by Nik Wallenda
The wheels start spinning. I’m walking around Disney World’s Blizzard Beach with the family when my cell rings. It’s David Simone.
“Can you be in New York tomorrow?” he asks.
“What for?”
“The William Morris Agency thinks they can package your Grand Canyon walk. They want to meet you.”
“I’m there.”
“You’re cutting short our vacation?” asks Erendira when I tell her what’s happening.
“I have to, honey. This is major.”
“I understand.”
“You stay. There’s no reason for you and the kids to leave.”
They stay. I go.
I’m sitting in the office of a senior William Morris agent. David and Winston Simone are seated beside me. The agent wants to hear my vision. I paint the picture. He buys it.
I and my ego are riding high.
A couple of weeks later I’m flying to L.A. to meet with executives from ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. I keep painting the picture, and everyone keeps buying it. Everyone loves the idea. NBC loves it most.
NBC flies me to New York for more meetings with more top-ranking execs. The final meeting is in the executive dining room on the top floor of Rockefeller Center. All the world is at our feet. A private chef prepares our lunch. The execs want to hear my vision of this walk one final time.
I articulate the vision for them. They’re sold.
We’re set. Lawyers get involved. Lawyers have no trouble working it out. Permits are obtained. Engineering plans are set into motion.
I call my uncle Mike, who’s in Baghdad locating and disabling land mines. My dad is often on edge, while Uncle Mike never loses his cool. From his bunker, he’s whispering information to me and my dad on how to rig the wire across the cable.
“Is it a done deal?” he asks.
“Not completely,” says my dad.
“What do you mean?” I say. “NBC has already bought the cable.”
“Final contracts haven’t been signed,” Dad points out.
“They will be.”
“Either way,” says Uncle Mike, “I’ll be sending more specs in a couple of days.”
I’m thrilled.
“It’s my first television special,” I tell Bello, with whom I’m still performing at Ringling.
“TV specials are nearly impossible to pull off,” he says.
“Well, I’ve pulled this one off,” I assure him.
I call all my friends—Chris Ripo, Mike Duff, Joseph Mascitto.
Dad remains skeptical, but that’s Dad. I don’t even bother to argue. This has to happen. My ego is on the line. Too many elements have unexpectedly come together for it to fall apart. We have only a couple of minor points left in the final negotiations. Contracts will be signed in a matter of days. It’s a lock.
And then the lock breaks.
The call comes from Winston Simone.
“There’s turmoil at NBC,” he says. “Our guy—the man in charge of specials—is out.”
“What does that mean for us?” I ask.
“Our main supporter has been fired.”
“Who’s the new man?”
“I’m not sure, but from what I hear he’s coming with a hatchet. The network is looking to cut budgets.”
“But they’ve already bought the cable. That’s a major investment. They wouldn’t turn back now, would they?”
“It isn’t a matter of ‘they,’ ” says Winston. “It’s a matter of ‘he’—whoever he turns out to be.”
He turns out to be a cost-cutting crusader. The new man in charge of specials sees nothing special about my walk. All he sees is red ink. And just like that, the project is scrubbed.
I feel like a fool. My ego deflates like a balloon.
I counted my chickens before they were hatched. I went and bragged to everyone I knew.
It’s tough telling Bello what happened.
“How’s the special going?” he asks after one of the shows on the Wheel of Steel.
“It’s not,” I say.
“What happened?”
“Change of regime at NBC. New guy says it’s too expensive.”
“That’s rough,” says Bello.
Dad says the same thing.
Mike Duff says, “You’ll get ’em next time.”
I need the encouragement because I’m feeling like an idiot. The idea of my own TV special had me ego-tripping like no one’s business.
Had I been cruising for a bruising? Did the fact that I had boasted about my great accomplishment before realizing that accomplishment indicate that I was more pompous than I was practical?
The answer is yes. The answer is that boastfulness may be as much a part of my nature as gutsiness. The answer is that there are still lessons I need to learn. And although those lessons—those endless lessons—are about humility, I’m still up late at night trying to figure out the next big idea.
The idea comes out of that one ingredient so essential to successful show business—promotion. Ringling wants to promote the final Bellobration show at Newark’s Prudential Center. Newark wants to promote this new eighteen-thousand-seat arena. And of course I’m looking to promote myself. I’m looking to enter the big-boy arena where I can stand beside artists like Bello and Blaine.
I swing into action. I propose a skywalk between the Prudential Center—135 feet high—and a crane. I’ll walk from the roof of the Center to the top of the crane. But that’s when everything will change. At the crane, I’ll be handed a bike, mount it, and ride back across. That bike ride, 235 feet long, will be the longest high-wire bike ride in history. Not only will I do this, but I’ll do it live on NBC’s Today show before a nationwide audience of millions. The hookup with NBC comes about through the extraordinary intervention of Shelley Ross, whose influence with the network producers is the main reason I get this amazing coverage.
“Are you sure you can pull this off?” asks my dad. “Are you certain it’s plausible?”
“Perfectly plausible,” I answer. “It’s just a matter of getting our ducks in a row.”
The ducks line up.
Ringling is willing.
The Prudential Center says yes.
The Today show is on board.
I sense that deep down Bello may not be all that crazy about the idea, but he says yes. Bello’s going to support me.
October 15, 2008. Erendira, Yanni, Amadaos, and Evita are by my side, atop the Prudential Center. I give each of them a big hug and kiss. My dad is on the ground below. He’s been working for days to make sure that the rigging is right.
Now the NBC cameras are trained on me. Matt Lauer, Ann Curry, and Meredith Vieira are in the New York studio doing the commentary. They describe my every move.
Cloudless sky. Ten miles in the distance I can see the skyscrapers of Manhattan. The Empire State and Chrysler buildings reflect the morning sun. The highways and bridges are crowded with commuters.
“Ready?” asks the producer.
“Ready,” I say.
I step out on the wire, my forty-five-pound balancing pole firmly in hand. Clear sky, clear mind. Distant memories of being a boy and walking the wire when Mom and Dad would throw pine cones over my head to show me how to focus in the face of distractions. No distractions now. Just calm easy toe-to-heel walking. One step, then another, and then another.
When I reach the midway point, I sit down, pull a cell phone out of my pocket, and call the studio, just to check in with Matt, Ann, and Meredith. We chat for a while before I get back up and complete the walk. Just before I arrive, I experience a small slip. That happens. Nothing to worry about. I calmly reclaim my composure and make it to the top of the crane, where Bello is waiting to hand me my bike.
Now for the real show, the stunt designed to set a new world record.
The bike is not custom-made. I bought it off the rack and then removed the tires and the handlebars. The idea is to ride the tireless wheels over the cable. The wheels are neither concave nor custo
m-made. Just two plain tireless bike wheels.
I get on the bike. Bello hands me the balancing pole. And slowly I start to pedal. The ride is slow and steady. Naturally there is no net. There is never a net. There is the safety of a balance born of experience, a balance that is as natural as speaking or breathing, a balance that assures me the ride will go well. It proceeds apace. I am in the moment. I am feeling fine on this beautiful October morning. I am aware of the sounds of trains below and a helicopter above. I am aware of the flight of birds. I feel the warmth of the sun. I keep pedaling.
Only toward the very end, where the cable is inclined upward, does the bike seem to lock up. The bike starts to slip. I feel myself moving backward.
Dad and I are connected by headset, and I hear him exclaiming, “Don’t back up!”
“I have to,” I say.
“You can’t. You’re locked up. Whatever you do, don’t back up!”
A thought flashes through my mind: Am I going to fall? I’ve never had this thought before. I’ve never come close to falling before. But this is different. This is a crisis of the first order.
“I’m telling you not to back up,” Dad keeps repeating.
“I’m telling you that I have to.”
For a few seconds I allow the bike to go backward before gently pressing the pedals forward. Little by little I apply slight pressure, just enough to turn the wheels. I feel myself moving forward. I’m back on track and gain enough momentum to reach the final destination, where my wife and children are waiting. Beautiful warm embraces.
A representative from the Guinness World Records is there. I’m given my certificate. Matt, Ann, and Meredith congratulate me.
The Today producers tell me that never before in the history of the show have they devoted a half-hour of live coverage to a single event. If my ego was excited before, it’s now going crazy.
But it’s more than ego.
“You seized the moment,” says my friend Chris Ripo. “That’s exactly what you were born to do.”
“You’re a born promoter,” says Joseph Mascitto. “Plus you have the creativity to dream up promotion-worthy events.”
“I’m proud of you,” says Mike Duff. “I remember all those crazy dreams you talked about when we were kids. Well, now you’re making those dreams come true.”
Even my dad, skeptic of skeptics, had to say, “The event came off well, son. I don’t see how this can hurt your career.”
Hurt?
How about make my career?
That kind of exposure on the Today show put me in a new position. I suddenly had a national profile. Not to capitalize on this moment in time would be not only foolish, but fiscally irresponsible.
It’s time to step up my game. My twenty-four months on Bellobration were great—but as a stepping-stone, not an end in itself. I have no interest in returning to Ringling. Even though it’s a world record, my Prudential bike ride is hardly enough to convince the Greatest Show on Earth to create Wallendabration.
I need to come up with a greatest show of my own.
Not one show, I decide, but a series of shows. And not simply shows but a story that links them all together.
What is it that I do up there on the high wire?
I walk.
And wouldn’t it be appealing—wouldn’t it make for a great promotional story—if I decided to walk across America.
“What would that entail?” my father asks. “What kind of resources? What kind of money are we talking about?”
“I’m not sure. I was thinking of approaching Cedar Fair Amusement Parks.”
“How would that work?”
“Well, they own over a dozen parks—from Knott’s Berry Farm in California to Carowinds in North Carolina. You’re talking about tens of millions of visitors a year.”
“What makes you think they’ll make the kind of major investment in you that’s required?”
“I have no reason to think they won’t, Dad. The Today show exposure has been tremendous. Plus I’m going to make a presentation to Cedar Fair that will spell out the publicity I can bring them. I don’t see how they can turn it down.”
“Big corporations can turn down anything they want to,” says Dad. “You need them a lot more than they need you.”
“Granted,” I say, “but I’m still determined to make it work.”
It does work. Turns out to be another step up. But in taking that step, I nearly stumble and crash—not in terms of the wire, but, more important, in my relationship with my wife.
I still don’t understand how my marriage is on the line.
15
The End of the Line
Your great-grandfather walked a wire from the front gate of the park to the halfway point of the replica of the Eiffel Tower,” says a representative of King’s Island, the Cedar Fair Amusement Park in Mason, Ohio, twenty-five miles northeast of Cincinnati.
“Wonder why he didn’t walk the entire distance?”
“From what I understand, the rigging wasn’t right. His people couldn’t figure out a way to make it completely safe. It’s a heck of a haul—262 feet high and 800 feet across. Have you ever done a walk that long, Nik?”
“No,” I say. “But that’s all the more reason to try. My dad’s here as my chief rigger. I’m going to see if he thinks it’s possible to run a cable all the way to the top.”
“Well, that’s one way to outdo the great Karl Wallenda.”
I bristle at that remark. “I never want to outdo Karl, and I never will. If I do this walk, it’s my way of continuing what he started. In respect to my great-grandfather, it’s always a matter of continuity. It’s never competition. Given the technology available to him, the man did everything possible—and then some.”
My dad surveys the scene and decides that yes, it’s possible. Alert the press. Print up the posters. The walk is on.
The walk is the longest of my career—eight hundred feet, taking twenty-five minutes from entryway to the top of the tower.
The Walk Across America has me flying high. From city to city, the crowds grow in number. The drama is great. I love the larger crowds, I love the drama. As the headliner at Three Rivers Regatta, on the Fourth of July I’m set to walk two hundred feet above the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh, but there are problems.
“We specifically said that we require cable with absolutely no oil,” says Mike Duff, who’s been helping my dad do the rigging, “but this cable is greasy. It’s covered in oil.”
“Best to cancel,” says Dad.
“Plus it’s raining and they expect even stronger winds,” says Mike.
“Just adds to the drama,” I say.
“What about the oil?” asks Mike.
“Just bring my wire shoes,” I say.
“Everyone will understand if you pull out,” says my father.
“They will—but I won’t. And I’m not.”
When it comes time for the walk, I work to center myself, to remain settled and enter the zone of complete concentration. When I get to the top of the crane, Mike is there.
“You have my wire shoes?” I ask.
Mike goes white. “I can’t believe it, Nik. I forgot them.”
I pause a second before I say, “No problem. Probably better if I go in my socks. Better traction.”
I take Mike’s forgetfulness as a positive sign. After all, I’m wearing the kind of woven socks that will get me maximum traction. By the time I reach the top of the crane and step on the wire, the winds are howling. I look across—from end to end it’s 1,084 feet, an even longer walk than King’s Island.
I step out. A few minutes into the walk, I pause to kneel and wave to the huge crowd below. After all, they’ve come out to see me in the rain. The least I can do is acknowledge their presence. I get up and start moving across. A few seconds later, though, the winds pick up, and, at that moment, I decide to stop my forward motion for a few seconds. I do this not to excite the crowd but simply to insure my balance. I’m neither nervous nor
unsteady, but merely cautious. My training has taught me that pausing can be useful. I’ve learned never to fight the elements, but rather to bend with them. Accept them. Embrace them. Allow them to lead you and feed your spirit with quiet strength.
My long pause has me even more centered. When I start up and begin to step, my socks are soaked from the rain. Rather than irritate me, the wetness feels good on my feet. I understand how wetness, rather than distract me from my goal, may well give me more traction. I accept the wetness not as a hindrance, but a gift.
All negatives can be turned positive.
I keep on walking, slowly, deliberately until, nearly a half-hour later, I reach the platform on the other side. I’ve crossed the Allegheny River in the rain and couldn’t be happier. Below me, the crowd goes wild. I wave, thank the good people of Pittsburgh for this opportunity, and thank God for my life.
What could be better than this?
Because this is a series of skywalks, there’s no need for other acts. That means at the end of the tour I can go home with more money that I can apply toward my next feat. But unfortunately that also means that Erendira, who is accompanying me, doesn’t have the pleasure of performing.
Because I need to do preshow promotions, sometimes I fly from city to city while Erendira drives with my father in the truck hauling the rigging equipment. This doesn’t make her happy. I know she’d rather be with me, but she’s a trouper. She understands that we’re on a tight budget. Besides, as a young girl, she traveled in conditions far worse than these. She’s used to the rigors of the road.
She’s with me at Cedar Point, the company’s flagship park, in Sandusky, Ohio, where I’m scheduled to do a radio interview at a local station. I know Erendira isn’t thrilled about having been on the road for nearly twelve weeks now. And I know being with her father-in-law can be a strain. At the same time, my mind is focused on the upcoming skywalk and my need to promote it.
We arrive at the radio station. I get out of the car but Erendira does not.
“Aren’t you coming in?” I ask.
“You go on. I’ll listen to it on the radio.”