Author's Note: This story is dedicated to my dear friend who made me watch 'Penn and Teller Get Killed' on acid. Twice. You know who you are. This is totally your fault.
Nobody believes me, but when Teller speaks, boy he can really say a mouthful, and not even necessarily with his mouth.
I mean, don't get me wrong, when he actually talks he can say as much as your average Tom, Dick or Harry. And boy I still get a kick out of how the regular marks and markettes go apeshit when they hear his voice. Of course Teller can talk! He sure didn't get through teaching high school latin using hand gestures. The first time we met still stands out in my mind as one of the most memorable five-hour conversations about politics I've ever had. And I talk about politics a lot.
What I mean to say is, Teller is one of the few people I've ever met who can say more than I do in less time. No word a lie.
Case in point. March of 1989. The late-night years. We were en route to New York when our plane was grounded in Detroit for mechanical problems. It was late and the next flight wasn't until morning, so we booked a shitty airport hotel room and proceeded to get drunk on tiny hotel liquor bottles. We had friends in Detroit, but we weren't exactly in the mood for social pleasantries.
The flight delay had been the perfect shitty cap to a perfectly shitty day. A show deal fell through at the last minute, for no good reason, so we were looking at a couple of months of unexpected free time. On top of that, someone called Teller a mime again.
He was understandably pissed off about that. I was pissed off on his behalf. And we were both pretty riled by the blow-off we'd received. Not like back in the day, when every rejection had us questioning the worth of our act and wondering if we should pack it in and get real jobs. It was bad, but not that bad. Just a setback, I kept trying to remind myself.
Then, every time I opened my mouth all that would come out were vile curses aimed at those producers, their ancestors, their descendants, their stylists and their genitals.
Teller was always good at handling these things quietly, but me, I had to rant.
So I was ranting. It was a rant for the both of us, really. Teller listened. He's a very good listener. He can be talkative if you get him going on the right subject, but it's a coincidental fact that he's exceedingly good at *not* talking, and sometimes I just don't fucking shut up. Tonight was one of those nights.
So the rant. It was beautiful. A work of art. It perfectly and bombastically captured all the ways in which the fuckers who turned us down weregnat-minded apes with less intelligence and personal attractiveness than a week-old dead moose.
Teller nodded sagely at intervals and took tidy sips of his scotch. He had produced a deck of cards and was lazily shuffling them with one hand.
Putting his scotch down, Teller put both hands to the task and started doing magic. Sometimes that was his way of getting back at the world.
Usually I hated it when Teller did magic while he was drunk. He could do tricks drunk just as well if not better as when he was sober. That stuff was like breathing to him. The kicker was that he would come up with the most amazing new tricks when he was drunk, but fuck if we could remember how he did them in the morning.
In my ranting frenzy I'd paced and strutted my legs out from under me, so I sat down beside Teller on his bed, switching to violent hand gestures to emphasize my words.
Shuffling his cards, folding them, weaving them, dreaming up God knows what clever thing, when he glanced over at me.
Now a lot of people think they can read Teller when he's not talking - that's one of the great things about his act. He smiles that fucking Mona Lisa smile and to the audience he's thinking whatever they want him to be thinking.
Me, I can actually read Teller when he's not talking.
That look said, You are dead sexy when you're pissed off.
While my mouth dribbled a few vestigial insults, my mind reeled. Finally, my mouth caught up to my brain and I sputtered a heartfelt, "What the hell did you just say Teller?"
Teller's attention had shifted back on his cards. He looked up.
"I didn't say anything." Said Teller.
"Oh, don't place innocent with me, Mister. Just because we're sitting together in the same bed and we're both a little drunk and you know I get horny when I'm drunk does not mean you can get away with thinking lewd and lascivious thoughts about my admittedly hot, manly body."
Teller raised one eyebrow. The other eyebrow followed as I continued to stare him down. I was really serious! Finally, he pursed his lips, looked down and shrugged, shaking his head in the universal gesture of dismissal.
It was a way of brushing aside his actions without actually admitting to them, but I let it slide. I was more than eager to drop the subject, and there were a few producers I hadn't sent up properly yet. I continued.
Teller made magic with his cards, and I watched his hands while he worked, in a kind of trance created by my own creative curses and his graceful movements. I *knew* all the tricks, but even I still couldn't see it when he worked them.
I was so busy swearing and watching those clever hands that I almost didn't catch the expression on his face when he looked up at me again.
I shut up. For a few seconds I was mute. Speechless.
His eyes lowered to his hands and he smiled that Mona Lisa smile again, cool as a cucumber. Boy, he was good.
"Teller, what the fuck? How can you just. . ." I reached down and stopped his cardly antics. He looked up and blinked. He played befuddled so very well, but I could see right through him.
"Will you stop that?" I took a deep breath. "Yeah, I know that I told you about all those times I experimented back in clown college, but I also told you how I would never take it up full time because I love pussy way too much. You. . .with me. . .it would make things too weird. We would end up arguing about what curtains to put up and what kind of kitchen appliances we should buy. Don't we argue enough already? As much as I might want to, we just can't go down that road, okay? Okay?"
Teller stared at me through the whole speech. He could guard his expression like a spook guarding the I'd finished saying my piece, he looked down, as though searching for words. Finally, he just smiled, and shook his head. He folded his cards back into order and put them on the nightstand.
"It's been a long night, and I'm going to bed now. Goodnight, Penn." He said, turning to undress and get into his own bed.
I drank the last dregs of my tiny bottle. It didn't make a dent in my sobriety like watching Teller take off his tie.
"You know, Teller, when you're right, you're right."
"Right about what. . .?" He said, before I pulled him towards me for a big, sloppy kiss.
"Oh." He said, flushed and smirking, when he got a chance to come up for air. "That."
That was the last thing either of us said for awhile.
So yeah, we did it. Just the once. Well, it was just the one night, but it was more than once if you know what I mean. No, I'm not a man who likes to brag, and I certainly don't kiss and tell.
All I'm saying was that it was hot.
Yeah, we kept the neighbors up, alright. We popped a few springs on the hotel mattress. Hey, it's no secret that I'm a pretty vigorous guy. And like people have been saying about Teller for years – where the hell did a soft-spoken Latin teacher from Philadelphia learn how to do those things?
And the rest is history. There were other shows. Better ones. We were poised on the edge of our own big, bright futures.
Teller was right. We've always had this weird thing. Hell, even the audience can sense it. It's one of the reasons our act works so well. Chemistry, man. Fucking undeniable. Inevitable. Ineffable. Goddamn magic.
As Teller said, though not in so many words. In no words at all, in fact. As he's so good at doing.
Fin.