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And Juan Diego was anxious to get back to Cinco Senores, where La Maravilla would be setting up the tents and quieting down the animals. At the time, Juan Diego believed he had more important business to attend to than what was on Lupe's mind. As a fourteen-year-old boy will, Juan Diego was dreaming about himself as a hero--he had skywalking aspirations on his mind. (And of course Lupe knew what her brother was thinking; she could read his thoughts.)
The four of them fit into Pepe's VW Beetle; Pepe drove the dump kids to Cinco Senores before he took Rivera back to the shack in Guerrero. (El jefe had said he wanted to take a nap before the local anesthetic wore off.)
In the car, Pepe told the dump kids they were welcome to come back to Lost Children. "Your old room is ready for you, anytime," was the way Pepe put it. But Sister Gloria had returned Juan Diego's life-size sex doll of the Guadalupe virgin to the Christmas-parties place--Lost Children would never be the same, Juan Diego was thinking. And why would you leave an orphanage, and then go back? If you leave, you leave, Juan Diego thought--you move on, not back.
When they got to the circus, Rivera was crying; the dump kids knew the local anesthetic had not worn off, but the dump boss was too upset to speak.
"We know we would be welcome to come back to Guerrero, jefe," Lupe said. "Tell Rivera we know the shack is our shack, if we ever need to go home," Lupe told Juan Diego. "Tell him we miss him, too," Lupe said. Juan Diego said all that, while Rivera kept crying--his big shoulders were shaking in the passenger seat.
It is simply amazing, at that age, when you're thirteen or fourteen, how you can take being loved for granted, how (even when you are wanted) you can feel utterly alone. The dump kids were not abandoned at Circo de La Maravilla; yet they'd stopped confiding in each other, and they were confiding in no one else.
"Good luck with that object you're working on," Juan Diego told Rivera, when the dump boss was leaving Cinco Senores to go back to Guerrero.
"Tricky business," Lupe repeated, as if she were talking to herself. (After Pepe's VW Beetle drove off, only Juan Diego could have heard her, and he wasn't really listening.) Juan Diego was thinking about his own tricky business. When it came to having balls, apparently, only the main tent--the skywalk at eighty feet, without a net--was a true test. Or so Dolores had said, and Juan Diego believed her. Soledad had coached him, teaching him how to skywalk in the troupe tent for the young-women acrobats, but Dolores said that didn't count.
Juan Diego remembered that he'd dreamed about skywalking--before he knew what skywalking was, when he and Lupe were still living in Rivera's shack in Guerrero. And when Juan Diego had asked his sister what she thought of his dream about walking upside down in the heavens, she'd been typically mysterious. All he'd said about the dream to Lupe was: "There comes a moment in every life when you must let go with your hands--with both hands."
"It's a dream about the future," Lupe had said. "It's a death dream," was how sh
e'd put it.
Dolores had defined the crucial moment, the one when you must let go with your hands--with both hands. "I never know whose hands I am in then, at that moment," Dolores had told him. "Maybe those miraculous virgins have magic hands? Maybe I'm in their hands, at that moment. I don't think you should think about it. That's when you have to concentrate on your feet--one step at a time. In every life, I think there's always a moment when you must decide where you belong. At that moment, you're in no one's hands," Dolores had said to Juan Diego. "At that moment, everyone walks on the sky. Maybe all great decisions are made without a net," The Wonder herself had told him. "There comes a time, in every life, when you must let go."
The morning after a road trip, Circo de La Maravilla slept late--"late" for a circus, anyway. Juan Diego was counting on getting an early start, but it's difficult to get up earlier than dogs. Juan Diego tried to sneak out of the dogs' troupe tent without causing suspicion; naturally, any dog who was awake would want to go with him.
Juan Diego got up so early, only Pastora heard him; she was already awake, already pacing. Of course the sheepdog didn't understand why Juan Diego wouldn't take her with him when he left the tent. It was probably Pastora who woke up Lupe, after Juan Diego had left.
In the avenue of troupe tents, there was no one around. Juan Diego was on the lookout for Dolores; she got up early, to run. Lately, it seemed, she was running too much or too hard; some mornings, she made herself sick. Though he liked Dolores's long legs, Juan Diego had no appreciation for her insane running. What boy with a limp likes to run? And even if you loved to run, why would you run until you threw up?
But Dolores took her training seriously. She ran, and she drank a lot of water. She believed both were essential for not getting muscle cramps in her legs. In the rope loops of the skywalk, Dolores said, you didn't want to get a cramp in your weight-bearing leg--not at eighty feet, not when the foot attached to that leg was all that held you to the ladder.
Juan Diego had comforted himself with the thought that none of the girls in the acrobats' troupe tent was ready to replace Dolores as The Wonder; Juan Diego knew that, next to Dolores, he was the best skywalker at La Maravilla--if only at twelve feet.
The main tent was another story. The knotted rope was what all the aerialists used to climb to the top of the tent. The knots were spaced on the thick rope to accommodate the hands and feet of the trapeze artists--the knots were within Dolores's reach, and within the reach of the sexually overactive Argentinian flyers.
For Juan Diego, the knots were not a problem; his grip was strong (he probably weighed about the same as Dolores), his hands could easily reach the next knot above him, and his good foot could securely feel the knot at his feet. He pulled himself up and up; climbing a rope is a workout, but Juan Diego looked fixedly ahead--he looked only up. Above him, he could see the ladder with the rope loops at the top of the main tent--with every pull of his arms, he saw the ladder inch nearer.
But eighty feet is a long climb, only an arm's length at a time, and the problem was that Juan Diego didn't dare look down. He kept the rope rungs of the ladder for the skywalk in view above him; his only focus was the top of the main tent, which was inching closer--one tug at a time.
"You have another future!" he heard Lupe call to him, as she'd said to him before. Juan Diego knew that looking down wasn't an option--he kept climbing. He was almost at the top; he'd already passed the platforms for the trapeze artists. He could have reached out and touched the trapezes, but that would have meant letting go of the rope, and he wouldn't let go--not even with one hand.
He had passed the spotlights, too--almost without noticing them, because the lights were off. But he was marginally aware of the unlit bulbs--the spotlights were pointed in an upward direction. They were meant to illuminate the skywalker, but they also lit the rope rungs of the skywalking ladder with the brightest possible light.
"Don't look down--never look down," Juan Diego heard Dolores say. She must have finished her run, because he could hear her retching. Juan Diego didn't look down, yet Dolores's voice had made him pause; the muscles in his arms were burning, but he felt strong. And he didn't have far to go.
"Another future! Another future! Another future!" Lupe called to him. Dolores went on throwing up. Juan Diego guessed they were his only audience.
"You shouldn't have stopped," Dolores managed to tell him. "You have to get from the climbing rope to the skywalking ladder without thinking about it, because you have to let go of the rope before you can grab hold of the ladder." This meant he had to let go twice.
No one had told him about this part. Neither Soledad nor Dolores had thought he was ready for this part. Juan Diego realized that he couldn't let go once--not even with one hand. He just froze; holding still, he could feel the thick rope sway.
"Come down," Dolores said to him. "Not everyone has the balls for this part. I'm sure you're going to have the balls for lots of other stuff."
"You have another future," Lupe repeated, more calmly.
Juan Diego came down the rope without once looking down. When his feet touched the ground, he was surprised to see that he and Lupe were alone in the vast tent.
"Where did Dolores go?" Juan Diego asked.
