The Catch Trap

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Mario came into Tommy’s room to dress, but he was quiet, frowning. Tommy asked, “What’s up? What does Papa want?”

  But Mario only said, “Let’s wait and see, okay, kid?”

  In the big shabby living room, Papa Tony stood with his back to the fire, watching them, as they gathered, with lively dark eyes. Lucia was erect and regal in her straight-backed chair, in a dark dress with a white ruffle at her throat, completely alien from the friendly woman on the platform. Mario was sprawled in an armchair, legs outstretched. Liss sat on the arm of his chair.

  Papa Tony let the suspense build for several minutes in the flickering firelight. Tommy went and sat beside Barbara on the stone hearth. Angelo, his wrist in a bandage, was lighting himself a cigarette. Even Johnny was silent, his arms wrapped around his knees. Finally Papa Tony said, “Jim Fortunati called me this afternoon from the winter quarters of the Starr Circus. Randy Starr wants a second flying act; Jim told me that Starr likes big acts, the bigger the better. He will see us ten days from now. We will have four flyers this year; Johnny, you will be second catcher. Elissa, since Stella is not yet strong enough to work, you will audition with us in her place.”

  Lucia said, “Papa, is that smart? You know—”

  The old man shrugged impatiently. “To audition, it commits her to nothing. We need her while Stella is sick!”

  Not for the first time, Tommy wondered how Liss had won David’s consent. Or had she won it at all? But he had no time to think about it.

  “Gianni.”

  “Sir—” Johnny began.

  “Thank Angelo for this, not me. He convinced me you must have your chance again.”

  “Uncle Angelo, I appreciate it, sure, but—”

  “Just remember where you belong,” Angelo rapped. “Second catcher. Down somewhere between Tommy and Liss. And no funny stuff. You’re a Santelli, and don’t you forget it.”

  Johnny hardened his jaw, and in the firelight Tommy saw the small muscles move along his throat, but he only said, “Okay, okay.”

  “Matt, we will feature you this year as star flyer. Do you want to show Fortunati your triple yet?”

  “I’ll abide by your decision, Papa.”

  “No. It is for you and Angelo to say.”

  “Show him, Matt,” Angelo said. “He’s good enough to know how near you’ll miss it, if you miss it.”

  “Good enough.” Papa Tony nodded. “Elissa, you will work in the duo routines in the double flying pass, and do one or two pretty things to open—ask Lucia what will be prettiest.” She nodded meekly, and he added, fixing her with a stern glare, “We will have no trouble with David this time, you hear?”

  Mario held his sister’s hand and said, “I’ll guarantee that.”

  “Tommy,” Papa Tony said, seeking him out where he sat beside Barbara. All their eyes followed Papa Tony’s to fix on Tommy, but for once he was not frightened; it was his turn, that was all.

  “Your duo routines with Mario are the most spectacular thing we have, except for his triple. They are just unusual enough to make the difference. One thing: You are a Santelli; don’t forget and give your name as Tommy Zane. I tell Fortunati who you are, but it is part of our buildup: three generations of Santellis.” His eyes moved on. “Has anyone anything to say?”

  Lucia did. “Wardrobe. Liss and Johnny are wearing any old rags they could find downstairs. And, Matt, I want you staying in the house this week—no running around in Hollywood or wherever it is with that crew of ballet boys and university bums. I know it’s still off season and your time is supposed to be your own, but I want you here. Understand?”

  “Look, Lu, I have a job. I can arrange to take off for the audition, sure, but it doesn’t make any sense—”

  “You drive back and forth every day anyhow,” Lucia said, “and if you’re sleeping here, I can get hold of you when we want you, and make sure you get enough to eat, and enough sleep—”

  “Lu, for God’s sake, I’m not sixteen years old! I’ve been on my own for six years! Anyhow, Tommy’s in my room, and with Liss here and everybody doubling up—”

  Angelo said, “Lu’s right, Matt. You move in with one of the kids, Clay or Tommy. But you ought to be staying here.”

  Mario shrugged. “You’re the boss. Tommy, can you put up with having me move in on you for a week or so?”

  “If it’s okay with you,” Tommy muttered, not daring to look up, “it’s okay with me.”

  The days became insanely hectic after that. The practice room was closed to everyone except the six who were actually working, and even Papa Tony, who was never out of trim, practiced with them.

  Tommy had once thought that if he and Mario could share a room, and sleep together every night, it would be wonderful; however, it turned out to be quite perfunctory. They were too busy, and too tired, to take advantage of the arrangement.

  Nevertheless, it meant a good deal to him—that in this wearying routine he could fall asleep every night with his head on Mario’s pillow and wake up, once or twice in the night, to hear him breathing. It was no more than this. They had reverted to being no more than they had been years ago—partners, companions, brothers. And all the tension between their bodies, never wholly absent, seemed to build, not to the moment when they moved into each other’s arms at night, but to the moment when they threw themselves as one, from the fly bar. When they slid down the rope after each rehearsal, drenched in sweat, to snatch up their robes and drop down to rest (twice Mario fell asleep on the floor), Tommy felt weak and discharged, as if by the most violent lovemaking. At night they put their arms around one another before they slept, but it was the tired, friendly embrace of brothers. Tommy thought Mario had not fully realized this situation—or was it that he was cautiously aware of their position in the midst of the family?—but one morning, shaving, Mario muttered “God, haven’t we been good boys?”

  “Who’s got the energy to be anything else?”

  “When this is over, win or lose, I’ll show you a thing or two. Promise?”

  “Promise.” But Tommy turned away, afraid to reveal himself. It was better this way, not thinking of anything except their work.

  On the weekend, David Renzo appeared, not entirely (Tommy guessed) to Liss’s pleasure. A few minutes before he turned up, Liss had been practicing a new trick, and had fallen hard to the net. When David came in, she was rubbing her sweaty face with a towel, but when he put his arms around her, she winced and pulled away.

  “Ouch!”

  Lucia came and touched her arm. “Did you hurt yourself when you fell, Liss?”

  Liss shook her head. Unselfconsciously she pulled off her sweater, standing before them in her brassiere. Angelo came, too, to look at the crisscross network of crimson welts across her back.

  Lucia laughed. “That will teach you, ragazza!”

  “Good God,” David Renzo gasped, “you look like you’ve been flogged with a cat-o’-nine-tails or something! What happened? Did you fall? I knew it, I knew I should never have let you—”

  “Don’t be silly,” Liss said. “I hit the net a little too hard, that’s all. You fall all the time, doing this. Don’t fuss, David, it’s my own fault.”

  “Look, Liss, you never told me—I thought you said you never got hurt—” he began.

  She turned on him, in a flaming rage. “Are you going to start that again, David? You promised—”

  “Am I supposed to stand around and watch you get killed?” He moved his eyes across the circle of Santellis around him, and Tommy realized they had all gathered and were watching David, the outsider.

  Angelo said curtly, “Put your sweater back on, Liss. Don’t stand around half naked like that; you’ll catch a chill. And next time roll when you hit the net—you knew better than to come down like that when you were Barbie’s age! Be sure you get a hot bath tonight, and have Lu or Johnny massage your back—you stiffen up by Saturday and I’ll break your neck.” He turned and ordered, “Are we going to get back to work? Johnny,
did you get that bar taped yet? Matt, Tommy, go on up for the duo routines.”

  As Angelo strode away, without a word to Liss’s husband, David Renzo looked angrily at Liss, then shook his head, his mouth tight, and walked out of the practice room, slamming the door. Behind him, Tommy heard Lucia say in a low, urgent voice, “Liss. Go after him. Don’t let him go away mad like that.”

  “In God’s name,” Liss shouted at her, her hands pressed against her temples, staring helplessly from her mother to the closed door where her husband had vanished, “what do you want of me, Lulu? What do you think I can do? Do you have to put me in the middle?”

  “Elissa, he is your husband! You must not fight with him like that! Go after him, make it up with him—”

  “What am I supposed to say to him?” Liss ran into the change room and slammed the door. Lucia hurried after her.

  Angelo, frowning, snarled, “No, damn it, Matt, you keep out of this! You get back up there where you belong. Tommy, I’m waiting!”

  When Tommy joined him at the top of the rigging, Mario was white and shaken, rubbing his wrist, troubled. Tommy said, “Mario—” but Mario turned his coldest, most withdrawn frown on the boy.

  “Don’t you start, damn it! Get going!”

  That evening before the fire, Angelo said suddenly, “Dave, I want to tell you about my wife, Teresa.”

  Tommy looked up from his geometry textbook. Angelo never spoke of Terry Santelli. Tommy had seen pictures of her in the family scrapbook, a lovely dark-haired young woman. Dark-eyed little Tessa, Lucia’s pride and joy, came now and then for a weekend from her convent boarding school, and everyone spoiled her outrageously. Angelo went over to where David sat and dropped down beside him.

  “I use to think sometimes, Dave, that Terry married me because she was in love with the—the glamour of flying. The danger of it.”

  “Like Liss? Look, Angelo, you can skip the pep talk—”

  “No,” said Angelo, “not like Liss at all. Terry was crazy about dangerous things, just because they were dangerous. Liss takes risks, but it’s because she was brought up on it, it’s just part of the day’s work. Terry—well, I never wanted her to fly at all, but she was crazy to try it. I had to work with Liss and Matt anyhow, so I taught Terry along with them, and she was good. And she was absolutely fearless. She took crazy chances; I always expected she’d break her neck, but she really was good. Never even broke a finger. And then Tessa was born, and I put my foot down. That season, I forbade Terry to fly, forbade her to go near the flying rig.” An ironic little twist came over Angelo’s face. “Terry stormed and begged, but I was going to wear the pants in my family, and that was that. No more flying—she was going to settle down and raise my kid like a good wife ought to.”

  “Look—Angelo—”

  “No, you listen, Dave. So when Tessa was ten months old, Terry smashed herself to hell in my car, because she was crazy about speed and danger and excitement. Since I wouldn’t let her fly with us, she got her kicks by driving my car ninety miles an hour on the freeway, where the other people in the act didn’t give a damn about safety.” Angelo was staring into the fire. Tommy wondered what he saw in the flames. “Dave, kid, you can’t protect anybody unless they feel like being protected.”

  David didn’t answer for a moment. His face was as rigid and set as Angelo’s. He got up, turning his back on the fire. “Well,” he said at last, “it’s something to think about. But damn it, I don’t have to like it, do I?”

  Angelo got up and put a hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle shake. “That’s just the point, kid. I’m afraid you do.”

  David said nothing more, but when he returned to San Francisco on Sunday night, he left Liss with them, with no further protest. The next day, Tommy had his own first serious fall.

  While he was learning, he had faulted and gone into the net hundreds of times. He had suffered, in consequence, all the bruises, rope burns, skinned knees, and sore muscles which were the common lot of young athletes; he took them as a matter of course, and was secretly proud of himself for ignoring them. But this was new, and horrifying.

  He was doing a simple crossover, and had actually touched fingers with Johnny, when suddenly a black blur crossed his eyes and he felt himself plunge downward. He struggled with his last fragment of consciousness to roll into a ball, realized in a moment of horror that his muscles would not obey him, then he struck hard, the black blur exploded into a glare, and he knew nothing more.

  He had no sense of elapsed time when he became aware of a sharp, bitter odor stinging the roots of his brain; he coughed, choked and opened his eyes. His face was cold and dripping wet, and Johnny, kneeling beside him, was holding an open bottle of household ammonia under his nostrils. The floor felt hard under his back. Mario’s face, a blurred circle over Johnny’s shoulder, swung in dizzy waves as Tommy pushed away the ammonia and sat up.

  “What happened?” he mumbled.

  “I guess you fainted,” Johnny said. “I thought you missed, then I saw you sprawl out instead of tucking up for a decent landing. God, you scared me—I thought you were coming right down on your face!”

  Mario said, “Give me that washcloth, Liss,” and sponged Tommy’s face again. “Come on, straighten up, Lucky. Hurt anywhere?”

  Tommy moved experimentally. “I’m okay, I guess. I ouch!—guess I pulled a muscle in my ribs, or hit it, or something. Otherwise I’m okay.” The knot of terror suddenly grabbed him again, a spasm, an actual cramp of pain low in his body. “Talk about a nightmare’s nightmare!”

  “You scared us all,” Angelo said, with an unusual, rough gentleness. “You could’ve broken your neck. I thought for a minute that you had. Guess Matt had the right idea when he called you Lucky.”

  Tommy said shakily, “It happened so fast. I was fine, and suddenly everything went black. I tried to ball up and couldn’t.”

  “You owe Saint Michael a candle.” Liss touched his arm, shyly. “That’s how flyers get killed—losing control that way.”

  He realized how shaken they all looked. Had he really been in so much danger? Had they really been so worried about him? Just as it penetrated, however—the extra warmth of their solicitude, the unexpected display of affection and emotion—Angelo commanded roughly, “Okay, everybody, break it up. He’s not hurt, we can’t waste the whole day chewing over what might have happened. Liss, you’re on, and will you please remember I’m here to catch you? You’re still grabbing. Just you get your wrists where they belong, and let me worry about taking them, huh?”

  Liss started up the ladder. Mario motioned Tommy after her.

  “You know the rule. If you miss, go up and do it over.”

  Tommy shook his head dizzily. “I can’t. I’m still shaking.”

  “That’s why. Right away, Lucky.”

  “You’re the boss.” Weak with reaction, Tommy scrambled to his feet and started toward the ladder. There was a bad taste in his mouth. Abruptly he said, “Look out—I’m going to throw up—” and had just time enough to get to the toilet in the change room. Mario followed him and stood by, scowling; he threw him the wet washcloth to wipe his face with. Tommy felt as if his very insides were coming out. When he had finally finished, he clung to the counter, saying through a ringing emptiness, “Look, I’d better call it a day. If I go up now, I’m going to fall again.”

  “And if you don’t, you may never get up there again.” Mario’s eyes were level and cold, and his hand on Tommy’s elbow was no longer steadying, but compelling. “If you’d hit your head, I’d say okay, maybe you got a little concussion. But you didn’t, so all the goddamn throwing up doesn’t mean anything except you’re scared shitless. Get out there, damn you, or I’ll take you apart.” He gave him a rough shove, and suddenly Tommy understood.

  He had thought himself past fear. He had prided himself, secretly and greatly, because he had never suffered any of the usual panic “freezes” of young aerialists, had never clung to the bar in terror of the drop into th
e net, had never had a sudden attack of nerves and clung to the ropes like a drowning man. Now he realized he was not, after all, immune; his panic had simply taken a later, subtler form. There had been no virtue in his earlier courage; he simply hadn’t been afraid, that was all. Now he was, and Mario could see it. Under Mario’s sarcastic stare, stripped down to a naked rag of panic, he went shakily toward the ladder, his feet fumbling as he climbed.

  “At last,” Liss said tartly as he reached the platform. “Good evening.” She waited for him to pass her the bar, then swung out and posed across this trapeze, letting Angelo take her by the ankles. Tommy caught the returning bar raggedly, trying to push away awareness of everything except the moment when Angelo released her for the return swing; he dropped the bar for her. Liss caught it, dropped off at his side, and he fumbled for the released trapeze as she stepped quickly out of the way.

  “Get that bar away faster! Stop fumbling,” Mario shouted from the floor. “Okay, Tommy, your turn.”

  Liss steadied the bar as he got his thumbs over it. Angelo called caustically, “Mind telling me which way you’re coming?”

  “Flyover,” Tommy answered. It was the only thing he could think of. Mario was counting for him as he hadn’t done since Tommy’s early days. “. . . two, three—go!” Tommy felt the trapeze take him and toss him high, as if he had been packed up inside a corner of an unfamiliar set of muscles, and Mario’s voice sounded a million miles away.

  “Pull up—point your feet—hold it, hold it—okay, go!” Tommy flung his body forward over the bar and suddenly his hands were where they ought to be again; he felt Angelo take his outstretched wrists, felt the jolt and the pain deep under his ribs as they swung together. But he could feel the rhythm of the swing, clockwork, inside his brain again . . . as he turned for the return swing and their wrists unlocked. He let the swing carry him on, found the taped bar under his hands, and then, with relief, felt the platform solid under his feet again.

  “Ragged, ragged!” Mario shouted. “Feet and elbows all over the place! Liss, get the bar away fast—don’t shove it down at one edge that way! Let’s see that again!”