The Apprentice
Maritess Zurbano
I’ve been waiting for him to die for years. I’d imagine how I’d react, how I would look beautiful and somber at the funeral, and many people consoling me. Maybe I would wear dark sunglasses and not talk to anyone, or maybe everyone would finally see that because he was my magic teacher, finally, I would be accepted by the magic community.
But he didn’t die. Another year would click by. He would turn 75, 77, 80! His weight once peaked at around 300lbs. He lost a leg. He was wheelchair bound. Ah, yes, finally the end will come soon. But no. He just turned up his television louder and took comfort in parroting Fox News. He was still in his 80’s and the Las Vegas phone number 702 area code would pop up and I thought oh, this is it, the call from someone telling me he’s dead. But no. He was borrowing someone’s cell phone. He just kept eating canned food and pizza and skipped his diabetes medicine and still. He would not die.=
I loved him once. I even named my child after him. He was like the magic father every girl would dream of. Well, truthfully, no one would dream of this guy addicted to porn, a man who loved white supremacy as the ideal father figure, but back in the old days, when I was first learning magic, he and I were an unstoppable team.
I used to go to his house every day when I used to live in Vegas, and learn magic. Later when he grew old and consumed with dementia, I imagine you need to hold onto anything that keeps you connected to the human world so you don’t fall backwards into the world of fog and closer to death. He was living alone in Vegas, poor guy, with only one leg and lots of spare time to fill his days.
***
Why did I wish him dead? He represents half a lifetime of mistakes. Of me upholding white supremacy and the patriarchy because that’s how I was raised, as a Chicago-born Midwestern Filipino-American. But how could I possibly be someone that upholds white supremacy? I went to art school and I went to Washington DC a few times to attend women’s marches. I’m a brown Asian-American. I used to have a super short feminist haircut! How could I possibly spent half my life in denial?
As a small child in the Catholic Church, we were trained that only the white guy saints and God had magic powers. The Vatican, the priests, the Bible, all insisted that Mary didn’t actually have the power to give birth to a live human. They claimed she had no power because she was a virgin. She wasn’t allowed to have sex magic. Women’s sway over men was too much to bear.
In my early 20’s and even now, I could walk up to a group of male magicians and start talking about magic, trying to make new friends. They would look at me funny and walk away, murmuring in low tones with each other. I didn’t think anything of it, other than magicians were socially awkward around women. I’d talk to a corporate client about being their magician, and they’d ask me, “What would you wear?” probably because they were expecting a bikini or a bodysuit.
I’d show up to a children’s birthday party, they looked at my dark brown skin and almond-shaped eyes and yell, “You’re not the magician!” As an adult, before I was granted access to perform a talk, the committee asked me to go to their offices personally to show them what I was going to do. I had already interviewed with the committee on the phone many times and submitted several videos. I asked them if there are any other speakers on the roster who were also asked to show up to their office and show them a what they were going to do beforehand. None. Only me. They were doubtful that I could do the magic job.
I have denied for decades to myself that people didn’t believe I belonged in the profession that I excel at. I have had my own show in Japan, was nominated at the World Championship of Magic. I’ve performed and lectured around the world, been on TV specials. I’ve also been offered less money to perform than other magicians, heard stories from other female magicians about being victim to attempted rape at magic gatherings. These were only spoken of in whispers otherwise you’re looked at as a, “complainer.”
As a female magician, this confused my close relationship with Gary Darwin. I thought he and I were best friends, like daughter and father. I watched him draw caricatures and admired his talent. He collected magic books, was masterful at sleight-of-hand, and was influential in Las Vegas because he founded the Las Vegas magic club meeting. He was famous. Every magician amateur or pro would visit his meetings and he would greet them by offering to buy them a beer or show them some magic to make them feel at home. I thought I was home.
That’s why I ignored his barrage of jokes, “What’s the sexiest fish in the world? Tuna! It comes in a can!”
I stayed in the magic field and ignored all the popular magic tricks including, “Chink-a-Chink,” and “The Jap Box.” I stayed silent when magicians would speak in awed tones about the history of white magicians who put on yellowface to perform magic shows, who masqueraded as Chinese performers so they could wear the bright silk embroideries, hold beautiful objects, and appropriate Chinese lettering. This was done to hide their own mediocrity, their dearth of culturally rich lives. I was silent because I wanted to make influential friends in magic. These were friends who had powers to levitate a piano on stage or have their own magic shows on the Las Vegas strip.
I also ignored nights when we’d sit there for hours talking about magic books and then Darwin would end the evening by showing me porno magazines. In my belief in the patriarchy and in my youthful ignorance, I thought he was showing me this because that’s what all magicians did—they objectified and subjugated women. Clearly he was showing me these magazines because he had promoted me to the title of, “One of the guys.” It tortures me now to think of younger me, of how naive I was. I don’t want to call myself stupid because now and days I listen to meditation tracks that insist that I love myself.
But when I think about Gary Darwin, he represents both the happiest days of my life and my embarrassing blind desire to fit in. Sometimes I question my career choice, a career in which among my peers, I am met mostly with hostility.
***
Twenty-seven years ago, when I was young, Darwin and I would speak every day. I would spend hours at his house learning about the magic gimmicks he had perfectly categorized on shelves and separated into grey boxes. But as an old man, he became nothing but a loop of his most sexist and racist jokes. Long ago, we would talk for hours about complicated subjects like religion, philosophy, but with a Vegas twist like, “What would Sinatra do?”
But now, instead of being a wacky independent thinker, he just repeated what the television wanted him to think. Talking with him was like watching highlights of TV’s most hateful moments. He would spout repeated lines out like, “We gotta get the immigrants out!” And, “How’s your bodyweight?”
His magic and Las Vegas history collection is estimated to be worth millions of dollars. I used to fantasize about inheriting it, continuing his name and his legacy, I was so in love with him as a father figure. He was never a lover (gross!), and he was always very respectful of me, meaning he never grabbed me like a boss would a secretary or a student back in the “1950’s good old days.” But he still had his resentments: “The girls in magic are taking away the jobs that belong to the guys!” I didn’t correct him. I wanted him to take me on as a student. I should have told him that all jobs do not belong to white males only. Jobs belong to everyone.
I accepted his quirkiness because, hey, we were denizens of Las Vegas. Everyone was running from some kind of past. I met people running away from a military career, immigrating from another country, divorce, jail, addictions, or in my case, an abortion. Back in the 90’s before the corporations came in, it was possible to make a six-figure income without a college education as a dealer, a bellman, or pushing cocktails. The casino culture’s money and power seemed to have this glow of redemption, this cleansing ability to create new identities. Las Vegas even has its own casino language, “Last night a whale came in. The dinosaurs say those are rare nights.” But in order to partake in these riches, Las Vegas has its own unspoken rules, such as, “do not critique the patriarchy or misogyny or yee shalt not share in monetary riches.”
***
After my seven-year stint as a magician in Las Vegas, when I moved to New York City. I had already given up on continuing his legacy of magic, so I decided to move to New York to discover what the magical arts looked like elsewhere. I loved that Darwin would brag about my magic manipulation powers such as vanishing a coin or making a billiard ball dance across my fingers. Darwin bragged about me to everyone, which is what kept him at the close family level category in my mind, “She is my best magic student. You show her the most difficult sleight-of-hand magic, and she does it!”
The first time I knew that I was standing in front of a master, I saw him do a double Downs coin star with both hands from behind his back, and he could do it without any sort of sticky resin (which he called “rosin” in his own Vegas patois). He would take five oversized Eisenhower dollars in each fist, then put his hands behind his back. After a few moments, he would bring his hands to the front of his body, both hands splayed open with a single Eisenhower dollar balanced perfectly on the pad of each finger. He bragged, “Look I’ve mastered The Downs Star. I showed the old man myself. Look—no rosin!”
It was all skill, luck, talent and a little bit of natural magic.
***
Darwin would say the most vintage things, and I would look at him in wonder, as if he was a living breathing museum exhibit. He would say crap to me like, “She was so old, she’s got mice in her vagina.”
“I don’t get it.” I said. I was 22 years old and he was interesting and animated. Like watching a car on fire.
“What do you mean you don’t get it.”
“I don’t understand. Why does she have mice?”
“Because she’s old.”
“Oh.”
At the same time, he was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met in my life. Kind, patient, generous, but oh what a fucking prick that guy was.
=====
January 2018
I was sitting in my little Pacific Northwest credit union, getting a new atm card. Just finished having pho, looking at my phone wondering how much time I have left in my parking when I got a text from Tristan Christian (not his real name), “Gary isn’t doing well. He’s here at the hospital, he can be reached here if you want to talk to him.”
You might have never heard of Tristan. Gary used to say, “If you ask someone to name a magician, the only one they remember is Houdini.”
To magicians who remember, they know Tristan because he had a long-running show on the Strip, a few magic TV shows, and was outrageously handsome with that thick blonde hair and pumped arms. He had a gaggle of topless showgirls in his show. I had watched his show over and over and over in my youth. Every time I watched that topless showgirl production where twelve chicks emerged from a bathtub, I would wonder about the women’s job security in the future more than I wondered about the illusion itself. I would worry about the lines in their faces becoming more pronounced as the years clicked by. Who would have them, then? How would they support themselves financially?
Gary was of course in love with him too, “You know that Tristan gets the collection.” Half of Gary’s magic collection is precious and unique, such as the legendary magician Thurston’s appointment book, and half of it is Harry Potter crap and mugs from the dollar store with pictures of wizards printed on them. Thank god I didn’t inherit that collection. Who needs all that material stuff to dust and maintain and sort through? I wanna live my own life.
Instead of texting Tristan back, I call Darwin on his cell phone directly, assuming this had to be an emergency. Is he already dead? I’m relieved he picks up. His voice is weak but I am glad to hear it. The last time he was hospitalized, he lost the ability to speak. Right now, he repeats over and over how much he wants to see his mom, Dad, and baby brother. This is the guy with the unflappable spirit. When he got his leg cut off below the knee, he exclaimed, “If I can’t walk, I’ll sing. If I can’t sing, I’ll draw!”
Now, he is talking of giving up. It sounds like he is determined to die tonight.
I have to drop every mundane task including cleaning the apartment, doing laundry, and being a Seattle citizen in this cloudy rainy city, and book an emergency flight leaving in three hours. It’s just so James Bond 007. I feel like a real Las Vegas magician again, not just another single mom in Seattle. I assigned my ex the task of picking up my kid from school and flew out with just one change of clothes shoved in a backpack.
+++
On the plane, I sit next to a couple in their 70’s going to visit their grandkids. I mention I’m there to visit my dying mentor. They get really quiet and say, “Sorry to hear that.” We settle back into our seats.
My good friend Ginger who I knew from the time I was a tarot reader in Las Vegas coffeeshops in the 1990’s picks me from the airport without me even having to ask for the ride. I don’t know what to do with death.
Ginger’s parents have already passed, so she is a pro at living with mortality, “This might be the last time you see him.”
It’s already 9:00 p.m. Are visiting hours over? How do hospitals work? We park in front of Valley View Hospital. It’s Old Las Vegas far from the strip, its sign bright with oversized letters for a hospital, it looks more like the front of a casino. We walk through darkened corridors where I feel I don’t belong. Will they let me see him this late at night? I stand in the doorway and peek into a cold and quiet room. His eyes are closed, tubes coming out of his nostrils.
I stand there in the hospital room doorway. Why am I here? I don’t want to bother him. I want him to rest. What could I possibly do? Why did I fucking fly all the way out here? He doesn’t want to see me, he wants all his boyfriends in magic. What is he going to do with some useless girl?
Ginger nudged me, “Just go in there and hold his hand.”
“Oh for fucks sakes. Why the fuck would I want to hold his hand? How is that going to be helpful?” We haven’t talked for weeks and weeks because every time we do, he says, “Well you gotta love Donald Trump! I wish him all the best!” I’m not gonna explain that Trump is a racist pig who puts children in cages and separates families at the border, and pollutes our air and water in favor of the oligarchy.
I don’t understand why I flew all the way out here if I hate this guy so much. He is passed out. Innocent. I don’t want to wake him. I sit next to the bed and hold his beef jerky palm. Hands puckered and rough from the Las Vegas desert.
He opens his eyes, “Well. You’re here.”
“Hey Gar, just rest.”
“Well, I wanna go see mom and dad and baby brother.”
“Oh whatever. You’ll be fine.”
“You really don’t know how to say goodbye, do you.”
“Oh geez. Ok. Ok. I love you.”
“Well, I love you too. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that. And you’ve always been very sexy.”
I raise my voice, “Can you not be disgusting for like one fucking minute?” I’m half-joking. I know he loves to argue. I’m also infuriated that he sees me as “some girl” and not one of his closest friends, confidants, and his star magic student. I am infuriated at his lack of respect, but, I have to let this argument go. It’s an argument that is too exhausting to maintain every other hour of the day, every single day, and especially now, as I’m watching him die. I see that he has a roommate and the shadow behind the cloth partition moves a bit.
“Listen I’ll be back tomorrow morning and we can talk more.” He loves the attention. This will ensure he makes it through the night.
“Ok.” He closes his eyes. I walk away, confident that he will open them again tomorrow.
=====
I show up the next morning at the hospital. The old master shifts under the sheets. He and I have almost a 30 year friendship, taught me all of the advanced sleight of hand that I know. I flew all the way out here just to support him. The master of magic flutters his eyes open and looks at me. I’ve attended countless magic Las Vegas magic shows with him, I’ve seen him cry when his uncle died. We’ve spent hours talking night after night, decade after decade about philosophy, art, and illusions. We’ve done gigs together, eaten so many meals together, and holidays. I’m his family.
He looks at me, parts his lips. This is the last bit of wisdom he wants to share with me.
“Hey Mari! Why don’t you jump into bed with me naked?”
It all comes to this. I am an idiot for thinking I was his family, his friend. I’m not his legacy, his star pupil. I’m his aspirational Filipino mail order bride.
“If you weren’t in that hospital bed I would strangle you.”
***
Darwin ends up having to go to home hospice surrounded by dusty magic books, magic ephemera, and hoarder junk. One night when I was watching him sleep, I decided to dust his home. I hate cleaning but I just needed to do something. The other magicians in the room gave me side-eye. They assumed I was going to steal something. Magicians in Vegas were once in a while known to covet Darwin’s collection and try to steal things when they were at his house. I dusted his collection of magic mugs on the wall that had a picture of a white male magician printed on it. I dusted around framed photos of white men in top hats and tails, all autographed, as they were famous. I dusted ceramic statues of little magic hats and bunnies, and then I came to the white Cleopatra.
Up to that point in my life, of being a professional magician for 27 years, I’d done a pretty good job of denying that I was a part of upholding white supremacy until I saw her. It was a cheesy ceramic head of the iconic Cleopatra sculpture, except she had blue eyes, white skin, and blonde hair. And in that moment, I realized, for the first time, that the entire industry of Western magic is the world of white male fantasy. From cheesy pointy hat merlin magicians at renaissance fairs, to Houdini, the iconic man in a tuxedo and top hat, to Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter, Western magic is all about white male oppressors subjugating anyone who wasn’t them. This Western magic was never designed for women or people of color to hold power.
This made everything so clear to me. Why people would look at my Filipino-American female body and ask me what I would choose to wear during a magic show. Why TV producers are reluctant to produce shows starring people of color. This is the all-boys-club-magic. No girls allowed. That’s why Gary acted like a stranger to me when he was in front of a bunch of dudes. That’s the code of magic. No outsiders allowed.
That’s why Darwin kept the women in magic autographed photos in a separate room in the back, segregated from the white male magician autographs on his living room and library walls. That’s why the women in most magic photos and posters are wearing bikinis and are the servants. By being a magician in this field, I’ve been supporting the temple of white male supremacy. But yet, I was mourning my dying mentor.
After caring for him at his home for two weeks, he died. I don’t know who pronounced him dead, but I arrived at his house to find him there, looking the same as in life, just not moving. It bothered me that he had his mouth wide open like a fish on a bed of ice in the Asian supermarket. I dare not touch his skin because I didn’t want to touch a dead body. I couldn’t stare very long because the coroner came.
I never saw the coroner take a stethoscope out to double check if he was really dead, but I saw them zip him up in that giant frosted bag. It’s frosted so that the condensation from the body isn’t seen through the plastic. According to the nurses, they say that the last thing to go before you die is the hearing. I’m sure his blood was still warm. I’m certain he heard himself get zipped up in that bag, unable to move or scream. They didn’t allow the magic, his soul, to leave his body before taking him away. Someone in that room should have said something. I didn’t even say goodbye.
***
There was no funeral. Gary used to say, “I don’t want anyone crying over me.”
A few months later, there was a party at the local bar where he held his weekly magic club meetings, where magicians from all over the world for the last 50 years came to hang out every Wednesday night in the back room of a dark and smoky bar. This funeral party was organized by some male magicians. The attendees were mostly lonely old white guys. It looked like the worst Elks party ever thrown, just a PowerPoint presentation and some wings and hamburgers served buffet line style at the end. This was not like my family’s holiday celebrations where everyone brought pancit, adobo, lumpia to share. It was not a joyous celebration of dancing and food and music. Despite this, it still hurts not to be included in this mostly white male dominated clique. It hurts not to be accepted by the patriarchy. I spent so much of my life in magic. But I realize, after his death, that I don’t need the approval of anyone dead or alive to thrive.
***
Darwin gave me full access to his mind anytime he was awake and not at work. He would open up grey shoeboxes of magic and explain to me what each device accomplishes. He gave me access to hundreds of magic books he accumulated over the span of 70 years. By hanging out with him, the knowledge I have is equivalent to a doctorate in magic. Logically, I thought that I needed to pander to the white supremacist status quo in order to gain access to resources. I thought I needed proximity to whiteness to excel in my field.
I wished for so many things at that time, two years ago, such as an inheritance, or at least on his deathbed, some recognition and respect for our friendship, rather than being reduced to an anonymous showgirl. I’m concerned that my memory of him is fading. I forget sometimes that he used to haul suitcases full of magazines and books to Las Vegas magic conventions. This was just so performers could sign them. He wanted his magic library to be unique and signed by everyone. Even if the magic performer was awful at what they do, and so many magicians are, in truth, just trust-fund babies who move furniture around onstage. But he also got the signatures of Johnny Carson and Muhammed Ali (both amateur magicians), of legendary illusionists Siegfried and Roy. He was so generous and loving, he even requested my autographs. He collected magic ephemera from local Las Vegas performers like me all the time. When a corporation had a magic poster of me printed up, or when I gave him a new magic headshot, he insisted I sign it. He thought everyone in magic was a star.
But I am no longer the apprentice. I no longer have to mention his name in certain circles to be approved.
I am the magic. It’s a miracle that we are alive. Magic is in all of us.
Maritess Zurbano is a playwright, performer, and author. She is a former Las Vegas croupier, and had her own illusion show in Japan. Zurbano was nominated at the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques. Her magic opinion essays are at Ms. Magazine, and The Seattle Times. Her one-woman play run, “Make Maritess Zurbano Disappear,” about how she became a professional magician in Las Vegas, was truncated due to the 2020 apocalypse. Previous workshops were produced at New York’s Ars Nova and The NY Fringe Festival with dramaturgy from the New York Public Theater. She’s currently pitching a graphic novel and finishing her magic memoir. Zurbano spends pandemic days on Zoom as a professional psychic, magician, and hypnotist at corporate and college events.
