The Street Magician
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
The Street Magician
Below is a brief account of a day I spent waiting to get a tattoo in a incredibly long line Outside the Chicago Tattoo Co. on Belmont Ave in Chicago, Illinois
Enjoy-
THE STREET MAGICIAN
“I went from working the steel mill to being a street magician! Can
The Street Magician
you believe it?”
He asks me while I wait in line for a free Sailor Jerry tattoo in the 16 degree Chicago cold.
He was wearing a neck brace and sporting a tall boy of Steel Reserve malt liquor.
This man wasn’t in line but rather drinking at two in the afternoon and telling us his life story.
“You know, my doctor gave me ten months to live…that was seventeen years ago!” He says,
“Don’t listen to doctors; they just want your money. Now, I’ve escaped death many times.
When I was a marine I got shot twice in the chest and I walked away like nothing ever happened.
When I was working construction…Oh man, I loved walking along those bars making up the
Structure to the buildings….But one day I got too cocky walking and fell off the side … a seven story drop!
Well, I just got up and walked away, simple as that.
And this neck brace…Well I was walking at the crosswalk and a woman sped through the red-light and ran into me with her car at 50 mph!
She had just stabbed her lover to death, got high on heroin and stole the car that she hit me with.
I gotta pretty good amount of money comin’ my way in four months,” he says to me and my in-line comrades of the cold.
He escaped death so many times and now here he stood, drinking Steel Reserve on Belmont at Two in the afternoon, talking to the rest of the weirdos in line for a free tattoo.
I guess he had earned it.
“Not to mention a garbage truck once ran over my foot! Man it’s crazy, you know?
I went from being a steel mill worker to a street magician! I’ve been on all the news
networks…you’ve probably seen me!”
The man went on and on as the crowd began to lose interest.
I felt bad and gave him my attention one last time. He noticed and looked me up and down.
“That’s a nice leather jacket,” he said.
“Thank you,” I replied.
“Where’d you get it?”
“When I lived in New York City.”
“New York!” he exclaimed, “You know, David Blaine gave me a friendship bracelet when I
Visited the city!”
He went on to show me a dopey rubber bracelet riddled with peace signs in blue and yellow.
“Nice,” I said to him.
At this point a man from the tattoo shop with dirty blonde slicked back hair and a hefty beard
Had come out and stared at the man.
He asked the man about the alcohol. The street magician replied that it was his.
“This is a liquor sponsored event,” says the tattooer, “If anybody sees you with beer in your Hands outside, we could get sued.”
The magician acted understanding but held a sadness in his voice.
The tattooer told him to get the hell away, and he did.
Later that day, I ran into a guy who I had also seen in line drinking a 40 oz.
I asked him if he had seen the magician. He said he saw the guy passed out on the floor of a
Chipotle restaurant bathroom earlier, in a puddle of beer.
The funny thing about this was that I never did get to see any goddamned magic.
Thank you for reading,
-Adam J. Galanski
Guest Blogger
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