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“At that point everything was bad,” Angel said. “I felt angry, like someone had betrayed me. So I told Michelle, ‘Buy me a ticket. I don’t want to stay here anymore.’ I went to the Spanish Consulate in Frankfurt, and they told me I needed two forms of identification to get a new passport—my birth certificate and my driver’s license. I had only my driver’s license. My mother had hidden my birth certificate as well.”
At that point Angel remembered he had a friend in the consulate in Washington, D.C. Angel called Michelle. Michelle called Washington. Washington called Frankfurt. Angel received his new passport the day before his flight. The next day he left before dawn.
“I didn’t have much luggage,” he said, “only a bag with a pair of te
“He was scheduled to arrive in Sarasota about seven o’clock,” Michelle remembered. “I drove myself to the airport, hoping that he was on the plane. Then I waited. And why is it that when you’re waiting for somebody they’re always at the end of the plane? All of these people were coming out, and I was saying, ‘Come on…Come on…’ When he came and I saw him I couldn’t believe it. It was a miracle, really. I was in shock. I was too happy to cry.”
“It felt very strange,” Angel agreed. “What I had gone through was very difficult, but when you love somebody you love somebody. Other things don’t matter. If it wasn’t for my family she would have come to Europe with me. But things didn’t work out like that, so I had to come to her. In my culture that’s a very bad thing to do, but I decided to do it anyway.”
Two days later Angel Quiros and Michelle Ayala were married in the Sarasota United Pentecostal Church. That night they spent their honeymoon in a hotel by the beach. The following day they left for Reno, Nevada, where Michelle’s family was scheduled to perform on a show. Angel’s family was not informed.
“I didn’t speak to my parents for a year and a half,” Angel said. “My sister, who was already living in America with Juan, called every week, so they knew I was alive. But I never talked to them directly. I had nothing to say to them. Finally, a couple of weeks ago we were in Sterling, Virginia, and Mari was talking to them on the phone in front of a Home Depot. I told her, ‘I want to talk with Mother and Father.’ She said she didn’t think it was a good idea. I told her I thought it would be okay. I picked up the phone and my mother spoke first. ‘We want you to know we love you,’ she said. ‘Everything is fine. We’ve forgiven you. It’s all in the past.’”
Michelle was holding her husband’s hand. “That night he said, ‘We’re going to visit.’”
Angel nodded through his tears. “That’s right,” he said, “we’re going home.”
Circles are hallowed in the circus: even life is lived in rings.
For the final trick the troupe unites. Little Pablo, who started walking on the wire at the start of the year in an effort to expand the act, grabs an eight-inch stainless-steel wheel and sets it on the wire. Holding the wheel by its two small handles, he tucks his feet underneath Angel’s arms and lowers his head just inches from the wire. To make this human wheelbarrow even more complex, Mari climbs onto Angel’s shoulders and raises her arms in the air. The trick is ready. The band stops playing. With heart-pounding accompaniment from the bass drum, Angel takes up a twenty-foot pole for balance and begins to step across the wire—pushing his brother-in-law, carrying his sister, and inching ever so carefully toward his wife, who stands at the far end of the wire gesturing anxiously at her family and trying to lure them home.
In the middle of this odd family portrait Angel Quiros remains calm.
“When I’m on the wire I’m a different person completely,” he said. “I’ve got to show the people: I’m Angel Quiros. That means something to me. I want people to remember us. Sometimes they are a little tired. They’ve seen so many acts. I don’t want that to happen. I want the people to wake up and say, ‘What’s going on? What is he doing…?’”
And down below they are saying just that.
“Can you believe it?”
“His feet are so small.”
“Oh my God, he’s going to fall.”
But Angel isn’t going to fall. He’s never even considered it.
“People always say to me, ‘Look, you’re crazy.’ But I’m not crazy. I know some people who are. They don’t practice. They don’t know what they’re doing. But they go out and work anyway. And they fall. If you know what you’re doing, if you know how to pull everything together, even the most extraordinary act is just doing your job.”
And what a job it is: before 3,000 people, thirty feet in the air, with your sister on your shoulders, your brother-in-law around your waist, and your wife welcoming you back home with a kiss on the cheek and a thank-you to God. All jobs—all stories—should end so happily…twice a day, seven days a week, every day of the year.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Quiros Troupe!”
12
At Heaven’s Door
Marty came ru
“Bruce, come quick. It’s happening.”
“What’s happening?” I asked, standing up to go. At this point, could there be any surprises left?
“It’s Barisal,” he said. “Her water broke.”
The answer was a resounding yes: tiger births on Halloween eve.
“Hold on,” I said. “I’m on my way.” I slipped on my floppy shoes.
The show arrived at the Gulf of Mexico just as the calendar tipped into fall. Now that we were starting our eighth month on the road, signs of aging were everywhere evident. Fabio Estrada, a newborn in March, was already begi
In Clown Alley the strain was begi