You'll Be In My Heart

Jazz always looked great in a loincloth. He worked out every day to keep his muscles toned and swam three times a week for stamina. He even had half a dozen regular clients who hired him as a personal trainer. In the gym, he was the undisputed center of attention. As a Tarzan Rocks! Tarzan, however, he had room for improvement.

The problem was that he lacked confidence. He was a novice at gymnastics so his palms got sweaty every time he did the aerial web act. He had trouble remembering the choreography if too many performers were out sick, and he got self-conscious if the theatre was packed.

“For goodness’ sake, Jazz,” his manager would chide. “Loosen up out there. It’s a show, not a weightlifting competition!”

“I’m trying,” he would say. “But I get preoccupied with the stunts. If I screw up on the web, I fall, what, like thirty feet?”

“Don’t think like that.”

“Into the audience!”

“Stop it! Jazz, there is nothing to worry about. The webbing has been tested and retested. Nothing is going to go wrong, OK? Repeat after me: Nothing is going to go wrong.”

“Nothing is going to go wrong.”

Still, he worried. The webbing was a deceptively simple apparatus, two lengths of nylon rope attached to a rig in the roof. Each show, Tarzan showed off his jungle prowess by flying around on these ropes, twenty feet above the stage, without so much as a safety line for backup. When they hired him for the job, he kept it secret that he was afraid of heights.

One night, one of the Janes had a birthday party and she invited the whole cast. It had been a stressful day for Jazz – four shows over a split shift – so, since he didn’t have to work the following day, he decided to go.

“You know something?” the Jane said to him when they were alone. “You should try one of these.”

He stared at the little pill in her hand. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing bad, I swear.” Her eyes darted around the room. “Would you take it please? People are starting to stare.”

Jazz quickly grabbed it and stuffed it in a pocket, intending to throw it away later. He had never taken Ecstasy, but he knew the effects. It was supposed to release a person’s inhibitions, make him happy and loving and comfortable in any situation. It was a thoughtful gift, he thought, but not for him.

As the night went on, however, he started having second thoughts. Everybody was holding hands and stroking each other’s hair, laughing at everything, at nothing at all. Surely it wouldn’t kill him. It was four in the morning when he made up his mind.

It took almost an hour for the pill to take effect. Jazz was just about to give up and leave when he noticed that he was becoming aroused by the fabric of his shirt. His whole body felt warm and his toes were tingling like they had been asleep for a long time, and were just now waking up. When somebody handed him a water bottle, he spent ten minutes running his tongue around the grooves in the cap. He felt, relaxed, happy, confident.

He left the party shortly after sunrise and took the long way back to his apartment. When his phone rang at 8 o’clock, he picked it up midway through the first ring.
“Ye-llo.”

“Jazz.” His manager’s voice was taught with tension. “I need a big favor. I just got a call from my first shift Tarzan. He says he’s stuck in Apopka with two flat tires. Can you do the first show? Maybe the second too. What do you say?”

Jazz was running his fingers through his hair, thrilled by each strand as it passed between his fingertips. “No problemo,” he said.

As he slipped into the loincloth, he could feel his blood surging through his body. Oxygen molecules entered his lungs and he directed them through the porous alveoli to oxygenate the platelets in his bloodstream. He had never felt so aware of his body or its functions. As the crowd filed in to the theatre, he felt his heart race with excitement.

When his musical cue came, he exploded onto the stage. The theatre was packed with guests, every one of them cheering wildly for his entrance. He was the star of the show, the reason why thousands of people came to see six shows a day. For the first time in his life, he felt like a celebrity!

When it came time for the web routine, he felt none of his usual anxiety. He slipped his hand into the wrist loop and backed up to get a running start. As his feet lifted off the ground, he could sense every atom of air as it moved over his naked upper torso. Aware of the fibers in the nylon around his arm and his fingers, he was absolutely connected to the webbing and the rig above it, his aerial routine a celebration of movement itself. As he soared over the heads of the people in the audience, he looked in their eyes and saw their souls. It was, indeed, Magical.
He hit positions he never knew he could do, and smiled exactly the way a jungle hero would if he were swinging on a vine through his own back yard. Nobody knew this amphitheater the way he did, nor could they perform the routines with such second-nature agility. Why, if he wanted to, he could have done his stunts with his eyes closed, without even the safety loop around his wrist.

And so, the next time he touched down, he skipped the safety step, allowing the rig to pull him into the air, unprotected, naked, as it were.

At first, everything was wonderful, the feeling of flying, the excitement of the crowd. As the music built to his final trick, he caught the eye of his manager, watching, open-mouthed, from just behind the proscenium, and winked. With a crash of cymbals, the music peaked and Jazz threw his body into its final pose, thirty feet above the stage.

But he had miscalculated. Without the safety loop, the tension in the webbing was different and it threw his body to the side. As Jazz tumbled to the ground, it occurred to him that this was the worst case scenario he had feared, this was going to be his swan song.

And then, the impossible happened. The tail end of the webbing, which Jazz had always thought to be hazardously long, fastened itself around his waist like a seat belt, slowing his fall enough that his momentum deposited him on the stage with an awkward (yet stylish, in a jungle sort of way) somersault. The gasp of the crowd gave way to a standing ovation as, onstage, Tarzan and Jane embraced.

“I don’t know what got into you out there,” said his manager after the show, “but whatever it was, I can only pray that you keep doing it.”

That afternoon, as Jazz drifted off to sleep, the effects of the e were finally wearing off. Never again, he vowed. But he knew he would never keep that promise. . .