His timing perfect, Juan Rodríguez leaves the bar high above the ring and immediately tucks his body into a ball. “The first thing I do is grip my knees, then right away I spread them open. When you throw your head back and pull your legs open that’s what gives you the speed. It’s called cowboying, from the cowboys, who always have their legs open. It feels like riding a roller coaster.”

By the time his arms have gripped his knees Little Pablo has already completed one turn. Since the trick starts with his head facing the catcher, every time his head returns to that point it counts as one somersault. The pace of the turns is marked by the drummer—snare! bass! crash! catch?—but Little Pablo himself doesn’t hear the count.

“I actually don’t count the spins; I just feel them. Just before completing the third somersault I break: I remove my hands and kick out my legs, sort of like doing a back dive into a pool. My eyes are open but I still haven’t seen my brother. Not until I’m ready to give him my hands do we actually make eye contact. At that point his hands are like a gift from God. Sometimes he catches my elbows, sometimes just my fingers, but as soon as we grab each other I just slide into place. If I’m late there might be a jerk on my shoulders. If I’m early I might bash into his face. But when it’s perfect nothing hurts.”

Hanging by the arms of his brother as the two of them complete their arc of triumph, Juan Rodríguez epitomizes the glory of the circus: he’s defied gravity, he’s defeated fear, he’s done what few others have done before—and done it consistently. He’s a symbol for his country, a beacon for his family, a hero to children everywhere.

And yet.

“Flying is one of the hardest acts in the business,” he lamented, “and we’ve been doing it since we were small. It’s rough. It’s hard on the shoulders; it’s hard on the mind. It’s like gymnastics. The kids start when they’re eight or nine, and by the time they’re twenty or twenty-three they get burned out. It’s the same thing here, except we work every day. Every day, every day. And for what? When Miguel first landed the quad Irving Feld gave him fifty dollars every time he caught it. Later he offered him a bonus of ten thousand dollars if he caught two hundred quads in a year. He caught two hundred quads. Eventually Kenneth Feld stopped the bonus because it was costing too much money. By the time I was ready to try it the incentive was gone. We slapped hands a few times, but we never caught it. As long as you do the triple and catch, the owners don’t really care. Let’s face it, the quadruple somersault doesn’t put people in the seats. Why should I risk my life?”

Back at the pedestal, Juan accepts his applause with an unassuming wave. As Mary Chris and Danny prepare for the finale, a crossover leap in which the two of them pass each other in midair, Juan has already turned his mind forward—to another act (he must return in ten minutes for the high-wire act), to another day (a long drive awaits), and ultimately to another life.

“To be honest I don’t think I’m going to be doing this much longer. I like show business all right, but it’s rough. If you look at our salaries, then you look at baseball players and people like that…they don’t do shit compared to us. Not only do we have to work every day, but then we have to set up, tear down, drive, and do it all over again. Maybe I’ll stay in the business another two or three years, but then I want to buy a house. Go to school. Maybe learn to weld or something. Get a town job. Relax. That’s what we want to do, my wife and I. If you ask my dad, back when he was young the circus was great. Now it’s starting to go downhill. It’s not like one big family these days. There’s no love in the circus anymore.”

I certainly could understood his point, but welding? What about the glamour? The lights? The tent? The glory of being a “Fox Television Star,” even if it’s all just Barnum humbuggery? Ask any welder in America if he would trade his blowtorch for a shot at stardom and what would the answer be? Ask any young circus star if he wants the reverse and the answer would be surprisingly clear.

“I’m doing this because it’s what I know how to do. But for me the future is elsewhere. I can still go to school. I can still get an education. I’ve always wanted to do welding or mechanics. As long as you make enough money to pay the food bills, the light bills, the phone bills, I’ll be happy with that.”

In the circus, as in America, each generation no longer expects to jump higher, or turn more somersaults, than their parents did. Like so many others, young performers in the circus today have upward desires and downward mobility. Juan Rodríguez could fly through the air, but in the end all he wanted was to land on his feet.

His younger brother was just the same. Only he did something about it.

10

Without Saying Goodbye

Before there was Danny, there was Buck.

I spent Friday afternoon at Buck’s place, or what Arpeggio referred to as “Bucky’s Workshop.” The reason was my trunk. For four months the props department had loaded and unloaded my wardrobe trunk in each new town, a service for which I was obliged to tip them five dollars a week. Now, as a result, the wood on top was splintered, the lock on the front was broken, and the bottom was splitting its seams. Near Shea I had purchased four elbow brackets at a hardware store on Roosevelt Avenue, along with sixteen nuts and bolts. Now on Staten Island, I emptied out my mildewed assortment of dress shirts, baggy trousers, juggling balls, grease rags, makeup containers, powdered socks, dismembered roaches, and melted pieces of candy and carried the trunk over to Buck’s red van. There I spent the afternoon slowly repairing the ruptured bottom and listening to stories of Buck’s latest adventures on the nude beaches of the Northeast. Just that morning, while I was visiting the Statue of Liberty with Danny, his sisters, and their mother, Buck had driven from Staten Island to New Jersey for a few hours of total body tan.

“That’s a long way to go for a tan,” I said. “After all, you can go to the beach right behind the tent for free.”

“Well, the bridges are free when you leave the City,” he said. “Plus, they want four dollars and twenty-nine cents for a twelve-pack of Coke around here. I can buy the same thing for two forty-nine in Jersey. Plus gas is only a dollar seven. I filled up on super before I came back.”

I should have known better than to quibble about pennies with the World’s Most Frugal Clown. I asked him instead how he got started sunbathing in the nude.

“I’ve always liked going to the beach,” he said, still dressed in his skimpy jogging shorts and ratty thrift-store thongs. Folded into a wobbly director’s chair, he looked like a giant hermit crab who had long since outgrown his shell. “Years ago a friend suggested I go with him to a secret place he knew. Well, I couldn’t believe it when I first saw it: nobody had any clothes on! I decided to give it a try, and—boy!—you can really get a good tan. Then another friend told me you could buy a book of all the nude beaches in America, even the world. I still use it today.”