Oh, it was a dark time. People magazine wrote about Dexter's disappearance, complete with a picture of a forlorn-looking Spencer, head in hands, staring into the empty suitcase where Dexter was kept, where his little tux was still hanging.
Well. With Dexter MIA, the post office was taking major heat. Spencer was giving a half-dozen tearful interviews a day with media outlets from the BBC to the Washington Post.
Mercifully, Dexter turned up three weeks later. The post office had mistakenly sent him via parcel post instead of express mail. It's a wonder the American people ever trusted the mail again.
Since then, though, life has been good to Spencer Horsman. His career seems on a steady upward arc. The gigs and TV appearances keep coming. Fame, the big-time variety, seems just around the corner. I mean, my God, he's even in a Levi's commercial that will air this summer!
"Where do you see yourself going with this?" I ask Spencer on this fine spring day, as we sit in Ken-zo's and he finishes the last of his card tricks.
"I'm definitely going to college," he says. "And I want to travel the world. Performing will help pay for that. No matter what I do later in life, I'm always going to do ventriloquism and magic."
Outside, the sky was a bright blue, and it was hard to tell which was brighter, the sun or this kid's future.
