Street Performing Acrobat

Every time I gathered with my old high school friends, we always circled around the same topics of conversation. Who had a baby. Who was promoted or fired or quit. Who was getting married or divorced. Who had become a drug dealer or died.

But the one topic of conversation that was their favourite to discuss was Vaughan. Our friend, and my cousin, that no one had heard from in nearly two decades. Not even his parents. He didn’t contact friends or family, refused to pick up the phone and wasn’t on social media, so all we could do was imagine what he was up to. What his life had become. My friends liked to discuss the places he could be, whether or not he had started a family and hoped that he wasn’t dead or destitute. Mostly they wondered why he refused to speak to us.

Each of my friends had a theory.

Aileen was convinced that Vaughan had some sort of top secret job for the government, and therefore had to relinquish all contact with his loved ones so as not to put them at risk.

Lincoln was less optimistic. He believed that Vaughan was dead, killed in an overpopulated foreign country where no one would notice that he’d gone missing.

Sean believed that Vaughan had started a family and gotten a real job, and he didn’t contact anyone because he didn’t want to admit that everyone was right.

Me? I didn’t have a theory about why he didn’t speak to us. I know why. And I didn’t blame him.

Vaughan and I were born 3 months apart, him being my senior. Even though the age gap was small, I still viewed him as my older cousin. Idolised him, in fact. So when we started school at the same time, I clung on to him in hopes that he would make me likeable.

Everyone loved Vaughan. He was always smiling, acknowledged everyone, and was never bothered by anything. Not when Aileen broke his bike. Not when Sean kissed the girl he liked. Not when Lincoln nearly got him suspended by blaming him for the library window breaking. Not even when I did the most selfish, unforgivable thing.

When Vaughan and I were young and still friends, we used to sleep over at each other’s houses. We mainly slept at his house, because it was easier to sneak out to parties and get up to mischief. He lived on a large property, with acres of fruit trees, chickens and I couldn’t remember what else. But the one thing I could remember was the old avocado trees that lined his long driveway, because that’s where we used to hide to smoke and drink.

There was a hollow high up in our favourite avocado tree where we would store our alcohol and cigarettes, and at the age of fifteen when the house was asleep, we would sneak out and sit in that tree and smoke and drink and talk until the sun started to rise.

The only time I hated being in that tree was during avocado season, when the rats scaled them at night to eat the newly ripened fruit. And where there were rats, there were predatory birds. And I hated birds. It wasn’t their sharp talons or their beady eyes that terrified me. It was their unpredictability. Never knowing what they would do next.

Vaughan loved birds, however, and would get particularly excited whenever a certain barn owl showed up. He would hush me upon its arrival and we would watch it and smoke in silence as it effortlessly and quietly glided through the darkness in search of prey. Vaughan was mesmerised by its agility. Its smooth, ethereal flight. Mostly he loved that it was free to fly and do whatever it felt like. I was terrified by it.

‘I’d love to move like that,’ Vaughan whispered one night as he blew out a puff of smoke, watching it fly gracefully between branches. One day, he would move like that.

I sat silently while he admired it from a distant branch. I was panicked. It was looking straight at us and cocking its head slightly. I stilled while blood pumped hard through my heart. Palms sweaty. Surely it was my fear playing tricks on me.

‘It must have spotted a rat above our heads,’ Vaughan said while looking up, trying to see what it could see. Amazed by its vision. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of the owl. Worrying that it would attack. And then it flew.

It glided for the spot above our heads. I screamed and screamed and screamed and swung my arms above my head to swat it away. That was when I lost my balance and began to fall. I was sure I would die. Desperate to save myself, I tried to cling onto something, throwing out my arms for a piece of tree to grasp. And that’s when I found Vaughan’s arm.

Then we were both falling.

I felt each branch as we fell, praying that I wouldn’t hit my head. Praying that Vaughan wouldn’t hit his as I heard him grunt and crunch behind me. And then we were on the ground. For how long, I wasn’t certain. My aunty and uncle were a blur above us as my vision struggled to focus.

Vaughan broke both of his arms that night and I received a mild concussion. But what hurt the most was being banned from having sleep overs for being drunk and reeking like cigarettes.

But Vaughan, even though he could have died from my selfishness, even though he had both arms in casts and my screaming was the reason we were caught, not once did he get angry with me. Berate me. Refuse to speak to me.

‘It’s in the past, stop worrying about it,’ he said to me after I had apologised for the one hundredth time while we sat on the bus for school, the fourth day after I had dragged him out of a tree and his first day back.

‘But you won’t be able to play sport, or eat, or write, or do anything for yourself for months.’

‘That’s future Vaughan’s problem.’ He grinned from ear to ear and I couldn’t help but smile back. I admired that most about my cousin. His ability to stay in the moment.

*

Vaughan was brilliant at school. What my teachers and parents called an academic. That’s why it was a shock to everyone when he said he wasn’t going to university, but was leaving to travel the world. He told his parents that he would only be gone for a year, and then he would come back to study medicine. And they were happy with that. But they were unhappy when one year turned into two. And then he didn’t come back for ten years.

What was even more of a shock to my friends and family was when he sent us a post card while he was living in Spain, telling us all that he was a street performing acrobat. A photo was attached of him looking lean and muscular while flying between two vertical poles. Arms outstretched. And I couldn’t help but think of that barn owl.

*

Those ten years flew by without seeing Vaughan, only hearing from him every six months via telephone or postcard. And in that tenth year of being gone, he came home for my wedding.

A decade had changed all of our lives dramatically. Aileen was pregnant with her second child. Lincoln was already divorced with two daughters. Sean was married and trying for his first child. And I was about to marry my beautiful partner who I shared a son with. We all had degrees and successful careers.

And Vaughan was a single, childless, street performing acrobat.

His hair was long. His skin was tan and covered in tattoos. His body lean and muscular. His clothes loose fitting and brand-less. And happier than ever.

Two weeks before my wedding, he invited us to come and watch him perform at the local mall, and we all came with our children. My son was screaming about getting an ice-cream. Aileen’s child was crying about going on the playground and Lincoln’s daughters were pulling each other’s ponytails and calling each other colourful names that they were too young to understand. Sean started telling us how his unborn child wouldn’t be as undisciplined as ours and we all shot him a filthy look and laughed.

‘Just you wait,’ Lincoln spat.

‘You’ll eat those words the first night you bring your newborn home,’ Aileen said while rubbing her pregnant belly.

In the centre of the mall stood a long vertical pole that was taller than all of the shops with a large crowd gathered around it. And Vaughan was twirling at it’s peek. He was in slacks, an unbuttoned vest and wearing a top hat. He looked like he was made of magic.

The crowd was too thick to see above or push through, so we stood on a park bench to watch our friend perform.

There were ooh’s and ahh’s from the crowd as he danced gracefully through the air, twirling in ways that seemed incapable of a human body. And then he dropped. He slid head first down the pole, arms outstretched and only his legs to guide him, so quickly that I didn’t think he was going to stop in time. The crowd screamed. I held my breath. And then he stopped with his nose only a whisker from touching the ground. The crowd erupted in applause and praise. I breathed a sigh of relief, reliving the moment we fell out of the tree.

I didn’t look at my friends or my howling son. My eyes were on the tattoo that I saw peeking out from Vaughan’s opened vest. There was an outline of a barn owl tattooed across his chest. I’d love to move like that, the words of fifteen year old Vaughan drifted through my mind. And that’s exactly how he had looked. Graceful and ethereal, like he was that barn owl swooping for prey and didn’t need the pole to suspend him.

When I looked at my friends, I was expecting their faces to be covered in pride and wonder like mine. But I only found distain as they leaned into each other and snickered.

‘He could have been a doctor,’ Aileen said as Vaughan began scaling the pole again.

‘He can’t keep this up forever, he’s getting old,’ Sean said while watching Vaughan effortlessly spin through the air, his muscles rippling.

‘He needs to settle down and have children,’ Lincoln said before scolding his daughters who were pretending to smoke an old cigarette that they had found stubbed out on the ground.

I rearranged my face to a more neutral one. And when I looked up, I made eye contact with Vaughan, who had just somersaulted off of the pole and perfectly landed in front of the crowd. He lifted both arms into the air. The crowd roared. But Aileen, Lincoln and Sean still snickered.

*

Vaughan decided that he was only staying in town until the day after my wedding. Then he was heading back to Spain. He told my friends and family that it was because he had a lady friend over there, and that received approving nods, but I knew Vaughan was lying. He just couldn’t stand being here for a day longer than he had to.

We had the reception on Vaughan’s parents’ property, under the cherry blossoms that were in full bloom. All of our family and friends came, including their children, who screamed and tormented each other the entire time. After all of the formalities were done and day turned into night, everyone sat around the bonfires sipping wine, complaining about their children and mortgages and marriages and careers. Everyone except Vaughan, who was nowhere to be seen.

I found him in the old avocado tree with the hollow in it, the orange dot from his burning cigarette giving him away in the darkness. Without talking, I climbed up and sat beside him. The avocados were ripe and ready to be eaten. He handed me a lit cigarette when I reached him and I inhaled deeply. I hadn’t smoked since my son was born, so I coughed violently. Vaughan laughed and I got a glimpse of the young, smiling Vaughan that I’d grown up with. The Vaughan I hadn’t seen since the day my friends and I had watched him perform.

‘I don’t want you to go.’ I said.

He dragged on his cigarette for a long time before finally answering.

‘I have to go,’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t belong here,’

‘Why not?’

He pointed to himself. I surveyed the wide leg plaid pants and matching jacket over his tight fitting ribbed tank top, the owl poking out from beneath. His long, unruly slicked back hair. Feet bare.

‘I have no children, partner or career to discuss with these people,’

‘You can have those things,’

‘I don’t want those things. I don’t need those things,’

‘But those things might make you happy,’ I said. That would give him something to discuss with them.

‘I’m already happy,’ he smiled.

I looked toward the bonfire where my wedding guests sat. My friends and family. I couldn’t hear them, but I knew what their conversations would be about. Complaining about their children, their spouses, their past mistakes and future worries. All forgetting the fact that they were warm, well fed, healthy and spending time amongst friends. All gradually getting drunker and drunker and yelling at their children that were getting wilder and wilder. All of them praying that one day, life would get better. That once they’d reached their next goal, they’d finally be happy. The same lie I told myself.

‘I’ll come visit you in Spain,’ I said, knowing it wasn’t true. I had a spouse and child and career that depended on me. Anchored me here.

‘I’m not going to Spain,’ Vaughan said.

‘Then where are you going?’

He shrugged his shoulders as he took another drag, thinking. I heard a rat scurry past and shivered.

‘Somewhere I feel happy,’ he said as he blew out the smoke. I heard his unspoken words. Happiness was not here.

‘Vaughan-‘

But he clapped a hand over my mouth to silence me. I thought he had sensed the words that were coming from my mouth, but he was staring into the avocado tree in front of us. A small, white figure was sitting there, observing. A barn owl.

We watched it glide through the night and gracefully swoop for its prey.

‘You move like that when you’re performing, you know,’ I said to Vaughan. He beamed. And if I had have known it was the last time I would see or hear from him, I would have hugged him a little tighter and told him to keep living in the moment.