It took three months for me to train him for this escape. He’s twenty-three, ten years younger than I am. He’s been doing illusions and escapes since he was twelve, but he hasn’t worked with snakes before.
I have — and I’ve been bitten: twice by rattlers and once by an Egyptian cobra. Those snakes hadn’t had their venom glands removed, and I spent nearly a month recovering each time. I almost lost two fingers to the swelling in my left hand from the cobra bite.
Now, Charlene Antioch, my assistant in my stage show as well as the woman I’m seeing, squeezes my hand, just for a moment. A small gesture that speaks volumes.
Her walnut-colored hair makes me think of a rich, chocolaty waterfall. A year younger than me, she has an agelessness about her and could pass for twenty if she needed to.
We’ve worked together for going on seven years, and recently our relationship has blossomed into much more than just the platonic friendship we had before my wife committed suicide a year ago last September.
A born actress, Charlene has the uncanny ability to transform herself into whatever kind of woman the situation calls for, which is an amazing gift for her to have during the quick change segments in my show. With the bat of an eye she can move from cute to flat-out irresistible.
Charlene is experienced in emergency first aid, and even though the snakes have had their venom glands removed, I don’t like to take any chances when the lives of other people hang in the balance, so she has several vials of antivenin with her in case something goes wrong.
Five minutes and forty seconds.
The men we’ve hired for this effect continue to shovel the earth onto the coffin that my friend Xavier designed.
Nearby, the snake wrangler, a Filipino man named Tomás Agcaoili, holds the canvas bag containing additional cobras. We told him we only needed four, but he insisted on bringing more to show the crowd and to “add more drama effect” for the video.
The crowd of nearly fifty people watches anxiously. Charlene, Xavier, and I are the only Caucasians here.
I glance toward Xavier, my effect designer. As a longtime veteran of working pyrotechnics for stage shows in Las Vegas, he met up with me just over three years ago when my show was doing a run on the Strip. He’s fifty-two, lives by himself in an RV, still rocks out to the Grateful Dead, and has listened to every episode of Coast to Coast AM that’s ever been aired. His job is to come up with effects that defy imagination and explanation. To, in essence, reverse engineer the impossible.
Bald, with a slightly graying goatee and mischievous yet steely eyes, Xav somehow looks both imposing and harmless at the same time. He’s a wizard with anything electronic or incendiary and is a little antsy today because he hasn’t blown anything up or burned anything down in over a week.
The coffin’s side has a release mechanism that Xavier came up with, and to provide additional oxygen, a one-inch-wide plastic air tube runs down through the earth out of sight of the onlookers.
Emilio will press himself all the way against the left side of the coffin, swing the right side panel in, allowing dirt inside. Then, as he digs his way out, he’ll continue to push the soil behind him and use his legs to kick it into the coffin so that, as he makes his way up through the earth, he fills the coffin behind him with the dirt he’s digging through. We would retrieve the snakes later after the conclusion of the effect.
I’ve done similar escapes and the digging is terrifically exhausting work, made more difficult by the cramped quarters and, in this case, the presence of the cobras, which isn’t going to allow him to make any quick movements that might make them aggressive.
I coached Emilio, taught him how to do this. He’s good and has practiced each part of this escape dozens of times; I wouldn’t be here encouraging him if I wasn’t confident he had the skill to get out. But staying calm is just as vital as the technical aspects of an escape, and that’s the hardest thing to teach — and to master — especially when the pressure is on.
Six minutes, fifty-eight seconds.
My attention is focused on the grave, but I notice Tomás pass to the back of the crowd.
Xavier gives me a look that to anyone else would mean nothing, but we’ve worked together enough for me to know that something is up.
A shadow of worry.
That’s what I see cross his face.
He has a radio transmitter disguised as a nail in the side of the coffin, and in his earpiece he can hear everything that’s going on inside.
Unobtrusively, he walks over and eyes the ground at the end of the tube we hid earlier, the one that leads to the coffin and could be accessed by pushing out a carefully concealed knot in the wood on the side panel.
As soon as Emilio’s hands were free he would be able to pop the fake knot out, access the air tube, and get as much air as he needs.
Before we flew here to the Philippines I told him, “It’s amazing how fast you use up air when you’re digging — faster than you can imagine. You’ll need the extra oxygen. So if you want me to help arrange this for you, we’re going to use an air tube and we’re removing the snakes’ venom.”
At last he agreed, Xavier and his team worked out the logistics, and here we are.
Soil quickly swallows the cries of people who are buried alive. Knowing Emilio, I don’t think he will scream, but as the dirt piles higher, I hear a faint pounding sound, kicking. He’s thrashing around inside the coffin.
“Hang on,” I tell the men. “Ihinto. Stop.”
I walk closer and listen carefully.
Xavier stands beside me. Things are quiet now beneath the earth. “Something’s wrong,” he says stiffly.
I turn to the men. “Dig him up.”
“But—” one of the men objects.
“Do it.”
They hesitate and I grab one of the shovels. “I said, dig. Now.”
Xavier points to the person filming this. “Turn off the camera.”
At last the men join me and the soil flies quickly. There aren’t any shovels left for Xavier, so he gets on his knees and with his bare hands drags the soil aside.
“Turn off that camera!” he repeats roughly.
The crowd looks shaken. A few women hold their hands over their mouths.
After a few moments of furious digging, I drive my shovel into the earth and hear a dull thunk as the blade finds the top of the coffin. I call to Emilio but he doesn’t answer. The soft, muted sound of the snakes hissing is faint, but even through the coffin I can hear it.
Yes, they’re agitated alright.
“Emilio?”
No reply.
“Get this lid off!”
The men shoveling beside me look at each other uneasily, but I yell again for them to help me get the cover off.
Xavier and I brush dirt off the lid.
I can see that the right side of the coffin is tilted slightly inward, telling me that Emilio released it and started to dig, but with the angle I can’t open the top yet. I’ll need to get the cover off.
The release mechanism Xavier installed only works to open one side of it, not the top. Now he appears with a hammer to pry loose the nails holding down the lid. I take it from him and set to work.
“I’m coming, Emilio. I’m right here!” But he doesn’t respond. And having rehearsed this so much together, I know he would if he could.
The nails were hammered all the way in, but the wood is slightly beveled, giving me enough space for the claw end of the hammer, and I go at the nails.
Did a cobra get mixed in there that still had its venom?
Charlene has already joined us and has the syringe of antivenin ready.