Rough wooden mugs clang on polished oak tables of varying shapes and sizes. Families ate, drank, and sang some friendly tunes, all seated together on benches or stools depending on where they sat. On the other side of the small town tavern, a few men and even fewer women were alone or with at least one other along the bar, but there was still a feeling of loneliness that you come to expect out of these places. They stared down at the depths of their mugs, slow in motioning for more poison from the bartender and owner.

And then there was the stage. Elevated only a foot off the ground, decorated in a red carpet with a tremendous overhanging light shining a bright spotlight at Con’s feet. The drums were unmanned outside the beam’s radius, though glinted at all the other lights still on in the tavern.

In the spotlight, Con didn’t feel so bright.

No one’s paying us any attention, he sighed, adjusting his red suit jacket. He dressed like he owned the world, much more than this small town gathered here today. It was only lunchtime around these parts, hardly the perfect time for a show. Con and his partner, Pringle, needed the work, and Mean Jim didn’t have an opening except for now, where usually only the lame and newcomer musicians play their tunes.

But, if you were paid to do a job, especially a job you loved, you expressed no complaints. At least until the show was done and over.

“Are you ready?” a voice whispered from beside him. Con turned his head to see his partner, Pringle, standing straight, staring away from Con and into the crowd. His dark skin was only a tad lighter than his suit, his bald head glistening most of all. Clasped in his hands was his top hat.

“I suppose so,” Con hissed.

“We really should prepare what we’re doing,” Pringle said. “Winging it is dangerous.”

“Danger is thrilling. Haven’t you always told me that, Pringle?”

“It is when we aren’t stupid about it,” Pringle flipped his hat over his head. “You thinking something with cards? Sleight of hand? Should I shit in my hat and make it disappear?”

“Fantastic, I knew your dairysickness would one day pay off,” Con grinned, though Pringle did not share the same amusement. Past his stone face, Con spotted the tavern owner rubbing the pub table with a wet cloth. His eyes were toward the stage, eying Con and Pringle with impatience.

“Go on! Work like the dogs you are!” Con imagined the scruffy owner saying, judging from his twisted face. Con wasn’t paid enough to be talked to like that, hardly paid at all for this. But he wasn’t going to stop now, listening to words that weren’t even said. Jack might have snapped, maimed the owner in rage. Mean Jim was only lucky that Con was a different man.

“Let’s begin,” Con said with a trace of a sigh. He took a step forward.

The crowd was a sea of whispers. Only half of the seats were occupied. Utensils stabbed at wooden plates, poking at meats and sludge of all different kinds. Nobody paid Con any mind as he approached the front of the stage.

Con felt the heat from the light above over his shoulders. I would kill to have a crowd come to a show just for me. All this wasted effort to make myself feel important is not working.

“Evening, ladies and gentlemen!” Con announced, putting an announcer’s inflection in his voice. “We wholeheartedly welcome you to Mean Jim’s Pub & Stay and hope you’ve found yourself at home!” Con bowed, head turned to see the tavern owner with the slightest of grins. Below, on the stage, Con noticed Pringle’s bent shadow. Con raised himself. “I am Con, and behind me is my partner, Pringle, and today Mean Jim asked us personally here to entertain!”

Far from true. Con and Pringle had to beg to be allowed to perform in exchange for a pittance and a night’s stay in one of his open rooms. But the crowd seemed to buy it. Half of them, anyway.

“And what better way to entertain than… magic?” Con grinned at the audience. The eyes glared at him questioningly. Magic? What would magicians be doing here, in the middle of nowhere? Con had read those thoughts before, always something to draw a little attention. “So, If I could have a volen—”

“Magic?” a man scoffed from the audience. He had a thick beard, wide body, and stains all over his shoddy brown shirt. Beside him, presumably his two young children, and a wife that halved his size. “Are you gonna breathe fire for us, you pair o’ suits?”

The crowd laughed at this. It didn’t take a genius to figure out this wasn’t good for Con and Pringle.

It became worse when the bearded man felt himself at the center of the show. “Are you going to summon lightning out o’ your fingertips, flood this tavern with your spit? Magicians? Why would magicians be here and not out there saving the world?”

Bastard, Con would spit in the man’s face, but he learned his lesson already with inciting fights he was far too capable of handling.

“Do something?” Pringle hissed silently in Con’s ear.

Con clenched his fists. Why did he have to be the one to take the talking role in their act? He raised his voice to speak past the crowd and to the heckler, “If you’re so keen to find out, we are in need of a volunteer.” He let the words hang for a bit. The silence filled in the room like currency Con would spend frugally. But buying time only worked when you could sell it. He turned behind himself, and in a voice that settled things, he said, “Pringle, why don’t you help our friend up to the stage?” Con winked.

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Pringle nodded, walking forward and stepping off the stage, traversing through the crowd. The crowd beckoned for the heckler to go, the bearded man's temporary fame backfiring on him as he was all but forced to participate.

The man grabbed Pringle’s extended hand, eying Con as he stood up. Perhaps he’s wondering if we could really breathe fire or channel lightning after all. Nothing I would volunteer myself to find out, but hecklers can never be choosers. I would never allow that.

Con turned sharply to his left, pointing his shoulder to the crowd. Pringle aided Beard onto the stage, positioning him across from Con.

“What is your name, patron?” Con asked.

“My name is—”

“No, nope, no!” Con hurried out of his voice as Pringle gave a glare behind his shoulder. Pringle held up in the air, a piece of folded leather tight in between his fingertips. He displayed the man’s wallet like a game of show and tell. He unfolded it, pulled out his identity card, and then flashed it behind the oblivious man’s head. Mansion Birch, his name read at the top.

“I’m going to guess your name using my magical powers,” Con said, making stupid motions with his hands as if caressing a witch’s orb. A few in the crowd couldn’t suppress their chuckles, but they seemed to get the gist that they should hold back their laughter until the punchline. “Just hold on!” He rubbed his temples with his fingers, feigning deep thought. “Henry!”

“No! Not even close, you clueless bastard!” the man laughed like he was talking to an idiot. The crowd joined him in laughter, though the arrogant man must have thought they were laughing at Con. Of course, they were all laughing at him. Always a thrilling sensation, being a little devious. Pringle, behind Mansion, folded the wallet back neatly, showing the crowd as he tucked it gently back into the same pocket he lifted it from.

“Okay, I don’t have those magical powers,” Con said with a hint of defeat in his voice. He reached behind his back, clasping his empty hands shut. When he opened them, a solid deck of cards appeared, almost as if he pulled them out of his sleeves when he really pulled them out of thin air. Con brought them forward, handing the cards to Mansion. “Look at them, shuffle them. Pick any card among those and sign your name. Then put that card anywhere in the deck. Anywhere at all.”

Con turned his back to Mansion.

“I don’t have a pen,” Mansion whispered.

“Oh! My fault. Pringle?” Con asked behind Mansion’s back, where Pringle smirked.

“Yes, Con, I have one somewhere in my pocket… here!” Pringle came over and clasped Con’s hand. In there, a pen, as well as one square piece of plastic Con sneaked into his sleeve. Con turned his head away again, handing the pen over to Mansion.

The scribbling scratched on the face of a card. “Done,” the heckler said with boldness in his voice.

“You’re more than welcome to shuffle the deck. Otherwise, hand it to me,” Con said, holding out his hand behind his back. He heard the grinding sound of cards scraping cards. Finally, the deck was back in his hands. He brought it close to his sleeve and lifted. Con then shuffled.

He paused, grabbing the pen out of Mansion’s hand, throwing over the target’s head toward Pringle, who had to jump off of his feet to catch it. “I want you to say a number from one to fifty-two.”

“No way, fool,” Mansion said. “No number I say will find my card! And what if you cheat, huh?”

“How about you say a number and I’ll hand the deck back to you, and you count from the top, eh?” Con looked over at the audience. “Does that suit everyone here?”

Nods, and plenty of them. The whole pub was now paying attention to Con and Pringle, but that was the entire point. They could look as intently as they wished, but they would find none of their secrets. They were experts at magic. Both kinds.

“There. Easy, isn’t it? Say a number.”

“Seven,” Mansion said, grinning smugly. Wide enough, his cheeks unfolded holes through the forest of his beard, and tiny specks of meat hung off branches of hair. Appalling, but Con wished to humiliate the man in another way.

“Seven, indeed?” Con asked as if he had a hint of worry. He handed the cards back. “Do your counting, Henry.” Con grinned.

“Aight I will!” Mansion growled. He discarded the cards down and off onto the floor, flicking them off defiantly. He counted all the while. “One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Sev—” His throat made the sound of how Con imagined a frog regurgitating out of a throat would. His eyes bulged as they towered over the top of the deck. His card wasn’t even there, precisely as he expected. But there instead was none other than his id card.

“The hell?” Mansion held it up for the entire audience to see. On cue, they all laughed and pointed. They all saw Pringle slip his wallet back into Mansion’s pants. He was the only one unaware of the playful theft. Until now, anyway. He checked his back pocket, reaching deep for his wallet. When he opened it, he had the face of someone about to die of pure shock. Con imagined how heavy his heartbeat must be, perhaps the sound of pounding drums beating in his chest.

“What do you see?” Con grinned deviously toward the bearded man. “Eh, Mansion? Do you believe in our magic now?”

Mansion looked up, scared like he saw the ceiling breaking apart above him. “How… did you…” Mansion pulled from his wallet a playing card tucked into the small plastic window where his id once was. He flipped it over, showing his signature in black ink. Con snatched it quickly, showing it to the audience.

“No way!” a patron cackled from the back.

Con swayed from ugly face to pretty face, left to right, showing off the card like this little tavern was the whole world. “It’s been a pleasure, ladies and Gentlemen. We are Con and Pringle, thank you very much!” Con bowed in sync with Pringle, a confused and shaken Mansion between them.

Then came the applause. The sound of thunderous claps mixed and muddied with astonished laughter. Moments like these were what Con lived for. They were all fools, and Con and Pringle made them all enjoy being so. That was the secret ability of a magician, a true one.

The whole tavern belonged to them in that moment of glory and awe. Power was an addictive drug, the thrill of control and possession. In these moments, Con imagined he could conquer the world through the stage alone.

Everyone understood the basic concepts of traditional magic. Fire out of fingertips, stoneskin, majestic feats that commoners could only dream of doing. But stage magic… that was only a craft Con and Pringle could ever truly understand.

As masters of both trades, they were unstoppable. Con felt it now, rising in him like fire hot out of a furnace. But their act was done, and the flames quickly died out. They were back at the bar, drinking within only minutes after their stellar performance. The highs of magic made the baseline feel deeper than an abyss.

It was all a part of the job, being a magician. Whichever kind you may be.