Moving bae from college brought a kind of stupor to my daily life, and my nights became a waking dread. If I wasnt pounding out yet another imitation on the piano, I was behind the bar, tending to the usual crowd with demons of their own. I had fallen into a routi Oscars whera of them all arrived and ordered a shot of whiskey. He slid the glass against the rail and stared at it. I went on to the er, poured a beer, sliced a lemon, and came back to the guy, and the drink was sitting undisturbed. He ixy fellow, , sober, in a cheap suit and tie, and as far as I could tell, he hadnt lifted his hands from his lap.
"Whats the matter, mister? You havent touched your drink."
"Would you give it to me on the house if I make that glass move without toug it?"
"What do you mean, move? How far?"
"How far would it have to move for you to believe?"
"Not far." I was hooked. "Move it at all, and you have a deal."
He reached out his right hand to shake on it, ah him, the glass started sliding slowly down the bar until it came to a halt about five io his left. "A magi never reveals the secret to the trick. Tom Mes."
"Henry Day," I said. "A lot of guys e in here with all sorts of tricks but thats the best I ever saw."
"Ill pay for this," Mes said, putting a dollar on the bar. "But you owe me another. In a fresh glass, if you please, Mr. Day."
He gulped the sed shot and pulled the inal glass ba front of him. Over the several hours, he suckered four people with that same trick. Yet he ouched the first glass of whiskey. He drank for free all night. Around eleven, Mes stood up to go home, leaving the shot on the bar.
"Hey, Mac, your drink," I called after him.
"ouch the stuff," he said, slipping into a raincoat. "And I highly advise you not to drink it, either."
I lifted the glass to my nose for a smell.
"Leaded." He held up a small mag he had cealed in his left hand. "But you khat, right?"
Swirling the glass in my hand, I could now see the iron filings at the bottom.
"Part of my study of mankind," he said, "and our willio believe in what ot be seen."
Mes became a regular at Oscars, ing in four or five times a week over the few years, curiously i on fooling the patrons with ricks or puzzles. Sometimes a riddle or plicated math game involving pig a number, doubling it, adding seven, subtrag ones age and so forth, until the victim was right back where hed started. ame involving matches, a deck of cards, a sleight of hand. The drinks he won were of small sequence, for his pleasure resulted from the gullibility of his neighbors. And he was mysterious in other ways. On those nights The Coverboys performed, Mes sat close to the door. Sometimes betwees hed e up to chat with the boys, a it off with Jimmy Cummings, of all people, a fine example of the artless thinker. But if we played the wrong song, Mes could be guarao vanish. Whearted c The Beatles in 63 or 64, he would walk out each time at the opening bars of "Do You Want to Know a Secret?" Like a lot of drunks, Mes became more himself after hed had a few. He never acted soused. Not more loquacious or morose, merely more relaxed in his skin, and sharper around the edges. And he could e mass quantities of alcohol at a sitting, more than anyone I have ever known. Oscar asked him one night about his strange capacity for drink.
"Its a matter of mind over matter. A cheap trick hinged upon a small secret."
"A