Character intro for Max the Greek.
“This is your card, is it not?”
These words were delivered in a ringing, confident tone and a terrible fake Eastern European accent.
“No.”
The magician’s victim looked at the tall, thin saturnine man with a pencilled on Cesar Romero moustache who was holding up his card with a mixture of pity and contempt. It seemed that he just couldn’t get his routine to work right. He’d picked three cards already, and they were all wrong. It was beginning to get embarrassing. The man waving the card looked a little nonplussed, but forged on relentlessly.
“I said ‘is it not?’ yes? Take it, take it now” he said, handing the wrong card over face down. “We do this old-fashioned way.” Waving his hands and muttering, then snapping his fingers, he said “now see. Is your card, yes?”
The victim turned over the card looked up with a smirk, then quickly doubletaked down. He was holding his card, and he gaped speechlessly while the magician took it from his hand, put it back in the deck, and swaggered smugly off.
Max the Greek was a bit of an oxymoron. Despite looking like he was born impeccably mustachioed with a deck of shaved cards in his hands, he’d actually had a previous career as a successful advertising creative director. After launching his own agency and reaping the rewards of his initial success, he was found by his secretary under his desk one morning, clutching a bottle of whisky in one hand, a photo of his ex-wife and children in the other, and sobbing uncontrollably.
While not a terribly unusual occurrence in the world of advertising, Max’s breakdown led to an unexpected moment of clarity. Forsaking the money, stress and glamour of the ad world for a life of indigent magic, he rested content in knowing that now he could continue to lie to people for fun and money, but now they actually appreciated it. Reborn in his mid-forties as “Max the Greek, the mediocre magician”, he indulged his aversion to winter by traveling between his home and Shanghai annually. Despite his chosen name, he was neither a “Max” nor a Greek. He was in fact named Dougie McPherson, and he was born and raised in Australia. He had inherited his swarthy Mediterranean looks from his Merchant Marine father, and his Scottish last name from his father’s erstwhile best friend, who had in fact been married to his mother at the time of Max’s conception.
This made both geneaology and family dinners somewhat awkward.
At the moment, he was doing his regular Australian gig, which was harassing customers with card tricks in a swanky Perth restaurant. It is worth noting that what passes for swank in Perth is quite flexible, and the proprietor of the restaurant had quite wisely decided that Max was a better investment than a gypsy violinist, despite his amazing tendency to make gin and tonics disappear and seduce the more feminine members of the audience.
However, he was approaching the beginning of the winter season, and soon Max would have to start looking for Shanghai work. As he did every year, he’d drop his old friend and collaborator the Walrus an email as soon as he got off-shift, see what was shaking in the ‘Hai.