Zachariah 12: The Magician
London, England
December 24, 1843
From the window above, watching until Johnson and Zachariah were out of sight. Sighing, “May the Lord Jesus be with you, my boy.” The lady pressed her palms together in prayer. “May the good Lord be with you!”
The drapes in the window of the second floor bedroom fell into place.
Late Noon:
The afternoon show nearing completion in a music hall not too far from Broad Street where the audience anxiously awaited the appearance of the theater’s main attraction:
‘Garibaldi The Great: Master Magician’
The muffled metallic sounds of stagehands moving the trapeze, high wire and parallel bars of the preceding act came from behind the drawn curtains, but could be heard by those sitting in the first few rows.
The joyous pre-Christmas crowd of people in the audience sat back, relaxed, and waited.
Cigars were lit and flasks of brandy or gin were passed between friends, and if pretty enough, the flask might be handed to the lady sitting alongside.
And occasionally: “ ‘ow dare ya say such a thing to me? I’s a lady, I is!”A young woman in the sixth row stood, and to the laughter and approval of the people in the neighboring seats, slapped the man sitting next to her.
Stalking through the aisle, the woman stood a moment looking for another seat, spotted one and made for it.
Minutes passing. A thin layer of cigar smoke drifting above the anxious audience…
...A drum roll.
Receding dimly into the theater’s dome, chandeliers pulled upward on greased pulleys and the theater was cast into a flimsy, nervous darkness.
A cough.
“Shhhh!”
The rustle of clothing.
“Shhhh!”
The sounds of the audience subsided slowly.
The squeaking of the parting of the curtains.
Quiet…
The transparent darkness…
Quiet.
Suddenly!
Admidst motes of dust, swirls and spirals of cigar smoke that formed floating phantoms in its narrowing, gelatinous yellow beam, a gas-lit reflecting spotlight shone fully upon the bare stage for the time of three heartbeats…
Then the light abruptly disappeared leaving only the ghostly, flickering gaslight from the chandeliers above.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!”
The hollow voice coming from somewhere…
The hollow voice coming from everywhere.
“GARIBALDI THE GREAT!”
Quiet…
The transparent darkness…
Quiet.
Now, a pinpoint of light shone directly center stage.
Slowly… Slowly, the light broadened upon a face—an evil face…
Shoulders…
Torso…
“GARIBALDI THE GREAT!”
A rotund man of indeterminate age; round and youthful,the face of Garibaldi had a shiny black mustache and a Faust like goatee, which in itself would not be frightful. However, what was startling were the eyes, the fathomless eyes… for, piercing black under pure white, arched brows, the eyes of Garibaldi were the eyes of an old man, and when looking into these eyes one was immediately reminded of one dimensional lumps of coal set into the face of a snowman…
Within moments, though, the flatness disappeared, leaving in its place the awesome sensation of looking into bottomless black pits.
Flowing white hair came to just below the magician’s shoulders and, except for a startling white shirt, Garibaldi was dressed entirely in black: pants, cutaway coat, and top hat.
Standing perfectly still, the magician silently regarded his audience.
Silently regarding all…
Moving slowly the magician’s eyes seemingly touching all.
Not a sound.
Not a whisper.
Silence.
Silence…
…Till a low murmur came from the audience and, the murmur of the audience being the magician’s cue, removing the hat, bowing with a flourish, “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!” Garibaldi said in a deeply resonant, but curiously relaxing voice. “What you see here in my hands is a hat!” Pausing, he smiled. “Ahh, but it is not just any hat! This hat is a magic hat…
“ ‘You’!”
Startled, each individual bounded upward in his or her seat.
“Yes! You!” Making a sweeping motion, Garibaldi pointed vaguely into the audience.
Turning, people looked at their neighbors.
“Yes!” His voice rising, “Yes! ‘You’!” he repeated, his hand dropping to his side. “You know who you are!” His voice dropping ominously. “I see you.”
Sweeping the audience slowly, Garibaldi’s black eyes looked everywhere! At everyone. Yet, seemingly, at each one person individually…
“ ‘This is a magic hat’!” Garibaldi’s voice boomed.
Silence…
Absolute silence throughout.
Not a cough, not a rustle.
Two hundred and thirty-three pair of eyes stared, unblinking, at the man in the spotlight. And not one of those two hundred and thirty-three people had a doubt that the hat in Garibaldi’s hand was anything but magic.
Silence…
CHABOOOMMM!
A loud clap of thunder! A bright flash of light and a cloud of dense smoke simultaneously enveloped the magician.
Startled! The audience moved upward and to the edge of their seats.
The smoke hovered…
Then! As though a curtain; lifting from the bottom, the smoke slowly rose, and as it did it revealed the magician standing as before, but…
Staring at the seated mass… Yet seemingly staring at each person individually, Garibaldi reached into the inverted top hat, the top hat that now sat on a waist-high, wooden table, that had appeared from out the smoke directly before him.
Made of unvarnished wood, the top of the table was no more than a foot square and an inch thick, and was held upward by four thin, spindly legs.
Obviously nothing could be or was hidden beneath the table, for Garibaldi’s sharply creased trousers could be seen through the spindly legs.
Hissing... Yet heard by all. “Disbelievers, watch!”
The magician’s fingers, hand and wrist, descending slowly into the hat, appeared to be searching for something.
“I know he’s in here.” Seemingly speaking to himself, his voice hardly heard, yet heard by the furthest person in the furthermost row.
Deeper!
The magician’s arm went deeper into the hat and was now beyond his forearm and elbow…
Yet hadn’t emerged or could be seen from beneath the tabletop….
“Where ‘are you’?”
In a soft, singsong voice, the entire audience heard…
“ ‘Where ‘are you’?”
Murmuring…
Whispering…
Two hundred and thirty-three wide-eyed people looking straight forward.
“… Where’s ‘is bloody ‘and?”
The man’s companion whispered back, “D’know. It ain’t under the table!”
“Where’s ‘is bloody arm?”
Deeper... Now, to the armpit.
“Where ‘arrre you’?” In the magician’s melodic, singsong voice… “Oscar, my pretty baby, where ‘arrre you’?”
Searching… The lost arm moving in circles within the rim of the hat.
“ ‘Ah-ha’!” Garibaldi smiled wickedly. “There you are!”
Suddenly, the arm and table shaking violently. The hat moving furiously from one corner of the table to the other.
“Come… Come, my friend. We won’t hurt you!”
Looking up, speaking questionally to the audience. “We won’t hurt him, will we?”
Speaking to his hat. “Don’t make such a fuss.” As though speaking to a child, “We won’t hurt you.” Cajoling, “Come!” The magician pleaded,.“Come!”
All eyes focused on the man in black, the audience strained to the very edges of their seats.
“Shhh! Shhh, my little baby,” Garibaldi sang in a voice scarcely loud enough to be heard, but yet could be heard by all, as slowly…
As slowly, his arm still thrashing back and forth within the confines of the magic hat. As ever so slowly, still singing, still cooing... “Come, my little baby. Come, my pretty Oscar.”
The arm rose…
Upper arm. Elbow. Forearm and wrist until…
There!
Held tightly in the magician’s fist was the mottled…
Higher.
…green and brown head…
Higher.
…of a thrashing…
Higher yet.
…boa constrictor.
In unison. As though on cue, a collective, startled gasp came from the people in the theater all all eyes were riveted onto the huge, squirming reptile as it slithered out of the hat upward as now, standing on the tips of his toes, holding the snake in both hands, Garibaldi lifted upward, lifting the creature higher and higher above his head… and still it came from within the bottomless hat till…
Oscar was out!
At least eight feet of fearsome, thrashing muscle, Oscar was out of the hat.
Coming from the wings, appearing as though terrified, quickly, removing the hat and table, an attendant rushed back to the wings, as…
Standing dead center upon the bare stage, Garibaldi held the head of Oscar above his head as…
Thrashing back and forth, whipping up dust upon the bare wood, the tail of the snake unexpectedly….
“Not so tight my beautiful baby.”
… flipped upward, wrapping itself about Garibaldi’s lower body and chest.
“Oscar, ‘not so tight’…”
Coiling higher, upward, around his throat.
“Please, Oscar ‘not so tight’!
Was this part of the act?
“I can’t breath!” the magician gasped. “Please! I can’t breath!”
Could something be wrong?
In shock, standing, a woman in the audience shrieked, “’elp him! Someone ‘elp ‘im! The beast’s killing him!”
Hissing softly… though loudly enough for even the furthest person in the furthermost row to hear, turning its evil head to the audience, its small, beady eyes glowing red, its long, forked tongue flicking in and out of its seemingly smiling, evil mouth.
As the magician ineffectively truing to pull the tight coil from around his neck…
A man—a heroic man in the third row—began to climb over the man in the seat in front of him in an effort to get to the stage…
CHABOOMMM!
A loud clap of thunder, a bright flash of light and a cloud of dense smoke once again simultaneously enveloped the magician and Oscar as the stage momentarily went black.
Another flash of light and the stage was lit again, and…
As the smoke dissipated, standing with his arms spread, the magic hat back on his head, the snake was gone, and in its place, around Garibaldi’s neck was a garland of flowers.
His leg held in mid-air, the man in the third row stopped.
“‘ow’d ‘e do it?”
The audience could not believe their eyes.
“It’s a trick?”
Turning to each other…
“How?”
In a multitude of British accents and dialects...
“‘ow’d ‘e do it?”
“Can’t be!”
“Got to be!”
“‘ow?”
“Now!” His voice booming over the tumult of their voices, Garibaldi said, “Do I have your attention?”
Silence…
A moment later the magician was answered by tumultuous applause.
“And to the man in the third row!” Garibaldi pointed to the man who had attempted to help him. “I thank you, Sir. You are indeed a brave man. But...” smiling benignly, “...you do not ‘really’’ want to meet Oscar, because if you do…”
“No!” vigorously shaking his head, “ ‘No’!” the man answered as, retaking his seat. “I thanks ya, Gov, but no thanks!”
Sweeping the hat from his head, leaving a comet’s tail of sparkling dust in its wake, Garibaldi bowed to the man.
The attendant returned the spindly legged table.
The magician put the hat back on the tabletop where…
A white rat climbed onto the rim, circled twice, looked inside the hat, and scampered up Garibaldi’s sleeve onto his shoulder and hid behind the magician’s head as the head of a small, black cat poked through the hat and with Garibaldi’s assistance, the cat was pulled out of the hat and dropped onto the floor.
Sniffing the air, the cat walked in a wide circle around the magician, stalking, as the rat ran around his collar in front when the cat was behind and behind when the cat was in front.
The audience roared with laughter.
A covey of partridges stumbled out of the hat, fluttered to the floor, formed a straight line and ambled off stage.
The people were enchanted.
A dove chased a puppy.
Each ensemble was followed with enthusiastic applause.
“Now, as my final feat of magic and in keeping with the season…”
Garibaldi took the hat off the table, put it on his head then lifted the table and threw it to someone in the wings.
The hat, rim up was put onto the floor then dramatically popping his wrists out of the top coat, as though to show he had nothing up his sleeves. Kneeling, he put his hand into the magic hat once again…
And searching into the depths of the hat, once again his arm disappeared to the elbow.
On both knees. Bending over, his face — almost atop the hat’s rim, was screwed in concentration…
But now smiling his malignant smile, ever so slowly, the magician began to extract his arm…
In his hand, held tightly between thumb and index finger, was the tip of something green and bristly.
Straightening his knees, he pulled his arm higher, and there, in his hand was the tip of an ever-growing Christmas tree fully bedecked with lit candles, strings of popcorn, and glass ornaments.
As the top of the tree reached near the magician’s fully extended height, rushing on stage with a base, taking the tree and setting it inside, the stagehand rushed back to the wings.
Taking his hat from the floor, Garibaldi placed it over the tip of the tree, then, a moment later, removed it revealing a star with burning candles on each of its five points.
Turning to the audience, bowing deeply, Garibaldi bid them, “A happy Christmas to you all!”
The applause thunderous, the audience rose from their seats.
Garibaldi the Great stood with his arms outstretched, as…
Retracting within its gelatinous yellow beam there were motes of dust, the phantoms of the swirls and spirals of cigar smoke.
When but a pinpoint of light remained on the magician’s face there came a puff of smoke, a flash of light, and Garibaldi was gone.
The performance over. Pulleys squeaked as once again the chandeliers were lowered and the theater, once again was lit.
Putting their hats and coats on, the people filed outside into the cold gloom of this waning, prematurely dark day.
Next: Zachariah 13: The Undertaker
