wanted to help any way I could: whether it was letting my brother stay with me when he had no place to go, or scraping every last bit from my checking account to make a mortgage payment for my parents.

  This was why I worked two jobs, why I watched every penny I spent, and why I closed my personal savings account long ago because I had nothing extra to put away.

  I opened my banking page and sent whatever money I could spare to my mother as fast as possible before I thought too much about it. This should buy me another month before her next email. Another month of a happy mother-daughter relationship, free of any money-problem talks. This alone should be worth all the money I sent to her every month, shouldn’t it?

  I closed my banking page and lingered in front of the computer. The eyes of the mysterious masked man, who walked across the sky, came to my mind as if from another life.

  Surely, Marcus the Magnificent had a very different life than mine. His must be full of fun, glamour, and excitement. Surely, he didn’t have to deal with money or family problems and never took on more responsibility than he could handle. His days were filled with magic and his nights were shrouded in mystery…

  I let my fingers type his name into the search bar of my browser. I wanted to see his face uncovered. Was it still as handsome and mysterious, or was Mikey right and the magic was in the mask?

  There were plenty of images under his name. Most of them were promotional posters, though, artfully designed and professionally photoshopped. He was even more handsome on them than I remembered from the giant screen on Times Square.

  On the posters, he was portrayed like a true magician — levitating in the air over the stage, with his arms spread wide, rays of light radiating from his fingers. On all the posters he wore a mask, and his eyes — an unnatural cerulean blue — glowed through its narrow slits.

  I searched for candid shots of him enjoying everyday life. There was none, as there wasn’t one of him without the mask either.

  A few grainy images from online tabloids showed him arriving at a party. On those, he was wearing what appeared to be his usual outfit: leather pants, a black t-shirt with a band logo on the front, and a long trench coat. Two incredibly beautiful women flanked him from both sides, smiling readily in the camera.

  Marcus was neither smiling nor frowning in the pictures. His expression was neutral, so neutral, in fact, that he again appeared bored.

  Who looked bored on their way to a party with a gorgeous woman on each arm? Why? The question nagged at me. Why didn’t he seem to enjoy his work or his life?

  4. My Obsession.

  I wasn’t sure how it happened exactly, but over the next several months, Marcus the Magnificent became an obsession. I had never cared that much about any celebrity before. I hardly even had a high school crush. Now, I couldn’t stop wanting to learn everything there was to know about the mysterious magician.

  Frustratingly, there wasn’t much to discover. I wasn’t even sure if Marcus was his real name. All of his social media accounts seemed to be run by an assistant and mostly contained promotional posters instead of personal photos. All posts in his name were
announcements of his upcoming performances and comments about his past acts.

  During the months of my obsession, his fame had risen. Shortly after the performance at Times Square, it was announced that he had signed a Vegas contract and would be starting his show in March.

  There were more pictures of him on the internet than before, but I still couldn’t find any without the mask. He wore it everywhere he went, to clubs and parties, and to every performance and interview. I wondered if he ever took it off at all, even at night.

  Well, at least his nightlife didn’t appear to be much of a mystery any more. Almost everywhere he went, he was accompanied by at least one, often two, and sometimes three beautiful women. I had yet to see any of the women twice. Of course, just because my own personal life was non-existent didn’t mean that everyone else had to practice abstinence or even restraint, as Marcus’s case seemed to be.

  For me — working two jobs and being constantly broke — the only way to live life vicariously was through Marcus. Ever since I broke up with Matt, or more precisely, since we drifted apart so far that breaking up was just a formality to end our non-existent relationship, I hadn’t dated anyone. Thinking about how much time, energy, and money dating would require made me put any thought of it on hold immediately. All I had the time and energy for after working all day at the office and then the late shift in the store was to watch a few YouTube videos of Marcus’s impromptu performances while I ate my dinner in front of the laptop screen, before going to bed.

  I wouldn’t deny that his apparent good looks — mysteriously concealed behind the black mask— fed my imagination, but he was also mesmerizingly good at what he did.

  Apparently, he loved giving free impromptu performances everywhere he went, and people adored him for it. There were hundreds of amateur videos taken all over North America when he was touring, and then from Las Vegas when his contract began.

  Over the months, I had seen Marcus walk on air between skyscrapers, towers and national monuments. He marched effortlessly up vertical walls. There were videos of him moving through solid panes of glass and through massive brick walls; videos of him levitating over lakes and rivers; and videos of him making a number of things disappear — anything from an elephant to a national monument — in front of many witnesses.

  Not one of these performances was scheduled in advance; and there were no tickets sold for any of them. Instead, they were announced on social media, with sometimes as little as one hour before they began.

  Not surprisingly, Marcus had millions of followers on the internet, stalking his every move, hoping to get to his next free show on time.

  My following him was slightly of a different nature. Sure, I would run as fast as my discounted trendy heels would carry me, were Marcus ever to visit Toronto and give a free performance anywhere within the city limits, but I wasn’t clicking through all his social media accounts and Googling his name over and over again every night in hopes for a free show.

  Marcus the Magnificent simply refused to leave my brain. He reigned over my imagination. He provided me with an escape from my own less than exciting life. Most importantly for me, he was still a mystery waiting to be solved. I continued to search obsessively for a picture of his face without the mask. I wanted to know why he did what he obviously didn’t enjoy doing.

  Watching many times every illusion he ever performed in public, recorded from every angle available, I also couldn’t help but wonder how he managed to execute each of them so flawlessly.

  I’d never been into magic shows before; I’d never even been to one. I knew that all magic tricks were smoke and mirrors, of course, but had never dwelled on technicality, until now.

  As I looked up performances by other illusionists out there, I began to see the difference: even though Marcus seemed to be doing the same acts that most others did, his always went a step further.

  Other illusionists walked on air or up vertical walls, but their acts could be explained as being staged and pre-recorded. Their professional videos were taken from one or two carefully selected angles, and the illusions were performed in front of relatively few people who could have been hired actors.

  Marcus always performed openly — almost carelessly — in a public place in front of a crowd of complete strangers. His unplanned shows ran with no rehearsals and took place in a new location every time.

  All of this helped his fame skyrocket in a short amount of time. I suspected he was good when I first saw him on Times Square; now, Marcus the Magnificent was becoming the most popular illusionist there ever was.

  Very soon the question of how joined the question of why in my poor brain. How did he do it? How did he become the best of the best so quickly? And why didn’t he enjoy being the best?

  I stared at the eyes looking at me impassively through the slits of his mask on my computer screen. There was a secret hidden deep inside their saturated blue colour, behind the expression of boredom and behind the tense, restrained energy. Maybe one day I would discover the secret, and the man behind it would release his hold on me.

  ***

  “Angela, you just can’t say no!” Emily screamed, grabbing the attention of everyone else on the patio of the coffee shop where we were having coffee.

  It was a sunny afternoon at the end of April, I had a rare Sunday off, and Emily talked me into spending most of the day outside with her, doing fun things like going window shopping, walking in High Park and having coffee and desserts on the patio.

  This completely trampled my plans of doing laundry and cleaning my apartment, but I wasn’t angry with her in the slightest — it felt good to do things I wanted instead of things I had to.

  Emily and Mikey set their wedding date for this June. She asked me to be her maid of honour the minute they got engaged and now informed me that she wanted a bachelorette party in Las Vegas.

  Unfortunately, the little detail of my financial insolvency wouldn’t stop somebody like Emily in her grand plans. She and Mikey offered to pay for my trip to Las Vegas. Emily insisted that it was merely a loan that could be paid back anytime. However, we both knew that I couldn’t pay them back anytime soon. With my parents’ current situation, I wouldn’t be able to pay her back in any kind of foreseeable future at all.

  “I still owe you money for the trip to New York for New Years,” I reminded her in a loud whisper, wishing people would stop staring at us and mind their own business.

  “Oh no! New York was on us,” Emily vigorously shook her head, making what must have been at least a million tiny dark-brown braids bounce around her face. “We still would’ve paid the same for the hotel room, whether we had you sleeping on the couch there or not,” she added in a slightly lower voice, noticing my distress at having everyone’s attention on us. “You just… kinda filled the space that was already paid for.” With her fingers spread wide, she gestured with both hands in the air between us energetically, illustrating the paid space she had mentioned.

  “Still…”

  “No stills, no buts, Angela!” Emily cut me off with determination.

  She then made a one eighty and changed her tactic from pushy to pleading. “Please, you have to come.”

  Emily asking nicely was much harder for me to resist than pushy Emily. Much, much harder. Her big chocolate-brown eyes opened wide, and she leaned forward across the table. “You have to do it for me. I want a bachelorette party in Vegas. I’ve always wanted one. Ever since I was a baby.”

  “Really?” I sincerely doubted it had been that long.

  “Yes!”

  But then again, who was I to argue with Emily?

  “I have always imagined you being there too.”

  Well, that for sure wasn’t true. She couldn’t have been imagining having me at her bachelorette party since she was a baby. It did feel at times as if I had known Emily forever, but we actually didn’t meet until our first year of university.

  Born and raised in Vancouver, Emily was the youngest of three children. Her mo
m was British-Canadian, and her dad came from Jamaica. Both of her older brothers graduated from University of Vancouver and now lived and worked close to home.

  Emily — forever the one going against the current — insisted on leaving home after graduating from high school. She went as far east as her parents would let her. If not for them insisting she stay in Canada, she would have likely crossed the ocean and ended up on the other side of the planet in her search for independence and freedom.

  We clicked as soon as we met and bonded over our mutual unhappiness with our living arrangements at that time. I had a one-and-a-half-hour commute one-way to classes from my parents’ house in the suburbs, and Emily fiercely despised her roommates in the student residence.

  We ended up putting our heads and our finances together and found an apartment in an area where we could afford the rent.

  The place was in one of the worst parts of town, wedged between an intersection of two busy roads and a crossing of two even busier railways, with the local fire station next door. There was always noise, day and night, either from the sirens of the fire trucks rushing along the road or from the trains passing along the tracks.

  A number of old abandoned factories made the neighbourhood even scarier because it attracted all kind of suspicious activity. I had to pass by prostitutes soliciting their services on the streets when I came home late at night. And I had to avoid stepping on the occasional used condom lying on the sidewalk as I walked to my classes early in the morning.

  Neither Emily nor I minded all of this very much, though. We were just happy to have a place all to ourselves for the first time in our lives.

  Initially, I feared that our “honeymoon” wouldn’t last long. My mom always told me that I was not an easy person to live with.

  She was mostly right. I had a hard time sharing my feelings and preferred to sulk in disagreement rather than to talk it through. My mom could put up with my silent treatment for days. She called it “giving me time to cool off,” and ignored me until I got over the argument on my own and started talking to her again.