FINALLY! Thank goodness you made it, gazoonie! I’ve been through more on this jump than I ever thought I’d have to.
Did you pick up what I asked you to? The cotton mop-head? The white gasoline? OK, great, thanks! Here, sit down with me for a minute and I’ll tell you what happened, while I get these fire-eating torches together for tonight’s show. Good thing you went with the advance man like I told you to last night. You ended up missing all the mess.
Ahh, just as well, I suppose. It was a jump like any of the hundred jumps we’ve done before. Not too close, not too far. I mean sure, we’re not forty-milers, but it’s not as if we’re heading to the ends of the earth. You know what I mean by forty-milers, or cake-eaters. What they do, see, is settle themselves down somewhere safe, then they just make the jumps out to the lots from wherever they are. Usually, it’s within a single day’s drive or so from where they live, which means they never travel more than forty miles or so from their home base. I mean they could go home every night if they wanted to! Why they would want to do anything like that I have no idea. Isn’t that the fun? Being on the road? That would be kind of tough for me, I’ll tell you that for nothing. The road is what I’m about.
Course, most of them aren’t travelling with shows. Most of the time they’re retirees who’ve got their cash invested in some chump-twister ride or something. Or got a stand that sells snacks. Then they have their snotty grandkids and those kids’ even-more-snotty friends working it during the summer season. I hate those kids. They act like they’re so much better than us. But they all seem the same, lot after lot after lot.
Those kids. God, I hate them! They don’t understand what we’re doing. They don’t understand the history, the past – or the future of what I’m doing here. They’re not ‘with it’. If another one of them ever looks at Delilah again, I swear…
But back to the forty-milers. We couldn’t be a forty-miler show, even if we wanted to. Who would want to see us? Honestly? We’d never get far enough away to bring in new audiences. Charlie got me to understand that, pretty quickly; we would see the same crowds over and over. And then those crowds would get tired of seeing the same show over and over again. The only way to keep the townies coming, Charlie says, would be to offer something new each time we came through.
Normally, I just shut Charlie out when he gets into rambling. But when he was telling me all this, it got me to thinking. Who would we get as performers? I mean, a bender or fakir – like we have now – might be OK. Work out new acts and get new skills, and the rubes can see the same performer time and again. But someone like our half-and-half, a fat lady or one of those wolf-boys – well, they wouldn’t be able to do more than one set of shows with us. Once a group has seen the blow-off, would they really pay to see it, again?
OK, so I was telling you what happened on the jump before I got sidetracked. Well, usually I run most of the things once we start breaking down, because once Charlie gets things started up, well, he has other things he needs to handle, right? Right!
But this time there’s something else up. I don’t know why, but Charlie won’t get off our backs through the entire teardown. That’s never good, because there’s so much to do! I know that he thinks he knows everything – but he doesn’t. He may have started this show, but Murphy tells me he hasn’t slung canvas in years. I mean, why should he? That’s what he has me for.
I know the routine.
I know how it fits together.
I know the fastest way to get it broken down and loaded up so we can get on the road!
But when Charlie gets it into his head that he’s got a faster way of doing things, he sits on top of us. And something always goes wrong.
So let me tell you how it works on the last night on a particular lot. Once the last show of the night is done, almost before the last of the rubes leave the grounds, everyone’s already breaking the whole carnival down. As soon as we kick the stragglers out of the top, we start pulling the canvas and breaking down the frame. Not all of us, of course. Some of the performers are ‘delicate,’ as Murphy says. Of course, there are still plenty of props to be loaded up, and the banner line needs to come down. If the weather’s good though, the banner line will come down while the last show is still on. That was my idea – it always saves us some time.
Why time is important is because Big Mike never lets us spend a night in a spot if we’re not opening there the next night. After all – every day on the lot is another day that has to be paid for, right? So we break it down and head out to the next spot right away after we’re done.
Sometimes, if the jump’s a little longer, we stop at a motel on the way. Sometimes Pops would let me choose where we’d stay. While our performers would be finding their own way in their campers or whatever, it’d just be Charlie and me on our rig together. Charlie always seemed to like it better when I’d find these really out of the way places – and I mean way off the beaten track. Sometimes he’d let me choose names for us to register under, too. Not something boring like our real names! So, instead of being Charlie and Tony Grice, we’d use all of my names instead. So we’d register as Charles and Richard Anthony (cause, you know, my name’s Richard Anthony Grice). Or we’d be Chuck and Dick Cloonie or something. Pops always laughed at that one – not just at calling me ‘Dick’ – but because ‘Cloonie’ is a version of ‘Clownie’ or ‘Carnie’. He’s a strange one, Charlie.
Anyway, we’d get registered, then order in pizzas and stuff, and watch movies on the television from under tents we made on the beds out of the covers. I’m getting too old for that kid stuff, now – but those are some of my best memories with my da. I don’t ever remember him really drinking a lot when we were at the motels, either.
But back to now. This time we weren’t planning a stopover; Murphy was riding with us, so he and Charlie would split the driving on the overnight run. By that I mean that Murphy and I would split the driving, while Charlie slept it off on the pallet behind the seats.
But Charlie wouldn’t get off our backs! Every time I turned around he had told someone to do something different from what I had told them to do – so everything was a mess! It seemed like forever to get it all broken down. By the time we were loaded up in the trucks, all the rest of the carnival was on the road. Good thing I had thought to send you with the advance man, so you could make sure our spot was staked out. We were the last ones to leave the lot – like a bunch of chumps!
I was pretty steamed, let me tell you. Then, of course, Charlie was in no shape to drive and Murphy was just worn out. And so was I. Finally, we just had to pull over, so that Murphy and I could sleep some. That’s what made us late getting to the lot here. We finally got here, long after everyone else, and I could tell Big Mike was mad because our stake wasn’t in a prime spot.
Don’t worry, gazoonie, it wasn’t your fault – in fact, if you hadn’t been here when you were I’ll bet we would be in an even worse place! But you could see how mad Big Mike was, right? When I saw him he was checking his watch and giving Charlie his mad dog stare. You know he was worried as to whether or not we’d be set up in time for the carnival to open. A day we’re not open is a day we may not be able to pay him. Besides, we’re the biggest attraction on the midway, and if we’re not open – who knows? Maybe word gets out and the whole thing doesn’t do good business. No one wants that, right? So that’s when Charlie started barking orders at everyone and being all bossy (as if he knew what was supposed to be going on), trying to put on a good show for Big Mike. Once again, I keep finding someone doing something they’re not supposed to because ‘Charlie told me to’.
Then it happened. I’m not sure exactly where it went wrong; whether it wasn’t marked right or they were just hurrying and not paying attention to what they were doing, but one of the canvas men was driving in stakes for the top when – BAM! The metal stake hits an electric cable running the genny, just underneath the dirt.
You could smell it before you even heard anything happen, you know? Electricity… Ozone… Burnt hair…
I don’t think he screamed or anything. I tell you, I’m not even sure what happened, not completely. Only that there was yelling and running and those smells in the air. I heard some screams, but they just sounded like some of the girls from one of the other shows. Luckily none of the townies were on the lot at that point. But I ran with the rest of them.
Big Mike was there before I got there. I don’t know how he managed it. He wasn’t saying anything, just wiping his forehead with the big handkerchief he carries in his overalls. It was strange to see him listening intently to Charlie, when he usually just rolls his eyes when he sees him. Then Big Mike hurried off, yelling orders to a few of the carnies, sending them out to the road to wait for the ambulance.
Charlie was on his knees next to Sam, one of our canvas men. Our performers stay the same from season to season, but canvas men tend to come and go as often as the lots. Sam was a good guy, though. A straight shooter, right? He drank a bit and kept Charlie in good company. He tended to be in the G-Top a lot, too, but he was a good guy. He was talking to Charlie, though. And Charlie was listening to him, talking back to him a bit. I went to step in closer, to find out how he was doing, but Murphy waved me back.
The ambulance arrived. It was all sirens and flashing lights, bringing attention to what had gone wrong. I was embarrassed by it. Now the other carnies would know that one of our guys was down and that it was serious. They all know how Charlie gets when he’s had a few and would probably blame us if there were low crowds. And then there were crowds all around us. More people than just carnival workers standing around. Which means townies. Which means another reason for them to look down on us and hate what we do.
I don’t know what happened, next. Murphy was telling me to calm down, and Charlie was asking – no, demanding – to know what I was going on about. And I was yelling at him about how we were now a man short and what were we going to do, when someone new broke out of the crowd and came over to the three of us, yelling at each other in the dirt.
‘My name’s Frank,’ he said. He might have been talking to Charlie or Murphy, but he was looking at me pretty off. Maybe he couldn’t figure out exactly why I was involved in this whole thing. So I jumped in quick to tell him the deal, you know?
I was like, ‘What do you want, Townie?’ before either Charlie or Murphy could say anything. This guy looks at me funny for just a moment, and then I guess he got the score because he starts talking right to me, ignoring the others.
‘I may look like a townie,’ he said, pretty calm-like, ‘but I know the score. You’re down a man. I need work.’
I gave him the once-over and then just let it fly. ‘There’s no room for freeloaders here. You work for us you’re gonna work pretty hard.’
‘Now hold on just a moment,’ Murphy started in, but Charlie jumped on him pretty quick.
‘You think you can run this show?’ Charlie asked me, all demanding. But I didn’t back down on this one, oh no! I came right back at him.
‘I’ve been doing a fine job of it so far,’ I told him. Charlie doesn’t get mad or anything, but he starts kind of laughing, which scares me a little bit. Then he looks at this guy, Frank, and I can tell he doesn’t like him – which just makes me want to stick it to Charlie more.
‘Fine, then,’ Charlie says, kinda quiet-like. ‘You’ll get what you got coming.’ Murphy looked mad enough to eat tacks, but he just spat on the ground and the two of them walked away pretty stiffly. I turned back to this guy, Frank.
‘Looks like you’re hired then,’ I told him, all business-like. This guy, he doesn’t smile or look grateful or anything. He just reaches out his hand and we shake on it, pretty sombre. As soon as I grabbed his hand, though, there was something about him I didn’t like. Can’t tell you what it was specifically, greenie. Something about the way he smelled, maybe. That mix of alcohol and cigarettes that, for some reason, always makes me feel sick. But when I tell this guy what I want him to do, he gets right on to it – so I decided to let it go.
It’s not until later, when the local doctor comes by to tell us that Sam will be OK in a few weeks or so, that I realise Charlie has gone – probably off drinking. Actually, I don’t think we’ll be seeing Sam again, greenie. Probably too close a call for him. If this guy, Frank, turns out as good as you, well… It will be just what we need!