Author’s Note: This is the eve of my Third Anniversary on Substack. Publishing fiction daily has been an immense challenge, and one I’ll certainly never forget. The archive is huge now. You can access all of them for as little as 5 bucks a month. There weren’t many fiction writers on Substack when I started. Now there are hundreds. We discuss the craft of writing, the thrills, the disappoinments, the dark days and the triumphs. I’d like to think there is no better example of what it means to be a working writer than Jimmy Doom’s Roulette Weal. Thousand of readers have commented to me how much they enjoy being part of it. I would love for you to join them. If I got hit by a bus tomorrow you’d have 1,088 stories to read before you missed me.
One day Imma tell my grandkids that a racing boat and a deck of Uno cards kept me outta prison.
And Tauzz.
Tauzz really kept me outta prison.
I’ll tell my grandkids that.
I always hoped Tauzz would be so famous by then my grandkids won’t even believe me.
Tauzz and me went to grade school together.
Edison School, across the parking lot from where the mob makes caskets, but that ain’t part of the story.
Tauzz was the fastest kid in school. Thought he might go to the Olympics one day, that kinda fast for his age.
He fell running hurdles in 6th grade, skinned his hand real bad.
Quit running track.
I told him he had to change his mind. He said, quietly, because Tauzz was always quiet “I don’t wanna mess up my hands.”
“Mess ‘em up for what?” I asked. And he shrugged.
People thought he was crazy. He just had a different idea of what he wanted to do.
People hated Tauzz for quittin’ track.
They’d mess with him, he wouldn’t fight back.
7th Grade Talent Show, Mary Beth Heinke played piano, and Denarious Buxley got his rabbit to jump through some hoops.
Then Tauzzarean Blakely got introduced.
Kids booed because he quit track.
Tauzz did magic tricks.
Good ones.
Holy shit I don’t believe what I’m seein’ magic tricks.
Kids weren’t booin’ anymore.
If we had had YouTube and shit like that back then, Tauzz would have been world famous.
But computers were big things, size of five refrigerators. Phones were attached to cables that went in the wall of the house.
When we got older, Tauzz would go to Northland Mall and Belle Isle, do tricks for money.
Channel 4 put him on the news, his tricks were so good.
He could pull cards from a deck with his pinkie finger, shuffle ‘em through his fingers sideways and vertically, and pull all the red cards out. All of ‘em. With one hand. And you didn’t know where they went. They were just gone.
He didn’t have a hat, or a long coat with tails.
He just wore t-shirts that said Tauzz on the front, real shiny, and “What Up Doe?” on the back, got ‘em made at Northland. That was it, man.
Lee jeans and Pumas and Tauzz.
We graduated from high school together.
Tauzz won the senior talent show, of course. Lacey Mfume got a record deal right after we graduated, but she couldn’t even beat Tauzz in the talent show.
He was making pool balls disappear from his mouth and turning Uno cards into five dollar bills and all kinds of crazy shit.
I got fired from Iglesias Chicken and wound up slinging dope in Eliza Howell park.
It just went down like that, man.
Tauzz would come down there and do magic tricks, and there were some break dancers.
Crime was getting real bad, Murder Capital of the World type shit, and all over the city people were scramblin’ for ways to fix it.
They built a bandshell in Eliza Howell, had Friday night concerts, stuff like that. They invited clowns and jugglers and stilt walkers. I never did understand how a stilt walker was gonna stop someone from shootin’ someone else, but the park was fun.
Tauzz was there, doing tricks, but he had a lot more competition from sax players and unicycle performers.
Told me he was thinking about tryin’ to get into the UAW.
Told me he’d always be a magician, but magician didn’t come with dental.
People kept telling Tauzz he should go to Vegas, go to Hollywood, but he just shook ‘em off.
He didn’t wanna be on a big stage.
He liked the in your face magic.
The fuck with people’s heads magic.
A woman from Second Ebenezer came to the park one day. Asked Tauzz if he’d go do magic at Children’s Hospital.
The Second Ebenezer Church van took him and a juggler, took ‘em down to Children’s Hospital.
When they came back, hours later, Tauzz was trippin’ hard.
Like shaky, but happy, but like freaked out.
“They took us to the burn ward, Shawny B. Maaan…”
“Them kids was messed up, huh?” I said.
And Tauzz shook his head “Man, it took me a minute, but then I just busted out some Uno cards, because kids love them, right, and just did my thing…and then the kids were havin’ fun, seemed like some of ‘em were anyway, then we were done. And some of the kids, the ones that could, clapped and the nurses clapped, and Sister Bettina walked us backed down the hallway, then this man starts following me, talking to me. Armand…”
Tauzz pulled a business card out of his back pocket like he was a regular person and not the best magician I ever saw and said:
“Bechalian. You know who he is?”
“A big talent agent?”
Tauzz looked at me like I was stupid.
“Why would a big talent agent be at Children’s Hospital in Detroit? Nawww…he’s a boat racer. Hydroplanes. World famous, I guess. Drives the Stroh’s Signature boat.”
“You got to go on a hydroplane?”
Tauzz looked at me like I was stupid again.
“No, but his kid was messing around in his boat garage, set some racing fuel on fire.
Armand told me I made his kid laugh for the first time since it happened. Hired me to do magic at his Labor Day weekend party in Grosse Pointe.Said he’d pay me 1500 bucks.”
“You sure he’s for real?”
Tauzz held out his hand. There was a red ping pong ball in it.
“Tap it,” he said.
I reached to tap it and Tauzz made a fist. When he opened it there were 5 one hundred dollar bills in it.
“He gave me a down payment.”
“For real?
Tauzz made one of the bills levitate from his hand.
It was real, as far as I could tell.
On Labor Day I showed up in the park. Had to. People loved their rocks back then. People gave me money, then I gave a sign to my guy Darius by the drinkin’ fountain. My pinkie finger was one pack, then up my hand backwards and so on. He would give the vial to the customer, shaking hands like they were old friends.
It was a little like amateur magic. Sleight of hand. One step ahead of the audience.
One of the break dancers bought two packets.
I figured their routine would either get real lively or real shitty, but it wouldn’t stay the same.
I looked up, middle of the afternoon, there was a magician.
A damn top hat and tails magician.
I watched for a minute.
He had the wand that turned to a flower, he had the different colored scarves…basic as it could get.
I wanted to say “hey man, Tauzz is the magician in this neighborhood. You might as well not waste your time.”
Tauzz could take his shoe off and shoot cards out of it, tell you which one you caught.
This dude was struggling to make his top hat go flat.
Sun was starting to go down.
That’s when it got a little tricky for a dope man.
That’s when dudes who had been getting high all day wanted more, didn’t necessarily have money for more.
I didn’t do fronts.
Or the heads had money but were too high to be discreet.
Bad business.
And the more crackheads approach you, the more you look like you’re doing something that maybe ain’t legal.
And up walked Tauzz, his little gym bag of cards and pool balls and stuff hanging over his shoulder.
I thought he’d be smiling, coming from some fancy boat racer party where he just got paid.
He wasn’t smiling.
He looked…I don’t know…not right.
I thought maybe he was mad about the other magician.
I couldn’t wait to tell him the dumb tricks the guy was doing. Tell him he didn’t have nothing to worry about.
Tauzz pulled out some keys, swung them on his finger. I thought maybe he was about to show off a new trick I hadn’t seen before.
He dropped the keys in the grass, right near me, and bent down slow to pick ‘em up. Like he was clumsy.
“Gimmie your money, Shawny B.’
“Huh?”
“Is all your money in one pocket?”
“That boat racer didn’t pay you? You trippin? You drunk? Wha’s up Tauzz? That other magician who showed up ain’t shit, man, he’s like-”
“He ain’t no magician, Shawny. He’s Five O. They’re on you.”
Tauzz picked his keys out of the grass, came up slow. “I’m gonna juggle my pool balls, Shawny.
When one goes in my mouth, step forward and I’ll spit it at you. Try to catch it. Then I’ll meet you across Telegraph at Rosseli’s in twenty minutes. Got me?”
Tauzz stood up juggling the pool balls. I didn’t even see him take them out of the bag.
Wobbled like he was drunk.
I know I was supposed to be watching him, but I was looking at the other magician.
He didn’t look like he was watching me, but there ain’t no such thing as one undercover cop. They’re like roaches. You see one, you got more.
I turned back to Tauzz.
Three balls were in the air.
Then two.
Tauzz spit a pool ball at me. Hit me in the chest.
I bent to pick it up.
Tauzz beat me to it.
Laughed in my face like he had never met me.
I threw my hands in the air like “wow.”
Tauzz was already walking fast, up the hill and outta the park.
When I turned around, a plainclothes cop with a badge dangling from a chain had Darius face down in the drinking fountain.
The magician and the break dancer from earlier walked up on me.
Before they pulled badges I knew.
I had been collecting fives and tens and twenties for hours.
I rubbed my front pocket with my forearm just before the breakdance cop told me to put my hands behind my head.
When the cops frisked me my pockets were empty. Even my wallet was gone.
They took me into custody anyway.
Took me downtown and did a cavity search.
Nothing.
Even though an undercover narcotics officer was willing to testify that he gave me twenty dollars for the express purpose of purchasing a Schedule 2 narcotic, the marked bills –no bills– were on my person.
I was given a seventy dollar loitering ticket and released on personal bond.
I found Tauzz at a Ram’s Horn, where he went after Roselli’s closed.
He had all my money. Every cent.
I got rid of all the twenties as fast as I could, not knowing which one the cops marked.
I tried to give Tauzz some of it as a reward, he wouldn’t take it.
Said Armand Bechalian paid him enough. Said he was happy to try out a brand new trick.
***
When I tell my grandkids about Tauzz, I figure they’re gonna ask me how come Tauzz never got famous.
I’m not sure he ever wanted to be famous.
Tauzz went to work at Chevy Gear and Axle, put in thirty five, retired. They say he could flip an oil plug in an axle from twenty feet away, never had to even stand up.
I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but I should never doubt my friend Tauzz.
I was standing right there when he made fifteen years in prison disappear.
***
Amazing. Amazing. Tuazz’s magic starts in his head. It begins with intuition. A lot like you, Jimmy.
A great one, my friend.