The Magical, Mysterious Man
My dad had a weak left eye. You wouldn’t have known it to look at him from a distance. He didn’t walk funny or shoot out his hands desperately flailing for a wall to direct his uneven steps. But if you got close - close enough to, say, hug him, you could catch the blurry distortion through the left lens of his eye glasses. Sure, it was still my stoic old man behind the spectacles but the fun house mirror magnification of his worry worn eyes would make you almost certain you heard a carnival barker. It was faint, but you still followed the instruction to step right up, step right up!
He imparted upon me a predilection to honesty so I must admit that anything I say has been laundered countless times by every recollection sprung to mind in a moment of reflection and hung to dry along the years since he passed and since I grew up, if he ever really did and if I ever really have. Because of this the memories have become worn and delicate. Some holes have been repaired with suppositions and events that almost possibly maybe happened. In other words, his memory in my mind is far from absolute and infallible. But damn it if he wasn’t magic.
The whole man was magic. It was a simple magic, but magic nonetheless. He didn’t know any spells of which I was aware but he was in constant command of his surroundings, bending everything to meet his needs. That is, unless my mom wanted for something, in which case he willed his magic to accommodate her whims. If he was a magician she was his assistant. (I’m quite certain that if asked he would insist those roles were reversed. But for the sake of recollection we will keep this version of history.)
Of all the astounding displays of prestidigitation he was capable of the most memorable and awe-inspiring was also his most simple: He made me smile. Even at times I didn’t want to or times I didn’t feel worthy of happiness he was there with a strong fatherly word of advice (“Don’t be stupid next time!”) and something that, for him, passed as affection. This varied depending on his mood but it was usually a strong hand on my shoulder. His hands were always rough from manual labor. Later in life they were gnarled by unspoken arthritis. But no matter the condition of his hands they would calm my inner commotion and repair me enough to go on to the next self-inflicted childhood trauma into which I was unknowingly about to walk.
He wasn’t one for long talks or bouts of introspection. I don’t know that he ever did any intense soul searching in all his sixty-six years. I doubt he tossed so much as a cursory net into his past and trawled it for any wisdom for himself. But oh, did he ever do that for others. That is to say, he did it for my sisters and me. To this day I remember the story about how he used his older brother’s baseball without permission. When his brother found out my dad was chased to the middle of the street and cowered in the fetal position as his brother wound up and chucked the ball at my dad’s head with all his might. My dad would laugh when he recalled how far the ball bounced into the air, higher than any of the three-flats on the Chicago side street he grew up on. When the ball came back down - dented by my father’s skull, which luckily wasn’t! - his brother collected it, helped my dad up, dusted him off, and went inside to listen to the radio. This is a story I was told maybe one hundred times before my tenth birthday. My dad never tired of telling it. I never tired of hearing it. As a writer and teller of stories I can tell you: that is some kind of magic, right there. And what was the moral of this story? Sometimes you get what you deserve. Karma, baby.
Karma can be a kind of magic I suppose. I doubt very much my dad would have put it that way but he did give me the most important and all-encompassing advice anyone has ever given me. He teaching me how to drive and I began to drift to the neighboring lane. He looked at me calmly (which was a departure from his usual driving lesson demeanor) and said, “The car is going to go where you point it.”. That’s a direct quote. He said is twenty five years ago but in my mind it was earlier today. Ten words that I still use today. To wit: if I do something on Monday the repercussions may not be felt until Friday, but you can bet they’ll be felt. Do something nice, eventually it’ll come back to you. Do something bad...well, you know the routine. And so did he. He wasn’t a praying man, didn’t particularly like going to church. He had seen a lot and done a lot, not all sunny and positive. He seemingly felt his lot in life was to be as he was, and he came to be happy with it. Then he met my mother and knew immediately that he did not deserve her. No way. He hadn’t yet done enough good to cancel out even half of the bad. But now this woman - perfect to his eyes (and many others as well) - wanted to be with him, just as he was. I like to think it was that understanding that led him to being a strong husband and father. He wasn’t perfect but he was accomplished. He sinned and was forgiven. Life pointed him in a certain direction and he went there. Karma or magic? My brain says karma but my gut says magic. Magic it is.
More magic:
My dad couldn’t fly but he could bestow upon me the gift of flight whenever he felt. No countdown. No preflight checklist. No tower to radio to. It was ground to air in two seconds flat with my tiny body perched precariously atop his wide feet on the end of his spindly, toned legs. Whoosh! And I was off! Off to the moon! Off to Albuquerque! Off to Paris! Rome! Our living room couch! But look out! Oh no! The engine! You’re gonna crash! And KAPOW! He would cradle me into his chest, breaking my momentary free fall. He would tickle me and bask in the smile of his son. It was magic.
As I grew my father’s knack for magical showmanship subsided somewhat. I guess that’s the natural progression of things. Your children inch toward adulthood. They get taller, thus making takeoffs much more difficult than landings. School, dating, homework, friends - everything seems to come before what used to be paramount: time with your magical patriarch. It’s a natural part of adolescence, however sad in retrospect. But like so many things you think you lost in your youth, the magic never really went away. Rather, it just needed a little rejuvenation.
My father’s first grandchild was born in late 2004, followed only nine days later by his second. A third come a few years later. Obviously I knew what my father was capable of when given the opportunity to perform for a captive audience. But I had only first hand knowledge. I was the lone audience taking in the show for so many years; a crowd of one. Now I got to see the man in action, fresh from semi-retirement and ready to engage with a whole new generation of believers in exactly the kind of magic he specialized in.
You may think a baby smiling isn’t magic. Quite the opposite, you say. It’s common. I understand why you would think this. I just hope you understand that you’re wrong. It may not be magical when it happens to the unimpressive masses like you and me but when those smiles are directed at someone who holds a unique quality like my father had the smiles are nothing short of transcendent. Danny Kaye had nothing on the contortions into which my dad could arrange his features. A baby isn’t supposed to have such awareness as a newborn or infant but - Abracadabra! - my dad waved his invisible wand, scrunched his face, and had his grandchildren smiling and cooing within hours of their births. And in the event he stuck out his tongue you would think the children were in need of medical attention - they could hardly catch their breath! Magic.
Unfortunately every show must come to an end. No matter the success of the run, time does what time does. That is not magic, just how reality trods along. Two other sets of eyes - my other children, born after his passing - have been able to peek behind the velvet curtain that came down at the same moment as his eyelids did for that last time. And that’s the enchanting thing about charms: they are transferable. They aren’t corporal but they exist in things that are and thus can be passed down to the next willing apprentice.
I may not be a deserving apprentice but I am a willing one. I have been taught by a master among men. I have gleaned enough to fill in the gaps of those lessons that simply can’t be taught. I have a strong foundation upon which to build my castle of magic and illusion. Someday I’ll toss the keys to the gate to my children. Then - ah, then! My father’s best trick of all will finally become real: he will be immortal.