Lawyer Boy

Chapter OneA Sleight Change of PlansI always wanted to be a magician, but my father, a tax lawyer, never considered magic a "viable career path." My mother, on the other hand, always told me I could do whatever I wanted with my life, but as I grew older, I realized that she and my father were playing Good Cop/Bad Cop and that when she said that I could do whatever I wanted with my life, she meant I could practice whatever kind of law I wanted.My uncle is a lawyer, and so are my Michigan cousins, my Chicago cousins, and my New York cousins. If I had any siblings, they'd be lawyers, too. My father's father, though, was not a lawyer. He slaughtered cows for a living.1 Now, I could easily write half a dozen lawyer jokes comparing slaughter-houses and courtroomsthey practically write themselvesbut I'm not going to do that because I refuse to disrespect the meatpacking industrysee?All of my friends and ex-girlfriends are lawyers, law students, or soon-to-be law students currently denying their inevitable legal futures. The only exceptions to this rule are (1) my childhood buddy Steve,2 who works as his dad's law clerk, and (2) my neighbor Stacy, a paralegal. I come from an affluent suburb of Detroit where the only excuse for not practicing law is practicing medicine. But even medicine, many of my dad's partners feel, is a pretty sketchy excuse.My father and his partners saw my interest in magic the way an evangelical Christian father might view his son's homosexuality. As aphase."He'll grow out of it," they told my dad.I imagine one of them took my dad aside and said, "I've never told this to anyone before, but when I was Rick's age, I went through a magic phase, too. My bunkmate showed me my first card trick at summer camp when I was fourteen...."In middle school, my dad bought me 8.5? x 14? yellow legal pads on which to take notes, the way the evangelical father buys his gay son a baseball glove. But just as the gay son uses the baseball glove as a prop in his school'sDamn Yankeesproduction, I used the legal pads to sketch blueprints for grand stage illusions. Every time my birthday rolled around, I asked for marked cards and gimmicked coins and linking ringsand received dress shirts, neckties, and dictation recorders. So I sewed secret pockets into the dress shirts, used the neckties for escape demonstrations, and recorded psychic predictions on the dictation recorders (e.g., "Your card was the three of clubs").2 Who did the drawings for this book.I didn't just perform escapes and psychic demonstrations; I performed billiard ball manipulations, rope tricks, and dove illusions.3 My specialty, though, was performing elaborate, multi-phase card tricks that most professionals wouldn't dare take on, like those of British magician Guy3 When I was thirteen, I wanted to get two doves to use in my magic act. My parents objected at first but eventually agreed to sign the following contract, which I drew up with a little help from my dad:BIRD CONTRACTThis agreement made and entered into this 5th day of January, 1996, by and between Richard Lax (hereafter referred to as "Ricky") and Charles and Linda Lax (hereafter collectively referred to as "Mom and Dad").Whereas, Ricky has expressed a great desire to acquire a pair of doves (hereafter referred to as "Birds"); andWhereas, Mom and Dad have vehemently objected to such a disgusting acquisition; andWhereas Mom and Dad believe Ricky is capable of substantially improving his grades; andWhereas, the parties have agreed that in exchange for better grades as described hereinafter, Ricky will be permitted to acquire the Birds.Now, therefore, in consideration of the mutual premises aLax, Rick is the author of 'Lawyer Boy', published 2008 under ISBN 9780312373351 and ISBN 031237335X.