When Jerome’s father died, his mother started visiting mediums and spiritualists, and Jerome would come along and sit in the room while his father’s messages were conveyed to the land of the living. This was the beginning of his interest in crystal balls, velvet cushions, bright scarves, and other accoutrements of magic. Before he was even a teenager, Jerome knew that communication with the dead was a confidence game, one that he would never play. But he had taught himself card tricks and the art of palming a coin. He entertained his friends by cutting and restoring ropes or making water poured into a cone of paper disappear.

Girls liked the tricks. It didn’t hurt that he was handsome, that his long-fingered hands were pleasant to look at, that he knew how to smile for everyone the smile that was meant just for them. He earned his college tuition money by doing magic shows at parties, and then developed a routine of cabinet tricks with his pretty girlfriend. They performed at the local arts center and drew big enough crowds to earn the interest of a booking agent. They did variations of Assistant’s Revenge, Mismade Girl, and the Cabinet Escape.

After one show, a man came backstage to say that it wasn’t a bad show, but that with a little thought, it could be great. The man was none other than Vaclav Storek, the Storek, who turned out to have retired with a few untried ideas. His suggestions made possible all sorts of novelties, including a variation of the Mismade Girl using an additional pretty assistant. One girl dressed all in green, the other in purple, and when the cabinet sections were moved and the divided girls restored, the assistants both wore a mix of green and purple as if they had been scrambled and reassembled in a new configuration of parts.

Storek taught Jerome the really big tricks, and together they developed illusions that hadn’t been imagined yet by anyone else. The act appeared on the late-night television shows, then on hour-long network specials. Jerome always acknowledged Storek’s contributions at the end of each show, called him a great teacher and master of masters. “There is still one secret I haven’t shown you yet,” Storek would say.

The old man died without showing him the final secret. The show went on. Jerome worked his way through a great many beautiful assistants and finally married one. He started a family. His permanent show in Las Vegas and the occasional television special kept the money flowing in. “As if by magic,” he liked to say.

He had everything. The house, the cars, the wife, the new pretty assistants. Applause from a packed house for five shows a week. Everything.

He drank. He lingered in his dressing room with a bottle longer and longer after each performance. He had built his life on illusion, which meant that he saw through illusions better than most people. Applause no longer fed him. Money was numbers written on ephemeral paper. His wife was getting older, and even if he divorced her for a younger woman, that wouldn’t buy him any more time as a young man. Some nights he would not emerge from his dressing room until everyone else had gone. He would turn on the one spot for the center of the stage, roll the great black and gold cabinet into the light, and open the door to look at the darkness inside. Someday he would enter that darkness. Someday, he would leave everything behind.

One night, Jerome not only drank, but took pills. Not enough to do him harm, he thought, but he staggered on his way to the technician’s controls for the lights. He stumbled as he made his way to the stage. His ears buzzed. For a moment, he thought he heard voices, but he was alone.

He rolled the cabinet into its position under the spotlight. He opened the door and peered into the blackness. He got in. He crouched down, then curled himself into the fetal position. In some places, they buried the dead curled up like this. He exhaled and did not inhale immediately, experimenting with what it was like not to breathe. This was the one real thing. Everything pointed to this.

“Yes,” said the unmistakable voice of Storek in his ear. “The last secret.”

Stories by Bruce Holland Rogers have won two Micro Awards, two World Fantasy Awards, and two Nebula Awards. He teaches writing at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts MFA program.

Linimer’s fingers caressed the brass dial. Six plus four minus one choose four. The engine rang out its answer, one note in a mechanical symphony. Sixty combinators danced along the face of the machine, up and down the Hall of Computation.

Nine choose four and nine choose five is ten choose five. Six hundred fingers flew over the cogs and stops. Slanting sunbeams streamed through the high windows, making gnomons of the workers and gold dust of the whirling motes. It was evening.

The twenty-four-minute whistle blew and Linimer gave way to his four-six replacement. He was trembling. This was the night he had chosen to reveal his secret double life.

Gerson, his supervisor, was waiting at the exit. “There you are,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Ready?”

“Y-yes,” said Linimer, staring hard at the floor and trying on several expressions in turn. “I west-end the north living quarter,” he said.

“You wha-a-a-at?” Gerson bleated.

“The northwestern quarter. Where I live.”

“Oh, oh. Right, then. Lead the way.”

No Country Club for Old Men was built at the bottom of a small mountain, much like everything else in Martinsville, Virginia. The town had more hills than convenience stores and the one leading up to Bob Woods’ country club was particularly steep. I biked to work and often tried to pedal the last stretch. I usually failed and ended up walking the rest of the way. Tonight was no different.

A little before ten I parked my bike beside the hedges lining the driveway leading up to the club. I wiped the sweat from my face with my shirt and looked up at the mountain. Spiked and bald at the top, the rest of it was ragged with trees, its bottom hidden by the club and the only palm trees in Virginia. The sounds coming from inside were loud; the day’s party was going late.

Woods had made it clear I was not to interact with any of his guests, so I went around the side and waited by the dumpster. It wasn’t my area of choice, but it was the only place away from doors and windows. I tried to pass the time by picking up on conversations drifting from inside, but I couldn’t make much of the excited chatter. With an occasional popping noise I imagined champagne bottles and overflowing glasses, the kind that looked like upside down China-hats. I envisioned people dancing and singing karaoke in one corner and drunkenly discussing politics in another.

The gaggle of laughter bunched together and began to move the length of the club, towards the front. They were finally leaving. I checked the time on my phone. It was near eleven; I had been waiting a full hour. I stuck my head around the corner a safe distance and watched the group as they exited. Woods’ guests were surprisingly mixed in age. There were some who couldn’t be much older than myself, and others well into their fifties and possible sixties. Their ages weren’t the most intriguing, however. It was how they all seemed to enjoy the same drunken high on life. Their intoxication was almost palatable in the night air; I thought I could smell the alcohol coming off of them. I watched as the last stumbled to their pretentious cars and fondled their wives or mistresses.

When I was sure I wouldn’t be seen, I rounded the corner and found Woods standing at the entrance. He had a drink in one hand and his wife’s fingers in the other. Mrs. Woods, however, stood to the side, as far away as she could without their arms forming a bridge. Though she stared blankly in my direction, I doubted she noticed me. Mrs. Woods couldn’t have been older than thirty-five and I only thought that high because of her husband’s gray hairs, not hers. Her face was done up like a doll’s and no matter the weather, occasion, or season, black leather pants always hugged her thighs and left little to the imagination. She ‘could get it,’ as my friends would say. And judging by the lifestyle of Bob Woods, she probably did. She puffed on a cigarette. Her husband watched his departing guests with a euphoric smirk.

I approached slowly. I hoped someone would notice and acknowledge me. No such luck.

“Another successful night, Mr. Woods?” I asked with a half laugh that held more anxiety than humor.

Woods looked at me suddenly, as if I had intruded on the privacy of his thoughts. He raised his brow and his eyes searched my face for recognition. He soon found it, and his countenance turned to one of annoyance. By now, this was routine. To him, I represented the end of his fun, even if only for a night.

I shifted uneasily as he stared at me. He let go of his wife’s hand and motioned for her to go and wait at the car. She did.

“I want the place spotless by morning,” he said. “And strawberries in tomorrow’s shake. The week’s pay is by the kitchen.” He tittered and took a sip of his drink. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

“I’ll have everything exactly like you like it, Mr. Woods,” I said. “Is there anything else I can do? It’s no problem at all, sir.”

He grunted, began to leave, and then stopped. His smirk came back. “Tell me . . .” He circled his drink in the air. As if he were actually trying to remember my name.

“Tommy, sir.”

His smile widened. “Thomas. Tell me, Thomas, how old are you, again?”

“Eighteen, sir,” I said.

“How does it feel? To be eighteen.”

From the look on his face, I thought a sudden pain had struck Mr. Woods. Then I realized he was trying his hardest to hold in his laughter. With that realization came another: the man was clearly drunk. More so than I had seen yet.

“It’s . . . it feels good, sir,” I said. I tried to think of something witty and came up with nothing. “I can’t drink yet, though, so that sucks.”

Great one, I thought. All of a sudden the cool August night felt hot and sticky.

Woods sipped his wine and mulled over this. He swayed to one side and then the other. As he did, I glimpsed the inside of the club behind him. Now it was my turn to hold in my reaction: the place was a mess.

When I looked back at Woods, his urge to laugh seemed to have passed.

“Good boy,” he said and patted me on the shoulder. He stumbled past me and off the porch. “Drink all you want,” he called back. “Tonight is for the young!”

When Sarah was not-quite-two and I was not-quite-twelve, she ran headlong off the side of a pier that jutted over the frothy waves and shattered rocks of a beach on the West Coast. Or she would have, if I had not grabbed her shirt collar in the moment between her launch into space and her inability to fly.

I stood by the pier rails and was in the perfect position to grab her, but even so I made a near-miss of it. She was serious about jumping. Swimming. Flying. I screamed her name and hugged her close, then pushed her away, my hands on her shoulders, shaking her.

“What were you doing?” I said, not wondering if a kid that young could answer that question.

She sighed. “Nother me,” she said, pointing to the rocks below.

All I saw was seagulls screaming away from wave caps.

“Sarah,” I said, shaking my head.

She threw her chubby arms around my neck and planted a kiss on my cheek. “Kay-kay, Linda,” she said. “Nother-me!”

I laughed, astonished. Stupid fearless baby. I hugged her in return, tight. Maybe I cried a little, too.

Sarah’s run caught our parents flat-footed. The constant background hiss of their angry conversation cut off in mid-accusation. They rushed to catch up with us. Mom wrenched Sarah away.

“What are you doing to her?” she screamed.

Dad gave me his #1 considering stare. He waited to speak until Mom and Sarah walked a few yards away.

“Fair leap, that,” he said. “Saved us the cost of a funeral.”

I stood up.

“Dad,” I said. “I caught her.” I hoped for praise. Didn’t I deserve it?

Dad had gotten quiet since he and Mom began arguing. I guess he reserved all his words for her. He didn’t say anything, just turned away from me. He walked fast and grabbed Sarah’s hand. She beamed up at him.

I followed along behind. They walked in silence until the end of the pier before starting their argument again. Sarah ran back to me and grabbed my hand.

“Sister,” she said.

It looked like you were pretending, like you could just open your eyes and get up off that table and come home with me. It didn’t show that your back was broken in three places and the rear of your skull was crushed. Get up, Tommy! Stop teasing. Don’t make this be real. Don’t let me hear what they’re trying to tell me. But you weren’t teasing and I did hear.

First minutes after they said you were gone, all I could think of was never ever laughing with you again, never again laying with my forehead pressed against yours, my arms around you, your hands traveling down, and me whispering, “Stop! What if Cammie or Jesse wake up?” Funny. First it’s parents we gotta be careful not to wake, then it’s kids.

But then other thoughts came creeping in. What do I do now? How’s my one job gonna keep a roof over me and the kids’ heads, when you and me couldn’t keep up when we had your job as well? Your two jobs.

Damn that second job. If you hadn’t of taken that job, maybe you’d still be here. Just until we get out of debt, you said. Then I’ll quit.

I love that about you, that you’re honorable like that. But nobody can work day and night and day and night without something giving. Just saying you can do it don’t make it so! Work evenings at Catalano’s and then go out roofing with Nick and Hatim in the morning? No problem, piece of cake! You smiled as you said that, but it wore you down, and being tired can be as bad as being drunk. It can make you misstep. Make you fall.

“What do I do now?”

I said the words out loud. They just kind of fell out of my mouth and into the emergency room.

“We’ll need to do an autopsy, and once that’s complete, we can give you a death certificate and you can contact a funeral home,” said the one nurse who was still in the room.

“A funeral home? I can’t even pay for the ambulance. How can I pay for a funeral?”

The tears started spilling out of my eyes again. You just can’t be dead, Tommy. It takes way more money to die than we have.

The lady gave me a thin blue box of tissues and patted me on the back. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Ms. Macy. You know, the county does have an indigent burial program, at the cemetery on Green Street, if you’re truly without means. You’d have to fill out some forms, and there’s an income check.” She said more stuff, but I wasn’t listening, just caught at the end that she’d be back with more information for me and some papers to sign. Then she left me alone with you.

You ever been by that cemetery on Green Street? It’s got a chain-link fence around it, and it’s all gravel and weeds in there. No gravestones or statues or nothing like that, just homemade crosses and fake flowers, like people put by the side of the road where somebody’s died in a car crash. All your hard work–and that’s what you come to in the end?

“Doesn’t seem right, does it.”

It was an older guy, all dressed up, shiny shoes and a suit jacket. He stuck out a hand.