For My First Act (314 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by prophet (View user info) at 2005-07-19 08:37:55 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
Though it lasted only a short while, there was a time in my childhood when I wanted to grow up to be a magician. Like, you know... David Copperfield type shit. Cuz there's some intangible emotion invoked when you entertain an audience- fascinating them, mystifying them, bewildering them... as you craft around you the illusion that somehow you have the ability to manipulate the fabric of time and space itself.
You know, not everyone will remember what their fleeting childhood dreams were in their later years when they mature and settle into a mundane career. I only remember because I never entirely gave that dream up. But strangely enough, as I went from high school drop-out to the proud holder of a GED to a collegiate failure, the dream of becoming an illusionist slowly transformed into somehow envisioning myself as a "hustla"... some kind of local crime lord.
Yet I grew up in a cushioned suburban environment with the majority of my needs met.
I built this warm little nest of identity in the perception that I'm some kind of urban gangsta. The kind that could say "nigger" around black people, and it would be all cool with them.
No, seriously.
I believe now more than ever that the person most trapped in the world of smoke and mirrors I created was myself.
Anyways, I didn't grow up to be a magician. Almost nobody does what they thought they would as a kid.
Still, I never quite lost the desire or ability to craft some kind of make-believe universe in the eyes of all who knew me. The people I love are still being manipulated, every day, as I weave another masterful deception with every word I speak. I'll fabricate myths for no reason than to judge the response I get, even when it benefits me in no way.
So sure, I'm still a magician. But the only person who's being entertained is me, and everyone else... well, they were put here to be exploited for my own amusement.
They just don't know it yet.
Almost anything you do in life can be broken down into a routine. Think about it for a second. You really only rarely do something for the very first time- every time afterward you're banking somewhat on your experience the first time around. By the fourth or fifth time you've gone through the experience, you've established a routine.
Like a line-up. Like a script, but for life.
My routine is pretty polished. Acquire trust, exploit it, and then just lie, lie, lie until nobody knows the difference, least of all yourself.
See, you can't manipulate somebody unless they trust you. And they don't trust you unless you give them a reason to. Charm, charisma, wit, a sense of integrity... even if you don't actually possess any of those traits, that doesn't mean you can't imitate them with some practice. Watch thirty James Bond movies in a row, you'll have a pretty good sense of charm, no matter how artificial it might be.
Anybody can dopplegang. Anybody can cry over a relative that never died. Anybody can use a simple knowledge of social dynamics to nudge the human soul in the right direction; to pluck another's heart-strings like a finely tuned harp. To mirror the other person's actions and emotions. To generate rapport. To say whatever the other person needs to hear, about falsified memories, about themselves, about the world and your opinion on things.
The hard part, you see, lies neither in the acquisition of these routines, nor in their execution.
Not really.
The hardest part is that disillusioned look they give you when you know that you shattered their whole world.
Of course, the best way to avoid those kinds of awkward moments is to keep your story straight and not get caught.
I suppose that is where my story begins.
With me wanting to be a magician, that is. Well, that's where all the relevant parts start to come together.
I was probably twelve years old, wearing an antique top hat owned by the now deceased father of my mother, and a cape fashioned from a bath towel.
We didn't have a lot, my family, if you can even really call it my family.
Dad was never around. Mom left a loooooong ass time ago. Step mom thinks she's mom. All this stuff would change the innocent need for attention that fueled my lust for the spotlight into an insatiable urge to manifest drama and tragedy into the world around me.
You understand that it's not some handicap of my own, right?
There are plenty of people in the world just like me. Looking out for number one.
And looking back, I could have spent the rest of my life as just another one of those people, if it hadn't been for this one little guy, who in our pleasant little home video flashback we're having right now is sitting on the living room sofa watching me fumble my way through a nearly unrehearsed card trick. He was six years old then, chubby little face, cute as hell and god did he adore me.
Come to think of it, I've spent the last fifteen years pulling each and every one of my stunts directly out of my ass. I supposed I just grew comfortable with the last-minute, spontaneous attitude, just barely slipping out of the hands of complete obliteration time and again.
For the longest time I thought this talent made me some kind of champion. Up until the adoration faded from his eyes, and was replaced with bitter resentment. It always gets me when I think about how long he gave me the benefit of the doubt. How much bullshit he was actually willing to swallow just to maintain his perception that I wasn't this total monster that I've become.
So, yeah, I'd say that little guy showed me just how small I am.
I wish there was more I could say about everything. I had a pretty troubled youth, even if it wasn't due to financial restrictions in my family. None of that would exonerate me, thought. And while I could spend the rest of my life giving you the details, you'd never know if they were true. I've been lying for far too long.
Anyways, this isn't for you so much as it is for me.
I guess I'll get it all out on the table.
To my father, who kept me from a long stay at the stoney lonely... you should have saved your money. I really wasn't worth it. I really think the whole family would have been saved a lot of heartbreak if I just spent a couple years in prison back when I was young and had a chance to straighten everything out.
To my girl, who stood by me while I emptied your bank account and abused you verbally on a daily basis: find a man who will treat you right. Some day I will be a good father, I hope. That day isn't coming any time soon.
To Cioci... the only person who loved me unconditionally from the beginning of my life straight up to the gruesome, twisted end it's rapidly reaching: if there was anyone I didn't want to disappoint, disillusion and ultimately destroy, it was you.
I apologize. A thousand times, I apologize, for what it's worth, which I am sure is precisely squat. I'm just plain sorry. To everyone. For the first time in my life, I truly feel like I've done something wrong by tearing apart the lives of others to maintain the stability of my own. I don't have words else, except just... sorry.
Most of all, to that little guy.
Some day I will pay you back- not just all the money, but for what I put you through. I know how much you looked up to me all those years. I know what it must have been like to have your role model turn out to be a total loser, and not some invincible gangster crime lord who rules the universe that revolves around him.
So, whatever. Maybe you'll never forgive me.
But from my first act to my last, you should know that you were the only person I couldn't stand to see hurt.
No more acting.
I'm sorry, bro.
And that's not just part of the show.
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Submitted by DonkeyOnTheEdge (user info) at 2005-10-29 09:56:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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