The Carnival Is a World that Has Always Scared and Fascinated Me

My son's new bedtime story captures the what-could-have-beens of this world without human frailties and sorrow

Courtesy of NJ.com

Traveling carnivals and circuses freak me out. Since the first one I recall, it was in the Britt’s parking lot (Brite’s is how the master of ceremonies kept calling it, which caused most of the local assembled crowd of locals to giggle), I have somehow been “lucky” enough to stumble upon the darker sides of these shoddily slapped-together expressions of desperation. 

I say lucky because, given my penchant for travel and my need to not be in a certain place where an outside observer can neatly predict my reactions, actions, and future life based on what he sees all around, the traveling carnival and circus is way-of-life that should have presented to me a multitude of potential escapes, a wide variation of lives into which I could slip like a pair of new pants only to shed them when a newer fashion comes along. Thanks, however, to a broken neck, a broken arm, an abusive father (not mine), and a heroin needle, the life of the traveling entertainer became for me a bottom that I have tried to avoid at all costs.

The Broken Neck 

It was in Flemington, New Jersey, and my father, a salesman of something that had to do with trucking — I never did fully understand what it was — was manning a stand. As we walked through the fairgrounds — yes, this is about a fair, not a carnival — and watched the other attendees, many of whose relationships had been tested well by the passing of decades of hard life, my father engaged all of them. He had never been there before, but he had an amazing ability to talk to anyone like he had known them his whole life. People felt safe in his warm greetings. 

With a Kool cigarette never too far from his mouth and the smell of aftershave always mixing in with silvery clouds, Jerry from the oil country of western Pennsylvania was a man of the world even though he had never traveled anywhere. As an eight-year-old with the man I was certain was the master of the ceremonies, I felt like the action laid out before me was all mine. It was 1975 or so, and the crowd working the fair were WWII vets. There was a goodness to them and this world. I felt safe. 

“Smell that,” my father said, “fresh strawberry-rhubarb pie. That’s my favorite, right after blueberry. We’ll get some later when I take a break.”

We passed a man who, in my world, seemed like he was 100 but was likely only in his fifties. I recall that he was a tree trunk of a man, and he reacted cooly to my father’s greeting. His wife, however, served a higher purpose: to spare the world of her husband’s moods. My father didn’t like it when someone had a bad mood and then directed that at him — this might partially explain why he had his first heart attack at 38 — slowing he approached the man. That was when the wife ran over and threw her arms around me, handing me a rubber duck — I didn’t like rubber ducks — and my reaction set everyone off into a hearty, argument-avoiding chuckle. My dad immediately took in the man’s strength and listened to some fragments of a war story — no one back then told whole stories about the war; they weren’t looking to be called “heroes” — shook his hand and promised to return for his show.

During the day, I saw the man do his act. He would climb a ladder about 50 feet high and then dive off a small platform into a kiddie pool with about three feet of water in it. The dive had to be perfect lest he hit his head on the ground. No one could figure out how he did, but jump after jump, he emerged from that little pool in his 1950s-style bathing suit with a swimming cap stuck to his head and his nose pinched shut. Throwing his thick arms in the air, the man let the world know that he was invincible: “Who-wah,” he would shout in a way that made more than one person sense that he, too, was amazed to have survived again.

My dad never saw him leap off the platform. Timing his break so we could see him jump and then go for pie, we hurried through the thickening crowds only to arrive to see the man’s motionless body being slid into an ambulance. His wife smiled kindly to the silent crowd, telling them that all would be okay and, “Tomorrow, he’ll be back up there jumping for you.” She saw us standing at the crowd’s edge and gave me a big smile before climbing into the ambulance.

Eating pie, I asked my dad what he thought had happened. He didn’t know and didn’t want to go into details. By then, my dad was already talking to three people in the pie place about the pool jumper, WWII, and uncle who jumped on D-Day. Without missing a beat, he was holding court in the pie stand; the waitress was rubbing my head and loading me up with pie and milk. 

The following day, when we arrived, everything was back to normal, and not a word was said about the pool jumper. He was gone, almost like he had never existed in their itinerant lives. 

The rest of the story 

After the Flemington debacle, I was skeptical of such gatherings where “fun” was guaranteed for all. I recall feeling sad for the fair vendors doing little or no commerce. I could see in the faint glimmer of hope in their eyes that maybe — finally — they’d make a killing and be able to put the early morning wake-ups and late night drives to fairgrounds and parking scattered all over rural America behind them. At 10, I wasn’t sure I could take much more of the rolling boil of desperation that characterized the carnivals and circuses. 

Nonetheless, the circus came to Freehold and was set up in the Britt’s parking lot (which later became Jamesway and Flemington Coat Factory). We watched the circus unfold on a warm spring evening under the stuffy single-ring tent filled with many of my classmates from St. Rose. I recall a young blond-haired girl, maybe a year or two older than me, flying from the arms of one many into the arms of another easily 30 feet above our heads. With each release of the girl, the crowd screamed, and with each catch and safe landing, we all cheered.

Until the last time, she landed on the netting below her and was tossed off the side when a larger man landed next to her. She lifted into the air as if in slow motion and did a pretty good flip, as it seemed she was trying to make the best of the unplanned moment, then landed hard on the blacktop. Letting out a scream, she was scooped up off the ground and raced out of sight by one of the men who had been catching her. 

As the crowd fidgeted with concern, the show went on. After a few minutes, voices could be heard coming from somewhere back by the horses. An older man was yelling at the little girl. In tears, she was explaining that her arm hurt. Nonetheless, she returned to the center of the ring to the next act. 

Clearly injured, the girl went through the motions, and as she was hurled into the air when it came time for her to put out her hands to be caught, she just let herself keep flying. She couldn’t lift her arm. Landing at the edge of the netting, one of the performers standing nearby raced to the net and managed to form a barrier with her arms so she wouldn’t fly off a second time. She bounced and bounced until she finally stopped, and all anyone could hear was her soft crying. The man who had forced her to return raced forward, threw himself onto the net, and adeptly tumbled over to her.

“Papa, I can’t anymore.”

It would later be reported to us that she was at the hospital and had a broken arm. She was in good spirits, and all was okay. As the circus finished and the crowd exited, the little girl, now with a cast on her arm, was back at the center ring waving to everyone. I recalled thinking how awesome it was that she was back so fast. Today, I think it is terrible, of course. I wonder what happened to her. 

My third and final attempt at finding evasive enjoyment in these traveling affairs took place at the Monmouth County Fair in Freehold when I was 14. As a joke, my father and stepmother gave my brother and me ten dollars in coins frozen in jars for Christmas. It was called “cold cash.” The jars sat in the freezer until we were invited to the fair in late June. Not having any money, we decided to defrost our cold cash. Ten bucks in 1981 was a lot, so a fun evening seemed guaranteed.

It was the last night of the fair, and by the time we arrived, a lot was already closed. Some of the rides were even being dismantled. After spending about $4 of my warming cash, a guy asked a friend and me if we wanted to earn $15 for a couple of hours of work. Agreeing, he took us to the ride that needed to be taken apart — the spinning cups. 

First, it was pretty amazing how these things were put together — like big, extremely heavy Lego pieces. As we removed the safety pins one by one and slid the heavy cups down a metal bar toward the truck, the difficulties came when we tried to lift the cup into the truck. Groaning with purple faces, we somehow managed to lift the cup into the truck without hurting anyone. One down and seven more — the $15 was suddenly looking to be too little.

“Hey, guys, too slow!” Our hiring guy shouted. “Come over here. I got something that will help.”

We approached the cab of a truck and laid out on the seat was an assortment of pills, powders, and needles. A guy behind the wheel of the truck was in the middle of snorting something when walked up. 

“Pick your poison. It’s on me. I need you guys moving faster, and this will help.” 

One of the kids working with us, I didn’t know him, snorted a line. It was speed. The men giggled with delight, watching his reaction. “You’re an official ‘carny,’ kid,” they shouted. 

I refused, as did the two other guys and my friend. 

“You refuse, but then don’t give me any excuses when you can’t keep up with me. I just snorted three lines of speed,” and with that, he pressed the plunger of the needle now situated in his vein. His eyes took on a black glassiness. “God damn, I am floating away, fellows. Someone pull me back to Earth.”

He did another line of speed to rebalance himself and then worked like a man possessed. At times, he seemed to be lifting the cups into the truck by himself. After each successfully-lifted cup, he would take a swig out of a vodka bottle. Realizing we were just kids, he offered us beers, which we all drank with the joy of 14 years with a beer.

While we worked, I saw a regular stream of the workers preparing the rides for removal to the next fair or carnival make their way to the truck. Snorts and shots framed the ordered chaos of “tearing it down” to “get this Goddamn mess moving ASAP.” There was one man in charge who was screaming at everyone. The trucks, cars, and trailers all tried to set off together — and most were as high as could be. 

Four hours later, at 1 a.m., we were handed our hard-earned $15 and another beer. One boy complained that it was too little, and the guy took his money and told him to “f*** off then.” The boy started to cry. 

As the caravan pulled out of the fairgrounds near the end of Center Street and Kozlosky Road in Freehold, one truck stopped: “Hey kid, take your money, and don’t ever be an ungrateful little bitch again.”

We all learned a lesson from that man. I have thought about him a million times over the past 40 years. I am sure he died from HIV infection. When he was done with his needle, he just wiped it on his shirt and set it back on the seat of the old, red truck — next.

Nonetheless, I have never complained about earnings. I have spent most of my life making too little for the value I have added to companies and projects.

But I was never a “ungrateful bitch.” 

Most of the above story, I don’t retell my son before he falls asleep.