Free Young and Revolting: The Continental Journals of Nick Twisp by C. D. Payne Page A

checked the rigging as he always did, but he did not have much time. The tension on the cables was not balanced. When my brother swung onto the platform where I was standing, a shackle snapped. For some reason there was no redundancy. The platform collapsed. Dusan was killed. He broke his neck. I was not expected to walk again.”
    “ Didn’t you have a net?” I asked.
    “ Of course, Rick. But it did not extend completely under the platform. It partially broke my fall and flipped me backwards so that I landed on my right leg.”
    “ That’s awful, Reina.”
    “ I was in a bad state. I grieved for my brother terribly and my poor father was inconsolable. My leg was so shattered I was—how you say?—immobilized for over seven months. My aunt graciously took me in—hospital bed and all.”
    “ What did you do all those months?”
    “ At first, not much. I couldn’t read or sew. I was too distraught. I stared at the walls. Then my aunt had the wisdom to present me with my baby Jiri. He and my other darlings gave me a reason to live, and to try to walk again.”
    “ And your father?”
    “ He quit the circus. Papa blames himself for the accident. But these eventualities are not so uncommon in our profession. That is why people come to see us. To confront their fears. They watch a man in a cage with tigers, or a woman dancing with a bear, or us performing stunts high in the air. For a moment they feel, uh, vicariously . . . That is the correct word?”
    “ Yes, vicariously.”
    “ They feel vicariously those terrors they would not wish to face in real life.”
    “ Where is your father now?”
    “ Back in Prague, Rick. He got a job painting the poles of highway signs. He does not mind the heights!”
    She laughed and looked at her watch.
    “ Oh my, it’s late, Rick. We don’t want to alarm your patient wife.”
    Amazingly, she extracted the check from the waiter in less than 30 seconds, then embarrassed me by insisting on paying. Riding home on the Métro, she confessed that in her 17 years she has never had a serious boyfriend—just a “platonic” beau a few years before. That twit was a Czech horn player. I was flabbergasted. Yes, she’s had numerous volunteers for that position from our building, her circus acquaintances, fellow parrot enthusiasts, and the Czech expatriate crowd, but nobody’s quite made the grade.
    “ I have a hard enough time getting my birds to do what I want,” she laughed. “Can you imagine how much trouble a boy could be? Your wife—does she cause you difficulties?”
    “ Endless ones,” I confessed.
    “ I thought so. That will teach you to marry a beautiful woman. They never give anyone a moment’s peace.”
    Somehow I knew she was including herself in that statement.
    When I trudged up the stairs to our apartment, My Love was already flossing her exquisite teeth.
    “ Nickie, where were you? I was beginning to worry.”
    “ Er, how so?” I asked, cautiously.
    “ I feared your headache had progressed to something more serious.”
    My Love does care about my welfare!
    “ Since we don’t have health insurance,” she added, “that would be an expense we could ill afford.”
    Revising my previous mental note, I replied, “I was downstairs vacuuming our landlady’s apartment. How was the circus?”
    “ Rather overlong. I saw only one outstanding performer.”
    “ Not Bernardo Boccata, I trust.”
    “ Very acrobatic, but I feel that if you’ve seen one human pyramid, you’ve seen them all. No, I was most impressed with another neighbor. That Señor Nunez is a man of genius. He had me nearly hysterical with laughter.”
    Try as I might I could not imagine my coolly rational wife giving way to uproarious hilarity. It was all she could do merely to tolerate my jests. Perhaps I should add some riotous clown antics to my repertoire.
    “ Nickie, your hair smells like perfume and cigarettes. Where have you been?”
    “ Uh,” I said, my mind whirling, “it was poker