The Ordinary Acrobat by Duncan Wall

Author:Duncan Wall [Wall, Duncan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-96229-4
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2013-02-26T05:00:00+00:00

OUTSIDE LAURENCE’S TRAILER, the sun was tucking itself into the woods to the west, bronzing the horizon. At the bottom of the iron steps I paused to let my eyes adjust to the dusk. According to Laurence, more than a hundred friends had been invited to that night’s show, and I noticed a row of cars starting to form in the company lot. Opening curtain was still four hours away.

Laurence had suggested I could find some of the trapezists in the company dining trailer, also known as the “cookhouse.” In the old tenting circuses, the cookhouse was the troupe’s hub, the first tent to go up in the morning and the last to come down at night. To judge by the cookhouse of Les Arts Sauts, not much had changed. As I slipped into the trailer, I felt as though I had wandered into a Greek wedding. Dozens of people sat at long, cafeteria-style tables, chatting loudly over paper plates of rich-smelling food—lasagna, French bread, salad. Wool sweaters and work pants abounded, but the diversity was otherwise impressive: acrobats talked with the elderly, hippies spoke with children. At the rear of the room, an enormous sheet of butcher paper covered the wall. Words were scribbled all over it. At the top, in big letters, it read, “IDEAS.”

Flagging down a cook in a saucy apron, I asked if he could direct me to a trapezist. He used a ladle smeared in tomato sauce to indicate an enormous man hunched in the back of the trailer.

“Him?” I said skeptically. It was hard to imagine a man of his size on high.

The cook smiled, understanding the implication. “His name’s Frank. He’s a catcher.”

Ah yes, the catchers. In a trapeze act, there are two species: flyers and catchers. Flyers are what we imagine trapezists to be: nimble and slight, they fly through the air and grab the spotlight. Catchers are twice as big but half as prominent. Dangling by their legs instead of their arms, catchers are the unseen heroes of the discipline, like offensive linemen in football—always in the play, but almost never touching the ball.

The distinction didn’t always exist. Léotard never had a catcher, and neither did his slew of imitators, all of whom flew between two bars—releasing, throwing a trick, then grabbing. But the routine was repetitive, and audiences soon lost interest. Flying this way was also difficult, not to mention dangerous. Grabbing the bar at high speeds put tremendous pressure on a flyer’s shoulders. A miss of even a few inches could ruin the trick and possibly the performer’s teeth; getting cracked in the face during a trapeze move is like getting hit with a crowbar. It looked for a while as though the act might disappear.

Fortunately, catchers appeared. Technically, catching began with an act called the “leap for life.” Hurling himself from his trapeze, a flyer would land in the arms of a partner hanging by his knees. But the act was jarringly brief. After being caught, the flyer would grab a rope and shimmy to the ground.

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