Girl and Five Brave Horses, A (21 page)

During the next few days everything seemed to go wrong, from minor injuries to major ones, and odd, uncalculated happenings took place. Perez, a slackwire performer, fell and injured a foot, and one of the girls in the water sports fell off her aquaplane as it made a turn, and the board flipped up and laid her head open. Worst of all, at the end of the week one of the Pallenberg bears got loose and mangled Tommy Kao.

Tommy had been taking a sun bath and fallen asleep while the Pallenberg act was on. The bear got off his leash somehow and darted backstage through the half-open door. The shouts of the crowd excited him even more, and as he ran back he found Tommy lying on the bench and attacked him.

My first impulse when I heard the commotion outside was to open the screen door of my dressing room to let some of the scattering performers find safety inside, but the instinct toward self-preservation squelched the impulse quickly. A wide-open door might prove an invitation to the bear, and so I stood there anxiously wondering if I should change my mind and be brave. Then I heard high-pitched screams like those of a woman in pain and immediately thought of Arnette. I opened the door and started out, propelled forward by my fear for her safety, which was suddenly greater than my fear for myself. But just then I heard a scuffling sound and stopped as Mr. Wylie, owner of the aero-wheel act, called out, “Somebody help Tommy while I take care of this bear,” and I realized it was Tommy who had cried out. This was followed by a breaking and splintering noise. Mr. Pallenberg mumbled something. A few minutes later he had the bear under control and back on his chain.

Tommy’s injuries proved minor—a clawed back and chewed hand, both of which would heal—but tempers were running so high and everyone was under such a strain that Mr. Pallenberg later had a fight with Mr. Wylie because Mr. Wylie had hit the talented animal with a chain. Reports from eyewitnesses stated that after Mr. Wylie hit him over the head the bear had worn a definitely woozy expression.

These were the outward aftereffects of the tragedy. The inward effects were less visible, but all of us were scarred to some degree. Everything considered, I felt I had more reason than any of the others to be affected by Irene’s death and Roxie’s desperate injuries, for I was about to face the ordeal of riding
blind.
My helmet had just arrived and Elsa was scheduled to leave in three days; soon I would make my first ride.

It was hard to think of Irene and Roxie and not be haunted by doubts. It seemed foolish, presumptuous even, for me to think I could do my act without injury when performers who had sight were being injured daily. Again the pendulum swung from doubt to certainty to doubt. Could I do it? Of course I could. How did I know?

It is debatable how long these inner arguments would have continued had it not been that they were all reconciled suddenly by a circumstance no one had foreseen.

I was scheduled to make my first ride on the seventh. On the third, Elsa, who had just finished the last afternoon performance, was in my dressing room changing when she received a telegram from Lorena. Lorena’s season had not been due to open until the tenth, or so she thought. However, the message said that she had gotten her dates confused and the park was opening the night of the fourth. This meant that Elsa would have time to do nothing more than throw her belongings into a trunk and leave.

I heard this news with a mixture of panic and relief. My first thought was, “Oh no!” but my second was, “The waiting is over.”

I had planned to make a practice dive before Elsa left, but now that was impossible. With only about an hour between the last afternoon performance and the one of the evening, I would hardly have time to do more than get my things together and get dressed before I would have to be ready to go on. I made my preparations automatically and had almost finished when Al came along.

“Are you up to this?” he asked the minute he walked in.

I said, “I think so.”

“If you’re not,” he proposed, “you know we can call it off. I’m sure Mr. Gravitt would understand.”

“Yes, I know.”

There was silence for a moment. Then I added, “I’ve got to do it.”

He said, “Yes, I think you must.... Will you let me come up with you? Just this first time to stop the horse? I can hold him while you get on. That’s all that’s really worrying you.”

“No,” I replied, “I’d rather you didn’t. I’ve got to do it alone.”

He was quiet a minute. Then he asked, “Are you afraid?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so. I haven’t had time to think.”

“It’s better,” he said, “if you don’t think. Just go up there like it was old times and keep remembering how often you’ve done it.”

“All right, I will.”

He looked at his watch. ‘It’s almost seven. I have to leave.”

“All right,” I repeated. “And don’t worry.”

He kissed me and, a moment afterward, left

I picked up the helmet, testing the feel and the weight, hefting it in my hand. Although a football helmet, it was much heavier and clumsier than standard models because of the metal frame on the front which encased a piece of clear plastic. The plastic came down over my eyes and fitted across my nose. The back of the helmet laced up so that I could adjust it to my head, and the inside was padded with foam rubber. To hold it on there was a strap with a buckle that fastened beneath my chin. After I had tried it on several times I threw my shawl around my shoulders and went out.

On the bench outside my door where I had often waited in the past I sat now, feeling the raw spring breeze nip at me. I wished it were a warm night; somehow that would have been better, but it wasn’t a warm night and that’s all there was to it.

I followed the music out front, checking off each act in turn, and after a while I heard Dempsey coming down the pier. He was barking furiously, making way for Red Lips, and in a moment George and the horse came around the comer and halted at the foot of the ramp.

Sparkey and Kelsey were about through. I would be on next. I got up and crossed over to the guide rope and let the fringe of my shawl brush it as I walked to the foot of the ramp. The applause out front ended for “Spark Plug,” and Al began our announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to witness the most exciting act in show business today. All eyes cast atop this lof-ty tower—”

I turned and put my shawl on the railing and buckled on my helmet. Then I began to climb.

As I mounted I counted the cleats. I already knew how many there were, but if I counted it would keep my mind off other things. I began dutifully, “One . . . two . . . three . . . four,” thinking how familiar they felt, “five ... six ... seven ... eight,” and how I must do as Al said. “Nine ... ten . . . eleven ... twelve.” But the fear was creeping up. Would I be able to mount Red? Would I be able to tell where he was? Moving sound was hard to pinpoint. My actions would have to be precise. A split second off and I’d miss him. I could lose my balance and fall. “Twenty-five ... twenty-six ... twenty-seven.” I had lost track and was counting at random. “Twenty-eight... twenty-nine .. . thirty.” As I continued I felt like yawning and remembered an article I had read. Yawning, it said, was caused by three things: boredom, illness, or fear. “Forty-one . . . forty-two . . . forty-three . . .” Roxie was badly crippled. She would live. When she learned she might have to lie in bed for the rest of her life would she still want to? Would I be like Roxie? Could that happen to me? Yes, it could and I know it could. “Seventy-five ... seventy-six ... seventy-seven ...” Just as I started to say “Seventy-nine” my foot came down with a thump, the kind of thump that follows an attempt to take a step where there isn’t any. I knew I had reached the level floor of the platform. As I stepped forward I heard Al say, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, Miss Sonora and Red Lips.”

In the old days I always tried to time my arrival at the top with his concluding words and had been pleased when we synchronized. Tonight I had done it without trying and thought, “That’s a good omen!” But almost immediately the feeling of well-being was dispelled, for as I boosted myself up on the railing and listened for the sound of George turning Red Lips, I could not hear a thing from the bottom of the ramp!

For a split second I thought I had lost my hearing, and panic seized me. Then I detected hoofs on the ramp and felt their vibration. Thank Cod! I could hear him, though not as clearly as I had expected.

I realized that the foam rubber inside the helmet partially deadened sound. Still, I would be able to hear him better the closer he got, and I tensed on the railing, remembering how fast Red traveled. Then, when pounding feet and vibration told me he was very close, I held out my hand and felt the tip of an ear flick by my fingers. Immediately I lowered my hand; I had reached too high. I found the side of his neck and felt the coarse hair of his body brush by. The next instant I closed my hand over the neck strap and threw my leg over Red’s back. In one swift motion I mounted him and knew I had mounted him perfectly!

A shaft of joy shot through me that was akin to pain as I pressed my legs against him tightly out of sheer animal pleasure. The firmness of his flesh, of his muscles, the contours of his body—all these fit into my own as naturally as if they were part of me, and I had the feeling that I had suddenly been made whole. It was as if I had lost an arm or a leg and gotten it back again. It was as if I had found a part of myself I had never hoped to regain.

Red was at the head of the platform doing his little dance, first one foot and then the other drumming on the platform; then he slid down over the edge and hung there for a second. He slammed his forefeet against the panel with terrific force and launched us out into space. Once again I had that feeling of wild exhilaration as we were heading down, down, down, toward the tank of water. I felt the rippling of his muscles as the horse prepared to enter, and as he straightened his forelegs I tightened my grip on the harness. The next instant we hit the water in a perfect dive.

The water gurgled and bubbled; his forefeet touched bottom. He threw his head back and sprang upward toward the surface, springing with such power that when he came in view of the audience he shot halfway out of the water. I clung to his wet and slippery back as his feet pawed the air. He settled back in the water and began to swim to the incline. In a moment we came out at a brisk canter, and I slid off his back. I found Al waiting for me and he said, “I think you’re wonderful.”

The audience seemed to be applauding as they had never applauded before. They could not have known and yet seemed to know that something special had happened. Al handed me Red Lips’ sugar and I put it between my lips. For some time before I lost my sight we had been training him to take it from me in this fashion so that it appeared he was kissing me. Red leaned over and took it, and the audience clapped harder. This time it went on and on until it became an ovation.

It followed me as I left the stage and made my way to my dressing room. Backstage the other performers rushed up to me. Everyone kissed and hugged me, and as I went into my dressing room I felt wonderfully warm.

I walked over to the mirror that hung on a wall and stood a minute before it. It was the same mirror I had looked into eight years before on the night I made my first ride. I had seen myself then literally bursting with joy, a smile on my face like no other. I couldn’t see the smile now but I knew it was there and, best of all, in place of the lonely victory I had had that night I now had friends to share my happiness. It seemed to me that in some odd way a balance had been struck.

That was the beginning of eleven years during which I rode blind. Not all the dives went as smoothly as the first one; I had some close scrapes. Sometimes I became overanxious about mounting the horse and jumped on him the moment my hand touched his body instead of taking time to find the harness. When this happened I landed halfway between his head and withers—a very unhandy place—from which I had to move back quickly to get into proper position before he dived.

Other times a poor mount would make me lose my grip and I would get knocked off when he hit the water. Since I could not see, this was especially dangerous. When I had sight I used to wait in the bottom of the tank until the horse began to swim out, but now I had no way of locating him. Being knocked off caused me some consternation, for I was afraid I might come up directly under him and get caught in the mad thrash of his hoofs. Fortunately it didn’t happen often enough for the odds to stack up against me, and I never did get kicked, though one day perhaps I deserved to be.

I had oiled myself and put on an old bathing suit and gone outside to take a sun bath until time for my performance. I hadn’t intended to take a nap, but the warm sun made me drowsy, and the next thing I knew someone was shaking me and saying it was almost time. I had only a few minutes to run to my dressing room and change. I managed to get dressed in the nick of time and made my way up the ramp, but it was not until I was on the tower and the horse was approaching that I remembered the oil on my body. I knew I was liable to slip off him, and to overcome this possibility I exerted an even tighter grip than usual as we took off, but it was no use. The minute we hit the water I felt myself going, but this time the sensation was one of slipping rather than being knocked off.

As I lost my grip I could feel the horse’s body beneath me and made a desperate effort to regain my hold on the harness as he continued forward and down. My clutching fingers raked along his back and over his rump and then onto his tail. I knew this was my last chance, so I closed my hands on it and hung on, straightening my body to avoid his thrashing hoofs. When we reached the surface I gave my body a tremendous yank, which sent me forward in a gliding, surfboard manner, and got hold of the harness. I pulled myself into position and rode out, very pleased.

Another time—four times, in fact!—I missed the horse entirely. I misjudged the sound of his clattering hoofs and failed to mount him as he passed. Once when this happened in Superior, Wisconsin, it made me so angry to be left sitting on the rail like a flowerpot on a window sill that I decided I would do something about it.