The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic 0)(50)
Vincent worked briefly as a waiter at the Gaslight, where he gratefully ate for free from their quirky menu: date-nut bread and cream cheese, grilled cheese, beefburger, pink lemonade, and a series of sundaes he sneaked home for Jet. Mint, brandy, rum, chocolate, and vanilla. He’d have to run all the way home to Greenwich Avenue so the ice cream wouldn’t melt and leave sugary puddles on the sidewalk. Eventually, the management fired him when a ticked-off waitress he had rejected ratted him out as being underage.
On the weekends he usually made a quick stop in Nedick’s, a hot dog place on Eighth Street and Sixth Ave, before heading down to Washington Square Park, where folk musicians gathered on Sunday afternoons. He still had his same old Martin guitar he’d bought when he was fourteen, an instrument that seemed to feel and emote in a way that eluded him. He was inspired when he performed, his voice blessed with a soaring grace. And then he would stop and feel empty all over again, a hollow reed the wind blew through, another young man in a black jacket hanging out on the corner of MacDougal and Bleecker.
“Are you sure you’re seventeen?” the best guitar teacher in New York, Dave Van Ronk, asked after Vincent sat in to play with a group of older men at the park. Van Ronk was known as the mayor of MacDougal Street, a pal of Dylan’s, and a legend himself.
“I’m not really sure about anything,” Vincent said, shaking the big man’s hand, making sure not to run his mouth for once in his life.
“Well, keep playing,” Van Ronk said. “That’s one thing you should be sure of.”
These were the times when children dreamed about nuclear testing and falling stars. There was an undercurrent of unrest, like a wave, racial division in the cities, the war halfway around the world blooming with blood. When Vincent walked through Washington Square Park he could hear the thoughts of the people he passed by, such a ragged outcry of emotion he sometimes thought he would go mad. He understood why Jet seemed not to care that she had lost her gift. It was awful to hear the voices of dead paupers buried in unmarked graves beneath the cement paths. All but forgotten, they cried out to anyone who might hear them. For them the world had been a veil of tears. The murdered, the abandoned, the ill, the ruined, victims and criminals alike all cried out to him. He wished he’d never had the sight. What had been a game when he was a boy had become an affliction. He had no desire to tap into other people’s pain, to know them better than they knew themselves.
He took to wearing a black cap woven out of metal thread in an attempt to shut out his clairvoyance. He’d found the cap on the Lower East Side, where he’d bought his first book of magical instructions. He’d never admitted the truth to Franny, but he’d first read about The Magus in a book he’d found on a shelf in their father’s office, for Dr. Burke-Owens had studied folklore and ancient magic and Jungian archetypes. Vincent had been a kid, but one who knew what he wanted. He wanted to be the best at what he did, no matter the price. He searched for The Magus, but in every bookstore the clerks laughed at him and told him all of the copies had been burned long ago. Then he had come upon a shabby vendor strung out on drugs who peddled magic from a makeshift room in an abandoned building. There, hidden in a wheelbarrow, beneath a threadbare blanket, Vincent found the book. In exchange for the text, Vincent had handed over a fifty-dollar bill filched from the coat pocket of one of his father’s patients and a strand of his mother’s pearls, stolen from her jewelry box. He’d assumed the vendor had no idea of the true worth of this treasure, but then the old man had said to Vincent, “I’ve been wanting to get rid of that. It will lead you down the wrong path if you’re not careful. It’s a burden.”
When Vincent returned to search for the iron hat, he’d looked up the old vendor, but the magic man had long ago disappeared. Squatters had claimed the building he’d once occupied. They’d tried to turn Vincent away when he examined his predecessor’s space, discovering the hat left on a shelf, as if meant for him. Harassed, Vincent began a fire without flame or wood, and the squatters backed off. Standing in the ruin of a place, he’d felt oddly at home. He knew the creed he’d been taught by their aunt, the first rule of magic is, Do no harm, but that was not the world he was drawn to. Hexes, curses, conjuring for causing spiritual sickness, such practices could be addictive, especially when customers were willing to pay high prices for them.
He set up shop in his predecessor’s room. It was sympathetic magic he dealt in, some so exhausting he had to sleep for days to regain his strength. In no time, he had a list of wealthy clients who didn’t care about the rule of three. They took it upon themselves to turn evil back on the one who had created it, which meant that a candle must be burned backward or a container spell with mirrors must be put into use. Wicked magic was used to bind an enemy, often in business, wherein a photograph or doll or other image was used to represent the one who would be cursed. Some of the spells were painful and risky. All were unethical. And yet, Vincent began to collect and sell the paraphernalia of jealousy and hate: coins, mirrors, combs, pyramids, figurines, amulets to protect and those meant to harm. Franny had been right about his magical leanings. They led to trouble, and always had.
His sisters loved him, but he couldn’t be the person they wanted him to be. There was no reason for them to know how he earned his money. When he brought home bags of groceries and footed all the bills, they asked how he could afford to do so. He simply remarked, “What can I say? I’m a great waiter.” He didn’t bother to mention he’d been fired from the Gaslight. Did they truly believe the expenses were paid off in tips? Or from the profits of their shop, empty of customers most days?