Broken Acrobats: Or, the Art of Faking It Til You Make It (Patreon)

 “Good morning Ess, do you have a painkiller? My back is [sic] aufully blocked.”

Holy crap. This is not a message you want to see pop up on Messenger from Andrey Katkov, 75 minutes before his show is due to start. 

I mean, also, it’s not morning but –

[Shut up and grab everything you’ve got! Go!]

Ahhh he’s not answering, that means he’s probably left the hotel –

[That probably means he’s already backstage –]

That  means he’s probably already trying to warm up crap crap crap –

I throw my entire bag of various pills into my backpack, cram my sneakers on my feet, slap my keycard out the wall-slot a as I scramble out the door. 

Shit – forgot the ID pass –

I pull a quick 180 and run back to my door, buzzing it open for just a second to grab my ID lanyard off the inside door handle where I’d left it so that I wouldn’t do exactly what I just did. There’s security guards posted at the gate that leads off the main road to the resort and into the back of Old Circus, and despite the fact that all of us have walked back and forth in front of them no fewer than three times a day for the last ten days they always stop you quite firmly and demand that you physically hold up your badge at eye-level to them before they let you through. 

My badge flies out behind me as I run back to the elevators. I slap the down button, stand there shuffling my feet impatiently while I wait for the ding! that tells me it’s arrived, and dart in the moment the reflective gold doors part. 

Andrey’s act is (or is one of…) the original spinning handstand act. It's quite literally one of the most impressive handstand acts I've ever seen. It's stunning. He’s had a circus career since before I graduated from high school. And, he’s been put through the ringer here while I’ve been in Zhuhai as one of the Monte Carlo Festival ‘Ambassador’ performers, grinding it out through three shows a day with sometimes rehearsals at the beginning and end of the day, too. He makes incredibly difficult handstand positions look effortless, as he flows from one impossible-looking balance to another.

And, a goodly portion of the act involves fairly extreme shoulder and spinal extension as well as deep side-bends and twisting bridges. Whatever’s going on with his back, it will be nearly impossible to do what has to do within … 

I look at my watch. 

60 minutes. Crap!

I tear into the backstage of Old Circus, pills rattling away in my bag. I go straight up the stairs, two at a time, up to our shared dressing room. I push the door open – 

Empty. 

Shoot!

Back down the stairs I go, rapidly scanning the backstage area. I don’t see him. I jog over to where his spinning table prop is stored, closer to the stage. Not there either. I run into Leonor, who is wondering why I’m in the space so early. 

“Have you seen Andrey?” I gasp out, trying to catch my breath.

“Andrey?”

“You know, spinny-handstand guy –“

“Mmm, no …”

“Bah, okay,” and I’m off again. 

Charlotte and Nicolas are in the space, warming up for their act. They shake their heads too when I ask if they’ve seen him. 

There he is! I finally spot him off in the far corner, sitting on his square, green warmup mat. “Andrey!” I call, jogging over. He’s staring off into the mid-distance with a look of intense concentration on his face. It’s like he doesn’t hear me at all. “Andrey!” 

He doesn’t look up until I’m practically next to him and tapping his shoulder.

“Oh, hello Ess.”

“I got your message! I have medicine.”

“It’s quite bad,” he says, grimacing as he moves his torso tentatively from side to side. “Like, stabbing pain, inside. It’s not surface muscles. Every time I breathe.”

“Is it your rib?” I ask.

“I think so,” he says, placing his hand over the area. 

I suck in my breath through my teeth. Not good. I’ve had bruised ribs and ribs ‘out’ before; it’s intensely painful and not something that goes away in one day. It’s also something that feels particularly difficult to ‘fix’ on your own. Laying on a physio ball or foam roller never seems to ‘fix’ ribs. At least, I’ve had no luck fixing them on my own. I always need a physio or chiro to help me. And the anxiety of this happening immediately before a performance is massive. I feel terribly worried for him. 

“Okay,” I say, laying out the contents of my bag. “So … this is Aleve. It’s an anti-inflammatory, like ibuprofen, but stronger. Naproxen. And … this is a muscle relaxant. It has ibuprofen in it, but also something to make the muscles stop spasming …

“Hmm,” he says, turning each bottle over in his hand.  

“I don’t know … “ I say. “Like, you have to go on stage in 45 minutes. I think anti-inflammatories might be good for after, but I don’t think they’re going to help you perform right now … I think the muscle relaxants would help, but … have you taken these before?”

“No,” he replies. 

Argh.

“Ah … okay, well … they can make you sleepy or dizzy. Okay, like – a full dose is two pills. I have these in my bag for my own emergencies, like when something happens to me like what is happening to you but I have to go out and perform and have my back bend. But I take half of one pill. One pill maximum. If performing. And – I mean – I’m on the ground for my act. I would never take these if I had to do aerial work. I don’t know how they will affect your handstands.”

“But the muscles will stop spasming?”

“I think it will help. But – I’ve never had to spin really fast for a 5 minute act after taking one of these. If you take it … well, adrenaline should help you not feel drowsy, until your show is done. But – you have to be really careful to pay attention to how you are feeling. Like if something feels off-balance you may have to adjust your performance on the fly, you know …?”

The more I explain to him, the more nervous I feel about him taking these. What if he takes this and his act is totally screwed up! AGH –

“I think I will take these,” he says, gesturing to the muscle relaxants. “Otherwise, I cannot move at all.”

“Okay,” I say, chewing on my lip a little as I shake two pills out of the bottle. “Take only one of these now. You can take the second one after the show … and then maybe a full dose before bed tonight, to try to get things to relax more. I’ll leave extra up in our dressing room for you …”

I pray to whatever circus gods are listening to let everything go smoothly as I pass him a water bottle. 

“I brought my theragun,” I say, gesturing to the device next to me on the carpet. “Do you want to try that anywhere and see if you can get things to chill out?”

“I think it’s too late for that,” he says, grimacing again with another painful-looking breath.

Shit. Shit shit shit …

Tig has done a chiropractic adjustment on my ribs before when they’ve been out; it’s an intensely unpleasant and rather violent-feeling treatment where he puts me on my bag, with his fingers jammed up beneath me on the rib in question. He’ll have me take a big breath, let it out, and then rapidly slams what feels like the entirety of his body weight over my chest, which drives the ribs on my back against his fingers. It hurts like hell, but inevitably afterwards brings a degree of relief. 

Not only do I not feel like I have the weight or strength (or knowledge, more importantly) to start hacking around with this in China on someone I barely know, if it was me in Andrey’s place I know that this is not a treatment approach I would want executed immediately before I had to perform. The soreness is real after. 

The other treatment I’ve had done for misbehaving ribs is by Garnet Santicruz, who tends to deploy a whole slew of different manual therapy techniques to coax rogue body parts back into the firing patterns and positions they are happier in. I think of the gentle treatment he does, warmth from the palms of his hands, gently rocking the ribcage to get it to settle into some kind of better balance … we will do this kind of treatment together for 45 minutes to an hour though. I have 10 minutes.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Well … look I’m not a physio or massage person or anything like this, but I know at least a little of what my people back home do to try to help me when this happens. Do you want me to try a very gentle bit of physical therapy? See if some heat and gentle motion will help the muscles stop freaking out?”

“Yes,” he says without hesitation, and moves to lay down on his stomach.

Gulp. Okay then.

At least with what Garnet does there’s no way I can do any harm, I think as I place my hands on his back. I move my hands on the left side of his ribcage and feel one of his lower ribs jutting out way farther than the rest. EW. 

“Jesus,” I say.

“What?”

“I can feel your rib, it’s completely popped up and separate from the other ribs.”

“Ah.”

“Does it hurt when I put this kind of pressure on it?”

“No.”

“Okay. And how about this kind of pressure?”

“No that’s okay.”

“Okay.”

I mean – I know that ribs and vertebrae don’t go “out”, as we so commonly love to say in the circus world (and other athletic worlds). The concept of ribs subluxing or torsioning out of position is apparently a fairly contentious point of discussion in the medical/treatment community still, on the basis that there isn’t enough x-ray evidence that costo-vertebral and costo-transverse joints can actually dislocate (barring a serious traumatic thoracic injury). Most arguments or ideas to the contrary suggest that ligament sprains in the area can result in inflammation at the site of the sprain and muscle spasms, as said muscles clench up into a higher tone to try to protect the perceived injury. 

Regardless of what is actually physically going on, the fact remains that Andrey can’t twist or side bend – two movements that are fundamental to his piece and repeat throughout it.

It feels like a shuddering coming up into my hand as I place my palm again over the most obvious problem spot and start applying a gentle, rocking pressure to his ribcage. 

Is that my hand making that weird creaking feeling? 

I briefly take my hand off his back, replacing it with the other one to keep warmth directing inward. I flex the fingers of my initial hand, roll the wrist, make a fist and open it again. Nope. Nothing out of the ordinary there. I put my right hand back down over the rib again, and the shuddering feeling comes back up into it.

Damn. I wonder if that’s the muscles around his ribs freaking out. 

Andrey takes slow, deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth. At least he can actually take deep breaths, I think. He visibly relaxes as I continue to keep both hands palm-down on his ribs, gently pushing and rocking directly on the elevated site and all around it, spending more time closer to his spine where the ribs attach, applying a delicate amount of rotation and traction ‘upward’ and ‘inward’, towards his midline. 

I glance down at my watch. He needs to start the rest of his warm-up in earnest. The rib beneath my hands feels like it’s more in line with the rest of his ribcage now. 

“Test that out slowly,” I say. 

He carefully tries out some extremely slow thoracic rotations, some slow ‘cat/cow’s, rounding and arching his spine. He can at least move through stretches.

“I’m sorry I can’t do more,” I say. “I wish I knew more.”

“It feels a little better,” he says. “Doesn’t hurt when I breathe anymore. I think I can do it.”

That’s something, at least. Whether his improved mobility and reduced pain is because of anything I did, or the muscle relaxant starting to kick in, or maybe just placebo effect from having someone else lay their hands on you when you feel injured, I’m completely unsure. But he at least looks slightly less anxious.

“Maybe keep moving through your warm-up stretches as slowly as you can. If you feel like you’re coming up to the edge of your pain again, stop just before it hurts and stay there for a while and try to breathe. Like, if the muscles are spasming, it’s because they’re trying to protect something. So if you move too quickly right now I think that will just make the muscles clench up in response. Move slowly and maybe let your body figure out that it doesn’t need to hold on so tightly …”

He nods. I’m quite sure that this isn’t the first time he’s f***ed up his rib, too. He probably already knows all this shit. Then again, I also know a lot of this stuff, from having Garnet repeat it to me for years of various ailments and injuries, but it still always somehow is more calming when I hear him say it to me, rather than just repeating it to myself.

“I really hope it goes okay,” I tell him, brow creasing with concern. I look down at my watch again. Shit. I have to go meet Troy for a phone interview with one of the producers from France’s Got Talent. “I can’t stay – best of luck, good show, and hang in there,” I say, squeezing his shoulder.

“Thank you,” he says. “Yes. I think it will be okay.”

I run off, leaving him to start getting into his warmup handstands. 

Please, please, PLEASE let me not have just killed Andrey Katkov with a goddamn muscle relaxant right before he gets up on a platform and procedes to do insane sequences of spinning handstands …

**********

Hours later, I’m walking back down to Old Circus backstage with my own bag of makeup, equipment, and costume in hand. Andrey is nowhere to be seen, and not upstairs in our dressing room. I messaged him earlier in the day on Facebook – How did it go? Are you ok …? – but haven’t received a reply yet. 

My mind wanders back to earlier this afternoon.

Please let him not be dead. Please let his act have gone perfectly. 

I put some headphones in and throw my Spotify on shuffle while I move through the now-familiar ritual of our stage makeup. Primer, foundation, the careful, slow application of ring after ring of fine lines. Setting spray, false lashes, more setting spray. I slide my warm-up booties on and head out to shuffle down the stairs; the opening flag parade will be starting soon.

I open Messenger on my phone as I trot down the stairs. Still nothing. 

I send a follow up message: 

* I really hope you’re okay * and add the gooey-eyed emoji for good measure.

I run into Heloise, one of the artists from the Chinese pole troupe, as I set up my corner with my yoga blocks and bands and physio balls. 

“Hey!” she says. “Ready for tonight?”

“I will be, in an hour!” I laugh. Her team’s performance is in Show A, the one that’s been running in the afternoons all week. “How did today go for you guys?”

“Good! Really good! Hey, I was wondering – why didn’t you guys have the stage, you know…?” She makes a short vertical gesture with one hand, palm up.

I cock my head to the side quizzically. “What’s – ?” I ask, repeating her hand movement. 

“You know, the stage,” she says. “It lifts up and down in parts.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. We were watching your show last night and in some parts were, like, standing up and craning our necks to try to see some of your shapes. You know, because you are just at ground level …”

“Are you telling me that the stage can raise up?” I say, voice heavy with disbelief.

“Yes! It’s in many of the other acts. Haven’t seen any?”

“No, I’ve been in my room every afternoon trying to fix my neck and shoulder in time for the evening show…”

“Oh,” she says, then shrugs. “Oh well, just a thought.”

“Oh man,” I say. “That sucks! We had no idea! That could have been so cool – !” I pause for a moment, inwardly cursing the technicians we’ve been working with all week who never once suggested this or asked us if we wanted such a thing. “Oh well,” I sigh. “Is what it is. Can’t change it now, that’s for sure!” and laugh.

Heloise smiles, and I keep walking to go drop off my warm-up gear in my preferred corner and head over to the side stage where the other artists are waiting for the show to begin.  

Troy jogs up to me as the music for the flag parade is starting. Since he doesn’t need even a fraction of the warm-up time I do, the rhythm we’ve found this week is that he does the opening ceremony with the group and then goes upstairs to do his own makeup as I start my lengthy warm-up downstairs on the floor. He’s done his makeup by intermission, comes down to do a couple lunges and go over any timing or shapes that he and I want to nit-pick, and then we go wait in the wings for the flying trapeze net to be de-rigged. 

“Did you know that parts of the stage raise and lower …?” I ask Troy.

“Huh?”

“Yeah. Apparently parts of the stage frikkin’ move,” I say. 

“What!”

“Heloise just told me. Bummer, eh?”

“Aw man … I almost wish you hadn’t told me that,” Troy says.

“Eh,” I reply. “What can we do? It’s been going well all week as is. Yes it could have been really cool … but we’re doing good. Let’s just focus on repeating the good runs we’ve had. Good energy, stay in character, hit all our tricks! 

Soon, we’re waiting in the wings for the stage to darken; it’s almost time. 

“I have a good feeling about this!” Troy says excitedly as we hop around in place, staying warm. 

“Yes! We’re gonna kill it!” I put up my hand for a high-five but in the pitch-black of the wings it’s impossible to see and just hangs there awkwardly in the air. We’re busy laughing about this when the theatre goes black and the stagehand mimes Go, go, go! – and we’re running out to take our places.

Our opening solos go flawlessly; the crowd seems tougher tonight than it did on the ‘exhibition’ show nights earlier in the week. After almost two weeks of shows here, I feel like I can gauge the audience based on their reaction to Troy’s first big skitter across the stage. On excellent days it draws huge waves of shrieks from the crowd; today I only hear a few scattered involuntary responses. 

We move through each sequence with presence and aggression and focus, sending our glares out and up into the seats that we can’t see with the stage lights lighting up our vision. We hit one of our big shapes – and the light is late. I’m so focused tonight that this simply logs as something to revisit after we’re done. We come up to another big moment – the light is a beat late again. Odd.

We power through to the finish – only one moment seems a little odd – but the final shape is strong, and I direct my final snarl at the judges as the light fades to black.

The lights come up, we wave, we bow, we exit.

“That felt great!” I said to Troy in the breathless moments that immediately follow the stage. 

“Yes!” he says. “But … I missed my big jump at the end.”

“You did?!”

“Yeah…”

“Noooo,” I say. I sigh a little, and immediately decide to let it go. There’s absolutely zero point in thinking about it; it’s done; who knows, maybe it looked just fine anyways; and we have one more judged day tomorrow. It’s gonna be fine.

“Did you notice anything a little off with the lights?” I ask.

“Yeah! Now that you mention it, they seemed – “

“– slightly late?”

“Exactly.”

“Sonofabitch,” I mutter. 

“Do you think he was doing them manually?” Troy wonders. 

I curse again. “He shouldn’t be, he’s been using the pre-programmed one all week. But … yeah … it seems like it, to be honest. Bah!”

I decide to let this go as well. We’re almost at the end. We’re performing well. Let the lights be what they’re going to be. Let the tricks come as they come. We did great tonight. Everything’s going to be fine. 

Troy goes upstairs to gather some of his clothes while we wait for the finale of the show. I head back to our warm-up corner and fold forward into a pike stretch to start cooling down my back. 

I pull up my phone, automatically tap Messenger again. 

There’s a message from Andrey, now:

God bless you! I was able to go into manage and do all my tricks.

I smile and breathe a sigh of relief. Yesss! I did The Thing! Or, helped do The Thing, anyways … I think to myself. 

And I didn’t kill Andrey Katkov. I’m going to call this a good night, I think, and relax deeper into the stretch.  

One more show to go.