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The Long Walk – Pick a Card Cell

Here’s something interesting, you don’t need to speak Spanish in a border-town Mexican jail to be a full member of the inmate community. It was a shock to me, but then again, so was being arrested for a crime I did not commit (my lawyer requires me to say that, I really did do the crime but he doesn’t want me to admit it publicly, so I’ll play along).

The truth is that most of the guards, or “Screws,” speak English very well and almost all of the inmates are either American or have been to America enough to speak English. And there isn’t that ridiculous fascination with soccer in the jails, either. These guys were all interested in the pennant races and all had their opinions on whether it made any sense for Michael Vick to be playing so much in a pre-season game that resulted in his broken leg.

But that’s not all we talked about.

We all had our stories to tell; how we ended up where we ended up. What we would do differently next time (84% of the guys chose “not get caught” as their number one goal). Some of the men had families outside of the jail walls, over the border in McAllen, Texas, some had families south, towards Monterrey, Mexico and others apparently were happy with their family in the jail.

I met an old magician during my time there. Sammy “Snake” Sylvestri was a former kid show performer.…

The Long Walk – Pick a Card Cell

But that’s not all we talked about.

I met an old magician during my time there. Sammy “Snake” Sylvestri was a former kid show performer. He had worked stand-up for a while and loved the Sucker Sliding Die Box. He played in Vegas for about two weeks until he was forced out by the unfortunate prejudice our art has against any new magician who comes to a town and completely steals another magician’s act, assistants and then undercuts the other magician’s price.

Snake With His Famous Trick

He returned to kid show magic and did rather well – so he claims – as “Snake – The Birthday Biker.” He was one of the few kid show magicians to perform the bullet-catching trick at a birthday party – once. Although there was no problem with the gun, the bullet or even the trick itself, the birthday girl screamed so loudly when he pointed the gun her way that he couldn’t time the firing. The marked bullet slipped onto the floor before the shot was fired and although no one noticed – because the screaming and stuff – it made the whole effect look fake.

Snake was arrested in Reynosa, Mexico for possession. I never asked what he was allegedly possessing but he seemed to have an out of control addiction to butter; so maybe it was butter. He would eat entire sticks in one sitting and always had a wad of Blue Bonnet or Land O’ Lakes (unsalted) in his cheek.

“Timo,” Snake said one day, “You know what I love about butter?”

“No, I don’t, Snake. What?”

“It’s so soft and melts so smoothly.”

I nodded. I think he took this as a sign of agreement.

“You know what I’m going to do when I get out, Timo?”

“No, I don’t, Snake. What?”

“I’m going to do a silent act manipulating butter. It will be like Lance Burton’s FISM routine but with butter. I’ll have butter to doves, butter to silks, butter to canes.”

“What about the cigarettes?” I asked. I didn’t know how he would fit Lance’s cigarette manipulation into a butter act.

“Cigarettes will kill you, Timo. They have tar and nicotine in them and when you smoke them, the tar essentially paves a road to death down to your lungs.”

I nodded. “So you’ll leave out the cigarette part of Lance’s FISM routine?”

Snake looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

“Timo, are you even listening to me? I told you the act was all about butter, not cigarettes! So where he uses cigarettes, I would use butter.”

I nodded again. “So you would put a stick of butter in your mouth and light it and then pull it out, produce a dove, throw the lit butter to the floor, step on it and put it out?”

Snake was silent for a little bit and tear welled near the corner of his eye where he had, ironically, a tattoo of a tear drop. He shifted the wad of Land O’ Lakes from his right cheek to his left cheek but said nothing. His lips glistened with the sheen of his favorite vice and his eyes were clear, sad and moist with tears.

I felt that I had destroyed his world. He had dreams of stealing one of the best acts in the history of magic and giving it his own innovative twist. I dashed those dreams against the hard rocks of reality.

I knew I would be released in the next day or two – they can only hold you 72 hours for “Obscene or Objectionable Balloon Twisting” in Mexico – but Snake had two or three months to go. I hoped he would not take my questions as criticism; not just because I didn’t want him to kill me in my sleep but also because I wanted him to . . . . No, really it was just because I didn’t want them to find some greasy, butter-covered shiv between my ribs.

I left Snake and returned to my cell.

“How you doing?” Chan Zeep, the Oriental Magic Master, asked. He was always in full make up, in a kimono, wooden sandals. He kind of creeped me out.

“Good,” I said.

“You want to see something I’ve been working on?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. My mind was several cell blocks away though as I took a card, memorized it and returned it to the deck Chan held in long, skinny fingers equipped with even longer and skinnier fingernails. I couldn’t stop thinking about Snake and how like prison, I had added to his confinement by stealing his dream.

“Seven of hearts?” Chan asked.

I nodded.