Don't be the magician.
Be the rabbit.
— Wisdom From A Hat
Uncle Walter wasn't really my uncle. He was just a guy occasionally banging my mom. He was one of many, but he never raised a hand to either of us. That automatically made him better than the others. And he tried to get me to like him. I didn't, because I knew he'd leave. Why make the effort for a guy who won't stick around? But he got points for trying.
Uncle Walter was a lot older than my mom, and he wasn't exactly in good shape, so when it'd been a while since his last visit, like a long while, we assumed he croaked. They don't write flowery obits about guys like Walter. That made it easier to tell people I was staying with him after mom died. Nobody really knew him, so nobody knew he was gone.
I was on my own.
I never had a dad. Uncle Walter was the closest thing I had to a step father, but it wasn't like that.
He was just an old man who was lost. You could see it in his eyes. Y'know how some people's eyes pull you in? His didn't push or pull. They just floated, like they were lost at sea and knew they'd never find land. But his eyes were kind. He was kind. Mostly.
Walter wanted to be a provider, but he didn't have anyone to provide for, which was just as well since didn't have the means and he never stuck around. In fact, it seemed like he only came around when he was feeling particularly low. Or maybe when something went wrong, somewhere else. He never said, so we never knew. But his eyes showed that, somewhere, something was wrong and he didn't want you to know. Even as a kid, I could respect that.
When I was six, Walter taught me how to ride a bike. When I was ten, he taught me how to steal one, as if I didn't know that's where the first came from.
"It's OK since you're only borrowing it," he said. "You'll bring it back. Now, the trick to popping this kind of lock is you pull, but not too hard. Make the tumblers scrape a little as you turn. You'll feel it when they click. When it feels different, go back just a bit. Then do the next, just like that. One at a time, nice and slow. When you got 'em all, it'll pop."
When I was fifteen, he taught me how to borrow a car. "See these wires? Strip 'em just a little. Red to red, twist tight. Just a quick spark on this one, and don't hold it long. Hear that? That's her waking up."
Old guy. Old tricks. But they worked.
He did magic tricks too. They weren't very good, but like I said, they worked.
He sometimes liked to hang out at a bar in La Crosse, shooting pool and doing tricks to hustle people for beer money. He was terrible at pool, but that was on purpose. Let people win. Let 'em like buying you beer. Keep 'em entertained to keep the beer flowing.
Every one of his magic tricks was based on the same thing. Misdirection. Most magic tricks are. Get people to pay attention to this so they don't notice that.
The first trick he taught me was the French Drop. Here's how you do it. Take a coin in your left hand and make a big to-do about showing it to people. "It's just a plain old quarter. See?" Pretend to grip the coin tight with your left hand, but let it fall into your right. That's the drop. Then do some stupid hocus-pocus bullshit with your left hand before you open it to show the coin is gone. "Ooh, magic!" While everybody was focused on your left hand, they didn't realize you'd already dropped it into your right. All the hocus-pocus bullshit was just for show.
When he showed me the trick, I didn't ask, "How'd you do that," because I liked magic. I asked because it looked like an easy way for a six year old to steal money.
"Let me try! Gimme a quarter!"
Ah ha.
"Look! Look! It's not in my left hand! It's not in my right!"
"Where is it?" he asked.
"IT'S GONE!"
He didn't even make me give the coin back. I think he was impressed that I tried to steal it. Cody, a kid at my school, was not impressed. He threatened to punch my lights out if I didn't give the quarter back.
Never take somethin' from somebody who's got nothin'.
For Cody, no quarter would have meant no milk money, and that's really bad for a kid who couldn't afford lunch, which made me feel lower than low for trying to steal it.
I tried though.
It's an awful thing for a little kid to already know about survival of the fittest, but I was three quarters short for lunch and running out of classmates to hustle.
The best trick Uncle Walter taught me was how to make yourself disappear.
One night, he took me and mom out for dinner in Valparaiso. The place had tall wooden booths, which meant you were sitting back to back with whoever was on the other side, but it still felt private. I love tall wooden booths.
I couldn't understand why he wanted to sit at a drafty spot by the back door.
After dinner, as we got up to leave, he leaned a pitcher of water against the booth, where we'd been sitting. I thought, "Adults are so weird. How is that helping the waitress?" As we neared the back door, some guys took the booth up against ours. When they sat down, the pitcher fell over and they got soaked. They made a hell of a scene, so all eyes were on them as we shuffled out. We were gone before anyone could figure out what happened.
Mom pretended it didn't happen. "I love how the air smells at night," she said. I thought, "Lady, what are you talking about? We're walking past a dumpster."
Lady. That's funny. Even in my thoughts, I sometimes forgot she was my mom. We were more like cellmates trapped in the same prison of poverty. And we were both just trying to get by. Walter, too.
As a kid, I saw uncle Walter's trick with the water and thought, "That's why you don't DO THAT! It'll SPILL!" Later, I realized he didn't pay the bill and needed somebody else to cause a fuss so we could slip out, unnoticed.
Gotta admit, I've used that one a few times.
There's an art to not being noticed. It's not enough to be irrelevant. You need something else to become very relevant. Misdirection.
The night the Fowlers had a chimney fire. At least, they thought it was a chimney fire. While everybody was standing around watching their house burn, I slipped into three others.
Not getting noticed is one thing. But if you want to disappear completely? Be a Walter. He didn't teach me that trick, but I wish he would have. I figured it out, eventually.
One night, Mom and I got to talking about why Walter didn't come around anymore. I didn't ask where he went, because he might be dead. Never talk about death with somebody who's barely hanging on to life.
Instead, I asked where he's from. Mom said, "Oh, I don't know. He's from around here."
"Right, but, where? He's not from Wanatah."
"He's from..."
The pause told me she didn't know.
"...Wilders, maybe?"
Walter Klugman had been in and out of our lives for years. And she didn't know?
"Is that even his real name?"
"Jonatha! What would make you ask a question like THAT?"
Jonatha. Wow. The only time Mom used my first name was when I really struck a nerve.
"I'm just sayin', we don't know where he's from, where he goes, or when he'll be back." I wanted to say "if," but that would imply death, and we didn't talk about that.
"We know what matters," Mom snapped. "He's a good man!"
He didn't hit us, and he didn't steal from us. That's what she meant.
Walter knew a lot of tricks. Most were bad. A few were good. But his disappearing act was true genius, though it took me far too long to realize how he did it.
To disappear completely, you never fully appear in the first place. Only be what's required for you to exist in that moment and that moment alone.
That was Walter's trick.
He didn't date my mom, as if anybody did.
He didn't have a family. Not that we knew of.
He didn't have a job in town, or anywhere else that we knew of.
Go ahead and make a long list of things people have, other than stuff. Walter didn't. I'm talking about all the details that make a life. Everybody has 'em. Walter didn't.
I know that's not true. I'm sure he did, but he didn't tell us, and he didn't not tell us. He just left whatever else was going on in his world behind when he stepped into ours. That's the trick. It's not just about being vague. It's about being what the present moment requires and nothing more.
Y'know the one where a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat? The hat has a false bottom. That's how it's done.
Nobody asks where the rabbit is from, and they don't ask where it went when the magician moves on to the next trick. The audience moves on because the show goes on. And the rabbit goes away. Nobody asks where.
It took me a long time to realize, Walter wasn't the magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Walter was the goddamn rabbit.
The magician has a backstory. The magician has a past. But the rabbit? Everybody loves a bunny, but nobody really cares since the rabbit isn't theirs.
To disappear completely, don't be the magician. Be the rabbit.