The Duchess and I were bored this past weekend and saw The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. I would not recommend this movie. But it reminded me of an imperfect short story I wrote a thousand years ago, give or take, when I was in college. This was actually inspired by Penn & Teller after I saw one of their shows in NYC.
Steve
&
Steve’s
Startling Shadow Show
by Jeff Somers
The theater was small but the act was big, so the place was packed, a humming crowd of expectancy. The posters outside showed a tall, handsome man smiling in a tuxedo, one hand comradely on the shined shoes of an obviously hung man. The poster declared it to be “Steve and Steve … Performers with a Twist.“
The lights were still up, stage hands occasionally jogging to and fro on the stage while casually dressed people waited politely, chatting and pointing out stage details where they could see them. Men talked to their wives and girlfriends carefully, arms loosely around shoulders in civilized signs of possession. Groups of singles scattered like islands in a sea of matrimony chatted amongst themselves and occasionally flirted. Everyone’s eyes kept flicking to the stage, waiting for the fun to begin.
They talked, low and calm: they traded favorite tracks and skits – the hanging of the second Steve was quite popular, but it was an old favorite; most people thought of the much newer suicide bit, first done in New York a few weeks before, where the whole front row got splattered in warm stage blood. It was new and almost no one in the theater had seen it. The people in the front row particularly hoped it was included, thinking that a bloody shirt would be a perfect trophy from the show.
Slowly, the lights dimmed.
Breaking the illusion of calm, the crowd burst into applause, cheering loudly, filling the hall with senseless static, huge and spiky, frenzied and enthusiastic.
A spotlight burst into being, and into the pool of white light stepped the second, shorter Steve, dressed in a dark blue suit and a white shirt. When it was obvious that the applause was ongoing, the Second Steve bowed low and held out his hands for it to stop. He was short and had dark hair, a sour-looking man with a scowling rat’s face that sported a fine sarcastic smile that beamed hugely at the dark, hidden crowd before him.
After a moment, silence muscled in.
“I’d like to thank you all for coming tonight,” the Second Steve bellowed effortlessly in a good stage voice, gesturing a new smattering of claps down, “and I welcome you to Steve and Steve’s Startling Shadow Show – although,” he continued, slowing down to let the crowd say the traditional phrase with him, “some of us might not be leaving the theater!”
The applause went beyond the second Steve’s ability to quell, and he simply thrust his hands into his pockets and waited for it to end on its own as they congratulated themselves. When it had quieted down enough to speak again, he looked up with a grin and went on.
“I thought we might try something different tonight, Ladies and Gentlemen. I thought we might get on without Steve for a while, seeing that he’s a little under the weather and all tied up – ”
Groans of disappointment were cut off and laughter erupted from the audience as the First Steve, tied to a chair in classic ransom style, hopped on stage, cursing and struggling, his dark blue suit askew and wrinkled. Growling, he hopped towards the Second Steve, who padded away, eluding him easily.
“You sonofabitch, you goddamm sonofabitch! Ladies and gentlemen, there has been a heinous crime commuted tonight!” The first Steve sputtered, pausing in his hopping to work on his bonds. “And if you’ll give me a moment, I’ll tell you all about it!”
Somewhere, someone had turned on the dry ice machine, and eerie smoke spilled onto the stage. As the First Steve slowly escaped his bonds, the Second Steve looked on calmly, seeming to file his nails.
“You take them in, folks,” the First Steve panted, “and teach them the tricks of the trade, you show ‘em how to get by and how to cheat stupid suckers such as yourselves – ”a cheer burst forth from the crowd, and the Second Steve turned to smile at the crowd benignly “ – and then they turn on you. They try to cheat you. They take your own tricks, your own scams, stab you in the heart with them and twist!” On the last word he stood, ropes falling to the floor, and towered at six foot five, a sweaty man with balled fists at his side. The crowd broke into applause, and the Second Steve backed away, looking this way and that and getting laughs.
The First Steve stalked the second Steve around the stage for a few seconds, and the stopped, pulled a pistol from his pants, aimed and fired it at his partner. A bullet caught the Second Steve just as the smaller man turned to run; he twisted up acrobatically and crumpled to the floor, red oozing every which way on the stage.
The crowd erupted, guffaws mutating into cheers. The First Steve slowly turned to the audience and smiled, dropping the gun and bowing low. The crowd added some volume, and then died down.
“Folks,” he bellowed, still grinning hugely, “I thought we might try something different tonight!”
The applause swarmed over him again; the crowd loved the twist. It didn’t budge the Second Steve, who was almost hidden by cheap, fake smoke.
“I thought we might get on without Steve for the rest of our lives!” Steve added exultantly, finding a cigarette and lighting it as the applause swelled again. Sweat sheened his flushed face and stained his white shirt; the cigarette dangled from his mouth as he walked to the right wing and plucked out a wooden stool. He put it down roughly in the center and sat down heavily, mopping his forehead with a white handkerchief and smoking for a dull moment as the crowd settled.
Quiet, he plucked the cigarette from his mouth and smiled impishly. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, folks.” Chuckles washed over him gently. He waved them away. “It was an act of rage, an act of passion. And you’re all witnesses to it. Should have seen it coming, I guess – no one but myself to blame.” He mused over that as he located and lit a second cigarette, letting the first drop to smolder on stage.
“I mean,” sluggish, a spot – light finally found him, and the rest of the lights winked out. “Thanks, guys. I know that wasn’t in the script.” he said, glancing up. “I mean,” he went on, looking down, “I mean, I can remember when Steve and I were just street trash, putting on three-card Monte pick-pocket shows and magic acts. There was this one time when we were doing a street corner act and for once we had a big crowd and for once they were digging the act and Steve was, as usual, being a pig bastard.”
An uncomfortable murmur rippled through the audience. An eyebrow went up on his damp face and his smile darkened. “That was the first time I considered killing Steve.” His eyes shifted to slant at the smoke-hidden body. “But obviously, it wasn’t the last.”
The audience relaxed and laughed again. The show was making sense at last.
“That first time, he kept screwing up just to make me look bad. He was such an asshole.” he chuckled to himself. “I just pulled a knife, went for him, and we rolled around. I was trying to stab him, folks, I was trying to kill him. And do you know what the crowd around us did, hmmmnn?”
He waited, his smile slipping into the sly, his eyes moving back and forth across the audience. “They clapped, folks, they threw coins. I was trying to murder a man right in front of them, and they thought it was an act. Not only that, they thought it was the best act they’d seen in a while.”
Silence had taken over and when he paused nothing stepped up to fill the emptiness. He smoked silently, staring out at nothing, and then went on.
“We stopped and realized what people wanted – blood. Pain. Death. And so the Shadow Show was born. We gave all you ghouls a little cherry-syrup death and you paid for it. And paid for it. And paid for it.”
Heavy smoke spilled off the stage and began to cover the floor; pockets of people grew tired of waiting for the punch-line and began to shift and hum with boredom.
“Twelve years, folks.” Steve went on. “Twelve years we worked together, killing each other on stage. Twelve years I wanted to kill him for REAL.” He shook his head, then looked up. “I guess a lot of you think this is part of the show. The show ended fifteen minutes ago, folks. It ended before it began.” He tossed his cigarette aside and stood up. “This is for real! This REALLY HAPPENED!” He ran over to the Second Steve. “You wanted blood and it had to be better and better and it had to look real – you wanted this, you fucking ghouls!” he picked up the Second Steve’s arms and dragged him to the edge of the stage. “You vampires wanted flesh!” He laughed. “Well, take him and enjoy!”
With a heave the Second Steve went flying offstage, landing with a wet thump in an unnatural position before the front row, eyes open, drained, and blank.
The front row leaped up as a whole and scattered, some diving over their row into other people, the rest filling the aisles. Cries sparked into the air and half the audience stood. The other half sat and waited. The lights stayed down and the smoke spilled off the stage and oozed over the Second Steve like thick water.
“He’s dead, people.” The First Steve panted. “One of us won’t be leaving the theater.” A faint flickering smile blinked across his face. “It’s been fifteen minutes, and none of you have called the cops.”
A few scattered groups chuckled, and slowly the joke spread, and everyone looked for the Second Steve to get up – the joke on them. But the Second Steve didn’t move, he was dead.