Papal Return

ONE

ONEUPSIDE DOWN, BLOOD pooling in my head, breathing getting harder—little tremors now threatening the balance I tried to keep. My eyes would be bloodshot after this, but my shoulder brought the most grief. I held out.

I shifted my weight onto the left arm, taking some pressure off the right. I extended the fingers of my right hand, focused the tension in my core and poured all my balance to the left arm.

The group of young men around us cheered as I balanced all my weight on only the one arm, lifting the right straight out to the side. Across from me, also upside down, looking my way, was a young man called Stephen. Or Steven, or Steve, or Stefan, I never completely got it—the guy was a mumbler.

Surrounding us were twelve other people, all students on campus, most at least fifteen years my junior. We trained here after hours—three times a week, starting at 21h00. Scaling walls, running narrow ledges, jumping from roofs. Tumbling, climbing, pulling ourselves up places that were technically illegal to be in, or at least frowned upon, though tacitly ignored by campus security. It had proved fantastic rehab for my shoulder injury.

It was a warm and clear Johannesburg evening, one of the last of fall. Stephen—or Steven, or Steve, or Stefan—a blonde young engineering post-grad of about 24, had been one of the original members of the free-running group. He had been away for a couple of months doing video shoots and the like for some social media account with a group visiting from the UK. He didn’t know me, so the group goaded us into a showdown today. Basically, you do as I do. Whatever one does, the other should try to match or outdo.

So far, we had stayed together on the running and jumping and crazy drops. It then became more technical, more gymnastic—both of us realizing this would get tougher. I had matched his planche pushups, he matched my jumps onto and across the ridiculously designed—and narrow—stairwell railings.

We had finally ended up on the campus library roof—a perfectly flat extra space, and challenge, to get to after hours. We didn’t usually go up there and technically it was not possible due to various gates and the architecture of the place. But what was the use in training these things if you let gates keep you out?

The Stephen, Steven, Steve, Stefan-guy had style, I had to give him that; his moves were all designed to look good on camera. Mine had evolved from having to evade or chase down assholes with guns in urban settings. Function above form for me. Always.

My friend, Jason, kept time for us. We’d been holding the handstand for two minutes at that stage and I saw the fatigue build as his body slowly started to sag into his shoulders. When I moved onto only the left arm, he smiled the smile of someone knowing this would be the make or break minute. Fatigue is fatigue. From the corner of my eye I saw Jason, the other ‘old man’ of the group, smile at me. He kept on giving us a time update every ten seconds now. My focus was slipping. The kid shifted his balance to his right arm as well, to mirror my position. I took a deep breath in to stabilize and moved back to both arms. If he couldn’t do something like that, I would win this competition. A silly, adolescent competition—irresistible, in other words.

I slowly lowered my body again, folding in half, still not falling, still balanced on only the hands. I opened my legs in a wide straddle and lowered them down, one leg on each side of the hands, hovered there for an excruciating eight seconds before finally sitting my butt down on the cold cement. Some of the kids, jumping up and down and clapping hands in excitement came to stand by me, slapping my back, laughing.

Steve, I think his name was Steve, held his balance firm on his right arm only, brushing the rooftop surface with his left fingertips. His blonde hair drooped all over his face. I don’t care who you are but holding a handstand this long fatigues the hell out of anyone. If he didn’t get that single-arm balance soon, he would crumble.

A grunt escaped his throat. It meant he was at the edge. A feeling I knew well—that place where everything is concentrated on one physical point. The whole body tries to fight the mind, to bring it down.

He made it. He lifted his left arm, he straightened his whole body out, he brought the left arm close in to his side. He looked like Superman flying straight down with an open palm. He held it there for a couple of seconds—nine by the group’s count as led by Jason—then placed the other hand back on the concrete and folded himself in half like I did. And then, arms and shoulders vibrating almost out of control, face red, he slowly raised himself back up into another handstand. Like a gymnast—not gold medal standard, but excellent for this situation. Everybody cheered, including me. He dropped back out of it, eyes as bloodshot as mine felt.

“Excellent!” I conceded with a broad smile. “I just hope you can do that fifteen years from now too,” I joked and shook his hand, followed by one of those one-arm bro-hugs that happens sometimes. Inside I felt relieved, unsure if I would have been able to come up with something else to trump him with.

Then, two new beams of light cut across the rooftop. The bright flashlights were for show, as there was plenty of illumination coming from overhead, the moon full and bright. But, I reckon campus security all over the globe liked to relish in at least some drama to their presence.

We all played our part and cleared the roof, some running down one of the three fire escapes, the others taking some more daring routes with the help of the massive trees hugging the library. Two even made their way down the north side, through one of the side windows of the library itself. Me and Jason made our way past the guards, greeted them cordially and took our time down the stairs where they came from. They were both a bit older than us still, only doing their jobs, with no energy to chase a bunch of fit adolescents around a university campus.

Jason was a friend of mine from high school, from way back when we aspired to have our band conquer the world. Or make movies and conquer the world. Or create a world changing website and conquer the world. We didn’t do any of that. Our paths diverged wildly after things happened at the end of school. My fault of course. And Bin Laden’s. But mostly mine.

The stout rugby player with a build suited more to power lifting than any attempt at free-running, ran a successful tow truck business around town. With eight trucks and ten drivers servicing most of central Johannesburg, he did well for himself. Trying to be an honorable company in one of the most derided industries on earth was a tough call, but he pulled it off, every night. Not exactly conquering the world, not in the Elon Musk kind of way. But he had a wife and two kids and a house in a nice suburb—and he was very proud of the business he had built. This training was a welcome night off for him, from both the business and the family.

His customized V8 Toyota truck waited for us in the parking lot, the tow hook dangling under a street lamp. The truck was a hit amongst the youngsters usually, many of them staying after training to listen to the engine growl or whatever. Mostly though it was to catch a lift with us to wherever in the inner city they had to get off at. Jason gladly obliged. These were good kids and they couldn’t all afford to pay for extra transport at night.

When we got into the truck, bodies now cooled down, sweat evaporated but still hanging in the nostrils, I noticed my phone had eight missed calls and as many voice messages. Also, a single text waiting on my attention. All from the same number, all spaced over the previous hour.

I was surprised to feel my body flush with excitement and my heart rate increase again.

The calls and messages originated from international dialing code 506, Costa Rica. Probably from Clarence Deeley, owner of SCOUR.