Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  The whole straitjacket came down over my head, and slipped away in the grasp of my left hand.

  I was free. Houdini had escaped.

  I held the jacket extended in my left hand. My shirt was soaked in water, my hair was drenched.

  Then the sound from below hit my eardrums, obliterating the sound of the wind. A roar like lions unchained— like airplanes descending from on high— blasted my ears. I held the straitjacket in my hand for several more moments, and then dropped it to the street below where Vickery and my other assistants stood waiting.

  My triumph was complete, and I waited for Collins to begin lowering me. Nothing happened, so I began taking upside-down aerial bows, bending at the waist. The crowd continued to applaud and roar.

  Finally, I called up to Collins: “Now! Lower me now!”

  My voice was drowned out by the crowd, and I doubted Collins could hear me, but I continued shouting, for it was all I could do.

  The seconds passed, and I continued to hang. The crowd began to settle down again. It grew quiet, and then a complete silence descended upon the place.

  Then faintly from the rooftop I heard Collins shout: “Rope twisted! Pulley’s stuck! We’re working on it!”

  I continued to hang. I could feel the blood settle in my head and shoulders. The nausea and the flame in my head returned with greater power.

  I continued to hang.

  After about five minutes my legs began to go numb. I had strained a muscle in my left leg a week earlier and had been wearing a bandage around it. Now I couldn’t feel the bandage.

  Another minute or so passed.

  The safety rope that had been tied around my ankles now began tightening. I could feel a distinct line of pressure cutting into my ankles. The pressure increased until it was excruciating. Again, panic flashed through my body. Houdini followed in its path, imparting a calming force to all my muscles.

  Then the rain, which had been steady, now began to pelt me with big drops. I also began to swing again. At least now I had my hands to protect me if I was thrown against the building. I crossed my arms in front of me, and hung, shivering, sick, and numb, wondering if at any moment a mishap above on the windlass might send me plummeting to the street. The anxiety built in me until I could no longer stand it, but Houdini beat it down.

  Houdini endured.

  The crowd below stood in absolute silence. I could not see a single head move.

  At eight minutes a ladder appeared at the top of the building far above me. Then a man descended it. He was a window washer. He reached over and untangled the ropes. I began to descend to the street, to a truck that had been prepared for me as a platform by Vickery and my other assistants.

  I reached the truck bed, my back touched the wooden planking, and every muscle in my body relaxed.

  “Boss,” was all Vickery could say as he knelt down beside me.

  “Never mind,” I said as I began to rapidly untie my feet. “You, Collins, and I will have a lot to discuss about what just happened— for what just happened will never happen again!”

  These words of ours were spoken over the shouts and cheers of the people who surrounded the truck platform. I could hear the sound of voices roll away from me, out into the street, and up along the walls of all the buildings of the square.

  I got the coil of rope away from my legs, and stood up. I was soaked from head to toe, dripping water.

  “I’ve got your dry clothes inside, Boss,” Vickery said.

  I waved to the crowd as they applauded and cheered, and then descended the steps that had been rolled up to the truck, and followed Vickery into the bank building. We crossed the lobby again and Vickery led me to the left along a hallway to a janitor’s supply room which he had set up as a make-shift dressing room. He had a dry change of clothes on hangars. I pulled down my suspenders, took off my wet clothes, removed the bandage from my left leg, and put on the dry clothes. Vickery then gave me my wide-brimmed hat that I wore in rainy weather. I put on a heavy coat and the hat. Vickery started stuffing all my wet clothes in a canvas laundry bag. Just then Collins came in.

  “We’ve got a lot to discuss!” I snapped at Collins.

  “Am I fired, sir?” Collins asked.

  “Do you think I ought to?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Collins said.

  “I’m not going to fire you,” I said. “It was both our faults. You go with Vickery and write down every detail of what just happened. I want the minutes noted. It was a mistake for me to be lowered from the rooftop. We won’t ever try that again. The crowds can’t see me being laced up. From now on I’ll always be put into the jacket down at street level.”

  “The problem was the wind and the rope,” Collins said.

  “Get the rope and bring it back to the theatre,” I said. “Look it over and see what’s wrong with it so we can write to the manufacturer. As to the wind— see what you can come up with for a new safety line. Ever see cowboys rope down a wild horse? Think about that. We need a line that can pull me taught— or even inside the building— in case the wind starts to blow. And see if Barnet will give me the straitjacket. I want it. If he won’t give it, try to buy it cheap, but get it at whatever price you must. Now go on and hurry up so you can get us ready for the matinee.”

  “Yes, sir,” Collins said.

  I went out of the supply room and on out across the bank lobby to the street.

  When I got back outside, I saw that a group of men were ascending the steps of the wooden platform. It was Mr. Ebey and Sheriff Barnet, along with a number of other men who I didn’t recognize.

  I stepped back up on the platform and greeted them. They each took turns shaking my hand, each lending a word of congratulations.

  The first man to shake my hand said, “I’m J. R. Knowland. That was an impressive spectacle.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Mr. Knowland. The publisher of the Tribune.”

  “That’s right,” Knowland said.

  “So pleased to make your acquaintance,” I said. “I’ve followed your career in Washington.”

  Before Knowland could make a reply, two other men thrust their hands toward me to shake, and I shook them.

  Mr. Ebey stepped forward and gestured to a bespectacled man with a mustache.

  “This is Oakland’s Mayor, John Davie,” Mr. Ebey said.

  Mayor Davie pushed back his derby and extended his hand, saying, “Consider your self an honorary citizen of Oakland, Houdini! You have our sincere and— well— astounded— admiration!”

  “I’m honored, Mayor,” I said, shaking his hand.

  “You proved to me you are Houdini,” Mr. Ebey said, shaking my hand himself, “and then some. I just hope you don’t have to make such proof to anyone ever again.”

  “Mr. Ebey,” I said, “you look more exhausted than I do.”

  “Well, I sure could use a drink,” Mr. Ebey said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” one of the other men said.

  The congratulations delivered, Mayor Davie then stepped forward, unfolded a piece of paper, and began reading a prepared speech. The people in front of the platform began moving away and spreading out along the street. Mayor Davie continued to read, not looking up. The crowd kept dispersing. I stepped back behind George Ebey and Frank Barnet. I could hear the sound of the mayor’s words, but couldn’t seem to make sense of them. Only fragments of phrases would drift past my awareness:

  “…this great day…the people of Oakland…American values…we must continue…the virtue of preparedness…against any enemy….”

  The phrases droned on. One of the men on the platform who had hung back behind the others and who had not shook my hand now came up beside me. I felt him nudge my elbow.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” the man said in an even, fluid voice absolutely dripping with contempt.

  I turned my head and looked up, for the man was rather tall. I was met with the most incredible grin I have ever seen in my life.

  It was Jack Lo
ndon grinning down at me.

  “You’re asking me to escape from this,” I said, nodding my head toward the mayor. “What do you think I am, Jack, a magician, or something?”

  Jack bowed his head, and laughed silently. Then he looked up, tossed his head with a boyish, secretive grin, and said, “C’mon.”

  I followed Jack down the steps. As soon as I got off the truck platform, I heard the voice of the Tribune’s reporter: “Excuse me, sir! Er, uh, Houdini!”

  I turned around. The Tribune’s man was coming toward me.

  I looked back over to the truck platform. Mayor Davie was still reading his speech to a rapidly thinning crowd.

  The Tribune’s man said, “I’ve got the Sheriff’s response to your escape. Now I’d like a few words from you.”

  I looked over to Jack who was smiling. He cocked his head to one side and slightly rolled his eyes. I looked back to the Tribune’s man.

  “A few words?” I asked. “All right. Cat, bat, rat, flat, gnat, sat— hat. How’s that?”

  Jack laughed out loud.

  “Very funny,” the Tribune’s man said, with an irritated smile. “But I was hoping for a coherent sentence or two that I might quote for the article.”

  “Of course,” I said. “What do you want me to say? What did Sheriff Barnet say?”

  “Why,” the Tribune’s man said, “he told me that it was the most remarkable thing he had ever seen in his entire life. He thought he had proposed the impossible. He said he believes no other man could have done what you just did.”

  “The Sheriff said that?” I asked.

  The Tribune’s man nodded.

  “Well,” I asked, “what could I possibly add to that? You have your quote.”

  “You could tell me how you feel,” the Tribune’s man said.

  “Like hell,” I said, and then added: “Don’t print that.”

  “I wouldn’t,” the Tribune’s man said.

  “I don’t feel very well,” I said. “But…I believe no ill effects will follow. Although, the way I feel now, I wouldn’t do it again for a good deal. It was a most unforeseen accident, the rope sticking. The blow on the head I did not mind so much— one gets used to hard knocks— but the trouble with the ropes was different. The exertion of freeing myself so tightened the ropes that they stopped circulation. My limbs were throbbing painfully, and one of them was bandaged from a previous accident. I was a pretty sick man by the time they got the tackle working. I don’t blame the men, of course, they were not used to the thing, but I am mighty glad I am free again.”

  “Good,” the Tribune’s man said. He had been writing rapidly in shorthand on a pad of paper. “Got just about every word. All useable. If you could just do me one more favor, Houdini.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “We’d like to get a photograph of you,” the Tribune’s man said. “Our photographer got stuck in the crowd coming over from the main office. He couldn’t get through with his equipment.”

  “You mean no one from the Tribune photographed my escape?” I asked.

  “I apologize,” the Tribune’s man said. “The photographer just didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to move through a crowd of this size. We’ve never experienced anything in Oakland like this before.”

  “What do I have to do?” I asked.

  “The photographer is just around the corner all set up with his tripod and camera,” the Tribune’s man said. “All you have to do is go around the corner, and he’ll snap your picture.”

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

  We started off around the building. I pulled out a handkerchief and wiped my face, and then brought out my comb, took off my hat and raked through my disheveled hair. We approached the photographer with his tripod positioned under a window awning. All around us rain poured down. I stepped against the wall of the building, under the awning, and the photographer snapped my picture with an accompanying burst of light from a flash-pan. My expression was caught by the camera before I could pose; I was wide-eyed and wearing a faint, quixotic smile which Jack London had evoked in me.

  “Could you turn to the side, sir?” the photographer asked.

  I turned, a bit more prepared. The camera clicked again, and once again the pan flashed.

  “That’s it,” the Tribune’s man said. “That’ll work.”

  Jack jerked his head to one side and I started off with him. Behind me I heard shouts of “Houdini! Houdini!”

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw some of the men on the truck platform. They were waving and gesturing for me to come back up there. I could see that Mayor Davie was still reading his speech and gesturing with fervor. The crowd in the street was rapidly scattering and thinning. I waved back to the platform, and then turned and followed Jack on down the sidewalk.

  “Charmian awaits,” Jack said. “And one doesn’t keep Charmian waiting.”

  Jack and I made our way across Broadway through the vast crowd. Perhaps some in the crowd knew who I was, but I doubt it. We walked along with rain dripping down the brims of our hats, trying to stay dry just like everyone else. We got across the intersection to that triangular plaza with the bronze cupids holding the basin. That’s where Charmian stood, just there at the pedestal of the statue. That’s where I saw her for the first time.

  Charmian

  She stood in a long coat with her feet together. She wore a fancy hat, and held a big, black umbrella over her head. She had a smile like Jack’s, and a look of glowing triumph on her face. Her eyes met mine directly. Her right hand extended to me. I took it. It was firm and warm and everything a woman’s hand ought to be.

  “I’ve got him,” Jack said.

  “We’ve got him,” Charmian corrected. She tossed her head to the side like Jack to say, ‘come on.’ I followed.

  Charmian and Jack rushed to the curb where Charmian had kept a taxi waiting. We all piled inside.

  I was with my old friends Jack and Charmian, who I had just met.

  The Saddlerock was Jack London’s favorite restaurant in Oakland, and I soon was to learn why, for this is where the taxi driver took us, carefully maneuvering his taxi down Broadway, now sparkling with mirror-glass reflections from the rain. The crowds were still thinning, and mounted policemen worked to move the people on to sidewalks and adjacent boulevards. At 13th Street the driver turned left and drove on toward the Saddlerock.

  All the while Jack, Charmian, and I talked non-stop, a liquid flow of conversation interspersed with our laughter. Ours were the voices of old friends, catching up on current events. Here, the reticence and guardedness I always felt in the presence of others was absent. Here, I could say the first thing that came to my mind without reconsidering the effect that my thoughts might have on my listeners. Here, I did not have to listen so literally to the sentences of my companions, but could hear the deeper meaning of their words in the music of their spoken inflections. Here, it did not matter what we said, only that we were saying it.

  It was not until we were all snugly seated in a booth at the Saddlerock that the strangeness of my situation suddenly dawned upon me with full force. I gazed down at the crisp, white linen table cloth with all its place settings and realized that I was dining with the famous Jack London and his wife. My mind struggled to make sense of the fact that the famous Jack London and his wife also happened to be, after all, my friends Jack and Charmian. Jack’s voice came back into my consciousness. He was saying:

  “This is great food— almost as good as the Crackers I used to get in Colma.”

  “The Cracker Story,” Charmian said.

  “Yes,” Jack said, “the Cracker Story. When I was a boy, we all lived on a potato ranch down in San Mateo County, south of San Francisco. My father and I would deliver potatoes up to the city. It was a dreary trip by horse and wagon over muddy roads and around hills of sand. But there was always one respite in the long, monotonous journey— our stop at the saloon in Colma. My father would always stop there for a d
rink— only one drink, God bless him— and I— I would stand by their great, big stove and eat a soda cracker. Oh, that soda cracker! It was ambrosia. It was luxury sublime. And it was free— absolutely free! That part made it taste even better, I think, if such a thing could be possible. I would take my time with that soda cracker. I wouldn’t eat it all at once, oh, no, I would make it last! My feast would continue with it even as we got back on the wagon and continued over the hills to San Francisco. That soda cracker— I’ve never tasted anything like it since. I will never forget that saloon in Colma and that soda cracker. So— I always say: despite the obvious risks to a dissolute life, there is no other place on earth better for a boy than a saloon— that is, a saloon that gives out free soda crackers! Shall we drink to the sentiment?”

  Jack raised his glass of wine. I held up my water glass.

  “That’ll never do,” Jack said. “We must fill your glass.”

  Jack reached for the bottle of wine.

  I held up my hand, and said, “I’m afraid I’m pretty much a teetotaler, and anyway I have a matinee to perform. Wine would make it impossible for me.”

  Jack set the bottle of wine back down, seeming a bit disappointed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just not much of a drinker. Now if my wife, Bess was here—“

  I stopped in mid-sentence.

  Jack and Charmian looked at me quizzically.

  “Oh, no,” I said involuntarily.

  “What is it?” Charmian asked.

  “Bess…” I said.

  I looked about the restaurant.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

  “My wife, Bess,” I said. “This is embarrassing. I’ve…I’ve forgotten my wife. I was supposed to meet her across the street…from the bank building…after my performance….”

  Jack and Charmian studied me, Jack with a faint smile at the corner of his mouth.

  Finally Jack said, “Are you going to catch hell!”

  “We’d better go,” I said.

  “Waiter!” Jack called. “Bring us our check! We have an emergency! A man is about to be executed— by his wife!”

  Then Jack laughed like a pure devil. Charmian just set there, shaking her head. In another minute Jack had already signed for our bill and we were out the door and back in the taxi.