Magic Trick

Magic Trick

Noel Laflin

10-4-15

Sometime around three in the morning some fifty-odd years ago, a kid rolled out of a top bunk, fell, and hit the cement floor below with a thud – a thud loud enough to wake the rest of us.

Flashlights lit the way to a switch that, once turned on by someone’s quick thinking father, soon illuminated the small Idyllwild mountain bunk room and the dazed boy sitting upon that cold, hard floor, moaning as he held a hand to his head. 

“Jeez, would you look at the size of that goose egg,” one of the Cub Scout fathers remarked, after a hasty examination of the lad settled the issue that no bones were broken.  The other half dozen ten-year-olds and their dads were also transfixed by the scene. The only damage from the fall appeared to be a nasty bump on the forehead that was quickly growing to the size of a plump purple plum.

My dad located his trousers and fumbled about in a pocket or two until he found the small oval plastic squeeze purse that he habitually carried.  He used to hold it out and shake it sometimes, challenging my sister and I to guess how much change he had.  It we were within three cents of the contents, the treasure was ours to split.

 

“Good,” I heard him mumble as he dumped an assortment of change into the palm of his hand, scanned its contents, and latched onto one large silver coin.

“I’ve got Mr. Franklin’s fix,” he told the bruised boy now sitting up on the lower bunk.  “I want you to hold this coin against that big old bump and see what happens,” he said, handing over the half dollar.  “That silver’s got some magic in it – you’ll see,” he said.

The boy took the coin and pressed it to the bump.  The rest of us, including myself, wondered just what the hell my father was doing.  But, as no one else had another remedy close at hand, we kept pretty quiet.

After a few minutes, the boy’s father removed the coin to have a look at the damage.

 

“Well, I’ll be damned!” he said, gently touching the flat purple spot on his son’s forehead.

“The bump’s gone,” he marveled, pulling in the rest of us to take a gander for ourselves.

“Jesus,” kids and adults muttered alike as we approached and looked more closely, some of us reaching out to touch the tender skin just to be sure that it was no trick of the poor lighting overhead.

“I’ll want that back, when you’re feeling better,” my father said, as he stretched back down on his own bunk.  “Magical coins are hard to come by nowadays,” he concluded, rolling over as he zipped up his sleeping bag.

“Actually, it’s just an old fashioned remedy,” he added, to no one in particular.  “Silver has some amazing healing qualities that folks figured out long ago.  And since that half dollar is ninety percent silver it did the trick.”

Pretty soon we all followed his lead and someone turned off the lights.  The boy with the purple bruise to the head had swapped beds with his father.  The last I saw of him he was now on the lower bunk, staring at the alternating image of Franklin and the Liberty Bell as he slowly twirled the half dollar between his fingers.  He looked like a novice magician honing in on his skills at deception. Occasionally the other hand would gently probe the top of his forehead, gently searching for a goose egg-sized bump that was no longer there.

When my father died some forty-five years later, I found a small wooden box in his sock drawer.  Amongst the few contents were three old silver dollars and an oval plastic squeeze coin purse.  There were some old Lincoln pennies, Mercury head dimes, and one smooth Franklin half dollar jingling about in there.  

I held the purse to my ear, closed my eyes, wished for magic, and shook away.