| Joker in the pack |
[Feb. 7th, 2003|04:19 pm] |
My Dad did a magic trick last night. I haven't seen him do one for years. It was a wonderful nostalgia blast but, my life, he made me suffer while he was doing it.
The big meal for my Nan (his mother) was over, we were all in the bar winding up towards going our separate ways, and he produced a deck of playing cards. My Mum groaned audibly. He asked everyone whether they'd ever seen a magic trick and wondered how it was done? Well, he was going to do one twice - and the first time he was going to demonstrate how it worked. Dad's the silent type normally, but when he wants to he can take centre-stage like a natural showman. He was doing it now. The audience, mainly composed of his female cousins, none of whom I'd met since I was a toddler, were rapt.
He took the deck, which was face down, and split it into three piles. Then he dealt the top two cards from one pile face up on top of the other two piles. The third card he asked us all to look at, without showing him, so we passed it round and memorised it - except Mum, who stared at it blankly, to great comic effect, and refused to have anything to do with it. He put the card back on its pile, followed by the two that had been face up in full view, and put the deck back together with a noticeable lack of shuffling. Then he dealt them out, face up on the table, and correctly picked out the card we'd memorised. It was hardly rocket science. The two cards that had been face up preceeded it like marker buoys and everyone knew it was coming. There was a small ripple of disappointment.
Well, he told us, that was obvious. He knew we'd all seen how it was done. So now he was going to do it again, without touching the cards. The nearest cousin was enlisted to break the deck into three piles again. Then she was asked to deal the top two cards off one pile like last time, but this time put them face down, unseen. We all looked at the third card. The five of hearts. The cousin reassembled the deck and this time was asked to shuffle them. Rather unexpectedly, she pulled off a fancy casino-style riffle shuffle. Dad took the deck and started dealing the cards out on the table, face up.
It was heart-in-mouth time - Dad hadn't seen the marker-buoy cards and anyway they'd been efficiently shuffled away from the target card. He's my Dad. I didn't want him to fail in front of everyone.
Dad dealt cards. The five of hearts came. The five of hearts went. He carried on. We looked at each other uncertainly and prepared for embarrassment.
He carried on dealing, then stopped confidently with a card ready in his hand to turn face-up triumphantly and asked his cousin "do you bet this is the card?" She prevaricated. He pressed her. She said it wasn't, we all agreed (except Mum, who grumpily said it was. Dad rolled his eyes to heaven and said "there's always one". More laughter - Mum was enjoying her role, I think, as much as Dad was.)
Eventually, a concensus was reached - we all agreed it wasn't the right card. After all, we could see the five of hearts staring up at us from the table. We waited for the moment when we'd have to gently break it to Dad that the card he was holding was the wrong one.
Then suddenly he flung it aside, shot his hand into the pile of cards on the table, and sent the five of hearts spinning out. "Quite right," he told us. "It's this one."
Applause, cheers even. Massive relief. Pride. What a showman. What a Dad.
He's magic. |
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