Coming in 2025

 

The Wizard of Coney Island. That’s what my father called himself. If you know where to look, you can still find old posters and billboards advertising his act. When I was twelve, his debts to the Odessa mob had us fleeing Brighton Beach, Coney Island, and everything I knew as home. We settled in Las Vegas where he recast himself as a David Blaine and Criss Angel style performer.

 

He got his own residency, some TV specials, and dominated social media. Life was good until he started gambling again.

 

The last time I saw my father he was stepping off the roof of the hotel and walked on air another twenty feet. While his adoring fans watched him perform this miracle, he held a large blue cloth over his head, let it drop, and disappeared. He fell into a hole in the sky and out of my life.

 

I returned to New York, became a cop, and moved on with my life… and then I began to hear his voice in my sleep, begging and pleading for help.

 

New York, New York; it’s a Hell of a town.