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Don’t Eat at Joe’s

It was no longer Joe Kelsen that ran “Joe’s Magic Emporium and Consignment”. He retired years ago. Decades, by now, according to the framed picture on the wall. One that turned to a skull if illuminated by blacklight.

Darky “Joe” Rouse had opted not to change the name though. He did, after some joking with customers, start to stock an increasing variety of card games. Darky was black, to the chagrin of most new white customers – old enough to have aged out of dampening every outburst of enthusiasm in fear of people’s reaction, young enough to forget to complain about his knee when things did get exciting.

Did the Emporium have secrets? Sure. You couldn’t use the employee bathroom. But you could rent – or be offered time – in one of the back rooms, or the warehouse space beneath the store, if the front playing tables were a bit too public.

~

Nellie, when she had decided enough was enough and she had to move out on her own, had not moved to her current apartment because of Joe’s. She might have glanced at it as the bus pulled into town – a building tightly framed by trees, Name painted across the top in white letters instead of bearing a plastic sign. But her new roommate had insisted she should see it at least once while she was here.

She found it interesting enough, seeing the paraphernalia, giving Darky opportunity to demonstrate a few small illusions – buying a bit of flash paper to experiment as thanks.

The work she had found was at the gas station – manning the register in a glass box, learning just who was a neighbor and who was a tourist, possibly at the worst moment in their days to do so – when they were tired of being in a car, but headed straight back into them, not giving themselves enough time for courtesy, forethought, or decency to kick back in.

Darky did recognize her, coming back from a delivery – spent some time to talk from the other side of the glass, let her know she was welcome to come sit in the dark musty quiet for a while if she ever needed a moment to herself.

Nellie found her self doing so. Slightly unintentionally. Her roommate had friends – and, while they tried being friendly a with her at first, nothing clicked. She’d try and be friendly, and only get stares back. She remained an outsider, despite recognizing more people on the streets – but usually not for good reasons.

Darky was happy to listen. Talk – sometimes about the out of towners that came though the store, sometimes about himself, sometimes about people in town. And, when he was busy, Nellie was happy to lend a hand – never officially hired, but sometimes walking away with sample trinkets, sometimes walking away with actual money in her pocket. She had thought she’d grown out of liking magic – but the way he talked – the skill, the misdirection – she actually tried to learn the trinkets she received, if only to fill the empty bits of her day.

~

One cool, rainy day Nellie found Darky restocking card decks – There was some elementary school craze, and he had been bought out for a while – he wasn’t sure what the kids were looking for, or if any of them had found it, but they would have another chance now.

There was some hammering going on down in the wearhouse. “Oh, yeah – got some ladies building up some stuff down there. Rented out the loading bay. Met them… hmm. At Harvest, I think it was? Easy to pick them out in that crowd. Yeah. Now, I didn’t promise them anything… but I think they were looking for more help. Well, Olivia was. Aurie… anywho.”

“Like, making a prop help? I can watch the register if -“

“Oh, no, if they wanted my help with that they’d of asked. On The Road help. Backstage help. Which is to say, if you were to go down and see what they were doing, you could find yourself in an interview right quick, If you were tired of that glass box of yours.”

“What? You trying to get rid of me?”

“Get rid of? No, no. But I know you haven’t exactly found what you wanted *out there*,” He turned to the windows, looking towards the gas station, “And sooner or later something is going to happen – you really shouldn’t wait till you’re completely miserable to get that all started.”

~

Nellie had flubbed dozens of interviews. What would one more be? She had seen the warehouse before – past the private rooms, down the stairs which somehow passed fire codes, past the supposed employee bathroom – it was not a huge warehouse, its shelving a mishmash that was all within rolling ladder range – the lowest level filled with retired equipment for which is “was not yet time” – meaning it had sat for months on the store floor with no interest. In the corners were stacks of somthing – rolls of paper for the local printer? Storage was storage. They had to bring their own forklift to get the rolls in place.

The frequently empty unloading area, large roll-up garage door on one end, was full enough to be unusable, looking somewhere between framing of a house and an arts and crafts store – lumber, rolls of felt, paint, loose sequins, a and saw apparently lodged into a metal pipe. Certainly enough paraphernalia to have a decent magic show, certifiably nothing worth putting on stage yet.

One person was currently visible – A Brunette (or extremely dirty blonde), baggy overalls over a loose long-sleeved shirt, baseball cap with a ponytail poking out the back hole, applying some sort of paint to plywood. Whoever was hammering was somwhere in the mess.

“Excuse me? Are you Olivia?”

She looked up, carefully put down the brush, and threaded her way through the works in progress, trying to force a dab of wet paint dry by rubbing her hands together. “No,” She still offered her hand to Nellie, “Aurelia. Aurelia Marsh.”

“Nellie Williams,” The handshake was dainty.

“Are you here for…?”

“Darky said you needed some help. Short and… longer term?”

“Ohh, yes. Yes.” Aurelia raised a hand, uninvited, and compared their heights – Nellie was slightly shorter, even with wedges. She the turned back to the hammering and bellowed “OLIVIA. We got a walk on.”

The hammering stopped and up popped another head – darker brown, hair not shoulder length, lifting off safety goggles to reveal a pair of glasses underneath, similarly layered in protective clothes – looking dead tired. “You work with Jim?”

“I’ve helped Mr. Rouse before, yeah.” Don’t directly contradict.

“You wanna see if she’s Rouse-ful?” Aurelia turned away towards what looked like a costuming rack.

“I wanna talk to her first.” Olivia did not offer her hand for a handshake, but instead immediately guided Nellie to the book room by the bathroom. It looked like it held maybe a century of tax documents, stacked boxes and file cabinets pushed up againt the walls, an old wooden desk, and three folding chairs – taking one, offering another, her interviewer was seeming to take another moment to organize her thoughts.

“Ok. Sorry, Olivia Gregs. Yeah, nice to meet you.”

“Nellie Williams, Mr. Rouse said you were pretty particular about your backstage.”

“That is a fine way to put it. Uh. Have you seen Ruthful and Co. perform before?”

“I haven’t been out of this town in two years – I’m sorry, I haven’t – all I know is it’s an illusion show.”

“Have you ever worked a backstage?”

“I… no. I feel like I should have brought a resume – I’ve been managing a gas station register since I moved here.”

Olivia waved the concern off, “Not any backstage – movie, school band..?”

“I…” She struggled to answer with any sort of yes, “I was in band for a year. Drummer. But that was like 6th grade.”

“So it’s been a long time. Ok, bad habits are harder to get rid of than no habits. But you’ve worked here?”

“Helping with the register, sometimes bringing things from and to the warehouse. I can work a dolly.”

“Uh huh. And you. Any backstage experience?”

Olivia was no longer looking at Nellie – she turned to find the other chair occupied.

With herself?

The woman sitting beside her … those weren’t the same clothes, but they colors were close. the two could be mistaken at a distance. The face though – the hair, at this distance, was certainly a wig, but almost the right shade of black. The face was like she was looking at a photo of herself… the uncanny feeling of not seeing it flipped in the mirror was there. Those were her cheeks. The bags under her eyes. The clothes sat on this woman just like they would have sat on her.

The reached up to scratch her neck nervously – and the other woman did at the same instant.

Illusions. They were magicians. Illusions. She hadn’t been listening.

“…they sort of gave up on me at that point. They let me keep attending gymnastics, but my joints were just too lax to compete. They just tried to focus me on strength training until I quit on my own. Not what a 8 year old wants to do.”

“None of that was about backstage.”

“And I’m trying to tell you, I am not suited for backstage. I can’t lift 25 pounds.”

The voice – she was good. But there was a lack of southerness to it.

“And can you lift 25 pounds? Nellie?”

“Yes,” There was no hesitation. “I’ve driven a box truck helping Darky before, too. I’d need to get the proper license if it was going to be a regular thing.”

Olivia, nodded. Nellie was paying attention to her duplicate – but not exclusively. “Do you have any history in Improv? Sorry, Improvisational theater. Not a backstage question, but-“

“I have to seal with idiots every. Single. Day. At the gas station. Driving off without paying. Driving off with the fuel line still hooked up. Shouting at me for no reason over things I have no control over. Treating me like dirt. If y’all care enough to pay that much attention to me when we’ve just met, I’m down to try whatever.”

The other woman started lauging – not Nellie’s laugh, but the thought came to mind, they hadn’t heard that yet, “like making out?”

Improv. She knew what that was, “In front of My Netfilx account, or mine?”

The other woman laughed harder – but whatever she was doing to look like Nellie’s twin, the facade didn’t break.

“Oh, you can try, but I haven’t been able to get her to stop by any other means than asking,” Olivia leaned back in her chair. Even more relaxed, she was tired looking as ever, “It’s a challenge, personal pride.”

“Are you…. Aurelia? Someone else?”

“I’m Nellie.” The third woman chuckled – that had a familiar sound to it. Had Nellie chuckled and not noticed it?”

“Well, then, I’ll explain.” Olivia leaned forward again. “It was… four years ago, I think? Four years ago the we both made the casting call for another act. I’d been wanting to get into the magic biz for a while, it would have been a bigger name on my resume – still not my own act, but it was work experience. What’s her face – i’ll be damned if Aurelia isn’t a stage name, ‘Aurelia’ sounds like a magic word on it’s own, don’t it? She talked about the gymnastics thing, but that doesn’t begin to describe her flexibility. She was doing stuff you’d see on stage at Vegas as her warm-up, her pre-show destress. At the end of our contracts she agreed to work with me on developing some stuff – illusions – if I could try and actually take advantage of that flexibility. Not to make a magic contortion act – to hide all the contortion, but require it.”

“I needed an outlet, ” Nellie turned back, and it was certainly now Aurelia in a wig rather than her doppelganger. “A friend, even.”

Nellie wanted to jump back in shock, but managed to stay seated. There had been no sign Aurelia had actually moved … It wasn’t makeup. It wasn’t some kind of prosthetics. Had she just,,, found the right clothes and wig and willed herself into another shape?

“It was a while before she showed me what she could do with her face,” Olivia continued, “She was still trying to figure out techniques for the rest of her body. And Male personas.”

“Male personas… like, become a guy?”

“Look like one, act like one. Unfortunately not get taller, ” Aurelia sighed, “not even wear heels? Its a little lame.”

“Do you, like, grow a…”

Olivia and Aurelia both patiently waited to see how Nellie would end that sentence.

“…are y’all trying to be not-lesbians?”

“Will History close-friends us? Who’s to say.” Olivia shrugged. “I mean, my understanding was that I was making a safe environment for my friend to show off when nobody thought I could headline a whole show myself.”

“But she doesn’t know the show,” Aurelia pointed out.

We aren’t completely sure of the show right now,” Olivia fired back. They were hesitating to push that any further.

“So… If I’m maybe going to be part of the show – backstage – what was it with just you two?”

“Us five, actually. Ruthful and Co. has been a 5 person show, ” Olivia started.

“More accurately, 1 Olivia and 4 personas. Which means she’s almost always on stage, I’m almost always on stage, but it looks like a cast of five. Ruthful The Ok and Running behind schedule, Betty, Cathy, and Darla,” Aurelia sighed, “not the most inventive names, but I wanted to go a bit further with biographies than B, C and D,”

“But no A, no Aurelia?”

“No Aurelia,” the woman confirmed her own conditions, “Or it turning it into a contortion show.”

“She’s really good at making her personas as stiff as a board, most of the time,” Olivia added, “which you’ll wonder how if you see her stretch. Anyways. We think the direction we’re going is 6 or 7 personas – and me – in a longer show. Act 1 introduces everyone in some way, Act 2 get more impressive but Ruthful the Great disappears at the then of it, Act 3 is the chaos of trying to bring the show to a satisfying conclusion.”

“Dissapears… books it? Dissappears in a trick?”

“Trick. One less persona to deal with,” Aurelia confirms, “The whole point of more assistants is to see the assistants, right? As long as he’s on stage there’s only assistant Olivia on stage, or some. Fake butt sticking out from somewhere.”

“So does everyone disappear?”

“We have to have someone ther to properly end the show. No.” Olivia shook her head.

“I mean, do all the personas have their… gory sendoff or somthing?”

Aurelia and Olivia stared at each other for a moment.

“The couldn’t all be gory. Too much repetition. Some could just… Walk out.”

“I’d be able to do aftershows, ” Aurelia beamed. “At least in one of the personas…. A different one each time, even.”

“You’re already exhausted at the end of the current show.”

“Because I’m not supposed to be lifting 25 pounds.”

“You weigh over 25 pounds”

“Have you seen me try and handstand? “

~

“I do appreciate that I’m… Being listened to already?” Nellie brought her hands together as if apologizing, “And I’d be happy to help when I can, but I still have a job to go to tomorrow.”

Olivia nodded, “that’s fine. Were probably here for a month. Probably looking for temporary work ourselves before we get callbacks, honestly. Theater renovations over the slow season. We couldn’t really offer you terms until then. And a month is plenty of time to decide everyone hates one another.”

“I do have a suggestion for tomorrow?” Aurelia offered, “we really could used a new pair of saw blades. You know. On for wood and one for metal.”

Olivia slumped. Then stood other feet, “Yeah… I’ll just. Get you the right size…”



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