“Don’t you dare run out on him now, you bastard! What do you think you’re trying to do, get him killed?”
Angelo wrenched away from Tommy’s grip as if it soiled him. He said between his teeth, “Take your hands off me, you goddamn little—” He bit off the words between his teeth. “I’m trying to make sure he doesn’t get killed, with all that crap about art! I ought to break your neck!”
Tommy felt the childish retort on his lips, You an’ what army? But that would do nothing to defuse the real confrontation, between Mario and Angelo.
This is between them. It has nothing to do with me. That’s what I’ve never understood before.
“Break my neck? You just try it! But not till I give you a piece of my mind! And you better listen, and listen good, Angelo! I’m no Catholic, but I’ve heard enough out of Tessa’s catechism to know there’s something called sins of omission, and if you don’t listen now, your own goddamned God will hold you responsible for his murder. Yes, I said murder!”
“Look, you got no right to talk about my religion—”
“Right, be damned! Angelo, Papa Tony told me a long time ago. He said Matt’s way out in a lonely place, driving himself, needing to do what nobody’s ever done before. Papa never knew why it was that way with Matt—”
“And I suppose you do?”
Tommy took no heed of the interruption. Words poured from him without thought. He had no idea of what he would say next, but the words came, almost of their own accord.
“Papa didn’t know, but he accepted it, that’s the thing. He knew what Matt had to do, and you’ve got to accept him, too! Don’t you know—God damn it, Angelo, don’t you know you’re all the father Matt ever had? You raised him, you made him what he is now, even if you don’t like it. You’re all the father he has and—and you know Lucia—all the mother he ever had, either. Everything he is—yes, damn it, everything—he’s that way because you made him that way, whether you like it or not now—”
“There’s one thing I didn’t make him, Tom. He sure as hell didn’t get that from me,” Angelo said, raising a hand in protest.
But Tommy flung at him, “Don’t you kid yourself! That, too! Don’t you know his whole life is hanging on getting your approval—your acceptance—your love? He needs to know—he can’t live without knowing—that the one who means most to him cares about him, approves of him—accepts him, whatever he is—”
“Seems to me like that’s your job, kid,” Angelo said with a cold, disgusted glance, but Tommy swallowed hard and shook his head.
“I wish to hell I could. I try. But I came too late. Sure, I love him—no, damn it, Angelo, I’m not talking about what you think I mean; that’s only a—a part of it, and it hasn’t got anything to do with what I’m talking about. Christ, Angelo, will you stop kidding yourself? You love the guy just as much as I do, and for just about the same reasons, and you know it!”
Angelo’s face was convulsed. He said, “Damn it, Tommy, I’ll kill you—”
“Just you try it,” Tommy said, his fists clenched, “but some other time. Not now. Damn it, for once you’re going to face up to it if I have to dump you on the floor and sit on you! You got me wrong, Angelo. You know as well as I do what I’m talking about! You were his catcher, too! You know what it is, like when you meet in midair, hands and wrists and—and everything meshing, perfect, like you were the two halves of one thing, and something happens inside you—Christ, Angelo, I’m not talking about the sex thing! Don’t be so goddamn scared to listen to what I’m saying to you!” he begged. It felt as if he were turning himself inside out. “Something else. Something inside. Like you had only one heartbeat, and something happens inside your—your soul. Angelo, you’ve got to know it, you can’t kid me into thinking you kept on flying all those years just to make a living. You did it because you had to, even if you can’t admit it to yourself—”
“Look—kid—” Angelo said. He sounded shaken. “I don’t see what the hell all this has to do with the stuff about the union. Even if some of what you say is true, I don’t see—”
“No, you don’t see, and that’s what’s going to kill him,” Tommy said, rushing on without taking a breath. “Don’t you even know why he had to get that goddamned triple, why he had to drive himself so hard? All his life he’s felt that if he only did enough, someday you’d have to admit to him how much you cared about him! When did he start working on the triple? Yeah, that’s right—just about the time you made him feel he wasn’t fit to live! Just because he happened to like screwing men instead of women, you made him feel like he was a leper or something—”
Angelo raised a hand in protest again, but Tommy rushed on: “He’s going to kill himself out there today, trying to prove he’s worthy of your—of your love and affection, your respect . . . .”
Angelo caught his wrist. He said urgently, “Listen to me, Tom! Christ, slow down a minute and listen, willya? I do respect him. I do”—a long beat—“I do care about what happens to him.”
He couldn’t say it, Tommy thought. He still couldn’t say it or even think it.
“Christ, Tommy,” Angelo said, “do you think I want him to break his neck? Why in hell do you think I stopped him from climbing that goddamned ladder out there? I didn’t want him to get hurt!”
“But he doesn’t believe it! He doesn’t think it’s because—Angelo, do you know why he was late this morning?”
“No, damn it, I don’t. Why?”
“He was making his will. Providing for Suzy. He’s going to do this or die trying, and if he does survive it, he’ll go on, trying more and more crazy challenges—that three-and-a-half Barney Parrish was talking to him about, a triple forward. He still believes, down inside where he doesn’t know it himself, that if he’s brave enough, you’ll have to admit that you accept him, that you respect him—that you love him. He can’t do like Liss, get himself pregnant so he can have a good excuse to stop trying. But he can do what Lucia did, get himself smashed up—kill himself trying—” Tommy stopped. He had had no notion what would come pouring out; he realized he had gone too far even for this moment of truth.
“I may not be a real Santelli. I may not even come out of your big loving family tradition! You’ve done this to Matt, and you don’t even know it—that’s the hell of it. If you’d done it on purpose it wouldn’t even be so bad, but you don’t even know—” His voice broke. Angelo was dead white, shaking, but his fists were clenched as if to take a swing at Tommy right then and there. But down the hall Jim Fortunati had come to the door of his office.
“Angelo? What the hell is all the racket? Are they done filming yet? We’ve got to set up for the matinee! We don’t want this thing to go another day—”
On the very edge of violence, Angelo turned and went, stiff-legged, toward Fortunati. Tommy stood dead still, watching him stride away. He felt sick, and felt the sweat cold and clammy through the unfamiliar white tights.
What have I done? How could I use words like love to Angelo? Have I said anything that will make him understand? Or did it all go right past him, past that damned closed mind of his? As he made his way back to the arena, he knew that Jim Fortunati must have heard everything they said. He felt his throat was raw, and wondered, vaguely, Was I shouting?
Mario was back in the dressing room, sitting before the lighted makeup mirror. Stella had her arms around him, and his head was turned so that it rested against her shoulder. She was looking down at him with infinite tenderness, just as she looked at Suzy.
It’s too late for that. Tommy knew there had been a time when Lucia could have gotten through to her son. But Lucia, submerged in her own torment, her own struggle, had never had time or emotional energy for the children she had not wanted. Liss, too, had found the struggle too great for her. Maybe, if Susan hadn’t been such a bitch—but Mario’s face was calm, dead stony calm, and as Tommy came in, Stella shrugged silently, helplessly, let her arms drop from Mario’s shoulders, and went out of the room.
&nb
sp; Mario ground out his cigarette in an ashtray. He got up with one fierce catlike movement and took Tommy by the shoulders.
“I don’t care what Angelo says! I’m going to do it just the way I planned it! The way Parrish did it, the way it’s got to be!” His hands came up to close around Tommy’s neck, half threat, half caress. “Don’t you dare tell me I can’t, Lucky! Don’t you dare!”
Tommy twisted away. He said, “It’s not for me to say you can’t. But not right now. You’re guyed-out, Matt, tight as a tent. I’ve seen you go for a one-and-a-half and miss it when you’re all tied up in knots like this! Just sit down and get hold of yourself. Why the hell are you letting Angelo do this to you?” he flung at him. “He isn’t worth it!”
All those years. I’ve been with him all those years. And it’s still Angelo’s approval he needs. Angelo’s love.
As if the words, unspoken, had reached Mario, he flushed. “Angelo can go to hell,” he said. He put his arms around Tommy. “Remember the first time you went on with us, Lucky? The first time I ever did the triple in the ring. Angelo didn’t want me to try that, either!”
“Sure, I remember.” But Tommy turned, catching Mario’s wrists and firmly planting them at the older man’s sides. “But I remember what Angelo said that night, and he was right, too. He said, ‘You sit down and calm down, do some deep breathing exercises or something, or I’m not going to let you try it.’” He pushed him gently down before the makeup table.
“Who the hell do you think you are, ordering me around?” Mario flared.
Tommy looked him straight in the eye.
“I’m your catcher. That’s who I am. Let me see those wrists. The makeup men don’t know what the hell they’re doing. Clench your fists, or this tape will cut.”
Yes. This was the essence of what he was, everything that was between them.
I’m your catcher. That’s who I am. Their eyes met for a moment in the mirror, and in spite of the strange makeup, Tommy once again recognized himself, knew, with a sure sense of identity, who they were. Flyer and catcher. That said it all.
There was a tap on the door, which, loosely latched, swung open, and a strange voice called, “Santellis? Ready on the set.”
Harshly Tommy whispered, more plea than command, “Andiamo!”
Mario gathered himself, a brittle facade of normality.
“Okay. Here goes.”
The Santellis are always ready . . . .
Angelo was waiting for them at the foot of the rigging. He looked limp and shaken, and for some reason Tommy thought of the way he had looked after Papa Tony’s death. Washed-out. Mario brushed past him, not looking at him, as the klieg lights flared around them and cameramen put aside coffee cups, crushed out their cigarettes, and prepared to work. Angelo put one foot on the aerial ladder, both steadying it for Mario and effectively preventing him from climbing. Tommy, about to go to his own end of the rigging, stopped close to them, apprehension shaking him. More trouble? I just got him calmed down—does he want to kill him?
Mario said between his teeth, “Get out of my way. I’m going up.”
“Listen, Matt, you got me wrong,” Angelo said. “You can’t do my work any more than I can do yours. You think I could hold you on a triple now? Not if they gave me a million dollars cash. And I’d be too scared to try. You know why?”
His voice fell to a whisper which only Tommy was close enough to hear. “I’d be scared to lose you—the way I lost Papa—or worse. By some mistake of mine. I never was all that good as a catcher, kid. I was never in your class. And you’re all that’s left—you’re what the Santellis are all about, you and Tommy. You’re all I’ve got left. Don’t do this to me, kid. Ragazzo . . . Matteo . . . tu sei . . . sempre . . . e ancor . . . fanciullo mio . . . figlio mio . . . .”
His face worked. He swallowed and swallowed again.
Mario was as pale as the white costume. Blindly, he put out his hand to Angelo; Angelo gripped it, automatically, around the wrist. His voice was—almost—under control again.
“Look, ragazzo. Remember what Barney used to say—you’ve got to have an open mind about breaking your neck. An open mind, kid. You can’t do anything with this—this art of ours, if you got your mind made up you got to break it. You can’t—can’t survive that attitude, any more than—any more than Terry did. You listen to me, fanciullo—did I ever steer you wrong? Come on, now—did I?”
Mario shook his head. His hand was still gripped around Angelo’s wrist. The older man gave it a gentle shake.
“A Santelli doesn’t take chances or play silly-ass games with getting killed. What would Papa Tony say about that? If I taught you anything at all, Matt, I hope I taught you that. It’s got nothing to do with how brave you are, figlio. Christ, do you think you have to prove anything about that—to me? To me, fanciullo, after all we went through on the triple?” Right there in Center Ring, with Mason shouting to clear the set, Angelo pulled Mario close and rubbed his cheek in a rough kiss. “Andiamo,” he said, boosting him toward the ladder. “You get yourself up there and give us the best damn triple we ever saw. That’s your job, figlio, and there’s nobody else can do it. You got to be there to do that.”
Stunned, Tommy turned toward his own end of the rigging. What in the blazing hell had Fortunati said to Angelo, anyway? As he climbed the rope, Tommy knew he would never know.
Is it going to work? Is he going up there and get himself killed, trying to prove he can still do the impossible? In the state he’s in . . . But then he looked back toward the aerial ladder and saw Mario stepping off on the platform, giving the sweeping, exaggerated wave to the audience. Down in the seats the audience of costumed extras was shouting and clapping.
Mario swung out, in the first of the enormous warm-up swings with which he always started a day. Tommy, sitting upright in his own trapeze, watched him, turning around the bar, swooping out again, the delicate precision of every movement. Perfect, soaring grace.
It’s okay, it’s okay! . . . Man and trapeze seemed to fuse, to be a single joyous entity. Mario moved on it like a child; swooping on a swing for the sheer delight of it. Dropping off on the platform, gently moving aside for Stella, Tommy saw the instant of smiling interplay between them. Bart had said it, once. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn you were lovers. No wonder Johnny had been jealous. But Johnny didn’t need to be jealous, not on that level, not at all.
Stella gives him all he can ever have, anything he needs, all he wants from any woman.
Mario flung up his hand in the signal for the triple. Tommy, without even thinking about it, dropped back to hang by his knees. He caught the bar between his legs, wound his legs tight and precise about the padded supports. Mario was off the board and swinging, driving higher and higher, and Tommy accelerated his own swing to match, precisely, Mario’s rhythm. Out, and back, and out again . . . precise, together, joined, locked in a dual rhythm. Like foreplay, rising to mutual excitement, fever pitch, tension building between them.
Not yet. Not quite, not yet. One more swing . . . . Random thoughts, thoughts he would never remember, later, skittered across the surface of his mind. What we are together, on the trapeze. Almost a form of lovemaking. Awfully public love-making. From the same place in your guts.
Salto mortale. Nothing in excess. The perfect, predetermined shape of fate . . . .
He could not precisely see Mario. He was aware of him, of the other trapeze, locked, meshed, a single heartbeat. Mario was driving higher in the last swing, as if his tense body must break loose and fly outward and upward, free of gravity, never to return . . . back and back, above the braces; skimming almost to the tie lines. Tommy’s hands went out, on the backswing, even before Mario came off the bar like a cannon shot, spinning over, incredibly higher on the second turn—Their hands locked, jolted with the weight, before the Now! in Tommy’s mind could reach words. Not until they were swinging, hands and wrists locked, did Tommy realize that he had been braced to see Mario, like Papa Tony, go do
wn for the last time. Mario’s eyes, below his, were filled with gaiety and the old excitement.
“Okay, Lucky? Okay,” he whispered.
And he was gone again, arrowing back to the platform, dropping off beside Stella, sliding the bar into her hands, flinging an arm carelessly around her for balance, raising his hand in an exaggerated, sweeping gesture, finale, appeal to the audience.
And then it came. Spontaneously, the sounds held all those breathless moments, rocked the Garden.
No paid admission here. No thrill-seeking audience. Fellow professionals, actors and circus people alike, giving their approval to their own, the greatest tribute in their power to the greatest of their own. Tommy, pulling himself upright in his trapeze, holding up his hands to acknowledge it, knew deep down that it was for him, too.
He made them forget they were just extras! He got them to applaud!
And then they were all on the floor again, bowing, bowing again, acknowledging the applause that seemed endless. Mario’s hand clasped Tommy’s, briefly, and he met Tommy’s eyes in a smile that was all sunshine.
He’s exorcised his ghosts. I can hold him on anything, now. He’s all mine now.
Mason was shouting and waving to the cameramen. He turned briefly to look at Mario and said, “Okay, that does it. We can print that. I guess we don’t need any retakes, this time.”
Jim Fortunati came up and took Mario’s hand. He said, in a low voice, “Matt, I never saw anything like that. Nobody ever saw anything like that. You’re the greatest flyer in the world. I’m sure Barney Parrish, wherever he is, is watching over you—and he’s proud of you.”
Mario’s smile was luminous, brilliant, as if an old burden had been lifted forever. “Yeah,” he said in a whisper, “maybe he is, at that!”
Johnny boiled out into center ring, charging, excited. “Mason, you folks finished? Does that wrap it up? Damn it, we’ve got a matinee to do today—can you get all this crap out of center ring?” With a sidewise grin, he looked up at Mario and said, “Nice work, big brother.” Briefly, he tightened an arm around his shoulders and let him go. “Now, will you guys get all these cameras and stuff the hell out of here? The box office is going to be open inside two hours, and your contract says—”
The Catch Trap Page 83
