Johnny Hangtime by Dan Gutman Page A

splitting up, I might as well be out of the picture entirely. I changed my name and started a new life nearby here, in Canada.”
    â€œSo that’s why Mom doesn’t like to talk about you,” I said. “That’swhy she doesn’t have any photos of you around the house. She never told me she was going to divorce you.”
    â€œI’m sure she didn’t want to hurt you. It’s bad enough for a kid to lose his father. He doesn’t have to know his folks were going to split up.”
    â€œBut I never saw you and Mom fight.”
    â€œYou probably never saw us kiss either.”
    Everyone had always told me that my dad was the bravest man they ever met. He would jump off anything. He would run through fire. He would do any stunt, no matter how dangerous. He was fearless. But he was afraid to tell his own family that he was alive.
    â€œYou’re a coward,” I said.
    â€œI suppose I am,” Dad replied wearily.
    â€œDo you expect Mom to take you back now? Is that why you came here?”
    â€œNo,” he sighed, shaking his head. “She has a new life now.”
    â€œI could call the police, you know,” I said. “I could go to the press. I could tell everybody.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œWhy did you come here?” I asked.
    â€œTo ask you not to do this gag.”
    â€œI’m doing it,” I said, turning away from him.
    â€œIt’s okay to hate me, John, but don’t ignore me. This gag is too dangerous. There’s a curse on these falls. They could kill you.”
    â€œThey didn’t kill you .”
    â€œThey almost did. Look, I don’t care if you do stunts for one year or twenty. Something will go wrong eventually. It’s gonna catch up with you. If you do stunts for a living, you’re gonna get hurt. Maybe you’re gonna die. Did you ever hear of Dar Robinson?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDar was a friend of mine. He was the greatest high-fall man ever. He jumped nine hundred feet off the CN Tower in Toronto. Once he jumped from the wing of a plane onto another plane flying beneath it. I saw him drive a car off the rim of the Grand Canyon and parachute down safely.”
    â€œHe must have been a maniac,” I said, marveling.
    â€œHe wasn’t a maniac. That’s the point. A maniac is an idiot who does something crazy and hopes he’ll live to brag about it. A stuntman makes it look like he’s doing something crazy. Dar Robinson never broke a bone in his body. Then one day he was doing a routine motorcycle gag and his bike slipped on some loose gravel. It went over a cliff. Dar was just thirty-nine.”
    â€œAccidents happen.”
    â€œYeah, but especially if you do something foolish. John, it took a near fatal fall to get me to quit. You might not be so lucky. Let me tell you a story—”
    â€œI’ve got to get some sleep,” I said, waving him away. “I have a big day ahead of me.”
    â€œYou’re not going to sleep tonight,” Dad insisted, walking unsteadily to a bench nearby. “Sit down. There’s an old Indian legend you need to know about.”
    I followed him to the bench.
    â€œOnce,” Dad explained, “people knew the wholeness of the world. They spoke with the earth and the sky. The sun, the moon, and the stars spoke with them. They knew the animals and the plants as their brothers and sisters. The Thunder beings taught them about what is and what will happen. People knew all these things, and knew the wholeness of the world.”
    â€œWhat’s a Thunder being?” I asked.
    â€œDon’t interrupt,” Dad continued. “Young Indian men who livedin Niagara used to demonstrate their courage by riding over the falls in birchbark canoes. Amazingly, they would be unharmed by the water.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWhen they were behind the falls, they found themselves in a cave with a high ceiling and many creatures in