by Mark Edward
Nell Carter had been well-known as a sitcom actress and star of the Broadway stage. She’d starred in the Gimme a Break! series and was set to be the star of this show too, with all of us as her supporting cast. Chris, Brianna, and I were supposedly her personal psychics, or as she was scripted to refer to us, her “angels.”
“Well, whatever it is. Where’s the person who will be giving me my reading? I need a reading real bad.”
“That would be Mark.” The assistant pointed to me from across the makeshift road. I waved a friendly hello and Nell wasted no time covering the distance between us.
“Mark, Mark!” she yelled, trailing several assistants behind her. “I need to know right now about my love life!”
I decided I might as well take a leap at this one. She was going to be the Big Fish who couldn’t get away and it was time to get into character, for better or worse. I do love shut-eyes.
Tom strolled up to me right before the cameras started taping and asked, “Do you have everything you need?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant. The sound people had checked me. Makeup had gone over every detail. Even my shoes were shined to a brilliant sheen. I checked my wireless microphone, shrugged my shoulders and said, “Yep. Everything looks good.”
“Are you sure you have everything you will need to do the job?” Tom sent me a wink-wink-nod-nod look, as if there was something he knew that I didn’t know that maybe he thought I needed to know.
“Well, yeah, Tom. I’m as ready as I can be.” I ventured a strained convivial wink and nod then climbed onto the stage and sat down upon my appointed regally draped throne. During the show, we were supposed to sit center stage on a raised dais, as if we were exalted deities or New Age talking heads.
The crowd was then ushered into the tent. Everybody was all smiles and grins as the front rows began to get hyped up. I’m not sure, but I think I remember the band was playing “When the Saints Come Marching In.” It was all I could do to keep from running off the stage screaming, but I held firm. I was going through with this thing.
Hiding behind a shield of religion has got to be one of the lowest of the low ways to persuade the public to buy any product. It sickened me to be a part of it, but I once again feebly rationalized my position after viewing the masses assembled. I was no worse than an evangelical preacher. My ego had taken on spiked horns and hooves by that point. This was all so wrong.
I pretended I was Patrick McGoohan in an episode of Secret Agent. I was undercover. There are many similarities between what a good magician or mentalist does and what a spy is tasked to do; it’s all down to staging, misdirection, and sight lines.
Tom’s voice could be heard over a loudspeaker between takes, giving orders to the crew. He was totally in control and calmer than any director or producer I had ever worked with. He seemed to take everything in stride. Several sequences were taped with Chris giving a tarot reading to Erik. Nell got her reading from Brianna. I waited patiently and delivered a few wooden lines about how we were so vastly different from all the other 900 services, how we were the most sincere family a committed believer’s money could buy. I was scheduled to stroll through the audience soon and give individual readings to three or four people. I was looking forward to going in cold and doing my thing as I had done hundreds of times for hundreds of anxious people in my own shows.
Suddenly, the lights blinked out and everything stopped. As I had learned from the master of taking advantage of the moment, Uri Geller, I quickly used this random opportunity to grab my head and shake it around as if I had a migraine, then turned to Nell and anyone else within earshot. “Ohhhhh . . . ahhh. I’m really sorry. Sometimes this happens when I’m too close to major electrical things. It’s happened before. Hey, everyone, I’m so sorry. Really!”
The people in the front rows who had heard this comment were looking around in disbelief and speaking to each other behind their hands. Nell sat in the semi-darkness, open-mouthed.
Then Tom’s calm voice came over the monitor speaker. “Looks like we have a generator failure, folks. The audience can take a break until we call you back into the tent. Psychics to their trailers please!”
I unclipped my microphone and got up to leave. All eyes in those critical two front rows were riveted on me. Perfect! I love my job.
I walked past Tiffany as she congratulated me on my timing. The crew looked suspiciously at me as I made my way to the craft-service table. I decided it wouldn’t hurt to look a little fatigued, so I popped my collar, wiped my brow as if I were faint, and dramatically pressed a handful of ice to my face.
Tiffany was immediately behind me and cut in with, “Hey, you’ll ruin my makeup job!”
I weakly held up a hand. “Sorry. I’m a bit drained for some reason.”
“I’ll bet you are.” She looked at me with the old sideshow “with it” expression that said she knew what I knew, that it was all greasepaint and bullshit.
For several minutes the crew tinkered with the generator while production assistants ran around in a frenzy. In the midst of this cacophony and the confused disorderliness of a thrown-together production, I distinctly heard Tom’s voice over the sound system clearly and calmly say, “I love my Prozac. Everything is okay. There are no real problems or anything to worry about. I love my Prozac.”
It was a natural, casual remark made in a sincerely heartfelt manner. No wonder Tom was so relaxed and easygoing. This aside was even more bizarre because it appeared that no one had paid any attention to it, other than myself. No other show business quip I have ever had the privilege to overhear has topped it.
I made my way back to the celebrity tent. People were enjoying the sunshine and chilling out. As I sat with a bottle of water and a peach, one of the production assistants approached me with Tom in tow. She was balancing a nearly foot-high stack of yellow legal pages that had obviously been torn from several different pads. I knew what was coming.
Tom looked at the assistant with a nod that said go ahead, and she asked me, “So, Mark, which three of these questions do you want? You get three.”
“Questions?” I asked as innocently as I could manage.
The moment of truth in this whole sordid World’s Greatest epic had arrived. My integrity and the vow I had made to myself was now in play.
Tom turned his back and looked away as his assistant went on, “You know, Mark, the questions we got from the people in the audience? Like this one is about love. This one here wants to know about a trip she’s taking. This one is about someone who has Parkinson’s disease. You name it, we’ve got it.” She flipped through the pile of pages and tilted the packet toward me.
“Oh. Those questions.” I glanced at Tom. They wanted surefire accuracy in the readings, so the production team had made use of one of the oldest cons in the mentalist business. Their staff had asked people in the crowd if they had any specific questions they wanted to know about, wrote those questions down, and added a brief description of that person—hat, loud tie, brightly colored blouse, or whatever—to identify them from a distance. This was what Tom had meant when he’d asked me whether or not I had everything I needed to go on stage and do my thing.
With Tom’s back still to me, I asked him, “You mean I’m not going into the audience cold and giving my readings genuinely?”
Tom turned to look at me with an expression of fatherly wisdom. “Hell no, son. Why do you think we went to all the trouble to get these questions from these people this morning? What I need you to do is pick three questions you like and here’s what we’re gonna do.”
The ushers had seated these people in specific chairs. Once I decided which questions I wanted, the chairs of those three people would be tagged with colored masking tape. My color would be green; Brianna’s was red. All I had to do was get familiar with each question, make up a quick answer, and then move across the front of the stage answering each person in order of the tags: one, two and three.
Simple. Except for the fact that I had made t
hat little vow to myself. This method was not only incredibly simple, it was brazenly unethical. It was unquestionably a devastatingly convincing con as well.5
The moment of truth had arrived. I could refuse to take part in this admittedly false sham and lose this job as well as my standing with my Friends. I’d probably get fired from my 900 phone job in the process. Or I could go along with Tom and his crew and get the job done the way they wanted it done. Tom’s method made it a whole lot easier for the editor in the editing room and probably saved the Psychic Friends thousands of dollars in post-production work.
Tom waited for me to make up my mind—not about any overriding ethical concerns, which he had taken for granted I had none of, but rather about which three questions I would choose.
I tried once more, with a weakly delivered “I can’t just go out and do it for real?”
Tom answered me with a laugh. “No way. We don’t work that way.” Obviously, Tom had run this con many times before and I was getting in his way by attempting to be honest with my “gift.” It was the gift versus the grift.
I caved. “All right, let’s have a look at those questions.”
A noticeable wave of relief passed over the faces of the small crew standing nearby. As he turned back to his remote van, Tom said, “By the way, Michael is going to be out in the audience for your bit.”
Apparently the Suits and Ties were here, and I had better be good.
The fix was in. I had accepted their nefarious plan. I picked my three questions and blocked out exactly where my three precious pieces of green tape would be stuck. I had always suspected this was how infomercial psychics managed to be so accurate, though I had never thought I would participate in such a fraud.
I knew by watching Chris in the celebrity tent that she had already pumped enough facts out of Erik for at least a half-hour session. This is how it’s done by the pros, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t know what I had expected, but it was the kind of stunt that smelled like blatant criminality of the worst kind. I held my nose and pressed forward.
My first question was about success in starting a new business. I had a stock answer to that one already on tap. Next up was a question about someone’s trip and whether it would be safe. What would I say? Can the reader guess? Would I tell her she would die in a fiery airline disaster over water? Not a chance. Number three was about finding a soul mate.
The three staples of every reading: money, travel, and love.
On my way back to the stage, I passed the suspect mobile generator and noticed there wasn’t a soul in sight. They must have done a bang-up job getting that fixed in a hurry, or was it simply part of their plan to stall everything in order to get the questions all set up? I never did find out the truth about that.
We were quickly back and “Roll it!” was shouted from behind the lights and cameras. The crew had given Brianna and me handheld microphones for that Phil Donahue look as we wandered down amongst our flock. Yes, we would allow the great unwashed to touch the hem of our vestments and seek our sage wisdom up close. This would also make it easier to find our pieces of tape and stand right next to that person, as if we were picking up the vibes of their essence. Never underestimate the power of a piece of properly placed gaffer’s tape.
I decided not to make my readings look too easy. This was an advantage I had learned from watching Uri Geller work a room and went all the way back to the heyday of early mentalism and the patron saint of stage mindreading, Ted Annemann. Ted would sweat and strain for fifteen minutes to name a single playing card. He already knew the card’s identity because he’d used sleight of hand to force the spectator to take that specific card. Annemann was brilliant at making mindreading look real.
Ted Annemann had been one of the first performers to bring this kind of miracle work to New York’s high society. He had impressed the crowd with a damn good approximation of what ancient wizards and shamans might have looked like, performing in a trance during shows that are still remembered today as incredibly powerful. Never mind that he had bad teeth, terrible stage fright, and had to bolster his spirits by downing three or four gin and tonics before he went on. He would stagger, flop sweat, and deliver a mumbled version of someone who just might be in touch with something paranormal. His visions were fuzzy and unclear because Ted was fuzzy and unclear.
So sweat it out, miss a few details, and the audience is left with no other explanation than that you are the real deal. If you make miracles look too easy, most audiences will consider it a trick. I’ll take that even further: If what you do is too perfect, then it has to be a trick. Therefore, I determined that the best way to sell this particular bit of American pie would be to dance around each question and not just blurt out a quick correct answer. The Suits and Ties back in the remote van wanted a dance, so I would give them one.
Nell delivered touching motherly wisdom to the group: “At the Psychic Revival Network, you are more than a friend. You’re family.”
I steeled myself against an almost overpowering urge to scream.
Once her glowing introduction was complete, the boom camera swooped down and the lights clicked on around me. I approached piece of green tape number one.
“I’m picking up something about work and starting something totally new. It’s coming from somewhere over here.” I waved my hand in the general direction of a smartly dressed woman who looked a bit too professional to be in this group. Nonetheless, I knew this had to be the business question. I looked down to see her smiling up at me.
I tried not to look at the glob of green tape that was wrapped around her chair leg mere inches from her stylish ankle. I asked her to stand.
I began kneading my brow in deep concentration as I told her, “I see a new venture that has to do with money invested. You are wondering about how a new financial situation will work out. I can tell from your smile that you are a people person.”
“Yes, sir, I sure am!” She laughed.
Who would be in a circus-style revival tent that wasn’t a people person?
I tried to look a bit confused, as if visualizing what to say next. I counted three stage beats. No need to hurry. I acted as if I was receiving nothing more. I shrugged my shoulders and then went for the physical contact bit.
“I need some contact. Please hold my hand for a moment. It may help.”
She held out her hand to me. Both hands were studded with an assortment of imported rings and bangles. No money problems yet, I reckoned. Nice perfume too. There was something very exotic about her and I decided to take a chance. Tom and his team could always edit out a misstatement, but if I went with my intuition about this lady and said whatever I felt, I knew I stood a good chance of really blowing everyone away, including Tom. I went for the brass ring.
“I see something that has to do with handling very special products—health care, rare oils . . . I don’t know exactly. But I do sense that in this new business you will be successful as long as you are very careful about the people that you hire to work with you or any partners. I say this because I believe that even though you are a very hard worker, you have not always been the best judge of human character, and people have taken advantage of your better nature.”
I paused for her reaction. The tent was dead quiet.
Her jaw dropped as she surged with an enthusiastic “Yes! You are so dead-on correct! That’s crazy! I’m in a health-food importing business and I haven’t met my new partners yet, so I’m not sure how it will go.”
I added a solemn “As long as you listen to your inner voice about your people side, you can’t go wrong.”
Now she began clapping her hands, jumping up and down, and laughing like a game show contestant. Is there any doubt that the act of writing this question down on a piece of paper several hours prior to this revelation had gone completely unnoticed? How quickly they forget.
She thanked me with a reverence usually bestowed on a priest or on a surgeon who had just completed a successful Siamese twin separation.
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br /> Letting go of her hand, I turned toward Brianna on the other side of the tent and said a ceremonious “Take it away, Brianna!”
The spotlights switched over to her as my applause and the delighted smiles of those around me quickly turned toward the beautiful goddess standing illuminated in ring number two. It really was like a circus. All that was missing was a drum roll.
Brianna did her thing and she did it exceptionally well. As she gave her great wisdom to a man with a huge for-goodness-sake-cut-it-off moustache, I made my way over to piece of green tape number two.
When it was my turn again, the spotlight followed me as I got within arm’s reach of my next pigeon, which she decidedly looked like. Sitting comfortably in her chair was a sweet-looking old lady who shouted a great intense hello to me in an unmistakable Bronx accent before I even got to her side. I knew from my magic experience that a sweet old lady could turn on you like a cobra if you whistled the wrong tune, so I approached her cautiously.
I asked for her hand and helped her to stand. She was a minuscule four-and-a-half feet tall, but I could tell this one was a firecracker. Her eyes looked like two small red-hot coals and many worry wrinkles marked her forehead. I decided to give it to her straight with no chaser.
“I sense you are concerned about taking some great voyage or traveling somewhere, and I can see clearly that everything is going to come out much better than you expect. I say this to you because, if you were to stop and take a close look at your past, you would agree that most of the things you worry about never happen. You can be a worrier. Stop worrying and have yourself the wonderful time you deserve.”
This was taking a slight chance, but she beamed with a wide toothy smile and said to everyone around her, “He’s absolutely right. I’m flying to Rome in the morning! And I do worry too much. Thank you, young man!”
There was a deafening applause and audible gasping as I turned it back over to Brianna, like a seasoned news anchor. “Back to you, Brianna!”
