The Illusionist (17 page)

The brats Fletcher and Timmy were whining to get their presents early, but Liz said they had to save them till Christmas morning—though I wouldn't be there, of course. And soon as I could, I left. And I knew Liz was glad because she wanted to clean up and get to bed.

Afterward, I drove out to the Wooden Nickel as if for solace, to find my true family. And when I walked into the bar, there he was, Dean, in the middle of a circle of people, doing magic tricks again, cocky as ever. His fingers rippled through the air, behind people's ears, into their pockets. And then, with a flick of the wrist, he'd produce something out of nothing. When Dean saw me enter, he stopped a moment, and he smiled right at me, his face all flushed. He was defying us all.

The place was packed. Carl had decorated it like a mad person. Carl always made a big deal over holidays. He carved pumpkins for Halloween, put up paper turkeys for Thanksgiving, hid little chocolate eggs at Easter.

There was a low, red incandescence in the room from the Christmas lights, and tinsel sparkling everywhere, a Christmas tree up on the bar, cutouts of Santa Claus and red streamers on the walls. Christmas music blared from the jukebox, competing with the noise from the TV.

And there he was! As if risen from the dead, living at the peak of danger, the people around him laughing and egging him on like he was a performing dog or something.

I sat down at the bar with my book. For a while, I read, half watching Dean as he did his tricks. He had a new one. He was making someone tie his wrists together with a piece of rope. “Tight!” he ordered. They covered his wrists with his jacket, and he started to struggle and thrash about underneath it. His face got all red, his body twisted from side to side while his fans stood around watching this oddity. Then suddenly he grunted, threw up the jacket, and his hands were free. He held them up in the air, and people in the group clapped.

Around midnight, I looked up from my book and saw Brian, Melanie, and Jimmy Vladeck enter.

You could feel a stir in the air. Everyone saw it. Brian with this empty smirk on his face, Melanie small and thin next to him, and she wasn't smiling. She looked different suddenly, deprived of her lover. Like a frail little girl, smaller, lost in the big coat, her hair seemed finer, the shadows around her eyes deeper.

Standing in the doorway, she spotted Dean and she stopped in her tracks.

He was shuffling his cards, dealing them, then turning them over and making them magically come out in order from aces to kings. “Okay—let's alternate red and black cards,” he was saying as he dealt the deck again. “Okay—display them—”

Then I saw him stop. His body grew rigid. He had sensed Melanie's presence. There was this telepathic connection between them, as if his spirit was directly attached to hers. His hands stopped dealing the cards and he turned his head.

Their eyes locked and you could feel the love between them; as if the air was electrified.

Brian was watching Melanie watching Dean, looking from one to the other, helpless beside them.

Dean stood up. He pushed through the crowd of bodies toward her. I slid down from my barstool and hurried over to him.

He kept walking, his eyes fixed on her and pleading and it was as if there were a soundless vacuum between the two of them, sucking them toward one another.

In front of her, he halted. “Mellie,” he said, his voice soft, and personal to her. Standing next to Melanie, Brian glared at him, as if to fend him off with pure hate. But Dean and Melanie just kept looking at one another as if Brian wasn't even there.

“Dean,” she said, her voice soft, a whisper.

He stood close to her. “Missed you . . .” I heard him say.

Then Brian smiled. “So,
Lily.
How's it goin'?”

Dean didn't look at him, kept his eyes on Melanie. “I'm not Lily,” he said, talking to Brian but not looking at him.

“That's what the cops said when they stripped you,” Brian said. “Lily.”

Dean kept his eyes focused on Melanie. “Please,” he said to Brian, his voice soft and even, “don't call me that.”

Brian jerked his head back, then thrust it forward in a gesture of fake astonishment. “But isn't that what you are?”

Melanie turned. “Leave him alone, Brian!”

“You think that's a ‘him,' Melanie?” Brian said. “That's not a ‘him.' ”

“He's what he wants to be, Brian,” she said. “Shuddup.”

Brian smiled. “So, what do you
want
to be, Lily?”

Melanie's eyes, looking at Dean, had become suddenly soft,
distracted. “Be quiet, Brian,” she said over her shoulder, still keeping her gaze on Dean.

Brian said, “Admit it, Melanie. He's a fucking girl.”

“Leave me alone,” Dean said. Couldn't take his eyes off her. Resented the sound of anyone's voice intruding on his concentration.

Then Dean began to back away from her. Slowly, as if he were ripping his skin away from her skin, as if he were detaching himself from her bodily.

I followed Dean to one of the tables, and we both sat down.

I felt breathless. They had been on the brink of danger. Only Dean's backing away had forestalled a nasty fight, a fight that Dean would surely lose. Melanie sat down at a table across the room, as if the encounter had exhausted her too.

For the next few moments, they held on to each other across the room with their eyes, tragic lovers that they were.

Then Brian grabbed Melanie's arm and dragged her up from her chair. It toppled backward onto the floor. Brian pulled at the sleeve of Melanie's leather jacket, and it slipped off her arm. Then he grabbed her wrist and he hauled her to the door, and she stumbled out of the bar after him, all the time looking back at Dean. Jimmy, Brian's sentinel, followed.

*  *  *

I stayed with Dean another half hour, until Carl began cleaning up for the night. “Closing early tonight,” Carl said. “Going to midnight Mass.”

Outside in the parking lot, the cold air hit us. There hadn't been snow for a few days and the temperature had risen. A brief thaw had followed but now there was a freeze again and more snow to come.

A row of pines sheltered the parking lot from the river wind. Across the lot, in the shadow of the trees, Brian's Camaro was parked with the motor running, and Brian and Jimmy stood against the side of it. I could just make out Melanie hunched
down in the front seat. Even though it was cold, Brian had on only a parka, no gloves. And tonight he had a white T-shirt under his parka, though he was dancing up and down on his skinny legs because of the cold.

Dean's truck was parked next to my car. And as we walked across the lot to the two vehicles, I could feel Brian watching us.

Suddenly the spotlight that illuminated the parking lot was extinguished. There was darkness now, and behind us the door to the bar slammed shut, and I saw that Carl had come outside, all bundled up in his wool coat and gloves. Carl paused on the threshold, studied us a second, then turned and locked the door behind him, climbed inside his own car and drove off.

Silence now. Brian and Jimmy leaned motionless against their car. No other cars in the lot now, everyone had gone home but us.

You could hear the wind soughing, an implacable, icy wind, moving through the trees. Down below, the great river was white, beginning to freeze over. Soon it would be solid ice except for the black waters of the channel that the Coast Guard icebreaker cut in the middle of winter to make a path for the big boats going upriver.

Brian reached around and banged on the window of his car. “You think that's a ‘him,' Melanie?” he yelled.

She hunched down further in her seat. He kept on banging. “Open up,” he ordered. “That ain't no ‘him,' Melanie!” He pulled at the door handle, trying to open it, but at the same moment, she slammed her fist down on the lock. He rattled the door, then took out his key and unlocked it, reached inside, and pulled her out of the car.

“Look!” he commanded, pointing to Dean outside in the parking lot.

She turned her face away, refused to look. “He's a fucking girl, Melanie . . . a fucking
girl!
” Brian cried, baring his teeth. But Melanie kept her head down, bent sideways away from Brian, her face hidden behind her hair.

“You're so fuckin' miserable, Melanie!” He spat the words out. “Face the fuckin' truth. Stop wimping around.” He grabbed her chin and yanked her jaw around so she was forced to look at Dean. She strained to look away but he held on to her face.

I stepped forward. “Leave her alone, Brian,” I said.

Brian spun round. “Shut the fuck up, Chrissie! You're in love with it too.” He turned back to Melanie. “I said
look!
” he yelled.

Then Melanie let out a cry, a dry, ratcheting sound coming from deep down in her throat. “No!”

“Jimmy!” Brian said. Jimmy sprang to attention. “Hold her,” Brian commanded, and Jimmy grabbed Melanie's arm.

Brian lunged at Dean. He was taller than Dean, and he moved quickly. He gripped Dean's arm, twisted it up behind his back and pushed him toward Melanie.

I grabbed Brian's arm and tried to stop him. But with one sudden quick motion, Jimmy kicked me, and the big, blunt square toe of his boot cracked me hard on my shin.

“Ouch!” I cried, grasping my injured shin with both hands.

Jimmy was holding Melanie's wrists behind her back and she kicked at him, but he dodged her with clever steps. Melanie was nothing to Jimmy in all his hulking hugeness.

“Hold her so she sees,” Brian told Jimmy. “Push her face up.”

With one hand Brian held Dean's arm up behind his back, and with the other he reached around Dean's body and jabbed his fingers down into Dean's jeans. He yanked at them, trying to pull them down. He scrambled to unbuckle Dean's belt. There was a flash of brass, and he tore the zipper down.

“No,” Dean said. “No . . .”

“Pull her jeans down, Jimmy,” Brian said.

Brian shoved Melanie backward, her body bounced against the car. Then he turned to Dean again and held on to him. Melanie jammed her fists into her eyesockets.

Dean kept struggling under Brian's grip. “Fuck you!” he spluttered. “Leave me alone, asshole.” Brian grabbed both his arms
now from behind, held his wrists together in his one wiry hand, as if to show how strong he was, and that Dean was but a flea to him.

“Do it, Jimmy!” he ordered. Jimmy stepped forward, and pulled Dean's jeans all the way down to his feet.

I saw a flash of white, his Jockey shorts, too big for him, gathered between the thighs because there was no bulge there, and his flat stomach, tender flesh trembling in the cold.

Dean tried to jab Brian with his elbows, but Brian just danced backward. “Let me go!” Dean cried. “Let me go. Now!”

But Jimmy ripped down Dean's jockeys. And there it was. Dean's mysterious black blush, a healthy, springy mound of hair. There was no dick. But maybe there was something hidden in the thick, curly mass. Maybe it was extra small or something, because of his deformity. His hips were gently rounded, the frame of his pelvis curved. He shot Melanie a look, his face clouded with rage and shame. I saw tears on his cheeks.

I couldn't help it, but I stared—then I realized what I was doing and quickly looked away. “You shits!” I cried. “You shit, Brian!”

“Shut the fuck up, Chrissie, or I'll fuckin' kill you,” Brian said. Dean was quiet now, his chest heaving. Brian turned his attention back to Melanie. “Look at her, Melanie! You see a fuckin' dick there, Melanie? It's a girl! She's a fuckin' lesbian. Make her look!” he told Jimmy.

Melanie raised her chin but kept her eyes squeezed shut. Her mouth trembled.

Dean's face was turned away now as if in shame, his knees pressed together tight.

“Please!” he said. “Leave me alone.”

“You're sick, Brian!” I screamed.

Brian's eyes were glued on Melanie. “I'm counting, Melanie,” he said. “One—two—”

She opened her eyes, and for a second they darted to Dean's dark bush and rested there, a glance so rapid I couldn't tell if
she'd even seen anything, and then she swept her hands up to her eyes again.

“Say it, Melanie!” Brian shrieked. “Say what he is. Say he's a girl!”

“G-girl— . . .” Melanie faltered.

“She lied to you!” Brian cried and he lurched toward Dean. “I'm gonna beat the shit out of you!”

“N-o-o—” Melanie cried, eyes still squeezed tight.

Brian stood there a moment, fist clenched in the air, ready to strike.

“No,” she begged.

He dropped his arm, turned away, his face still tight.

“Let her go,” Brian told Jimmy. Jimmy let Dean's arm drop, and Dean reached down, shoulders heaving, and pulled up his Jockeys and his jeans.

Melanie took a step toward Dean, put her hand on his shoulder as if to comfort him. “Oh God,” she whispered, and this time Brian didn't stop her. She reached into her coat pocket and took out a Kleenex and began wiping the tears from Dean's cheeks.

Then she put both her hands on Dean's shoulders and rested her face in the crook of his neck. Dean's arms hung limply at his side, but he bent his face down into hers, and they stood there motionless together, their necks entwined, like two swans.

Brian was lighting a cigarette, as if a cigarette were a reward for a task completed, a job well done.

“You satisfied?” I hissed at Brian.

“Shuddup, Chrissie.”

“Dean, let's go,” I said. “We can go in my car. Leave the truck here till tomorrow. Let's go to my place. You can stay there.”

Dean and Melanie were whispering softly together now, as if there were no one else around. “Don't tell anyone I cried, Mellie.” His voice was urgent. “Please. I don't want people to know I cried. Only girls cry.” Melanie nodded, sniffed.