Angelo said, “Johnny’s wife, Stella, is a little like that, I think. Done everything, good at everything.”
“I didn’t know you were married, Johnny. Isn’t she with you?”
Johnny cleared his throat. “She’s not well. She had a—a miscarriage last fall. But she can do almost everything: tumbling, single traps, double traps, Risley juggling, flying—she used to fill in anywhere, with Freres and Stratton, if anybody got sick or wanted a day off.”
“I’d like to meet her,” Cleo said.
“Well, if this thing goes through, she’ll be traveling with us,” Johnny said. “She’s a better flyer than Liss ever was.”
“Now look, John—” Angelo protested sharply.
Through the strained silence Liss said hastily, “Cleo, you were going to tell us about Barney Parrish.”
“Oh, yes. Well, toward the end of the season, Lucia came to see me in the big dressing top. You’ve got to remember, she was the headliner with the Flying Santellis, and I was just a kid in my first season. She traveled by private car and had her private dressing top, and I was crowded into one-half of an upper and had my trunk in the women’s dressing tent with two hundred other girls. So when she came to see me, I was so stunned I could hardly speak to her. She asked if I’d ever thought about learning to fly. She sad I had the figure for it—”
“Meaning,” Lionel chaffed, “that you had none at all.”
“Right,” Cleo said with a rueful grin, “but you’ve got to remember, back then it was fashionable to be flat-chested. Anyway, Lucia said she was going to be in California over the winter, and Barney would be at winter quarters. She said she’d talk to him about teaching me, and she did. So I spent that winter with Barney and his wife, Eileen Leeds—she was killed in the ring about five years after that, but then she was a big-timer—learning to fly.”
Tommy asked shyly, “What was Barney Parrish like?” He was still trying to reconcile the knowledge that this friendly, bubbly, young-looking woman was the great star of the Flying Fortunatis, the woman whose picture, together with her husband and his brother, had been on his bedroom wall ever since he was a very small boy. Had Barney Parrish, too, the legend of the Big Show, been like her, just—he fumbled for a way to put it into words to himself—a friendly, ordinary man, someone you could know and talk to?
“Barney? Oh he was the sweetest man you ever met,” Cleo said definitely. “Irish—I couldn’t begin to give you an idea of his accent, and at that time I was still talking pure Texas, so sometimes we could hardly understand each other. He and Eileen treated me like their own kid. Eileen used to sneak me chocolates, saying that the poor baby—that was me—needed to keep my strength up, and Barney would take them away from me, saying he didn’t want me to get fat. And then he’d give them to me if I’d share them with him and not tell Eileen, because she didn’t want him to go off his diet. I remember him saying once”—her eyes were distant, wistful—“it only took one thing to make a flyer, and that was an open mind about breaking your neck.”
Tommy remembered that Mario had said something like that once. Where was Mario? He shifted impatiently in his chair. At any other time, this gossip about the Big Show, about men and women who were legends, would have fascinated him; vaguely he resented that he couldn’t enjoy it, waiting like this.
“More cookies, Tommy? Liss?”
“No, thank you,” he said, remembering his manners, “but they’re very nice. Did you bake them?”
“Good Lord, no!” Cleo laughed. “I can’t boil water without burning it. Career women don’t cook.”
Tommy felt confused, remembering how proud Beth Zane was of her competent housekeeping, her excellent cooking and baking. But, then, she didn’t work in the ring anymore. Why not?
Angelo asked, “Cleo, where is Barney now?”
Cleo’s vibrant face suddenly went pinched and pale; for a moment she looked almost as old as she was. “I don’t know,” she said in a sad, faraway voice. “Nobody knows. And God knows, we’ve tried everything. I keep thinking, if he was still alive, he’d get in touch with me. I mean, I was like his own sister. He gave me away when I married Jim. When I broke my arm in the ring, he came and sat up with me all night when I couldn’t sleep, and read out loud to me from a book of Irish fairy tales he had. And then he had his fall, and he went off with that awful Elsa person—and he just disappeared.”
Tommy blurted, in shock, “I thought he was dead.” It had never occurred to him that the great Irish aerialist, lamed in a fall during Tommy’s childhood, might still be alive.
“It would even be a relief to know that,” Lionel said. “He just disappeared, overnight. Randy Starr had the Pinkertons on it for a year, and when they gave up, Jim and I hired a detective, they traced him to the Mexican border, and then the trail went cold. Nobody’s heard a word since.”
A dark and somber shadow, compounded of ghosts, suddenly haunted the room. The great Irish aerialist, Mario’s idol, both legs smashed in a fall, vanished into the limbo of crippled aerialists, smashed successes. Tommy thought of Lucia, her graceful gestures masking the pain and awkwardness she could not help but betray, sometimes; of Joe, his hair prematurely white, who had once been able to do “a little of everything.” He thought of his own father, of the scar over Tom Zane’s eye, the thick ugly whiteness, the red strings hanging down that night from the clawed suit—
“That’s the way it goes in this business,” Angelo said soberly. “One minute on top of the world. The next minute —where are you?”
Johnny shivered and said, “Come on, let’s get out of the morgue! Talking that way doesn’t do anybody any good! Can I have some more coffee, Cleo?”
While she was pouring it, Papa Tony and Mario came into the trailer with Jim Fortunati, and Cleo fussed around with more sandwiches, more coffee, a fresh bag of cookies. The trailer was crowded now with the Fortunatis and the Santellis. Liss and Cleo squeezed together on a single chair. Tommy yielded his chair to Papa Tony and sat on the floor beside Mario. They all fell silent.
Papa Tony said, “No, no more coffee, Cleo, thank you. I won’t keep you in suspense, children. Starr liked us, but he can’t use us this season.”
Tommy looked at Mario, but his face was buried in a blue coffee mug. Liss looked disappointed, but not especially surprised. Johnny clenched his fist and hit the floor with it.”
“He had a proposition, Uncle Tony—” Jim began.
Mario interrupted: “No, Jim, I said—”
Jim Fortunati gestured him to silence. “He offered to headline Matt center ring, with Cleo and Lionel. He said he’d take on Tony with him, as manager of the aerial division. He said he couldn’t use either of the catchers. The little girl—I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Liss, but what he said was, ‘I’ve got a dozen just as good, and almost as pretty.’ And the kid—Tommy?—the kid looks promising, but it would be five years before Starr’s could sign him. We play the big Eastern states, and they have very stiff child-labor laws about minors in aerial acts. A few performers’ kids dress up for the spec, or ride around the ring, but our policy is very stiff: nobody under twenty-one in the air. If he was eighteen we’d try to fake it, but sixteen, no.”
Tonio Santelli gave a wry laugh. “That would have been hard on you and me, Jim, huh?”
Fortunati laughed. “You bet, Uncle Tony. I was top-mounter in a tumbling act when I was eight years old, and went on the wire when I was thirteen.”
Johnny asked, “What goes, Jim? Liss and Matt both worked with Lu in the ring, and Liss wasn’t even fourteen, was she?”
Jim said, “I know. But that was before the war. About three years ago we had some trouble in Chicago—girl in a cloud-swing act fell and broke her back. It was one of those big family acts, Gonsalvo or Gonzalez, I forget—”
“Gonzalez,” Cleo said, “Consuelo Gonzalez.”
Lionel nodded. “So many men were being drafted into the Army, we were using a lot of Mexican acts where the men weren’t citizens a
nd couldn’t be nabbed by the local draft board. So when Consuelo fell and got hurt, it turned out she was only about fifteen. The local Child Labor people got hold of the story and made a big stink, and some sob sister spread it all over the newspapers. When it all died down, we had to tighten up our regulations about minors working in aerial acts.”
“I had all of these flying before they were fifteen,” Papa Tony said with a hard laugh. “I would not want to train anyone whose bones and muscles had hardened with age. It is like the ballet; a child must begin while he is still young and flexible. Laws like that will be the end of the circus.”
“The laws aren’t so tough in the Midwest and down on the Mexican border,” Jim explained. “But in the big cities they really check up on us all the time. We have the Child Labor people breathing down our necks every month or so.”
Papa Tony sounded really angry now. “Do these people really think a father cannot judge what is best for his own children? Is it for this we fought a war for freedom, that in this free country they can come into a family and tell a father what he cannot do in training his own sons and daughters?”
Jim said placatingly, “I know how you feel, Uncle Tony, but it’s Starr’s policy: nobody under twenty in an aerial act. Anyway,” he went on over Papa Tony’s irritable snort, “they’ve signed the Barrys, but they can make a spot for Matt.”
Cleo came over and kissed Mario, French fashion, on both cheeks. “I knew Randy Starr would want you when he saw you, Matt—did I tell you how wonderful you are? And now that Jim is grounded—”
“I didn’t know that,” Angelo interrupted, and intuitively, Tommy sensed he was doing it to take everyone’s eyes off Mario, to give him time to think. “What happened, Jim?”
Jim shrugged. “Too many triples, I guess. My shoulder’s been giving me hell. If I was younger, I might try that new operation they have, but I’m getting to the slowdown point anyhow, and I’d rather manage the act on the ground. Cleo’s enough of a headliner on her own—we don’t need two in one act. But if we have Matt with us, the act will be the same as always.”
“You will, won’t you?” Cleo coaxed. “I worked with the Santellis before. You’ll work with us, won’t you, Matt?”
Mario stared at the floor of the trailer. Cleo’s words had drawn everyone’s attention back to Mario, and Tommy felt a painful tightness in his chest again. Mario would go on, alone, to heights where he could not follow . . . .
He promised we’d stay together. Didn’t he mean it? Was it just the kind of thing you say? . . . He stared at the floor.
“I’m sorry, Jim,” Mario said, raising his eyes, “but what I said to Randy Starr in the office, that still goes. I want to stay with the family.”
Papa Tony said, “I tell him, ‘Matty, take it if you want to, headline with the Fortunatis, that is nothing to turn down,’ I said, ‘Matty, you go ahead if you want to.’”
Mario clasped his thin hands and twisted them. “Cleo, I’m sorry. Honest, I’ve got nothing against you and Lionel, but I don’t want to go off as a star in some other act. I want the family with me, I want to be—to be in the Flying Santellis. I never worked with anyone outside the family. I don’t want to.”
Jim said, “Family? For God’s sake, kid, Uncle Tony married my father’s sister; Lu and Angelo and Joe are my first cousins!”
He looked angry and offended, and Mario said quickly, “Jim, that’s not what I mean. Really. It isn’t. But—I want to stick with Angelo, and—he’s my catcher—and—I’m a Santelli. Not—not one of the Flying Fortunatis. Look, don’t get mad—”
“Hey, hey, kid, I’m not mad, that’s not it. Only Randy’s going to think you’re just holding him up for more money. He really wants that triple of yours.”
“And that’s another thing,” Mario said seriously. “I don’t think I’m ready to headline with the triple yet. Not till I can get it most of the time when I need to, not just when I’m feeling lucky or really good. And even then, I want to do it as—as the Flying Santellis.”
Johnny interrupted. “Matt, if you turn down a chance to headline with the Fortunatis, you’re crazy!”
“So I’m crazy, then,” Mario said. “I’m turning it down.”
“Crazy as they come.” But Jim Fortunati smiled. “Okay, son, I do understand. Cleo and Lionel—and me, too—we’d like to have you with us. I know how you feel. But if anything happens to change your mind, you come back here, okay?” He looked at Papa Tony, who looked simultaneously troubled and very, very pleased.
“Tony, I hope you’re as proud of all these kids as they deserve.”
Papa Tony stood up and went to Mario. He laid a hand on his shoulder, and Tommy could feel, even before he saw, the glow that rose and spilled over in the old man’s overflowing smile.
“Proud? Proud doesn’t start saying it, Jim. I wouldn’t trade today for the center ring of the Big Show, and I don’t care who knows it!”
CHAPTER 22
During the following days the inevitable reaction set in; the hectic suspense and tension of the audition took their toll. Even on the drive home, Johnny’s sullen face had flung storm warnings at them, and he had muttered, where he sat between Liss and Angelo, “If Stel had been with us, it might have turned out different!”
Liss turned on him, angry and hurt. “It’s not my fault she’s not working!”
Papa Tony pleaded, “Children! Children!”
They were all feeling the letdown. Ordinary winter routine seemed tedious. Liss went home and spent two weeks in San Francisco with David, returning pale and strained, falling into abrupt brooding silences. Stella began rehearsing with them again, shakily at first, but quickly recovering her old skill and strength.
Tommy was to graduate from high school in the spring, but he knew that by the time graduation day came he would have been a month on the road, and would have to make do with an equivalency certificate. He couldn’t take much interest in the flurry of senior doings.
He usually walked to and from school with Barbara. It was pleasant to be looked up to and admired, like an older brother. He took positive pleasure in helping her into her coat, in adding the heaviest of her schoolbooks to his load, and once, making her stand still while he untangled a fallen leaf from her bright hair, he felt a touch of unmixed tenderness. Barbara had never been on tour with the circus and was endlessly fascinated with what he could tell her of life on the road, but one day she confided her greatest secret. Though she liked flying, and had learned the family business as a matter of course, her real ambition was not to fly but to dance. Not the classical ballet Mario loved—which Barbara had been studying since she was seven years old—but in the big movie musicals. She had already taken part in many dance recitals and had begged her father to let her apply for a studio audition.
“But” she concluded miserably, “California’s just crawling with pretty girls dying to get into the movies, all prettier than me.”
Tommy looked at her gravely for a few minutes, and she pouted, for he withheld the expected compliment. Then he said, “But you’re not just a pretty girl, Barbie. You’re a ballet dancer, a good one, not just from one of those places that rush girls into the stage or into the movies. And you have acrobatic training, too.”
“How many movies need girl acrobats?”
“I’d think there’s some. But I mean, you’re more than just a pretty face. You can do things, so if you do get into the movies, you won’t be just one of the crowd—you’d be special.”
On Saturday’s they went to the movies together. While Clay disappeared into a horde of small boys, Tommy sat with her in the balcony, and once or twice during each show Barbara laid her warm, flexible little hand in his; once during a love scene she moved within the circle of his arm, seeking some unfocused comfort she was not aware enough to look for consciously. Tommy took a remote pleasure in this, but was never tempted to retain her hand, to kiss her or think of it, and once, when his hand brushed the fuzzy wool of her plaid skirt over her
hard young thighs, he took it away as if it had been burned. Once he thought, I love Barbie a lot, only it’s like Mario loves Liss. She’s my sister. They sat every night side by side in the big living room, doing their homework, and once Grandmother Santelli came out of her vagueness to watch them all during one evening; when Lucia came to take the demented old lady to bed, she chirped, “Buon’ note, Matteo, Elissa.”
Tommy practiced with Barbara, and once, after soberly asking permission of Papa Tony, appeared with her in a school talent show, wearing crimson tights and running through a complex tumbling routine. Once—only once, and only after repeated pestering from Barbara—Mario put a Chopin record on the record player and danced, with Barbara, a complicated pas de deux. Tommy felt something turn over and twist inside him, painfully familiar, as he watched. Barbara was lovely, with her bright brown curls and graceful tarlatan skirts, but Tommy’s attention was focused on Mario: blade-slender, steel-strong, with a compelling tension Tommy never saw in him, even in the triple. Dancing, he had some of the intense, over-spilling force which radiated from Cleo, the unmistakable mark of the star. When they poised at the climax, Barbara lifted to Mario’s shoulder, Tommy felt grateful for the dimness in the room. Such beauty was too intense to be endured, and he could not understand why the others were unmoved, merely complimenting Barbara prettily on her dancing. Mario was quiet for the rest of the evening, lying on the rug with his head resting on a cushion at Lucia’s feet. Tommy thought he had gone home, but late that evening, Mario came into his room.
“Lu said I might as well stay over. You don’t mind, do you?”
Later, Tommy tried to say incoherently something of what the dance had meant to him, but Mario only sighed.
“It’s not like flying. In ballet you’re never really good enough. Men are never really good enough, there. Not even the Nijinskys. It’s a woman’s art. Maybe Barbie will be good enough, someday.”
The Catch Trap Page 40