Real Magic (36 page)

Two years later, he read of an up-and-coming magician's astounding trick called The Door of Destiny. He checked out the show, and as he had done many times before, he pulled out the sketch of his door that he had made those first nights at The Walter Hotel. Unlike the other times, however, this time the Door matched.

He tried to buy the Door, gamble for the Door, even steal the Door. The magician refused to give it up. He finally brought the poor fellow to the barn and explained it all. The magician scoffed, and to prove he would never be so gullible, he walked through a Door. It wasn't how Pappy wanted things to go, but he had his Door.

And so the years went on. Frank grew older and started dating. Watching him meet the young woman who Pappy knew as Grans was odd, to say the least. He had only known her as a wrinkled, hunched woman who smelled bad but baked wonderful treats. Frank, on the other hand, dated a sleek woman with gorgeous lips and a sultry voice. Most importantly, she made Frank happy. Their wedding came about quick, and Pappy found it to be more than a joyous occasion. It felt like a prophecy coming true.

Vincent never returned, and that hurt Lucy deeply. She suffered through great bouts of depression and there were no prescriptions Pappy could acquire to help her. Decades would have to pass before anybody thought of depression as an illness.

During one of her downturns, she drank so much alcohol, Pappy had to rush her to a hospital and have her stomach pumped. Though he could never prove otherwise, when he tried to cheer her with a vacation to the Jersey Shore and she drowned from an undertow that took her far out to sea, he suspected her death had not been an accident. But suicide or not, his Lucy was gone.

He spiraled into his own depression, slipping through his days, seeing her in every room, every mirror, every breath of the house. He even thought of joining her, he wanted that more than anything, but knew he had to stay alive for the future. If he died now, he would never get Duncan to go through the Door. He would change the loop, never go back to 1934 and meet Lucy. No matter how deep his pain or dark his thoughts, he would never want to undo the love they had shared.

He knew he would never find another love, too. He remembered well growing up and wondering why his Pappy always seemed so alone, looking at old photos of a strange woman. Sometimes even crying.

Pappy spent a day at the hospital when his own father was born. He watched his father/grandson grow up, but he kept his distance. He knew this would be part of what shaped Sean into such a bitter man, but he refused to take any chances with his own life. If he altered the type of man Sean was, then he might inadvertently alter the various outcomes of his own youth as Duncan. That could not be allowed to happen. He wanted to make sure that he always went back in time to live a life with Lucy.

Weirder still was watching his own birth. Watching a young version of himself grow. It was then that he took on the true role of Pappy — introducing Duncan to magic, guiding him on all the key principles, testing his abilities, showing him how to cheat at cards and then admonishing him for doing it, letting him see the Door and then repeatedly warning him away from it, insuring in every way he could control that the boy was prepared to make all the crucial decisions that sent him through that very Door.

As for the other Doors, they all went away. Circular saws with diamond blades did the job. It was still difficult work, but he found that if he took care of a Door or two each day, he could manage. After he cut them in half, he learned that if he opened the Door soon enough, it would implode like the one in the barn minus the hurricane winds. Just a pop and it disappeared. If he was too slow, he ended up with hunks of wood that burned well.

And that was his life. Destroying the Doors and recreating his youth for little Duncan. Nudging and teaching and working hard to make sure Duncan lived the life he was supposed to live. He even encouraged Duncan to befriend Pancake, led him deeper into the life of a card cheat, pretended to suffer dementia so that Duncan would not feel as guilty trying to steal from him, and then denying the boy money when he needed it most. All for the purpose of getting that boy ready to act on that final night — the night Duncan would go through the Door.

 

Pappy checked the time
on his cellphone yet again. He remembered it all as if it had only happened the day before. He could never forget it, of course — it had changed his entire life — but waiting for it to happen again, knowing he would soon relive it from the outside, filled him with a queasy sensation he had not anticipated. After all he had seen and done, yet his stomach still turned on him.

Any moment and Duncan would sneak into the apartment, intent on stealing anything valuable, and Pappy's nausea might send him running for the toilet. Well, not really running anymore. His body had held out incredibly well for a man over one hundred years old. He required a cane throughout the day and adult diapers at night, but the rest of him worked. He often speculated that passing through the Door had benefited his physiology in a unique way, but he never pursued an answer to that question — some things are better left unknown and enjoyed as a mystery.

The front door to the building opened and Pappy's heart jumped. He hid in his bedroom, listening as Duncan slipped down the hallway toward the apartment. He recalled how each step weighed so much back then, trying to screw up the courage to steal from his Pappy, messing up the opening of the stubborn door, and that sickening feeling that he did not belong in the apartment, that he was an intruder.

"Pappy?" Duncan called out. Pappy covered his mouth, his heart hammering harder than it had done in decades. The living room light flicked on, and he heard Duncan gasp as the young man learned what ol' Pappy had been up to all day. The living room had been cleaned out.

All the books, all the papers, all the magazines. The jewelry, the glasses, the little porcelain figurines. Every bit of junk Pappy had hoarded over the years was gone. Way back when he was Duncan staring at that room which suddenly looked like a display model, he had imagined how hard his Pappy would have had to work to clean out this place. He even thought Pappy had called Mary just to mess with him.

But standing behind the bedroom door, listening to a young man's shock, Pappy reveled in the truth. At his age, he could never have done the work and he didn't trust Mary — after all, he was still Duncan, too. No, Pappy had simply arranged for a maid service to come. Paid the two ladies an extra hundred dollars under the table to work double-time — why not? He didn't need money anymore. And those ladies did a great job.

A loud sigh was followed by the hiss of air squishing out of the couch cushions — Duncan flopping on the couch, fighting back tears, not sure what to do, fearing he and Pancake were dead men. It was all going exactly as it had before. Pappy's hands trembled. Sweat dampened his shirt. Duncan teetered clueless on the verge of the most amazing experience in his life.

Pappy pressed his ear against the door. He knew what Duncan was thinking, what he himself had thought, in that long silence — suicide. It would be so simple to stomp into the kitchen, grabbing a sharp knife, and end all the worry. It would be on his terms and would probably be less painful than whatever psychotic torture scenario the Boss would think up.

Oddly, Pappy had been thinking about suicide for much of the last year. Every day that had brought him closer to this moment, he felt the world closing in on him. He even started collecting some of his meds, hoarding them for a simple, painless, maybe even pleasurable way out. For the first time, he caught a hint of what his dear Lucy had experienced — a desire to end it all on his terms, to not let age or malady destroy what he had left.

But Duncan would not do it. He couldn't. And neither could Pappy. At least, for the moment.

Pappy licked his lips. He knew he should simply wait, let young Duncan go on his journey into the past, but how could he not take a peek? In moments, Duncan would be hurtling back in time — would be meeting Lucy for the first time. He turned the knob on his door and pulled it slightly ajar. Swallowing against the thick lump of nerves in his throat, he edged his eye to the crack in the doorway.

Though long ago he had overcome the shock of seeing himself, nothing had prepared him for the horror of seeing his condition this night. Duncan sat on the couch, his eyes wet, his hair disheveled, his appearance lost and crazed. He stared at the Door of Vanishing, not knowing what it was, only sure of one thing — Pappy had spent a lifetime keeping him from opening that Door.

He approached the Door. Pappy watched like some bizarre television show based on his own memories played out for his amusement. He saw Duncan jump back as the young man felt waves of energy pulse off the Door, but then he realized it was his own heart beating. Duncan licked his lips and took a deep breath. His hand hovered over the doorknob, his fingers tapping out a fast rhythm.

Come on,
Pappy thought.
Do it.

Duncan glanced back to the clean room. He turned away from the Door and stepped toward the exit.

No, you idiot. Go through the Door.
If Duncan failed to go through the Door, then he might start a paradox. Or if Time did not work that way, then he might destroy Pappy's history.

Pappy's mind started working furiously to come up with contingency plans. At his advanced age, he had limited options. He was too slow to attempt rushing Duncan and tossing the fool through the Door. He still had skill as a cheat — he could lie to Duncan, tell him that a fortune waited on the other side of the Door, entice him to willfully go through. But if he managed any of those actions, what would be the outcome in 1934? Would that Duncan behave the same way? Would he be too angry at Pappy to care about the same things? Would he be filled with a sense of betrayal so great that it blocked him from seeing Lucy the way Pappy had seen her? From falling in love?

"Damn," Duncan said as Pappy whispered the same word. Duncan turned back, hurried to the Door, grabbed the knob, and yanked it open.

Pappy's wrinkled mouth opened as he widened the gap in his bedroom door. He knew what Duncan saw. A pitch black emptiness as if all the light from the living room stopped at the door frame and refused to go any further. Duncan inhaled one last time and stepped through.

Pappy waited.

He listened to the world around him, wondering if everything would change. But it all remained. His younger self had gone to 1934 and had lived out a wild adventure that brought him successfully to this moment.

"Yes!" Pappy cried out. He raised his arms high and took a triumphant lap around the living room. "Yes, yes, yes! Duncan, you sweet wonderful boy, yes!"

Dancing a jig into the kitchen, Pappy hummed "Chattanooga Choo Choo," his favorite tune from 1942. From the refrigerator, he pulled out a bottle of vodka and a shot glass. Two full shots and a satisfied exhalation broadened his smile. He felt lighter in his chest and shoulders. The last year had been one of great increasing tension culminating in these past minutes.

And he had succeeded.

The toughest part was over. Only a few details remained, but for the first time since going through that Door, Pappy could sleep without worrying about his every single action. The future was unwritten now.

He flipped open his cell phone and tapped a number he had not used in a lifetime.

"H-Hello?" a meek, high-pitched voice answered.

"Pancake, this is Pappy."

"Pappy?"

"I'm Duncan's great-grandfather."

"I know who you are. I ain't an idiot. I just don't got time for you right now. I got problems and ... Oh, crap. What happened to Duncan? Why are you calling and not him?"

"Shut up and listen. I know all about your problems. I've seen to it that Duncan's disappeared and you won't ever see him again. But you won't be able to get away so easily."

"He bailed?"

"No. He provided for you. I got your money here. All of it. Everything you need to get those bastards who cut off your hand to back away. You come to my apartment, door'll be open, three envelopes with all the cash is in my bedside table. Got it? Anything else you see that you want, take it. My gift to you."

Before Pancake could blubber his thanks or ask a single question, Pappy cut the call.

He then went back to the Door. For a second, he considered stepping through it. To go back and see Lucy again. He even reached out for the knob. To hold her, kiss her lips, feel her warmth and hear her voice. But he was too old for such foolishness. Duncan was back there now, falling in love, and she fell for him. After all Pappy had done to orchestrate this moment, why risk destroying it?

"No," he said to the Door. "You've got to go."

From his bedroom closet, he pulled out his circular saw. It weighed a ton in his weakened arms, but he didn't care. The Door had to be destroyed.

In a few minutes, it was over. Perhaps he still rode the adrenaline or perhaps he had done this to so many Doors that he no longer had to struggle through. Whatever the case, he cut through the Door and frame with ease, severing the last tie to Duncan and 1934.

He unlocked the front door for Pancake and shuffled back to the kitchen where he poured a water glass full of vodka. From the back of the counter drawer, he pulled out a small container — his hoarded pills. He sat at the table, placed the glass of vodka before him and lined up the pills.