The Game

would be so happy to settle for Patricia now. I’ve got Patricia withdrawal on the mind. I miss her every minute of the day.”
    Mystery had hardly thought about Patricia or talked about her until she rejected him. Now he was obsessed. His own theories on attraction had come back to slap him in the face. Patricia was doing a takeaway. But for her it wasn’t a technique—it was for real.
    As a magician used to exploiting the gullibility of others, Mystery had no patience with anything spiritual or supernatural. His religion was Darwin. Love, to him, was simply an evolutionary impulse that enabled human beings to fulfill their two primary objectives: to survive and replicate. He called that impulse pairbonding.
    “It’s strange how strong pairbonding is,” he said. “I feel so alone now.”
    “I’ll tell you what. We’ll pick you up tomorrow, and you can play in the suburbs with us. It’ll cheer you up.”
    Caroline and I put Carter in his stroller and pushed him around the block to a park. As I sat down on the bench, I thought about what a pathetic couple of pickup artists Mystery and I were. Kids around the world thought we were in hot tubs surrounded by bikini-clad models. Instead he was alone in his apartment, probably crying and watching lesbian porn, and I was in the suburbs pushing a baby around in a stroller.
    In the morning, Caroline and I fetched Mystery from the city. He hadn’t shaved since I’d last seen him, and thin patches of stubble dappled his baby-white skin. He wore a gray T-shirt that hung loosely over faded jeans.
    “Just make sure your family doesn’t ask me to do any magic for them,” he told Caroline.
    Yet that night, when Caroline’s mother asked him what he did for work, Mystery launched into a spectacular performance. He introduced each illusion—mind reading, bottle-levitating, self-levitating, sleights of hand—with ten minutes of patter and panache that put every other illusionist I’d seen to shame. He charmed everyone in the room: Caroline’s mom was flabbergasted, her younger sister was attracted, and her brother wanted to learn how to levitate chalk to freak out his teachers. In that moment, I realized that Mystery actually had the skills to achieve his dream of being a superstar daredevil illusionist.
    After Caroline’s family turned in for the night, Mystery asked her if she had any sleeping pills.
    “All we have is Tylenol #3, which has codeine,” Caroline told him.
    “That’ll work,” Mystery said. “Just give me the whole bottle. I have a high tolerance.”
    Already thinking like a nurse, Caroline brought him just four pills. But they weren’t enough to knock him out. So while Caroline and I slept, Mystery, on a codeine high, stayed up all night writing posts on Mystery’s Lounge.

MSN GROUP: Mystery’s Lounge
    SUBJECT: Life Goals
    AUTHOR: Mystery

    I’m staying at Caroline’s place right now because I’ve been upset over Patricia. Caroline is Style’s Toronto girlfriend, and it must be tough for him. She is really beautiful, but she’s got a kid. Style and Caroline look great together, but I understand the limitations too. Damn.
    Solution: Be fair. Love her, dude. Be true to your feelings and don’t hurt her but also know that you are polyamorous and want more. The idea of having many girls in many ports can be wholesomely nurtured.
    She has a great family. I did magic for her eighteen-year-old sister, who’s a cutie, and her brother and mom for like forty-five minutes. It was fun. I did a rune cast for the mom. Caroline is like my sister. I get that feeling of caring for her and her baby. And it’s great to have Style here!
    Then I took codeine to sleep because they all went to bed at normal hours, and I’m fucked up with my sleeping. But I didn’t sleep. I just felt love. Don’t get me wrong. I’m fully aware it’s the Tylenol I took but, hey, the feeling is good nonetheless. I love this lounge. You guys are super bright. I hope we can all have a huge party one day.
    And all this will wear off when the codeine gets pissed out, haaa.
    This is what I want to see happen in the future: I want us to become closer friends—you think we can manage that? Grimble and Twotimer, your game is so different from mine. I want to sarge with both of you sometime to legitimately attempt to understand where you are coming from.
    Papa, the game you played was fucking mint when you were up here. It was great to do a workshop with you, and you are