The Magician

by Sol Stein

  “I fear for this nation. We hear a lot of nonsense pro and con about law and order. Divorce those terms from the political rhetoric, and what you have is this: the United States is a government of law, not of decree. If we follow the defense counsel and shut our eyes time after time after time to the breaking of the law, we will pay for it dearly. The opposite of living under laws legislated by our representatives is a state in which power alone governs, and might rules. We call that the law of the jungle.

  “As we close this case of the People of the State of New York against Stanislaus Urek, I want to say that the interests of the people, which I represent, are indeed your interests, and it is the people of this country who want you to find the defendant, as charged, guilty of assault in the first degree.”

  A few people in the courtroom began to applaud, and the judge had to gavel them to silence. Not bad, thought Brumbacher. The tall boy did okay.

  “Come on,” said Ed to Mr. Japhet, “let’s not sit here.” But no one was allowed to leave the courtroom while the judge was charging the jury.

  Judge Brumbacher’s instructions to the jury were meticulous. He defined first-, second-, and third-degree assault, and explained reasonable doubt. The jury was out for less than forty minutes, and returned with a verdict of not guilty.

  Chapter 30

  When Cantor let himself in with the key, his wife looked up from her newspaper.

  “You lost,” she said. “Thomassy is really good, isn’t he?”

  Cantor, who had wanted to be President, slapped his wife’s face.

  *

  Nobody talked about the case in school, not to Ed, anyway. He waited twenty minutes so he could get a ride home with his father. They walked in silence to the car.

  Ed flung his strapped books on the seat between them. Mr. Japhet threw the large envelope full of exam papers on the rear seat. He pumped the gas pedal twice. Urek hunched down on the floor behind the seat, held his breath until the ignition caught.

  Mr. Japhet let out a long sigh. Ed looked sideways at his father’s slack face. “Rough day?”

  “It’s not the day.”

  Near their house, they both caught sight of Frank Tennent scraping his front walk with a shovel. Frank waved. They waved back.

  Mr. Japhet decided to park at the curb. “I’ll be going out later,” he said.

  He slid out of the seat, slammed the door, then said to Ed, who was just getting out the other side, “Take my exam envelope, will you?”

  Ed reached for the large envelope on the back seat. As he did, Urek bolted up from his crouch and grabbed for Ed’s throat.

  From the sidewalk, Mr. Japhet saw. He couldn’t believe, but he saw.

  He ran back to the car, throwing the door open. Urek, roaring, had not been able to get a good grip on Ed’s throat. Ed was fending him off with his arm, rearing back, slipping from his grasp, then scrambling out the far side of the car, with Urek getting out on the same side and catching Ed by the shoulder just as they were coming around the hood of the car, and Mr. Japhet screamed, “Stop it!”

  Frank Tennent was watching from his driveway fifty feet away. “Help!” said Mr. Japhet. “Help us!” Frank put his shovel down and went inside his house.

  Mr. Japhet went toward Urek.

  “Don’t, Dad.”

  Just as Ed spoke, Urek’s arm spun him around. Urek’s left fist went for his face. Ed tried to block it with his right arm, not expecting it to work; it worked. Then suddenly Urek plunged at him, his fists hammering, hitting, hurting, Ed trying to remember Mr. Fumoko’s advice.

  Ed’s hands stiffened, ready to chop.

  Urek saw.

  “Fight fair, you son of a bitch,” Urek bellowed, his left fist again striking Ed’s upraised arm. Suddenly Urek’s right fist came up from below, slamming into Ed’s belly, and as Ed instinctively reached down to the pain, Urek’s left hit him on the side of the head, dizzying, and then the right fist smashed into his mouth. Mr. Japhet saying, “Oh, no,” and then stumbling up the steps into the house, the door open, yelling, “Josephine!” and with no answer, going to the phone and telling the operator, “Quickly, the police!”

  Ed stepped back to touch his mouth. Teeth felt loose to his tongue. The tips of his fingers came away red.

  Then Urek laughed, butting him with his head. As Ed tried backing away, Urek, puffing hard, came at him with both hands, as if to choke him again.

  “You’re crazy,” blurted Ed.

  Suddenly the back of Urek’s hand caught his face again, where his mouth hurt, and Ed tried to back off, but Urek’s foot was behind him. Ed lost his balance but didn’t fall, then suddenly realized that Urek had got his hands around his neck and was squeezing like the other time. Ed knew he mustn’t give up. He kicked at Urek’s shins, missed, then remembered what to do, and bringing both hands up hard in the middle, between Urek’s outstretched arms, he instantly broke Urek’s grasp. Take advantage of surprise. Ed’s open right hand, with as much force as he had ever summoned in his life, chopped down hard on the bridge of Urek’s bent nose. Something clearly cracked.

  Urek held his face in surprise, then dropped oddly to his knees. He gestured as if he wanted to pull something out of the inside of his head. His eyes weren’t focusing. Suddenly Urek vomited blood; a great gush retched, and then a strange trickle of redder blood oozed from his nostrils. A tableau halted, stopped time; then a terrible, sky-cracking shriek from Urek, falling over and writhing, his eyes rolling upward in his head. Ed wanted to stomp on Urek’s head in rage, heard his father scream, “Stop!” from the steps.

  They both stared down at Stanislaus Urek scrunched in the snow. The mouth fell open to let blood pour.

  Frank Tennent came running over. “I saw,” he said, “I saw he karate-chopped him.”

  The police car came fast, skidding to a dead stop just short of the Japhet car. Two cops got out.

  The first knelt beside Urek on the ground. He looked up at his partner.

  The second cop said, “Where’s your phone?” then, “Never mind,” and called the ambulance from the police car.

  Urek seemed to be having a barely perceptible convulsion. There was nothing to bandage. Nothing to do.

  Dr. Karp got out from the seat beside the driver of the ambulance. The driver pulled the vehicle across the road and backed up toward the Japhet driveway, between their car and the police car, blocking the street.

  Karp recognized Ed. Then he dropped to his knees without a word and felt gingerly around Urek’s nose, put his ear to Urek’s chest, then nodded to the driver, who brought out a stretcher. The policeman helped Karp and the driver lift Urek. Something suddenly made Karp look closer. He put his hand on the boy’s wrist, then dropped it.

  They were all obviously waiting for him to say something, so Karp said, “The bone penetrated the brain, I think.”

  “Please get him to the hospital fast,” said Mr. Japhet.

  Karp saw that the shaking man hadn’t understood. “This kid’s dead.”

  The two policemen were standing next to Ed. Mr. Japhet said, “He hit Ed first.”

  “What’s your name?” said one of the policemen to Ed.

  “What’s his name?” said the other policeman, pointing to the form on the stretcher.

  Ed didn’t answer. It was a dream.

  “How old is your boy?” said the policeman.

  “Sixteen,” whispered Mr. Japhet.

  “Sixteen is manslaughter.”

  “It was self-defense,” said Mr. Japhet.

  “Sure,” said the cop, taking Ed by the elbow toward the patrol car.

  “It’s cold out here. We’ll fill out the forms at the station house.”

  “I’ll have to tell my wife.”

  “Can you get a lift from the hospital to the station house, doctor?” asked the policeman.

  Karp nodded.

  “Dad!” said Ed.

  Mr. Japhet went inside to phone Thomassy.

  br />   Sol Stein, The Magician