The Great Mandrake

What follows is an excerpt from my book Crap I Think About. Since this is the anniversary of Bob Cassidy's death, I want to share it with you:


Bob Cassidy was my friend. I don’t mean ‘friend’ in the way people throw that term around today.
“Happy Birthday, my friend.” Or “So sorry everything you had in the world blew up. You’re in my thoughts and prayers, my friend.” Or… well…you get the idea.
When I first showed up at the Magic Café aching for information about mentalism many years ago, it was a very tough place. There was a core of mentalists who jealously regarded the very notion of granting inner circle access to any new members with suspicion. The newbie who asked a stupid question would be summarily executed and buried under a pile of barbed posts and cutting words.
The very notion of posting there scared the snot out of me. I was an interloper from another camp. I was a comedy magician. (This was ‘Idiot Squared’ to mentalists of that day.) But I was desperate for information. Consequently, I would wait for some unfortunate newbie to ask his question, swoop in over top on their charred softly moaning remains to feast on the morsels of whatever information was shared and slink back into the darkness.
The day I made my first post, I’d squared my shoulders, did so with as much respect as possible, and waited to be destroyed.
Bob Cassidy was the first to respond. He did so with guarded kindness.
Many of you may not have known Bob personally. He had a soft place for anyone really wanted to learn. One thing led to another and as the years passed Bob became a true friend.
Key to being friends with Bob Cassidy was simply letting Bob be Bob. You would expect him to disappear (I mean completely VANISH) for long periods at a time and then show up again like nothing was wrong. You could expect that he would most often be under the influence of…something…but that the genius and kindness of his mind would always shine through. You would need to remind him to keep promises and you would need to help him out of the occasional scrape. But that’s what friends are for.
I spoke with Bob when he was in the hospital just a day before he died. What we talked about is private.  But I knew my friend and I were saying good-by. Moments when you KNOW you are saying goodbye to someone you deeply care about are both tragic and beautiful in a unique and terrible way.
Bob was also a mentor. In one of our conversations he told me that if I wanted to understand mentalism, I had to read Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham. It’s a story about a man who starts as a carnival psychic and rises to the highest heights and then falls to the lowest lows. Bob was my teacher and, so I read it. The reading sparked a series of epiphanies, which I’ve written about elsewhere.
Shortly after I got the news that Bob had died I wrote the story that follows. I have only ever shared it with the PEA – which did a tribute issue to him. (Bob was one of the PEA founders.) It is a very personal story…and I have decided to share it with you as well.
It is dedicated with respect and love to the memory of my good friend, Bob Cassidy…who would probably chortle and growl something acerbic if he ever read that dedication.
You are sorely missed…my friend.
 

 
The Great Mandrake
The old man glared down, and I wondered what he was thinking. His eyes were flinty bits of blue, steaming out at me from under a furrowed frowning brow.
“Go away,” he growled.
My mouth opened and closed again. His anger was so stark that I found any of the words I’d rehearsed and planned to use blown away by the heat of his anger.
“I…I’ve made you mad,” I started. “Not what I meant to do. I have such respect for what you’ve done.”
The old man took his eyes from me and I felt myself relax just a little. The stare had been like an unpleasant finger on my skin. He snorted softly and regarded the sea. Waves rolled in with a soft wet rhythmic sound. His face relaxed. It seemed to comfort him.
“I’ve looked everywhere for you,” I said. There was a whine in my voice that I didn’t like. “I’ve actually been looking for you for close to six years. I saw you do your act live that night…it changed my life. I am actually…umm…a mentalist…now.” Inwardly I flinched because I sounded like I was an uncertain twelve-year-old to my own ears.  Stupid words…hurried words. Spoken too fast. This was not what I’d had in mind.
“Uh huh,” he murmured, looking out at the sea. Unimpressed.
His face was set and the only part of him that moved was a wisp of long white hair, caught now and again by a breeze.
“Will you talk to me?” I asked. “There’s so much I need to ask you about.”
The old man closed his eyes for a long moment. He passed a wrinkled hand over his forehead. He sighed. When he turned his eyes back on me they were softer.
“Six years?”
I nodded.
“Must be some kind of damn important to you,” he said.
“It is,” I replied, trying to keep my voice even.
He nodded slowly. He settled his skeletal form onto a rock, drew his tired blue jacket around himself and regarded the indifferent ocean again.
“You want to know how I did it,” he said finally.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I need to know,” I said. “Please.”
When he shrugged it was part surrender…part resignation.
“Six years?”
“Yes.”
He was silent for so long that I thought I’d lost him.
“In the fifties,” he said slowly, “People thought they were living the dream. War was over. Those of us who fought were workin’ to forget it. People buying new cars. TVs. Homes in the suburbs.
“I didn’t fit. I didn’t fit in the navy. Didn’t fit into those years like everyone else did. I had no people. I tried…but it didn’t take. I didn’t want a home. What for? So…I left. I took a walk. Walk lasted four years, three months, one week and two days.
“I remember walking down the road. There was always another road. This one…guess it must have been maybe eight o’clock. Starting to get dark. Up ahead I saw lights. Heard people laughing. Heard organ music. So, I went off to see what it was.
“Wasn’t much…run down looking carnival squeezing nickels from some piss ant town. Tired rides. Tired carnies. In the middle of everything there the was a tent. Faded red and dirty white. And the talker is out front calling the townies over.
“’Come see the great Mandrake,’ he says. ‘He knows what you’re thinkin’ and he knows what you dream about.’ He leans forward all confidential-like and says ‘He knows the darkest parts of your soul.’ And the townies are standing around stuffing corn dogs into their mouths. They’re eating it up.
“Talker tells them that for two and one-half dollars they can enter the ‘world of the mystic.’ They can see the great Mandrake perform the very act that the crown heads of Europe flocked to see. That was a little hard to take. I mean if the crown heads of Europe were buying this guy, what’s he doing in Armpit, Saskatchewan?
“But I was intrigued. Curious. You know why?”
I realized he was looking directly at me, waiting for an answer. I shook my head.
“You do,” he said finally, looking directly into my eyes. “You do.”
He waited, and it was my turn to look out at the ocean. Finally, I nodded. “Because it felt right. It felt right to you.”
“Uh huh,” he said. “So, I paid my money and went into the tent with the rest of the rubes. Place smelled of old sawdust and wet canvas. Chairs set up in ragged rows and a stage. All black with a single chair right in the middle. Chair looked like a throne. Gold braid. Posh lookin’ red cushions. Little brown side table beside the chair. Nothing else.
“People sit down and they’re talking soft, like people talk in church. Minutes seem to take a long time. And then there’s this GONG sound. Loud. Nearly pissed myself.
“And out comes the great Mandrake. He’s not walking so much as he’s floating. He’s looking out at us like he’s doing everyone a big favor just by showin’ up. The men move uneasy in their seats. The women have their eyes fixed on him like he’s the prize bull.
“He looks out at them lookin’ back at him for a long moment. Then he speaks.
“’Someone here is sick,’ he says. His voice is deep and important sounding. ‘Someone here is sick in their legs.’ He passes those eyes around the room and I swear it was like he was looking each of us in the eye. No one speaks. Absolute silence. He looks direct at this old woman. She was fat. Barely fit on the chair. ‘It’s you,’ he says. And she nods.
“You are going to have trouble. More trouble with your legs. It is going to get quite painful. But take heart, dear woman. They will be better before this time next year.’
“And there’s this reverent silence. The old woman holds a hanky up to her nose and it looks like she’s trying not to cry with relief. Mandrake starts looking around the room. ‘Tom? I can hear you thinking…but I don’t know where you are. Tom?’
“This farmer in a red and black checked shirt stands up. He’s holding his cap in his hands like he’s at the bank asking for a loan. ‘She will be there, Tom. It will be when you least expect it. But she’s coming. You will recognize her because she will be holding…a daisy…the first time you see her. Maybe not a daisy…but it will be a yellow flower. Does that make sense to you?’
“Tom nods and mutters something…and sits down.
“It went on like that. Mandrake kept saying things to people he couldn’t possibly know. People went from looking at him like a stranger…to actually hoping he would talk to them. He did maybe half an hour and when he was done he offered people a chance to come for private readings. Ten dollars. They lined up for that too.
“I didn’t have ten dollars, so I waited outside. I waited through the next show. And the one after that. I waited until close to midnight, when the carnival was shutting down for the night. Lights being turned off.  People gettin’ into their trucks. Goin’ home. I was waiting for Mandrake to come out.
“He did after a while. I almost didn’t recognize him. The beard is gone. He is wearing suit coat…a fine black suit coat with a blood red tie. Black pants. Shiny shoes. Looked like a dandy. He saw me looking at him and he started walking away. But I followed him and when I called out he stopped stock still…his back to me.
“I need to talk to you,” I called. “Give me a minute.”
“He didn’t say anything. Just stood there quiet. So I walked up to him and stood looking at him. Hungry. Like you. He stands there watching me. He has this little smile playing on the corners of his mouth like he knows what I’m gonna say. He pats his pocket and pulls out a pack of smokes, takes one and doesn’t offer the pack to me. Then he lights it and I remember the smoke just hanging in the still night air between us.
“’You want to know if it’s real,’ he says. ‘You need to know.’ He laughs. (You know how you can tell when someone is laughing at something and it’s not personal…and when they are laughing at you? He was laughing AT me). I stood there and took it because he was right about one thing. I needed to know.
“’Drifter?’ he asked. And I nod. ‘I can tell that by your clothes. Your shoes. Way you carry yourself. Is that mind reading, rube?’ I shake my head and he pulls on his cigarette again. ‘Why not? You never told me anything. But I know this about you. Know more too. You’re from the east. Newfoundland maybe. You don’t like to work hard…and you’re not above taking five finger discounts to get what you want. I’m right.’
“He’s not asking a question. He’s telling me. So, I nod and he stands there, cigarette hanging out of his face. One eye squinted tight. Smoke curling upward. ‘You still want to know?’ he asks. And I nod…because I do.”
The old man stopped speaking then. His eyes looked far away and he sat on that rock like a statue for a long moment.
“What happened?” I asked finally, and his eyes snap back onto me like he’s been sleeping, and an unwelcome noise awakened him.
“I traveled with the great Mandrake for two and a half years. Dressed like the locals. Mixed with them before each show. Listened to what they said. Paid attention to what they looked like. Who they were with. And before each show, I told Mandrake – whose real name was ‘Harry’ by the way – everything I’d seen and heard.
“He taught me things over those years…but the greatest thing he taught me was that: to listen and pay attention. Watch the people. REALLY watch them. To use the things people said like levers to draw out other things. He taught me that people don’t remember the things you were wrong about…but they sure as hell remember what you got right. And each time they tell other people about what you did, it gets more and more amazing.”
I nodded. “But how did you do it?”
“You mean with the thing with Ed Sullivan.”
“Yes. How?”
The old man looked back at me with tired eyes. But there was a smile tickling the corners of his mouth.
“What did you think happened?”
I tried to tell him what I thought…but in the end I had to shrug. “I can’t figure it out. No one can.”
His eyes were fixed on mine. Not angry like before. Amused maybe.
“Thirty plus years. I was workin’ the tent. Workin’ the mitt joint. Outgrew the carnival and took my show uptown. That led to Sullivan. And after Sullivan I spent ten years in New York. Psychic to the stars.” He snorted, contemplated his cigarette and ground it out under his heel. “And all people want to know about is what happened with Ed Sullivan in June of 1962.”
“No one knows,” I said. “People write about it. Talk about it…try to take what you did apart. No one can. No one knows. As far as I can tell – and I looked everywhere – you’ve never said how you did it.”
The old man nodded. “Lucky for me it happened on Sullivan.”
I waited. My hands clenched and unclenched…and I saw the old man looking at them. I pressed my palms against my thighs. The silence went on too long. I had to prompt him: “So…did Sullivan look at the right one? Is that how you knew?”
“No.”
“Was he a stooge? Was he in on it?”
“Ed loved magic. But if I’d asked him to play along he would have told the world I was a cheater.”
“I figured that,” I said. “You weren’t touching him.”
“No.”
“Nothing was written down. No influence? No force?”
The old man shook his head and I made an exasperated sound.
“Well then, it’s impossible,” I said, spreading my hands wide in defeat. “Sullivan makes this big deal about the fact that you had no idea what test his people were going to design for you. Sullivan puts nine identical sealed envelopes in front of you…only one has the letter from Houdini’s wife in it…all the others have folded papers with nothing written on them. The envelopes WERE identical?”
“Yes.”
“Sullivan said even he had no idea which one had the letter in it.”
“He didn’t.”
“But you pass your hands over the envelopes one at a time and touch the tip of your finger to the right one. I mean the exact right envelope.”
“I did.”
“How?” The word hung between us in the air. It was stark and needy…but there it was.
The old man snorted again…drew a fresh cigarette out of the package and lit it with fingers that looked suddenly unsteady. He drew on it, holding the smoke in his lungs for a long moment before releasing it in a cloud of blue.
“Gonna ask you a question. Think about it before you answer: Do you really want to know?” he asked.
I nodded.
“A lot of times when you give something like this up…people just get disappointed. They say ‘Oh…is that all? A bit of string. A magnet in your palm…’”
“I saw you doing it live. I never forgot it. It’s why I do what I do for a living. Please. I’ve been trying to figure it out for years. I…have to know.”
The old man nodded in a distant way. He held the hand with the cigarette close to his mouth, but he didn’t draw on it. There were faint yellow stains on his fingers.
“The great Mandrake taught me the way to say what the people wanted to hear…things that would resonate with them. And Lord knows I fed him a ton of material about the people coming to his show. He always told me that was the biggest part of all of it.”
“I know that,” I said. “You’ve already told me. But how did you know?”
“You can only do so much with preshow. Sometimes you have to do something wild.”
“Is that what you did?” I asked. “Did you do something wild?”
The old man shrugged. “When Sullivan’s people first talked to me…proposing ‘the Test’ on national television, I thought it was a great shot. He hyped it enough. Of course, I hoped he’d come up with a test I could control. Something I could work with. Whole thing was his idea. He said I couldn’t touch him. Wouldn’t have helped anyway. He didn’t know which envelope was right. Nothing written. I wasn’t even allowed to touch the envelopes. What could I do?”
I waited. He’d gone away somewhere in his mind again.
Finally, the old man smiled. “Mandrake told me sometimes – when you’ve done all you can do -- you got to take your balls in your hand and you got to…guess.”
My world thudded to an abrupt and disappointed stop. “What? You guessed on national television? You took a one in nine GUESS?” I was offended. Actually offended.
“I did.”
“But you seemed so sure…” I said. The words trying to get out of my mouth came to a sputtering messy sound as they all tried to escape at once. I was hoping that he would tell be there had been something else, that he had been putting me on and would reveal a diabolical method. “You put your finger down without any hesitation.”
“When you have to guess…might as well guess big. So I did.”
“What if you’d been wrong?”
The narrow shoulders shrugged again. “I would have said the mists remained cloudy and I could not see the answer. Some kind of crap like that.” He shrugged. “Would have been uncomfortable for a week or so. But people forget.” He took a drag on his cigarette. Then he leaned forward, his eyes burning into mine. “But if you get it right?”
The old man laughed, and the laugh sounded like a cackle…and the cackle turned into a wet sounding cough. When it had passed he said: “If you get it right, you’re a legend. Know why?”
“Why?”
“Cause people think what you did was impossible. But it’s not ‘the impossible.’ You didn’t do ‘the impossible’. You just did ‘the highly improbable.’ Time passes? To them it is the same thing.”
I stood silently looking at the old man, trying to put my feelings in order. There was something sad and brilliant about him at the same time. And something profoundly tragic too.
After a moment he stood, eyes still fixed on the sea.
“So now you know. Do whatever you want with what I told you. Use it or don’t. Tell people or don’t. It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m going down the road.”
I wanted to thank him…or say something that would keep him here just a little longer. But in the end, I watched him walk away from me. He walked along the ocean, walking his own way and thinking his own thoughts.
I watched until he became a tiny figure in the distance, indistinguishable from the rocks or the birds or the waves on the wild sea. The wind picked up just then, cold and cutting off the ocean. I drew my hood up over my head and made my way back to my car.
I sat there, my hands resting on the steering wheel for a long moment, watching the rhythm of the waves. I wondered if the old man had seen something in them no other person had ever considered. Probably. No. Certainly.
I decided to protect the secret he’d shared. Let the world look back on the night when he fooled the entire nation with a single guess. Let them all remember him with wonder. That fit. That was fitting.
I turned the key and drove down the highway. I think I was smiling.
 

 

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