The Magic Show

By Emil Mihelich

The saga of Dan Kristich continues. First encountered in "Around the Horn" in 1949 as a five-year-old boy and then in "The Purple Bow" in 1962 as a seventeen-year-old high school senior nearing graduation, Dan now finds himself, in the early spring of 1973, "stuck in Spokane, Washington." He has returned to "his West" after working for a year in the East as part of the housing administration at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, fifty miles east of New York City on Long Island. After experiencing the "decadence" that seemed to envelop Stony Brook, Dan returns to the Great Northwest, in this case to "The Heart" of its "Inland Empire," only to find, in Spokane, a Western expression of "The Valley of Ashes." In 1962, as American astronauts had begun to explore outer space, Dan wondered about the existence of the "next world" that was supposed to house "the souls of the faithful departed." And now, in the early spring of 1973, those same explorers, following in the footsteps of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, have made several voyages to the moon, never having found any solid evidence to support the existence of such a world. In the absence of any solid, definitive evidence, Dan reasons, life itself may be meaningless after all. Standing on the brink of despair, Dan phones his friend, Charlie, and the two of them embark on a night journey through Spokane's pouring rain. Ride along with them as Dan continues his search for, and finally this time to find, the magic that has the potential to restore hope and vitality to any "Valley of Ashes."

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491794319

Emil Mihelich

Emil Mihelich was born and raised in Butte, Montana, and currently is retired and living in Tacoma, Washington. He taught English in high school and college for eighteen years and also coached high school baseball and golf. He earned his B.A. Degree from Gonzaga University in 1966 and his M.A. in English from Gonzaga in May of 1973, after serving two years as the Costello Teaching Fellow. Previous publications include “Running Clear,” “Around the Horn,” Eden and the Individual: Christianity for the 21st Century,” and “The Purple Bow.”

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The

Magic Show

Emil Mihelich

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TheMagic Show

Copyright © 2016 Emil Mihelich.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-9430-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9431-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016905614

iUniverse rev. date: 04/12/2016

Contents

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

In the middle of winter I discovered that I carried within me an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

The Road to Tipasa

To the slag heaps and gallus frames of Butte, Montana, and their children everywhere who stand tall and proud in quiet tribute to the individual human being’s capacity for love and sacrifice.

I

My name is Dan Kristich, and you haven’t heard from me since 1962 when I was seventeen. Well, I’m twenty-eight years old now and stuck in Spokane, Washington. I guess I’ve lived in worse places, but it’s hard to imagine where. I suppose Long Island was worse or at least just as bad. After one year at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, I couldn’t believe what had happened to Nick Carraway’s, or F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, fresh green breast of the New World. Even more trees had vanished by 1970, but that was understandable. I gladly would have traded the porno houses of Lake Ronkonkoma and the demolition derby track at Central Islip for the decadent, opulent vitality of Gatsby’s parties. At least Gatsby believed in something that transcended the decadent opulence his dream attracted. The people of Long Island left behind the teeming streets of New York City, and I guess that had to happen as well. But did they have to trade Yankee Stadium, Ebbetts Field, and the Polo Grounds for the demolition derby track at Central Islip? Is an island paradise really the demolition derby capital of the world?

New York City, just as I saw it, inspired me. The city was ugly, dirty, and scary but grand, majestic, and alive at the same time. I thought I could learn the secret of life from the city if I wanted to and if I studied it long enough. If I didn’t want to, or couldn’t, live there, at least I could learn how to live wherever I might choose. But Long Island only awakened the desire to leave as soon as possible. The people had dignity and deserved better. Somehow the rows of fake rich, suburban houses didn’t do as much for them as did the tenements of the city neighborhoods they left behind in search of the good life. I found it awfully depressing to watch dignified, courageous individuals chase a dream that wasn’t worth the dignity of the pursuit.

But that’s not all. You should have seen the university the state had carved out of this island paradise that once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams. By 1970 I knew the era of university education -- and of life -- that I had enjoyed had ended, but I’d never seen anything like this. Utilitarian and unimaginative buildings dominated a desolate campus, enhanced by the ongoing construction, as sand and cement pock-marked the landscape that, I believed, would hardly change once the heavy equipment left the scene. No one seemed to care, and somehow a university devoid of any antiquity always would be missing something. At the same time, a modern university always would seem out of place standing near a sleepy Long Island village with the quaint name of Stony Brook. I smiled as I imagined Walt Whitman cringing at such juxtaposition.

The modern university buildings displayed no character when compared to the ivy-covered walls of the celebrated groves of academe of the more established, and prestigious, universities of the East or when compared to the whitewashed, steepled churches that housed Long Island and New England pulpits. Maybe our Western citadels of learning couldn’t match those of the East in antiquity, but at least they could match them in taste and design. At least the Corinthian columns and Gothic arches, that decorated administration and academic buildings on our Western campuses, powerfully evoked the illusion of respect for learning and wisdom. I couldn’t see the sharp lines and straight angles of modern, rational architecture creating the same effect for the contemporary generation of Stony Brook students. It all seemed like an expression of a wanton disdain for the past, and I couldn’t help thinking that if Rip Van Winkle were to awaken here, on Long Island in 1970, he would quickly resume his slumber.

I think two simple words -- loud and obnoxious -- accurately describe Stony Brook’s students. If they weren’t inherently obnoxious, they certainly worked hard at affecting such behavior, managing to obliterate any natural dignity that may grace our species. Faded jeans, sloppy, flannel shirts, and unkempt, stringy hair marked male and female, Jew and Gentile without distinction or discrimination. In contrast, during my college years I can remember having to wear a coat and tie every Sunday to dinner without ever questioning the imposed rule. And I can remember the females of the species just as smartly attired in their appropriate Sunday dresses and skirts. I can understand liberation from oppressive rules, and I can understand the lack of freedom that results from obedience to coercive authority, and I have no use for those who would self-righteously groom themselves and dress in their tailored Ivy League costumes, claiming superiority over those who choose otherwise. But this was too much. Maybe we finally were liberated from the coercive authority of churches, schools, and governments. But were we really this ignorant? Couldn’t some of the order, structure, and form -- once imposed on us to make life at least look pleasant -- emerge from within us in this liberated era? For the first time I found myself honestly thinking about William Wordsworth’s romantic anguish. Didn’t I, too, have reason to lament what man has made of man?

I come from the quiet grandeur that is Montana, the Big Sky Country, and I was totally unprepared for the loud decadence that characterized Stony Brook. I had learned to associate quiet demeanor with dignity and courage. My mother and father, as well as my uncles and aunts, worked hard in Butte, and they were quiet. My uncles, as honest reflections of Butte’s male citizenry, could be loud when they sampled their whiskey as part of the celebration of life, but Butte remained -- primarily -- a temperate city alive with vitality. I couldn’t wait to grow up to be an active part of it all.

Stony Brook, however, was different. The loud behavior I encountered -- undignified, depressing, and constant -- didn’t stem from any sense of celebration that I could recognize. As the manager of a complex of four dormitory buildings, a Quad, I had to call an introductory meeting with all my managerial assistants shortly after I had arrived on campus following my cross country journey that began in Oregon, where I had been teaching English in high school, and included a short stay in Butte where my mother and some of my aunts and uncles still lived. New York to them, and to me -- even though I had spent five days in the city in September of 1964 en route to school in Florence, Italy, along with eighty-nine other Gonzaga University undergraduates -- meant Times Square, the Empire State Building, Radio City Music Hall, Central Park, and Yankee Stadium. Now I was going to live close to all those sights, only fifty miles further east on Long Island. Still, the reality I had chosen never actually sank in until I arrived on campus, got acquainted with my job, and read the names of the MA’s -- the managerial assistants -- who would be working with me.

I examined the list and found names like Smith, O’Flaherty, and Kurowski. I was used to those names because I had grown up with them in Butte. But as I continued to study the list, I was completely surprised to discover that real people actually carried names like Portnoy, Goldberg, and Lipshutz. I only had read those names in books, and I found myself entering uncharted territory with a lot to learn. For the first time I felt like a foreigner in my own country. And I had been to Israel only six years before and even had read Portnoy’s Complaint.

The Jewish population at Stony Brook far exceeded that of the Gentiles, and the structure of my MA staff reflected this disparity. There I was -- a Butte, Montana, Roman Catholic with a Croatian name like Kristich -- expected to manage four dormitories that, in reality, represented a predominantly Jewish community. I had read Portnoy, had watched Ma Goldberg on television, and knew that Sandy Koufax couldn’t pitch on something called Yom Kippur.

I watched carefully, on the night of the organizational meeting, as the thirty-two students who would be working for me filed into the room. They paid absolutely no attention to me as they found their seats. Jews and Gentiles alike wore the costume of the day that reflected a blatant disregard for any sense of order and decorum that may have been associated with an earlier era, recently concluded, that had educated my generation. I didn’t feel superior to this era of college students. In fact, I wasn’t so sure I wouldn’t have worn the same costume had I been given the chance. But I felt the distance between us. Only four years had passed since I had graduated, and already I was experiencing a huge generation gap. It was, and still is, a depressing feeling that now, I think, is dangerous. Anyway, the students wore the same costume, but the Gentiles didn’t look like their Jewish counterparts and vice-versa.

Still, I had seen similar physical differences in Butte. The Irish, or Bloody Harps as they sometimes were referred to with both hostility and humor, didn’t look like the Croatians, or Bohunks as they sometimes were referred to in the same manner. And the Italians -- or Wops -- and the English -- or Cousin Jacks or Cousin Jennys -- didn’t look like each other or like the Harps and Bohunks, either. They all had distinctive noses or skin colorings that distinguished their ethnic heritage and helped to make them proud of their respective identities. I saw the same kind of distinctions between the Gentile students of various ethnic identities and the Jewish students, recognizing the natural order of things.

But the Cheery Lounge in Butte, on a Friday night with Don Dunphy announcing the feature bout from Madison Square Garden, compliments of the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, was quiet compared to the din I experienced that night in an environment that called for a sense of decorum and respect. After all, we were supposed to be discussing serious business. At least I thought so because I had a job to do. When I asked the students to be quiet or when I reminded them that they should respond to questions one at a time, quietly, and not all at once, loudly, they acted as though I had insulted them. Who was I to ask them to be quiet? But four years of high school teaching had taught me the value of order and decorum. Without exception this loud, obnoxious behavior characterized the Stony Brook students I came to know that year on their campus. My MA incident represented only one of several, similar encounters. Perplexed, I studied the situation carefully and finally reached some definitive conclusions.

First of all, I had witnessed similar behavior from American tourists in Europe. It was true. You could spot an American tourist in Europe a mile away. I was troubled because I had begun to think that maybe I disliked New Yorkers or, even worse, that maybe I disliked Jews. I found it comforting to know I had the same reaction to American tourists of any state affiliation or ethnic origin. I felt better because I began to realize that I didn’t dislike New Yorkers or Jews or even American tourists in Europe. Instead, I disliked -- in fact, could hardly tolerate -- the arrogance manifested in the loud behavior.

No one had to be arrogant. Individuals could be more quiet and humble, as the citizens of Butte at least appeared to be. I began to realize the folly of being taught that you -- a single individual, nation, a cultural group, or even a civilization -- were especially chosen by some designated authority who sat in judgment on his creations. Such teaching bred the arrogance I found so hard to accept. After one year I had to leave Stony Brook to return to the West that I perceived to be quieter, more humble, and more dignified. But I left convinced that Long Island, specifically the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Long Island, had to be the single most depressing spot on the face of the earth. And I was equally convinced that there couldn’t be now, nor could there ever have been, any one nation or any one people chosen by any one God anywhere in the universe.

II

I quickly discovered that if the State University of New York at Stony Brook proved to be the single most depressing place on the face of the earth, Spokane, Washington, ran an awfully close second. In fact, the race may even be a dead heat. Spokane never impressed me, even during my undergraduate days at Gonzaga University, the local Jesuit institution that claimed Bing Crosby as an alumnus. To me, the city always seemed to pretend to be something it wasn’t, and it always took either a righteous or condescending attitude toward its various expressions of vice. I always felt that Spokane wanted to be the virtue capital of the West as it sought to forget its railroad past that gave it a sense of healthy seediness. Spokane would welcome this contemporary era of liberation ushered in by the sixties because it needed a convenient excuse to separate itself from its past. In a town that tried so hard to be an example of virtue, any display of vice that did surface always was ugly. The resulting righteous response was enough to make anyone sympathize with the creators of the vice. I couldn’t help cheering on the prostitutes and the proprietors of the porno houses who sought to live by their constitutional rights, as they saw them, in a city that tried to enforce its clean and spotless moral code.

I had to wonder about Butte. As a child, as a teenager, and as an adult I -- as well as the entire town -- knew the locations of the whorehouses, and I don’t remember any attempt to shut them down being taken seriously. Butte’s citizens weren’t simply tolerant. We proudly pointed to our expressions of vice. But now even Butte is building a modern shopping mall safely removed from the Uptown displays of vice. I found such changes confusing and very depressing. And being single, being twenty-eight, almost twenty-nine, and being stuck in a fifty dollar a month hovel, complete with a Murphy bed, in the middle of Northwest Appalachia, watching the early spring rain fall from the west in icy sheets -- and from the blackest sky in the universe -- didn’t help at all.

Luckily, whenever such feelings overcame me, which seemed to be often, I could, and did, call Charlie -- an old college buddy, and Spokane native, who still lived in town and worked for a local construction company. Charlie McMahon’s job took him out of town for long periods of time, but when he was in town, we always managed to keep in touch. I didn’t know Charlie very well during my first two years at Gonzaga. He lived at home, and I, of course, lived in the dorms, which meant that we never developed more than a casual acquaintance. He always seemed more serious than the rest of us and wasn’t given to participating in the sensual adventures associated with college life. Like me, Charlie was an English major, but during those first two years he seemed to study more seriously than I did. He impressed me as being an intellectual and thus aloof from, and even superior to, the world of experience. Those of us more firmly grounded in that world weren’t above seeing our less-grounded counterparts as being something less than masculine. They appeared to be just a bit too sublime, then, for our tastes.

I didn’t get to know Charlie as an individual until we went to Europe in our junior year. Looking back on that experience, I can see how that year proved to be a turning point for both of us, and today’s solid friendship was born then. At the time, being away from Butte and way from Spokane, I still was a child of experience, but for the first time the books that Charlie always seemed to think about started to speak to me as well. On the other hand, being away from Spokane and separated from his father who