Until the day I rescued him.
It was the last week of freshman year. I’d stayed after algebra class to ask my teacher a question. When the bell rang, announcing the beginning of our next class, I hoofed it down the hallway, hoping I wouldn’t be too late to history. I whipped around a corner and spotted two students at the other end. They were Alan and Peter Levine, an eighteen-year-old junior who was perfectly sized for the football team but too much of a delinquent to qualify for extracurricular activities. Peter Levine had trapped Alan by the water fountain and was holding his face in the stream of water while Alan thrashed helplessly.
I turned back the way I’d come. I wouldn’t have won any popularity contests in high school but had a just-hostile-enough demeanor that my peers, drama club notwithstanding, generally respected. I kept my nose out of others’ business, and they returned the favor. I could handle the occasional nuisance like Alan. The last thing I needed was an actual bully after me.
As I walked the long route to class, I admit to being satisfied that Alan was getting his comeuppance. He deserved the humiliation. No one would have been more surprised than I was when I wound up heading back to the water fountain. Peter Levine had only an inch or two on me but had half a foot on Alan. Alan wasn’t going anywhere until Peter Levine got bored.
“Hey, Walking Cliche,” I said when I was within earshot of the fountain, not daring to get much closer. If anyone would strike a girl, it’d be Peter Levine. “Leave him alone.”
Understand that I didn’t stick my neck out for Alan because it was the right thing to do. I didn’t come from a home that put much stock in altruism. I stepped in because I saw an opportunity to save my show. I wanted to spend the next three years practicing in peace.
Peter Levine, still gripping Alan’s hair, turned to me. “Beat it. No one asked you.”
I took a couple of steps closer and put my hands on my hips, trying to live up to the rumors that swirled through the classrooms: I kept a pet bat; I slept in a coffin; I had a serpent’s tongue. All because I wore black clothing and makeup. Alan choked on the water, blubbering and flailing.
“Don’t you have a test to fail or an underage girl to impregnate?”
Peter Levine’s grin morphed to an expression of rage. His hold on Alan loosened for a moment. “Why don’t you fuck right off?”
Alan saw his chance, shook free, and sprinted down the hallway faster than I’d ever seen him move, without so much as a backward glance. A vein bulged on Peter Levine’s forehead. It was just him and me.
I relaxed my shoulders and affected a tone of nonchalance. Peter Levine was small potatoes compared to the bully I faced at home every day. “I’ll take that under advisement.” I walked past him into my classroom. He didn’t move a muscle.
The next morning I found a first edition of a hard-to-find Houdini manual in my locker. No one in the drama club ever bothered me again.
Back in the art gallery, the onslaught of abuse had continued unabated for ten minutes. I had assumed the crowd would tire of the charade and lose steam, but they were still shouting with enthusiasm.
All the while Evelyn stood in the middle of the room, blindfolded, with a serene expression on her face. The longer she stood there, the more curious they were. Her refusal to quit intrigued them. A realization struck me like a father’s fist: the best performances weren’t about escaping as fast as you could. Anyone with bluster and a key could do that.
They were about enduring as long as you could.
Houdini’s tricks were just that. He employed secret panels and trapdoors and concealed keys. He was an inventor, a salesman above all else. He sold his magic so well his crowds were blind to the smoke and mirrors right in front of them.
What if I could create true magic instead? An act without easy answers or trapdoors. A performance that involved no key. I didn’t want my work to be replicable by any average joe with a toolbox. It took minutes to reproduce Houdini’s feats. It would take months of discipline to copy mine. Suddenly I was bursting with ideas.
Even then I understood that the danger Houdini put himself in was only part of his draw. What audiences craved was the “ta-da.” They wanted bravery in the face of said danger, a hero to cheer on, someone who pulled off the impossible sans trembling chin or lips chewed to a pulp. Who was a more devoted student of fearlessness than I? I no longer scared easily, having spent most of my childhood summoning the nerve to complete whatever insane exploit Sir conjured next. Then again, I wasn’t infallible. I wanted to be. How was Evelyn immune to pain? How could I harden myself to it?
The artist held up a hand, and the room quieted instantly. She removed the blindfold to reveal red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. Our words had hurt her.
My fellow spectators’ faces filled with sheepishness, even horror. They were sorry for what they’d said, even though she’d asked them to say it. Now that they could see her eyes again, they remembered there was a person under that blindfold. Our humanity poured from, was trapped in, those two small orbs.
You could have heard a pin drop.
“Now we see how violence feels at the individual level.” Evelyn held out the blindfold. “Would anyone else like to brave a turn?”
The crowd took a step back. It was one thing to ridicule a stranger; it was another to be forced under the spotlight yourself. But I was more like Evelyn than like the rest of them. I knew what it was to be booed, to stand my ground anyway. This crowd might hurt me, but nothing anyone said here would deliver a fatal blow. Perhaps I would pass my lessons on someday, teach others how to be unafraid.
Calm washed over me. I raised my hand. “I will.”
11
Natalie
JANUARY 8, 2020
I REACH FOR the hanger to stop its swinging and stare slack-jawed at my sweater.
Someone has been in this room. Someone has gone through my things.
I hold my breath as I dig through my pajamas. My phone is still here. I exhale, close my eyes.
The peace lasts only seconds before a new thought strikes: whoever did this could be watching right now. Dread wrenches my stomach. I rise and turn to each window.
The first is empty.
So is the second.
Through the third, I glimpse a shadow slinking out of sight. My temples throb. I march to the window. But when I open it, the intruder is gone.
“What do you want?” I shout. I’m answered with silence.
I clench my fists, muttering every four-letter word I know. I ransack my duffel bag, the nightstand drawer, the bathroom, cataloguing my stuff, trying to figure out what’s missing. Something has to be, but nothing is. Not a single item has been stolen. Nothing new left behind either. The room is exactly as I left it, except for the sweater.