Balance Read online

  After wandering around for a few minutes, I spot her. She’s sitting on a bench, absorbed in a book. It’s twilight and the colored lights of the nearby Ferris wheel cast her in a fairy-tale glow. I study for a long while. She is positively the most beautiful human being God has ever produced. I feel frozen, not simply by her beauty but by my own fear. I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing. I don’t want to come on too strong and I don’t want to come on too weak. I don’t want to come on too needy and I don’t want to come on too cocky. I don’t have an opening line. I don’t have any kind of approach. I don’t want to interrupt her reading and I do want to interrupt her reading. I want her to pay attention to me—and not that book. But the book has her attention, and, as I swallow hard and make my way over to her, the book is the issue that I must address.

  “Hi, Erendira. What are you reading?” is my pathetic opening line.

  “Oh, hi, Nikolas. I saw that your family was performing here. I’m reading a romance.”

  Her answer leaves me tongue-tied. I don’t know the first thing about romances.

  “Is that like a long love story?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I know some love stories in the Bible.”

  The minute those words come out of my mouth, I want to take them back. I sound like a nerd. I am a nerd. I love the Bible but this is hardly the time to bring up the Bible. The Bible, though, is the book I know best. If I’m going to get into a book discussion with someone, I’m most comfortable referring to the Bible. But who wants a book discussion? I just want to find a way to impress Erendira.

  It isn’t that she’s cold or distant. She’s a sweet and polite girl, but she doesn’t really respond. I have the feeling that she just wants to get back to her book. I should let her, but something keeps me from moving. Something keeps me wanting to be in her presence.

  “Mind if I sit down?” I ask.

  “Of course not.”

  She goes back to her book. Good manners dictate that I stay silent. But I can’t. I want to engage her in conversation.

  “So there’s this romance in the Bible between Jacob and Rachel.” Erendira looks up from her book and says, “Oh.”

  “Yeah. It’s in the Old Testament. You wanna hear the story?”

  “Well, sure.”

  I’m not sure what I’ve gotten myself into. Does Erendira really want to hear it? And do I really want to tell it? Isn’t my nerdiness getting out of hand? No matter, here I go…

  “See, Jacob meets Rachel at the well and it’s love at first sight.”

  As soon as I say those words—“love at first sight”—I blush. The words describe exactly what happened when, years before, I first saw Erendira.

  “Do they live happily ever after?” asks Erendira.

  “Not exactly. Rachel’s father says that, before he gives his daughter’s hand to Jacob, Jacob must work for him for seven years.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “Yeah, but the Bible says that Jacob loved Rachel so much that those years flew by in a flash.”

  “So they married after the seven years?”

  “No—that’s the sad part. Rachel’s dad had another daughter—Leah. Leah was older than Rachel, and the father wanted to marry her off first. So he had the women put Leah in a wedding gown with a veil covering her face. Jacob thought Leah was Rachel. He got tricked into marrying the wrong sister.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Well, it gets a little better because in those days you could have more than one wife and Jacob said that he still wanted to marry Rachel. Rachel’s dad said okay—if you work for me another seven years.”

  “And did Jacob agree?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he married Rachel?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I bet they didn’t live happily ever after. I don’t see how a man could be happy being married to two sisters.”

  “Especially since the sister he loved—Rachel—couldn’t have children—and the other one—Leah—could.”

  “I don’t remember any of the priests telling us stories like that.”

  “Priests?”

  “We’re Catholics.”

  “Oh. Do you like being Catholic?”

  “Don’t know anything else.”

  “Do you like performing with your family?”

  “I love it. But I don’t know anything else. How about you, Nikolas?”

  “I love it, too. But now I love it even more.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “No more clowning. I’ve started walking the high wire.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Will you come watch me?”

  “Sure, if we’re done with our show first.”

  “I’ll come to your show. I always come to your show. I…”

  I’m about to say, “I always watch you. I can’t keep my eyes off you. I want to be with you every minute of every day,” but I don’t. I keep what little cool I have left. I let Erendira go back to reading her romance, completely unsure whether she has the slightest interest in a romance that would involve me.

  Romantic yearnings are pretty typical of teenagers. What may be more unusual, though, are my sleepless nights. For all my excitement about getting to perform on the wire, I’m experiencing heightened anxiety about the fate of my family’s business.

  Mom and Dad are in the kitchen. Their voices are low but the expressions on their face tell me the topic of conversation is money. We’re low on funds. We’re running out. Bookings are drying up. What can be done?

  Mom and Dad are in the yard. They walk away from the house so I can’t hear until my mother cries out, “Cancelled! That’s impossible. He promised us we’d be working all summer. Now what are we going to do?”

  Mom and Dad are leaving church. I’m a few steps behind. A friend of theirs approaches them with a warm greeting.

  “We received a great Word today, didn’t we, Terry?”

  “We did indeed.”

  “How’s work?”

  “Slow,” says Dad.

  “Very slow,” Mom adds.

  “Sorry to hear that,” says the friend. “But God’s the great provider, isn’t He?”

  I believe in Jehovah Jireh, God my Provider. At no time in my life do I doubt the care of a God who loved mankind enough to sacrifice His son for the sake of our souls. His son lives in my heart. His son is the source of my strength. But my connection to the divine does not alleviate my anxiety about the earthly problems I see before me.

  My passion is for performing. My passion is for walking the high wire. The figure of Karl Wallenda—in a dozen different forms—continues to populate my dreams. He is pushing me on. He is telling me that the tradition must be honored. There’s nothing I want to do more than become an artist worthy of his name.

  But all that’s a dream. Cold reality is saying something else. Cold reality is saying that there’s not enough work to sustain us.

  My father is saying that.

  My mother is saying that.

  So night after night I stay up worrying. I don’t admit this to anyone, but I often break into tears and cry like a baby. I cry because I’m scared we’ll lose our house. I cry because I’m scared that we won’t be hired by a single circus or amusement park. I cry because I’m scared that I won’t get to do what I love doing most. I cry because I feel helpless over my fear. I cry because I have no control over the future—a future marked by uncertainty.

  But come morning, I feel a surge of energy coursing through me. The energy has me up early and out on the streets. It’s early June and the Florida sun is blazing hot. I take a bus to downtown Sarasota. I’m determined to get work. On the bus I remember how, years before, I worked hard selling concessions to the crowds while other acts were performing. I hawked popcorn and peanuts. I hustled hard, usually outselling the other vendors. People liked buying candy from this cute little kid. I’d come home with savings. Now I see that I need to add to those savings. I’m feeling
that the only way to stop worrying about money is to make money.

  I’m answering an ad at First Watch, a downtown restaurant. It says they need a dishwasher. I can wash dishes.

  The manager is John Carson.

  “Nik Wallenda,” he says as he looks over my application. “The Wallenda family?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t you work in your family’s act?”

  “I do.”

  “But you also want to work here?”

  “Well, sir, the circus business is pretty slow right now.”

  “What about school?”

  “I attend the Tabernacle church school, and we’re off for the summer.”

  “When you do work with your family, what’s your particular skill?”

  “I walk the high wire.”

  “And a high-wire-walker like you has no compunctions about washing dishes?”

  “None whatsoever, sir.”

  “And busing tables?”

  “I’ll be the quickest and best buser you’ve ever hired.”

  Mr. Carson laughed.

  “So you’re an eager beaver.”

  “Very eager.”

  “And when would you like to start, Nik?”

  “Now.”

  “Now’s as good as time as any. Follow me to the kitchen and I’ll introduce you to Tony. He’ll test your scrubbing skills in no time.”

  I pass the test with flying colors. I scrub, I rub, I scrape and rinse, I dry and stack the dishes with absolute focus. Within a few days, I’m a world-class dishwasher.

  Mr. Carson takes notice. A week or two later, he calls me into his office.

  “I’m impressed with you, Nik,” he says. “When I hired you, I suspected you were one of those spoiled circus kids. But when I saw you mopping the kitchen floor without even being told to do so, I knew I was wrong. I want you out on the floor now. I want you busing tables. Are you ready?”

  “I am. Sounds great.”

  It is great. I bus with such intensity that I do the work of two guys. I’m a dynamo, running around that restaurant and cleaning off tables like my life is on the line. It’s easy and fun. I work five days a week, eight hours a day. Whenever I’m offered overtime, I grab it. Some weeks I work sixty or seventy hours. Those are my favorite weeks.

  At the end of the summer, I have a mentor in John Carson.

  “I know school’s starting up, Nik, and I hope that you and your parents are able to get some bookings. I will never get in the way of that. But whenever you want extra work, just come down to First Watch and we’ll find something for you to do.”

  “I want to keep working—even after school starts,” I say. “I know I can do both.”

  “And how about your wire-walking?”

  “Well, right now we don’t have any engagements lined up, but if we do go out of town, the minute I get back I’ll be down here doing whatever you need.”

  “I like your attitude, Nik.”

  “I like work.”

  I love work. Mere physical exertion keeps my head clear. I still have sleepless nights when I worry about my future as an aerial artist. Those are the nights when I start to see that I’ll probably have to find another future with steadier work. I’m a realist and reality is telling me that I’ll need a profession on the ground, not one up in the air.

  I also derive great satisfaction from completing chores—especially those with monetary rewards. My formula is simple—turn my apprehension to energy. Rather than worry about the future, do something about it. While working, while engaged in intense physical labor—while busing tables, washing dishes, mopping floors, and mowing every lawn and trimming every hedge within three square miles of my parents’ home—I’m relieved of anxiety. Anxiety may still be stirring somewhere deep down in my unconscious, but I’m sweating too profusely to realize it. The job before me has to get done. That’s all that matters. The more strenuous the job, the happier I am.

  And yet…

  The dreams never stop.

  In one, Karl Wallenda seems to be walking across the world.

  “I want to walk across five continents,” he tells me. “The wire will extend for thousands of miles. Watch me.”

  I stand below. High above me is not the old man I have seen in photos, but a young man in his thirties.

  “Follow me,” he says. “Get up here.”

  He extends his hand and suddenly his arm stretches hundreds of feet to reach me. He is a superhero capable of elongating his body. Each stride covers a mile. On the wire behind him, I find I can do the same. We are walking above the clouds, walking through mist and rain, walking with unshakable assurance that we will not and cannot fall. There is no fear, only joy. I look below and see the lights of magical cities. I look ahead and see the peaks of the snow-capped mountains. The wire tilts higher and we walk over those mountains. Day turns to night and the sky is lit by a yellow moon.

  “We will walk to the moon,” says Karl. “Are you ready?”

  “I am.”

  “Follow me.”

  I follow. Now each stride covers five, ten, fifty miles. The pace quickens. We’re no longer walking, but running. It’s difficult keeping up with Karl, who has now aged into an older man. He is sixty or seventy. His face is lined and his gait not quite as steady.

  “Do you need help?” I ask him.

  “No,” he says. “The Falls are on the other side of the moon. Once we reach the moon, you’ll be able to cross the Falls. Are you ready to cross the Falls?”

  “Yes!”

  But in the yellow glow of the moon I lose sight of Karl. I keep running on the wire—faster and faster—but he is nowhere in sight. I run across the moon looking for my great-grandfather and see nothing but blinding yellow light. Then suddenly there it is:

  Niagara Falls, in all its majestic beauty.

  “Follow me,” says Karl’s voice. But where is he? Where has he gone?

  I wake up, confused and excited.

  The dreams come in a thousand different versions. Sometimes Karl is the central character and sometimes he is absent. But they all involve fantastic feats. They all involve wire and cable. They’re all about walking over ragged rocks or roaring rivers or great gorges or canyons filled with fire.

  No matter how many dishes I wash or tables I bus or lawns I mow, the dreams recur. My sleeping life feels as real as my waking life. Fantasy and reality clash.

  I know what I want to do. I want to live my life on the wire. But I know what I have to do. I have to make money.

  I pick up my Bible and turn to 1 Peter 5:7:

  “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”

  I thank God for that caring.

  I keep washing dishes, busing tables, mowing lawns, trimming hedges.

  I keep dreaming dreams that every night become more vivid, more beautiful, more daring.

  7

  Raising the Stakes

  I’m at the Tabernacle church on a Sunday when I meet a new youth leader. His name is Chris Ripo. He’s twenty-six, ten years older than me, and a lightning bolt of energy. He definitely loves the Lord, but isn’t preachy or pedantic. He teaches Scripture in a way that challenges. He allows me to challenge him.

  He quotes Philippians 4:9—“The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.”

  The key, according to Chris, is the practice—the acts, the actual work we do for God. Chris is all about action. He supports a Christian missionary charity that badly needs money and asks us church boys to help raise funds through manual labor.

  Chris sees me as something of a cocky kid—a smart aleck—and he’s not wrong. He knows I’m a brash circus performer and he wonders just how much I’m going to be willing to get my hands dirty with hard labor. So he tests me. He gives me a job—strip a roof. That means removing the shingles and the sticky tarpaper beneath.

  “How many guys you want up there to help you?” he asks.

 
“Don’t need any,” I say.

  “You gonna do it all by yourself?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I’ll be back in a few hours. If you have half the shingles off by then, you’ll be doing great.”

  When Chris returns, I have the entire roof stripped—every shingle, every last piece of tarpaper. The ground is littered with all the discarded materials that I’ve ripped off the roof.

  “Wow!” is all Chris can say. “How many guys you get to help you?”

  I just smile my wise-guy smile.

  From then on, Chris and I are bonded. Along with John Carson, he becomes my mentor.

  Just as John keeps promoting me at First Watch restaurant, Chris sees my never-say-die work ethic as close to his own. We are brothers in Christ, brothers in donating our time and energy to his missionary charity. Eventually we become business partners.

  Chris is a man who works every legitimate business angle out there. He buys and sells cars. He teaches me to detail cars. He buys old houses and fixes them up. He teaches me to do everything involved in homebuilding and refurbishing. Before long I can do it all. I can lay the foundation. I can do the carpentry, the drywall, the plumbing, and the painting.

  Chris and I have a spirited older brother/younger brother push-and-pull relationship. We wisecrack like crazy. For all the banter, though, there’s a serious side to our relationship. Chris is the man who teaches me about fiscal responsibility. He teaches me the importance of savings.

  Before meeting Chris I had already opened a savings account in my own name in which I put every spare dime I earned. Given my crazed compulsion to take all jobs that come my way—and to do those jobs quicker than anyone else—the money had started to add up.

  John Carson rewards my initiative by making me an assistant manager at the First Watch restaurant. By then there is no job at the restaurant I can’t do, from ordering the supplies to cooking the meals to training the waiters to making sure the steady customers feel at home.