About two months ago, Barb Heller asked me to do a gig in a variety show at the Edwards Opera House.

The opera house is a beautifully restored 19th century building, a performer’s dream-come-true. It was my vision of heaven, except — best of all — to get there, I wouldn’t have to die. That said, to get there, I would have to stay glued to my Rand-McNally, because if there’s a middle of nowhere, Edwards is it.

Anyhoo, once I knew I had the gig, I had to figure out what tricks I’d do. It took no time to choose all but my closing trick. I wanted to end with my All-Time Best, but unfortunately my ATB was linking rings. I say “unfortunately” because while it is a boffo routine, I hadn’t done it in years — so many years that I’d be starting from scratch. Even thinking about it gave me a case of the screaming abdabs.

But to me, a lot of situations boil down to two possibilities: Either you think about something, or you do it. And the longer you think about it, the less you’re doing it. So rather than ponder endlessly over doing linking rings, a la Hamlet, I decided just to go for it.

Once I started practicing I found out it wasn’t as hard to do as I thought it’d be — it was a whole lot harder. But so what? I’d either practice, and keep practicing, till I mastered it, or I’d give up and instead end with a less impressive trick. The only other possibility was going ahead and being so-sol-ish. And while that’s easy to achieve, it’s no consolation if you aspire to excellence.

I practiced and practiced and, as you might expect, I improved. But only incrementally, because of the routine’s difficulty.

By “routine,” I don’t mean the act of doing something over and over, but an exact choreography of moves. In magic, a trick is just a quick bit with a move or two — a coin vanish, a silk production, a knot suddenly appearing in a rope and so on. On the other hand, a routine is an extended series of moves that have to be done in a specific order and in a specific way.

Routines can be fairly short and simple … or long and complex. My ring routine is the latter. I never counted, but I think it has at least 150 separate moves, all of which require split-second timing and perfect execution. It also can’t look difficult to do, because if it does, there’d be nothing magical about it, right?

So, starting as hopeless bungler, with a week to go I was looking pretty good. Not a master, by any means, but pretty good. Unfortunately, for me, pretty good is not good enough. But it was too late to look for an option, so I just soldiered on.

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The missing link

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On Friday, the day before the gig, I’d accepted that I was as ready as I’d ever be, and quit thinking about it. Instead, I just rehearsed it repeatedly … and mindlessly. I rehearsed early morning, mid-morning and early afternoon, and all was going well until late afternoon. Then, in what was supposed to be my last rehearsal of the day, the bottom dropped out.

I use five rings in my routine and it involves a lot of handling, linking one with another, then unlinking them, handing it out for inspection and on and on. And at one point in my rehearsal, I put one ring down (to simulate handing it out) and when I went to pick it back up, I suddenly had no idea what I was looking at.

It was a perfect moment of cognitive dissonance, that feeling of total confusion from having two conflicting feelings at the same time. Kinda like stripping your mental transmission so you ain’t goin’ nowhere.

In this case, one thought was the ring I picked up had somehow broken and had a half-inch gap in it. The other thought was, with only a day to go, such a thing could absolutely NOT happen to me.

I stared at the ring, gape-mouthed and dumbfounded. I turned it this way and that. I blinked a bunch of times.

And guess what? Yep — the ring had indeed broken and, to use an old nautical metaphor, I was up the crick without a paddle. That gap in the ring was not a mere gap — it was the Crack of Doom.

Here’s the thing: My rings are over 100 years old and they’ve had the livin’ bejammers pounded out of them. So I could understand one of them breaking. But understanding it had nothing to do with getting it repaired. But how to repair a now non-linking ring, on 3:15 Friday afternoon, a day before The Big Gig?

There was only one way to do it … and without wasting a second, I started on it.

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Mind the gap

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First, I downed a fistful of Digitalis. Then I grabbed the ring and sprinted out to my car, fired it up and peeled out my driveway, leaving behind a 75-yard strip of Firestone’s finest, I tore down LaPan Highway, headed to Madden’s garage and the one person in town who could save my bacon — Mike Madden.

Mike, with his brother Bill, is co-owner of Madden’s garage, and the head mechanic. It’s a job he’s held for decades, which means he knows all the ins and outs of car and truck repair. So he’s seen, and has cured, about every vehicular malfunction and mess known to man. To put it in a biblical context, he is the head mechanic on the Road to Armageddon. The main difference is at the end of Mike’s road, there lies no redemption, just more vehicular wreckage, ravages and repairs.

Mike is quiet, self-possessed, easy-going and operates on one low-key and nonstop speed. He is not one to get rattled, have outbursts or even visible signs of annoyance. On top of that, he has a wry sense of humor and a low-wattage twinkle in his eye. And best of all, he’s a friend.

I walked in the back of the garage, no doubt wigged-out and wild-eyed and went up to Mike, ring in hand.

All I said was, “Mike, I need help,” stifling a sob. Then I handed him the ring.

He looked at it, nodded and then disappeared in the main room, where I heard him start a grinder. A minute later, he came back, towing the welding tanks. Next, still saying nothing, he put the ring in a vise and brazed it.

When it had cooled, he took it out of the vise, looked at it a bit and mumbled something.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“It’s crooked,” he said. “Gotta be redone.”

Crooked, I thought. Redone, I thought. I’m about to lose my lunch, I thought.

He put it back in the vise, heated it up till it was red-hot and the braze melted and the ring was once again busted. After it had cooled, he put it in the vise. Then he spent a bunch of time making sure it was in perfect alignment, twisting it this way and that, and satisfied all was well, he brazed it again. Once it cooled, he filed it down again and looked at it, first from one angle, then another. At no time did he speed up, slow down, frown, sigh, grunt, smile or say a word. Finally, satisfied with the result, handed it to me.

It was as good as its former self — which is more than I can say for me, being freaked, peaked, and jazzed with enough adrenaline to power the Sixth Fleet.

I’d already had my wallet out, and after I thanked him profusely, I asked how much I owed him.

With that odd little twinkle in his eye, all he said was, “The show must go on.”

I thanked him again, and then went into town and got him a gift card at the Downhill Grill.

As I said, he’s a friend.

And one thing I don’t do is take advantage of my friends — at least not too much.