Marko the Magician performs table side every Sunday night at the Italian restaurant– potentially the only restaurant we can eat at– in our little Vermont town.  We are house sitting for the month in the one-coffeeshop-one-stoplight place, and we are determined to feel like locals before we leave.  And the one thing that we knew for sure– from the signs on the door to the insistence of everyone in town– was that we needed to see Marko the Magician.

We anticipated a schmaltzy New England accented forty-something with too much time living in his mother’s basement begging for attention from uninterested patrons.  But Marko is legitimate.  He crashed our table within ten minutes of sitting, our friends laying aside their conversation to engage with their Sunday night celebrity.  We picked a card– any card– and had Marko retrieve it from his mouth.  He pushed our card through tables, sloshing our ciders every where and running to get napkins after we’d been amazed.  We laughed at his inappropriate jokes and felt disappointed as he left our table for the next.  If it didn’t get too busy, he promised to return.

We ordered another round.

When Marko returned, we talked shop.  We told him about our little camper and he told us about a gig he booked in California next week– and the gig he had last week in Toronto opening for the drummer of Styx.  I wondered how he got his equipment through security.  But he’s Marko the Magician.  Making things disappear is his specialty.

But his finest trick was his last– not the one where he made a Sharpie “X” appear on my closed palm without my knowing, but the one right before that– the one where he talked about the human heart.

Harry Houdini, Marko told us, became most famous for debunking mediums.  He didn’t do it because they were edging too close to Houdini’s own show.  In fact, he occasionally employed practices that claimed to make contact with the Great Beyond.  But after Houdini’s mother died, he was so distraught, he sought out famous mediums so that he may speak with his mother one more time.  Time and time again, he left disappointed, recognizing that these spiritualists were not only frauds, but rich frauds.  There was the pivot.  He first apologized for his part in the market.  And then, he tore down the “vultures who prey on the bereaved” nationwide.

“You can fuck with someone’s head, that’s one thing,” Marko concluded, “But–” and he points to his heart here, swallowing a bit of emotion– “don’t fuck with someone’s heart.”

I teared up.  I took a deep breath.

Bravo, Marko.  Bravo.

Now– how the hell did he make that card stick to the ceiling?