Ever since my youth, it has always been my aspiration to appear on a Bazooka Bubble Gum card. After careful consideration of this goal during early adolescence and consequently discovering the unfeasibility of the plan, I decided I would be better off trying my luck as a professional comedy magician. Indeed, the powers of the cosmos were with me that day, and after a foray into performing-conning tourists-on the streets of Tampa for four years, I arrived at my current home, Las Vegas.
One of the first opportunities this relocation afforded me was a chance to open for a magician-friend of mine for six shows in Bermuda. Las Vegas not having a dearth of somewhat questionable clubs, I assumed at the initial invitation he meant some off-Strip sparkling sally. Before the opportunity lost every vestige of its already dubious charm, however, he told me we were destined for the Atlantic Ocean. Bermuda being the destination for the hedonistic anglophile in all of us, when I arrived I was delighted to see all the fabulous portraits of Her Majesty the Queen-the death of whom I fear most after that of the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher. The glamour of this realization was lost when, after searching in vain for a fast food restaurant and a grocery store, I discovered the island had outlawed franchises in the ‘70s. For prospective visitors, I will reveal that somehow KFC finagled its way onto the island.
On opening night, everything was unfolding as expected. I sashayed into the audience to bring up a woman to assist me. I handed her a pair of scissors and rope and gave her instructions. For the trick, she cut the rope, and, naturally, I restored it to its original condition. It was all rather marvelous as far as idle pleasantries go. As the tiring display of dexterity slowly proceeded on stage, I noticed that, inexplicably, the rope was growing progressively wetter. The lights were intense, but I thought I was better trained than to sweat so profusely. It deserved closer attention. Alas, I found blood but I could not find a source. After noticing the assistant diligently holding her hand against the front of her white shirt, I realized she had cut her hand from the tip of her pinky down to her wrist, and then across the entire wrist. Since the ordeal was timed to the soundtrack, I tactfully stage-whispered the inquiry, “Are you good to go for the rest of the set?” A brief pause ensued. “Sure.” It seemed like a prudent idea at the time, so I finished the set with a circle of blood growing on her shirt. Her plasma was dripping onto the stage.
When I reached the finale, a number of dendrites fired simultaneously in my head, though sadly not in the proper order. It is customary to throw the rope into the audience at the conclusion of the mystery in order to prove its veracity, but the rope was covered in blood. These two ideas occurred to me in that order, the second as the rope was flipping through the air. It woke up the gentlemen in the front row, who was hit by both the feeling of the spray, and the wonderful olfactory sensation of old pennies.
Backstage, we awarded my assistant with a stress ball and a t-shirt, warning her not to use the stress ball right away because it would induce further bleeding. The t-shirt was promptly used to bandage the wound.
The moral of the story stayed with me: Know your audience members. As I later found out, she was a cutter visiting from a suicide clinic down the road, and apparently found my idiosyncratic rope-manipulations unbearable enough to off herself on stage. For the rest of my run there I used the stage stain as a spike mark to know where to place future assistants. It also served to remind me that Bermuda allows its outpatients out in droves without fear or hesitation.
This audience member must be commended though, for she was an awfully good sport for sticking out the rest of the set. I was also surprised that she approached me for an autograph after the show, clipping the bloody program under her crippled forearm. We Americans could learn a lesson from this carnage. Though mid-show suicide attempts are rare, if it happened in America I would still be involved in a whole mess of litigation. Our psychotic friend-with a very charming fa?ade-smiled the entire time I attempted to force the pen to function on a wet piece of paper. While I held my breath to alleviate the awkwardness, she turned with a flourish and exited the lobby, delighted like all the other patrons.
