VITAL FLUID by Tom Bradley

Tom Bradley presently collaborating on a graphic ekphrasis in verse and an illustrated novel with artists David Aronson and Nick Patterson respectively, both to be published by Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink, and a nonfiction flip book with Deb Hoag for Unlikely Books. Further curiosity can be indulged at Tom Bradley and Wikipedia.

Synopsis:

A pair of rival hypnotists stage an increasingly bizarre series of shows across America, mesmerizing teenagers in an Indian Reservation, a Mormon polygamist's military academy and a Columbine-like high school. This wizard war climaxes at an East L.A. ghetto community center full of gang-bangers. Things get so far out of hand that mercenaries from the Department of Homeland Security must be called in.
Published by Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink

Excerpt from VITAL FLUID:

It's the wee hours, and Phil is driving his dad home. Professor Percival sits in the death seat, withering into himself with despair till he looks no bigger than Shit-Heel, who remains parasitically fastened onto the old man's lap, hissing Chopin’s Funeral March into his ear.

They enter a run-down Las Vegas neighborhood, a zone of vacant lots and abandoned mob cars. The whole block's on the verge of being reclaimed by the desert. Mailboxes along the street indicate the physical presence of washed-up stage entertainers, show-biz dinosaurs who still cling to something resembling life. One mailbox has a clown face painted on it.

Parked in a lean-to carport is a shitty old jalopy, its back seat stuffed with a magician's stage props. The words VLADIMIR THE ESCAPE ARTIST are scrawled on the side. Vladimir himself stands at his rotting bungalow's front door, having forgotten or lost his house key. He ponders his feet and weeps.

The professor looks up from his own pit of despair just long enough to say, "That putz couldn't conjure his way into a clip joint."

Phil’s car passes the Star Dust Talent Agency, located in a shabby office on top of a boarded-up liquor store.

"Are you going to drop in on our so-called agent while you’re in town?" asks Shit-Heel.

"Why? Just in case he’s found some rich and powerful movers and shakers who want to be hypnotized? I doubt Mo Katz has a time machine in there."

The car pulls into a raunchy trailer park.

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