This morning was one of those perfect Florida mornings. Bright blue skies with just enough clouds to give enough contrast. Seventy-five degrees, though the cool breeze coming off the Gulf of Mexico made it seem quite a bit cooler than that. The air had that slight, clean tang of salt-water. I was outside taking a walk with my little boy, Jack.
As we walked around the apartment complex, we came across the vending machine that sits on a raised deck, overlooking the pool. For whatever reason, Jack had never been up on this porch. More to the point, he'd never seen a vending machine before. The bright red Coca-Cola symbol glowed faintly in the bright sun. The machine gave off that low, re-assuring hum and the gentle warmth that the old machines give off.
Jack took to the machine delightedly. He punched all the buttons with abandon, ignoring the little beeps of protest when the machine gently reminded him that it had not been paid. He didn't care. Jack's little fingers explored all the buttons, the coin slot, the change return, and the battered metal bay that actually distributed the drinks. Earlier in the walk, he got a letter from our mailbox. He solemnly put it in the vending machine's metal bay. I laughed. He looked over his shoulder at me and smiled.
I fished around in my pocket and dug out some change. He looked at me questioningly. My old stage training came back to me. I could almost hear my first employer, a stage magician, talking to me as I walked the coins across my knuckles.
"Patrick, the trick doesn't mean that much. It is all about the presentation. Grab their attention, draw them in... make even the most mundane things part of an interesting story. If you can do that, the trick is almost an afterthought."
I did a french-drop (a slight of hand) on each and every quarter before I fed it in the machine. Jack laughed every time, because he is a great audience. He didn't even hold it against me that I fumbled the third one a little bit and got my angles wrong. (My hands haven't been trained and suited for stage magic in well over a decade at this point.)
Finally, once all the change was in the machine, I looked down at him and waggled my eyebrows. With a grand gesture, I punched the button to get a bottle of Cherry Coke. The machine rattled and bumped. His delighted face looked dismayed for a moment. And then the brightly colored bottle flew out the bottom of the machine and into the bay. Jack picked it up and marveled at it, an expression of wonder on his face.
I thought of my own father just then. When I was younger, he would pick me up from school on Friday afternoons. On the way home, we used to always stop at the same deli and get a Cherry Coke. I was sat up on the counter, and allowed to drink straight out of the can, just like he did. I remember that when I was that age, that was the best feeling in the world. I got to drink a drink just like my father.
I hadn't thought about that in twenty years, but something about the experience with Jack knocked the memory loose. I smiled.
I plopped him on my lap and we took turns sipping the soda and watching the wind move through the trees. It was a breezy day, and the movement of the branches was almost hypnotic.
Finally, Jack started to squirm, signalling that our little moment together was over and it was time to move on to more important things, like lunch. I thought about all the ingredients I'd bought especially for the lunch, to make a spectacularly good grilled cheese sandwich. When you don't have a lot of money, the indulgences you get for your child almost have to be culinary, and simple to boot.
Miraculously, he kept from raising hell long enough for me to throw together a pretty respectable lunch. As we divided up the crusty, cheesy bread, he popped it in his mouth with amazement. I realized after the fact that he'd never eaten anything with garlic-butter before.
It's the funniest thing to see the world through the eyes of your child.
Coke, Florida mornings, grilled cheese... these things are about as mundane as I could imagine. Hell, if I'm to be totally honest, I am pretty mundane myself. But to my child, I'm the gatekeeper for all the world's arcane secrets... always just a Saturday away from exposing him to something that is totally delightful and utterly magical in its novelty. I don't doubt that my own father felt the same way in those weekly stops when I was a boy.
It has been years since I performed magic on a stage. I remember what it was like back then, an oddly well-spoken child performing with one of the best people-readers I've ever met. At the time, I remember feeling applause from the audience after a trick and thinking that it was absolutely the best feeling in the world. I lived for the look of astonishment on peoples' faces, the squeals of delight.
Little did I know that I would have to wait another twenty years to meet the best audience of my life.
Beautiful.
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