“You told me not to wear earrings. You planned this,” I whisper in reply.
“Did I?” he asks before turning and hopping back up onto the stage.
I glance at Michelle, and she’s wearing a delighted smile.
“Okay,” says Jay as he walks to centre stage. “I guess you all read some stuff about me in the press lately.”
“Fuck The Daily Post!” some drunken man shouts from the bar.
Jay chuckles. “Yeah, fuck ’em.”
“You can fuck me any time, Jay!” a very enthusiastic woman yells.
That’s the thing about heckling, even the positive kind. Once one person does it, they all start.
Jay looks over to where the woman is sitting with her friends. He doesn’t say anything, just smiles and gives her a flirty wink. On the inside I’m like, That’s my flirty wink. Jealousy rears its ugly head, but I stuff it away. I imagine half the people in here want to make Jay the same offer that woman did. My jealousy would be futile.
Jay continues, clearing his throat, “But in all seriousness, I want to thank each and every one of you for not believing the lies, having faith in me, and coming here tonight.”
There are shouts of encouragement and clapping. Jay waits for it to trickle out before going on, “So, I should probably move onto the next part of the show. As Mr Jerry Burke, who has the good grace to write me truly delightful ten-page ranting emails every week would say, ‘I’m gonna use my godlike super mind-reading skills to mess with your heads a little.’”
Laughter rings out, and I wonder if Jerry Burke is a real person. If he is, it sounds like Jay attracts his fair amount of crazies.
“Okay, I need three volunteers, and my nice assistant Jessie here is going to pick them for me.” Jessie walks out from the side of the stage and heads for the audience. She walks along the rows and selects two women and a man. After she leads them up onto the stage, Jay greets each of them before handing them a white sheet of card, an envelope, and a Sharpie pen. He tells one of the women to write down the name of her favourite band, the other woman to write down the title of her favourite book, and the man to write the title of his favourite painting.
“Once you’ve written them down, I want you to put the cards inside the envelopes and seal them up,” says Jay, going over to the corner of the stage and returning with a small metal lock box. It’s got a narrow slit opening on the top, and each of the volunteers slides their envelopes in. Jay carries the box right to the edge of the stage and sets it down.
“I’m going to leave this here where you all can see it. For the duration of the show, nobody’s going to be able to touch it, so there’s no way I can find out what’s been written. However, I promise you that by the end of the night I’ll have figured out what’s inside those envelopes. Deal?” he says, offering his hand and shaking with all three of them in turn.
They go back to their seats, and Jay carries on with more tricks. The first involves getting a man up onto the stage and hypnotising him into believing he’s gained the superpower of invisibility and can do whatever he wants with no consequences. He heads straight for the bar, helping himself to free drinks and some money out of the cash register.
After Jay has woken him up from the hypnosis and thanked him, the man returns to his seat. I think he must remember what he did because he looks a little sheepish. Jay walks to one side of the stage and calls on one of the women who’d volunteered with the envelopes earlier. Her names is Rhona.
“Hey, Rhona,” says Jay. “I’m feeling kind of generous right now and I want to give you a little gift. Would you take a look in your purse for me? See if there’s anything in there that wasn’t before?”
Rhona looks excited and nervous all at once as she rummages through her red leather handbag. A moment later she pulls out a small brown envelope. “Shall I open it?” she asks shyly.
“Be my guest,” says Jay, coming to sit at the edge of the stage, resting his chin casually on his hand. “Show us all what’s inside.”
I crane my neck to see as she holds up what looks like a pair of tickets. “It’s concert tickets for Kings of Leon,” she exclaims.
“Is that the same band you wrote down on the card and put in this box?” he asks, pointing to the box in question.
“Yes,” she answers happily. “Amazing! Wow, thank you.”
Jay stands. “My pleasure. Okay, that’s one down, two to go. You know what, it’s way too fucking hot in here. I think I’ll take this off.” He proceeds to remove the vest he’s wearing, and the place practically erupts with whistles and catcalls. Some of them come from Michelle sitting right beside me. I eye her and she mouths what?, unable to keep the smile off her face.