“Thinking about what’s done, man, dwelling on it, trying to deal with it, I’m just saying, that creates a lot of emotional drag. Be where you are; let where you’ve been alone. Do that and the universe will lean in your direction.”
“That’s very Zen of you.”
“There’re always going to be holes in your heart in the shape of your wife, in the shape of your kids.”
“And you’re telling me, what? That I need to fill the holes with something else?”
“No. I’m telling you to stop staring into ’em and let ’em be there, a part of your story, a part that affects your future, sure, but not what defines it. Stop feeding your pain and it’ll dissipate. Okay, that’s it. That’s what I wanted to say. I’m done.”
“How long have you been waiting to tell me all that?”
“It just came to me. I’m in the zone.”
“Uh-huh.” I take a small breath. “Listen, I appreciate it, really, but let’s talk about something else.”
A long pause. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Nothing really comes to mind.”
“Okay.” He sounds a little defeated. “Right.”
Xavier and I have been close friends ever since we met three years ago in Las Vegas, when my new show “Escape: The Jevin Banks Experience” opened. That was before moving to Atlantic City. Before everything happened and I gave up performing.
He’d worked backstage on the strip for nearly thirty years before coming to work pyrotechnics for me. He lives in an RV, loves to blow stuff up, doesn’t believe we landed on the moon, thinks Bush was responsible for 9/11, and still insists that Obama’s birth certificate was a fake: “Why do you think it took him so long to produce it? And who surrounded him every day? The Secret Service, Jevin. And they’re in charge of investigating counterfeit money. Right? Counterfeit documents? See? Just google it. It’ll make you a believer.”
Now I drive in silence and he quietly fiddles with the button camera I’ll be wearing. Moving from stage pyrotechnics to cinematography has been an easier transition for him than I thought it would be. He has an eye for it. So much of it is about angles and staging and lighting, just like in a stage production. And since I’ll be working incognito, he gets to use some of his favorite gadgets, like the button camera.
A Suburban passes us. A boy who looks about ten years old peers through the window at me as they go by. Even though my sons wouldn’t be nearly that old by now, I wonder what they would have looked like if they’d have reached that age. It seems to happen all the time these days when I see kids.
They’d be taller, stockier, possibly into football or soccer or playing piano, but that would’ve been Drew, I’m guessing, rather than Tony. Probably video games for both of them. I would’ve taught them to ride their bikes, they’d have navigated through most of their years of elementary school and—
Stop it, Jevin. This isn’t helping anything.
No, no it’s not.
Emotional drag.
If nothing else, Xavier was right about that much.
I try to follow his advice and leave where I’ve been alone in order to get the universe to lean in my direction, but it’s not as simple as he makes it sound. I’ve never been able to just tell myself to be happy — or sad, or angry, or anything. Something significant has to happen for my emotions to pendulum that far in another direction. It would be so much easier if I could just tell myself what to feel and then feel it, but that’s not how things work for me. I only seem to learn the important stuff in life the hard way; I have to suffer before I change.
Setting the camera aside, Xavier finger-scrolls across the screen of my iPad to check my messages. “Looks like Charlene’s gonna be a little late, but I think you two should still make it to the center by five thirty.”
“It’s what, about two hours from Salem?”
“Maybe a little less, but about that, yeah.”
“Fionna send the files yet?”
He checks. “Not yet. Just another shot at a simile.”
Fionna McClury, who works logistics and “information gathering” for us, is a single, stay-at-home mom who homeschools her four kids and works as a cybersecurity consultant to pay the bills. Fortune 500 companies hire her to try hacking into their companies in order to test their firewalls. Nine out of ten times she’s successful.
Her kids help her sometimes for homework.
And sometimes she freelances.
For me.
She’s a real pro at teaching her kids everything except English. Her Achilles’ heel. Lately she’s been trying to teach metaphors and similes and keeps sending us some of her own to critique before using them with her kids.
A little apprehensively, I glance at Xavier. “What is it this time?”
“The plane was as fast as a metal tube flying through the air at six hundred miles an hour.”
“Um… it’s accurate.”
“I’ll tell her that.” He types. Hunt and peck. It takes awhile. “Hey, I forgot to mention, I need this weekend off. There’s a convention I’m going to.”
“Bigfoot or UFOs?”
“Very funny. It’s about tectonic weapons.”
“Tectonic weapons.”
“They’re for real, I’m telling you. There’s credible evidence that the Air Force has the U2, the HAARP antennae, microwave technology. Just blast another country’s fault lines with electromagnetic waves, take out their infrastructure without firing a shot. No boots on the ground. It’s the weapon of the future. Intense stuff.”
“Let me guess — Peru a few years ago? Haiti, Japan — test runs?”
“See, even you made the connection. Go to YouTube, search term tectonic weapons. It’ll blow your mind.”
“I’m sure it would, but why on earth would the US attack Haiti, Japan, or Peru?”
He taps his finger against the air as if to accentuate that my question was a way of agreeing with him. “Precisely, Jev. That is exactly the question we need to be asking.”
Aha. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“You can have the weekend off. And you should text her, tell her we need those files tonight.”
“Fionna.”
“Right.”
I guide the van along the highway and think about the TV series we’re filming — another step in my transition from the stage to the screen.
For the last year, I’ve used my background as an illusionist to replicate the tricks and effects of dozens of fake psychics, televangelist con men, and fortune-telling scam artists.
I know all too well what it’s like to search desperately for answers, and I can’t imagine deceiving someone who’s in that situation just to make a buck.
My stage shows did well; money’s not the issue. I’m really not sure anymore what I want out of life, but I figure if I debunk hucksters who are taking advantage of vulnerable and hurting people, well, at least that’s something positive. Something small but worthwhile.
The exposés have become a staple for cable’s Entertainment Film Network, and while not paying nearly as much as my stage shows did, they’ve helped me keep my skills sharp.
Three episodes left under contract. Then I’m not sure what I’ll do. It feels a bit like I’m in a sea with nothing on the horizon to sail toward. And nowhere I really want to sail.
Two shows ago, Entertainment Film Network’s executive producer told me I needed to branch out in a new direction, merge my work with more of a bent toward investigative journalism — sort of an undercover illusionist. I’d studied journalism for a few years in college, so (at least to the producer) it seemed like a natural fit.
I don’t have the name or face recognition of a Copperfield, Blaine, or Angel, and in this case anonymity would be to my advantage.