Once upon a time I was covering one of my very first events.
A swanky four wheel drive kind of car company created an obstacle course on the top of a building in the lower west side of town, so semi-industrial, I am pretty sure it didn’t have a cutesy name yet.
So, if you were one of the UES elite invited to the party, you had to navigate through a car showroom and then ride a cargo elevator to the rooftop.
Then the guests had to wait an excruciatingly long time in an excruciatingly long line for quite possibly the stiffest free drinks ever poured on the island of Manhattan.
Once they made their way to the bar, they would make their way over to the test drive area, crank up and fly over fake hills and giant puddles.*
It was a pretty beat event as those things go, celebrity-wise. There was an aging actress/model type who had once been ultra famous, with her much younger actor boyfriend.** I was working on a story about them and that was who I was there to interview.
But there was also a middle-aged magic-type. He was a “name” but also he showed up to everything. Every single event, ever.
And in the beginning, when I was pretty new to it all, I often got assigned the lower priority events,*** so he and I knew each other a little bit. This was mainly because he would talk to me incessantly, clearly hoping to get some sort of quote in the magazine.
And in the beginning, when I was pretty new to it all, I often got assigned the lower priority events,*** so he and I knew each other a little bit. This was mainly because he would talk to me incessantly, clearly hoping to get some sort of quote in the magazine.
And on this particular evening, as I was waiting for my five minutes with the couple, he sidled up as he did. And I gamely asked him a few questions, then waited for him to start telling me all about his next big trick.
But on this night, he decided to take another tactic.
He asked about me.
And then started on that faux-deep sort of soul-searching sort of nonsense.
He wanted to know if I believed in alternate planes. Could there be things out there that ordinary humans did not understand?*****
After several long minutes of politely trying to deflect the conversation, he wasn’t letting me scoot past it at all.
Pressing on, finally he said, “Just tell me, do you believe in magic? What would it take for me to make you believe?”
“Well,” I said, “I would absolutely believe in magic, if you could make a drink appear.”
He disappeared****** soon afterward.
THE END
**************************************************************************
*Yep, but that is not the point of my story.
**She was a cougar before it was hip.
***It was excellent practice and fun, too.
****Now, it’s not that I don’t believe in magic, that is also not the point of my story. What I do not believe in are phony deep conversations that include equally phony soul-searching looks when I am in the middle of working at an event. Also, I did not want to insult his business or hurt his feelings. He has been hugely successful at what he does, but do I believe that it is attributed to his connection with a higher plane or some special psychic talent? I just didn’t know.
*****I am pretty sure that he did not count himself as the ordinary human variety. This is someone who has made major, major giant things disappear.
******Via his feet.
Posts
