Matt & Zoe (23 page)

Nicole shakes her head. “That’s fine, but I’m telling you, you’re wrong. Your dad never thought that.”

Jasmine’s voice comes from the doorway. “Never thought what?”

Damn it!
Jasmine is standing there in her pajamas, her hair still pretty wet. I guess me and Nicole were so busy talking, I never even heard her getting out of the bath. Or I just wasn’t paying enough attention.

“Don’t worry about it Jasmine, it’s something for adults.”

“You’re arguing about Dad,” she says. “I want to know what it is.”

“Jasmine…” Nicole leans forward. “It’s okay, Jasmine. It isn’t anything that involves you.”

“I don’t believe you,” Jasmine says.

Another flash of anger. It’s not any of her business. I don’t care if she’s eight. “Dad was mad at me for being in the Army,” I say. “That’s what we were arguing about. Nicole says that wasn’t true.”

“It’s not,” Jasmine says.

I sigh in frustration. “How would you know?”

“Because you’re the only thing he ever talked about,” she says, anger in her voice.

I shake my head in confusion. “Can we just drop it please?”

“Zoe…”

I almost growl in frustration at Nicole’s word.

“
Please
. Can we just drop it?”

Chapter Fifteen

Papa, Come Back (Matt)

When I get in the car to drive to Boston, my eyelids feel heavy. I’m dragging.

It’s because I didn’t sleep well last night. I knew I would be taking this drive, and there’s too much history, too much emotion, too much… everything… for me to take it lightly.

I’ve been having the dream a lot lately, especially since Lina showed up without warning. It’s always the same, the smell, the noise, the moment when his hands begin to slip.

I blink and turn up the music in the car, trying to shut out the memory. How am I supposed to shut it out?

It all happened too quickly for me to ever understand or grasp. One minute Dad was flying through the air, on his fourth forward somersault, arms outstretched. My arms were braced, ready for him, and we locked our arms together. There was always that moment of panic when he was coming through the air. Was I strong enough to catch him? Would I slip, would one of us fall? It’s not like it didn’t happen. We observed all the safety rules, and Dad was a strict disciplinarian. You didn’t screw around on the ropes, ever.

All the same, my uncle Mario was crippled in the same accident that killed his wife twenty years ago. A moment’s inattention, or maybe just too much sweat on the catcher’s palms—it doesn’t matter how it happens. So Papa was rigid about safety.

That day, despite our earlier argument, everything was golden. Our hands came together in locked firmly, and dad looked into my eyes with the fiercest grin on his face. He always had that expression when he completed the jump. It’s not like he didn’t do them every day, his entire life was one long death-defying act. All the same, every single time he landed, his lips would roll back, his teeth glimmering light in my face.

As always we swung back, the pendulum force taking me and my father almost parallel to the ground. In that position as the catcher, I was upside down, my back facing straight to the ground, even as my father’s stomach was to the ground. Our timing was perfect that day. We reached the top of the pendulum and started to swing back. It’s difficult to describe the sensation, of swinging upside down and backwards so high from the ground in the dark, so quickly, while holding another human being. There’s something remarkable about it. There’s also something terrifying about it. You know where everyone is—there’s no surprises—but all the same, if there was some obstruction in the way there would be nothing that could be done about it.

Of course it wasn’t that. Nothing so simple that can be pointed to, like a dangling wire, or any other obvious issue. Instead, I just felt his hands release. We were at just about two-thirds of the way through our swing when it happened, when he started to let go, too early for his release. I couldn’t tell what was happening – he still had the fierce grin on his face, but something was so obviously wrong, because he was letting go too soon and instead of a controlled back somersault out of my hands and back to the bar, it was a sickening slide as I began to lose my grip. We reached three quarters around the swing, and now he was completely sliding out of my grasp. I struggled as hard as I could but the centrifugal force was too strong. As we reached the apex of the swing I lost my grip and my father’s already limp body went flying off into space.

I remember the gasp of the crowd, the anticipatory horror and shock of not knowing whether there had been an accident or if this was part of the act, but that ended very quickly. Before my father even hit the ring, I released my legs and fell straight to the net, evoking loud screams from the audience. I bounced in the net, rolled to the edge and swung down. It was too late. My father didn’t reach the net—instead he went well beyond that, hitting the apron net like a limp sack, then falling to the floor of the arena.

Everything else that night is a haze. I was hysterical, and charged through the crowd to my father. I remember screaming, “
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Papa, come back!
”

There was no coming back.

***

I wasn’t allowed to go to my father’s funeral. See, Red was still angry enough to kill. So even as my father was being placed in the ambulance, Red found one of the investigating police officers, and told the whole story of Nick being fired after Carlina dumped me, and the screaming match between me and Papa right before the show began. He embellished the story—adding one essential detail that the county prosecutor latched onto—he told the police that I had shouted, “I’m going to kill you.”

As Mamma wept, and Tony and Lina stood stunned, the police handcuffed me and walked me away. I was seventeen years old—old enough that the County police took me to the jail instead of juvenile detention. Then I was trapped in a world I’d never imagined. It smelled of oil and sweat, and was punctuated by the rhythm of doors crashing open and closed, of prisoners rapping in their cells, and of the echoing boots of the guards as they walked up and down the block. In the lockup, there’s only the barest distinction between those who are awaiting trial and those who have already been convicted. Those of us awaiting trial wore orange jumpsuits—the convicted wore gray. Otherwise, we were housed together, showered together, exercised together and ate together.

It was Monday afternoon – three days later—before Mamma and Lina came to visit. The jail didn’t allow visitors on the weekend.

“Where’s Tony?” I had asked.

“He’s trying to find you a decent lawyer,” Mamma said.

“The circus…”

Mamma shook her head. “They have a lawyer, but he does contracts, not – not —“

“Criminal law,” Messalina said.

“I don’t understand why I’m here,” I said. “Why do they think I hurt Papa?”

“You and Papa had… that argument…” Lina looked sick when she said the words. “That’s why they think that.”

Not long after, they left. Over the next several months Mom and Messalina visited almost every day. The tour continued, but without The Flying Paladinos. Mamma took the little bit of life insurance money she received and stayed in Texas.

My life had a rhythm to it, a self-contained rhythm. The first three months, I was housed with Jim Dawson, a fry cook from Calhoun County who had been jailed for failure to pay child support.

“I’d have paid if I had the money,” he told me more than once, “but I lost my job.”

Jim was eventually released, replaced by Gerald LeDuke. Gerald was awaiting trial for murder. The first four nights he was in the room he writhed and screamed as he went through withdrawals from whatever had been his choice of drugs. The fifth night he came to and attacked me in a frenzy. I held him off, barely, before the guards finally took him away.

Then, one day in September, I met Howard Echols. Howard was a retired high school teacher, and came to the prison almost every day as part of a one-man ministry, an ongoing passion play of his own where he spent his days educating prisoners and struggling to make lives better.

“Where did you go to high school?” He asked me the first day.

I shrugged. “Central Florida, but mostly all over…”

He had paced back and forth, his face a caricature of agony. Finally he turned toward me, and said, “You’re a smart kid Paladino. You could be just like the rest of these guys in here, in and out of jail for the rest of your life, if you’re not careful.”

“I’m not like them,” I said. “I didn’t do anything. It was an accident. Don’t you think losing my father was enough?”

He had shaken his head. “Don’t matter what’s fair, Paladino. It’s not about fair. It’s about reality. If they convict you, you might not ever be able to get a job. And if they don’t, you still might struggle. The only thing you can do is try to get an education.”

At first it was hard. I had in fact gone to high school, but barely. I had taken the basics required by the school system, but the Florida Public schools cast a wink and a nod to the circus families who lived there a few months out of the year. And so in school I learned to read—just barely—and write. I learned basic math. I wasn’t writing sonnets or plays, and my math extended to balancing a checkbook.

Howard changed all of that. He started with reading—Steinbeck and Hemingway, Fitzgerald and later Stephen King and other contemporary authors. I studied math, then algebra and geometry. Howard had discarded textbooks, donations that had been given to his tiny ministry from churches, parents and school systems around the state. He pushed me hard, but I also pushed hard. In November, I took the SAT. It was a specially proctored exam—they don’t give the SAT in prison—but Howard had made it possible.

I’ll never forget the day my score report came in the mail. Like all mail, the wardens office had slit the envelope open and read it. But I didn’t look. Instead I rushed down to Howard’s tiny classroom. We stared each other, and he said in a calm voice, “Open it.”

I’d scored a 1225.

I was stunned when Howard suddenly sniffed, and his eyes went bloodshot, and a tear rolled down his face.

“Promise me you’ll go to college, boy.”

“I promise.”

And I did. After nine months of waiting, I was finally released. The medical examiner’s report, which had taken months to be released, made it clear my father was dead before he hit the ground. The prosecution had no case, and ultimately dropped the charges.

I never got in the ring again.

***

Traditionally, Americans think of the circus is taking place under the big top. It’s embedded in our consciousness. But after many of the small circuses in America failed in the middle of the 20th century, fewer and fewer circuses actually operated in the country. And the biggest of those, Ringling Brothers, toured almost exclusively in large arenas. That’s what I grew up with. As a teenager I performed in Madison Square Garden, at the United Center, at fifty other indoor arenas. I don’t recall a single instance where I performed under a big top.

That changed for the Flying Paladinos after my father died and I left the circus. When I got out of jail, I immediately took my GED and passed it. Thanks to Howard, I’d already been accepted at three different colleges—Florida State, the University of Georgia, and Boston University. It wasn’t a difficult decision for me to make. Aside from the fact that it’s an excellent school, BU was the furthest away of those possibilities from Central Florida. That was all the motivation I needed. Mamma took on leadership of the troupe, with Tony and Lina in the starring roles. They recruited two new flyers from a circus in Brazil, but they didn’t go back to Ringling Brothers.

When Mamma took charge of the troupe, she decided to go back in time. She signed on with the Binder & Mills Circus, a smaller outfit that actually tours under a tent. It’s not quite like the old style circuses, however. For one thing the production values are very much 21st-century. But the star act—the flying trapeze—has changed little in the years I’ve been away from it.

When I get to the gate, I have to bang on the glass of the ticket booth for several minutes before the teenager inside takes any notice. He’s sitting there reading a comic book and chewing gum, and obviously assumes I’m a local. Finally he stands up and saunters to the window, leans close and says, “Box office ain’t open yet.”

“I’m here to see my mom and brother and sister. My name is Matt Paladino.”

The kid, who doesn’t appear to be very bright, stares at me and chews his gum for a minute. Then he says, “Box office ain’t open yet.”

I lean close almost placing my face against the glass, and say, “I’m with the Flying Paladinos. Let me in.”

He gapes. More importantly, he lets me in. It’s a short walk from the gate to the big top. Tonight, this space, with its dozens of game booths, fun houses, and other entertainment, will be alive with people. For now, all I see are the barkers and carnies getting their things together.

The tent is different than I expected. For one thing, the circus I grew up with always had three rings. This one has only one, with plush theater style seating surrounding the ring. I can imagine that this will be a far more intimate show than anything I grew up with.

I don’t have to ask where Mamma or Tony or Lina are. Everybody can see them. Tony and Lina stand side-by-side on one platform. Lina has a pained expression on her face. They both wear worn practice tights which will be replaced later with some glittering and showy uniform. Tony needs a shave, and looks annoyed but respectful somehow simultaneously. On the other platform is Mamma. Swinging between them are two catchers.

Mamma shouts, “You think you can do whatever you want, Tony? You think you run the show? I already lost my husband and one son. I won’t lose another. You listen to me!”

Her words are like a punch in the gut. I know what she means. She hasn’t
lost
a son. But I’m not part of their life anymore. It’s not just that I’m not with the circus, I haven’t even showed up for holidays. I’m stricken with guilt.
Why haven’t I visited?