High Diver: A Wildwood memory, 1954

It's 1954 and America is still mostly its old self. Television hasn't yet strangled our culture; the Beatles are still restless schoolboys along the quays of grimy old Liverpool. Rock 'n roll hasn't yet loosened its marauding hordes on the land. Drugs are something you buy from the pharmacist.

High Diver is 16 years old and a junior at Wildwood High School. He wears his collar up. His hair, shiny and black as a raven's wing, is slicked back into a careful D.A. But he's no James Dean or motorcycle hood, simply an ordinary young man who likes the look of slick hair and an upturned collar.

High Diver has been a water bug all his seashore life, learning how to swim at age four when his father would take him to tread water in the bay, about eight feet from the dock. High Diver would jump gaily into the water, doggy paddle to his dad, catch a breath, and his father would push him toward the ladder, and he would doggy paddle over, clamber up and do it again.

Each time his father moved a little farther away, and soon little High Diver gave up the doggy paddle and broke into a brisk, efficient Australian crawl like a miniature Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic gold medalist who went on to become the most famous Hollywood Tarzan.

High Diver at 16 felt star stirrings himself. The summer before, he had begun hanging about at the Keogh Brothers Aqua Follies water show that was playing at the fabulous Sportland Pool. A diving tower with three levels"“ 35 feet high, 55 feet, and a sky-scraping 85 feet— rose dizzily above the shimmering blue waters. Three times daily the professional divers would thrill the eager summer crowds with their hilarious and death-defying performances.

The brothers notice

That neophyte summer, High Diver had been mostly a go-fer and hanger-on with the Aqua Follies, always almost underfoot, persistent as a toothache. The Keogh Brothers troupe began to notice that High Diver, ubiquitous and efficient, was also dependable and an accomplished swimmer.

"That kid's gonna grows gills, he stays in the water much more." Billy Keogh, the older of the brothers, said one day to his younger brother, Ralphie. "Think we could use him?"

"Maybe next year," Ralphie replied. "We got enough to think about finishing this year up."

For his part, High Diver had absorbed the inner workings of the water show. He knew things. He knew secrets, too.

One secret he knew was that Carmen Oswego, the Fire-Diver himself, was never in any particular jeopardy as a he plunged from the 55-foot platform engulfed in a sheet of flames. It was simple physics: Carmen dove as soon as his suit caught fire, and the motion of his body through the air pushed the flames away from him, and they were extinguished as soon as he hit the water.

Still, it was thrilling to see the human fireball plummeting through the summer night like a comet. Carmen almost always got a standing ovation. The other divers thought he had a soft deal because he worked only the two night shows when his flames would show best against the inky seashore sky.

Superman's secrets

High Diver knew two secrets about Superman. Jud Nickels, one of the clown divers who had a marvelous physique, played the Man of Steel, again only at night. The emcee— a fat, seemingly jolly chap who went by the stage name of Uncle Aqua and was in reality a mean-spirited drunk— would gurgle into the microphone, "And now, ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, I direct your attention to the highest of high dives where"“ behold! It's Superman!"

And there would be Jud Nickels, framed by a spotlight, in an exact replica Superman costume, complete with cape, flexing his muscles, waving benignly to the screaming crowd and bowing like the king of Wildwood.

And then"“ suddenly!"“ total darkness for a split second. Then the spotlight would flash back on, this time to the stage, and there would be Superman, standing heroically next to Uncle Aqua. The crowd howled and Superman resumed his kingly bowing. Only an alien power like Supe, possessed of super speed, could have moved that far that fast. A miracle at the water show!

But High Diver knew the secret behind this water show miracle: a body double, Jud Nickels's twin brother Jed, in an identical costume, had been crouched, hidden, under the stage while all attention was directed at his preening brother 85 feet above the crowd. When the lights went out, he vaulted onto the stage, and when the spotlight came on"“ voila!"“ there was Superman. Miracle accomplished.

One-armed race

The Superman game didn't end there. Oh, no, the ball had to keep rolling. The thrills had to materialize one from the other. Onstage, Superman calmly took the microphone from Uncle Aqua, and, in his deepest and richest baritone voice, issued a challenge.

"Bring me your fastest swimmer and I will beat him to the distant end of this magnificent pool-— swimming with only one arm!"

Wow! This guy must really be Superman because there were some really fast swimmers in the Keogh Brothers entourage. The crowd had seen them cutting through the water during various acts before Superman was introduced. These guys could really move!

At this point, one of the three fancy divers would step out to accept Superman's challenge to race one-armed. This duty was rotated among the fancy divers, and Superman would strut down to the pool's edge and line up alongside the diver. Uncle Aqua would raise a starter's pistol and"“ BANG!"“ off they would go, the diver stroking with both arms while Superman kept pace with just one.

By midway, Superman would begin to pull away and would usually beat his rival by one or two body-lengths, climb out of the water, magnanimously hoist his beaten rival out of the pool with the same arm he had used to vanquish him, shake hands sportingly, and bow to the awestruck crowd. Then Superman would trot offstage, every inch the conquering hero.

High Diver and the members of the Keogh Brothers entourage, though, knew Superman's secret: While he stroked furiously with one arm, as promised, the hand of the other arm was tightly grasping a rope that pulled him through the water to his pre-ordained victory, another trick of the water show trade.

Staggering clowns

The next year— 1954— High Diver officially joined the Keogh Brothers Aqua Follies as one of the show's three clown divers. Usually from a perch on the 35-foot tower, the clowns would extract gales of laughter from the vacationers who filled the stands. They would start fairly slowly, staggering out to the platform's edge like drunks, teeter, loose their balance, catch themselves and proudly preen and then seemingly trip and end their fall in giant cannonballs that would spray water over the delighted crowd.

One clown's specialty was the so-called watermelon. Imitating one of the fancy divers, he would gracefully bounce off the edge into a perfect swan dive and, at the last instant before hitting the water, tuck up and let his shoulders and upper back take the impact, spraying water even farther than the cannonballer. He would clamber up the ladder, grab a towel and offer it to a spectator. Uproarious laughter always followed.

Phony belly flop

High Diver, for his part, was outfitted in a costume like that worn by Emmett Kelly, the world famous circus clown of those days. His signature dive was a wince-producing belly flop that rang out like a rifle shot. After he hit, he would struggle through the water and limp up the ladder, obviously in great pain, holding his belly and belching loudly.

The crowd was usually silent. Then High Diver would collapse into a handy stretcher, to be carted backstage by two husky male nurses in white shirts and pants. Once there, he'd take off his costume and remove the heavy stomach pad he wore to absorb the shock of his belly flop from 35 feet.

Sudden departure

In the mid-summer, Carmen Del Sol, the featured fancy diver, who worked solely from the 85-foot platform, abruptly left the show. Del Sol had originally been a cliff diver at Acapulco, arching off the top of the towering cliffs into the incoming waves below. A misjudgment there could mean paralysis or death, which made the 85-foot dives at the water show child's play for the handsome Mexican.

But in mid-July, Carmen received a telegram that his aged grandmother, who had raised him, was dying. He left that very day after tearful apologies to the Keogh brothers.

A replacement wasn't immediately necessary, but the Keogh brothers were looking to the future.

"Want to try the kid?" Billy asked.

"Why not?" Ralphie shrugged. "He can only break his neck. Lefty can show him the drill."

Permanent scar

Lefty Beisel was the second banana fancy diver, by then in his mid-30s. He'd been working water shows since he was High Diver's age and had a five-inch scar on his left cheek to show for it, product of a windblown crash into the side of a diving tank in Omaha many years earlier.

Lefty was an unpredictable loner, solidly built, thrice divorced, whose only discernible passion seemed to be bar-fighting, which he said was his hobby. He was a formidable, bulldog adversary whose mantra was, "Never use your hands." When the brawl started, he'd grab a bottle, a chair, a stool, a coat rack, whatever was at hand, and flail away until his opponent or opponents lay supine. The Keogh brothers bailed him out of local jails with the regularity of the changing seasons.

The very afternoon that Carmen Del Sol departed, before the matinee, Lefty said to High Diver, "C'mon, kid. School's open. Let's go."

Following Lefty up the ladder, High Diver was shaken to see that his teacher kept on climbing after they reached the 55-foot platform, which High Diver had tried successfully several times previously.

A view to Europe

But the 85-footer was another matter. When they reached the top, the whole of Wildwood and the mainland beyond was spread out endlessly and the horizon of the sea seemed to stretch to Europe. High Diver had never been this far off the ground. He felt a slight dizziness.

"Okay, kid. Hit the silk," Lefty instructed.

"What?"

"Go ahead. Jump or dive. Your call."

High Diver tiptoed to the edge and looked down and then backed off a step.

"I don't think I can do this right now," he said in a low voice.

"Only one way down, my man."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you ain't goin' back down that ladder," Lefty answered, eyeing High Diver levelly.

High Diver looked around for a way to stall, almost panicked now.

Lefty stepped to him and put his arm around High Diver's shoulders in a friendly gesture.

"It ain't no big thing after the first time, believe me," he said.

Still stalling, High Diver asked, "Do you remember your first time, Lefty?"

Lefty chuckled. "Yep. Like yesterday. They had to push me. Like this."

And he gave just enough of a push.

Thus High Diver became, indeed, High Diver.