Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  “Did you make that call yet?” I asked the clerk.

  “Er—no,” he said. “I was just about to do it.”

  “Never mind,” I said. “I’ll go over there myself. Sorry to have put you to the bother.”

  “No bother,” the clerk said.

  I went out the door and headed toward Broadway with Bobby right at my heels. The streets were still fairly empty, but as I got to Broadway I began to notice a few more people. Up at the corner I stopped one of them to ask about the delicatessen. It was a portly man in a nice suit.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s right down the street there two and a half blocks.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Don’t mention it,” the man said, starting to go, but then he stopped and turned back around. He pushed back the brim of his hat.

  “Are you— ?” he asked, his voice trailing off.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Are you Dr. Nathan Flowers?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not.”

  “Oh,” he said. “That’s funny. You look just like him. Have you ever been in Chicago?”

  “Many times,” I said. “But I’m not your Dr. Flowers.”

  “Oh, well,” the man said. “All right. But you certainly look like him. You could be his double.”

  The man walked away, but turned back twice as he went to look at me over his shoulder. I stood there until he turned the corner. When he did, Bobby let out a little whimper and then barked twice.

  “Come on,” I said to Bobby, and we went on down the street.

  It was a good delicatessen. I sat down and had a small bowl of soup, a half of a sandwich, and half a cup of coffee. Bobby got a soup bone. I didn’t eat much because I had to perform the Upside Down that afternoon. On the way back to the theatre, I passed near the little restaurant where Carter and I had talked earlier that morning. I had an unexplainable impulse to pause just a moment and take a turn to look in through the open door of this little lunch room. The fry-cook noticed me, picked up something from behind the counter, and came out on the sidewalk holding a hat.

  “Here it is, bub,” he said. “You left it on the counter.”

  “It’s not mine,” I said. “As you can see I’m wearing my hat.”

  “Yes,” the fry-cook said, “and you left this one just a few minutes ago.”

  “That’s not possible,” I said. “I haven’t been in your establishment since this morning.”

  “What is this, bub? Some kind of gag? You just left this hat. Don’t tell me you didn’t.”

  “That’s precisely what I’m telling you, Mac, because I didn’t. Look— I’ll prove it to you. All my hats have monogrammed labels on the inside: H H. See? Just like this one here I’m wearing: H H.”

  “Yes,” the fry-cook said looking at my hat. “And you look inside this one, like you don’t already know.”

  I took the hat and looked, and a very strange feeling came over me. The hat the fry-cook had given me looked exactly like mine, and affixed to its inside sweat-band was a label exactly like the one in my hat, bearing the monogram: H H. This hat was an exact duplicate of my hat— as far as I could see— it was the same in every detail, even in its subtle patterns of wear. It looked like it was one of my hats.

  “When do you claim I left this?” I asked, handing the hat back to him.

  “Claim nothing. You know you left it not more than five minutes ago. I thought you were coming back for it. Then you pull this stupid gag.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Well, I’m sorry about that. Guess it’s not very funny.”

  “It ain’t funny a bit,” the fry-cook said. He shoved the hat back into my hand and said, “Here. Take the stupid hat and get out of my sight!”

  The fry-cook went back inside the restaurant and I stood there looking at two hats exactly the same— the one in my right hand which I had been wearing, and the other hat in my left which the fry-cook had just shoved into my hand. Except for their positions in my hands, I wouldn’t have been able to tell one hat from the other. I stared at the hats for a long moment and then at the front of the little restaurant. Then I looked up and down the street. Broadway was filling up with people. I had the feeling they had been released from churches somewhere in the vicinity.

  I looked at the hats again.

  “Oh, Collins, you were right,” I said. “I’ve got to get some rest!”

  I put on my hat, and held the duplicate hat down to Bobby who sniffed it, and then stepped away from it, the hair on his back bristling and standing on end.

  “Don’t like it, huh?” I asked.

  Bobby let out a short, angry bark and sneezed.

  “Never mind,” I said, “just come along.”

  I walked back to the theatre and hotel holding Bobby’s leash in my right hand and the extra hat in my left. I got to the hotel, went up to my room, went to the bedroom, dropped my hat on a table, placed the other hat next to mine on that same table, unsnapped Bobby’s leash, took off my coat, draped it on a chair, and then sat down on the bed and stared at the two hats. Bobby sat on the floor and stared at the two hats as well. Then he jumped up on the bed beside me and I could hear that he was making a low growl in his throat. I had never heard him make that sound before.

  “Two hats,” I said.

  I lay back on the bed, still looking at the hats.

  “Exactly the same,” I said.

  I closed my eyes and immediately thought of the portly man who mistook me for a Dr. Flowers. Something about that man seemed vaguely familiar. Two hats. Two doctors— no—one doctor— two hats— one doctor who looks just like me, and another man with the same initials as mine who wears a hat just like mine and who looks just like me…. I turned this over in my mind and nothing added up. I found myself drifting off, seeing hats, and portly men, and….

  There was a knock at the door. Bobby started barking.

  “Quiet,” I said, and Bobby stopped barking.

  I went to the hall door and opened it. Collins stood outside. He had come to tell me that it was now 1:30 p.m. I had been sleeping about an hour. I picked up my hat and put it on, put on my coat, started out the door, but then turned and looked back at the other hat lying on the table.

  “Mr. ‘oudini?” Collins asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  We started out. Bobby started barking frantically.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Collins asked.

  “I think he doesn’t want to be left alone,” I said.

  I went and got Bobby’s leash and snapped it back on him.

  “Come along, Bobby,” I said, and with Bobby scampering along beside us, Collins and I went downstairs and around back to the theatre’s stage door, for people were already arriving out front for the matinee.

  Backstage everything had that fine hum a theatre has before an opening show when everything is going well. I put Bobby in my dressing room, and then Collins and I looked over the water cell, checked, double-checked, and triple-checked the secret catch on the stocks.

  “It’s working fine,” Collins said. “Nobody has touched these stocks.”

  “When we get back to New York,” I said, “we’re going to build an entirely new cell. And we’re going to change the method of escape. I want you to start thinking about it.”

  “Right,” Collins said.

  I got into my formal suit for the stage as the orchestra began the opening bars of music out in the pit. Bess was no where in sight. I went out of my dressing room and found Collins in the wings.

  “Have you seen any sign of Mrs. H?” I asked.

  “She’s in the far back of the stage sitting in a chair,” Collins said. “She’s bought herself a flask of some sort of libation.”

  “Oh, God,” I said. “Not this early. Try to keep an eye on her as much as you can. I don’t think I should come near her now.”

  Collins went off.

  I stood there in the wings, listening to the acts, and catching a wh
iff of the unique smell of a vaudeville audience— cigars, cigarettes, beer, whiskey, candy, perfume— and faintly amidst it all— the sweat of the workingman. It was the smell of life, and it blended with the sounds of coughing, laughing, shouting, and clapping hands into some kind of solid, living thing— a joyous living thing that knows by its instinct that joy is the purpose of life.

  All the acts floated flawlessly along their courses, buoyed up by the music rising up from the pit. Finally it was Reine Davies turn, and she passed me in the wings in her flowing gown. Her face was glowing with inspiration. As she passed by, she whispered: “Caruso is a genius.”

  I looked back from where she had come. Back there the boys had set up the ‘Column of Air’— the fans and the megaphone. Vickery waved his hand back and forth in front of a fan, grinning at me. I stifled a laugh. Miss Davies made her entrance, bowed, and began her song. I could tell they were liking it, for the house quieted. Then, I who am no musician heard an off-key note. Miss Davies continued her song. The audience didn’t seem to mind. Her voice followed the music as it bubbled along, and then rose upwards to a mountain of sound. And then the audience was applauding very loudly and I knew that the off-key note did not matter one whit. Miss Davies came offstage, glowing brighter than ever, and said, as she passed by me again: “And so is Edison!”

  And now it was my turn to rise up along the ‘Column of Air.’ My introductory music played. The motion picture screen descended from the proscenium. I walked to the edge of the wings and watched the flickering images of the bridge jumps I had made around the world. Then the music changed tempo, and then shifted into Souza’s “Pomp and Circumstance.” The screen went dark, and then scrolled back up out of view. I took a breath, felt the moment to its fullest, and then took my first step toward the stage with my right foot. My left foot followed. I was in the lights. I passed the edge of the curtain. The black of the house yawned before me and then brightened to the deepest shadows of blue and purple, and amidst the purple shadows, a sea of golden faces and hands flashed and flared as the applause of over two thousand human beings rolled toward me like a thundering wave. I came down to the footlights, put my foot upon the hood of an electric globe, and waited for the roaring tide to cease its flow. I had found that core of vitality— that living force that kept me moving. I had found it again. It was here at the edge of this stage— right here— right now.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Upon the Wings of Kronos

  “Aviation is the most wonderful thing in the world today. To fly in an aeroplane is an experience worth living for.”

  Houdini

  I hadn’t forgotten about the hat.

  All through the opening matinee, that hat, which was an exact duplicate of my own, kept pushing its way into my thoughts; that hat, and the portly gentleman I had encountered out on the street— and that stagehand who had fought with us and escaped in that automobile which had happened to be all-too-conveniently waiting at the end of the alley— and Bess. Always Bess pushed her way into my thoughts, her voice, her face. Once that voice and face had been inspirational, but now they were a worry, almost a burden. What was I to do with her? What would become of her? She needed something to fill her life. She was drifting away from me.

  I have to get her back into the act somehow, I thought, I have to get her back on the stage with me.

  The audience was applauding wildly as I thought of all this. I was dripping with water, standing next to the cell. Where’s Bess? I thought. Is she all right?

  I strode off stage as the curtain rang down and the orchestra crashed below me. The dancers for the Closing Number rushed by and took their positions on the stage.

  In the wings I came upon Vickery who was wearing his long rubber coat and carrying his fire-ax.

  “Where’s Mrs. H?” I asked.

  “In your dressing room, sir,” Vickery said. “Lying down.”

  “I’ve got to go out this afternoon,” I said. “Please keep an eye on Mrs. H for me. You know her moods. She’s bought a flask of something. Find it, pour it out, and throw the flask away where she can’t find it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Vickery said.

  “And then get together with Collins and go through all the challenge stunts for the week. He should be over at the stage door with the sailors who’ll be helping with the straitjacket challenge on Tuesday. And remember you need to call Roos Brothers tomorrow morning.”

  I walked along the sheet of rubber that the boys had rolled out backstage for me to drip water on. I got to my dressing room and went in. Bess was deeply asleep on the couch against the wall. I looked in her purse, and found the flask. I saw Vickery walk past outside.

  “Psst!” I said to him.

  He stopped and looked in.

  I gave him the flask. “Dump it,” I said.

  I looked back into her purse, found a gold case, took it out, and opened it. It contained several hand-rolled marijuana cigarettes. I took an envelope off the dressing table, slipped the cigarettes into it, and gave the package to Vickery.

  “These, too,” I whispered.

  Vickery took them without a word and went out.

  I grabbed a towel, dried off, and quickly got dressed. Bess stirred a bit while I did this, but was soon again in deep slumber.

  I put on my coat and hat and picked up my copy of London’s Star Rover which I had purchased that morning.

  “Sleep tight, sweetheart,” I whispered to Bess, and then went out the door.

  I had to find a quiet place where I could read London’s book. I decided I would walk over to the train station, find a corner where no one would notice me, and sit down there and read. I went out the stage door and made my way down the alley. There was a smaller alley between two buildings which I noticed as I walked along. I went down this narrow passage and came back out on 12th Street. I headed on down 12th Street toward Broadway.

  As I approached the corner of 12th and Broadway, I felt like I had suddenly been gripped in the paws of a lion, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

  Coming around the corner of the building was that portly gentleman I had encountered earlier in the day— exactly the same man. He came up to me, looking straight at me.

  “Aren’t you…?” he started to ask, smiling.

  “Yes, I am,” I said. “We meet again.”

  “You have a very good memory!” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “not a bad one, but, after all, it was just this morning.”

  “This morning?” he asked, his face beginning to show a slight confusion. “No, not this morning. I’ve never been anywhere around here before.”

  “Wasn’t that you who I encountered at this very same corner this morning?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Not me. Must’ve been my double.”

  “But you recognized me!”

  “Of course I did!” he said. “Who wouldn’t? You’re Harry Houdini.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “But your remark about my memory…?”

  “You said: ‘We meet again.’ I thought you were referring to ten years ago.”

  “Ten years ago?”

  “When we met before.”

  “We met before?”

  “Ten years ago. At my sister’s house. In New York.

  Remember?”

  “I don’t remember. Who is your sister?”

  “Fanny Pearlman.”

  “My sister Gladys knows a Fanny Pearlman.”

  “That’s right. Fanny lives in Morningside Heights. That’s how you and I met. You came to get your sister at my sister’s house. I was still in medical school.”

  Suddenly I realized where I had seen the portly man before. It was at Fanny Pearlman’s house and he was Fanny’s brother! He had gained a great deal of weight in ten years.

  “Medical school, did you say?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Could you tell me something? Have you ever spent any time in Chicago?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s me! I live i
n Chicago now!”

  I decided to take a shot in the dark. I wouldn’t ask it as a question, I would just say the name and see what he said and did.

  “Dr. Nathan Flowers,” I said slowly and clearly.

  “Yes, yes! That’s me! You do remember me, after all!

  Oh, please! I must apologize.”

  He held out his hand for me to shake and I shook it.

  “I feared for a moment all that fame of yours had gone to your head and had turned you into a terrible snob,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “a snob is the last thing I’d ever want to be. I’ve suffered with enough of them myself in my lifetime. How is Fanny? How’s the family?”

  “Well,” he said, “she’s doing fine, still teaching. I just got married last spring— the folks were about to give up on me, the eternal bachelor.”

  “Congratulations!” I exclaimed. “Where’s the wife?”

  “Oh, unfortunately, she had to remain in Chicago. I had to make a quick trip out here to see my brother. He’s very sick. You remember Sol, don’t you? He’s in the hat business.”

  A tingle went up my spine. Hat business?

  “No,” I said. “I never knew him. Hat business, eh?”

  “Yes,” he said. “He’s an expert at making custom hats.”

  “That’s very interesting,” I said.

  “This is quite strange,” Dr. Flowers said. “I was just going to purchase tickets to your show! And here I run into you right here on the street!”

  “Quite a coincidence.”

  We stood looking at each other, an awkwardness growing between us. I was wondering what else he knew and was, and perhaps he could have been wondering the same about me. To this day, I don’t know.

  “Well!” he said.

  “Well!” I said.

  “I better go get those tickets before they’re all gone!”

  “They’re going fast, I can tell you,” I said. “But here— no need to purchase any. The management always gives me a few complementary tickets to pass out to friends.”

  I gave Dr. Flowers two tickets.

  “Why, thanks! Thanks so much!” he said. “That saves me time and money! I can get right back to the hospital!”