Magnus Book

“Big Al’s Customer” 

The Tennessee Theater sign soars upward like a turret of The Castle. Underneath, Big Al has a message for passersby. People walk past him and his audience of one under Gay Street lamps. Big Al’s been trying to catch their attentions on the way out. 

His message: The Secrets of Egyptian Magic are available to you. Yes, you! Countless centuries of divine knowledge, right here in this here pamphlet. One is your magic number tonight, pal. One dollar. 

The audience member fishes for change in the pockets of his slicker. He’s seen Big Al before, drinking out of paper bags with other town characters by the tracks in the Old City, or panhandling outside the Bijou on nights much like this. Normally he’d walk on by without a thought. But tonight, after three glasses of shiraz and a rousing performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, Big Al appears to him as a Piscean mystic in the rain—death-driven and maybe, just maybe, offering some crucial glimmer of wisdom. Making the transaction, brushing the familiar huckster’s calloused hand, Big Al’s customer experiences the last bit of human contact he’ll have this night. 

On the walk home to his small apartment overlooking the river, the customer feels like a palimpsest of myth, an Odyssean pirate who’s found his treasure map at last. He keeps the pamphlet secreted against the rain in an inside pocket of his slicker. It’s only after he locks the door behind him, pulls the chain on his museum lamp, and sits down at his desk that the charm begins to wear off. His hands tremble from the cold, still damp, as he carefully begins leafing through the pages. 

Like watching a thunderhead form over water, the reader sees the magic coming together—the black characters attempting meaning on the white pamphlet page, swimming together in an irregular kern, portentously contrasting typefaces—but he still can’t feel it, unsure he ever will.