Table Magic

I'm doing card tricks for the impossible, they're maybe Americans or Canadians, but either way there's no pleasing these Joes. Two girls at a table to the right are over-looking, Italian, dark-skinned, deep-eyed. As I leave this table to a thunderous hush they call me over. We want to see magic, they say. Well, what's a guy to do? I bring out the cards. What is your name? they ask. John, I reply. Ah, like Elton John! Here we go, I think. You look like him, they tell me (as do others), but you are not a gay are you? Not yet, I reply. I continue with the card tricks, and, after the night I've had, I don't hold back. I kill them. I knock them dead. I leave them with nowhere to go but awe, they are as freaked out as cats in a mirror. And the girl who called me across, this beautiful girl, is blinking in disbelief, her whelm, over. Can I hug you, she asks. Sure, I say, and she stands up, leans forward and hugs me, holds me more like, and as she does she whispers in my ear, ‘you’re doing great... you are doing great’. I have nothing left.