Wire Walk

From the first time Willard Florentine punched a hole in a coke can and tied them to his feet with binder twine he sensed something of the divine in his vertical intentions. It was as if God was clapping him on the back and wishing him well in his attempts to reach heaven and from then on Willard knew no peace.
The ease with which he navigated great heights, starting with the home made high wire, stretched from the corner of the house to the shed in the back yard, all the way to the infamous walk across the Danube in '69, reinforced his belief that God approved of his attempts to reach heaven by his circuitous route instead of the way you or I would do it. In the end he reached it, one would hope, but not by using the same method that's been so popular since mankind sprouted from the primordial soup.
The Blue River Gorge stunt took us two years to organize and was the most ambitious high wire walk that had ever been attempted to that date. The press tour was impressive and we hit 14 countries inside of two weeks to promote it. Willard was the only true Florentine in the Flying Florentines by that point after his brother Lars had been killed walking the wire in Rio in 1970. That spectacular fall had been captured on live television and broadcast all around the world. Willard had been philosophical about it, though, and insisted that the team be re-built and had personally trained and instructed Lars' replacement in the troupe only to have him die in the 1972 walk, which was on a wire suspended between two World War 1 bi-planes over the desert in Nevada.
The Blue River Gorge was going to be Willard's final walk and I guess it was, either way you slice it. His plan was to retire after going out in spectacular fashion. As a tribute to the great man, most of the old crew had assembled again, despite our unanimous decision to quit after the bi-plane episode. There was simply no way to refuse Willard's pleas, no way to deride his expectation that God would one day allow him to walk the wire straight through St. Peter's gate. And so we gathered three weeks before the event and the technical crews began the laborious process of stringing the wire across the gorge. I was there, of course, supervising the job, but Willard came by almost every two days to check the specs and to give the workers a glimpse at what they thought must be the craziest man alive.
The day came and with the camera crews and international journalists, the world came as well. Willard was in good spirits and insisted that the show start at exactly 1 p.m., the time advertised and he hounded the crew into performance mode. As the clock struck one he stepped out over the gorge and began his descent. I saw what I saw and I won't be convinced otherwise. As Willard reached the half way point he threw away the balance pole and stepped out into the air. I've seen the footage and it appears that he slipped and fell seven hundred feet into the rushing waters of the Blue River, but that's not what I saw. To my eyes he simply stepped from one wire, the solid one I had stretched across the gorge myself, onto another wire that rose slowly in a gentle arc to disappear into the clouds. As the spectators screamed and began to rush in circles, not knowing what should done, and the rescue teams at the bottom of the gorge jumped into action, I watched Willard, who just before he disappeared into the sky, turned and with a wave and a smile of satisfaction nearly too big for his face faded into a cloud and was gone.
I suppose its like that for some people. Not for me, though. That passion, that focus, that determination is something that I just don't possess and I think that what's necessary most in this life, if you hope to walk the wire through St. Peter's gate, is the belief that you were meant to from the very beginning.