Column Chronicles: The Amazing Raymond Copperhead, Magician, part two

The Amazing Raymond Copperhead, Magician, part two

Frank Cotolo
January 9, 2025

"Raymond Copperhead became more popular after his arrest for making a parked car disappear," said Bix Baxter, author of a Copperhead biography. "People loved his outlaw magic. That's what they called it because Raymond never returned anything he made disappear."

His dad was overjoyed with Raymond's success and for making a lot of money from it. Raymond was happy because he made his dad happy.

"Raymond," said Baxter, "made an entire baseball team disappear during a Major League game. The team's manager had to forfeit the game after a brief search failed to find the players."

In the year that followed Raymond's performances included the disappearences of bridges, hotel lobbies, marathon runners, television stations, aisles for non-fiction books in libraries, a banjo string factory, half of the trees in the Black Forest, the costumes of ballerinas in a performance of "The Nutcracker," six of the cars and drivers during The Indianapolis 500, and the west coast border of Libya (considered his best illusion to that date).

"One day at the height of his stardom," said Baxter, "his mom showed up and got into an argument with his dad because he never send her money to survive and that forced her to take a menial job as a steer dentist at a rodeo. Raymond was happy to see her but his dad insisted Raymond make her disappear because he refused to give her any money."

Raymond took his mom's side and threatened his dad with a 10 percent decrease in his 60 percent share of Raymond's earnings.

"You greedy little twerp," said his dad. "I made you a star and this is how you treat me?"

Raymond responded in a rage building for years. He hugged his mom and covered her eyes while making his dad disappear. When she realized what Raymond did she said, "I never liked him, you know?"

"From that day on," Baxter said, "Raymond could not do another disappearence illusion. Except for himself and his mom, whom he cared for until the day she died."

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.