When I worked at the renaissance faire, I worked at the knife throwing booth, which is a “game” booth where people come up and pay a couple bucks to throw knives at targets on a wall behind me. While this sounds and looks easy, it's actually ridiculously challenging to get the hang of, and my job is to stand there and hurl these knives into the targets so it looks like a piece of cake and people will walk up and want to try it themselves and then proceed to fail miserably and win no (0) prizes. It’s an utter racket for the game company, considering they pay me 50 bucks a day to run the shit and they probably spend about 9 bucks annually on prizes because you need to stick three of the five knives into a star that's less than an inch wide in order to win even a plastic sword. Dealing with all the disappointment those suckers felt could sometimes be grueling.
But there were days when I stood there hucking the knives at the board, the dulled points diving deep into the mangled wood over and over again and I’d have no customers for hours. Sometimes I’d turn around and there’d be like one kid standing there, maybe his family is eating at a bench around the corner or something, and the kid would stand there for maybe a half hour just watching me throw the knife, knowing there’s no way his parents were gonna let him throw a knife, a real knife, a sharp, dirty, metal weapon made in the parent’s minds only for killing, the maiming of flesh, and the kid knows this so he doesn’t even ask.
But the knife throwing is a thing of mystery to the kid, because he has watched movies where ninja-type dudes hurl all sorts of blades straight into people’s skulls all while doing backflips and defending against multiple offending swordsmen with roundhouse kicks simultaneously. The kid has also seen every customer utterly fail at the knife throwing booth, and has also undoubtedly tried to throw his mom’s kitchen knives in secret, probably just at the fence in his backyard, but you can be sure he did it in secret because you know he knows how moms feel about playing war with real knives. Anyways, it is the skill that has the kid mystified. It has proven to be impossible time and time again for the kid, and now here it is, being done by a real person, in front of him. It’s the reality of a person actually doing it, even if I'm not doing flips and sword moves while I’m throwing the knives I am still doing it successfully. The kid has probably already resigned himself to believing that knife throwing is only the stuff of movies and video games, and seeing it here is mesmerizing to the extent of a true "mind-fuck".
Sometimes, if the kid hangs around long enough, I’ll stop to show him the knives, hand them over the booth to him. They’re not what you’d expect a throwing knife to look or feel like. The good ones are shaped like spoons, with a flared blade. There are others that look more like stakes. None of them resemble the classic man-killer. They are different than the kid had imagined. Most surprisingly, they are dull. They are not sharp at all. What makes them stick in the board is the force and decisiveness with which they are thrown. You can stick a heavy butterknife into a tree if you’re good enough. I ask the kid if he wants to try, yes for free, no, you’re cool, don’t worry about your parents. And the kid always looks worried, as if he could get in trouble.
Most of these kids have parents that don’t even let them have toy guns or plastic swords at all, they are forbidden to play the time-honored game of play-war, of running around the block screaming and armed to the teeth like the son of Rambo. The only thing they’re allowed to do is watch it on TV, impitently, as they do a spelling worksheet. These kids take the knife and grasp it, unsure. I show them exactly how to hold it, how to cock your arm back and then channel the energy like an unraveling whip, how to let it drag off the end of your forefinger, the force needed to make the throw stick. I’ll throw one for him, as an example. He’ll see the knife leave my hand in a straight line and drive a half inch deep into the wood, two perfect rotations of the blade, exactly as he imagines it drilling it into an advancing orc or barbarian's head.
The kid will look confident, most of the time. Of course he does, now he’s been given the secret, the knowledge of the art that he has witnessed all other members of his society fail at, he will transcend the boundary between the movies and reality. He will be able to kill a bad guy by throwing a knife. He will brag, so much bragging. He will show other kids in secret in the backyard and they’ll beg him to teach them but he’ll say no, of course, he can’t let them see how truly banal the skill is, how it’s just a matter of practice, how it’s just like hitting a baseball or making a jumpshot. It will be his and his only.
And there in the booth, in the decisive moment where he gains the knowledge of the philosopher kings, the skill of warrior poets, he’ll stand before me and cock his arm back, grasping the knife carefully, take the one decisive step foreward and whip the knife!
But when he whips it, it either flies like a brain-damaged bird and bounces off with a twang, or sails in a ridiculous arc like the weakest infield fly, and dings off and thuds to the dirt. I give him a couple more tries but it’s no use. With each failure, the kid's face falls closer toward the disappointment of the futility of his efforts. Sorry kid. Maybe next time. It takes practice, kid, just a little at-home-practice.
Actually, kid, don’t try this at home. And don’t tell your parents you were here.
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