It's A Hard-Knock Life

Today I went to a travelling carnival that had set up in the parking lot of the local mall. On the way out, I stopped to talk to one of the carnies. What follows came from him. (Parentheses indicate editorial insertions.)

(Two children come up to the side of the ride - the Yo-Yo, one of those rides with the swings - shoving tickets at him.) The door's over there. *point* Go wait by the door. (The ride is still running; they push through the door and come UNDER THE RUNNING RIDE to shove tickets at him.) WHAT ARE YOU DOING? THE RIDE IS GOING! THE DOOR IS OVER THERE! *points, ferries them out* Man, I've seen the stupidest fucking people out here. Coming out while the ride is going, damn! Sometimes you get people - ok, I'm not the brightest person, right, but when I see a swing, and I see a strap hanging from the bottom of the swing, and it's got a hook on it, and there's a loop on the bar on the top of the swing, I don't go "durr" and wrap the strap around my leg. But these people do. No common fucking sense. I've done some stupid shit myself, of course. Once the ride was going and I had to duck under my tarp (the base of the ride has a tarp wrapped around it) and when I come back out the swings were coming down and one of the buckles hit me in the head. Knocked me out cold. They had to send some guys in to pick me up, and I came to right when they picked me up. I was like "Aaah, I gotta go turn off my ride!" (The ride stops and he lets his passengers off. The two kids from earlier and a very large woman who was nowhere to be seen when they were running around earlier try to get on. He goes to take their tickets and strap them in, and comes back.) She didn't fit. Too fat. It's funny, I've fit some fat-ass people on this ride. Usually what I see is women with very large chests. Once I had a lady, and I was trying to strap her in - I was like, "look, ma'am, if I have to touch your chest, don't get offended, ok?" And she was trying to get the chest strap hooked, but it wouldn't go. So I was like "I'm gonna have to touch your chest," and I like, basically lifted her tits up and strapped it underneath, and she was like "Oh!" Yeah, common fucking sense. Oh wait, people don't HAVE that.

See that guy over there? He's an asshole. I kicked his ass last week. That's not the best fight I've been in, though. The best fight we've had this year - I was in it, but I wasn't in the best part of it - was this new guy, it was like his first week, and he didn't know how to shut up. He kept running his mouth off at the guy who runs the Sea King, so everybody basically kicked the shit out of him. I mean, we thought we KILLED this guy. And afterward we're all in the bunkhouses - I mean, we're tough love, this is tough love out here. We'll kick each other's asses - most of these guys have kicked my ass a couple times, but it's ok, because I know it's because they're looking out for me. So if you get your ass kicked, you go back in the bunkhouse, you shut your door and go the fuck to sleep, right? But this guy, he didn't know how to shut up, so like five minutes and he's going RARR RARR RARR again. He ends up running out and he's up at the midway office building. Now, the lady who lives in the midway office building, she carries a gun because she can't defend herself. And we all thought she was in there, while he's banging on her door at 2, 3;30 in the morning. So we go after him, and he's up on the stairs, and he's banging away and yelling, and I tell him, "If you don't shut up, I'm going to kick your ass harder than the rest of the guys ever did." And he turns around and goes RARR RARR RARR, and I just cannonball him right above the belt, and he just curls up on the ground. We get some good fights here.

Everybody does something. Weed, cocaine, alcohol, whatever, everybody does something out here. But we don't like crack, we don't like meth - we don't like the BAD shit, y'know? I used to have a little magnetic pipe and I'd load it up with pot and just keep it stuck right here inside my control box. Start the ride, do a hit, pop it back in with those magnets. I had a little pipe that looks like a cigarette, and I'd walk down the midway smoking that. Real cigarette in one hand, little cigarette pipe in the other. Had a lady stop me once - "I smell marijuana!" I just said "I don't," and I wasn't even lying. I don't have much of a sense of smell anymore.

I've gotten hurt a ton of times. I've fallen off the sweeps - the arms the swings are on, we call those sweeps - fell all the way down to the ground, broke my arm in two places, I was still back here the next day. I've hit my head on the swings, I've fallen off of shit, I used to have a suicide plate - one of the plates in the base there, those all move and come out so the ride folds up into its own trailer, you know? And one of them, I fixed it this year, if you stepped on it wrong it would slide open. Suicide plate. I stepped on it wrong and it slid open and I fell down inside and then it slid back. Caught me right in the chest. Cracked three ribs. I've busted my hand, dislocated my thumb - think I've broken this thumb too - broke my foot, twisted my ankle tons of times, I've gotten pretty beat up. Always come back to work the next day, though.

I've been doing this since last year - my first time was right here at this location, actually. I came in to do tear-down, and I started travelling with 'em. Your first season, you're considered greenwood, and if you make it through that first season, you get to be a ride operator. Last season I tore this entire ride down. I mean TO THE BONES. I had to unscrew every single lightbulb, rework every socket, strip it down, repaint everything and then reassemble it, all inside of a week. And people wonder why I EARNED this ride.

Her Space Holiday - I'll Believe In Anything (website)
RIAA - Runnin' With The Devil Bunnies (website)
The Fratellis - Chelsea Dagger (website)
Man Like Me - Carny (Punks Jump Up Goes Bass remix) (myspace)