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“Your card is...... the eight of spades!”
The girl peered impassively over her yashmak, reached into the cleavage of her harem top and pulled out a playing card, turning it towards the imagined audience with a theatrical flourish. She looked at it. “It’s the Queen of Diamonds, you dummy, Gregg Gillstrom! That’s so it! I’ve had it with this stupid idea. It’s just some lame plan to get me into this stupid slave girl costume. I’m going.” Samantha Wallace pulled off the scarf she was wearing across her face and grabbed her coat from the back of a chair.
“Hang on, Sam.” Gregg was rummaging around in a pile of playing cards trying to work out what had gone wrong. “Look you can’t go. What about the show?”
“If you think I’m standing on stage while you lose rabbits in hats, turn water into water, or fail to find the flags of all nations in a hollow tube then you’ve got another think coming.” By now Samantha had knotted the scarf around her neck to hide the two hopeful hickeys that Gregg had managed to inflict before she’d insisted they get on with rehearsing. “Not one of these tricks has worked. This is so a waste of time.” She pulled on her short camel coat. Now she was wishing she’d worn something longer; the filmy fabric of her harem trousers looked incongruous beneath it. The limits of style were not, however, going to discourage her from leaving right away as she grabbed the rest of her things, and exchanged the curly toed silk slippers for her trainers. “I should have stayed on the cheer leading team. Just get yourself a life Gregg Gillstrom. And another girlfriend!”
The door to his room slammed as she left, Gregg sank glumly down on his bed and looked at the pile of conjuring paraphernalia that he had failed to make work. She was right, of course. There was no way he was going to be performing this weekend. He ran his hands through his ginger hair, feeling more of a failure than ever. Irritated, he flicked the playing card across the room; it hit the top hat standing on the pile of superhero comics on his desk and disturbed the small switch on the brim. With an audible “sproing” a bunch of artificial flowers sprang up and stood quivering. “Oh shit,” said Gregg to no one in particular and headed off to find himself a beer by way of consolation.
+++++ +++++ +++++
A week later, he was still feeling glum about the evening and its outcome – or lack of it. He was down near the harbour when he saw Sam, laughing and chatting with a bunch of friends. He caught her scowl as she noticed him. That, and the giggles from her friends, was sufficient to deter him from crossing the street in any hope of a reconciliation.
As much to avoid the group as anything else, he stepped into the small junk shop down near the lighthouse. He’d picked up a few props there in the past. He’d even found a very dog-eared 1857, first edition of “The Magician’s Own Book” even though he hadn’t been able to find the $100 they’d wanted for it. The shop’s owner nodded as Gregg peered into the dark piles of accumulated pottery, odd bits of furniture, old clothes and the occasional picture frame. Wedged under a small table was a round, pot bellied, ragged, wicker basket. Gregg pulled it out. He pulled the top open and peered inside. There was a dusty turban, a small bamboo musical pipe and a coil of rope.
Perhaps, Gregg thought, some version of the Indian Rope Trick might convince Sam of his competence. “How much for the basket?” he said.
The owner peered across, not even bothering to get up. “Five bucks should do it,” he said.
“OK” said Gregg pulling a five from his bill fold. If nothing else the basket would look good on his desk next to the Neville Maskelyne poster.
+++++ +++++ +++++
Back in his room, Gregg examined the contents of his purchase. He knocked the dust off of the turban and perched it on his head. It was a bit large and kept slipping down over his forehead but it certainly had theatrical possibilities, Gregg thought, especially with the enormous red glass ‘jewel’ that was set at the front of it. He could imagine himself doing an act as “The Sultan” or something similar.
He rummaged through the basket and piled the rest of its contents on his desk. The bamboo pipe could be encouraged to give a low whistling note or two but music wasn’t really Gregg’s strong point. The rope was as dusty as the turban had been. Its ends had been neatly whipped with twine and then waxed. Gregg uncoiled it. It was a couple of metres long but there seemed nothing remarkable about it.
Gregg looked into the basked to see if there was anything else. Right at the bottom, it looked like there was some sort of magazine and, sitting on top of it, about the size of his fist, a small brown paper packet. He took them out. There was nothing else in the basket but his two final finds seemed more curious than the rest.
First there was the magazine. It had been face down in the basket. He turned it over. To Gregg’s amusement, given the acrimonious nature of his breakup with Samantha, the magazine’s cover featured a girl in cheer-leader uniform. She was helplessly tied across the back of a chair; her mouth gagged with a thick, knotted, cloth, and her skirt flipped up to show a pair of pert buttocks and white panties. “Captive College Cuties” the magazine’s title ran, “Bondage in the Locker Room”.
Furtively, Gregg flipped through the magazine, enjoying on one level the pictures of the hapless heroine and, on another, the fantasy of doing something very similar to Sam. As he saw what had been done to some of the other unfortunates in the magazine, he was having similar thoughts about her friends as well. He slipped the magazine into the middle of his pile of comic books between a copy of Doctor Strange and Mandrake the Magician for future close examination.
Gregg turned his attention to the small brown packet. It was made of some heavy almost waxy paper that had been folded origami style into a box like container. As he opened it he was greeted by a pungent, herbal odour that he recognised instantly. He hadn’t smelt anything that good since a very cool party a few months before. There was more here than they had shared between twenty people. For five bucks it looked like he had got a very good deal indeed. If he had noticed the faded writing on the inside of the packet it wouldn’t have meant anything to him. He wouldn’t have understood it. In fact he probably wouldn’t have known whether the script was in Arabic, Urdu, or (as it actually was) Hindi.
The herbal contents of the packet seemed like an ideal way to cheer himself up as he reached for a packet of papers and a small strip of card. It took him no time to roll a very meaty spliff. He placed it down carefully while he slipped a CD into his player.
The sounds of Morcheeba spilled out of the speakers as he lit the spliff. Taking a first deep drag convinced him that it was very good stuff indeed.
© Freddie Clegg 2009
All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission
All characters fictitious
E-mail: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
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