Another dreaded phone call

The Dad was rustled from his sleep by a phone call, one he never thought he’d receive. The call came from a hospital. The son they had dropped off at college alive and well not six months previously was now occupying a bed in the cold room of a hospital somewhere in Alabama. Suffering from a concussion and possibly a collapsed lung, the boy had asked his doctor in the emergency room to make the call right before he lost consciousness.

Hastily getting dressed, and during the long three-hour drive down to Auburn, the Dad relayed the story the doctor had told him. Not quite believing them himself, he described to his worried wife the strange events that had led up to their boy ending up in the hospital facing surgery and possibly a lifetime of recovery.

The boy had bought magic tricks while he was in high school and found that they were a good ice breaker during parties. He saved his allowance and once a month purchased a new trick that he performed for the family. Over the years he got rather skilled, but dreamed of larger venues.
Once at college the boy found he needed spending money so he took his magic show on the road. During the day he attended school, and on the weekends he entertained the guests at the local Holiday Inn lounge. After a few months he saved enough money to buy the first of many grander illusions - one that made the great Harry Houdini famous. The boy bought a strait jacket. All of this he did without his parents’ knowledge, of course.

Soon, simply escaping from the strait jacket while standing on stage wasn’t exciting enough for the boy; he craved a larger audience. He gained notoriety with pictures splashed across the front page of the campus newspaper when he donned the straight jacket and dove into the deep end of a swimming pool, escaping miraculously unharmed. But still it wasn’t enough.

Following in Houdini’s footsteps, he contacted a willing store owner in the center of Auburn University’s town square. He convinced the owner of the two-story building to let him do a publicity stunt one Saturday at noon. He proposed to build a boom on the roof which would swing him out over the sidewalk. While dangling by a rope tied to his ankles, suspended some 25 feet in the air, he would once again escape from the strait jacket.

Two days prior to the event, leaflets were circulated and a car equipped with a PA system drove slowly around campus announcing the upcoming stunt. The magician famous for escaping from a strait jacket would do it again. Except this time he’d be struggling while dangling upside down – suspended by a rope on fire!

On the day of the event, the university town square was shut down. The police allowed no traffic. The fire department, being made aware of the event, was on scene and ready. The fire chief told the boy if he lit the rope he would be in violation of the fire ordinance. The police chief added in a stern voice that he would be arrested. Unbeknownst to them, the boy had woven a steal cable in the center of the rope. There was no way he could fall even if the rope burnt through. Or so he thought.

At noon the square was packed with over 5,000 people standing shoulder to shoulder. Some held video cameras, others leaned over tripods, and some even climbed on top of parked cars to get a better view. All had come to see if the young magician would escape or this time fall to the concrete when the rope burnt through.

Nervously, the boy climbed through the hatchway and onto the roof. He stood on the front edge while his assistants strapped him into the jacket. They laid him down and bound his feet together with the rope. Moments later, at the strike of noon, they pushed him over the side! He struggled forcefully for 10 minutes against his bindings. Suddenly with a mighty yell, he flung the strait jacket off. The cheers and applause from the crowd was deafening.

The young magician was lowered to the ground into the arms of the local police officers, but they didn’t arrest him. They were just helping. He didn’t light the rope on fire, so the rope never had a chance to burn through. Still determined to see the trick through to the end, the boy accepted a job at the county fair the very next weekend. Unfortunately, that outcome was to be very different.

Once at the fair the boy decided to increase the difficulty of his escape. He raised the height to 35 feet, but he didn’t have a rope long enough to throw over the tree limb and back down to the ground. So he tied his rope to another rope onsite. This time with no police around him, he was hoisted high into the air and lit the rope on fire!

Nothing could go wrong. The boy was too smart. He had thought of everything. A foot square steel plate sat on top of his rope with the cable inside so the fire would be contained. And it was, but the intense heat wasn’t. The rope the boy had tied his rope off to was a ski rope. After only five minutes it melted through. The boy fell.

As he hit the ground, a gray gritty dust covered him and pain ravaged his body. Coughing up blood, the boy lost consciousness then woke up in the emergency room.

I wish I could finish this story, but I can’t. That’s all I remember. For you see, it’s been six months and 30 years ago to the day when I fell. And my dad’s still beside himself that I pulled such a bone-headed stunt. He’s never let me forget it. Now, after six months being down at Auburn, I wonder what MY son’s up to. Hopefully, The Boy is not following in his dad’s footsteps.