FREAKISH WORKUP

FREAKISH
10-in-1 America
by Martin Higgins
First draft - 11/01/2024
© 2024 Martin Higgins
32 Cove Drive
Derry, NH 03038
all rights reserved

“The truth is that life is hard and dangerous;
that he who seeks his happiness does not find it;
that he who is weak must suffer;
that he who demands love will be disappointed;
that he who is greedy will not be fed;
that he who seeks peace will find strife;
that truth is only for the brave;
that joy is only for him who does not fear to be alone;
that life is only for the one who is not afraid to die.”
― Joyce Cary

“Religious people banned sideshows to eliminate competition
ith their own cultural and political freakshows.”
― MJH

ELLA FAIRBANK’S PROMISE
               My name is Ella Fairbanks and I am not a writer. I write things like lists and letters to my few friends, but longer things?

  I’m a better listener.

  Two years ago, my Dad took sick. His doctor ran a bunch of tests, had him get an MRI, and tried a bunch of treatments before calling me in for The Talk. A week or so later, I was sitting in Doctor Bernhardt’s clinic office looking at a computer picture of shadows that made no sense at all.

  He pointed out where the liver should be and where it was. I got that upset stomach feeling that comes when you know the situation is getting bad or maybe too bad.

  “Hepatic steatosis, or fatty liver, is an excess accumulation of fat within the liver. Some fat is normal and even a moderate increase, excluding other complications, does not necessarily result in acute liver damage. However, frequent alcohol consumption can cause fatty liver and, in the long term, may eventually result in cirrhosis. Your father is in that category. I’d call this a fairly advanced case. My usual advice is to stop all drinking.” he said, “Now that Boz is progressing to cirrhosis, we’ve got a thorny problem.”

  I can’t say I didn’t see this coming down the pike. Dad’s been a heavy drinker since he got back from the Army. That was 1945 when he was twenty and his two years with the 10th Mountain Division in northern Italy gave him a lot to forget and metal shrapnel still embedded in his chest. I looked at the bright white dots scattered across his MRI as I thought about the problem.

  I knew Dad wouldn’t stop tippling now, six years short of ninety and as set in his ways as a stump.
“I’m happy, I need a drink.” he’d say. “I’m pissed off, I need a drink.” he’d say. How do you reason with that?

  Dr. Bernhardt was sharp. He’d spent half his life treating people who never wanted to be considered normal - whatever that means anymore. He went on, anticipating my objection.

  “So… since Boz won’t stand for the cure, we’re talking time.”

  I wasn’t taken aback by the doctor referring to Dad by his nickname and his honest admission that we were both looking at a calendar that wove dying from drinking and dying to drink.

  Mom was 71 when she got emphysema. A couple bouts of congestive heart failure and we faced the same odd choice about her health and lifespan. “Should I make her stop smoking?” I asked her oncologist.

  “Yes,” he said, “if you want her to die miserable.”

  Bernhardt was cutting out the soft soap and, given his experience at the clinic, I could guess where he was headed.

  When I went through A.A. years back, I learned that bit about accepting what is and not imagining what could have been. I stopped drinking for a couple years, then went back to now-and-again trying to soften hitting fifty. Now I’m a sixty-two-year-old divorcee and it still hasn’t gotten any softer.

  “What can he handle without getting sicker?” I asked.

  Bernhardt slid test result documents into a manila folder and folded his hands behind his head.

  “Your Dad has been drinking hard whiskey since before Pearl Harbor. His susceptibility to its effects is substantially lower now and his taste buds are not what they once were. Not that it’s about taste for Boz, per se, but he going to be craving some burn.” Realizing he sounded less like a general practitioner and more like a bartender, he moved his folded hands down from his head onto his stomach.

  “If you can keep him down to a pint or less a day, eighty-proof tops, he could stave off acute cirrhosis, possibly lethal, for another three maybe four years.”

  The doctor’s confidence almost sounded like good news until I remembered that, at 84, Dad had already beaten the odds and seen all but a few of his family pass away. I asked the only question left.

  “How can I keep him interested in living?”

  Bernhardt was relieved that I had moved on.

  “That’s the same question many ask at this point and my answer is always the same. Keep him busy and give him something to look forward to. Age takes its toll and, after his years on the road, his dad’s body is not all that able to adapt to change. Whatever spirit has been keeping him as spry as he up to now seems to be winding down. His life is his day-to-day job and telling stories is his social nature, his wisdom and ballyhoo.

  Bernhardt’s eyes scanned the framed photos on the walls of his office. I knew most of the people in those glossy pictures. In their heyday, most of the country knew them too. They were famous but, as with my father, mortal and prone to flesh failures. I watched him as his memories set aside the matter at hand; probably thinking of his long association with our passing parade. He reached across his desk to a model biplane on a pedestal and spun the propeller.

  “God knows I’ve learned more about freaks and human oddities from him than I learned in Med School. Reminiscing is Boz’s reason to get out of bed, run the show, tear it down, and set up it up on a new lot the next morning… three, four hundred miles away. He’s a fireball.”

  We both fell silent for a moment. I thought back on those “circus jumps” moves; dismantling the property, loading up, nightlong drives to the next town, and putting it all back together. It’s been decades, now and I’m still tired.

  “That was then.” Doc said, sounding resolved to accept aging and loss, “Now, he’s got a job. He’d call it a townie job, but he’s still working the way he always worked; focused on keeping the wheels greased and making the nut. He still runs his show.”

  I love my dad. He’s too strong and thick-headed to change, but I can’t imagine seeing him go without doing something to give him as much time as I can. Not A.A., not drugs, not therapy or hypnotism or religion. He never had a spare minute for any of that.

  Bernhardt cleared his throat.

  “Elle, your dad has two lifetimes of tales collected living while a highspeed life in a dog-eats-dog business; living through stories that rarely get heard. He needs to lay it all out for the world. Have him put it on paper so he can see where he’s going by seeing where he’s been. Not that he’ll want to do it, per se, but you can bribe him. Regrettably, a bribe of drink. You can’t get his to stop, but you can agree to be satisfied if he cuts back a tad. Yeah?”

  Bernhardt’s shrug let me know that his professional and personal advice had ended, so I thanked him and stood to leave his office.

  “I’ll follow-up with him in a month or two. Nothing I can do at this point, I’m sorry to say. But you, you have a chance of getting him to straighten up and flight right. We pilots say, ‘configure for best glide speed and distance.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. You are a good man.” I said.

  In the outer office, I passed the reception desk and recognized Talia, an old ectodact struggling to sign her name on the register. She is the granddaughter of Galeoto Napoli who died last March in Jupiter. She grasped a pen in her wrinkled claw. I could see she was feeble and jaundiced, so I didn’t catch her eye or greet her. Talia and I were never friends as such. We rarely bothered even acknowledging each other.
Dad told me that the word ectodact was made from two Greek words that mean “abortion fingers” and people with this condition often are hearing impaired or completely deaf. I couldn’t imagine growing up with that disability.

  Talia’s story was not out-of-the-ordinary for show folk; her father hated her boyfriend and violence was the centerpiece of her family’s day-to-day existence. Galeoto had come to a bad end.

  He was born in Vito, just outside Reggio di Calabria, Italy, during its war with Ethiopia. His fingers and toes were fused into pincer-like extremities, so it was inevitable that the village’s children would taunt him.

  They nicknamed him “Il Granchio” which means “the crab.”

  His life was a daily horror show and he grew an emotional carapace to match his crab-claws.

  Despite the shock and disgust people often displayed when he went about without mittens pulled over his disfigured hands, Galeoto somehow remained outgoing. Some would say he appeared good-natured and optimistic. Some. When he began to tour around Italy with a sideshow, he made as much money in one day as a banker or physician. He’d throw lavish parties where no guests never stared at his misshapen hands as long as the vino kept flowing. He took many lovers and, in 1952, bought a special-outfitted Ferrari 166S with his growing fortune. There were only 37 of these high-performance GT coupes produced that year.

  A scant week after he took delivery there were only 36 in existence.

  The booze took over and it was beatings and abuse all `round. He married and divorced several times and had an odd lot of kids, some ectodacts, some more or less normal. His hearing impairment added to drunken misunderstandings and outbursts. When his clawed daughter, Talia, was 15 she brought home a boy she knew from school. Galeoto, full of drink and raving about “The God-damned townies!” went berserk.

  He screamed, “NO! NO! STUPRATORE” drew a Walther PP from his pocket and shot the boy dead.

  Stupradore means rapaist. There was no Sweet Sixteen for the Lobster Girl.

  But that was a lifetime ago. Talia never married, grew old and sickly, never had the baby she longed to kiss, and kept her own counsel as to what had happened and what she knew.

  As I passed her in the office, it had all come back to me as though I had stepped outside my life and watched it played out by others. Just one of Dad's many stories I thought.

  There and then I decided, if my dad was going to go, he’d have to leave me his life by giving me his stories.

  He owed me that much at least. For most of my years, our home address was a license plate number or a general-delivery window at a post office. I needed something to balance it out, to make up for - all that
wandering and living as a stranger in an unfamiliar town after a nightlong ride from another unfamiliar town.

  I bought him a cassette recorder and a big box of blank tapes and, though it took a while for him to get started, I found a tape for me in his mailbox nearly every day. The tapes eventually totaled over 250 hours of involved stories, bits and pieces, and little snippets of common sense he had trimmed and polished over the years.

  Our agreement was a minimum of a 30-minute story tape for one pint of Jim Beam, fair exchange, each day. I’d swap a bottle for the tape in his mailbox on my way to work. No next pint unless the previous day’s tape was a bellringer. If he got going with a story and wanted to finish it as an hour tape, he was on his own. I’m sure he spent his Satellite Park paycheck on beer, pretzels, and the ponies, but that was his way and I promised not to bother him about it. The promise of an occasional “second pint” was his storyteller’s lottery ticket and a reason for him to dig deep into his life.

  I would agree to that and not bother him as long as he did not have any other hard drink. To my surprise, he teared up and agreed, realizing it was offer, acceptance, and consideration; a life pact and his word was unimpeachable.

  The following is a transcription of everything he tape-recorded from August 12th, 2006 through December 17th, 2008. Most of the people he remembered are long dead, and I have never contacted any of their relatives out of respect for their pain and suffering. It was quite a job turning talk into text and I had to get help. I don’t know a lot of words or how to make a long story flow like a song. Sorry.

  A special thank-you goes out to Ms Noel Grist, a Literature student at Florida Atlantic University who volunteered to help me transcribe, edit, and sort out the stories. She also suggested more exact and ear-friendly words and sentences which I greatly needed.

  Noel did yeoman’s work on Dad’s transcribed stories but using her edited master manuscripts, I reinstated some of Dad’s slang and phraseology. As she said, “I can reword Mr. Fairbanks’ idiosyncratic cant and informal constructions into Standard Language.” I now see how having a storyteller father resulted in picking up a lot of language.

  One of dad’s favorite pieces of advice to ordinary people was, “Learn the lingo.”

  In consideration for her assistance, I granted Ms Grist use of a few of Dad’s stories for inclusion in her doctoral thesis paper: Oral History; Collection and Interpretation. As of this publication, she has received her PhD from the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at FLU and is now engaged to her longtime friend, Jerrold!

  I couldn’t have done it without you, Noel! “GO OWLS!”

  I dedicate these memories to the people Dad loved: his wife, myself, and the people of America’s sideshows. In the words of Boz Fairbank: “Normal people are those who are happiest just the way they are, and that includes sideshow folk.”

  Dad died of congestive heart failure on March 5th of 2009, but I hope he lives on through these recollections. I miss him, but know, as we all do, that our lives are a collection of memories and lessons and, for better or worse, they are all we have to pass on.

  I give you my father, Boswell “Boz” Fairbank, and his stories. Be well…

SATELLITE PARK MOBILE ESTATES
  Two, three o’clock in the morning I wake up. I don’t know if it’s the booze wearing off or the dead quiet that makes these pre-dawn hours come alive and roll by. The movies start in my head and my thoughts and memories flood in. If I get my tape done by morning and get it in the mailbox, there’s a pint of Beam Green in its place after Ella heads off to work. Sometimes there might be two.

  Well, I haven’t gotten any second pints yet, but Ella said every once and a while I can have a wingding if the story earns it.

  Afternoons are for talking to the residents and handling Satellite Park business; late pays, covenant policing, sweeping up the midway, fixing stuff, and reffing squabbles between tenants. Mostly they’re old beefs, settled dozens of years ago, but the original fix-it has been stuck in somebody’s craw ever since. A tree branch falls into a neighbor’s yard and there’s Hell to pay. I have a couple of beers to calm the whips and jangles and get to it. “Settle down people. Settle down.” I say, but they hardly ever do.

  It’s no secret why most of us retired to Florida. When the gravy train was rolling we were living the life of Reilly during the off-season. Money bought privacy and some yummy-tummy. Plus living in a wintertime vacation state packed full of snakes, giant bugs, felons, cocaine gangsters, and old New York Jews, no one seemed to notice us. Our day is past, first taken away by the bible-thumpers, then outlawed by people who want to protect other folk’s feelings while driving others into bankruptcy.

  There’s talk that they’ll let us go back to work but I for one am quite content to sit in the sunshine with a brew and the radio. Music, not Talk Radio. I’ve heard all that crap and it stinks like a Hippy’s cat box.

  Those of us who’ve made it this far along pretty much stay here in the mobile park. Old gambling debts, hand-me-down doublewides, midway marriages, and out-and-out cons have a way of keeping like with like and besides, it makes the curious townies avoid the place like it’s a hive of hornets.

  A mobile, especially a double, is a way of being ready to pick up and go when you want to, `though most of us sold our wheels for pocket change when hard times blew in. That’d be the gas nonsense in the seventy’s when the Arabs figured out that they couldn’t eat sand and oil.

  Anyway, spending most your life in a trailer makes a mobile home feel like a sheet metal castle. And Satellite Mobile has been here since `57. Everybody was talking about the Sputnik and Martians and the Flying Purple People Eater, so Apollo Beach Mobiles became Satellite Mobile Estates with a green Spaceman and a flying saucer on the sign.

  When the Apollo astronaut landed on the moon, the owners wanted to change the name back to Apollo but by then there were too many of us “carny aliens” living here that wanted to keep it spacey. Besides, what’s the point?

  I’ve got a shoebox - the shoes are long gone - where I keep all my souvenirs and such, and the overflow from my ditty bag. Moving around a lot whittles down what you decide to hold on to and they’re not always the most valuable things. Dollars and cents valuable, that is. So, in with my photos and trinkets and notes, there’s a couple of sparkler rings and big roll of paper: posters, handbills, adverts, and the like.

  They’re not works of art, but each one has a story and memories, feelings, thoughts that words can’t do justice to. My world.

  So I’ll open another beer and bide my time. History is a re-run.

ME AND THE ROBOT
  I wasn’t even thought of when Roland Brimmer was released from Queen Mary’s Star and Garter hospital in the Fall of 1919. The Red Cross ran the place like a factory, and it’s said that a seemingly unending stream of casualties had passed through its ornate, limestone arches.

  Until the Great War, the only reconstructive surgery that had proven successful was stitching up sword
wounds and closing cleft palates. That changed when devastatingly effective weapons - machine guns, exploding artillery shells, and shrapnel - arrived on the battlefield. Trench combat meant sticking your head up into the line of fire to defend your position. Armies were reduced to legions of walking wounded in weeks.

  For the first time in history, eyes, noses, teeth, and facial bones were blasted into unrecognizable, unrepairable gore. Taking a quick look topside could become the most regrettable turning point in your life.
With much of his face torn off, Roland was unable to speak. It had been difficult for doctors to determine if he was Brit, Yank, Aussie, soldier, sailor, or aviator. Since he had arrived in with a group of Tommy’s, he was immediately admitted to the hospital, scheduled for re-constructive surgery, and, after a year, assigned to be fitted at The Tin Noses Shop.

  During that year, the cry of other patients in excruciating pain was a constant backdrop, that puzzled Roland as he listened to the sound of hammers on stone. Like those who had lost their sight and were helpless to shut out the horror, he prayed to lose his hearing as well.

  When the Star and Garter was being razed and rebuilt to serve an even larger flood of paralyzed and disfigured military men later that year, Roland had learned enough handspeak to tell them who he was and what he wanted.

  “Canadian.” He signed, “I want to die.”

  The doctors and nurses paid attention to the first word and ignored the following four. They had heard that phrase so many times that it was routinely re-interpreted to mean “Please fix me.”

  Roland’s file was revised and reviewed, and he was sent back to Montreal with £20 sterling and a tin mask to hide his pieced-together face. His right eye, cheekbone, and nose were gone, his right ear was now little more than a hole surrounded by nubs of scar tissue where the cup of it had been torn into a ragged ridge.

  His lips were so severely burned so that the surgeon could only salvage thin flaps of scar tissue to cover his teeth.

  Roland’s facade was crafted by Anna Coleman Ladd who chose not to use the rubber recreations that surgeons favored for sanitary reasons. She chose to work with thin metal sculpted to cover wounds and replace lost parts so the patient might appear as he had before the mutilation. Anna believed the self-confidence and social acceptance provided by an artistic representation far outweighed the washable convenience of rubber.

  Roland’s was a partial mask covering his exposed eardrum, nasal cavity, and empty eye socket and fitted with a pair of glassless spectacles that extended to his remaining eye. This helped conceal the lines of the mask where metal met flesh. His mouth was scarred into a grimace, kind of a sneer that showed side teeth, but it was more or-less acceptable to the casual glance. Slowly, he learned to speak with it.

  She was right. He was able to live and, in his way, come around to love life.

  When the mask was shaped and a leather cord fitted to hold it in place, Anna painted it herself to look as realistic as possible despite his deathly pallor which was mottled with angry patches of post-operative dermatitis. Roland had no pre-war photograph to guide her, so his mask looked like the senior groundskeeper at the Star and Garter, Derwin McMahon, a pudgy Welshman who agreed to take his lunch in the hospital’s art studio. For his cooperation, he was served two pints of bitter ale. The cheeks and nose of Roland’s mask portrait were mottled with a red and blue blush that took the place of Derwin’s rum-blossoms.

  When Roland returned to Montreal, he learned to ignore people gasping at the sight of his mask.

  It was hard to adjust, find a boarding house room, then a job, since the one he left had been taken by an Irish greenhorn. But there wasn’t much of a community for him to fit back into; a lot of boys were dead, a lot more were severely wounded, and a bunch were raving mad, shell-shocked, or paralyzed where they sat.

  So, he moved to Coney Island, New York, where a friend, Winslow Chalmers, was working as a doorman at the Kensington Hotel just off The Bowery. Winslow had fought in Hoogstade, Belgium, and lost both legs below the knee to shrapnel. A pair of oak legs served him well and, although he hobbled, his spirit was unbroken. Roland moved in with him and they shared a basement room at the hotel until 1925 when the Thunderbolt rollercoaster was built directly above it. The sound of the trundling rollercoaster so unnerved the men, they were forced to move out. The sound was identical to the rumbling trundle and clanking of a British Mark IV tank.

  In 1927, another rollercoaster was being built in Coney Island that was to be named The Cyclone. Upon hearing this, Winslow took to strong drink was fired from his job as a doorman. He told Roland that a shell from the huge French artillery cannon referred to as The Cyclone was the one that severed his legs.

  Winslow collapsed into his pain and regret. He declared that “God is mocking me!” and he gave up.

  In short order, the Kensington’s manager took him aside and explained that, with wooden legs, Winslow couldn’t open the door quickly enough and guests were put off by his thump-limping. But the truth was far more grievous; Winslow had given up trying to make sense out of his world and it was beginning to show. That kind of attitude put the kibosh on his chances of earning a paycheck. Winslow wrote a note to Roland that read, “You can have my bindle. Keep your chin up.” Then he stole two dollars from Roland’s keep to buy a bottle and disappeared.

  Days later, sand rakers on Coney Beach saw what they thought was a bundle of rags floating in the surf.

  Out, beyond the breakers, two small oak limbs bounced upon the endless rolling shrug of the Atlantic.

  Without a friend to help him attend to his most basic needs, Roland was sent to a sanitarium where he worked as a janitor until 1938. I met him when I was fourteen at the New York State Fair. Roland had been hired to tend to the lavatories behind the Lost and Found booth. I was lost – actually, abandoned – when my dad ran off with some woman who liked being drunk as much as he did. My mom left him for the same reason, and she let him have me since she wanted a fresh start.

  I had wet my pants looking for a bathroom, all the while calling out for my dad. Roland heard me and walked over to take me to the Lost and Found. He was tall and wide-shouldered and seemed quite ordinary at first… well-dressed with shined shoes and a pinched fedora.

  But when looked carefully at his face, I saw a fine line running around his nose and right eye; top and bottom it looped around his ear and it pushed a dented into his skin like a ring that’s a size too small. His fake eye was motionless, painted on and the nose had thinned-edged nostrils that let me know it was a tin mask. Behind the dull gray ear was a clasp that held a leather cord that also went up from the other side of the tin under his hat.

  I wondered if he was a robot. There were a couple of robots at the World’s Fair, like Westinghouse’s Elecktro who could talk and smoke a cigarette, and Chevy's “Roll-Oh" that made fun of the woman he was supposed to help; nagging her because she was too lazy to do house chores herself.

  But this man-robot had a half and half face and walked just like a regular man; not all herky-jerky.

  “I’m Roland,” he said, his voice sounding a little far away, “what’s your name?”

  “Boswell.”

  I looked down at my wet pants in shame.

  “I can’t find my dad.”

  “Come on Boz, let’s find your dad,” he said

  We walked around back of the Lost & Found booth where there was a wash basin and towels. Some gardeners were sprucing up plants for the walkway and they had a sprinkler can set out on the counter. After filling it from the spigot Roland started watering my pant legs. The gardeners walked back behind the booth and were caught by surprise.

  “Say, what’s the big idea?” I said, shoving Roland.

  He didn’t say a word, but I caught on quick. Once the pant legs were wet, you couldn’t hardly tell I had peed. Yeah, they were wet, but when they dripped out, they were just dark all over. Roland tossed me a towel.

  “Dry off some and we’ll get going.”

            Crazy as it sounds, it was the first time I felt grown up around strangers. The gardeners stared at look at me, said something in Italian, and laughed. I got sore, but when I saw a twinkle in their eyes and their eyebrows were flipping up and down like mad, I figured it was nothing mean. I let out a laugh too.
For a moment or two, it was almost like we knew what each other was thinking. Then one of them looked over my head. His smile faded as he made the sign of the cross with his thumb. I looked up and saw under the edge of Roland’s mask under his eye. The skin was bright red. His voice boomed out.

  “Pagliacci! Avete erbacce da cogliere. Sposti il vostro asino e lascili soli!”

  Well, they look like they saw a ghost, turned to each other, and started babbling.

  “I only said you water the boy like that and he’ll grow to be a giant.” said one. The other held his palms up to the sky, “What is wrong with a laugh? The boy laughed too!”

  “Ah! Parlate inglese!” Roland said sweetly, “You have weeds to pick. Beat it!”

  They gathered their tools, snatched the watering can, and hot-footed it back toward the midway.

  “Boz, you know how to speak Italian?”

  I shook my head, searching the mask’s eyeholes for a hint of a twinkle.

  Say this,” he said, “Ci sono tre codici categoria della gente. Coloro che vede. Coloro che vede quando sono indicati. Coloro che non vede.”

  “What does it mean?”

  Roland’s eyes followed the gardeners as they hurried along the walkway.

  “There are three classes of people. Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.”

THE WORLD’S FAIR
"The eyes of the Fair are on the future – not in the sense of peering toward the unknown nor attempting to foretell the events of tomorrow and the shape of things to come, but in the sense of presenting a new and clearer view of today in preparation for tomorrow; a view of the forces and ideas that prevail as well as the machines. Familiarity with today is the best preparation for the future.'" -World’s Fair Dedication

  Roland simply owned the World’s Fair by his very presence and everywhere he walked he created a stir. People would stop in their tracks and give him the once over, then make way. Mommas held their kiddies back so he could pass just like they did when Johnny Weismuller strolled along in his jungle swimsuit with a tiger or Frank Buck, sporting khakis and a pith helmet, leading a safari of Hottentots down the main strand.

  Roland wore ordinary street clothes, but his mask told a whole different story. Folks would start off with a surprised smile, figuring it was part of some show, something that’d pay off with a gag. Most would, anyway – kids, women, and rubes. But old-timers and guys wearing veteran badges in their lapels were different. They looked down and shook their heads.

  So, I held my robot friend’s hand and we walked along looking for my dad. The crowds separating before us like water against a ship’s bow. We slowed and stopped in the middle of the concourse and waves of faces swirled around us. All facing in, like we were on a carousel and all the onlookers were moving in a big circle, staring and changing as new ones entered and others walked away.

  “Smell that?”

  “What?” I asked, sniffing the breeze that blew strong with the stink of diesel smoke, roasting peanuts, hams in a smoker at the Swift & Co pavilion, and a bed of gardenias. “The ham?”

  “You’re hungry, ain’t you boy?

  “A tad,” I admitted, not wanting to pester the guy who was helping me.

  “Behind that ham, I smell bread. They’re turning out a batch at Continental Baking. Let’s get us a ham sandwich. Come on.”

  We headed over to the big show ovens, following the yeasty smell as it pushed the other scents out of the way. The bakers had set fans blowing over the cooling trays that drove the bread whiff straight into the crowd. People licked their lips, getting hungrier by the minute, so I watched and had a thought that has never grown old to me; folks need a bit of a taste to get their mouth ready for a treat. They might not know it or even want it, but once they get it, they are all set to wait in line, plunk down their nickel and tell everybody they meet how lucky they were to notice it all in the first place.

  That’s pure carny, Brother. Chapter and verse.

  Roland left me at the edge of the crowd and waded in. If I thought the waves broke quickly when we walked, it was more like a breaker in the surf when he tapped guys on the shoulder and stepped up. One peek and the sea of heads parted, and my modern Moses took a stroll toward the bread pans. I traipsed into the crowd a bit, but being just a kid, I got squeezed back and had to stand on a rubbish can to see what was what.

  The bakers were all done up in their whites, big poofy beret hats, and long-handled wooden peels, shoveling out warm loaves to the noisy, elbow-to-elbow crowd. They had set up a tub of butter with spatulas in it on a wooden picnic table and folks were ripping open the loaves and laying big stripes of yellow square down the center of the punkbread. Hot as that was, the butter would melt in a flash. Every eager bite left the freeloader’s drippy-chinned and greasy. Most of the marks just wiped it on a sleeve or hanky without a second thought. That’s hunger, even when it wasn’t there two shakes ago.

  I saw Roland break out of the front of the jam and wave at the bakers. The head dough puncher froze. Nothing happened for a few seconds and the crowd went mute. Another baker nudged his boss with a pan stick and nodded his head toward the crowd. I watched what would become an everyday event in the years to come. The head baker picked up two loaves and handed them to Roland, who tucked them under his arm and held out his hand. The baker stared at the mask, shook like a wet dog, and handed him two more. The crowd behind them opened and some started wandering away.

Roland saw me and, as he approached, a woman piped up.

“He’s going for that boy!” she said, google-eyed and imploring those around her.

“He’s my friend,” I said, stepping up and taking two of the loaves.

We walked away toward the Swift smell and the warmth of the bread loaves chased the chill out of my chest.

The ham smokers took a different turn. One of the charcoal rick tenders saw the mask when we turned into Swift Plaza. He stoked the burning wood, set his steel crook on a stack of split hickory, and headed toward us. Roland veered in his direction, and I followed, now starting to feel some of that bread-smell hunger growling in my gut. We all came together at the wrapping table where the finished, net-snared hams were bundled and hung from hooks waiting to be sold.

The sweat-soaked man pulled a Bowie from a boot sheath, stropped it on his pant leg, and cut down one of the brown paper bundles. I didn’t get it at first, but he took a loaf of bread, split it, hacked off a thick slice of meat, and stuck it right in. It looked good but dry, so he scraped some candy glaze and fat from the pork leg and spread it on the loaf sandwich good and thick. My mouth was watering, and I had to keep swallowing so I didn’t drool like an old dog.

While the second sandwich was being fixed up, Roland took my loaves and set them on the table.

“Will you break bread with me, Tommy?”

“I will,” said the rick man, “wishing me hard we had a pig’s ear… or two.”

Even as a country boy of fourteen, I could tell straight away the man was a Brit. I knew a pig’s ear meant a garbage knickknack, a toss-away nothing to an American, but to Cockneys, it rhymed with beer. Being a working man, tending a fire all day, it was clear as day what the roughy was asking for.

“Meet you at the pub? Eleven `leven `leven?” Roland said, assuming that the man had been a soldier too.

“You 3rd Canadian, were you?

“4th. On the Decline Copse at the Ypres-Roulers. Jerries took it on the 27th but we took it back…”

“Two thousand plus boys in the mud. I know, mate. Lost me uncle. Was that your battle?”

Roland lifted his mask just enough to reach up and wipe his eye.

“No. Passchendaele-Westrozebeke. Hill 52. You?”

The rick man licked the glaze from his Bowie knife, sheathed it, and let go a held breath.

“63rd Division, Royal Navy. Telegraphist. Caught a mine off the Dutch coast.”

He opened his shirt and looked up at Roland with a grim smile on his face.

The man’s chest looked as if it was made of taffy, pulled out in pinches, and laid back over itself. Deep pocks and dimples ran into each other forming furrows and ridges and it was impossible to make sense of their interconnected shapes. Shiny, pale white ripples showed none of the sweat that ran down his face. Scars are like that, the sweat glands cooked out of them, so they stay dry and never get cooled down. Roland took the man’s shoulder in his hand and rocked him slowly.

“Bunker oil caught flame and I had to cling to a spar,” the man whispered through clenched teeth, sounding almost apologetic, “I could toss seawater in me eyes and face, but the hot oil had already got to me `n cooked me good.

“Easy, Brother. We’re here now. We’re good.”

The Butcher walked up to the Rick Man and took his arm.

Roland called out, “November at the pub then, aye?”

The butcher waited but no answer came. He tugged the rick man’s arm again.

“Let’s go, Roy. We have work to do.” Then, over his shoulder, “Bless you, Mr. Brimmer. I’ll be saying the Rosary for you.”

And with that, the Butcher and Rick Man walked back to the smokers and acted as if nothing at all had happened. The butcher knew Roland… or knew of him.

Roland lifted his mask a ways, took a bite out of the loaf sandwich, and handed it to me. The chawed part was ragged and mashed, more than bit off. The bread was damp. Whether it was sweat or spit, I didn’t give a damn. I was hungry and he was now the best friend I had since it ain’t hard to go from having no friends to a best one in one fell swoop. I took a big bite and chewed the bread and meat around until the fat and sugar glaze mixed it into a sweet, smoky mouthful.

I broke bread with the man who would be the breadwinner in our travels over the next twenty-seven years. A man who, by all accounts, should’ve died in Belgium in `17. God bless the doctors who put him back together, goddamn the Jerry machine-gunner who left him for dead in the mud.

By nightfall, we had checked all the safety stations and Lost & Founds looking for my dad, leaving notes and talking to the cops. Nobody had heard a thing; no messages were left at the switchboard and the infirmary had no record of him. We looked in all the beer gardens, but nothing. The fair closed at midnight, and that was still hours off, so Roland and I took to the streets on the outside chance that Dad was drunk or sleeping in one of the parks. I was craning my neck to look everywhere, but there was so much going on I had to keep reminding myself what Dad looked like. I shrugged my shoulders because they were getting sore from being clenched.

“You scared?” Roland said, his voice muffled and sounding worried itself.
“Nope.”
“Sad?”
“Nope.”
We stopped walking and Roland looked down at me.
“What’s the lowdown, Boz?”
Now, I was in a fix. Here I am with a guy who – clean out of nowhere – steps up to give me a hand and I had no idea who he was. Yeah, sure, the other fair workers knew him, given all the waving and high-signs I saw when we were out and about. Depending how the light hit the face on his mask Roland looked either a little bored and tired or stern and unyielding as if he was captured at an unguarded moment and wanted some privacy.
“I guess he’s gone… again. Only shows up when he ain’t got a gal to mooch off.”
“Yeah. So you’ll wait `til he comes back. He knows where he left you. Makes no sense to wander off… outside the fair.”
“I hope he never comes back. He’s not my dad. He’s a bum.”
Roland blew out a heavy breath. “Yup. You got yourself a bad one.”
We sat for a while with the music from the Fountain Lake Music Hall filling the empty moments; sounds of people dancing and having fun in the distance. Jitterbug Jazz came and went with the wind and some dancers were bouncing around on the promenade. By the time we got back to the Lost and Found, I was tired of walking and getting sleepy. We were smack-dab in the center of the biggest party in history and didn’t have the first word to say until Roland pointed to a canvas army cot under the building eave.
“Sleep there for tonight. Tomorrow well go see Marion at the infirmary. She has a heart.”
Roland took a kitbag from under the cot and slung it over his shoulder. I heard glass clinking inside it and thought of my dad hiding bottles in our laundry basket at home; when we had a home; when Mom still had the patience to overlook his screaming and slapping and stealing. I didn’t want to go through any of that again. So, I was jittery, to say the least. Maybe all I had seen that day was just a prelude; a gimmick in the hurly-burly… his opening act.
Later that night, I couldn’t sleep. I was all worked up, feeling scared and anxious and kind of excited thinking about what might happen next. I got up and ambled around a bit after the fair went dark. The street sweepers and repairmen didn’t pay any mind to me and the few Gildersleeve’s I saw had set their nightsticks down, took off their badges, and were drinking and slacking off; happy to get night pay for passing the hours without collaring boosters and dips. Behind the Old New York pavilion, the wiener wagons were parked in a big herd and, after poking around, I found enough leftover eats in them to fill my tooth. Ever since I’ve had a fancy for cold hots.
As the moon came out from behind a cloud, I looked at the deserted midway in the dim blue light and the strangest feeling came over me. If all this could be Roland’s to walk – and be treated like a king – someday it could be mine too. I could be somebody.

DAWN OF A NEW DAY
There wasn’t a morning, as such, at the fair. The whole operation ran more like a flashing light that was bright during the day and dim, but not off at night. After midnight, they dropped the awnings and cleaned the place proper, but around three a.m. things start firing up again; cooking starts, booths and vendors prep for the day, and VIP’s get the walk-around so’s they wouldn’t need to rub elbows with the Clems in the heat of the afternoon.
I slept, maybe an hour all told, just before sun-up. By then the hurly-burly was turning into a racket I couldn’t ignore. The gardeners came back to the spigot and damned if they didn’t bring me a macaroon. I looked up at them, grinning under their flat caps and, instead of seeing them as strangers, saw a couple of regular Joes – probably friends of Roland’s – who thought enough to bring me a sweet treat. goombahs.
I only knew a couple of Italian words, “Grazie…goombah.”
They laughed like hyenas “Il gigante ragazzo ha una lingua!” one of them said. The other nodded.
“Si, Padrino! E il macaron renderà più dolce.”
I knew I could learn more Italian from Roland and I wanted nothing more than to talk to these men and show them a bit of respect. I was looking through another window into a bigger world.
After they gathered their tools and went off to work, I smelled coffee brewing and headed into the Lost & Found building. There was a hotplate and percolator working overtime. I poured myself a cup while this guy behind me kept clearing his throat. I paid him no mind, but he walked around in front of me and gave me the look.
“Hey, mooch, you got my mug.”
There were a dozen or thick china mugs set out on a towel, and the one I was holding was no different than any of the others. For a sec I almost handed it over, then realized that this skinny kid was only a couple years older than me and too puny to back up his tough talk. So I took a sip of the brew, screwed up my face and shook my head.
“Sorry, Champ, this can’t be yours.”
He puffs up and juts his chin out. “Says you.”
“Nah, this ain’t yours. It’s strong.”
Well, that’s fightin’ words and I was ready to give him a face full of the hot wet as a “Hi, howdy” before laying the mug against his noggin. I was scared, a bit I guess, but not enough to back down or worry about getting in Dutch with the bluecoats. I figured either Roland would sort it out or I’d be out on my ass. Either way, I was free and it wasn’t raining.
“You with it?” Beanpole asked.
I didn’t know for sure what he meant in those days, I didn’t speak the language, and show folk were more skittish back then about crossing a Joe or giving him the high hat, especially if they were running a grift or laying low. So, I riffed a bit of tough talk to throw him.
“Pally, you got time to tussle? Show me the muscle.”
That threw him some. The rhyming made it seem like it was something I said a lot, so he got the drift that I was a scrapper, or at least, willing to tag him for a lark. Nothing. He didn’t make a peep but looked around to see who might be giving our chat the eye. He sniffed and stuck his chin out, the way prizefighters do when they’re getting worked up, putting on a tough front. But his voice was low and soft.
“I guess you’re all-reet. What’s your layout?”
His shoulders went down, so did his chin, and he blew out his puff. Jeez, he was even smaller than he looked at first, bony and pale, but his eyes were big and robin’s egg blue. The wide lapels on his suitcoat pegged him as a sharp, but his demeanor was slippery, like a con or a dipper who could rake in a bundle working a fair crowd. I handed him the mug.
“Here, hold this.”
I took a fresh cup, poured myself more mud and took a bite out of the macaroon. It was a perfect spoof, but I was working off the top of my head. I handed him the cookie, bite side first.
“Now, try this.”
That turned everything topsy-turvy. He couldn’t figure it, no-how. A sip of coffee made my sweet almond chew even sweeter, and I smiled at him until he took a bite. What a switcheroo, I thought, now he owes me. I’ll say it again; I was working in the dark but seemed lucky enough to be pressing the right buttons. His first sip brought him the same yum-yum smile.
“What’s your racket?” I asked, taking back the little bit of the macaroon, and dipping in my mud.
“The name’s Nichol, Travis Nichol. I’m a talker with the Follies skin show. Still a newbie, but I’ve worked up a strong grind pitch and the boss gave me the nod. So, I’m halfway there.”
He gave me the long hard stare.
“You ain’t with it, are you.”
I figured I already bested him, so what’s the dif?
“Nope. I’m with Roland.”
If I had pulled a rattlesnake out of my pocket, he couldn’t have gone more stiff. Not like he was scared exactly, but like something dawned on him and he didn’t have the first word to say. Some talker, I thought. Since I only knew Roland for those few hours, I just took him for a guy who wore a mask and was known for it. I hadn’t thought about what might be under it. I’d seen pop-eyed guys and fighters who lost a nose or an ear, but I didn’t put it all together, mostly not thinking about how it all came down for him. Travis lit a cigarette and offered me one. I didn’t smoke back then, but I took it anyway and tucked it behind my ear.
“Wanna’ hear my spiel?”
“Sure,” I said, “I’m all ears.” I didn’t know what a spiel was and expected him to sing.
Travis cleared his throat again and again.
“You need to get that throat business looked at.” I needled him. “Or cut out the butts.”
Now he looked a lot less tough, preparing to bark.
“Hey now, hey now, what all the fuss and bother? Yes sir, you simply won’t believe it! Sweet honey from the desert rocks! A miracle set down from the Land of the Pharaohs to the perfumed gardens within the Golden Palace that stands behind me. And the Lord sayeth, “It came to pass, when David had slaughtered the Philistine, that women came out singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy, and with instruments of music!
“Move in closer folks and you can smell the Jessamine!
“Well now, the music is playing and there’s joy galore. The gorgeous women – beauties of face and lithe of limb – have traveled from the most hidden harems of the East. You’ve seen girlie shows and you’ve seen hootchie dancers, but you have never seen the fulgent feminine charms at their most feral and voluptuous.
“Men, gaze upon what God hath wrought, for the gentle caress of Aphrodite lies within these walls!
“Ladies, you lovers of Art and the human form will realize the grace and enchantment these Delilahs deliver!
Once inside, you are the honored guest of the palace and may linger as long as you desire. It is said, that as the afternoon warms the air, the ladies dance nearly bare. So, reserve your place within the palace with a morning ticket at half the price of afternoon admission. I hear the music starting and the sound of bare feet moving across the floor. So much to see, so few tickets left and for the next precious moments only half the cost! The World’s Fair is not complete without the Fairest in the World!
Step up, step up and enter The Harem!
Travis was red in the face and out of breath, so he took a pull on his cigarette to calm himself down.
“Whatta’ you think?” he huffed.
“Bible quotes to sell a kootchie show?
“Some of the dancers wear costumes with biblical necklines. It’s strong, but high-class.”
Travis held his hands out like he was holding casaba melons and went wide-eyed. I looked up to the ceiling to see if there was a monkey hanging from it. When I looked back down, I saw the monkey I was looking for.
“Biblical. You get it? As in, `LO’” he jiggled the invisible melons, “…and BEHOLD!’”
He yukked it up and I gave him the long, hard sincere, thinking, this guy is in way over his head.
Roland was standing right behind me, but I didn’t know it until monkeyboy looked up and swallowed his gum.
“Mr. Brimmer. Top of the morning to you, Sir!” he whispered.
Roland made no move toward him, but sure as shootin’, the kid stepped back and buttoned his lip.
“Ah, the Plug Nichol.” Roland said, “Morning, smart aleck. Enjoying my coffee?”
Travis set the mug down and wiped his mouth.
“The kid here gave it to me. I didn’t glom on to it.”
“Boz,” Roland said, “Mornin’, son. This squib on the level?”
I don’t know where it came from but, “His cheese ain’t square on his cracker.” came out of my mouth. It sounded like my voice, and I had heard it somewhere, but I wasn’t quite sure exactly what it meant. Roland took a deep breath and I thought he was going to cough or sneeze but, all of a sudden, out comes this bid laugh; a HAW-HAW-HAW that rattled the empty mugs. I got a start, but Travis grinned like the cat that got the cream. Then he gives me a quick peek and he’s nodding like I should laugh too. I let out a big “HA!”
There was this three-way take and we stood there giving each other the up and down. Travis was decked out in a double-breaster that was a skoosh too big in the shoulder and nipped in at his gut so he might have looked like a comic book tough guy, but for the wispy red mustache, long thin face, and a pile of red up top. What a rube. Roland’s pleated slacks, unbuttoned tuxedo shirt, and tweed vest made him look like he owned the joint, and as far as I was concerned, he did. Those two couldn’t have been more different.
Roland poked me in the shoulder.
“He tell you about the girlie show?”
“Yeah, palace dancers and the bible and all that.” I said.
Roland poured a cup for himself and tilted his head to drink. He pressed the mug against his cheek a tipped it up until he could suck a mouthful through the closed-lip side of his mouth. It sounded like my mom when she sipped spilled tea from her saucer, and I figured that wasn’t so bad. When he tipped his head back to swallow, I could see that the coffee had scalded him, but he never flinched.
“Travis, you owe your agent for board and meals and such?”
“Ay-uh…”
He turned his attention back to me and winked his eye.
“Let’s you and me savvy a deal, talker.” he said, “Boz here needs a job. Now, he don’t have any alfalfa, so you can’t pick his grouch. But Kleban, your spec boss, owes me twenty American. You wise up the boy and I’ll have him dole it out to you – a dollar a day - for the next three weeks.”
“There’s 21 days in three weeks, sir.”
Roland shook his head and laughed his big laugh again.
“See that Boz, he’s a sharp operator and he’s got his eye on the marble. You buddy up with him during the day and you’ll be a sawdust professor in nothing flat.”
Now, I was only catching about half of what they were blowing. Roland rolled on.
“And you, Mr. Nichol? Always looking for a bunce to fatten your poke? Wise up this Gaucho proper and, on day 21, you score this.”
I saw a coin fly up out of Roland’s hand, spin under the roof light window for a second, then fall on the counter next to the coffee pot. It was a British Double Sovereign, a full half-ounce gold piece. Travis picked it up and examined it – the image of the bearded King Edward on the front and St. George slaying the dragon on the flipside – and got a twitch in his cheek. I’d seen a sovereign before, but the government had snatched up almost all the gold years ago. So, though it was worth only seven greenbacks as money, it’d bring more than $30 to a ring pawnbroker.
In a flash, Roland snatched it back and tucked it in his vest pocket.
“What do you want him to know?” Nichol asked.
“Everything. Soup to nuts.” Roland said, “Show him the elephant.”
Travis looked at me and nodded, then shook his head.
“No promises. But I’ll give it the college try”
Roland handed him a fresh mug and pointed to the percolator.
“That’s the eye, young fellow. Now have yourself a hot wet on me.”

JIMBO’S PILEThere’s more about the Fair and Roland, but I had a hell of a time this morning trying to get Jimbo to pack up all his props and whatnot. The Park Association was fed up with his space looking like a junkyard and I can’t blame them. Three-hundred-pound, pot-metal, pyramid weights with lifting rings on top, a length of ocean-liner anchor chain, painted logs, and old, foundry dumbbells as big and black as bowling balls. Right out front, where everyone could see it plain as day, was a forged steel drive wheel from a 1929 Buffalo Springfield Steam Roller. Close as I could figure, what with the steel spokes and solid steel rim, it must have weighed upward 700, 800 pounds. Jimbo trucked it in and rolled it up there like there was nothing to it. Now, years later, it was sunk a couple inches into what passed for a lawn out front of his place. Weeds and rust now, mostly.
They were all props from his show, and he’d sooner fight than give any of them up.
In all fairness to the Park Association, Jimbo had pissed them off from the get. After his double-wide was hauled in, he decided to put his throne in the living room. But it wouldn’t ever fit through the front door and, weighing a quarter ton, he knew the floor would never hold it.
The throne was maybe six-hundred, seven-hundred pounds of chromed steel, made by a junkyard welder; shiny pieces of chrome bumpers from cars, old Buicks, and Oldsmobiles that had all sorts of curves and pointy bumper guards like horns on them. The damned thing looked like a big cat’s mouth wide-open with shiny fangs and around the back were steel claws. It had a leather seat and back cushions made from rhinoceros hide and the whole thing looked like the open maw of a steel lion with a leather tongue. It was built for a 10-in-1 stage, but even when there it had to have railroad ties trussed up under the planks just to support it.
Well, beefing up the mobile with timbers wasn’t going to work in The Park; mobiles have flimsy little sheet-metal floor joists and nothing but plywood sheathing under the carpet. Hell, just walking around on that kind of floor you can feel the bounce and, eventually, you have to develop sea-legs to keep from taking a spill when you’re tipsy. So, the throne sat out behind his place wrapped in canvas, slowly rusting and sinking into Florida – kind of settling into the scenery.
There weren’t any local laws to keep Park people from having elephants or big cats or show trailers on their property, but where showpeople live, they have their own sense of what’s a go and what don’t go.
Jimbo came up with this clean cockamamie idea; he’d cut a big hole in his living room floor, have a crane come in and hoist up the whole mobile, then set the throne on top of a pile of concrete blocks in the center of his space and let them lower his double back down over it. That’s when the well-known, brown substance hit the fan; the whole park was up in arms. The crane, the noise, the mess, and the throne – a bit rusty and lopsided gave everybody a case of the ass.
Jimbo didn’t give two shits. He had his throne in his living room and there was nothing they could do about it. Even though his neighbors still lived like road folk, they demand to have things looking relatively normal in the park just to keep the townies and Lookie-Lou’s off their lawn
I will admit, Jimbo was a sight to behold when sitting on that throne, six-foot-four and two-hundred eighty-five pounds of sinew, muscle, and a bit of flab– leopard breechcloth and silver, necklace chain – links big as donuts - around his neck. Now, in his eighties, he had added a tiger-stripe cape and a crown made out of big-cat claws. He’d twist horseshoes until they looked like pretzels. He could hold a twenty-pound sledgehammer, his arm and handle straight out, flex his wrist and bring the head of that hammer up, straight up above him, then down slowly toward his head to just kiss the end of his nose, before sending it back up and out, just a smooth as could be.
He once pushed a railroad boxcar up a three percent grade while carrying a full-grown man on his back. After a hundred steps, the damn car was three feet higher than where it started. His picture was in all the papers, and he was like a little kid with all the attention.
That was forty-odd years ago. He’s still tough as nails, but his stunt days are past.
Nobody had ever seen anything like him. It’s said he was six feet tall and two-hundred pounds at 16, played high school football for one year and sent many a player to the hospital. Not that he was mean, you see, he just couldn’t feel pain. Something was different about his nerves and brain. He could dislocate a finger and barely notice it. That’s part of what made him appear so strong. You try bending a two-bit piece in half and see how far you get. Before you put the first dent in the coin your fingers will hurt like Hell.
Jim was a roughneck before he got with the show, wrangling midway trouble, enforcing lot rules, tallying joint takes, odd jobs. What people now call middle management… like me here, riding herd on the Parkies. Wasn’t long before he beefed up enough to learn some stunts; having a mark sledge concrete into rubble on his chest, lifting hefty men and women over his head, tearing decks of cards– all the tricks that people expected from a strongman. He did the bully strongman in the ten-in-one for a spell, then started doing big publicity and getting known.
But then he changed.
There are always women hanging around the show, but Jimbo didn’t go in for that. He wanted love from above; a queen to join him on his throne. He was determined to find the perfect woman. That’s where he started getting more and more popular. There’s nothing more attractive to a woman than a man who doesn’t notice her. So Jimbo ignored them all, figuring sooner or later the right one would come knocking. And he wasn’t just dragging the midway looking for a fish, he started showing up at social events in a tuxedo with a satchel full of props to impress the townies. Bend a horseshoe, and every eye in the place was on him, tear a license plate in half and he’d draw a crowd, blow up a hot water bottle and, by the time it exploded, there’d be several calling cards in his kit, women who wanted a private show or something more personal. Jimbo never used them, never met with any of them, but kept a thick stack with a gum-rubber band around them.
When he met Rowena Jimson, he stopped collecting the cards and gave her the stack.
“Here are all cards of women who wanted to meet a strongman.” he said, then handed her his calling card, “And here’s the card of a man who wants to meet a strong woman.”
That’s all it took. She closed her eyes, smiled, and took a deep breath. Jimbo had said all she needed to hear.
Rowena grew up in Winthrop, Washington, the daughter of a granary owner who founded the Kings Table bread company. She lived a wealthy life, not old money family wealth, but enough to afford a mansion, summer home, college education, trips to Europe, and servants. Rowena had been sheltered throughout her childhood so the passion that burned in her breast was to be surrounded by the hurly-burly of life; the wild, unpredictable world of wild, unpredictable people. When she met her muscleman, she looked beyond his physique and simple pleasures and imagined life on the road and all the excitement that would offer. Jimbo was a means to an end.
So, they had a Carny marriage – they took a turn on the carousel and the Ferris Wheel and threw a wingding of a beer blast. All the show people got together at the cook shack and Jimbo waltzed in with Rowena on one shoulder and a 40-gallon barrel of suds on the other. By the time that barrel was empty, the kootchies were dancing naked, little people were riding around piggy-back, and the strongman danced, spinning around with his love held high over his head.
I might add, the dancing girls were naked. When they did the same thing in a show, it was called, “dancing nude” for legal reasons. Damn lawyers, clever leeches.
During the Carny honeymoon, which was a couple of good years, Jimbo came into his own. He was in the newsreels and papers, met with Hollywood stars and athletes, and pulled off stunts that made him a legend of sorts. He carried steel girders up ladders to waiting iron workers on Manhattan skyscrapers, he lifted a horse and carried it across Wacker Drive with a cop sitting in its saddle, towed a ferry boat across San Francisco Bay with a rowboat, and lifted an Indianapolis racecar in the pit while the crew changed its tires.
He loved the camera and the camera loved him.
As they grew closer, their love deepened, but Rowena’s craving for adventure and excitement began to wear on Jimbo. At first, he took it as a sign that she was becoming more comfortable with him, just being one of the girls and letting her hair down. Occasionally a drunken fight would have them sleeping in separate beds, but they’d always get back together.
Hate and love are a potent combination, and they had plenty of both.
It didn’t help matters that Rowena’s mother would send her a few hundred dollars now and again. Usually addressed to her at general delivery in whatever little Podunk town they were headed to. It got so that when the checks came she’d hit the drink pretty hard and treated Jimbo like a dog; her pet muscle dog. Oh, he’d laugh it off with everybody who noticed but deep inside he was hurt.
            That was the crazy thing about the whole shebang. Strong as he was, tough as he was – able to ignore pain that would drive another man to scream – Jambo’s heart was as tender as a baby’s. He hid that agony deep inside and never let on that it was slowly pushing him and his love apart. He never spoke of it, per se, but if he did, I’m sure he would’ve denied that what she was doing to him was a slow death, a murder. So, he did with that what he did with everything in his life that had failed him; he put his anger into the iron.
            I once watched him practicing a 400-pound lift above his head and was amazed that his forehead was dry, but his cheeks were dripping wet. It was then I realized he did is crying where no one could see his pain in the gym. When I asked him how things were between him and Rowena he’d just shrug and say something like, “Oh, you know how it is.” I’m sure he meant me to understand that as, “You know how women are” but it was clear what was going on. I had seen other people come into carny life and go off the deep end. Take someone who never had a whole lot of freedom then give them the opportunity to let loose… all too often it’s a train wreck. Booze, drugs, alcohol, sex, greed, hate… sad endings, and far too few happy endings when you’re riding the tiger.
            I knocked on Jambo’s door this morning and told him to clean up that crap in the yard or there’d be Hell to pay.
            “What crap?” He was blank. Had no idea what I was talking about.
            I pointed to the weights and the dumbbells and the wheel.
            “That’s my stuff!” he said indignantly.
            “It won’t be when the junkman comes and hauls it away.”
            “Ah…PHOOEY!” and he slammed the door.
            I opened it and walked in. Jimbo was already sitting on this throne - fist under his chin… deep in thought. “I remember…” he started but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.
            “Stow it. I already know it. You bailed me out when I clocked that Chester in Lancaster. Right. I paid you back. You lent me your car for my honeymoon. I put new tires on it. Whitewalls. You named your Boxer after my brother-in-law. I don’t know what the Hell to do with that. I guess you were sending me a message. And now you want me to fight off the Parkies who have a legitimate gripe to kick your ass out of here?”
            Maybe I overplayed my hand. He looked at me wide-eyed and said, “Yep.”
“Why don’t you straighten up and fly right? Why does everything have to go down the toilet with you? You can be King of the Jungle to the rest of the world, but you have to LIVE here!”
            He slumped back in his iron and leather maw. I waited for an answer and… nothing.
            When I turned to leave, I looked at the living room wall where he had all his show paper. Thirty years of being the main attraction spread out across the wallboard. And there, thumbtacked in the middle of it all, a yellowed Kodak snapshot, cracked glaze, and fold lines where it had once been fitted into a wallet. The image was faded, but the letters were readable, “Rowena Jimson, b.1923 d.1958 R.I.P.” on a flat piece of marble in the ground. I had never seen it before. I thought, so, she never even changed her name.
            I turned back to my friend.
“Jimbo. The weights and wheels and such? They’re not you. They’re what you used. You are bigger than all that. You are past that now. Got to let go of the baggage, it’s holding you down.”
From across the room, I could see that the big man’s cheeks were wet.

TO NEW HORIZONSBy the end of the second day, I had seen all the big attractions the fair had to offer. There were a bunch of concessions and exhibits that didn’t interest me, so I headed back to find Roland. He was finishing up mopping out the men’s room, dressed as neat and dapper as he was the day before. I watched him for a minute before calling out. He was methodical and precise in what he was doing. It struck me that he was respected by everyone we met who knew him, and yet he was doing the lowliest job on the lot… the fair that is. And he was doing it as carefully as if he was assembling a watch.
I walked up and grabbed the mop bucket. “Roland, want me to dump this?
            He turned and looked at me for a long moment. It seemed a bit too long.
            I nodded to the bucket, “Dump it?”
            “Any sign of your dad?”
            “Nope.”
            “Let’s go see Marion. She knows what to do in these situations.”
            “Right. Dump it?”
            “Yep.”
            Across the fairground, a bugler was sounding Retreat to the Colors. Roland stood at attention. When I started to lug the bucket to the slop sink, he whispered.
“Boz. Not now.” And he raised his hand in a salute toward the sound.
I set down the bucket and put my hand up in what was called the Bellamy salute, damn near what the Nazis used to do. This was before we changed to hand over heart. We stood there until the bugle sound faded out, echoing through the streets and Roland looked down and whispered again.
“Never forget how much that cost.”
We got to the infirmary late and Marion was locking up and just about to leave for the night. She was beautiful; tall and bigboned with a wide smile and wavy hair galore. Her uniform was a white military-style nurse apron with a red cross in the front over a blue dress. She had her hair pulled back under a starched white cap and when she turned to greet us, her shoulder cape swirled out around her and settled like a parachute against her. For an instant I felt like I was in a movie; I’d never seen such a perfect sight. My eyes trembled a bit and my heart tingled.
When she saw Roland, her smile changed – from a “smiling to the world” grin to the kind of smile you save for someone special, someone you liked. She nodded a little and then she saw me. Her smile changed back to her official nurse smile.
“Good evening, Mister Brimmer.”
“Evening Marion. This is Boz, the sprout we spoke about.”
“Hello, young man. Shall we go inside and have a cup of tea or soda pop?”
I shook my head and we walked to the door slow enough to let Marion unlock it and walk in ahead of us. When she turned on the lights and other than a desk and chair in the foyer, the whole room was set up as a clinic: hospital beds, swivel stools, cabinets, chrome instrument trays, and big examination lights. There were a couple of wooden chairs next to a bed and she pointed for me and Roland to sit while she put on a kettle. I sat in one of the chairs and Roland leaned back against the bed. When Marion returned, she had two bottles of Coca-cola, paper cups, and an opener in one hand and something rolled up in the other.
“If either of you gentleman want a pick-me-up, I’ll set these here on the side table.”
She sat in the other chair and faced me, looking at my shoes and clothes.
“Boz, I hear your father when missing. Do you have any other family we can call?”
“No. Nobody.”
“Any neighbors who can take you in until your father returns?”
“No.” and then, “He won’t be coming back.”
Marion frowned. “Now, why do you say that?”
“Because he never comes back. I always have to go look for him. In the bar rooms, the hospitals, the jails, his girlfriend’s flat… all over. But I won’t do that anymore. I’m an orphan now. I don’t know where they – my mother either – are, and I don’t care. No more getting shellacked for being hungry, no more shivering days, no more waiting months and months to see if things will turn around. No more.”
“Do you want to live at an orphanage?” she asked.
“No!”
“You’re what, 14? A few years there and you can go your own way.”
“I’ve been to orphanages - when my mom was in jail and my dad was drunk… or in the clink too. All that was there were bullies and snitches and old men with loose hands. I won’t go there again.”
Roland shifted on the bed, drew in a deep breath, and turned toward Marion. They just looked at each other and were quiet as mice, but it was clear that whatever they had talked about before was now being thought about by the both of them. I picked up a soda, opened it, drank straight from the bottle, and burped, but neither of them laughed or even noticed.
Roland stood up.
“Marion told me that some parents, not good parents mind you, leave their kids where they think other people will take care of them. You think that’s what your father did?”
I started to tear up and then all Hell broke loose.
“I don’t care what he thought… and I don’t care if he dies!” I was sobbing and shaking with anger and shame and disappointment all pouring out of me. Roland gave me his hankie and I balled it up in my first, pounding it on my knee. “I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t make them fight and drink, or steal stuff and get arrested, or run off to get away from each other or me! Why did they do all that?”
Roland held his hand out toward Marion, palm upward, then swung it toward me. She took a long breath and spoke softly.
“They were acting like children, Boz. They never grew up.”
I was flummoxed. She caught me by surprise with the idea of children-parents and it just wouldn’t fit in my head. I was still crying, but my confusion made me lose most of my anger and ignore the sadness. Roland tapped his chest with his finger.
“They didn’t grow up inside…’ she pointed to her heart. “…in here. They were selfish when they should have been taking care of you. It’s nothing you did, it’s just the way they grew up and they probably won’t change. Can you live with that?”
I let it sink in. I couldn’t see where I had much of a choice. Standing in a doorway that had just opened; there was no way backward. And jeez, Travis was only a couple years older and already making his cut on the cootch show. I could do that in a cinch. Roland set me up to get the gist and I could sleep on his cot. It was late May with summer on the way and, by the time it’s cold, I’d be set up with a job and get a bunk somewhere. There was plenty of food at the fair if you learned to work the angles. I’d steer clear of grift other than talking up a novelty act, learn something respectable but still stick with the show. I wanted to get with it.
I rubbed my eyes dry with the hankie. “I can live with it fine enough.”
Marion fished a ring of keys out of her pocket, took one off, and tossed it to me.
“For now - until your father comes back, you find a backyard job at the fair or midway, you can sleep here. That’s the spare backdoor key. From when I lock up the front at night until the sun comes up, you’re okay. That is if Roland can get you squared away.”
“I set him up with a professor to show him the ropes. Nichol over at the Follies.”
Marion went wide-eyed and put her hand on my shoulder.
“Listen. This is very important. Do not… ever… share a glass or cup or sandwich with him. Never! You promise me?”
Roland jerked back like he was slugged. I nodded at her, but my eyes were on him.
“The pox?”
“Yes. But that’s not the whole story. He’s a lunger.”
“The cough,” Roland said.
“Consumption,” Marion said, closing her eyes and shaking her head, “early stage.”
I knew what they were talking about. That explained why he was a string bean. I wondered what other stuff I might run into in my new situation.
“The girl shows are trouble,” Marion added. “what with jealous guys, drunks, troublemakers, and what the dancers call Cupid’s Disease.” She nodded to Roland, “The pox. That’s right.” Then put her face up close to mine.
“Get a touch of that and no one can help you. Keep a wary eye on the floozies and hands-off, promise?”
I nodded and looked down at the key in my hand. My heart was racing. I had a home, kind of. I had two people who seemed pretty good to me, and I had a half of an idea of how I could get by, by myself.
“You’re not the first kid to be left at a fair. I’ve seen a few. One girl, at the thirty-three Chicago Exhibition was only 10 years old when she was abandoned. Poor girl just cried and cried for days. After a week or so, she decided to go to an orphanage and I lost touch with her. Didn’t see her again until last year when I was at St. Luke’s hospital. She had looked me up through the Nurse’s Registry and came to see me while I was on duty. She was 17 and had an infant in her arms. After she left, I cried.”
Right there, the whole world was within my reach. I had a place to sleep, a chance to get some work for pay – even if it was cleaning up the lot or running errands or working with a show to handle the backstage set-up or settling a midway rumpus. Don’t get me wrong, I was a greenhorn newbie and ninety-nine percent of what I know now was as clear to me then as the dark side of the moon. But I was willing.
Marion shook out the fabric in her hand. It was a houndstooth, snap-brim, touring cap.
“I’ve been meaning to send this over to the Lost and Found. Some left it here last month and… well, I doubt anyone will be by to look for it now.” She handed it to Roland. “What do you think, Mr. Brimmer?”
He took it, looked it over, and flicked an imaginary pick of lint off it.
“Are you sure you want to stick around?”
“Yes, sir!”
He placed it on my head and pulled it down in a rake that put it right over my eyes.
“With it and for it.” he said, “Alagazam.”

BRIMMER’S WAY            I took over cleaning and mopping up the restrooms around noon and in the evenings. Roland had Travis meet me for coffee and sinkers at the Lost and Found just after sunup to wise me up for a couple hours each day. He was okay since he knew he was working on getting his grip bundle from talking and teaching. Not that he was all that friendly, being high-talking about his jackpots and exploits. It was told to me all chock-a-block, but after a few days, I started to get with it. I was careful to turn my head every time he coughed, remembering the look on Marion’s face.
I was free to roam the fair after he left. Every day I went for a stroll looking at the lot with new eyes until noon. Then, back to the mop and bucket, and out again rambling for the afternoon.
On Saturday, June 28th, I was walking - I remember the date because it was the day that the news about Lou Gehrig’s retirement was announced by the Yankees. It was sclerosis but it was so unknown that they called it Lou Gehrig’s disease – I was walking near the Miracle Town building where there was a fight going on.
I saw Roland standing beside two men who were trying to kill each other. They punched and wrestled while a crowd around them yelled and screamed. Roland was right in the middle, cool as a cucumber watching them with his arms folded across his chest. I expect him to break it up because he was a good egg, but he just stood there.
One of the men landed a haymaker on the other, sending him to the ground on his head. He just laid there, and a few people stepped up from the crowd to try and rouse him. No good. He was out cold. Roland walked up to the other guy and got in his face. The man’s shirt was ripped and had blood smeared on a sleeve, but I couldn’t see where it came from. When I moved closer, I could hear the beef and what was going down.
“You understand that wrestling or fighting on the fairground is strictly forbidden?” Roland waited for the man’s response. The guy was rolling up his bloodied sleeve as he bowed his head.
“And you also understand that the security patrol will be here any minute to escort you to the police in the administration building. Is this how you want to handle this?”
The guy picked his jacket up from the ground and shook it off. “No, I don’t.”
“That’s understandable. Oddly enough, I have a good friend on the patrol who owes me a favor or two. Perhaps I can explain this all away and save you the trouble of being arrested.”
The man was horrified and looked at the man he punched staggering away with the help of some Samaritans. “Ah, Jesus.” The guy said, “Can you do me that favor. Explain it all?”
“Naturally. I’d say, the other guy got shoved in the hubbub, swung at you, and lost his footing. But I’ll need to grease the wheels a bit. They’re workin’ Joes and might look favorably on a tip. Oh, boy, here them come.”
Two Fair security officers were double-timing it across the plaza, then slowed to a walk.
“How much?” the man blurted out.
“I’d guess twenty-five would cover it. It is an arrest beef, you know.”
The guy fished a handful of bills out of his pocket and held out two tens and a five. Roland still had his arms folded. “No… no… twenty-five each.” Roland said. The guy panicked and handed over a twenty and a ten. “Here! Keep the extra. Just fix it!”
Roland unfolded his arms and took the money. The guy hurried off and lickety-split the security guys strolled up: a husky Mick and his puny sidekick.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Brimmer, what seems to be the disturbance here? A citizen in distress? said the Irishman.
His partner added “A young lady misplace her bra strap?”
Both cops laughed.
Roland held up his hands as if surrendering and said, “Boys, boys, you look mighty thirsty. Can a commoner offer you gents a refreshing sip of juice?”
Roland’s hands were empty as he brought them down close to the officers’ breast pockets. He snapped his fingers and the corner of a ten-dollar bill appeared sticking out of the top of each pocket.
“Very kind of you sir…” they said and the skinny one added, “A pleasure to see everything under control. Any time you need us.”
When they left I sauntered up. “I seen it all.”
“Good. Any questions?”
I thought for a bit, “How did they know when to move in?”
Roland folded his arms across his chest then unfolded them in a grand gesture and bow.
“Sharp!” I said, “Keen.”
I followed him up to the main entrance of Miracle World and the show’s lecturer met us at the door. Roland slipped him a fiver.
“Thank you, sir. Glad you snagged them before the K.O.”
“That’s the ticket, isn’t it?” Roland said, ushering me into the darkness of the show.
While waiting for the Miracle World’s main attraction – a midget jump orchestra and jitterbug dancers – I got the lowdown on fixing the heat and patching the lot. Soon as a hubbub starts, word gets to the mender who cools the drunk, hooligan, or tough so the midway doesn’t get clogged with lookies. Roland was an adept mender, with the cool to work a heat score and line his pocket. The mark walks happy, the bluecoats walk happy, the tattler smiles and the mender thickens his roll.
When the orchestra struck up the first tune, I looked at the little musicians. Looking back on it I’m reminded of the Munchkins in Oz, but I’ve known so many in the ten-in-one it all blends together into singing and dancing and drunkenness and fistfights and lewd behaviors. These orchestra jazzmen were wearing snappy tuxedos and had big pinky rings, the jitterbugs were wearing silk and the bandleader had a mouthful of gold teeth. I thought I have surely arrived in the land of opportunity.

WALKING THE LOT            Today was Thursday, the day the Cuban yard workers come to straighten up the Satellite. Yanko owns Tesoro Verde Landscaping which is a cherry Ford 350 crew cab with a trailer full of mowers and blowers and rakes. Every time he shows up he’s got a couple-three new guys I never saw before who he feels he needs to introduce to me. Today I asked him, “What happened to Leodanis and Silvio?” He shrugged his shoulders and shivered a “who knows?” and that was that. I figure he’s got lots of turnovers like the screw-offs who ran back home and never became a trooper. It’s hard work. All of it. And either you grow a hide or skip. For what I pay Yanko, he should be a little more settled in.
They fired up the mowers and it was a hellacious racket.
            So, I grabbed my toolbag and hied on down to Walter Kitman’s trailer to see what was up with his electrical. There was a note on my door this morning saying he had flickering lights and couldn’t find anything wrong with the hook-up, so I’ve got to go to the distribution box and check the wires. All the mobiles and trailers are cut into the Park’s main panel through a rat’s nest of underground cables. I always made sure to wear thick rubber gloves when monkeying with it, since I took a 220-volt kick in the chest just shaking wires.
            Seen a man split wide open by a 440 line on a construction site. Pulled the screws to take the faceplate off a panel, set it aside but kept the screwdriver in his hand. When he turned to pick up the wiring diagram, the screwdriver nicked the feed post and vaporized; shot white-hot steel into his chest, arc’ed him and he was dead before he hit the ground.
            On a carnival lot, the Juice Man arranges for the operators to get an electrical hook-up to the genny truck – I learned on a `48 671 Detroit Generator Wagon, but now they use a 100kw Caterpillar plant in a tractor-trailer. Each joint, ride, and concession pays for their power, figured on how much they pull, and it's collected every night or they go dark. That keeps everybody on their toes and honest.
It’s sort of like that here in the Park. Everybody pays a base share plus something for extras like fancy outside lights or fountains `cause we have only one meter at the gatehouse. This is all grandfathered in from the ’60s. Most of the park was just weekenders and overnighters then. When the owners started renting to more-or-less permanent mobiles, they never got a zoning variance to go legit. By the time the town caught up with them, it was too late to get the clearance and upgrades. That’s why almost everyone here – Jimbo, Kitman, Bobianne, and other old-timers – still have month-to-month leases, with the understanding that their intention is a temporary stay and not long-term residency. But that’s fine with them. Most of them consider a couple of months in the same place as permanent anyway.
Show folk… it’s in their blood.
Kitman should be able to suss out what the haps was with his juice. He was a show mentalist and up-close magician for years so you’d think he’d have something on the ball. I planned to blame the flickering on spirits and see what he’d say. Just for a jibe, mind you. He’s an ace, but I still like to come off whacky to rattle him.
No sooner did I turn up his walk than he opened his front door and stepped out onto the wooden deck and let the storm door close behind him.
“Right on time, Boz. I was expecting you. Did you bring your notebook?”
I always carry a nickel notebook and golf pencil to make notes for the owners and to remind myself of the pickles I was handling with the grounds and tenants. I took it out and waved it at Kitman.
“Good! Stay there for a moment. I want to try something. All-reet?”
“Rightie-o,” I said, standing halfway up his walk.
“Think of a number between twenty-seven and forty-two and write it on the last page of your notebook.”
I wasn’t in much of a mood for a gag, but I flipped open the pad and fished the pencil out of my pocket and wrote. “Okay!”
“Now, put it back in your pocket and concentrate on your number while I glimpse into your soul.”
I’ve heard a thousand mentalist routines and this promised to be a whistle in the wind.
“Are you concentrating?”
“Yes.”
Hard?
“Yes, Damn it! Guess!”
“I see two numbers!” He held the back of his hand to his forehead. He swayed in the light ocean breeze that was blowing in through the park. “They are getting clearer! Clearer yet! I see a six… and a… three! Your number is sixty-three! I told you to pick a number between twenty-seven and forty-two and you wrote sixty-three! Why, Boz, WHY?”
“Kit, I wrote thirty-one. You’re WAY off. Now let’s take a look at the juice.”
“Really. thirty-one? I doubt that. I’m sure you wrote sixty-three.”
“Look…” I pulled out the pad and flipped it open. My eyes went wide and I started to hold it up but kept pulling it back in front of my mug to stare at it. My handwriting, lead pencil scrawled on the lined paper - sixty-three. I shook my head and thumbed back a page – blank. Riffled through the pad – nothing – except some of my notes on the first couple pages. Flipped back to the sixty-three. Stumped.
“Goodness Boz, have you misplaced your thirty-one?”
I knew better than to ask how. Magicians and mentalists get touchy when you try to peek behind the curtain. That would be fruitless. But, on the spot, I canned the idea of joshing him about spooks.
Kit stood on the deck as I joined him, grinning like the cat that got the cream. He pointed to the storm door. On its dusty glass was smudged big thirty-one.
“You just did that, right.”
“Think so?” he said, rubbing his fingers on the numbers. They didn’t smudge. I looked closer and realized the numbers were written on the inside of the glass. He had to know what I was going to write down to set up the gag. At eighty-something, he still had it. A showman’s showman.
Now, Spence Spivak was the real deal. Joined the show in `49 when we were on the Midwest circuit. Boz was lot manager for Lachlan Brothers Entertainment and met Spivak in a St. Paul ginmill. Spence was running the crimp-card trick on a couple of Marines who are burning up some payday poke drinking and betting. The crimp is the old pick-a-card-any-card routine where the cards are shuffled by the mark and the magician fans them. “Pick one and show it to your friend but not me. Put it back in the fan, take the cards, and shuffle them as much as you like.” As he’s putting the card back the magician crimps the corner of the card with his thumb, making it easy to find in the deck.
The Marine takes them back, shuffles them, and hands them to the Spence who cuts the deck, shuffles it, and fans the deck again to show both sides of all the cards.
“Your card was… um… Black?”
The Marine says, “Yes.” “
Your card was a… Spade?”
Again the Marine says, “Yes!” but a little more surprised. “
Now look at me and think of what number was on the card. Carefully now!”
The Marine smiles and nods his head.
Spence concentrates, then frowns.
“Damn it… this isn’t going to work!” he says.
The Marines start laughing, thinking Spence has blown the trick.
“This always happens with Marines. Every damn time!” Spence says, shaking his head.
The Marines are puzzled and he has their full attention.
Spence puts the deck in his pocket, “I try a simple card trick with any number of guys and it always comes out right. Try it with a Marine and I can’t read his mind.”
Now the Leathernecks are suspicious. “Why not?” one asks.
“Because he’s obviously got sex on his mind!”
The Marines laugh, then go google-eyed when Spence pulls the Queen of Spades out of his shirt pocket and tosses it on the bar. The boys are stunned.
“She’s quite a beauty, isn’t she? No wonder she wanted to hide in my pocket!”
While the Marines are laughing it up, Spence collects on his bet from the bar change and walks toward the exit. Boz caught the whole bit from the other end of the bar and calls out before Spence hits the door.
“Hey! I’d like to try that!”
Spence turns and takes a long look at Boz.
“Another Marine?
“No sir. Soldier… but long since retired. Just a curious guy with a few dollars to spare.”
Now Spence knows he can use the same deck and just leave the Queen in his pocket, so he’s up for a pick. They go through the whole pick-one rigmarole and as Spence takes back the deck and fans it, he just stares at Boz.
“Where is it?”
Boz scratched the side of his head and a card appears in his hand.
“Nice palm.” Spence says, “But I’m working this side of the street. Why don’t we just call this a friendly wise-up and you go on your way. Find your own joint to work down the road.”
“Nah. Not my specialty. I’m a lot manager with Lachlan Entertainment. We’re an independent, fence-to-fence outfit and set up out in Oakdale for a three-day run. You do any other mitt work? Card reading? Mentalist or fortune racket? I can frame up a joint for you… for a piece.”
“How big?”
“50% to start, 40 when you catch fire.”
“Start me at 40% and I’m your boy. But… I need a bunk until I get set up.”
“45 and a bunk. There are several for you to choose from. I’ll make sure you get the deluxe suite. It has a stupendous view of the Donnikers. One of `em is a two-holer, so you can bring along a friend. Okey dokey?”
The outhouse joke loosened up Spence, and he cracked a smile.
“Shall we drink on it?”
Spence scanned the back bar and said, “Mayhaps. I like your style. What are you buying?”
“Barkeep!” Boz said, “Two shots of Old Fitzgerald. And leave the bottle!”
That’s how business is done in them days.
Back at the park, Yanko’s blowers fired up, so I needed to finish up and go pay him out.
Kit’s trailer power cut-in was a mess. The wires were exposed to the weather and the black plastic electrical tape hung like streamers from the copper. The slightest wiggle caused the lines to spark so I put on the rubber gloves, got down on the ground, and started tightening the twisted wires with a pair of pliers.
“Ain’t you gonna kill the power?” Kit said.
“No, I ain’t gonna kill the power. It’s only one-ten, for Christ's sake, and I got gum gloves on. Watch what I do and you can do it yourself next time.”
“The hell I can. I pay good money for my space and power and water and ground maintenance. And that’s another thing. Why can’t these bozos rake up the clippings instead of blowing them all the Hell over the place? How much are you paying them anyway? Whatever it is, it’s too much. Nobody puts in an honest day’s work for an honest buck anymore.”
I finished wrapping the connections with electrical tape and tucked the cable bundle back into the trailer’s hook-up box. I got up and faced Kit.
“We friends?”
“Why, sure.”
“How much did you rake in when you were reading minds and mitts?”
“Now, Boz, you know that ain’t the same money. All that’s elsewhere and elsewhen. A whole `nother world. Don’t be comparing me to some yard boys.”
I let him sputter on until he was out of wind; shamefaced and avoiding my stare.
“Anytime you want to make five bucks an hour for sweating your ass off in the sun and primping up retiree mobiles so they can feel like high hats, you let me know. I’ll get you a slot on the team.”
I pointed to one of Yanko’s men hauling a peach basket full of clippings and litter to the dumpster.
“What’s that kind of chump work worth?”
Kit was taken aback, but indignant. “I don’t know how much the going hourly rate is.”
“How much would you charge him to perform a twenty-minute magic show at his daughter’s birthday party?”
Kit stared at the ground like he was walking the midway looking for acorns and ducats. I grabbed my toolbag and headed off to the maintenance shack by the gate. If Kit’s connection was any indication of how screwed up the wiring was, I might be in for another surprise at the meter box.
“Boz!” Kit called out, “I’m sorry. I appreciate what those men do. Really!”
I took a long hard look at it and realize that made him think about something that hurt him. That was in my intent: meant to get him to lighten up on the help try not to be so crotchety. Damn, that ain’t the natural state of gray hairs; jealous of youth, envious of wealth, and making it all somebody else’s fault. It’s pretty clear that he was upset so I shrugged big, put on a loopy grin, and played it out Commedia style.
“Don’t tell me. Make up a big pitcher of iced tea and go tell them. You’ll probably be the first to do so. Who knows, maybe they’ll be the best audience you’ve had all year.”
Roland had told me, long ago, that the difference between a rich man and a poor man was whether or not he had what he needed. By that measure, I guess Kit is still trying to fill his poke.
Now, just to keep things on the up-and-up, let me explain Kitman. Or more to the point, Kitman’s trick. It’s not the first time he’s run a trick on me, and I have come to believe that it’s his way of staying in touch with what it used to do and what is proud of. So I play along.
What you know so far is the second time I was up to Kitman’s place. The first time when something like this; when I got to his trailer I stepped up onto the front door deck and knocked on the door. It took him a while to get there and let me in. We talked a bit and he offered a cool one. When he came back from the kitchen he held the beer in front of me and started talking in a low soft voice saying that I look tired and I knew where that was headed. He continued with his induction as I slowly sank back in the chair and relaxed myself. He asked me if I was tired and I said “Yes.” A few more questions a few more responses and he was sure I was fully under.
“Wonderful,” he said, “now I have a task for you. When you awake you will realize that you have forgotten your toolkit and have to return to your trailer to fetch it. When you get to your trailer, instead of looking for your toolkit, you will take out your notepad and write the number sixty-three on the last page. You will then remember that you left your toolkit at the entrance to my trailer and returned to retrieve it. When you arrive, I will ask you to think of the number and write it on the last page of your notepad. When you turn to that page you will see that you have already written a number and it will be the number thirty-one. Now when I snap my fingers, you will awaken, go to my front door and write sixty-three on the glass with your finger. Then you will return to your trailer to look for your toolkit.”
So. there you have the set-up, the gag in the gaff. I went back to my trailer, had another cold beer, wrote the number, and made a list of the other things I needed to do. When I got back to Kidman’s trailer he was already out on his deck expecting me, so I played the fool.
Why did I do it? Because one part of me loves the gag and the other part loves who Kitman used to be. At the height of his popularity, he could amaze crowds – prestidigitation, stage illusions, escapology, mentalism, the whole bit - and the gasps of men and women proved the magic was happening in the audience and not on the stage. It’s that way, you know. If there were no fools there’d be no fun.
I guess I miss the fun.

THE DONKEY BOYThere was one season we worked route 80 through Iowa pretty hard, Davenport to Des Moines, then a tad further into Nebraska. Out there, the smaller towns had a couple of churches, a few bars, maybe a film theater, and little else. No air conditioning back then, so movie houses had swamp coolers that made the place stink like a pile of damp laundry. Small town Smell-O-Vision.
A simpler time, simpler people, simpler carny.
“Take a little, leave a little,” was our byword. Make your nut, but, if you gouge them, they’ll remember it forever, especially in the farmlands where slash-and-burn is part of the farm life but not their entertainment budget.
We’d have an advance man, a week or so ahead of us, to set up the key people. There’s a workaround angle for every tricky roll-in. Make the police happy, mayor happy, and… local pastors? More than happy. Have one of the sideshow people meet with them, ask for a blessing, pray a word with them, and, more often than not, the minister would want them to come speak to his congregation on the Sunday before our set-up date.
His church'd become like part of our ten-in-one show started a week early; a private one-in-one for the padre.
His chance to work a freak-curious crowd.
Our best advance rep was Jess Heimendinger, a good egg known as The Donkey Boy. His body was normal as anyone, but he had a disfiguring childhood condition, an extreme form of it, where his head and teeth grew abnormally. There were milder types of the same deformity that only left a wine-stain birthmark on the forehead, like that Gorbachev guy, or caused glaucoma and even blindness. So Jess had it bad, but in the big picture, he handled it, worked with it.
Occasionally, he’d have brief seizures, more frequently migraines, a narrowed field of vision that could only see what was directly in front of him, and, of course, his facial deformity.
If I was a medico, I’d know how to correctly describe it better, so let me keep it simple. Jess had a very different bone structure, bigger here and different there, a flattened nose, protruding eyes, and his teeth tilted outward under oversized lips. He sort of had a kind of muzzle that made it hard for him to talk and pretty hard to be understood.
The ears? Yeah, he had big ears. Bigger than any I’d ever seen and covered with the same silky hair that hung from his cheeks and chin. He didn’t trim it, thinking that shorter would be less odd, less likely to draw a big crowd.
Just his take on it. Believe me, no one ever overlooked him or lost him in a crowd.
I watched Jess do his church spiel a dozen times… and damn if he wasn’t a far better storyteller than I am or ever will be.
That Sunday service, he’d stay out of sight in the back of the church while the preacher laid into his sermon; gospel quotes, homespun anecdotes, and a rouse-up ending. But that was just his wind-up before the pitch. The best of this sort of sermon usually mentions poor unfortunates who pray for miracles, but never lose faith. Once the congregation was primed, he’d stop and just stare at the back of the congregation.
Jess would step out of the shadows, into the aisle, and walk toward the preacher.
There was a moment before anyone noticed him. Then, as more people turned to see what the preacher was staring at, gasps and stifled screams swept through the crowd. As he got closer to the pulpit, the minister would calm them, while motioning for Jess to join him.
Friends, there is no finer midway show than a church where everyone is locked in on a disruption, be it someone fainting, a heart-attack, or someone passing gas. I’m laughing at that, but they’re all wake-ups; all performance punctuations.
For the most part, churchgoers are easily enthralled by things being askew. Holy-rollers hate freakshows, probably because they are competition. So Jess could play them like a hand of poker cards.
The preacher held up his outstretched hands, urging his flock to settle down.
“Be not afraid! I know this man! I have spoken with him about his misfortune! He carries a cross on his trail of tears that has led him here to share his story, his burden with all of us. The Lord knows this man has accepted Jesus as his spiritual protector, his lord, his savior. Will you grant him the grace to bear his soul before you?”
I never heard a tighter, more effective bally in all my years. The congregation fell silent, some quietly mouthing the words of prayers. A few brave souls said, “Yes!” “Let him speak!” “Praise God almighty!”
Now, Jess had a very different voice, made less understandable because his mouth and jaw didn’t weren’t like yours or mine, so his words were accompanied by breathy whistles, poorly formed words, and a halting delivery Jess played up when dealing with strangers, drawing crowds, or trying to con a cop.
He comically referred to his exaggerated speech as “Dahkee Tock.”
As he stepped up into the pulpit, he held onto the preacher’s hand firmly as though he was frightened and started talking loud, a little like this; “Ahm Jesh Hymadigger! Dey caw me dahkee boy! I’s bor ih nossville, dennesse!
Not so far from normal speech that people got completely lost, but strange enough so’s they’d sure pay attention. And the more devout Christians clasped their hands in prayer and bowed their heads while listening.
I remember the gist of his patter.
“They call me the Donkey Boy and I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. My mother was a wet nurse with the Baptist Women’s Missionary Union. She gave me up to the Tennessee Children’s Home Society when I was two. Mama had a nervous breakdown, My poor mama. Gone now, heaven help her.
“Living at the children‘s home was sad, I had no friends and I was kept separate. Alone.”
At this point, Jess would ask the preacher if he could tell the people about his dream. Of course, it was loud enough for the followers to hear and they called out their approval.
Kinda’ like forcing a card. Like I said, he was a top-shelf talker, and knew how to breast his cards. A moment of silence until he had them all in his palm.
I thought, Here it comes. People, hang on to your hats!
“They called me donkey boy and, when I grew up, I became more and more like they said I was. I don’t look in mirrors. Never in a mirror! Never had a friend. Never knew love or affection. I keep my tears to myself. Each day begins with remembering that I am unwanted. A freak.
“But I found a way to have Jesus in my life. It came to me in a dream I had when life seemed worthless and I wanted to give up.
“The dream was in a far-away place, long ago, and there were strangers all around me. My shoulders hurt and I felt someone sitting on my back. I tried to get free of the weight by moving through the crowd. The people stared at me and parted in front of me so I could pass. I did not know where I was going and my feet stumbled on branches and cloth before me. I was lost and afraid. So afraid.
“The a voice from the crowd cried out, ‘WHO IS THIS?’”
Electricity ran through the church’s congregation, and several of the parishioners began to pray aloud. Jess raised his voice.
“Another voice said, ‘This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.””
Well, I hope to shout, the place went bonkers. But Jess still had a few more cards to play. He raised his arms, still clutching the minister’s hand and looked upward. Everyone raised their hands,
“I said, ‘I will carry you, Jesus!’” Jess said with a catch in his voice.
Pandemonium. Weeping, shouts of exaltation, joy, rapture, the enchilada. Then he looked to the pews, scanned the faces with his teary eyes wide open in amazement, and hits them with the KO punch.
“And Jesus laid his hand on my HEAD! He smiled at me!”
What I saw was the very heart and soul of sideshow. Skip the two-bit tickets, this was the hundred-dollar main attraction. It was spiritual, okay. Not religious, but mystic.
I also saw a guaranteed, best-ever, opening day, gate box office; figure the entire congregation, all their relatives, a huge word-of-mouth crowd, all the parents, all the kids, grandmas, half the damn county. I kept thinking Carny Tent Revival horde. We’d make our nut before nightfall, day one.
Jess would do that first-day show on the ten-in-one stage, then he be off to the next town to set up the same gambit again. A trooper.
Those who missed the church show, missed his opening day act, and anyone who wanted more than anything to see what they heard about, were sure to come back next year. They’d cut in line to be at the front.

BOBBIANNE PATCHOver the years, we’ve had all sorts of bunk-ins here at the park; some transient, some looking to set down roots, and others just looking for a handout. All the smart cookies stashed away enough of their cut to cover their old years, but even some of them had something go wrong, got botched up with a shady investment, lost it to a thief, or just frittered it away on drink or drugs or lottery tickets.
Those of us who made it here are an odd lot indeed: Jimbo Kohler, of course, Kitman, The Mule Man, Jess Hiemendinger, The Idiot Savant, Madame Lana Avant, and BobbiAnne Patch the Half-Man/Half-Woman feature act in my last ten-in-one.
The list goes on.
Most have gone on now and the rest of us will be making the same exit, whenever. We’re all too old for the road anymore and, besides, there isn’t any road anymore. Holy Rollers shut most of it down years ago but lately, sideshows have just become a social hot potato.
I’m amazed how publicity has overtaken spectacle as a national fascination. How much difference is there between a human oddity and a celebrity? A freak looks very different, and people are curious to see for themselves; the celebrity appears normal, and people want to know every detail of their life. Both are paid in proportion to how much curiosity they can arouse in folks. But since a freak is considered by some to be a “poor unfortunate,” so they must be hidden away. To pay a dollar to look at them is considered uncaring and cruel. To pay ten dollars to see a celebrity in a film is considered an artistic endeavor, even if the film is degrading, cruel, or exploitative.
To my way of thinking, the celebrity has a freakish life. So, do-gooders closed the sideshows, made them illegal, hid the freaks, and felt good about themselves. But they took away the livelihood of people who had no other option. They made it illegal for the freaks to be self-sufficient and that, itself, is the crime. They turned independent people, dependent and stored them in hospitals to wait out their years.
Sure show folk were a lot different than your average working stiffs and some pretty wild scenes went down but, all in all, they were just folks, being folks. Now, it’s the lifestyle bull.
We were an extraordinary family and each of us brought something special to the Park beyond the memories.
And a few took up a hell of a lot more than they arrived with.
I got to know BobbiAnne Patch much better after she settled down here. Her life on the road wasn’t as hard as most; her act was mostly modeling half-dress, half-suit costumes and teasing the crowd with near nudity and suggestive choreography. Her hair was long and wavy on one side and short like a man’s on the other. Straight down the middle; night and day. She was a woman but, when flashing her panties backstage, there was obviously something else going on. It was just a minor deformity, but it set people’s minds to wondering. She was what they called a pseudo – an “all-in-one” sex - but with some distinguishing aspects that would suggest otherwise.
She was born Anne Louise Brewster and took on the handle BobbiAnne to beef up her canvas on the bannerline and draw.
I met her in fifty-eight. She had just turned eighteen and decided small-town life in Livonia had become intolerable, what with small-town gossip and small-town money. We were set up in Lansing and it was a flat Summer with weak crowds. She showed up at Roland’s wagon just after daybreak in a Gatsby flapper dress, a silk tuxedo tailcoat, fake collar, bowtie, and pink carnation boutonniere.
Roland let out a stifled cackle and held out his hand, “How do, Miss…Ter?”
“BobbiAnne. BobbiAnne Patch. And Miss or Mister is fine with me.”
They shook and Bobbie shot me a look to see if I was in on the deal. I smiled and tipped my skimmer. Smiles all around. She put her hands on her hips.
“Now, that we have that out of that way, no I don’t, no I’m not, yes, I am, but that’s my row to hoe. I’ll leave all the question guesswork to you gents… and generous people who have an itch to learn a bit more about the curious side of life. You have room for me?”
Roland nodded, “Done. You’re in. Go hit the grab wagon and pack in some sunnysides, we’ll do a big handshake when I get the other acts on board. We’re a family, a grumpy family, but… reasonable enough.” He turned to me.
“Good?”
I held out my hand to BobbiAnne. “We show clean, okay?
“Pure as the driven snow, my good man, clean as a whistle.”
So BobbiAnne got the X, an exclusive slot in the show: no competition, no infringement, no hank-panky with her take. She got her own backend crew, travel cash, and full lot privileges; food, bunk, and protection.
Onstage, she was clearly half-and-half, turning to girly side with sexy pose, then flipping it to the he-side to wink and wave at the ladies in the crowd. She’d have her man side apply lipstick to her female lips, girl side stroke a fur wrist cuff and offer it to the guy side. She was a great mime with a seductive style that made some folks crazy; crazy mad, or crazy charmed to death. Crazy pays.
Do-gooders wanted to shut her down, excited chumps wanted a close-up look-see.
Roland had to keep a couple roughnecks out front to keep jazzed-up rubes off the stage. Those bohunks never blinked and didn’t care about sex. They were only interested in drinking twice a day, bathing once a week, and getting more tattoos.
Muscledrunks.
BobbiAnne set loose wild notions inside both men and women. Doc Felding, the patent medicine mentalist called it “People’s anima and animus coming out, succumbing to long-buried urges and desires.” Doc started out as a shrink until he got his nose in the snowbag. “The Freud Penchant” he called it. Never had a cent.
The animal reaction notion was spot on, that is gospel. Stir a puddle and who knows what’ll come up? Bobbi provided two shows for the price of one… one onstage, one among people in the crowd.
She had an aftershow “blow-off’ inside her tent for those willing to pay an extra dollar to stand behind a rope line and watch her change costumes. Her guards held the rope and God help anyone trying to get past it. It wasn’t a nudey or cootchie show, just a simple clothing change. She’d strip down to her padded, single-cup bra, and loose silk boxer shorts, then pull on lacy lingerie and jodhpurs. The boxers where baggy and people imagined seeing what they wanted to see in the baggy folds.
The roughies earned their keep by handling the crowd. More than a few men and women went simple and tried to get a note to Bobbie, grab at her, or follow her out the rear flap of the tent to the backlot. Hey, Rube.
I always fixed the town we were headed to with passes or cash up front, depending on how the politicos and police ran their racket. Better to set up the gildersleeves before a towny drunk or punch and judy commotion on the lot steals the marks from the jointees. Hell, we got a business to run.
Bobby was forty-two years old when she got pregnant and stopped traveling with the show. Oh yeah, she’d do one-offs here and there every once-in-a-while to pick up some pin money, but she was mom first and carnie second. Her kids were always running around the Park and getting into all kinds of trouble: spraying people with water guns, chasing the llamas onto the lot, setting Zomar the Magician’s doves free, kid stuff. The old-timers got their nose out of joint, but I loved it.
They called me Uncle Boz, which I liked. At that time in my life, I was missing having little ones around.
I never asked her about her act or any of that.
I was happy she made it to retirement without meeting the wrong people and winding up broke or dead.

THE MYSTIC TEMPLEThe Mystic Temple was a wood slat and plaster mock-up of a Buddhist Temple that smelled like a wet dog, but that stink made the Fairgoers think it was even more exotic. It was painted with a gold lacquer that made it look solid, but that’s how most of the fair was put together. Behind the façade, there was little that was sturdy or permanent. But that’s what the fair is about; a temporary world where an alluring experience and a chance to escape drudgery beckons.
I sat on a bench across from the temple watching the people parade. Some stopped and marveled at the structure, curious to know more about it. but the podium held a sign that read, “Next Show at 4 p.m.” and it was just a little after three o’clock. A man dressed all in black took a seat next to me and opened a small book on his lap. I said nothing until I saw his collar.
“You a priest, right?”
He looked up from his book and stared at the temple, then hooked his forefinger in the Roman collar and pulled it off. Setting it on the book, he turned to face me.
“No. I am a man. A man in a battle with my soul,” he said, “and what are you, my boy?”
He stumped me. I couldn’t think what to say until I saw a man with his toddler daughter on his shoulders, walking next to a woman holding a newborn.
“I’m an orphan,” I said, “one of the show folk.”
The priest looked at his collar, then set it on the bench. “I am too. A child of Mother Church lost in the world and all its temptations.”
His face looked as though he was about to cry; eyes sad, eyebrows raised to a peak, mouth set as if he had tasted something spoiled. He took up the book, closed it, and set it next to the collar. I looked at the book and then at him.
“Your book? Is it sad?”
He breathed deep a few times and said, “My breviary. It’s time for mid-afternoon prayers, but I just don’t have it in me. I came to see the Italian Pavillion, but there was a certain feel to it. as though there were many eyes on me, watching my moves, and judging my reactions. Not welcoming. Not friendly. That is sad to me.”
Mike, the temple’s talker, came out of the temple wearing a stained t-shirt and shorts. He ducked low so the crowd wouldn’t see him and set a roll of tickets on his stand. The priest took note.
“I was ordained when I was twenty-five. That was nearly 25 years ago. Never having been with a woman and ignorant of such a relationship, I embraced the faith. My younger years were unschooled and I grew up near Killarney, but being the son of itinerants, whom they call Travellers, we never had a home as they call it. We spoke Shelta, so there was no getting to know the townspeople who thought us thieves and ne’er-do-wells, anyway. I was boy at twenty-five. And I still am one at forty-nine.”
He picked up the book and held it to his breast. Looking upward, he spoke.
“Mwilsha's gater, swart a manyath, manyi graw a kradji dilsha's manik. The prayer of my people.”
I blinked in confusion.
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Do you know that?” he asked.
I waited to answer. “No. My parents were drunks. They only cursed God.”
Oriental music blared from the temple’s sloping roof and the hidden loudspeaker horns made the song sound far away and tinny, like a bad phone connection. It was perfect. Music from some Lost Horizon lamasery with an old record’s scratches and pops. The crowd swelled.
I watched the priest stand, bow his head, and join the throng outside the Mystic Temple. He waded in, only stopping to occasionally look back at me, sadder than when he first sat down. Mike came out front, snappy seersucker suit, straw hat, and bamboo cane to begin his bally.
“May I have your attention on the midway! Attention! Attention on the midway! As you walk by our glittering temple, please tarry long enough to fully appreciate these lovely sirens… these fruits of female pulchritude arrayed for your pleasure... poised here before our gilded pantheon, the Mystical Temple!

“One may consider it blasphemous for veiled female beauties to dance within such a sacred edifice, but more than a mere girly show, these daughters of Venus have refined the shimmy into a study of adoration and desire! And folks, take it from me, it's one humdinger of a show!

“This precise replica of the Tibetan Shrine of Shambhala pays homage to the believers who have achieved enlightenment; the embodiment of Buddhist perfection. The monks therein, are required to take a vow of celibacy and struggle endlessly to quell their enflamed passions, cast off their lustful cravings, and dismiss the lure of flesh and its ecstasies.

Each year, perfumed lovelies, as you see here, unveil their charms in lascivious provocations to tempt these men, some of whom were driven wild with arousal and banished for their failure to resist crass carnality.

“Ladies, this educational performance, lauded by Eleanor Roosevelt herself, is far from merely a spicy, girlie show. You will immediately recognize the art and choreography as a finely expressed example of the ancient Tibetan culture and its deep and abiding respect for all things feminine and pleasing to the eye! Watching the dancers, you shall learn the subtle movements and gyrations that will increase the attention and ardor of your true love.”

One of the girls sidled up to Mike, pulled a slip of paper from her brassiere, and handed it to him.

"May I have your attention, please! I have just been delivered a note from the proprietor of this show. As a tribute to King Farouk of Egypt and his gorgeous queen, Farida, we are cutting the admission to this afternoon's performances from twenty-five cents per person to forty cents for two people. This offer will expire at the start of this show, so grab a friend or stranger and save your nickels! Hey now! The girls are headed inside, so, where the heck are you going to go? You’ll see more entertainment inside the temple than you’ll see on the whole midway, all afternoon!"
As the people formed a line to buy their tickets, the priest stood his ground, looking from the temple to the sky, again and again. I looked down at his collar and breviary on the bench, realizing that there are times when setting the past behind was the only way one can survive.
I left when I saw the poor man move into the archway of the temple with the crowd. Above his head, the keystone of the passageway held two chipped, plaster cherubim heralding the shrine with gold-painted horns.
The recorded show music - tinkling bells, a deep drumbeat, and a woman’s ethereal coloratura - droned through the tinny, metal loudspeakers.

LANA’S MITT CAMPI thought about Lana all day. It’s the first time I thought about a woman that way since losing my love. First time I didn’t feel like it would be a betrayal of my vow. All these years I felt the loneliness and empty bed sadness was a fitting punishment for not saving her life. The best doctors in the world could not treat her, comfort her, forestall her passing, so why do I feel like I failed her? I do not know. I have a space in my heart where there was once happiness, security, comfort. I accept this ache as a partial, shared death; as my marriage was a greater, shared life.
Of all the Fortune Tellers and Palm Readers I’ve known, Lana is different; pure and honest. Never had to wrangle a disgruntled mark from her tent because she was always upfront and fair.
Of all the park residents, Lana is the one I could talk with for hours. They say she’s a savant, but she’s more than just smart. Some of the things she’s said are wiser than anything that comes over the TV or from politicians. By a mile
I met her in ‘53 when she joined up outside Baton Rouge, after selling her Citroen Avant and giving all the money to the Veil Hospital for unwed Mothers in Corry, Pennsylvania. Then, shipped all her furniture and fancy clothes to the Salvation Army. She rolled up to our managers’ wagon in a rented limo and handed the driver every dollar in her purse. She was determined.
Lana inherited a fortune from her parents and gave it all away when her sister died. When I asked her why she traded the high-life for the road, she said, “Money has no meaning. Meaning is wealth.” Years later she revised her wisdom. “As my stableboy once said, `You can lead a horse to water, but if you can teach him to tap-dance, then you’ve got something!’” That’s what the road said too.
Work the crowd.
Lana was born Magdala Esmerelda to Hungarian immigrants, Lash and Kezia Nagy. She grew up on the North Shore of Long Island where her family bought and sold houses. They worked their way up to living in a mansion in Great Neck and rode the property values up to being rather well-off. When Lana got with it in Louisiana, she learned how to read palms and set up her mitt tent on the lot. She took the “la” from Magdala and the “na” from Nagy and became Lana. Lana Avant – Medium, Adept, Psychic. But she was more than all that. She was a natural Carny.
Yesterday I stopped by her mobile with a bottle of cherry Kijafa I got from the park owners for my birthday. They meant well, but a bottle of vino mouthwash would last me the rest of my life if I outlived Methuselah. Lana likes to have a nip in the afternoon and, to be social, I’d take a sip along with her just to listen to her. I’m crazy about her.
“Boz! Strength, wisdom, and solidness in the flesh! I dreamt of you last night.”
She was resplendent in a brocaded silk coat that went down to her knees. From the knees down she was eighteen. Full breasted with a crown of jet-black hair, her eyes hit me like a thunderbolt. Wide, yes, but the pupils – brown with flecks of gold – were centered between her lids. Thes gave her not the look of surprise, but that of a feral lioness assessing her prey. I was seized by a transport of fear and lust at her glance. Christ, every fiber of my male being vibrated with the recognition of her totality.
“Dreamt of you as a raven pecking at my window. Shall I tell you what is in that paper bag you are holding?”
See what I mean what I mean? She’s a fireball; full of electricity and life.
“Sure! Take your best guess.” I held up the bag.
“Cherry Kijafa.”
“Amazing!” I said.
“No,” Lana said with a grin, “It has a uniquely shaped bottle and you twisted the bag around the neck. Elementary!”
“HAH!”
“And… the park owners asked what they should get you for your natal day and I told them my favorite drink.”
“Of course.”
“And… a raven whispered that you were coming with it.”
“Lana. You are a hoot and a holler and a whole lot more.”
“Come in, Boz. Let’s chew the fat.”
Lana’s park home was a full double, roomy, and beautifully adorned with art pieces, fine furniture, and, in the center of the living room, an antique English mahogany table, with a great crystal ball on a pedestal at its center. I knew this was where she liked to hold court, so I pulled out one of the lyre-back side chairs and settled in for a dose of the mystic.
We had spent many afternoons, reminiscing and going on about the local loonies and their complications. Whose dog crapped on the shuffleboard deck, who’s sleeping with the Pool Boy, or who’s headed for a retirement home and a nurse. I never remarried after… the end. But I got my weekly requirement of woman by stopping by to sit with this charming lady.
Lana brought a tray with an ice bucket, Galliano, Beefeater gin, a lemon, and two small cocktail glasses. She called her Kijafa cocktail “The Grounded Aviator” and joked that, “If Earhart drank these, she’d be home now and happy with a man.”
We sipped and talked; the park people, carny news, arthritis, partial dentures… typical oldster chat. Then she stared into the ball.
“What is it?”
She bit her lower lip and leaned toward the ball. “A truck ran a red light and hit a car.”
“Where?”
“Nothing we can do.”
I knew better than to question her further. I had seen how keen her mind was when she stared off like that. Once I asked her if she remembered the time when a thunderstorm and lightning ended a run right before we planned to let the crowd in.
She spoke without hesitation, “May 12th, 1948. Eleven-thirty. Great bend. Oly broke his toe that morning hammering stakes, and you were wearing a brown bomber jacket with the collar turned up. You also needed a haircut. As usual.”
The memory came back to me as clear as a photo on the table beneath my eyes.
She continued, “When the rain stopped, we packed and left for Dodge City. May twelfth, nineteen forty-eight, which was a Wednesday, and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands had just abdicated due to typhus. She died 5,313 days later on the twenty-eighth of November, another Wednesday, of cardiac arrest. She is buried in Delft at Nieuwe Kerk church.”
Lana pointed to her kitchen, “See those blue tiles above my sink?”
I craned my neck around to see them. “Yes.”
“They are Delft tiles. They were there on the wall when I bought this place.”
The center tile depicted a tall, cathedral-like church. I was transfixed. There are no words to describe how she does what she does. Lana says that anyone can do it, but they’re just too consumed with nits; little things that bug them.
There was always a long line outside her tent; heartbroken lovers, poor parents, bullied kids, drunks, the sick and dying. All looking for a peek at what might be hidden in their cards, or creased into their hands, or floating through their mind about their tomorrows. I originally thought Lana was a trained psychologist; able to suss out what people revealed on their faces, in their words, or how they held themselves. But show folk soon get to be in the know about marks and how to skin the moochers. She was just into it. She had the knack.
Just then, I heard police and ambulance sirens screaming by, out along the highway. The high/low sound meaning they were headed away toward downtown.
“They will all live,” she said, ”but, you know, we all die.”
“Is that what most people asked? When they will die?”
“Some did. I would never say what I saw in them.”
I took another sip from my glass. The gin had rendered the cherry wine a bit less cloying and the tingle in my mouth loosened my tongue.
I tied to crack wise, “No need to spread bad news, eh?”
“No.” she said, “There’s a simpler and more uplifting reason. If you go for a ride with a friend and talk while enjoying the scenery, the time is filled with the warmth of conversation and the sights around you. If you take a taxi through an unfamiliar city and keep your eye on the meter, the sights recede and the ride becomes numbers and fear of being cheated by the driver.
“Forget the numbers, enjoy the ride. People carry more than enough pain and sorrow in their days. I give them hope. Honest hope. I tell them what can be… not what must be. The mitt-reading window-dressing is my mental file cabinet of details and numbers and stories.”
“No one who comes to me is concerned about here and now. They all want to go somewhere. Some want to go to money and possessions, some want to find love and security, some look to shrug off the guilt that remains long after an offense has been committed. They are anxious pilgrims, ready to begin the journey, the transformation of their reality; traded for a better world, a happier outlook, a carefree moment. So, to get them there, they need a map of the new land. But a map is useless if you don’t know where you are, to begin with. I am a compass. I orientate them. I point to an outcome with cautions about the ankle-twisting rocks ahead. All for the price of one, thin dollar.”
I love Lana. Not “in love” like some stiff-legged, thirteen-year-old scout, but I feel complete and worthy in her eyes. I never told her. After all, why should I? She’s a mind-reader.
Lana looked up from the crystal and smiled at me.
“You must be reading my mind,” I said.
“No. You’re saying it all with your smile. Some people want a psychic to speak to their soul, others want a medium to initiate a conversation with the other side. This is where the tears flow. Tears are like Catholic Holy Water… they soothe the pain and help heal a tortured soul.”
“We called it Dukkering on the midway; the Gypsy word for fortunetelling. What you describe is closer to psychology and religion mixed with helping of Dale Carnegie. You are something else, Gal.”
“If I were ever to tip my hat to the right, it would be to take your arm.”
Her declaration needed no response. We sat, bathed in the warmth of our affections. Like I said, no pubescent boy here. Just a man who cares about the physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing of a truly wonderful woman.
“Another shot of my cherry… cocktails?”
She was toying with me. I loved her brassiness when the mood had grown too maudlin. I nodded and pushed my glass along the tabletop to her tray of ingredients. As she mixed a refill, she grew serious.
“You need to go see Petey Huggins. He’s back to shootin’ again. Do it this week.”
“Will do.”
Petey was a regular guy; lived in the park with all of us, but was a wild card. Hearing he was back to dope raised my hackles.
Lana heaved a great sigh and I guess the cocktails were hitting both of us. I nodded, she nodded and I stood up.
“Always a delight.” She whispered.
“Lana, there’s something I need you to know,” I said head bowed.
She stared at me and I let her simmer a bit.
“I hate cherry wine, but you’ve got a righteous joint.”
“Do come again, Boswell”
She grinned and I left her mobile.
There’s something about a fearless woman that sends electricity through the air. It’s shockingly delightful. We can drop the games and niceties and get down to the brass ring. I’ve known a handful over the years, and damn few of them wound up hitched to a simpleton. Those clowns get spooked by not driving the wagon and either flip or fly. Any gal with spunk flags off the also-rans.
Lana could see them coming a mile away.

THE HUGGER            I promised Lana I’d look in on The Hugger since she mentioned he was shooting up again. Petey had been on the junk a half a dozen times I know of. He’d roll onto the lot all bleary-eyed, throwin’ off a mighty stank, fresh off kicking for a week or two. We’d front him a few bucks to get cleaned up, just as long as he’d be looking right and ready to work that night. At first, he just cleaned the backyard and hauled trash to the burn; simple jobs to see if he was up to it. But he had his eye on the shooting gallery – Johan Chichester’s stick and canvas joint – attracted by the hoopla and bally.
It seemed like a bad choice since Petey jumped like a cat when he heard loud noises.
The jumpiness might have been caused by beanies; amphetamines doled out to help gazoonies work through the night on a setup or tear down and kept by drivers who had a long haul to the next town. Get on them as a habit, and the natural course of things leads to some garbage downer like codeine cough syrup. Wiseguys looked for a doctor who treated alcoholism, got drunk, and begged for Librium to detox, which just started another addiction. I did one spin on that carousel and got off, pronto. Some can’t. Petey couldn’t.
Outsiders called him Peter, Pete, or Mr. Huggins and he answered to just about any name. He got his nickname because he was a born hugger. He’d be happy and want to hug you, sad or scared, he’d need an embrace, drunk, he’d get you in a clinch. So, naturally, Petey became The Hugger.
He bragged he was the illegitimate grandson of Godfrey Huggins, Prime Minister of Rhodesia, and was due a small fortune when the truth was found out. We all have hopes and dreams and oddball deportment, so I figured he was hopin’ for some pie-in-the-sky.
Johan’s Tommy Gun Shooting Gallery was a Red Star joint done up with military decorations and an endless 8-track recording of marching cadences and bugle calls. As if that wasn’t enough to pull in a crowd, Johan wore a Drill Sergeant get-up with a shiny .45 pistol on his hip. We all knew it was a squirt gun he used to start a ruckus and draw in the Clems, but it was a drop-dead ringer for an M1911 sidearm.
The joint’s machine guns fired BBs with compressed air toward the back of the gallery about ten feet away. Back there, four-by-five-inch cards hung from clothespins on a little clothesline so they could be pulled up to the counter to inspect. Joh would load each gun with a hundred or so BBs from a brass tube and start his pitch as the shooter tried to shoot out the red star on the center of the card.
“TEN-HUT! LISTEN UP, FOLKS! ANOTHER WINNER SHOOTING OUT THE STAR! FALL IN LINE FOR THE ONLY TARGET PRACTICE THAT PAYS PRIZES! SHOOT OUT THE RED STAR AND TAKE HOME ANY STUFFED ANIMAL FOR YOUR SWEETIE! IT’S SAID THAT THESE RED STARS ARE MADE IN THE GODLESS SOVIET UNION TO DUMP THEIR MARK ON AMERICA. I WON’T STAND FOR IT, WE WON’T STAND FOR IT, AND NO TRUE AMERICA PATRIOT CAN EVER LET THIS INSULT STAND! TWO QUARTERS GIVES YOU A HUNDRED SHOTS TO BLAST THE RED STAR TO KINGDOM COME! WHO’S GOT THE EYE? WHO’S GOT THE SKILL? WHO’S GOT THE AIM TO BEAT THE GAME! TOMMY GUNS AND TOYS! COME AND GET `EM!”
Petey was enthralled. The music, Johan’s bally, and the hiss-ping of the machine guns dazzled him and put a wide grin on his face. He weaseled a make-work deal and, by the next town, was reloading BB tubes behind the gallery’s sheet metal backstop. The little brass balls bounced off the galvanized steel and dropped into a trough to be reloaded again. The pinging gave The Hugger a little thrill, which probably satisfied his need for a little jolt of adrenaline now and again. All was well, for a while.
The time of which I speak, Petey’s funneling the balls into the loading tubes out back, and Johan had built a sizable tip out front; maybe 30, 40 people. He sees a gruff-looking guy with a gal on his arm; one of the lot lizards who snagged herself a tipsy John. This is where the dark ride begins.
“Say there, Feller, you look like a military man. Ever fire a machine gun? Perhaps your gal there might like a Teddy or Daffy Duck to take to bed.”
The man was not amused and stared down Johan, ignoring the woman who tugged on his arm to walk away.
“Shoot out the red, take an animal to bed! Give it a shot, Champ!” Johan teased.
The man yanked his arm from the woman and stepped up to the counter.
“My name isn’t Champ. It’s Ried. Mister Ried, to you.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mister Ried. Care to play the game?”
Johan could smell the booze on the guy’s breath, but a deadeye Marine had snatched three of his big plushes that morning and he didn’t want to throw more stock and wind up short.
Now, there’s a trick in Red Star galleries that most people don’t know. There are enough BBs to shoot out the star with a fair amount of skill, but as the red area gets smaller, and just torn edges are left, they tend to fold back, rather than tear off. The rules state that all the red must be gone to win, so most shooters wind up leaving a little bit of red and either try again or walk away. Sometimes, the star seems to be gone, until the jointee pulls it up to the counter and runs his finger behind the card, and pushes the folded parts back to reveal red.
On the tent’s side wall, Johan had attached a dozen or so signed winner cards with the red centers shot out. All the signatures were in his handwriting; we all knew that, but on the midway, there’s nothing but distraction and attraction for the townies.
The gruff man handed Johan a five and he held it but didn’t make change. When the man picked up a machine gun, the crowd began to mumble. I saw his lot lizard melt into the crowd, so I assumed she had dipped the man’s pocket. The guy fired wildly and only put a couple dozen holes in the card.
“GREAT WARMUP, BUDDY! GIVE IT ANOTHER GO. HERE, I’LL GIVE YOU SOME EXTRA BALLS!” Johan yelled, but directed his words to the crowd hoping to get a laugh. He took an empty tube from his apron and faked loading more BBs. This was playing with fire and he knew it, but greed has a way of taking over the logic part of one’s brain.
The second volley tore out maybe half the star and the man dropped the gun, grabbed another, and yelled.
“MORE!”
Johan realized the guy was infuriated and loaded a full tube, but being over-capacity, the gun drizzled out most of them. The situation was spinning out of control and, in those days, people stuck around when things went crazy. We’ve learned, at our peril, that a drunk can get violent on the double but, back then, people had little experience of full-on psychos.
The crowd buzzed with mounting anxiety.
With each attempt to shoot out the star, the infuriated man grew more erratic. Johan knew he’d have to throw him the plush just to get rid of him. The guy was rangy – worked up and ready to wrangle – and the plush was not what he was looking for. He was trying to prove his superiority to the crowd, and spinning around, saw that his prostitute had disappeared. He clutched his hip and realized his wallet was missing.
“That WHORE!” he spun back to Johan and screamed. “SHOW ME THE CARD!”
Johan later said that this was the moment his blood ran cold. He tugged on the clothesline and the card flew up to the counter. The star looked torn out, but the enraged man felt around the back of the card and pushed through the ragged edges; there was red.
“You son of a bitch! Give me back my five.”
Johan put the five in his apron and held out three dollars.
“Here’s your change Mr. Ried. Sorry you didn’t win but, tell you what, as a consolation, I’m going to give your girlfriend the Daffy Duck just for being a good sport.” Then, looking around, said, “Where’d she go?”
Well, the man went nuts. He stared at Johan’s water pistol, roared, and pulled a revolver from his pocket. Aiming it at Johan’s head, he cocked the hammer. The crowd was an insane choir of curses and threats and fears that made the situation even more nightmarish. Johan couldn’t call out to any of the lot managers or other jointees for help. He dug all the bills out of his apron and held them out.
“Here, take it all. I’m sorry. You take it all… and the prize.”
The guy turned the pistol toward the cards at the back of the gallery and started firing wildly. The shots brought more people who thought it was part of the game. While the backstop was thick enough to stop the BBs, the gun’s rounds tore clean through the sheet metal like it was nothing at all.
Roland was managing the lot. When he heard the shots he hied on over to the gallery, pushed through the crowd and straight-away yanked the pistol from the man’s hand. They struggled, but it ended quickly. Twisting the gun from the man’s hand, Roland had broken the man’s wrist.
“I’ll kill you!” said the man.
“Without your gun, you will have a problem doing that,” Roland answered.
“Take off your glasses, four-eyes, and I’ll punch your lights out!”
Roland unhooked his glasses, slipped the leather cord over the top of his head, took off his prosthetic mask, and set it on the shooting gallery counter. The man stared at him, terrified, and sobered up.
“Correction,” said Roland, pointing to his eye, “ my light.”
When Roland turned to face the crowd, they let out a sound – I don’t know how to describe it – a pained moan, a downhearted sigh, gasps, then stifled screams of horror.
But no one knew the senseless damage the bullets caused.
Petey had heard the shots and jumped up from the BB trough behind the metal backstop. One of the rounds burst through and grazed him right across his temple. Stunned, he fell over, bleeding freely. Nobody knew he was there for the longest time and it was only a backyard boy who heard the commotion of the crowd that came to his rescue.
We drove Petey to the nearest hospital and, damn, if he didn’t need three pints of blood just to keep him alive. The Hugger was in a coma for eight days but held onto life. We had to break down and move on to the next booking, so I gave the hospital contacts at our next three stops so they could keep us posted. For a while, it looked like the little guy wasn’t going to make it and there was talk that, even if he did make it, the painkillers they’d give him might lead him right back to the needle.
It did. And it became his fall-back choice ever since.
Today, I drove to Petey’s apartment with a stubborn feeling that there was nothing I could do to get between him and an overdose. He had already beaten the odds by making it into his fifties; junkies tend to flame out before their hair goes gray. I brought some chocolate and hard candy along in case I could talk him off the hard stuff. Withdrawl craving for sugar is just about the only hard and fast outcome you can count on when someone kicks.
I never touched any of the hard drugs; the road presents plenty of bad examples to learn from.
I knocked on the door and Lana opened it.
“Ms L… a coincidence?”
“Hardly, “ she said, “we’re down to the wire here.”
The apartment was cluttered with things Petey had scavenged; cast-off furniture, appliances, pots and pans, framed photos, and knick-knacks. Without a job, everything has the potential of selling for a few bucks and his habit probably cost an arm and a leg. He was lying on a sofa looking like he was asleep.
I whispered, “Is he clearheaded?”
Lana stared at Petey for a long moment, turned to face me and I saw her concern.
“Getting there. It’s been three days, or so he says. It’s been rough, physically and emotionally.”
I set the candy on the coffee table next to the sofa, next to

BEATING THE BELLRINGERA herd of bikers roared by the park just after midnight and I woke up to their rumbling roar thinking I was back on the show road trying to sleep in a bunkie trailer. Took a minute or two to get my wits about myself as the thunder rattled my mobile and receded down the road. I’m sure they’re all tough guys, but the racket they make doesn’t add an ounce of muscle, so it must be just their way of pissin’ people off.
Of course at my age, things that piss me off now, remind me of things that pissed me off long ago. That’s where the biker and the bellringer came back to life plan on that little movie screen inside my head. I could hear the operator.
“Give that man a cigar!”
In some little town out on Long Island, around the time that Kennedy was elected, we were part of a three-town event for the Elks, or Moose, or whatever. I don’t remember exactly where, out there a lot of the town names are Indian words like Quogue or Speonk or Aquebogue. Pronounce them wrong and the locals delight in correcting you. The show had six rides, a dozen games, a half-dozen flat stores, and typical grab joint concessions: fried dough, spun sugar, dogs on a stick, frozen everything on a stick. The usual.
A Saturday-night crowd, which is always a half-step closer to crazy than Friday-nighters. Friday people, most of them anyway, get there after they leave work so they’re more or less clean, sane, and sober. Your Saturday night crowd includes people who’ve been off all day, possibly riled up a bit and most likely drinking since noon, so you gotta expect some heat. Roland was in his 60’s then but continued working as a mender to try to keep the lot from going redline. He was griping about wanting to retire and I knew he was good and tired of babysitting the stand.
Back to the biker bit. All’s well up until a local club rolled in. They looked like Hells Angels, but they had some other name on the back of their jackets; something like Marauders and one of those Long Island town names underneath. I figured they were a bunch of blue-collar guys trying to put on a hard front so I had a gazoonie run and tell Roland we had VIPs headed to the midway.
I’ve worked barnstormer gigs in the off-season and the bikers were as easy-going as you might like. If the crowd is peaceable and respectful there’s not much to worry about. But, then again, that Saturday night crowd always contains a couple of booze-fueled idiots who want to throw their weight around and get nasty. That was the situation I’m talking about.
Roland pow-wowed with a couple of the bikers and won them over pretty quickly, then he talked to the leaders and I saw smiling and nodding, shaking hands, and all that. I’m sure Roland fit the description of an outlaw at heart, what with his appearance and confidence. I took it off my mind and went back to managing the midway.
Everything was smooth until I heard the High Striker bell ring a little too often. Usually, you hear the big thump as the sledgehammer hits the rubber pad maybe half a dozen times before a bell ring. If the crowd is small, the operator gives the sledge to a puny man, or woman for a free hit and they ring the bell the first time. As a crowd forms, he’d hand the hammer to some strong-looking guy in his 20s and no matter how hard the mark tried, he can’t ring the bell. That’s when humiliation and competition among the men begins. A crowd forms and nearly every guy will want to try to ring the bell. The gag is, that it’s impossible to ring the bell unless the operator wants you to ring it. So ringing the bell is just the attraction and not a test of strength.
The tower itself was designed to humiliate the strong. Standing around twenty feet tall, it was marked from bottom to top with different colored sections that indicated height, but also printed strength descriptions: Weakling, Big Boy, Muscle Guy, He-Man, Superman. This was like catnip to guys wanting to impress their girlfriend.
The device is gaffed, that is, rigged to only work properly when the operator steps on the treadle built into the platform in front of the tower. At the tower end it’s connected to the wire that reaches up to the bell. On the wire is a metal puck; called the follower. When you step on the treadle, the wire tightens and a medium-strong hit with the sledge sends the puck up to strike the bell. When the wire is slack, the puck can’t rise smoothly and friction keeps it from getting to the bell. The operator steps on a hidden spot of the platform to tighten the wire, not stepping on it means the mark loses every time.
A biker and his Old Lady stepped up to the game and things took a turn. The woman must’ve known about the gaff and when her boyfriend picked up the hammer, she stepped on the platform and the wire tightened. The operator, a kid named Downs, was a first of May hire-on who wasn’t seasoned enough to handle the situation. I don’t blame him, since the biker was 300 pounds on the hoof and looked pretty nasty.
The High Striker can be a hanky-pank; with the operator giving away lots of prizes since they cost him less than what it costs to give it a shot. But it can also initiate crowds of competing males who win nothing. Some operators push that rivalry by handing the hammer to a young woman who he lets ring the bell. That may be playing with fire and, in this case, it was arson.
When the biker rang the bell the operator knew exactly what the girlfriend had done. He told the biker he was a winner and tried to hand him a small plush dog. The biker lifts the hammer again and rings the bell. Now Downs has a problem. He asks the girlfriend to step off the platform, but she glares at him, makes eye contact with the boyfriend, and then looks back at Downs. The boy soiled his skivvies. The biker rings the bell again, and again, and again. A crowd forms and other bikers push through them to get a turn with the hammer.
I saw a greenhorn picking up trash in the backyard and tell him. “Kid! Rubes. Go tell the wagon,” and sent him on his way double-time. I was stumped. Where the hell is Roland? I figured I’d have to wrangle, so I reached into my pocket and pushed my fingers through the holes in my brass knuckles. I hated the damned thing, but after getting clocked by a farmboy full of piss and vinegar, I was determined to avoid another lump on my noggin.
Heading toward the crowd, I heard the bell ring, ring, ring. Bad, bad, bad.
A fight in a crowd is about as close as anyone ever gets to see what a chain reaction is. One guy slugs another who falls back into some other guy’s girlfriend and then all hell breaks loose. Most of the bikers were crowded around the High Striker platform grabbing at the hammer to get their chance to ring the bell. Downs was petrified and, like they say, when it’s on the front burner, we’ve got the four “F”s; Fight, Freeze, Flee, or Fawn response. The first three are instinctual choices. The Fawn is trying to please the attacker. Downs handed prizes – plush animals and Chinese finger puzzles and propeller hats – to everyone on the platform. The bikers tossed them into the crowd which started scuffles between the townies and the Marauders. Other girlfriends climbed up on the platform and egged them on.
Now that is a half-dozen fistfights going on and some women are screaming. Where the hell is Roland? I saw him talk to these guys so I figured he had it handled, but no good. Some of my strong-arm green help pushed into the crowd to separate sluggers and wound up getting stomped. The marks stampeded and, in a flash, were as many people on the ground as standing up. One of the Marauders pulled the hammer away from another and it swung out into the crowd behind him and struck a woman in her back as she ran. She screamed as she fell to the ground and several men ran to protect her while a couple of women clambered up and started shoving the biker girlfriends. We were well beyond out of control and fast approaching a riot.
That’s when I looked down the midway and saw Roland walking alongside a small man in a gray suit. They weren’t running. They walked quickly but did not seem rushed or excited. As they drew closer I was probably the only one who noticed them, since everyone else engaged in some kind of fight or sideline agitation. I waved to Roland and he nodded but his pace remained the same; deliberate. The bikers were enjoying the skirmish, you know, making goon memories and letting out their anger on innocents. Downs snuck off the platform and scurried away like a rabbit and I never saw him again.
Then Roland stepped up to the edge of the brawl and reached in his pocket.
I didn’t know him to carry a piece, but looking around, I feared the worst. He took out something small and held it to the side of his mask. A long, loud whistle shriek brought everyone to a halt and Roland said, in a calm voice, “Stop.” And as the crowd and bikers stared at him, they stopped. It was impossible, but they all just cut short whatever they were doing and stared at him.
“I will blow this whistle again in a moment and you will have the choice of continuing this pointless activity or doing something different to help yourself,” then, turning to the small man, added, “Am I correct in that?” The man looked from Roland to the bikers and said, “Pay attention,” and he walked to the sledgehammer on the ground, picked it up, and handed it to the girl standing on the treadle. “Dolores, is it?” The girl reacted in surprise to hear her name spoken by a stranger. The man turned to her enraged boyfriend, “And you, Wayne, who spent a year or so in Riker’s with a guy named Bendar, right? He promised to kill you?” His voice was cool as anything you’ve ever heard, “He’s out in three weeks. Think you want to head inside again? For safety’s sake?”
He looked from one biker to the next, “And Roger the firestarter? Jess, the dope runner? Evan, the stolen motorcycle, am I right, Boy?” he turned back to Wayne, “Quite a knitting circle you’ve got here, Wayne… the uh,” the man looked up and thought a moment, ”Wayne, the, uh, let’s say bar brawler. You broke a man’s neck, didn’t you. It was Bendar’s buddy, who now in a wheelchair. I’m sure you and he will have a lot to reminisce about when he’s released,” the man looked at his watch, “Hm… not three weeks after all. He’s out in nineteen days.’ He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. The bikers were startled but held their ground.
When the wallet flipped open, they could see the badge and looked around frantically for any cops that might be closing in.
“My name is Gerald Frankle, United States Marshal. I’m a Deputy Investigator for the Congressional Taskforce on Street Crime. Your file is right here in the county and I live not thirty miles from here. I know all about you, keep my eye on you, and you are small fish. I have the authority to put you in the big tank with big fish, but you wouldn’t survive.” He turned to the girlfriends, “No visitation rights women with arrest records, you know. Lonely days.”
Frankle pointed to Roland. “This is a fair man. He believes in second chances. But he also believes that rowdies need to be swept off his lot.” Roland nods and holds up the whistle. “He was concerned when you fellows rolled in, so he gave me a call. He also called some other locals.” The Marauders had no idea where this was headed and neither did I. Roland waved the whistle. “So here is my deal for you motorcycle boys. When Roland blows that whistle, two things will happen – one here, and one in the parking lot. You have two choices: choice one, you may continue to fight and take your lumps. You know, scars are better than tattoos. They have better stories. Or, your other choice, you can go out to the parking lot.”
They looked at each other in confusion.
Frankle continued, “There you will see County Sheriff’s deputies and tow trucks loading your bikes onto a flatbed trailer. It seems there are title, registration, serial number, and illegal modification problems. If you can’t explain away these issues, the vehicles will be impounded. Do you understand me?” One of the bikers raised his damn hand like a kid in Sunday school, “Excuse me…”
Frankle pointed to Roland and he blew another shrill blast on the whistle. The Marauders sprinted across the lot toward the parking area.
It was unlike any shut-down I’d ever seen. Roland made it his business to know every important local in every place we played. He’d take a pocketful of tickets to hand out and start at the police stations, hit the county offices, and spread a bunch at veteran and fraternal organizations. No one forgot him and everyone respected him. And everyone who met him told others about him and the show. I’d hazard a guess that Roland knew more than ten thousand important people. Charisma it’s called, but it’s the heart of what Carny is all about.
Out in the parking lot, The Marauders were reduced to whining kids trying to keep their motorcycles from being impounded. The leaders of the hooligans asked Roland to intervene and he thought a long time before he called out to Frankle.
“Gerry! Can you give these boys a break here?”
Frankle shrugged and one of the Marauders stepped up to him.
“Sir, you have us dead to rights. I’m the chapter Sargeant-at-Arms and I understand you know everything about us. Yes, we have rap sheets, and yes, we were out of line here. We got out of line and we’re guilty of whatever you want to call what we did.”
“Inciting a riot? Battery?” Frankle said, “You know, even Disorderly Conduct begins at a second-degree misdemeanor and means a large fine or, in your case, jail time. You may need some time in the county lock-up to think over,” he added a mocking repetition of the Sargeant-at-Arms, “whatever you want to call what we did”?
“No, Sir. I do not.” The biker said. “Roland? Can you help out here?”
Roland walked to Frankle and whispered in his ear. Frankle frowned and looked at each of the bikers who watched him closely, then whispered to Roland.
“I asked him for a favor,” Roland said, “and he asked me what I could promise him. What can I promise him?”
The Marauders looked at each other, at a loss for what to say.
“Can you keep your nose clean,” Roland asked, “for three months?”
Frankle pulled on Roland’s sleeve to bring his ear closer.
“Six months, he says,” Roland added. “one screw-up and you lose everything, bikes, clubhouse, parole privileges, and go under the microscope. Squeaky clean, you read me?’
Frankle signaled the Sheriff’s deputies who told the tow truck operators to hold off.
“We’ll look like rats to other clubs,” said Wayne.
“Maybe. The alternative is becoming the Marauders Bicycle Club. Use your head.” Frankle said.
Well, the bikers made their promises and got to keep their motorcycles and that was it for the rest of our run. No trouble at all. But I heard that a couple months after, they all got caught with a load of dope during a night run and wound up doing time anyway. I’m sure Roland knew what was happening from the get. Just applying the right amount of muscle to keep us clear of the psychos and not so much that we get any after-action problems. That’s the key; the correct application of force for the situation. Staying cool and letting the pieces fall in place.

THE MOTORDROME ROLLER GIRLSIt’s no secret that mechanical rides in a carnival are a timid person’s way of daring death; getting that tingle of excitement that builds into a jolt of horror. For a moment, anyway. Because they know they won’t crash on the roller coaster or fall from the Big Eli Ferris wheel. Well, ninety-nine percent of the time anyway. But it’s the possibility that they’re risking their life that provides the thrill they pony up for. Sure, there are other death-defying excitements on the lot: watching the sword swallower, the water-glass eater, the Indian fakir piercing his skin with long needles and lying on a nail board, or Madame Volta surviving an arcing and sparking electric chair.
But these are all gaffed attractions, performed for the rubes to gawk and golly over.
Then there is the motordrome – or as they used to be called “the motor velodrome” - the premier, carny daredevil show with motorcycles and go-carts racing around the inside wall of a gigantic barrel-like raceway. Looking like a stubby silo some thirty feet in diameter and standing twenty feet high, the drome has a staircase outside leading up to a raised catwalk around the top. Spectators look down into the wooden wall as the riders seem to do the impossible, effortlessly defying gravity. Inside the drum, the flat floor is ramped up into the sheer, wooden-planked wall. The riders gun the bikes around the floor and take to the upward-sloped floor until centripetal force lets them race up and down the wall sideways. Then they do dare-devil tricks and rise to the top to snatch dollars out of outstretched hands.
Hell, there was even a guy - Claude Roue - who pedaled a damn bicycle fast enough to ride the wall sideways, defying gravity. He’d hang on to a motorcycle to get up to speed, then let go and pedal like mad. Seeing the bicycle and motorcycle zigzagging up and down drove the spectators wild. To add a bit of bravado, he’d steer with one hand and wave a little French flag to the spectators above. It was in all the newspapers.
After a couple years, Claude headed back to France and built his own motordrome attraction; Le Seau du Diable! which means The Devil’s Bucket.
Three things make this gravity-defying attraction possible – centripetal force, friction, and guts. While racing around, the gravity force – what you call your g-force – can be three or four times stronger than just standing on the ground. So, the bike frame needs to be specially re-enforced and the rider – say, 165 pounds – feels like he weighs five hundred pounds or so and, minute-by-minute, gets light-headed as the blood drains from his noggin. Or her noggin,
I know, I know. Hang on, I’ll get to that.
Five large is nearly Dolly Dimple’s six hundred on the hoof when she was with Ringling. The dimples in her elbows were so deep, they could hold quarters. That’s how she got her name. Celesta Geyer was her birth name, but Dimples became so well-known it’s now used as the name of any fat lady in a sideshow. After a major heart attack, her doc said she’d be a goner in six months when her heart finally gives out.
Next thing you know she starved herself down to a buck twelve in a year. That’s about a pound a day. There’s your death-defying attraction; staying hungry to beat the reaper.
But that’s another parable.
Before I ever saw board-track riders, Roland told me about the Coney Island Motordrome where Indian Scout motorcycles with beefed-up frames rode the walls. He met the man who built the vertical track in Luna Park and saw how Curly Lee Cody and his brother Cyclone Jack zoomed up the walls, crisscrossed, sat sidesaddle, and, more than a few times, crashed on their way down. But there was plenty of money to mend the broken bones when the Scouts conked out or got a flat and fell like bricks.
Eventually, the walls caught so much oil that even the fastest motorcycles couldn't always get traction. Add to that, the beat-up scooters often had dented, leaky gas tanks, random electrical sparks, and balding tires. The thrill of watching sideways racing was doubled by the possibility of a mechanical failure or driver flub to end a race with a bang.
After all, the bally was “Come see the reckless riders!” We carny folk love to play with words.
One season, that drome lost four people to never-should-have-happened accidents. The horror spectacles just brought bigger crowds.
When Roland and I first hit the road, several motordromes were touring with carnies. They traveled with regular set-up and tear-down crews to speed up construction of “the barrel” but often needed to skip the smaller, quickie town bookings due to scheduling. The roughnecks and most of the riders were a kooky bunch and even the more normal of them was still half a bubble off level. I think the speed and fumes got into their heads and they all thought they were Brando when they threw on a leather jacket.
Young, daring boys set a lot of young gals on fire, especially those looking to escape their sleepy town life and the guys took full advantage of that. Of course, none of them was looking for love and marriage. The road is long and there are always opportunities to exploit. “Private parts and broken hearts…”
There were a couple of wall-racing gals who could handle both the drome and all the horndog townie guys… and sometimes the occasional aroused girl. They drew big crowds - sitting onstage straddling a shiny Indian Scout with its muffler removed, gunning the engine, and drowning out the wallah of the midway. Sometimes the talker would punctuate his bally by putting his microphone next to the exhaust pipe to send the roar out through the drome’s big, metal loudspeakers.
The stage bike’s rear wheel was on a pair of rollers so she could “ride” with her feet up on the pegs while revving a crowd-drawing racket. Right there you’d have four things that guys crave: speed, noise, sex, and the possibility of watching a race and a wreck. The money rolled in, and the drome agent’s cut was hefty.
The best “Wall of Death” performers were always looking for a new twist to outdo their competition. Yeah, there were motorcycles with and without sidecars, go-carts, bicycles, and even miniature automobiles pulling in big crowds, but there were two women who wanted to take it to the next level.
Bonnie and Vena were tired of working the Roller Derby and skating hard to keep up with the pack, jamming, blocking, and throwing punches when need be. Both were bruised, scarred, and looking to opt out of the racket when they hit our midway in Redding, California. Penn Cranna’s “Well of Hell” drome was packing them in. They’d heard the roaring drone and crowd cheers and it struck a chord in them and they were willing to wait in the crowded line through a full show to climb the stairs and get a peek.
By the time they got to the walkway they were giddy with excitement and seeing Dorothy Schoonmaker riding sidesaddle around the wall, they knew where they wanted to go. I’m not going to get into it, but there were more than exhaust fumes in the air. Girls will be girls.
They stayed to watch a half-dozen shows, talking between themselves over the roar of the engines. Dot took note of them after her second run and gave them a wink. Later that night, they snuck onto the backlot and introduced themselves. After a couple compliments and laid-back chit-chat, the three of them took off and didn’t come back to the lot until the next morning.
The other bike riders were suspicious when Dot announced she had new “partners.” Bonnie was beefier than half the guys there and Vena had turned on the charm. There was confusion and suspicion all `round. The “partners” bit had them all scratching their heads. What kind of partners?
Straight off, Penn said, “No good” explaining his crew cut wasn’t big enough to pay for any hire-ons. Besides, neither of the women could handle a cycle and he already had a gal, so why add two newbies? He stared at them hard and stood his ground. Dot nodded and looked from Bonnie to Vena to Penn.
“Fine,” she said, “I’m gone. Cash me out.”
Penn looked to his riders and mechanic to look for support. Nobody made a peep.
Like I said, Bonnie was a gruff farmgirl all of six feet tall and built like a well-digger. Vena was slim, seductive, and assertive, so the guys were careful about how they handled the new wannabe additions to their crew until they could figure out how they were going to lay it down. Or lay Vena down. If, that is.
You know, it’s always ad-lib `til you can suss it out. Then you take your best guess.
In those days, operators rarely had insurance, so everyone was “on their own” when it came to accidents and losses. At first, the crew argued about the women suffering physical injuries and the likelihood of track accidents with newcomers. Bonnie lifted the leg of her pants and showed a long, deep scar from sustaining a compound fracture during a derby pile-up, and Vena pushed a dental flipper out on her tongue holding her two front teeth. The guy’s concerns were shelved.
Still, Penn was resolute. “I don’t want or need more riders.”
Dot said, “They won’t be riders.”
“Then what?” Penn barked, coming to a rapid boil.
She said, “Watch. Just hold your mud and watch.”
Penn shook his head, “Nutso. Just plain crazy.”
Dorothy told Bonnie and Vena to skate up and head into the well while she warmed up her Indian. The rest of the crew went up on the catwalk expecting to watch a disaster. They got a surprise.
Dorothy kick-started her bike and started circling the floor, just below the inclined wall ramps. The skaters rolled in through the hatch door, wearing their old roller derby jerseys with new, black, inked-in names scrawled across their shoulders; Bonnie’s read “Assault” and Vena’s, “Pepper.” As the Indian passed them, they grabbed onto the back of its wide, leather seat and took off, up onto the ramp.
The crew stared at a sight they had never seen before.
The skaters were used to high-speed maneuvers, whipping each other ahead with a shove, and juking back and forth to change positions. Once they were sideways on the wall, they were as at home there as on the flat and banked tracks they rolled over for years. Dorothy roared forward and Bonnie yanked Vena’s arm and whipped her ahead of the cycle, past the front wheel. She spun around, skating backward, and held the handlebars.
Above her, the crew went goggle-eyed. Penn instantly knew this stunt alone was worth jacking up the admission price. He cooled down as he ran numbers in his head. He had the oddest habit. When he was thinking business, he stuck his hand in his pants pocket and jingled coins. He always had a load of coins in there.
Nervous, I guess.
Bonnie and Vena had to maintain just over thirty miles an hour to skate sideways while standing upright, so the bike strained under the increased load, blowing smoky exhaust and backfiring all the way `round. Remember, they were now several times their own weight – Bonnie was 180 on solid ground – so there was a fair amount of muscle strength involved. The overall effect was staggering, inciting a morbid fascination in the crew that rubberneckers succumb to when they slow down to stare at traffic wrecks.
Each spin around the drome promised a crash.
Vena pushed off the handlebars and spun to face forward, juked to the side, slowed, and veered down to the ramps while Bonnie pulled up next to Dot and took the controls. Dot spun backward and raised her hands as Bonnie steered and handled the twistgrip accelerator until she spun back again and took over the controls. Bonnie let go and coasted down to the floor, but misjudged the ramp, fell hard, and tumbled into the parked bikes on the floor. Dot cut power, dropped down quickly, and made a couple circles on the floor before ditching the Scout and coming to Bonnie’s aid.
Penn and the crew rushed down to the hatch door, but by the time they got there, all three women were outside, excited and laughing about their performance. All eyes were on Bonnie who held up her left hand for Penn to see; the pinkie was dislocated, pointing sideways at an odd angle from her palm.
“See?” he said.
Bonnie grabbed the pinkie with her right hand, pulled it straight, and set it back in its joint without making a sound. She waved the pinkie at Penn.
“See?” she said.
And that was it. They were in. Penn hung a new banner on the drome; “MOTOR ROLLER GIRLS!
By the end of that season, all three Roller Girls had silver, metallic leathers with “MRG” embroidered on the jacket’s back, skin-tight pants, and knee-high black boots. They never used helmets, leaving Dot and Vena’s brunette hair to fly in the wind and Bonnie’s short “butch cut” to stand tall above her forehead. Dot understood that her partners were… as they say, “partners” and kept clear of getting between them. She knew Bonnie had a short fuse.
Vena, on the other hand, had a working arrangement with Bonnie to bring in extra cash by “dating” the Clems – fleecing them - and occasionally doing likewise with interested women. There was never any sex, per se, that was the hard and fast rule between her and Bonnie – but there were seductive trysts and expensive gifts and, more often than not, cash for the taking. A cheek kiss or prolonged hug was the pay-off for the chump, that and a whispered “We must do this again” to stave off the overheated swain. I called the con, “a peck and a promise.”
With her sharp looks, a short skirt, and drenched in perfume, she took to fattening her roll by wing-dingin’ in the back of the crowd at the ten-in-one stage. The talker would bally up a juicy crowd and, when he brought out a strong freak, she’d shriek and swoon into some sugar daddy to create a hubbub and swell the crowd. The talker would grab the attention to have the crowd move forward – toward the stage – to “give her room to breathe.” Get a bunch of marks to follow three of your commands and you own them.
For this, she got a modest cut of the take and, often as not, a potential sucker that night for her “peck `n promise” con.
Bonnie thrived on playing jealous and many times lorded it over Vena to make her feel like she was a whore. Just idle crap and half-joking insults all the time, even in front of the other drome riders. That was catnip to those rough boys, each figuring if there might be some workable angle to score Vena. They heard what they wanted to hear in the insults and their imaginations ran wild. Riders had their hands full anyway with flocks of small-town girls who saw sexy guys and a ticket to anywhere else. Cranna became an expert at cooling down and flagging off outraged fathers.
Bonnie kept on teasing Vena who started getting her back up about it, but the side cash and pawnable gifts were enough to keep them both hooked up; eating top-shelf and living what looked like happy. So, it never came to blows. I figure all the gravy covered their meat and potatoes.
Look, I know everyone has some kind of kink – from craving raisin cookies to poking in a phone booth. What you do in your off-time is nobody’s business, but I kept a wary eye on the girl’s grift when they started badger-baiting married guys.
Vena’d agree to a dinner with some fat dupe, or fish around a gin joint for a tipsy mark, or stroll along a shady lane and chat up a passing admirer. Bonnie would be off aways, watching her like a hawk. They worked out a bunch of hand signals and cues, so they could to let the pot come up to a boil before barging in. Bonnie’d be full of piss and vinegar, accusing Vena of being unfaithful, then bum-rush the guy – puff-`up big in his face –threatening to pound him. Or, as I said, occasionally smack a hot-to-trot gal. Either way, the mark would be scared stiff trying to puzzle out the lesbian angle and – as I said, Bonnie was a sizable gal, dressed like a lumberjack who’s never been in a forest – and getting between two women in a liaison back then was more dangerous than it is now.
Bonnie tagged a few guys; broke some noses and blackened eyes. The cops might show up on the lot the next day, but since we were always on the move, the law had problems connecting her to the assault. That was a bonus for Bonnie – a benefit of being ‘with it.’ Nothing made her happier. She got into the other kinds of scraps after that, and once or twice wound up skating a stint in stoney lonesome by the skin of her teeth. She got a serious buzz being on the edge.
They were a drome hit for a couple of seasons and the newspapers and film outfits went nuts, since speed, thrills, and sexy women were their bread and butter. Hang on, that’s two sexy women and Bonnie. But like all new amusements, their shine wore off and the lust for money took over. From that point, fame meant nothing to them; outright greed replaced the showbiz kick and blotted out whatever remained of smarts.
I’m not setting up a parable here. God knows I just say what I’ve seen. Perhaps that’s where parables come from. Paying attention, keeping your nose clean, and learning the lingo. There are plenty of meathead boo-boos in my own tawdry tale. Some say the flubs are life lessons, others say they’re a result of not paying attention to past lessons. Bonnie’s haywire snap was a doozy, so you might never need to heed her lesson.
Cranna knew, upfront, that the girls were an “item” as they say. They were “in the life.” But some guys either miss that or figure out they can ‘turn them straight.” Not that it was hard to figure; on the street, Bonnie wore blue-collar duds or leisure suits, a big Seiko Diver watch, and she smoked cigarillos – little brown cigars. Damn things had ten times the nicotine of Luckies. Cranna hated the stink and eventually cracked that, “You’ll likely get lung cancer from them. Bonnie took a deep drag and blew the smoke in his face.
“Is that so?” she snarled, “If I do, I’ll cough up the tumors and spit `em out!” And with that, she spit on the ground next to his shoes.
A hard-edged woman; not the cuddle-bug type.
I know all this because I heard it described a dozen times by as many Show Folk. All Carny folk speak three languages: plain English, Ciazarney - Carny slang, and dirt gossip. Everybody knows everybody’s business and everybody’s dirty, wet wash. It’s how we stay neighborly.
The word on the lot? Bonnie was trouble.
Vena, on the other hand, was a slim, foxlike girl with the nails, the hair, push-up bra - you know - the works. Guys went daffy when she was around. She wore this musky perfume that left a vapor trail behind her that worked like catnip. Naturally, she could walk through a bally crowd and have men shoving each other to get a look or outright tag after her.
They had a racket and they worked it like there was no tomorrow and, my-my, how the money rolled in.
Well, that’d be enough blow about them birds to earn my flask for tomorrow. No need to blabber on about what turned out to be a sad tale.
Look at the time. I've been talking for near 40 minutes. That can be part one, I guess.
(Pause in tape)
A sad tale.
(Pause in tape)
Aw Hell, I’ll go on, second bottle notwithstanding. Ordinarily, that’d be a one-bottle story, but these two birds were a whole `nother something. So, whether there’s another pint or what, it’s not even midnight. I’ll lay it out.
I call this part “trouble in paradise.”
Back when there were doo-wop groups, leather jackets, and guys conking their pompadour with grease, there was a hit song everybody got stuck in their ear; Trouble in Paradise.” Love songs about joy or pain or loss, anger, or lust are just songwriters covering all the bases. But this song, added a twist; it was about worry. Everybody got to know the words and sang along with the radio since it had a bouncy, happy tune… but there was a sniff of doom it. I’m sure some sad sacks recognized what the words described and listened in silence, maybe while nursing their wounds.
"There's trouble in paradise, my turtledove's changing wings. There's trouble in paradise, the birds no longer sing."
For Bonnie Compton, trouble hit her paradise like a sledgehammer.
Again, during their glory days, money rolled in and there were new clothes, a fancy, done-up bunk wagon, and vino with their steaks. I don't know if people still call that kind of take “easy street,” but seems like easy street has been torn up and replaced with low-rent apartments, fast-food grabs, and motels. Evolution in the wrong direction or just plain rot. You figure.
No matter, they had it damn good. Then everything changed pronto.
Roland was dealing with the cough that never goes away and winding down a bit. Naturally, everybody had his ear – lot temps, roughnecks, grab joint cooks, veterans, the whole show - and he knew every detail about every damn thing that needed handling. We kept each other in the know. Forewarned is forearmed.
Midway into the season, Vena missed a week of shows claiming girl problems, cramps, puking, and what have you. Bonnie carried on with Dot doing a two-girl act — should say, a two-woman act. Same cycle, same pitch at the drome, but a lot less thrilling for the crowd. How they worked things out after-hours I have no idea. Minus Vena, the act was half-baked but, for a spell, they still packed them in and Cranna said the box was great. So, he got his skim, and the gals had no complaints from him. So far, workable.
This arrangement went on until, after a couple weeks, it stopped feeling temporary and Vena didn't seem to be getting any better. Only when Bonnie and Dot were the blow-off act at the end of the show, did the crowd start walking out. They got moved to middle-act and bannered as “BonDot – Speed Sisters!”.
The opener slot was Kit Jareau, a semi-pro football jock who was cut for packing his nose with daffy dust and bird-dogging all the dollies. His drome stage banner on the read, “Justin Zane – Two-Wheel Daredevil!” This show handle set up the talker to say, “How DOES he ride on the walls?” as Kit stepped onstage and yelled, “I’M JUSTIN ZANE!” The bastard was nuttier than a fruitcake and rode the big barrel like a lunatic. Cranna’s power-opener, golden boy.
“BonDot? That’s a laugh!” Jareau said, teasing the women, “In Quebec we say bonne dot, but it means small dowry like a gift for marriage or someone having a God-given talent. So tell me, girls, since we are not talking about talent here, when do you two plan to marry?”
And with that, he made two enemies at once.
Despite her aches and nausea and vomiting, Vena continued to refuse seeing doctors or geting checked out at a hospital. She pushed a bit too hard on her “wait-and-see” or “it’ll-pass” gripe. But it didn't jell, and being stubborn became her all-purpose excuse to lay around, goldbrick, and whine about everything.
Roland filled me in with all the details about their blooming discontent and advised me to expect bitter fruit.
By week three, Bonnie was getting sick too, sick of the bull. Pressure took a toll, and she took to having a pop or two in the morning… and a few more after wrapping up after the last show. Not so much sauce that she couldn't skate or drive, but enough to lay aside her aches and lighten up her daily headache a bit. At the same time, it was turning her heart colder than a snake sleeping in the shade. Her anger at Vena’s shirking came on strong and she started ragging everyone else’s ass instead. She carried a hip flask and, with a couple swigs or a couple cans of malt liquor under her belt, she ditched all pretense of being congenial and her nasty – I say, damned vengeful - side came on strong. She was not a happy drunk.
There was one knock-down fistfight at the drome where, I was told, she gave as good as she got.
Realizing that could get her bounced, the big woman punched herself in the face until she drew blood from her nose and claimed the throwdown was self-defense; jealous guys and all that, but Penn never believed her.
Things got lots messier from there.
One of the other riders told Roland that Bonnie had tagged Vena a couple times, once leaving a fist hickey on her cheekbone that she hid with makeup. The black and blue bruise was ringed with purple `round the edges, a sign that the blow must have been a stiff one.
The bickering and fighting went on for a few more days before Bonnie bet it all and spun the big wheel.
Monday morning, with no show that day and no need to be sober, Bonnie got half a bag on and decided she was sick to death of Vena’s waiting-to-get-better bullshit. She shoved Vena into the sidecar of a Drome display bike, and they took off. Roughies, up early to rake the midway, said you could hear them screaming at each other as they drove off to God knows where. They had no map, were in a strange town, and weren’t paying attention to where they were headed… wherever they thought they were headed.
I’ve heard some say that God sends special angels to watch over fools and drunks. In this case, he had both hands full. Maybe that’s why they drove almost straight to the only clinic in that Cowtown; one clinic and one doctor who also handled veterinarian calls. What you’d call rustic.
In the clinic’s waiting room, the birds stopped singing and the heartbreak began. Vena demanded a nurse rather than a doctor to examine her and Bonnie thought nothing of it, preferring to have no truck with MDs.
They had a different riff about male and female business and that was their way, so be it. But when Vena was led to the clinic's tiny exam room, Bonnie was told to wait where she was.
After a while, the nurse returned but refused to tell Bonnie the diagnosis.
“We can’t make a releasable diagnosis until the doctor arrives. Policy.”
Bonnie got up in her face, “No good. We’re leaving.”
“I’m sorry, who are you to the patient?” the woman said, "Family?"
"You're fucking-a I am!" Bonnie shouted and shoved the woman aside to step around the exam room’s privacy curtain.
Vena was a sight; propped up against pillows in the bed, arms spread wide, head tilted back staring at the ceiling, open-mouthed, moaning out loud.
None of this made sense to Bonnie and she set her face in a fierce scowl at being out in the cold, no doctor, no discussion of the symptoms, no guess at the cause, no advice for treatment.
"What the fuck is going on? What's wrong with you?"
Days later, those words were the repeated gossip joke on the lot. "What the fuck is going on? What's with you?" All the joint operators and grab joint cooks had had it with both the girls. “Not show folk.” They grumbled, “Friggin’ townies.”
Vena raised her head and stared at Bonnie glassy-eyed and unfocused. "I don’t know what I have. They don't know. It might be something I ate at the greasy grab. Bad meat that turned? Spoiled?"
"Don’t even start that shit! I eat the grab food too! That's bullshit.”
She stepped back around the curtain and turned on the nurse who was motioning to a janitor.
“Where's your fucking croaker? You stupid skag! He better know what's up with her!”
The woman smiled and spoke as if she was addressing a six-year-old, “My name is Geelan. Clinic Manager Geelan. The doctor is not scheduled to be here at the clinic until tomorrow.” then sharply, “He’s predisposed." She paused watching Bonnie's eyes, then added, "We can't do anything until then. And you’ll need to wait in the waiting room. You are getting in the way."
Pissed off, Bonnie looked around, then railed at the janitor, “YOU! This whore is a pain in my ass.! I want her out of here!" The old man nodded eagerly, shrugged, and spoke in a singsong to his mop as he dunked it in the wash bucket.
“Good morning, I’m the mop doctor. How are we feeling today?” he looked back at Bonnie and pointed to the bucket, “Hmm. Looks a little pale.”
Bonnie growled and turned back to the nurse who was waving at the janitor to get his attention. “Go to my office and call Doctor Blue. Tell him to hurry and bring his little black bag. It’s an emergency case.”
The man set the mop aside and left to make the call. “Doctor Blue. On the double.”
Bonnie took a deep breath and whispered, "Was that so hard, Missy? Your head out of your ass now?” Then shook her fist in the woman’s face, “If you didn’t have that silly little hat on your head, I’d fix your mood, but good.”
“Noted.” Geelan said, looking at her aide who was watching intently. “Hear that?” The girl nodded, then looked away.
Vena heard Bonnie’s drunken rage and knew she was headed toward getting physical as she had during the past weeks, so she blurted out. "I think I may need an operation; do you understand? They must look for what's wrong, okay? Bon! You need to go back to the lot and hold down the fort!”
The big gal growled and stormed into the clinic's reception area. She pulled at a chair but didn’t notice it was connected to the chair next to it. “SHIT!” she bellowed, picking them both up and smashing a table lamp and vase next to them. "Who the fuck can get their head out of their ass and tell me what the FUCK is going on here? You call this a hospital?"
The receptionist grabbed her purse and exited into the rear of the clinic, muttering, “Mayday. Mayday...”
Geelan raised her voice, “It’s not a hospital. The hospital is thirty miles away. Maybe that’s where you wanted to be.” said the nurse. “I am asking you to leave our clinic.”
Bonnie flung another chair and swept all the brochures and clipboards from the reception counter with her arm. Stomping around the room, she smashed everything that wasn’t nailed down. The nurse’s aide panicked until Geelan took her by the arm and whispered, “Midazolam, stat.” The aide squinted, “Dose?” The nurse sized up Bonnie, “Ten mil.” The aide hurried off, “Ten. Gotcha’.”
The chaos subsided when the front door opened, and two policemen stepped in. One was an older, gray-haired, husky sergeant with a thick, white mustache, the other was a young patrolman with a military-style crew cut. They stood silently, taking in the damage.
The older cop fixed his eyes on Bonnie who was clutching a shattered flowerpot.
“Re-decorating, are we? Why don’t you set that down and we can talk about what’s going on?”
Bonnie dropped the clay shard and shot a fierce look at the nurse. “You made this happen. You are unprofessional. You!” she screamed.
Geelan ignored her and nodded to the gray-haired cop. “Doctor Blue. So glad you could make it. We need a consult here. This woman wants to know what’s wrong with a woman she brought in before she is willing to leave. Which should be right now.”
“I’m Sergeant Harding, Ma’am. Just need a minute of your time.”
He looked around at the wreckage and acted surprised. “Hmm… someone’s been busy. Well, who did this?” he said, pointing to Bonnie, “You? Or… the other woman… who is… where?”
The aide pointed to the exam room.
“Okay…” he said, “Which one is Compton? Bonnie Compton?”
The janitor pointed to Bonnie, then pointed to the exam room, adding, “I don’t know what her name is.” which baffled the nurse.
“I see. And who owns the motorcycle?”
Bonnie, still pumped up from her rampage, snapped, “I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it from where I work. It was an emergency. My woman is very sick and said she probably needs an operation.” turning to the nurse, “Right? When the doctor gets here? It’s an emergency, right? Tell them!”
Geelan responded matter-of-factly “Doctor Deming may, if time permits, stop by later to determine her problem. If not today, then tomorrow. This woman,” pointing at Bonnie, “Miss Compton, is it? has decided that violence is the appropriate method for dealing with medical issues.”
Harding took another quick look around the room and looked Bonnie in the eye.
“Well, Ma’am, how’s all that working out for you?
Bonnie glared at him. “I am here with a sick woman. I don’t have to leave.”
“That’s admirable. We are here about the motorcycle. Registered to a Mr. Cranna?” then, checking a notepad, “Blue `51 Harley Davidson FL with sidecar…” he pulled the curtain back from the waiting room window and looked outside, then pulled the curtain back further to reveal the motorcycle and turned to Bonnie, “…as a decorator, what would you call that out there? A Robin’s Egg Blue? Faded Jade?” then added, “Wife says I’m terrible with colors.”
“I borrowed it.” Bonnie snapped, “It was an emergency.”
The young cop fished a pack of gum out of his pocket and offered Bonnie a piece. “Beeman’s?” he said, “It’s got that fresh clove flavor.”
“No.”
“Borrowed? Uh-huh.” Harding repeated, scribbling in his notebook, “Check. And… how were you planning to return it?”
“Same way I got it here.”
Haddigan offered the gum again. Bonnie shut her eyes shook her head.
Harding watched them, closed the pad, put it in his shirt pocket, leaned close to her face, and sniffed.
“Haddigan?”
The patrolman stood at attention. “Sir?”
“I’m not smelling any fresh, clove scent over here. Smells like Rye. Wasn’t there an empty bottle in that sidsecar?”
“Yes, Sir. Old Overholt. Rye.” Haddigan stuck his tongue out, then added, “Old Overcoat.”
          The patrolman smiled at Bonnie, waved the gum limply, shrugged, and stuck it back in his pocket.
“Alrighty then,” Harding said, counting off offenses on his fingers, “Felony theft vehicle, operating a motor vehicle while inebriated, destruction of private property… uh,” he shot a glance to the nurse who nodded solemnly. “…and threatening, assault, menacing? We’ll figure it out at the station.” He drew his handcuffs and nodded to Haddigan.
“Miss Compton, you are going to have to ask you to come with us.”
Haddigan cackled, “Say, maybe you can decorate our drunk tank!”
Bonnie raised her fist, “The Hell, you say.”
The policemen laughed and Haddigan drew his nightstick. “Easy now, Bertha. Wouldn’t want to put a part in that pretty hairdo.”
That set her off. She grunted like a bull and drove at the sergeant, who stepped aside to let the patrolman lay out a wicked backhand swing. Bonnie went down on the spot, blood flowing from a deep laceration in her scalp.
“Fuck,” she said, “FUCK! I’ll fucking kill you!”
Geelan took a hypodermic from her aide and plunged it into Bonnie’s arm and, though she struggled to get up, Haddigan was kneeling on her back. The wind went out of her, and she sunk to the floor.
“She’ll be out cold pretty quick.” Geelan said, “And out for a half hour or more.” She looked at the wound, “Guess she will get to stay here – at least `til we suture that.”
Harding sucked at his teeth and grunted. “The owner didn’t want her hurt, said she was a performer at his carny show.” He looked to Haddigan.
“I don’t think that a few stitches will show under her gorilla costume.” Haddigan added, snorting and grinning.
Geelan smiled weakly. “We’ll get this sorted out and give you a call,” then, to the janitor, “Get Jerry to come help get this woman into Exam Two.”
After the cops came back to the Drome, we got an earful and decided to run out to check in and pick up the Harley. Around that time, Boz was dealing with what he assumed was a cough he’d had since being gassed at Passchendaele. Mustard gas; a slow killer. Later, when blood appeared, a doc let him know that it was cancer. I took over most of his day-to-day responsibilities and life became gray.
So, I rode out with Cranna and Jareau to pick up the bike.
The car talk was all about second thoughts about hiring on those two wildcards and how they were fast becoming a pain in everybody’s ass.
“We are an odd lot, doing what we do, “
Cranna had a point. Jareau just hated them from the get-go. “Skate Girls” he called them, “Derby Dykes.” Cranna cleared his throat and shot him a look. Jareau grinned like a possum, loving that he had put a bug up Cranna’s ass.
“Just speaking gospel, Pendleton, isn’t that so?” he said, earning a muttered, “Fuck you!” from Penn. That shut off all talk for the rest of the ride.
Penn was Paul Cranna’s nickname, given to him by his fellow inmates at Pendleton Correctional Facility where he did a six year stretch for killing a man. During a bar brawl; he hit guy with a beer mug and laid his head open. To look at him, you wouldn’t think he’d do something that drastic, but I’m sure Jareau’s poke rankled him enough to bring on a heap bad memories.
When we got to the clinic, Geelan, her aide, and the janitor talked our ears off about every detail of Bonnie’s rampage and the justification for sedating her. There was much more detail than we wanted but we listened politely.
Big event in a small tent, as that goes.
Bonnie was still knocked out, lying in a hospital bed, and Geelan planned on keeping her that way until the doctor arrived. He wasn’t due to be there until the next day, but the situation called for some attention since it had gotten out of hand. Jareau laughed.
“Ah, she looks so peaceful. Resting in peace?”
Cranna pointed at him and gave him a long, hard stare. “Can it, Kit. That’s not how my riders fly.”
Jareau clammed up and headed toward the receptionist, no doubt to flirt and brag. “Who’s Kit? I’m Justin Zane, Boss.”
Geelan’s aide brought the doctor’s veterinarian bag. They mixed a vial of clear liquid into glass of water, roused Bonnie and had her lean up to sip. A few uneasy swallows and she slumped back down on the pillow, looking raddled and talking muzzy,
“I have to get back… the 2 o’clock spin.”
“Doctor wants her sedated until he gets here.” The aide said.
I looked at Penn, who saw this incident turning into the kind of townie hot water that could spell trouble for the lot; chatter about violence or crime at the show, a sure pinch in the box. Probably thumbing through his memories of another split skull, given his thousand-yard stare.
“I’ve had it with this one. Not cut out for the life.’ he said.
The town’s Sheriff walked in, looking more than a bit annoyed.
“Mr. Fairbank? Mr. Cranna?”
We nodded, and he held up a piece of paper, “A Mr. Brimmer, out at the fairgrounds said either of you should read this and tell me how you’d like to proceed.”
I took the slip and read, “She walks if we square up the locals and hit the road. We stay, she’s in jail until arraignment.”
“What’s the charge?” I asked.
The sheriff took back the paper and stuffed it in his pocket.
“Gentlemen? I’m not the D.A. Just a simple stay or go is all I need to know. I have shit to handle and you people are nothing but trouble looking for a buck. Staying?”
Penn looked at me and shrugged. I thought how Roland would decide. We only had two days before pulling up and moving anyway. Midweek, light crowds, but enough to make a further dent on our operating nut. Gas money and grub.
“She’s all yours, Sheriff. She can find us on the road.” I said, looking to Penn, then added, “What about the other woman?”
The Sheriff handcuffed Bonnie to the bed rail, “Not my problem,” he said. “When this one is patched, tell her I don’t want to see her in my county. Got it?”
We got it loud and clear.
The next day, we heard that Geelan had been giving Bonnie chloral hydrate, which had her loopy enough to answer all sorts of personal questions. Call it blackmail, but the end result put the fear of God in Bonnie, which was all Geelan wanted. And the gash? They sewed it up with three, rather than six or eight stitches, which left a prizewinner scar at the hairline. An eye-catcher for sure. Must’ve changed the way people saw Bonnie from then on.
Vena was examined and found to be pregnant. She said she wouldn’t give it up, so Bonnie beat up several suspects. Last we heard; she was doing five to seven in Huron Valley up in Michigan. Lost touch after that except for Vena and the guy she married – an encyclopedia salesman who let her have her way with everything. No kid, though. No idea what happened there.
Crazy coincidence: the janitor, Johnny Blondell, was a flat track bike racer in his day and, after talking up Cranna, wound up joining the drome crew as a mechanic. Hell of a guy, even got up on the wall a few times to show up “the kids” as he called the other riders, “what’s what.” Eventually, he took over as exhibit manager and moved the whole kit and kaboodle to Sweden after Cranna gave up the ghost.
Looking at the big picture, the Bonnie and Vena whammy was a lesson in social choreography. Stay with the step and pay attention to the changes. Life serves up a new dance and we get the chance to trip the light fantastic or trip over our shoelaces. So, call it karma… but it was a just car crash.
Pure doo-wop; nonsense syllables to fill the holes in the song.
“There's trouble in paradise and heaven's not the same. The angels sit and cry. They say it's such a shame.”

TIPPI LECTORTIPPI LECTOR – PAINLESS SUFFERING
I somehow held onto a half-flask of last night’s pint so I have a bit more nip tonight than usual. Good. I sure need to wet my whistle for this tale.
It started this morning, when I saw an old woman at the Piggly Wiggly dressed like a cowgirl. A clear memory rolled in like a tidal wave while I was comparing packages of chopped meat.
The gal was decked out like Dale Evans in one of those Roy Rogers singing cowpoke flicks; all spangles and fringe, sequined Stetson tipped up on the back of her noggin, sporting a fancy embroidered riding dress with a little silver lame’ lariat coiled up on her belt.
I stared at her for a beat, thinking
Eh? Kook? Nah, probably a square dancer. Probably.
Then, I checked into my recall.
Old people say their memories fade like old photos, dimmed and cracked on brittle paper. But some reflections stay strong enough to grab hold of you and snatch you out of your day and square into the tattered snapshots. For me, those pictures riffled into a scratchy movie clip switching from one saved moment to another, from one unforgettable conversation to another, from one touch, kiss, laugh, heartache, to all of them.
Enthralled, I stood still and took it all in.
I thought about Gerry Nunnley, my sweetheart sideshow talker, the cowgirl friend who never felt any pain… except mine. For that, I still regret my mistakes… and her suffering.
There’s no sense in comparing one love to another, no way to change the past even if I could. We play our cards and win or lose the hand. In all honesty, pain and suffering are not the same. Get that wrong and it’s just nonstop pain, now, later, and spread over the whole shebang.
Gerry went by the name Tippi Lector when she was a bally caller with the Southern Amusement outfit in the 70s. We booked in to handle midway joint management between the front box and El Circo del Tigre, a cat-heavy, two tent outfit with clowns and acrobats. That’s what a midway is, the cash funnel between the box and the ring.
The tag, Tippi Lector, was an in-joke for show folk. The front of a midway crowd is called “forming a tip” and the soapbox podium where a talker barks is a lectern, so she took on the name “crowd lecturer.”
Gerry wore a get-up that made her look like the Queen of the Rodeo: embroidered wrangler blouse, a skimpy buckskin skirt, lowcut cowgirl boots, a pair of jeweled gauntlets, a red neckerchief, and a star-splashed, shoulder sash that made her out to be a sultry vaquero ginned-up for a dreamy, ride-and-rope frolic. Catnip to the boys.
That stole my heart and rattled everything below my waterline.
She kept her blonde hair dyed a chestnut brown to ditch her Hollywood sexpot looks for a rough and ready, Western flash. She had grit galore and everybody wanted some of it.
Germaine joined the company as a nail-board hoodoo’s assistant. The guy called himself Jabbar Waleed – The Human Pincushion! He swallowed swords, stuck nails into his chest, pushed big needles through his arms, walked on broken glass, you know, your standard Indian fakir routine. Of course, he was a faker all right, but Germaine was hired on as a prop girl wearing a skimpy-costume to assist him – hand him knives and things, act shocked at the right time, and wiggle about if crowd lost interest.
In time, she figured out the dupe and became a jackpot attraction.
Gerry was born with a medical condition called congenital pain insensitivity and had never felt pain since birth. Her parents each had half the ancestry it takes to give it to their kid, but neither had the faintest idea what was in store.
Gerry could tell the difference between sharp and dull, or hot and cold, but too-hot coffee didn’t give her the sting she needed to spit it out. Her whole world had to be felt though her other senses. That’s probably why she took up with Waleed, who was actually Barry Lynch, a Black Irish double-dealer and hardcore felon with a hacking cough. He played dirty and tamed his bark with Terpin Hydrate cut with codeine so, a couple shots of hootch and he was off to the races. A hitter.
Along comes Gerry, who was naturally what he pretended to be, and, for Lynch, it was a stroke of luck made in heaven… his heaven.
The backlot folk called Jabbar “Jabberwocky” because he’d spit up all kinds of bally language mixed with highbrow jibber-jabber. He claimed to be an Ivy-league grad and an actor with the National Theatre, but he also claimed to be able to read minds. Brags and bull, his stock in trade. To the rubes, he was a legend. To everyone else, he was a hard-apple skirt-chaser who usually needed a bath and a slap in the chops.
His brag was respectable doubletalk and his show banner said it all:
“Prince Waleed! Medium! Adept! Potentate! Medical miracle! Never before witnessed by human eyes, now here in your beautiful area! An ascended master of the Hindu arts! Trading excruciating pain and untold suffering for an open door to the higher realm of consciousness! All shall be revealed in this once-in-a-lifetime exposition of power -the power of the human mind! Watch closely and you will see miracles that defy explanation! Prince Waleed! Here now!
Gerry picked up on everything Barry knew about drawing a crowd and separating them from cash. On the other hand, she had nothing to teach him. What she was made her the star of the ten-in-one Fakir racket. No pain, no fear. Barry took the podium.
First time I saw her, she was dragging the lot, drawing a crowd, walking along wearing outsized fishhook earrings. Real goddamned fishhooks. I figured they were gaffed; rigged with a magnet or some other gimmick, but she tugged at one and it was clear that the damned thing went clean through her earlobe as a drop of blood ran down the steel. The mumbling crowd swelled around her, shuffling along as she traipsed on; they stared at her, pointed at her, as she made her way to the sideshow stage.
Now, I’d done a bit of fishing over the years, even worked tuna boats out of San Diego with the hook-scarred Vatos who worked the poles, slapping the water to snag a frenzied Bluefin from the school, but Gerry’s hooks were bigger, some kind of one-offs; say five, six inches long, bright shiny steel, and tipped with a nasty barb. For a second, I thought she might be a townie girl just looking to make a splash, but she smiled and nodded and sashayed by the looky-loos, leading them toward her stage’s tent flap, and, just like that, she ducked inside. Out hops Waleed, wearing a Dhoti and piled-high turban, holding a bell-topped walking stick. He shook the bell and went into his spiel.
“Have you all come to meet my tutee? My loyal student? Shakti Uma! The woman who strides the Path of Raja? That holy road of meditation and enlightenment? Will you spend ten of your precious minutes witnessing ALL her powers and abilities? Will you abandon your fickle disbelief once in the presence of her confounding miracles of mind and flesh? Wearing only the most modest garments of a priestess, she submits to the mortification of her sacred body while ascending the Karmic ladder of wisdom! All for your education and elucidation! Twenty-five little pennies in exchange for five thousand years of radiance! A pittance for an abundance of supernatural elation! Step up to the booth while there is still room within the tent! Hurry now, as she is preparing for her unveiling! ”
Jabberwocky, right? But in that hodge-podge of fifty-cent mumbo-jumbo, he hit the nail on the head, for me. There is something magical that happens after suffering, be it a boon or doom.
Germaine ran with this gambit for a couple seasons, alternating piercings and healings to wow crowd after crowd. More than the bed of nails, stepping on broken glass, and sustaining darts and arrows hitting her legs, she smiled through birch switch hits and bullwhip welts.
Her body didn’t experience pain the way we do but she got tired of being Waleed’s meal-ticket and staving off infections. Having learned enough bally lingo to move on to the front of the stage, she went straight talker, fronted a bunch of other attractions, and pulled out the “Lynch pin.”
At the time, I didn’t connect that she went on to represent oddities - deformed or mutilated folks, hard-luck cases, and unfortunates.
She couldn’t feel her pain, but she sure as Hell could feel others’, so she skipped the device freaks and cons. He interest was only those who suffered their mutation or injuries, her heart was open to that, so the sideshow became her family.
I fell in love with her. Try as I might, I couldn’t clinch exactly what it was: the way her smile was pulled down a little at the corners, the way she raised an eyebrow when she spoke to me, maybe how her voice was so unlike her bally hoopla. Maybe all these and more.
When Gerry spoke to me, she seemed to whisper her sweet words, like a hushed aria gently sung from her heart. There was no way her voice could have expressed more affection and what she said was as clear as a shout.
Maybe I was like a boy listening to an angel, only wanting her to see me as worthy of her continued interest. And, for a while she did.
Let me explain why I came the long way around my story to how Gerry holds a place in my world.
In `85, a string of tornadoes danced across southern Wisconsin and an F5 – a whopper – landed in Barneveld and tore up the county.
We were about a half-hour away, camped outside Madison, looking at a month of bookings along Route 18 toward Iowa. The forecast was sketchy, and most of the 30 or so tornadoes that eventually swept through leveled everything in their path. So we hunkered down and waited for a break in the crazy.
Gerry holed up at my wagon, saying, “Let’s stick this out together. A second set of mitts might come in handy if a tornado makes scrap out of our caravan and we have to dig our way out of the remains.”
I might have bought that line, but she had brought along a basket of hard rolls, ham, wine, and a candle.
“Are we having a picnic?” I asked.
She smiled and I felt something shake inside me.
“Could be,” she purred, “unless the wind has its way with us and it winds up being our last meal.”
I let out a single “Huh!” giving a nod to the gag but holding back what was running through my mind.
Looking back, there’s not a thing I would change about that moment. Her voice, that sly grin, her rock-solid style; everything I found irresistible in a gal. The storm night lay ahead and, in honesty, if a tornado came and it was my time to check out, I’d have felt complete. Yet, I had no design on this glorious person other than to share the moment, drink in her friendship, accept the love that shined from her eyes. Anything more on my part would only shout my schoolboy preoccupation.
Gerry lit the candle and got to work on the wine bottle cork.
She piped up, “I wonder if a tornado is a guy or a girl.”
I just shrugged and waited for the pay-off. When she asked an oddball question, it was usually a set-up for something she wanted to spring on you. It’s what a good teacher does, isn’t it?
I wanted the lesson.
“Go on,” I said.
“I got to thinking about all the hurricanes named Audrey and Isadore, Betsy and Jeanne.” She said, “I know they started giving them male names a few years back, but that’s not my point. Why did it start with gal name hurricanes in the 50s?”
“Something to do with Mother Nature?”
“Better,” Gerry added. “It has more to do with blind rage. A hurricane doesn’t target a specific area in particular, it just sweeps through making rubble out of homes, and lives, and dreams. Then, the very center of the mayhem brings calm and promises relief from the fury for a while. Until the other side of the storm delivers a second blow to the two- or three-hundred-mile storm front. Unlike a tornado that moves from spot to spot, yanking individual targets, one-by-one, up and into the whirlwind. Almost methodical in its destruction. A very male tactic.”
I bit.
“I went through Hurricane Celia down at the Gulf in `70. She beat downtown Corpus Christi to a pulp and took out a couple dozen people before blowing through. That’s a girl?”
Gerry picks up the drift.
“Celia destroyed everything precious, smashed the dishes, flung belongings out onto the lawn, wrecked the car, sound familiar?”
I saw her point, “A woman scorned?”
“Just a thought. Destruction over hundreds of square miles versus a tornado’s devastation line – a mile wide and maybe forty, fifty miles long.”
She poured the wine into paper cups.
“We have nothing to worry about tonight.” She said with a grin.
Her roundabout made me wonder where she was leading, but, just as casually, she handed me a cup and raised hers for a toast.
“Here’s to living through storms and not having to live in the rubble.”
We drank up and she reached to refill my cup, but held onto my hand and waited for my unbroken attention.
“I spoke with Roland the other day.”
I let her words hang in the air. I speak with Roland every day. Where is this going?
“After close, we had a few belts and were getting tipsy. We spilled the beans… all the beans. I told him about my mother and the safety pin and he told me about your father and the World’s Fair.”
Gerry looked into my eyes and waited until I had a moment to shuffle all the feelings her words dredged up.
“You and I have had hurricanes and tornados, right, Boz?”
“Old-growth wood there, Gerr. Felled, chopped, and stacked by the hearth for kindling. I left my father’s and his sins in the past.”
“A tornado,” she whispered, “I understand. But there wasn’t a better man than Roland for you to look up to. He’s a natural. Heaven sent.”
“Yeah. I owe him everything. But I’d never ask anyone about their childhood. People wear their life on their face and, for most, it’s not a happy tale. I don’t want to see their scars.”
“What do you see in my scars?” Gerry asked.
She unbuttoned the top of her blouse and pushed out her left shoulder. Her skin was a rosy tan with a scattered web of scars, some small, some longer and jagged. The sight of the shiny ridges made me draw in a breath so quickly, I feared it would seem rude; an affront to her vulnerability. But she smiled and bared her other shoulder with a carefree flick of her hand.
“What do you see?”
It took a moment for me to find words that wouldn’t dampen her affections or deny my regard for her.
“A life. A burden pressed into a choice. A chosen path that has a sane destination and the learned wisdom to follow it.”
“Boz, If I didn’t know you as a handsome, good-hearted soul, I’d love you for being a whip-smart operator. An odd choice of words for a woman who took a whipping for a paycheck. Isn’t it?”
There must be a word for what her bared shoulders and seductive gaze did to me, but I’d never known such a feeling of excitement-tinged fear and expectation. Was she letting me know her desire? Was I misreading her?
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Then…” she leaned forward and brushed her lips against mine, “Say nothing.”
Such an innocent kiss and yet a shock ran through my chest.
“Gerry?”
“Boz?”
That moment, all was revealed. We laid back on my bunk and she told me of the hurricane that tore her life apart.
Her parents didn’t know about her condition until her mother, drunk and careless, safety-pinned a diaper through her hip. There was no cry of pain, but when her father saw blood on the cloth, he lost his temper and beat his wife. From then on, she never stopped drinking and the marriage fell to pieces. In the aftermath, Gerry’s mother destroyed everything that reminded her of her husband; the belongings, the photographs, the gifts they had given each other, treasured as physical proof of their bond, and held close when loneliness and despair crept in. To her and her daughter, there was no father.
Then Gerry summed up my tornado as told to her by Roland.
“Alcohol and two adults who couldn’t grow together. Looking for someone or something to fill the void when neither could be a parent and their young lover days had passed. I understand. I share a similar sadness, poor boy. But, all things being equal, I care even more about the man who was once that abandoned, disheartened boy. We survived, Boz. Those storms are only memories. They left damage, rubble that we have cleared.”
We looked into each other’s eyes, seeing both the child and the adult in each of us. Siblings, confidants, sharing a love borne of shared emptiness, grief, and self-doubt.
Gerry sat up, refilled our cups and offered me a deal.
“I don’t know how we will eventually feel about being friends in love like this. Wait and see seems like the best outlook for now. But, strangely, being lovers seems less personal, less selfless a commitment than where we are at now.”
We slept together that night, just holding each other and feeling completeness. And that was the day I accepted my past and felt the hole in my heart begin to heal.
(silence on tape, then)
Gerry stayed on for most of the next season, before leaving to, as she said, “Get a good look at the land.”
And, with that, I lost her to the world.


RESOURCES:Midway – there is no midway on a carnival, it’s all midway. A carnival is a midway without an accompanying circus. The term midway comes from the Midway Plaisance, the name of the amusement area at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. That area was a mix of amusements games and foreign pavilions showcasing (much like sideshows) “exotic cultures with their art and funny ways.” When games and sideshows were attached to a circus, the midway was the amusement area between the main ticket booth and the entrance to the big top, literally midway between the two, you would often hear sideshow ballys claiming that the big show that is to save the circus doesn’t start for 45 minutes so there’s plenty of time to see this entire exhibit.

TIMELINE:ROLAND:

BORN:
ARMY:
WOUNDED:
FAIR:

BOZ:

BORN: 1925
AGE AT FAIR: 14
DIED:

ELLE:

BORN:

LAMA TEMPLE SPIELWikipedia had this great bit of the original spiel for the Lama Temple, which partly convinced me that my photos were from this show. It's amazing that Herbert Taeffae recalled it word for word so many years later:
It might sound strange and a trifle incongruous having lovely girls in front of the million dollar temple of Jehol whose gold leaf roof you can see over the top of this façade, but the fact is that we have a girlie show in here and a good one.

The author of the book, Forbidden Tibet, Horizon Hunters and technical advisor of the picture, Lost Horizon, he doesn't want his good name associated with this scandalous enterprise as brought back from the land of the lost horizon, those Terpsichordion aphrodisiacs, the love temptation dancers from the lamaseries of Tibet. A lama is a Buddhist priest and as such he must remain celibate. He must be deaf to the calls of the flesh, immune to the pangs of passion, and adverse to the charms of beautiful women. In other words he must not marry or anything.

Once each year he is given a test. The questions of which are the unquestionable figures of questionable young ladies, courtesans brought from the outside world to corrupt the young lama and seduce him from his holy way of life.

Now ladies, this show has been approved by Good Housekeeping, but in case a stray moron seeking a racy spicy girl show is in this otherwise obviously intellectual audience, he too can go in there and not know the difference, but you, you lovers of art will surely recognize this show to be the apogee of oriental choreography.

The whole thing rises to a climax when Sasha and her hilarious horde of vivacious vestal virgins unite in that unclad climax, that orgiastic ecstasy at the tail end of our performance, the passion dance of love. It's terrific. Now once inside sit down as long as you like and admire the bare beautiful temple but those beautiful bare forms and they I say are not too formal. Go on right away. This being the first show of the afternoon I am going to cut the price of admission in half.
Everybody goes.

Alibi Store — A game in which the agent gives you an explanation of why you didn't win. Maybe "you threw the ball too fast," or somehow you violated the rules (leaned over the foul line, etc.) He often offers you a "better" chance to win (for another fee, of course) but you'll never win a thing, there's always some reason that disqualifies you. There's no gaff to hide when the authorities inspect, and there are big replay profits (until the mark catches on, of course, and starts a beef.)
After-Catch — Items sold to the "captive audience" of show patrons after they have paid their admission and seen the show.
After-Show — Blowoff (q.v.)
Afterpiece — A multi-gag comedy act closing a medicine show.

CharactersElle Fairbank - daughter
Boz Fairbank - orphan
Roland Brimmer – veteran
Dr. Bernhardt - family Dr.
Talia Napoli - daughter of Galeoto Napoli
Galeoto Napoli - lobster boy
Noel Grist - editorial helper
Anna Coleman Ladd - mask designer
Winslow Chalmers - tragic veteran
Travis Nichol - carny punk
Jimbo Kohler - strongman
Rowena Jimson - strongman’s wife
Marion Grayson - world’s fair nurse
Walter Kidman - mentalist
Petey’s Huggins - rowdy
Spence Spivak - card sharp
Lana Merola - mentalist
Bobbianne Patch - half man/half woman
Jess Heimendinger - mule Man
Johan Chichester - shooting gallery
Mr. Ried - shooter
CHARACTER NOTES:Strong Man – Jimbo Kohler
Half-Man, Half-Woman – Jenny Brewster
Sensitive Skin Woman

Mule Man – Jess Hiemendinger
Lobster Boy - Galeoto
Mind Reader – Jocko Sammis

Idiot/Savant – Lana Merola
Rubber Man
Small People

Limbless – Dannen McElroy
Multiple Limbs
Tattooed Girl – Bertina Doerr

The Mermaid – Marjorie Templeton
Alligator Girl – Doris
Microcephalic -

Bird Girl
Elephant Man
Ugliest Man/Woman – Bobbianne

Co-Joined Twins
Human Unicorn
Lion-faced Boy

Camel-legged Girl
Geeks
Pain-free Hindu Fakir

Freak Animals / Mutants

Aging Woman – “The closer you get, the older she looks!”
Mr. Electro

Sword Swallower

Gaff Banner — A very attractive banner promising a world of wonders and a plethora of famous attractions … with cleverly-worded bullets like "Past and Present" indicating that few (or none) of the attractions was actually there in the flesh. Photographs and other "museum" exhibits might show and tell you all about famous freaks.

born freaks, 'made freaks' like tattooed people, and working acts like sword swallowers and fire eaters.

STORY NOTES:Strength gets a bad rap these days. With every positive steroid test in the NFL, MLB and the Olympics, brute force takes a hit. But this new skepticism doesn't fray these old school guys. The oldest of the bunch is Joe Rolino, a 103-year-old former Coney Island strongman who at his peak only weighed 140 pounds but once lifted 450 pounds…with his teeth.

"The traditions are cultural history that could be lost," says Dennis Rogers, a 52-year-old Houston minister who straightens horseshoes like paperclips and drives nails bare-fisted through 2-by-4s (or through a frying pan for an added degree of difficulty).

Rogers keeps tradition alive one bent spike at a time. He founded Oldtime Strongman University, an online study group. Provilaitis (a.k.a. The Human Vice) is one young strongman who trains with Rogers. but Aaron (Mighty Mac) McKenzie also works under Rogers. Literally. At the banquet Mighty Mac bends a thick nail while holding a neck bridge with Rogers standing on his chest.

Though Rogers preaches Christian principles—"Muscles with a Message"—an earthly icon inspires his students: Lawrence Farman (a.k.a. Slim The Hammerman), a 74-year-old cancer survivor from Pottsdown, Pa. Farman, six-feet-six and 215-pounds of pure sinew, has spent more time on the business end of a sledgehammer than any man alive, punching the clock at the local quarry for 50 years until mandatory retirement. "Ten hours a day, ten tons an hour," he says. "Never missed a shift."

Thirty years ago, a show with Farman and his mentor, Joe Greenstein (a.k.a. The Mighty Atom) drew 18,000 to Madison Square Garden. Today, it's the Hercules Hold, a classic strongman move—but with a twist: Farman is using 18-lb sledgehammers.

FOOD AT THE FAIR
The Schaefer Center was one of the largest restaurants at the fair — it served multi-course meals from $1.35 - $2.75, as well as American staples, a la carte. Its menu was similar to that of an upscale steakhouse, with items like grilled sirloin steak ($2.25), chopped tenderloin ($90), and roast beef ($1.75). Guests could enjoy regional specialties from all across America at Ballantine's Three Ring Inn. The fair also had a branch of Chicago's Toffenetti restaurant, which offered a number of roasted and grilled meat dishes. And the Turf Trylon Club was one of the most expensive and popular restaurants at the fair. For affordable eats, guests could visit the Mayflower Tested Quality Donuts pavilion, or a branch of the popular Childs chain of restaurants, which served 22 plate lunches. The massive Casino of Nations also served inexpensive dishes, and the servers took orders in any of 12 languages.
Video: World's Fair Footage (food starts at 1:25):
International Fare:
But to adventurous diners, the biggest culinary thrills of the fest were found at the sit-down restaurants in the international pavilions. All of them served unusual delicacies made with imported ingredients, and many of them also offered wine, beer, and spirits that were hard to find in America. Here's a breakdown of what was served in some of these restaurants. [Click on each photo to enlarge]
The Japanese pavilion housed The Formosan Tea Room, which offered traditional Japanese tea service with rice cakes, as well as a few Chinese and American dishes. [Photo]

The Swiss pavilion had two very popular restaurants. One was an outdoor restaurant that served Swiss and American dishes served by waitresses in peasant garb. The other was The Chalet, which offered refined Swiss cuisine including the fried chicken, liver, and bacon dish known as brochettes Lucernoise. [Photo]

The Swedish pavilion had a restaurant called The Three Crowns, which included a revolving smorgasbord. [Photo]

The British Buttery in the Great Britain pavilion provided guests with a wide range of dining options. On the low-end, fair patrons could order salads, sandwiches, and cheeses, while big spenders could feast on sirloin steaks, caviar canapes, and lamb chops. The restaurant served high tea in the afternoon and cocktails in the evening. [Photo]

The Tel Aviv Cafe at the Jewish pavilion offered a few dishes that were common to New York delicatessens at the time, like pickled herring, as well as more traditional Middle Eastern fare, like zucchini with eggs and potatoes.[Photo]

The Cuban Village featured a replica of Sloppy Joe's, which was a popular Havana tavern of the time. [Photo]

The Brazilian pavilion served coffee and dishes like chicken broth with rice and fish cooked in palm oil. [Photo]

The Romanian pavilion had a fine-dining style restaurant called the Romanian House that offered an extensive wine list as well as caviar shipped by plane. [Photo]

The Italian pavilion had a restaurant that paired famous dishes with wines from the regions where the recipes originated. A white truffle fonduta, for example, was served with Barolo. [Photo]

The Finnish Pavilion had a restaurant that served reindeer steak, salmon casserole, and rolled beef with vegetables. [Photo]

The Turkish pavilion featured a reproduction of a typical Turkish bar and restaurant. Guests could enjoy shish kebabs, stuffed mussels, and raki, an anise-flavored apéritif. The backside of the menu featured blurbs of famous Turkish folk tales.

The Soviet pavilion featured a ritzy dining room with a menu that included shashlik, borscht, and several types of vodka. [Photo]
The restaurant in the Polish pavilion offered guests cold fruit soup, calf brains a ala Polonaise, babka, zakaski, and honey wine. [Photo]

A handful of journalists wrote that the food was too expensive. After reading this, the commissioner of the World's Fair conducted a survey of the restaurants in the foreign zone, and estimated that full meals at these establishments cost about 43 cents on average, which was a standard price for a sit-down meal at a moderately priced Manhattan restaurant.
After the Fair:
The World's Fair introduced diners to many delicacies and styles of cuisine that were hard to find in New York, at the time. But the event also changed the New York dining scene in a different way: after the fair ended its two season run, some of the most popular restaurants made the jump from Queens to Manhattan, establishing brick and mortar restaurants that continued to offer the same food, served by the same people that traveled to New York for the fair. The restaurants from the Belgium, Swedish, and Swiss pavilions all opened outposts in Manhattan, as did Chicago's Toffenetti restaurant, which set up shop in a massive space in Times Square.

STORY DIRECTION
(Work-up recollections)
Half-and-Half — A hermaphrodite, a very valuable blowoff attraction often forbidden by local authorities. Some were real freaks, others were "made" by (at the least) shaving and making up one side of the body, or by the use of hormones to grow breasts so a performer born male could also display his upper "female" half. "Behind this curtain you are going to see the most bizarre attraction you have ever seen, and I'm going to introduce her to you all right now. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Albert-Alberta. This beautiful lady is our star attraction, but she is so unusual we are banned from advertising her on the outside. And since she is not advertised on the outside, she is not included in your general admission ticket, there is an extra charge for what you are about to see. We make no apology for this policy, because when Albert-Alberta goes behind this curtain, and you go with her, you are going to view her entire body, and you will plainly see that she is, in fact, a hermaphrodite. You've heard your neighbors talking about the half man/half woman, but Albert-Alberta is not half man/half woman … she is all man and all woman. You will see her body in its entirety, as bare as my right hand that you see before you right here. Now you must be between 18 and 80 years old to enter, because if you're under 18 you wouldn't understand it, and if you're over 80 you couldn't stand it. When you enter I want you to go right up to the edge of the stage. Get as close as you can so that you can see Albert-Alberta's body in every detail as she displays herself to you, unadorned, unashamed, unlike anything you have ever seen before. The fee for this attraction is 25 cents, it's time to go in right now. And those of you who are under 18 years of age, please step down to the other end of the tent where you will be entertained by our magician on the main stage."

Ten-In-One — One of the two "classic" form of the midway show (the other is the "single o"). The Ten-in-One was a show featuring (approximately) ten acts or attractions, lasting a total of about 40 minutes. Similar shows had been playing circuses for decades. But in the carnival setting of the 1904 Canadian National Exhibition, ex-wrestler Walter K. Sibley took several of his existing 'single-o' attractions and packaged them together for a single admission, and the next year he expanded the show and presented it as the 'ten-in-one', where it came to wider attention as a distinct type of attraction. Features included a variable mix of acts: born freaks who would display themselves, lecture briefly and sell pitch cards or novelties, "made freaks" who would do the same, performers like magicians or sword-swallowers, and curiosities like an "electric chair act." Typically, there would be a "ding" or "blowoff" at the end for additional profit. The bannerline could feature each attraction in a spectacular and dazzling array, and of course the showman could change out one banner for another as acts came and went. Of course, a showman might have a "Five-In-One" or any variation.
Wobbly — A person who hangs around the food stands looking for odd jobs like peeling onions, emptying the garbage, raking up the trash, etc. They usually work for food and a couple of bucks for the bar. Probably from the nickname ("Wobblies") of radical anti-capitalists the Industrial Workers of the World.

Blockhead Act — An act in which a man seems to drives a spike or ice-pick or other long slim object into his nasal passage. Actually the spike inserts very easily, and the "hammering" is mimed. The act is usually credited to Melvin Burkhart, but Todd Robbins cites a 1906 manuscript by Walter Deland. The stunt was originally done as part of a human pincushion act. Burkhart added comedy patter and byplay and made it into a comedy act that stood on its own merits. He started performing it in 1929, but it was still too "strong" for many of the shows he worked back then. He did play it successfully in Ripley's Odditorium in New York in the late 1930s, where Robert Ripley dubbed Burkhart "The Human Blockhead," a nickname he carried proudly as he achieved great popularity with the act until his death in 2005. Many modern-day performers have copied Burkhart's presentation in style, or even copied his entire act line-for-line.
JOHN AND ME MATERIAL John Higgins
Ok, here goes (briefly): Kathy is serving me with divorce papers. How's that for an intro?! There have been problems for a while that have grown into a seemingly insurmountable one. I suggested we separate to let things settle and see where we stand, she said that's not an option- if we separate then we divorce. I left the house in December when she said ( in front of Katie, no less) that she would lie to the police that I have been beating her so I could be arrested. On the advice of my counselor, Katie, and friends I moved out. We began mediation in January which was going pretty well until last Monday I got a call from the mediation attorney saying Kathy just notified him that she was canceling mediation and was hiring an attorney to divorce me. Kathy's had, I learned, a boyfriend for quite a while. She threw Katie out, who lived with me for a while, and started sending emails to everyone I know saying that I've been having an affair. One of those emails went to danny and Irene who responded with gushing support for her. I can't even look danny in the eye. That email was a week ago. I sent him an email stating that I couldn't believe they'd ignore me and run to Kathy's side based on one ranting email and having heard nothing from me. Maureen saw danny at the hospital visiting mom and laced into him "that's your brother..." The next day I got a rambling email from Irene saying that after they got and answered Kathy's email they disconnected their computer which is why they didn't offer me the same support. That email has cost me friends and evidently danny. It gets better- two weeks ago my friend, Nancy (the one in Facebook) and I were going to go for a run at Huntington's Hecksher park, Kathy followed my car to where I met nancy for the run, took a picture of us in running clothes, shorts, sneakers, and added that to the email as proof of an affair (remember. Kathy's had a boyfriend since maybe December) and emailed everyone, my friends, family, Nancy's family and the family of her late husband.
Sorry, i know this is a crazy message to get abruptly but I've gone to great lengths to try to keep this to myself but it looks like Kathy's determined to tell the world (her version). I'll let you digest that for a while before I go on. So how was your day?
MARTIN HIGGINS
I’m writing for a doctor who is going through divorce... he's had a "shutdown of his Left Brain" caused by stress, so he's unable to continue his practice. As therapy, he's writing songs, having them produced and making Music Vids. I met him through my buddy Darren, who is composing and producing a dozen more. Truly bizarre.
We're packing for the move to the new pile. I swear to Jahdoo, if I ever have to move again, I'm torching the house and starting from scratch. Not comparable to your situation, but an excellent intro. When the "negotiations" break down and it's all-out war, the insanity level renders analysis a poor tool for planning. I may have to "disconnect my computer" to avoid having to reveal my true self. Luckily, it's June, so Irene will be shedding her skin and searching to warm asphalt to bask on. I tolerated her (although NEVER mentioned her) to allow Danny to affect casual communication with me. His son's hoax impersonation of me when I was on life support never got aired, so it sits there like a rotting carp swarming with botflies. Now that Kathy is playing Junior Detective, sever the connection. If you have proof that she is surveilling you, consider a restraining order to establish harassment. I'm not a lawyer, but when I get pissed-off, I try - bombastically - to sound like one. Where there was common ground, expect mud and quicksand... in conjunction with a whirl fan. I'm sure this will be very stressful, but since you went all-Jewy in a recent post, let me as an additional slathering of solid advice schmaltz: "We are IN the mud, but not OF the mud." Your lawyer is the ONLY channel through which to communication anything to Kathy or anyone who will see this situation as a chance to play double-agent. Trust me, THAT is where the most insane accusations will come from. So, kids grown, NY is NOT a Community Property state so it's a 50/50 split. You bind your wounds, take a deep breath and keep you Dad bearings on course. "This is YOUR movie. YOU are the writer, the Director, the Producer." If the actors start screwing up, write them out. I know I sound flip with some of this, but I'm 100% behind you. Keep from getting pulled into the insanity... THAT'S where the mob has control. Stay in touch. I have Real Estate / Loan / V.A. madness this morning. Call later if you wish. I love you, brother. That's immutable.

JOHN
FUCK I needed that!!!!! When I get settled somewhere its going on the wall ( my counselor said the same thing "You write, so write the next chapter, give it the right ending, one that I'd want to see"
Love you, go do your thing. Ill be bouncing around....being "all jewy" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

2:15pm

Ok I'm attempting to use the voice to text translator. So some of this may need to be corrected and I'll have to fix it in the next post. I'm parked on the road side after driving a friends Harley down to Colorado Springs? You are in the belly of the beast!
The cauldron.
The trash compactor in the the store! Watch out for steak like please. That should read snake. Snake like beings.
Ok.
I need to do not mention 42. Not is wheel. That should read frtun heyy apostrophe s space whpl.
On s*** all type it when I get home. Love you later!

4:26pm
John Higgins
Hahaha! Cool

Monday

8:41am
Martin Higgins
>The trash compactor in Star Wars...
Jesus, THAT was a fruitless experiment in Voice-to-Text. Imagine what NSA is actually getting in transcripts "heyy apostrophe s space whpl." "Looks like a coded terrorist message!"

8:54am
Martin Higgins
Belly of the beast, furnace, cauldron... where character is reforged and tempered. Illogically, the smaller, less trying times turn out to be more detrimental in the long run. We emerge from those trials half-formed; firm on the outside, yet soft and vulnerable within.

9:09am
Martin Higgins
And there are those who shrink from these growth-prompts. They remain forever the child; the vengeful self-proclaimed victim who attempts to control the world by demanding fairness, offering cobbled-together excuses. And while they never acknowledge their own actions, while they project their own shortcomings, demean others as a subterfuge to cover their own ill-intentions, manipulate the innocent to grasp a shred of stability in their disintegrating reality... While while the world spins about them, indifferent and unaffected by their actions.

9:12am
Martin Higgins
For these people, these shirkers... the end of their "belly of the beast" trial sets them back in their original state, exhausted, shaken and unsteady until they re-establish their routine, childlike orchestration of those around them.

9:28am
Martin Higgins
When Brenna was 2, we went to Disneyland. Have a WONDERFUL time until It's A Small World. When we were midway through (around the Dutch Windmills) the boats stopped. Twenty minutes later, still in the same place, Brenna was in FULL MELTDOWN mode, inconsolable, headed toward hysteria. Some nut-brown Facilities drone in hip waders enters in the channel and heads toward us. I say, "Hey Champ, what's PLAN B?" He gives me the no-comprende shrug and slogs past our boat. A couple minutes later the boats lurch forward and we make our way through the rest of the attraction, utterly finished with animatronic dolls and the faux jolity that drew us in the first place.

9:47am
Martin Higgins
Here's the tie-in: We would have been fine, unbothered by the breakdown merely bored for the 20 or so minutes. But THEY NEVER SHUT THE MUSIC OFF! I've heard that in preparation for interrogation at Guantanamo, prisoners are held in a loudspeakered cell where the Meow Mix cat food jingle was looped to play indefinitely at at concert volume. Whether it's hungry cats or Little Dutch Girls, the effect is the same. Kiss normal brain function goodbye and prepare to have bees live in your head. My advice is to shut off the noise, chatter, gossip, crosstalk.

9:48am
Martin Higgins
You will come out of this fine.
There is no frozen moment in time...

Today

7:49am
John Higgins
"There is no frozen moment in time" except this message to which ill refer ad infinitum. The surreal thing is my inner child is looking to me for advice. I'm finding it harder to stay by Maureen's because I went there at the genesis if all this, moms no longer there as the mainstay, the heart of 14 Wagner st. Danny, wholly manipulated by Irene and lost under the veneer of the perfect happy family has become a stranger. I love him and wish him well. I'm sad for him. I'm developing a relationship with Nancy, maureen may have told you about her you're friends with her on FB. She thinks you're brilliant. Who doesn't? Katie has moved into her house. When Katie was at home the fights between her and Kathy grew increasingly dark. Kathy began wearing her clothes, even her underwear, Katie spent nights by me, we'd drive forever to talk or to remain silent. When Katie went home one night and overheard Kathy on the phone with her friend telling n how she now realizes how much better her life would have been without a daughter Katie walked into her room and startled Kathy. There was nothing more to be said. Nancy, whose son is best friends with Katie offered a bedroom in her house to her. Katie's been there for weeks and is regaining happiness. She and nancy have become remarkable buddies. Nancy, you'll learn, gas intense insight and a perspective that has been shaped by her losing her husband whom she loved dearly- Kevin, 'me buddy' (I wrote his eulogy) she's an elementary school teacher, vegetarian, years of counseling, non-religious spiritual, has an understanding of this shit that's unique. Kevin/Nancy have known us for over ten years. She and I relying heavily on each other through this. The emotional range with divorce is colossal. 28 years. My identity feels changed, my friends are mostly gone, my home, even the dogs- different everything. Just so suddenly. Maybe I have another third of my life (?) ahead of me. You spend the middle third preparing for the final third and now that's anybody's guess. My counselor : " guess what-life is complicated and difficult and your life sucks. So now what? Fuck it. Move on. Reinvent yourself, you're cheat deep in shit so you better keep your feet moving...forward." Nancy wants me to move in with her, quit my job and write a book. I'm 52 and my life just went into the blender, Fortuna pressed the 'purée' button. I love you bro.

10:06am
Martin Higgins
So... here's what I get:
Inner Child is ALWAYS looking for advice. When it gives advice it usually needs a swat in the ass.
Mo's is a changed environment without the Um. I fully understand. The safe harbor is now a port, with all the expectation of departure. Natural and logical. Mo is the best.
Danny is no different that most lost souls; forever striving to be perceived as better, richer, smarter yet, in his heart, viewing the world from a pit. He got a rough start as a kid, but never shook off the carapace he formed to shield the blows. We all are prone to this aspect, the self-doubt, insecurity and compensatory faux egomania. A good upset usually shoves this aside - NDE's are often cited, but death of a loved one, divorce, war, disease can prompt a re-ordering of perceptions, goals and self-image. (Years ago, I said to Maureen - you may have been present - "We're so lucky... all our crying is ahead of us." SHOCK! I might as well have thrown a scorpion on the table. But my intent was to establish that we ALL were in for some growth. I attempted to use the seed/seedling struggle for existence example to frame the thought, but I had already soured the conversation. Years later, Westley said it best in Princess Bride, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."
Irene, on the other hand, is a lamprey on my Shark Brother. I wouldn't trust her to watch my cat. Amazingly she looks and acts VERY similar to Dad's mother, Irene, a sadistic witch of the first water. She loved to torture Dad. Many times I remember him getting off the phone with her and crying in his bedroom. Why is Danny attracted to a similar harpy? SFX: A loud, whining hum rises from Golders Green Crematorium as Sigmund begins to spin like a dynamo...
I have noticed Nancy's comments and know a rough sketch of the backstory... at this time both of you are raw. There is shared pain and well-deserved consideration for each other. Kindness is essential and a safe harbor is paramount for Katie. Fortuna smiles and I nod in agreement.
In `89, I wrote a script for a short film entitled "Roomer" about a woman who breaks up with her boyfriend and seeks to rent out a bedroom in her apartment to help cover costs. Unbeknownst to her, the female applicant she chooses is a high-functioning psychopath. Although the relationship starts out normal, we see evidences of mounting schizophrenia that become more and more troubling. The woman's belongings start disappearing and she suspects thievery. In a key scene, the Roomer is caught dressed in the woman's clothes and aping her voice and gestures in a mirror. The blow-off - before the Battle Royale - is the discovery of a full-size mannequin in the Roomer's closet, dressed in the woman's clothing and jewelry, with roadkill fur, feathers and bones attached by large steel needles.
Why do I bring this up? Oh, just musing, I guess. Never mind.
28 years? Okay. I understand. However, as an Elmont Higgins who fixated on cars I have an analogy. A Long Distance trucker drives from Caribou, Maine to Chula Vista, California - 3,300 miles - in 6, 10-hour days. Upon arriving at the intersection of I-5 and Harbor Drive there is a stop sign. Beyond the stop sign is the Pacific and he must choose to turn left or right. But it's not that simple. The stop sign is a mere hundred feet ahead. He's been driving for 60 hours! It'll surely take him AT LEAST an hour or so to stop, right? At a BARE MINIMUM 20 minutes to a half hour, wouldn't it? He'll be 20 - 30 miles into the ocean by then. How unfair!

BONEPILEI never had a son I don't even know what it would be like or how it would impact me. There was an aborted child that she hid from me and after learning of it I thought frequently about this lost child! Would I be anywhere near as solid as Roland would be able to set aside my anger?

At the very beginning of my brief stint as 'Bouncer' the clown with Big John, I was warned; 'Don't ever get around the chimps in your clown make-up...they'll tear you to pieces.' This time-honored bit of circus lore proved to be of great value.

One of my minor (but very lucrative) circus jobs was selling Circus Coloring Books during a break in the show, immediately following the chimp act. To prepare the coloring books, I had to put a circus tent stamp in three of the coloring books; a child getting a book with the stamp won a 'free' balloon. So, I always had to hide behind some props to stamp the books, so chimp wouldn't see me and get distracted from his comical antics.

One day, I raised up from behind the props to see how much time till the chimp act was over. Just as I raised up, the chimp looked EXACTLY where I was (in full white-face make-up). He made one of those faces with wide eyes and bared teeth. Were it not for the chain and collar around his neck, he would have gone totally ape-$#!+ on me, I'm sure. Not to be denied, the chimp took the only action he could...and threw his little prop violin at my head...screaming the entire time.

Bottom line: My theory on this hatred. White-faced clowns resemble
baboons..a traditional enemy of chimps.

________________________________________________________

Fredric Brown, in his novel The Dead Ringer, had something revealing to say: "if you’re a carney you stay out of the posing show. The models don’t mind posing in practically nothing at all for the marks, the suckers. They don’t count; they’re outsiders; you might almost say they aren’t human beings. It’s strictly impersonal. But it would be indecent for someone who knows them to go in and watch. It’d be as much Peeping Tom stuff as looking in trailer windows or over hotel-room transoms."

FREAKISH10-in-1 Americaby Martin Higgins​First draft - 11/01/2024© 2024 Martin Higgins32 Cove DriveDerry, NH 03038all rights reserved

FREAKISH
10-in-1 America
by Martin Higgins
First draft - 11/01/2024
© 2024 Martin Higgins
32 Cove Drive
Derry, NH 03038
all rights reserved