Ian, the Lilliputian fellow from the bar last night, was spinning the colour wheel and exercising his call in an exceptional rusted growl. He’s only a few inches over five feet, with black eyes and an odd-shaped cranium that makes him appear like a missing member of a long lost-tribe.
“Hhheeeyyy babeeee, gaaettt over here and winnn one! C’monnn, hheeyy, come overrr and winn the biggg wonnn!”
Ian has one of the most superb toothless grins you’ll see on the carnival. He’s missing his two front teeth, but the rest are still floating around in his mouth presumably preserved by liquor, straight and a close shade to white. His distinct voice sounds like the result of a steady combination of three packs of harsh cigarettes a day, shots of any foul liquor found around the lot and battery acid. It’s a pure alkaline larynx growl, treated and cured over years on the road. Ian’s bunk is in a larger trailer directly across from mine. As I was on my way out one morning, he asked for a drink.
“Heyy, buddy, ya got any a dat beer left?”
I obliged and he proceeded to chug a bottle of warm Budweiser in front of me at 9 a.m.
“Jesus, tanks, buddy, heh, heh,” he said after he finished. “I was so damn dry I couldn’t spit.”
He looked up at me with a grin on his face.
“Boss never knew I was drunk till I showed up sober one day, ha, ha, heh, heh, heh,” the battery acid gurgling up and through the rusted trachea in a phlegmy laugh.
Ian runs on the same corroded circuitry high-functioning alcoholics operate on. He doesn’t even know if he’s drunk or not, it all gets blended into the hyperkinetic movements of his wiry body and he never sits still long enough to assess if he’s moving correctly. Whatever it takes to keep the music flowing. And the truth was, nobody wanted to see him sober. The delerium tremens he would have undoubtedly suffered through would have seriously impacted his ability to execute his job properly. And then there would have been trouble.
Carnies are permitted to drink after hours and in the old days, as long as a guy could handle it, he wouldn’t have any problems with a sip or two throughout the day. But one intoxicated screw-up – or if he was lazy enough to be witnessed by a customer sucking back on a bottle – and he’d be in the unemployment line on crutches. The owners never took chances with this type of behaviour because they knew it would be the end of their enterprise, or at the very least trouble from law enforcement. A man who could handle his job, however, was given considerations. And still is today.
Ian started on the show thirty years ago when it pulled into Moncton one glorious afternoon. He had recently been expelled from school and his mother told him if he wasn’t finishing, then he had better find a job.
“I punched out a teacher,” he says. “I broke his jaw. I kicked him in the face. That’s how I got my job.”
The Bill Lynch Shows weren’t looking for high school dropouts with obvious behavioural problems, but they never turned them down either. Resumes are not required in the carnival trade; no questions asked. It hardly matters if someone is mentally ill or an ex-convict, as long as they’re willing to work and don’t possess any immediate threat to society.
Any carny worth his salt is a hard worker by nature, punctual and enthusiastic, willing and able to take initiative and exhibit at least a small undercurrent of resourcefulness. The sharper guys will flourish in the carnival business and could become “agents” – one skilled and experienced at a particular joint. In some instances, a guy’s reputation will come to be known by different carnival outfits across the continent, thereby ensuring employment wherever he wants. The lazy and dumb, on the other hand, will either be sent home quickly by the boss or of their own volition.
There has always been an equation even nine-to-fivers understand; the longer the job application, the less enjoyable the position. Aside from prostitution and casinos, the carnival is one of the few remaining cash enterprises still operating and unlike most businesses today, it still reserves the right to fire incompetent dimwits on the spot without severance pay.
The procedure has always been to tell a kid who wants a job to come back on the last day the show is in town. Tearing down the rides would give the boss a good indication of whether the new kid would work or not. It’s not good policy to hire someone instantly because, chances are, he’ll let his friends on for free in his hometown, or he might just steal cash and tickets and disappear in the middle of the night. It’s happened. So the policy is to tell the young man with his hat in hand to come back on the last day there.
That first tear-down, Ian was a worker. Here’s this five-foot-three little bastard swinging the bars atop the Ferris Wheel like a nimble primate, with a cigarette grasped between his canines, on micro-dot acid, popping pins out with his knees and teeth. The sonofabitch could work! He pulled out of Moncton that night in the belly of the Show with the promise of adventure on the Maritime highways. Nothing could have been better.
“I loved it when I was out here the first time,” he says. “We had tent city. Fuck, we had a lot of fun. You wouldn’t believe what we done. We had more girls than you would even know what to do with... We were bad people back then.”
... It’s a wonder world to work in ...
The carny symphony continued throughout the afternoon as a few dozen people entered and explored the grounds. By late afternoon a regular visitor to the carnival showed up, casting a bit of a chill through the lot. An RCMP officer strolled calmly down the midway, almost arrogantly, stopping at the picnic table I was sitting at with Verney to ask for the owner. Verney got up to take him to Jack, but not before a flush of the old days washed over his carny soul. A cop showing up on the midway is never a good sign and Verney’s first instinct was probably to find the guy who forgot to pay off the cops and give him a shot to the face. But that doesn’t happen anymore and never did here, so Verney smiles an evil little grin and the two of them leave to find Jack.
After their departure, I looked over at Amber in the cookhouse. She had seen him, but tried her best to disappear like a little girl hiding under her bed from an angry parent. She put her head down and tried to get lost in the act of frying burgers, as if the grease and smoke would vanish her from this world forever.
It didn’t make sense that the creep from last night would call the police, though. There are certain shames a man like that can live with, but getting his face smashed in by a girl was not one he wanted to admit – or so I thought.
Jack and the cop showed up a few minutes later and accosted a portly, baby faced kid who was starting his first year on the carnival. He was working the balloon dart toss game, in steady possession of the most tranquil carny personality I’d ever encountered. Jack looked angry.
“Okay, that’s it!” he yelled at the kid in a gruff tone. “This guy knows what you did so you might as well admit it.”
The lot stopped still and the carny carol came to a screeching halt. What the hell did this kid do that had Jack so upset? He seemed like a good, clean young man.
The boy, around 18, was terrified. I was standing about five feet away from him and he looked like he was about to burst into tears. He had remained low-key all week and I don’t think the older guys even knew he existed before this moment.
“No. No, what? I—I, I—I , no,” he stammered.
He had done well keeping to himself to this point, but here were the police and the owner interrogating him on the midway in front of a dozen co-workers. His face was swelling up in shock, his eyes turned a glossy red and it looked like he was about to explode in a blabbering confession of every crime known to humanity. Through hysterical sobs this kid was about to purge the depths of his soul, confessing that it was him, he was the one who did it, and throwing himself on the mercy of his carny brothers and sisters.
The cop knew it was coming, too, and quickly spoke up before the kid did something regrettable.
“No, y
our boss is joking,” he said to the shivering young man. “He thinks you may have seen a guy we’re looking for. He was around here earlier trying to sell stolen goods. Did you see anyone like that?”
It took a moment for his mind to process what the cop was saying. He had just been on the verge of admitting all his secret sins. Now Jack was chuckling and things seemed all right. He told the cop he had seen a guy trying to sell stolen iPods a few hours before but that was it. He wasn’t even sure he remembered what the guy looked like. The baby-faced youngster was still trembling and stuttering when Jack and the cop left.
Amber was relieved to see to the police vacate, as well. I went over to the cookhouse to talk to her.
“I don’t care, I had a reason,” she was saying. “He grabbed me and I defended myself and that’s what I’d a told the cops. They all laugh around here because I whacked another guy on the lot last year with a frying pan. But he deserved it, too.”
I had no reason to doubt her. As it happened, the creep hadn’t phoned the police. Some humiliations are best left private and if anyone had asked the balloon-popping kid, he would have agreed.
The sun gave way to clouds as evening descended on the carnival. The chaotic symphony changed gears now, each machine humming along its own solo tune through the glowing atmosphere. There is a type of profound calm that falls on the midway at night, like an electric storm roiling in the distance. The energy becomes more focused and the lights seem to expose with crystal clarity things hidden in the daylight. Night is the best time to experience the carnival. It was made for the dark, with millions of lights to reveal the truth and relieve you of the mental strain and limitations of having to rely on imagination. The carnival ceases to exist as a place under the electric sky. It becomes a state of mind from which all things seem possible. The lines of everyday, past and present, blur into one streaming consciousness through the twisted perspective of a kaleidoscope. The human mind cannot interpret the hyper-stimulation of the senses and illusions become bigger than before. It is motion and displacement, an occurrence; the natural world bends and sways in time as the mind loops through space inside a cage as it shakes through light and darkness. The carnival at night can make one dizzy just by thinking about it for too long.
The fluorescent lights from the cookhouse and joints seemed to act as a camera’s flash on the carnies, holding them in glowing reverence. In some ways, it was as if the night was polished by the lights on the carnival and glowed accordingly.
As a clock somewhere ticked towards midnight, Jack gave the sign and the Zipper’s lights shut off, signalling the end of the work day. Carnies are remarkably quick about shutting down, something to do with the old days when local drunks were out looking for trouble. Within minutes the plush animals are suffocated into plastic bags, the doors to the joints shut tight and the lights burn out as if extinguished by a strong breeze. Seconds later, the hustle and bustle is sucked out of the place and the midway is empty.
Everyone retreated to the bunk area to unwind. I stumbled around in the dark and ran into a few workers drinking and laughing on their way to and from different bunks. It was obviously time to relax.
I grabbed a couple of beers from my bunk and followed the noise which led me to Larry’s, where half a dozen guys were drinking and rolling joints. Larry’s ‘house’, as they call it, is a superb piece of carny craftsmanship. His and Sherry’s bunk is at least three times the size of mine, with full-size bunkbeds and enough room to stand and take a few steps in any direction. They have a hotplate and a small stash of provisions piled neatly on a shelf. The wood panelling adds a type of rustic charm that makes it feel like it’s the glory days of the early 80s out here. At least eight people are crammed in, drinking and conversing loudly.
It’s a nice bunk, by all standards, and it’s clear I’ve been relegated to the low-rent section. The trailers that contain Larry’s bunk and a few others are stationed horizontally from mine, about a hundred feet away, like a whole new subdivision. These larger bunks, in turns out, are for guys who have been with the show for a while and are willing to pay a bit more rent for the extra luxury. The owners and managers have their private trailers and RVs set up on the complete opposite side of the lot, away from the noise the carny proletariat are prone to creating. A lot of guys treat the bunks as home and bring along Playstations and DVD players to pass the time between midnight and noon. Some of them take pride in their home and keep it clean and orderly.
A guy named Spencer stands up in the bunk in front of everyone to perform a stand-up comedy routine with each bizarre punchline accentuated by spitting, wheezing laughter. He’s killing himself and as he delivers each joke, his face scrunches up like a man who has swallowed something poison, his eyes disappear and his mouth opens revealing one or two teeth and pink gums. Hysterical laughter spills out, but the rest of the room remains unmoved.
Pissy, Larry and Booker are talking about which music to put on the next day (Eric Clapton’s discussed, but it’s a safe bet Seger will get a spin). A few other guys are sitting around shooting the breeze and bitching like taxi drivers about work.
If any employees have a legitimate claim to workplace grievances, it’s carnies. Although they are not prone to complaining about it, the work is physically demanding and exhausting. Setting up the various mechanical structures is laborious, taking a physical toll after a few hours. It takes a team effort and if one guy is tired and not pulling his weight, serious delays or injuries can occur. The machines have claimed a few fingertips over the years as an offering to the carnival gods. Climbing to the top of the Ferris Wheel armed with a pin bar is a dangerous assignment, especially in the dark of night after working a full twelve-hour day. Many times throughout the season, it is necessary to tear down rides and transport them to the next stop in the middle of the night and, in some cases, setting them up by the next afternoon. This means the workers could put in twenty-four hours or more straight, with the chance of only a few hours sleep, if they’re lucky. Remarkably, very few complain about the working conditions and long hours or the fixed weekly wage they’re paid for all of their efforts. (Ride operators are paid somewhere around $350 a week and the jointees, whatever they can make off commission.) That’s just life on the road.
... The day’s so deadly long...
Compounding the gruelling labour is the exhaustive reality of living on the job for almost six months straight. Keeping track of time becomes a challenge after a few days on the road. The days of the week are relatively easy to keep in order because Wednesday is payday, but the date gets lost somewhere in the darkness between the Scrambler and the Tilt-A-Whirl. The season becomes a time warp where the passage of time is suspended, eventually blurring into a few long days, leaving the outside world to its own affairs. It’s hard to say whether it’s June 28 or July 14 and it hardly seems to matter after a few weeks. Setting up and tearing down in different towns across the region, working long hot hours in the sun, sucking back coffee, booze, cigarettes and other chemicals on an hourly basis and passing out in the wee hours of the twilight on the job site then doing it all over again the next day would be enough to induce full-blown schizophrenic episodes in some people. Eventually the physiological rhythms get out of synch, like waking up from a long nap at eight p.m. and believing it’s eight a.m. It’s sheer panic for a few minutes before the half-conscious mind comprehends the time adjustment. That feeling goes on for days on the carnival. Few people can function in this type of environment, but carnies have developed a preternatural ability for dealing with it.
The only real complaints the workers make usually centre on individuals who have irritated them over the course of a day or week. Back in Larry’s bunk, Robert announces that he and Larry have put the disagreement behind them and moved on. The conversation then takes several different directions as everyone begins to speak at once. This is how it usually goes with a group of carnies; different conversations spoke
n in different ears all around the same place with the loudest man prevailing in getting heard.
“Animal, ya know what?” Robert tells another ride guy. “He’ll sit there and bitch out somebody for walkin’ off their ride and eatin’ on their ride and I watched him today when I was up on the Gravitron and I’m standing there watching him eatin’. He walks over to another place, orders soup, has a chat and what not for about ten, fifteen minutes, gets his soup, goes back...
“Like I told him, I said, you bitch these people out for ordering their food and eating on the ride and now you’re doing it. If you’re gonna chew them out for it, you can’t do it.”
I had seen the man they call Animal back in Dartmouth where it was clear right away that he was of a special pedigree. He was darting around the midway with manic determination in a short black leather jacket and narrow sunglasses that rested on his crooked nose. They were concealing dark, wild eyes and he seemed to constantly be scowling at private agitations. So I decided not to bother him. At first I thought he was some sort of special carny agent charged with secretly monitoring the others. I hadn’t seen him open his mouth all week and assumed he was storing it up for his logbook entry that night. But he had noticed me and it wasn’t long before we were having a drink and discussing things.
He showed up that night at the bar and joined a couple of us for a cigarette outside. It was the first time I had seen him interact with anyone. He didn’t say much but he was there. I was asking the guys if they knew a place I could grab a pack of cigarettes for under $10, which was all I had in my bank account until morning, when Animal left abruptly. I thought I had offended him in some way, but went back into the bar. A few minutes later he marched up to the table, threw a pack of Accords down in front of me without explanation. I took it that in the Animal kingdom, this was interpreted as acceptance.
Under the Electric Sky Page 9
