“Greetings, mortals,” said a weasely looking kid clad in black cape and top hat. His attempt at a schmooze lent itself to a sneer. The oily hair didn’t help.

Ron pressed a hand into his face and moaned, “Oh my god. Not again with this shit.” He sat surrounded by fellow freshman parents. It was only the first term and his son Jeremy had shown a penchant for the dramatic.

Ron sat through the rest of Jeremy’s attempted magic show, but the boy didn’t get far. Card tricks require time and dedication to pull off. Along with no small amount of dexterity. None of which Jeremy possessed.

Ron wished his son hadn’t tried to walk the line of Houdini and Criss Angel, but he only had so many interactions available when he wasn’t at work.

The son of an insurance agent wants to be a magician. There has to be a joke there, Ron thought.

The summer between the end of middle school and beginning of high school had been a turbulent one in the Fensky house. Ron had divorced Jeremy’s mother, Charlene, who he’d caught cheating on him with a stand up comedian. Unfortunately for him, it hadn’t even been that. Apparently the man had specialized in improv. Meanwhile, Jeremy had taken to a book of stage magic after spending unattended hours at a local flea market.

“Try to take it easy this year, huh?” Ron said, sipping on a Miller High Life and watching the Green Bay Packers lose in the fourth quarter again.

“What does that even mean, Ron?” Jeremy’s dad bit back a yell. He stared at his stick-twig son and wondered how the hell any of his genetics were even in the boy. Or if any of them were in there at all.

“Just go easy with all the announcements and cape waving, people get uncomfortable about all that. Maybe cut your hair. Play some cards or something.”

“Cut my hair? Play some cards? I’m fourteen years old. I’m not some retired old man living on stupid memories of the past,” he said nodding at the tv. Ron had proudly represented Green Bay on the practice squad for two seasons. No NFL snaps, though he thought he had been close one October.

“It’s not a wild dream if you tried,” Ron muttered to himself as Jeremy slunk off to his room. The pair had quartered themselves in opposite parts of the house most days.

A couple beers later, Ron went to Jeremy’s room to try and give a “I know teenage years are tough, but you’ll survive” sort of speech. He stopped at the door when he heard the fevered chk chk chk of the keyboard. Ron knocked softly and peered inside the door to see Jeremy dressed in his cape and top hat responding to messages flying through some sort of post. “What in the hell in this?” Jeremy spun around.

“Why are you in here? You’re supposed to knock!”

“I did knock. But you’re too wrapped up in whatever this is to listen,” he said stepping closer to the screen. Some of the usernames stood out. “Collardog69”, “VendettaJane”, “Tellersplitsmytaint.” “Is this some sort of …pervert convention? Who the hell are these people?”

“They’re magicians. They’re my friends. And they’re teaching me about everything I need to know about actually living life.” Ron stepped back from the computer.

“Log off. You’re done.”

A flurry of expressions crossed Jeremy’s face before it settled on rage. “Fuck you. You can’t tell me what to do just because you don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand all right. I understand that you’re a minor and these are a bunch of sexual deviants who get their kicks from messing with a kid. So, you’re going to sign off and shut down the computer. Or,” he waved his hand, “I’m going to take that hunk of junk to the landfill. Your choice.” Jeremy screeched and swept his tea mug off the desk before turning to rip all the cords out of the computer. He got to his feet and stared at his dad with beady black eyes before sweeping out of the room.

Ron looked around the cluttered room with dismay. It smelled like wilted cauliflower and toe jam. There were weird outfits and strange books scattered on the floor. Sticking out of the bed was a small polaroid of Jeremy and Charlene. Ron had taken it at the county fair a couple years back. Strange to see Jeremy with a smile. Charlene too. He left the picture where it was and went back downstairs to finish his beer.