Peanut challenged me to write something about Houdini. She wanted it to be about. . .

This is the tale of the search for Harry Houdini's Speedo. Harry had a lot of trunks – maybe we'll find one in there.

1926 was a sad year for the Weisz family. The escape artists from Budapest – by way of Appleton, Wisconsin – had lost their most famous member. Dash had lost his mentor, his friend, his beloved brother.

'The show must go on, Dash,' said Harry's wife Bess. 'You know that's what he wanted.'

So Dash put up the posters, for all the world to see:

'That'll draw 'em,' he said. 'Keep the family name alive.' He looked around the storeroom at all the trunks.

Bess patted his shoulder. 'It's not like you don't know the tricks,' she comforted him. 'You were his best pupil.'

Dash squeezed her arm. 'Harry was the best,' he said. 'But vaudeville's not just about the stunts. I'm pretty good with the patter.'

Bess nodded. 'You are, my boy, so don't you worry. You two didn't turn out bad for rabbi's kids.' And off she went.

Dash stood looking at the sad, retreating figure of the petite woman as she tripped away in her size one shoes. He chuckled. The one that got away, he thought to himself. He'd seen her first, but Harry'd married her. Oh, well: he was married now, too, and unlike Bess and Harry, a father, and they'd all been happy. But he was going to miss his brother, and Bess was going to miss her husband.

He bent down to open the trunk – the one his brother and Bess used for 'Metamorphosis', the great escape trick.

I'll drum some business up with this one, he thought. Let's get a truck. . .

So he did. And he performed the trick, with a little help from his lovely young assistant.

There were tricks in those trunks. There were locks, and burlap bags, and chains. But, well, there wasn't any underwear. No bathing suits, either. So the search for Houdini's Speedo goes on.

Time passed. Ted Hardeen, 'Dash' to his friends and family, kept on going. Bess tried to contact Harry in the afterlife, but without success.

'You know Harry didn't believe in it,' said Dash. 'I doubt he would show up, anyway. He'd keep quiet, just to spite Arthur Conan Doyle.'

'You're probably right,' Bess said.

On the tenth anniversary of Harry's death – Halloween – Bess held a big séance, just as she had promised him. True to form, Harry refused to talk to anybody. Sadly, Bess blew out the candle that had burned for a decade. 'Ten years is long enough to wait for any man,' she said.

A lot of people talked about 'The Chinese Water Torture'.

Here's the Chinese Water Torture story. But notice: he's not wearing a Speedo.

In World War II, Ted entertained the troops, as Harry had the Doughboys. He even starred in a movie, just like his brother. Finally, like his brother, he passed on.

More time passed. In 2001, on Halloween night, George Hardeen was invited by a bunch of enthusiasts to attend a séance in honour of his late great-uncle Harry. George didn't know all that much about his grandfather's family – in fact, he hadn't known he was related to the famous Houdini until he was a teenager – but he was pleased to come along.

True to form, Harry wasn't talking. After about half an hour, he reported, 'They threw in the towel.' The rest of the evening was spent in a bar.

George thanked the nice people, put on his cowboy hat, and went home to Tuba City, Arizona, where his horses and his dogs don't care who he's related to. Neither, apparently, does his Navajo wife. Their daughters are members of the tribe.

And if anybody in that household has ever stored a Speedo in one of Harry Houdini's trunks, they're not talking about it.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

15.10.12 Front Page

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