Alley Kazam

The parking meter covered by the bright orange canvas bag barely clicked as the time expired, and the sun set on another day in Donnington. The streetlights winked on one by one down one end of the street and up the other. Night didn’t fall in Donnington; it just sort of wrapped its arms around the town and gave it a hug. Neon lights along Main Street blinked on one by one. The marquee of the movie house exploded to life cracking the growing darkness, and reminding everyone that Friday nights were Rocky Horror Picture Show nights. The tailor shop, the barbershop, the dancing school, the dog groomers, and several other businesses closed up for the night, and others were waiting for the evening customers to arrive. An older man, carrying grocery bags from Mulany’s tottered down the street his head down ignoring the beauty of an evening in Donnington.
The beige canvas bags swung slowly back and forth as he walked with steady concentrating footsteps along the sidewalk he has walked over at least a thousand times since he settled in Donnington. He picked the town as his final resting place in 1977 after he had performed his act at the Muskrat Lodge. He had told his wife he would like to settle down there someday, and that it seemed cozy. He was in fact a bit of a celebrity. His name was Irving Mulciber, but people in town just called him Irv. He used to be Mulciber the Magnificent, the best magician in all of the Midwest as voted by his peers in the Midwest Magicians Menagerie, but that was all before his assistant, who also happened to be his wife, who also happened to be the love of his life, was assassinated by her ovaries. Instead of giving her the children she so desperately wanted they gave her three months to live, and they gave him a shattered heart. He retired and bought a nice sized house in Donnington his magician’s equipment stuffed up in the attic for the dust to eat. People who had seen his act swore up and down that, The Amazing Mulciber was the real deal, and that he could do actual magic. He never denied it, but he never admitted anything either. His wife just used to giggle at the thought of it. He had once overheard someone say that if he could saw her in half and put her back together, why couldn’t he fix her cancer.
The man that was once full of such vim and vigor, the man who could pull a rabbit out of someone’s ear, or vanish into thin air, was now just a broken old man with sallow skin, and bags under his red-rimmed watery eyes. His groceries consisted of a loaf of white bread, a carton of cigarettes, a rather large bottle of scotch, and 2 pounds of bacon. Dutifully trudged them up the street, and made his way towards the house that was as dead inside as his heart. He would make himself a sandwich and pass out in front of the TV watching an old Barnaby Jones rerun like he usually did, or at least that was the plan.
Bobby, Benny, and Billy Claxton were standing in the alley off of Main Street smoking cigarettes and being general pains in the ass. They were known around town as the Trouble Triplets, and they lived up to their name in spades. Just shy of their 19th birthday the triplets had no ambition in life other than to, as they would put it, “break shit and get laid.” Their parents had lost all control over them while they were in High School, and never got it back. The boys were so bad that their parents went on vacation on year, and never came back. They sent a postcard from Boca Raton a few weeks later stating that they had given up and good luck. The Sheriff, and the entire town had dealt with them ever since.
Bobby was in the midst of giving Benny a wedgie when he spied the old man trudging along. They were short on beer money and figured he’d be easy pickings. Billy Claxton threw his cigarette down and walked out of the alley followed by his brothers. The smoky scented hand clamped over Irving’s mouth, the bags of groceries dropping to the pavement; the scotch bottle being saved from death by the loaf of bread sacrificing itself. Irving struggled as much as he could, but his old body was no match for the young thugs. He was dragged into the alley, and out of sight of anyone who might happen along on the empty Main Street. It seemed as if Mulciber the Magnificent was in quite a bit of trouble.
There were a few shouts from the alley followed by a loud electrical crackling sound and bright flashes of light. The deepening night calmed down, and three white rabbits hopped out of the alley. Their pink eyes filled with abject terror as they hopped away as fast as they could into a large clump of weeds across the way in the parking lot of Henderson’s Hardware. Irving Mulciber slowly walked out of the alley, picked up his grocery bags and with his head down and continued on his way.