Wizard of Washington Square (3 page)

“What do wizards do?” asked David. “I mean, besides taking handkerchiefs out of the air?”

“I’m supposed to help people with their problems. You know—find lost sheep, make love potions, break spells. That sort of thing. But in America, no one wants to consult a wizard. They write to the papers instead. I was put in the small towns first but people just thought I was a beatnik. Then I tried San Francisco. Chicago. Detroit. I was put in jail while passing through Georgia. Now I’m in New York, the biggest, most crowded city in America. And it’s my last chance. If I can’t help someone soon and prove my worth as a wizard, I’m liable to be demoted to an elf. Or a troll. Or simply dematerialized.” He put his head on the table and started crying again. The two ends of his beard were soon dripping tears onto the floor.

Leilah turned to David urgently. “We can’t let him go on like this,” she said. “What can we do?”

“I’m not a wizard. How should I know?” said David. But Leilah looked at him so sharply that he added, “Help him help someone.”

“You’re right,” said Leilah. “Isn’t he?” she asked the Wizard.

“Yes,” the Wizard answered in a voice that was more of a sigh than anything else. Then he snuffled and wiped his eyes with his long white beard. The beard sparkled with stars for an instant and then was dry.

“You should use your handkerchief,” scolded Leilah.

“I don’t have one,” complained the Wizard.

“You took one from the air last time,” David said.

“So I did,” said the Wizard. “So I did. I forgot.”

“Then the problem is,” said Leilah, “to help him to help someone so that he can be sent back to the Old Country.”

“Or fix his memory,” added David.

“Or both,” said the Wizard quietly.

“Whichever is easier,” said Leilah.

“I would imagine,” David said, “since his memory seems to be full of more holes than a butterfly net, and since I can’t think of anyone who needs help, that we should just concentrate on getting him back to the Old Country. Buy him a ticket, I suppose.”

“No money,” said Leilah.

“If he were a good wizard, he could make his own money,” said David. “And then give it to the poor. That way he’d be helping people and also financing his trip home.”

The Wizard looked up from the table. He shook his head and the last of the tears twinkled off his beard. “I can’t just
go
back to the Old Country. I have to be recalled. For helping someone. And that someone has to need me. I can’t just give away my magic, or money made by magic. It’s part of being a wizard. It’s called the Rule of Need. And as for my memory, it’s no use. I’ve forgotten so much, I forget how much I’ve forgotten.”

“Well, since you’re here in America, they can’t object to things being done the American way, can they?” asked Leilah.

“What do you mean?” asked the Wizard.

“Well, it’s a kind of custom, at least in the Village, when there is a need, to have people sign a petition. So, we could get up a petition saying we
need
the Wizard to go home.”

“A petition?” said David. “You mean with names?”

“I’ve never heard of one
without
names,” Leilah said.

“But who on earth would sign such a thing?” asked the Wizard. “Presuming, of course, you mean on earth. One never knows with magic.”

Leilah grinned. “Everyone in the Village is always signing petitions. For stopping bombs and starting committees. For closing streets and opening clubs. I know how it’s done. My Mom and Dad do it all the time. All you do is set up a table with pencils and a piece of paper with large words on the top. And then plenty of space to sign below. Then we’d be
asking
that you be sent home.”

The Wizard smiled.

“But no one will sign,” said David. “I mean, when they read what it’s about, they’ll think we’re crazy.”

“Nobody ever
reads
what a petition is about,” replied Leilah. “They just sign.”

David shook his head. “If you did that in Connecticut, you’d be arrested.”

The Wizard groaned. He remembered the jail in Georgia.

“If the police come to stop us,” said Leilah, “we’ll get twice as many signatures, and people will help us out. I mean, that’s the way it’s done in Greenwich Village.”

The Wizard smiled again and stood up.

David shrugged. “You ought to know,” he said. “You’ve lived here long enough. But where will we set it up?”

“By the outdoor art show, of course,” said Leilah. “Tomorrow morning. Sunday. Early. That’s where everyone will be.”

The Wizard laughed out loud. “It might work,” he said. He clicked his heels together and a table leg rolled the ball under him. When he came down, he slipped on the ball and fell. He picked up the ball and got heavily to his feet. Then he put the ball on top of the table in a glass jar.

“Nasty thing,” he said, kicking at the table leg and missing. “You’ll just have to do without for a while.” Then he smiled at the children, and at D. Dog too. “But it must be late, so perhaps you’d better go home for supper.”

“What time is it?” asked David and Leilah together.

The Wizard went over to the periscope and looked through the eyepiece. “According to the Judson Church clock, it’s nearly six o’clock.”

“Oh, oh,” said David. “I’m late.”

“Me too,” said Leilah. All at once she narrowed her eyes. “But there
isn’t
any clock on Judson Church.”

“Of course not,” said the Wizard.

“But
you
said…” said David. “I mean, you looked through the periscope and said…”

“Exactly,” said the Wizard. “This is a
were
-scope.”

“Is that like a werewolf?” asked David.

“No,” said the Wizard. “But this scope shows things as you wish they
were,
not as they actually
are.
And since it can’t see as far as the Jefferson Market Courthouse Clock, I just wish the clock to Judson Church and the scope shows it there.”

“Wow!” said David.

Leilah smiled her slow smile. But then the worry lines on her forehead showed. “But is it correct? The time, I mean?”

“Oh yes,” said the Wizard. “At least it is if the real clock is.”

“Then I really am late,” said Leilah.

“Me too,” said David.

They both said good-by and ran out the door with D. Dog at their heels. As they started up the tunnel, the Wizard called after them, “Don’t forget the petition. I’ll be waiting here. Just knock on the sprayer and then on the door.”

“We won’t forget,” called out David. “But don’t you.”

“I never forget things,” said the Wizard, “if I try not to remember them.”

At least, that was what it sounded like to David. But the door slammed shut and cut off the rest of the Wizard’s words. And soon they were out in the Square again, blinking in the fading sunlight.

T
HE NEXT DAY, SUNDAY,
was a glorious day. The sun was high overhead but a gentle, cooling breeze blew east from the Hudson River.

In Washington Square Park, the young men with beards and the young women with long hair were sitting or standing or sprawling around the fountain in small clumps. They were playing guitars and banjos and singing.

David circled slowly around the fountain. As he walked, he marveled how the song from one group would slowly fade as he passed, gradually blending with a new song from the group he was approaching. It was like switching stations on a giant radio, David thought.

Little children were screaming in the playgrounds, happy Sunday screams. And families on their way to or from church strolled by to watch the artists set up exhibits on the walls and gates of brownstone houses near the Square. And if the strollers stared more at the artists than at their art, it was to be expected.

All in all, it was a perfect day for signing petitions. At least that was what Leilah said when she met David. They knocked on the sprayer in the fountain and then walked to the Arch and knocked at the door. Leilah was carrying the pencils and papers they needed. The Wizard was going to supply the table.

“I hope,” said David, “that he doesn’t supply that walking table of his. Or else we are liable to lose the petition and pencils as well as our case.”

“Our case?” asked Leilah.

“The one in court when the police arrest us,” said David. He knelt down to scratch D. Dog’s ears. He didn’t want Leilah to notice that his knees were shaking a bit. In fact, he hadn’t been feeling well all morning. He had tried to convince his mother that he was sick and should stay in bed. But his sisters were all at camp and his mother had a meeting to go to, so she merely thrust a dollar in his pocket and advised him to eat lightly. What fun was it to stay in bed if you had to get up to get your own juice? So David had come out to the park hoping that Leilah might have forgotten the whole idea of petitions. After all, it was one thing to visit a wizard in his warren. It was another to bring the wizard into your world.

David looked up. “Do you think he’ll wear normal clothes?” he asked.

“What do you mean by normal?”

“You can’t call the clothes he was wearing yesterday normal,” said David.

“They were perfectly normal,” said Leilah, “for a wizard.”

“That’s what I mean,” said David.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Leilah. “Scared?”

“Of course not!” David said hotly. “It’s just—it’s just that I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Well, neither have I,” said Leilah. “But in the Village, a lot of things happen that never happened before and no one who lives here pays any attention. It’s just
tourists
who get all shook.” The way she said
tourists
made David promise himself that he would never be one, much less act like one.

“Like what happens?” asked David, standing up.

“Like—like happenings,” said Leilah.

“Oh fine, that says a lot. Happenings that never happened before happen to happen here.”

Leilah shook her head. “No, really. Happenings are things that people plan. Nutty things. Wild things. Like people dressing up as babies and drinking bottles of
milk.
Or dancing with camels. Or shoving whipped-cream pies in someone’s face and then licking it off. And people pay admission to see them. It’s like a show, only you never know ahead of time what is going to happen. So, it’s called a
happening
.”

“Sounds stupid,” said David.

“It is, a bit,” Leilah admitted.

“Say, maybe somebody will think that we’re a happening,” said David. He began to laugh.

“Maybe,” said Leilah.

Just then the door in the archway opened inward. The cave, dark as doom, appeared. And from far away, stars began to appear, flickering on and off like erratic fireflies. As the stars got closer, David realized they were on the Wizard’s hat. They kept appearing and disappearing as the Wizard turned his head.

“Now why is he looking backward all the time?” thought David. And then he understood. The Wizard was holding the wooden ball and coaxing the table. Reluctantly it trotted behind him, like a stubborn donkey led by a carrot.

David ran to the Arch and blocked the doorway. D. Dog growled at his heels. “Oh, please,” he said, “you can’t bring that out. If someone saw, we might be arrested….”

“My dear boy,” said the Wizard, “I’ve never been arrested here before. And I always take the table out for its Sunday constitutional. We usually do it at midnight, when there aren’t many children about. It will go after any bouncing ball it sees.”

“Its constitutional?” exclaimed David.

“Why, this table needs exercise as much as any dog. After all, it has more legs, hasn’t it?” said the Wizard.

And that was that.

With some misgivings David and D. Dog followed Leilah behind the Wizard as he paraded the table around the park. Just as Leilah had predicted, none of the old men or the children or the young men with beards or the young women with long hair noticed. And the policemen were too busy buying ice-cream cones from the vendor at the corner of the Square. One fat lady fainted when she saw them, but then it was her first time in New York. And since she fainted in front of four native New Yorkers who were arguing about city politics, no one noticed her or bothered to pick her up. Finally she found some smelling salts in her pocketbook, dusted herself off, and went home to Iowa where she told everyone about the sights of New York and no one believed her.

Eventually the table must have had enough exercise, because the Wizard led them out of the park, through the Arch, and onto a block where the art show was in progress.

“This is fine,” said Leilah approvingly. “We ought to get a lot of signatures here.”

The Wizard signaled the table and it settled on the corner of the block. Then Leilah spread the papers on the table, putting pencils within easy reach of any interested signers.

“If we’re lucky,” Leilah said, “someone who is running for office will be down shaking hands. We can get them to sign, too. It’s always best to have some of them—stop it!”

Leilah ended in a shriek as the table stepped on her foot.

The Wizard smiled apologetically and kicked at the table leg. He missed, but the table settled down. “Sometimes it gets in its own way,” he said. “Too many legs, you know. Thank you,” he added, as two bearded young men with guitars stopped to sign the petition before they entered the park.

“See?” said Leilah smugly.

David shrugged.

A half-dozen well-dressed people passed the table without signing. They stared at the Wizard’s clothes and one lady giggled.

“See?” said David smugly.

“Tourists,” said Leilah. “They don’t know any better.”

A skinny man with eyeglasses that pinched his nose and a long, well-waxed moustache bent over the table. He looked at its legs. He knocked on its top. He examined its underside. This so irritated the table that it kicked the man in the shins. “Ow!” screamed the man and hopped up and down on one foot for a while, which made his glasses pop off his nose and his Adam’s apple wobble about. Then he bent down to see who had kicked him. There was nothing within reach but two table legs, so he stood up and looked around. Then he turned to the Wizard.