Play dead

1982

Joseph spent most of the stifling summer in the basement workshop at Faerwood, a spacious room fitted with a lathe, table saw, drill press, as well as a peg-boarded wall of the finest hand and power tools. For more than three months he was not allowed to leave the basement, although every time his father left Faerwood, Joseph picked the locks within seconds and roamed the house at will.

It was during this summer he learned the craft of cabinetry.

The Singing Boy was an illusion of Karl Swann's invention, a trick wherein three boxes are rolled onto the stage, each in its own spotlight.

In the illusion, the magician opens each box, showing them all empty. A boy then walks onto the stage, enters the center box. The magician closes the cabinet as the boy begins to sing, muffling the sound. Suddenly the voice is thrown stage left. The magician opens the box on the left to reveal the boy, who continues the song. The illusionist closes the door, and the voice instantly travels to stage right. Again, the boy is seen in the box. The magician closes the door one last time, then waves a hand. In a spectacular flourish, all three boxes collapse to reveal six doves in each, which immediately take flight.

But the singing continues! It comes from the back of the theater where the boy, now dressed in pure white, stands.

After nearly eight months of work, the effect was complete. On a brutally cold January evening, with snow drifts halfway up the windows at Faerwood, Karl Swann entertained two of his friends in the great room. Wilton Cole and Marchand Decasse were other has-beens of the magic world, a pair of third-tier card and coin men. That night they drank their absinthe poured over sugar cubes, shared more than one pipe of opium. Joseph watched them from one of the many hidden passageways at Faerwood.

At midnight the Great Cygne, in full costume, presented the illusion. Joseph-already far too big for the role of the Singing Boy- fulfilled his role. He entered the room, and stuffed his growing body into the center box. His father closed the door.

Joseph waited, his heart racing. The air became close, rich with body smells, dank with fear. He heard a muffled burst of laughter. He heard a loud argument, breaking glass. Time seemed to stall, to rewind.

The bottom of the box would drop any second, as they had rehearsed. He waited, barely able to breathe. He heard sounds drifting in, the two men discussing stealing the illusion from Joseph's father. It seemed the Great Cygne had passed out, and the men found the prospect of the boy spending the night in the box amusing.

An hour later Joseph heard the front door slam. Faerwood fell silent, except for the skipping LP record, a recording of Bach's Sleepers Awake.

Blackness became Joseph Swann's world.

When his father opened the box, eleven hours later, the daylight nearly blinded him. OVER THE NEXT six WEEKS, after school, Joseph followed the two men, noting their daily routes and routines. When their houses and places of business were empty, he learned their locks. In late February, Wilton Cole was found by his wife at the bottom of the stairwell in their home, his neck broken, apparently the victim of an accidental fall. Marchand Decasse, who owned a small electrical-appliance repair shop, was found three days later, electrocuted by faulty wiring in a thirteen-inch Mag- navox portable television.

Joseph kept the news clippings beneath his pillow for two years.

The Great cygne never performed the Singing Boy illusion in front of a live audience. Instead, he sold the drawings and schematics to magicians all over world, claiming exclusivity to each of them. When his ruse was discovered, he became an exile, a recluse no longer welcomed or wanted on any stage. Karl Swann began his final spiral.

He would never set foot outside Faerwood again.