The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts(4)
*
The water is clear and the sand is warm and every morning, before going to work at the travel agency, she slices into an orange-pink papaya. She eats half for breakfast, spooning out the flesh in big hunks, wiping her chin with the back of her hand, because there is almost too much juice, too much perfume, because it spills over no matter how careful she is.
But she is not going to work.
She’s nineteen and about to climb onto a surfer’s shoulders out in the turquoise waters of a Hawaiian beach. Her name is Teresa.
There’s a crowd gathering on the sand. She steps into the ocean beside the surfer, paying no attention to the small sharp shells beneath her feet.
Out into the water then, deeper, until it is time to paddle.
They climb onto the board belly-first, she below, the surfer on top of her, two sets of arms paddling in tandem. They must move with one another like oars along a canoe. Over the break, farther out to the point where the waves begin swelling enough to catch.
They are so far out, and then a little farther, and a little farther still. They turn their board toward the shore. She can feel her heart hammering against the wood. Waves pass beneath them, lifting the back and then the front in a gentle roll.
Mornings when they practice, gulls swoop nearby, small clear fish move in clouds. The pincushion sea stars wink and wave.
A big swell nears. Teresa looks over her shoulder a few times, checking to see how quickly the wave approaches, how it is rising. The audience holds their hands above their eyes to block the glare. They are ready to be amazed.
The wave catches hold of the board with a little tug and they begin to fly. She presses herself up, stands quickly, and the surfer behind her does as well. He grips her by the waist.
She springs up and he lifts her, one fluid motion, her body rising from the board and into the air, her feet at his knees and then she’s nearly to the sky, touching the sun, her head and shoulders bent back as he lifts her waist above his head and then plants her on his shoulders. Her legs bent around his chest, she lifts her arms in the air, sitting high above the water.
She smiles and waves for the audience. They cannot hear the blood roiling in her temples, the nerves, they cannot feel her hammering heart. She performs fearlessness. The board is unsteady atop the water and the surfer’s legs shake with the effort of balance and she quivers as she flexes her muscles to stay upright, she must stay upright, and still, she keeps one arm up, up, up toward the sky, that kind of queen, pointing at the sun, that high.
THE SNAKE CHARMER
Day 7 of 150
World of Wonders
June 2013
I’ve just finished Windexing the glass in front of Queen Kong, our giant taxidermy gorilla, when Tommy pops his head into the tent. “You ready to meet the snakes?” he asks.
The night before, Tommy had gone to negotiate the purchase of two giant boa constrictors from some guy in town—I didn’t know who, or where they came from, or how Tommy knew these snakes were safe to handle, but I knew they were being delivered to our show today.
It is the night before we open at our first fair. I’ve been with the sideshow for seven days. Our circus tent is up, taut and shining, the banner line is hung, stages built, curtains scrubbed, illusions bolted, ratchets oiled. Fireflies spark and fade. Men in yellow “Safety Is Non-Negotiable!” shirts straddle the metal arms of the scrambler beside our tent, cursing above the blaring pop country hits as they hinge and pin the little metal closures.
I follow Tommy into the bunkhouse/backstage area, the back end of a semi where we all sleep and eat and live, just a curtain away from the audience when we’ll be performing.
Tommy unlatches a plastic trunk and inside, coiled around one another, are two boa constrictors.
“Do you know how to pick them up?” he asks me.
“Maybe you could show me how you like it done,” I say.
“Sure,” he says, a half smile across his face that makes me wonder if he believes my e-mail bluff about the snakes at all. “You’ve gotta reach both your hands all the way inside the box, under the bodies of the snakes,” he says, crouched low and elbow-deep in the snake box. I was hoping for some kind of net or gloves. But his hands are right on the scaly bodies. Not even the illusion of protection.
“The dude I got these beauties from said they’d been handled before, so they should be easy enough to manage. Use both hands to pick them up,” he says, his nearly cartoonish New Jersey accent thick in his voice. “If you pick up a giant snake with one hand, it could kill it. Their backs break, they get paralyzed, and they can’t eat. Last season, one of the snakes died after a performer accidentally picked him up that way.”
Tommy stands and faces me. His arms are stretched out wide in front of him and the snake, a seven-footer, is draped between his hands, her body making a giant M.
It is my turn. I should hold out my arms and take the snake. But there is ringing in my ears. I can’t stop swallowing and my heart is pounding and I can’t move toward Tommy. I try to focus on what I see.
The snake has tan and chestnut diamonds down her back, the shapes outlined in black and cream. She is as big around as a grapefruit. Wrangling these snakes will be one of my primary jobs and one of the skills I listed on my qualifications. I can’t let him know how scared I am. I stretch a smile across my face as wide as I can.
“What’s her name?” I ask.