In My Life

I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul

But it's like trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll

--The Lovin' Spoonful





Autolycus looked at his watch. "Annie's running a bit late." he said. "Say, Hercules, when she shows up, can you do me a favor?"



"What's the favor?" he asked.



"Well, Annie's a big fan of both Hercules and Xena. Mostly Xena, but she likes your show too. When she gets here, can you just walk up to our table and say hello to me?"



"And impress her by letting her know you know a TV star?" Hercules cocked an eyebrow. "Well, OK. What the hell." He shrugged. "In the meantime, tell me more about Ehrie, you mentioned earlier. I have a good guess who he was, but why don't you tell me how you became his mentor?"



"Well, I first came to America in 1876, right in the middle of America's centennial. I was registered at Ellis Island as a Greek immigrant named Dmitri Stephanopoulos. Everyone just called me 'Dee' for short. Well, I had to leave New York due to a few Sicilians who wanted to break my legs for some reason."



"I'm sure it was an honest mistake." Hercules said with a wry grin.



"Well, like you, I hitched a ride with a wagon train going through Wisconsin, only I got off in a place called Appleton. Around 1880, I got caught doing some breaking and entering and brought before the judge. I put on the performance of my life. Acted like I was all sorry, made up a sob story about being a poor immigrant who had trouble finding a job and was hungry, really tore up some heart strings. Well, since it was my first offence, as far as anyone knew, the judge put me on probation. Part of the stipulations of the probation were I had to get an honest job." Autolycus made a face.



"Well, it so happened that the judge knew a rabbi named Mayer Weiss who was looking for someone to help watch his six boys, preferably a goy who could work Friday and Saturday but wasn't so devout a Christian as to convert their kids. I fit the bill."



"Most people at the time preferred to hire women to be nannies, if memory serves."



"I wasn't a nanny." Autolycus said with distaste. "I was-uh-a live in babysitter. The Weiss’s were a little apprehensive about hiring a man to watch their kids, but it wasn't like they had many prospects to choose from and Rabbi Weiss was determined to 'rehabilitate' me. Two years after I was hired on, they had a girl named Gladys."



"That makes seven." said Hercules. "Sounds like you had your work cut out for you. What was that like?"



"Imagine a cross between /The Sound of Music/ and /Fiddler on the Roof/, only take away the Nazis, the Cossacks and the spontaneous musical numbers. Out of seven kids, Ehrie was smack in the middle. He was about six when I first met him. He quickly became one of my favorites. Reminded me of myself at that age."



"Autolycus, I don't even want to /think/ about what you were like at that age!"



"Aw, I wasn't all that bad. Neither was Ehrie, really. It's just, you know how little boys can get into trouble. Boys like to, you know, explore their boundaries, satisfy their curiosity. Or they did until video games were invented."



"Ah, yes, the joys of raising children with no TV or video games." Hercules said with a laugh. "I don't know how we managed to survive."



"I showed the kids some slight of hand I had picked up over the years. I invited them to tie me up and watch me escape in less than a minute. One summer I helped them organize a backyard circus. Herman had taught Mopsy, the family's cocker spaniel, a few tricks and had two-year-old Gladys be his assistant. Herman was 21 at the time, but he was a big help to me when it came to wrangling the kids. Nathan and Gottfried did a clown act. Dash did some card tricks. Leopold was the stage manager. Ehrie was the aerialist. Called himself 'Ehrich, the prince of the air'. His trapeze was a metal post tied from the branch of a tree, but he could do a few tricks. And I was the ringmaster. For a nickel a head, everyone in the neighborhood could come to the Weiss' backyard and see the show.



"In April of 1887, little Ehrie had his Bar Mitzvah. Don't know if you've ever been to one, but they're kinda fun, once you get the boring religious stuff out of the way. Lots of food, lots of dancing. The Weiss family was from a reform sect that didn't separate men from women, which made dancing even more fun. Well, after dancing in the fourth hora circle for the evening, I noticed birthday boy sitting by himself and looking sad. I went over and asked what was wrong. He said that his father wanted the family to move to New York. It was a bit of a shock to me. Rabbi Weiss hadn't told me this. I put on a happy face and told Ehrie that he'd love New York. Then he told me Rabbi Weiss was going to go to New York with just Ehrie. Oh, the rest of the family would join later, to be sure, but Ehrie didn't want to leave his home, his friends, the bulk of his family. He told me he'd miss me. I knew I'd miss him too. I came to love the kid like a little brother. After the Bar Mitzvah, I gave him my present by taking us over to a photography studio and had a daguerreotype made of the two of us. I should show it to you sometime. Little Ehrie still had his yarmulke sticking out of his pocket."



"That's another difficulty with immortality." pointed out Hercules. "Explaining why you're in very old pictures."



"I have the plate on display in my apartment. If anyone asks, I tell them that my nephew and I went to Disney Land and had a daguerreotype done at one of those places that lets you dress up in old-fashioned costumes. If they press for more info, I tell them Little Eric died in a car accident.



"So, anyway, Ehrie went off to New York with his father. I stayed in Appleton and helped Mrs. Weiss look after their other kids. As soon as Rabbi Weiss found some permanent housing, we all joined them in New York. By then, I had become something of an admired family retainer. Ehrie continued to look up to me as a mentor of sorts. He wanted to do magic professionally. I taught him a few tricks including how to escape from being tied or locked up.



"In 1893, Ehrie started performing at dime museums and sideshows. Dash was his assistant until Ehrie met Bess. Well, every magician needs a lovely assistant. His parents weren't too keen on him marrying a shiksa, but I told Ehrie he should do what he felt was right. They eventually accepted her, just as they accepted Ehrie's line of work and the fact that he changed his name. Most people know him today as Harry Houdini."



Hercules smiled. "You were mentor to Harry Houdini. For some reason, I'm not surprised. The first time I saw him do that straightjacket trick, I thought of you."



"Thanks, Hercules, I love being associated with straightjackets. My thievery skills helped the kid out once. See, he was challenged to escape from these elaborate handcuffs that took five years to build. He was having a tough time with it, so I stole the key for him and slipped it to Bess who slipped it to him in a 'good luck' kiss. I also gave him the idea for the milk can trick. We were having a few drinks and a few laughs, just bullshitting around when I told him my idea. Once I sobered up, I told him I was just kidding, but he was already drawing up the plans, determined to do it. I'm just glad he decided to go with water instead of brandy like I had originally suggested.



"Kid started to fall apart when his mom died in 1913. Rabbi Weiss had died about a year before Ehrie went into the biz. He sat shiva like a dutiful son, but...well, you gotta understand, Ehrie and Rabbi Weiss loved each other, but they just weren't that close. They just disagreed too much. They tried, though. But, Ehrie was just lost when Mrs. Weiss died. Bess and I both tried to comfort him. I told him how devastated I was when my mother died when I was a kid. You know how grief is, Hercules. You'd give anything to see that person just once more, even to just hear their voice."



"I know that." Hercules said with an empathetic nod.



"So, Ehrie started going to these psychic mediums. I knew these charlatans were just going to drain the kid of every hard earned dollar he had. It pissed me off that they were taking advantage of his grief. So, I told Ehrie the truth about psychic mediums. I not only told him how the tricks were done, I showed him. I suggested that maybe he could work some of these tricks into the act. I knew getting his mind back on magic would help him. Ehrie had a better idea. He'd do the tricks mediums did on stage, then reveal how they were done. He decided to expose the illusions performed by so-called psychics so they couldn't exploit anyone else's grief. Kid was ambitious, and his heart was in the right place. I guess I should've told him about the real deal, but I wasn't sure he'd believe me and anyway, real psychics are very rare. I didn't think he'd run into one. Well, you know what happened to him, Halloween of '29. I thought the kid was just playing a joke on me at first. That witch was a clever one. Made it look like natural causes. The fact that Ehrie was just too stubborn to see a doctor helped him along too."



"We can't protect our friends from everything." Hercules pointed out. "They have to make their own decisions." Autolycus nodded in agreement.





A/N: In real life, Houdini died of unchecked appendicitis aggravated by a blow to the stomach. No magical interference, but since this is set in a fantasy environment, I can have a real practitioner among the charlatans.

Also, I was just going to have the last chapter and time line reference after this chapter, but I watched "Once Upon a Future King" and got an idea for one more chapter.