It still freaked me out that he just called me “Harry.” I thought about calling Zeke and telling him to come over to my house right away. It would be great if he could witness one of my text sessions with Houdini. Then he would know I’m not making it all up. But it would be too risky to call Zeke. I’d have to go downstairs, make the call on our landline, and explain to my mother why I needed to have Zeke come over so late at night. I decided against it.
“I’m here,” I tapped on the keypad.
“REMEMBER ME?” Houdini texted.
“Of course,” I tapped. I thought of adding an exclamation mark at the end, but I didn’t want to let him know how excited I was.
“DO PEOPLE REMEMBER ME?”
That threw me. He really wanted to be remembered. It seemed important to him. And Houdini was remembered. He’s been dead for close to a hundred years, but whenever somebody walks by my house and sees the plaque by the front door, they tell me they know who he was. Even little kids know about the great Harry Houdini. He was sort of like Elvis, JFK, and Marilyn Monroe. Everybody knows who they were even though they’ve been gone for a long time.
Houdini’s name had even entered the language. When you say that somebody “pulled a Houdini,” everybody knows it means he or she escaped from a seemingly inescapable situation.
“Everybody remembers you,” I tapped.
A pause. And then…
“HOW IS LIFE?”
“Okay,” I tapped.
I thought about asking him “How is death?” But that would have been obnoxious.
Little by little, we were getting to know each other. It wasn’t like Houdini to make small talk. I had the sense that he had a message to deliver, or there was something he wanted me to do for him.
“BUT LIFE COULD BE BETTER, RIGHT?” he texted.
“I guess,” I tapped.
Sure. Life can always be better. My mom could win the lottery. That would make life better. I could become the centerfielder for the Mets. That would make life better. What was he driving at? My screen was blank for a while, and then…
“WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ESCAPE FROM?”
Weird question. What was he talking about? Handcuffs? Jail cells? I didn’t want to escape from anything.
“Huh?” I tapped.
“EVERYBODY WANTS TO ESCAPE FROM SOMETHING,” he texted. “IT’S HUMAN NATURE. WE ARE NEVER SATISFIED WITH WHAT WE HAVE IN THE PRESENT. MAN HAS ALWAYS DREAMED OF ESCAPING FROM WHERE HE IS PRESENTLY.”
Houdini’s words kept scrolling up my screen.…
“FREEDOM AND LIBERTY ARE WHAT AMERICA IS ALL ABOUT,” he said. “WHEN I DID AN ESCAPE, IT GAVE PEOPLE HOPE. IT MADE THEM BELIEVE THEY COULD ESCAPE FROM THEIR DISMAL LIVES.”
I didn’t know how to respond. My life wasn’t dismal. I was pretty happy, actually. I felt like tapping out “What’s your point?” But again, that would seem obnoxious.
“THERE IS ONLY ONE THING I COULD NOT ESCAPE FROM,” he texted.
“What was that?” I tapped.
“DEATH,” he texted. “I SPENT MY LIFE ESCAPING FROM DEATH. BUT WHEN IT CAME FOR ME, THERE WAS NO WAY TO ESCAPE.”
Now he was creeping me out. I decided not to reply. I’d wait and see what else he had to say. But he didn’t text anything more. I stared at the blank screen on my phone. Finally, I couldn’t resist responding.
“Why did you contact me?” I finally tapped.
“THERE IS SOMETHING THAT I WANT TO DISCUSS WITH YOU,” he texted.
Aha. It was about time he got to the point.
“What?” I tapped.
“METAMORPHOSIS.”
I knew that word. It’s a fancy way to say “change.” I had learned in science class that many animal species in the world go through some kind of metamorphosis during their lifetime. Caterpillars change into butterflies. Tadpoles change into frogs. But I also knew that Houdini wasn’t talking about the metamorphosis of an animal species.
Metamorphosis was one of Houdini’s earliest and most famous tricks. He began performing it with his wife Bess back in 1895. It was a big part of his act for the next thirty years.
Here’s how it worked:
A trunk was hauled out onto the stage. You know what I mean by a trunk, right? It’s not a suitcase. It’s bigger. The trunk was more than big enough to hold a man. Houdini would open the trunk and climb into a large black flannel sack that was inside. Bess would put heavy tape over Houdini’s mouth. Then she would tie Houdini’s hands behind his back with rope. Bess would make a knot in the top of the sack and seal it with wax. Then she would close the trunk’s lid. Then she would lock the trunk with six padlocks. Finally, she would wrap a rope around it and knot it tightly.
Simply escaping from the trunk would have been pretty remarkable, but what Houdini did was even more amazing.
Bess would wheel out a large curtain and place it in front of the trunk so the audience couldn’t see it anymore. Then she would climb up on top of the trunk and clap her hands three times. On the third clap, the curtain would open, and instead of Bess standing on top of the trunk, it was Houdini!
To completely blow the audience’s mind, Houdini would then jump down off the trunk and remove the rope, unlock the padlocks, and open the lid. Out popped Bess from inside the flannel sack, with the knot and seal unbroken.
How did they do it? Audiences were so stunned by Metamorphosis that many times they didn’t even applaud. It was sort of like when Houdini was locked in a trunk and thrown into the river. Nobody could explain how he escaped. The only logical explanation—and some people believed this—was that Harry and Bess had found a way to deconstruct the atoms of their bodies so they could switch places.
The most amazing thing about Metamorphosis is not that the Houdinis did it, but how fast they did it. The whole trick seemed to take just three seconds. One moment Bess was standing on top
