Absence Unexpected

Prologue

Markus Marconi was one of the best. His street performance included juggling balls, clubs and torches. He had a way of drawing an audience into his routine with facial expressions and subtle yet precise movements which easily elicited laughs and applause. With three balls, he would emulate animals, including a mouse, an owl, a pigeon and a horse, in so funny a manner, many people have learned to juggle just so they can perform the animals.

He really amazed people, though, when he manipulated three colorful balls in such a way that, while juggling two in his left hand, waving the third rhythmically in his right, he would smoothly and convincingly make a show of inserting the third ball into his mouth. The crowd would be astounded when he let the air out of his inflated cheeks which obviously contained no ball. Where had it gone? Then, with unaccountable smoothness, his empty right hand would fill with the lost third ball. Where had it been? The trick happened seemingly unrelated to the juggling of the two balls bobbing up and down in Markus’s left hand. How could something just not be there?

Everybody wondered the same thing about Randy Sharpe as the International Juggler’s festivention set for Tempe, Arizona approached.

Chapter 1

The Portland Juggling Festival the first weekend each June is the finest regional juggling get-together in the country. For the past several years it has been luring over 300 jugglers from all over to participate in games, workshops and shows dedicated to manipulating objects. The facilities at Reed College are excellent and the organizers account for pretty much everything, including, every hour on the hour, door prizes throughout the two-and-a-half day party.

Dan Newhouse made it a point to attend the Portland bash every year. The cost of flying up and getting a hotel room each year was well worth it for the chance to see old friends and learn the latest tricks in ball juggling, club passing and related skills such as the diabolo (a sort of yo-yo) and devil sticks. Why, you could even learn an unusual skill like indoor kite flying in a workshop put on by its inventor. Or how ‘bout practicing cup tossing with the world’s foremost shaker cup manipulator. A guy might even do a little one-on-one instruction with a shapely novice ball juggler.

After lugging his net bag of props through the sign-up line and affixing an I Brake for Jugglers pin, his entry pass to the open gym and all the weekend’s workshops, Dan made his way to a corner of the gym where quite a diverse group of individuals had congregated. A rainbow of balls, clubs, rings, sticks, bean bags, unicycles, diabolos, scarves, were bouncing, flying, rolling, spinning, floating, whipping, among the excited people. Upon seeing Dan, several minimized what they were doing with their props (as jugglers almost never stop their continuous manipulation) and greeted him with Heys and Howyadoins. Dan casually joined in with a threesome who were doing a simple passing pattern called a feed, consisting of a feeder and feedees individually juggling clubs while simultaneously exchanging clubs on a certain count. The inclusion of Dan constituted a third feedee and he caught and threw his clubs in time. This was easy for Dan, a juggler since before his teen years. Now a high school English teacher, he uses juggling in his class as a motivational tool. The students love it.

***

AU Silver greeted the group as he walked across the gym. Hey, Dan, I saw you on the six o’clock news a couple of weeks ago.

Sure you did and I’m the sixth member of the Flying Karamozovs, replied a disbelieving Dan, referring to the troupe most notable for popularizing juggling feed patterns. He shunned any type of extraordinary attention and couldn’t imagine any situation that would put his face on TV, especially since there were always so many great jugglers like Randy Sharpe or Steve Hudson at these gatherings.

No, really. You were doing some kind of one-one-five-six-three-twothree pattern at the Santa Teresa festival. You did it flawlessly and it looked like you did it just for the camera. That’s not like you, man.

For a moment Dan couldn’t figure how AU could have seen such a thing, then he remembered standing with a couple of other jugglers at the Santa Teresa festival, each doing site swap tricks.

Site swap is a notation communicating a variety of juggling tricks. Different types of throws are designated different numbers according to how high they are tossed and in which hand they land. Dan had quite a repertoire of site swap patterns, and one of the reasons he attended as many juggling festivals as he could was to develop more.

I told that cameraman to aim the other way, Dan dropped a club and bent to pick it up even before it stopped clattering at his feet. He passed it back into the feed pattern without missing a beat. He couldn’t have been shooting me, could he?

Yeah, you pegged that sucker right on cue, said Dallas, another passer in Dan’s pattern, joining the repartee. I saw it too. It must have been on TV from Point Mugu to Palo Alto. At the end of a newscast, you know? How they close with a cute story.

Yeah, they couldn’t find a piano playing pig so they went with your mug instead, chimed in Sally, another participant in the fan-shaped pattern.

That must have been the time I was showing off my six-six-one-fiveone-five. Dan enumerated a pattern which has one ball going straight up and down from each hand while at the same time two other balls chase around in a circle between them.

Right…right. That’s the one, AU concurred. That camera guy must have snuck back and pointed your way. At least you didn’t drop.

AU Silver worked on tricks unduplicated in the world. Though they seemed simple, they came across as awkward when attempted by anyone other than AU. As he practiced, silver bracelets and gold necklaces and earrings jangled, a study in jewelry overkill. His ruffled charcoal black hair stayed put magically as he prepared his act through hours of repetition. Six feet, two inches tall, thin yet muscular, AU could pass for a professional athlete. With his erect posture and clear dark eyes, if he were a Bouvier Des Flandres, he would win confirmation honors. As far as his friends knew, he was in his thirties.

AU, did you add some metal since the midwinter fest? You sure are settin’ up a racket with all that hardware. Hosta teased AU as she gracefully wove a blue diabolo about her sylphic body. She, too, sported silver and gold ornamentation and had rings through her epidermis in places too painful to mention.

AU worked with his devil sticks, three sticks, one of which, slightly hourglass shaped is batted about by the others held in each hand. Dan, you gotta come to the party we got planned for after the show tonight. It’s Randy’s big three-oh. We gotta celebrate him in style. He tapped the center stick back and forth like an old fashioned metronome.

Yeah, I heard. Dan stopped juggling and the pattern collapsed. Where should I show up?

Jennie and Ted have a hotel room nearby, volunteered Hosta, who began passing clubs with Dallas. Just hang out at the door of the theater afterwards and we’ll go from there.

***

Time passes at juggling festivals in a blur of activity—every bit of space in two gymnasiums and two squash courts was filled with movement and energy. Participants of all skill levels unceasingly trained their bodies to balance, throw, catch, tap, kick, spin, rotate…balls, clubs, wheels, sticks, tops, ropes, umbrellas; all manner of props. Ideas were exchanged, techniques enhanced. A mass effort toward proficiency.

The day whizzed by.

For dinner, the group invaded a nearby pizza parlor and tossed down pizza and drinks. They returned to the gym, juggled a few more hours, then made their way to the college’s student union to take in the midnight show.

The Vagabond Variety show, put on just for festival attendees, is held late in the evening Saturday. Affectionately known as the VV, it showcases professional and semiprofessional jugglers doing cutting edge tricks and trying out new material, making for lots of groans. Occasionally, an act transcends the genre and a juggler nails a trick of unbelievable dexterity. These are moments juggling enthusiasts live for. Because it is held late on Saturday, after what can be considered an all-day party, a contingent of the attendees show up in search of tryst possibilities for the night, prompting the aphorism, get VD at the VV.

AU would be acting as Master of Ceremonies (or its gender-free incarnation emcee). In keeping with the informal organization of these low-budget productions, the emcee must also be stage manager, director, lighting supervisor, sound technician and curtain operator. AU handled all these responsibilities with aplomb while keeping the audience laughing at his badinage.

With so many professional entertainers in the audience all joking and juggling, there was an almost seamless transition as AU took the stage to introduce himself.

Hi! I’m AU Silver. Welcome to the Vagabond Variety Show! Say, did I ever tell you how I got that name—AU? He reiterated a setup most in the hall had heard several times before.

Guys in my neighborhood, when they wanted a laugh, they’d say ‘ ‘Ey you, come-on over here and tell us a funny story.’ I’d always tell them my name’s Aloysius, not ‘ey you, but that’s what stuck. I say ya gotta go with what works, y’know? Nobody who had been in the same room with AU ever forgot him or his name.

You ready for a great show? He energized the crowd and they echoed his enthusiasm. Then put your hands together for Taylor!

The audience clapped as an imminently teenaged girl strode to center stage, stood stiffly holding three clubs and waited for her music to start. As AU pushed the button on a CD player, the Backstreet Boys blared out of the speakers and Taylor began her routine. She competently cascaded three clubs and did some under-the-leg throws, two clubs up, one up, double spins and four right-handed behind-the-back throws. Next she picked up a fourth club and did a few seconds of double spin fountains and a few seconds of columns—standard ways of juggling four clubs, two in each hand. Acknowledging applause, she tossed the clubs offstage and picked up three bright yellow balls which she started juggling in a cascade, switching to some mildly complicated patterns including a half shower, shower and a box where one ball went up and down from each hand as the third ball crossed back and forth between her hands. She stopped again, picked up another ball and ran through some four-ball patterns which were at the