Writing Wednesday- Writing A Scene For Book 2

“If he saw three balls, he had to juggle. If he saw two towers, he had to walk! That’s how he was.”
Mordicai Gerstein
The Man Who Walked Between the Towers

The story of Phillipe Petit really fascinates me.

Before his Twin Towers walk, Petit was known to New Yorkers for his frequent tightrope-walking performances and magic shows in the parks of New York, especially Washington Square Park. Petit's most famous performance was in August 1974, conducted on a wire between the roofs of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, a quarter mile above the ground. He performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire, during which he walked, danced, lay down on the wire, and saluted watchers from a kneeling position. Office workers, construction crews and policemen cheered him on.

In my sequel to Rubato I introduce Miquel Ruiz who dreams of walking the wire to the music of Erik Satie. He is a modern day Gymnopodist.

Miquel relaxed his cramped foot under the covers. He flexed and pointed his toes. He was dreaming that his mother had locked him into his room. She was angry that he skipped school; she would have been angrier to know he had skipped school to walk a wire at the park. He could hear her voice, tight, restrained, but full of warning. Another voice returned the heat with an equal strained tone. Who was the second voice? Miquel brushed his eyes with the back of his hand. This wasn’t a dream, this was his mother fighting with Pablo downstairs. He heard the cupboard slam shut and water running. She must be making breakfast. He turned over in his bed and saw the clock. It was evening and why was he in his bed?

“Don’t you dare get him involved in your gang, Pablo!” Her sentence was punctuated by the clanging of pots and pans.

“Why? Are you worried that your precious younger son will finally become a man and leave you?”

 Miquel heard the slap but he felt it as if she had used her hand on his own face. He imagined the heat rising on Pablo’s cheek. Miquel moved to the edge of his bed and reached for his shoes. 

“He has other gifts and I won’t have you ruin his chances to become someone besides a gangster.”

The laughter exploded from his brother and Miquel felt the shame of what his brother thought of his meager talent. It wasn’t like Pablo knew much of his piano lessons or about his rapid progress with Mrs. Hanson. He was never home. But Pablo knew that Miquel’s  Boys Club acrobatic activities had become mostly wire walking. His mother would be appalled at the height of his newest installation. He bounded down the stairs to constrain any new revelations from reaching his mother’s ears.

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My novel Rubato

A riveting murder mystery about a morally compromised woman’s resolve to protect her musical discovery. 

Click here to read the book for free for a limited time.