Under the Big Top: My Season With the Circus by Bruce Feiler Page B

say, ‘You know what I did at the circus? I shook the hand of the tiger trainer.’ That makes it all worthwhile.”
    Though his performance is finished, Khris’s work has just begun. Before he can remove his Captain Kirk outfit and settle down for a few minutes’ rest, the cats must be removed from the tent, quickly watered, and fully fed. The props crew must dismantle the cage, stack it in piles, and pull it away. The tasks are awkward, the crowd needs distraction, in circus tradition the ringmaster calls: send in the clowns.

3
    First of May
    Few people are more cherished on a circus lot than a First of May. He, or even she, can be embraced, abused, ridiculed, or ripped off. All of these happened to me during my first four days on the show.
    “Oh shit. Who the hell are you? And what are you doing here?”
    When I drove my camper onto the lot the Sunday evening before setup, I was greeted by the show’s official parking guru and grouch, Gene, a surly, swollen old-timer whom everyone on the circus called Hippo. With the physique of a bouncer and the charm of a tiger in heat, Hippo was the show’s twenty-four-hour man. He taped red arrows to road signs along the route every other night to guide the drivers, laid out the stake line on the new lot, and directed the trucks and trailers to their parking spots as they arrived throughout the night. The first two jobs he did well. As for the third, well, Hippo has been lucky over the years that none of the performers has had very good aim when it comes to throwing stakes.
    “I’m a clown,” I said. “I’m new.”
    “Well, fuck,” he said. “I don’t have room for you. I think you better leave.”
    I laughed. He snarled. Then he gestured for me to follow.
    My inaugural hours around the circus lot were like awkward moments in a new country where I didn’t speak the language and didn’t have a map. More importantly, I didn’t have a place to park. Before leaving home I had purchased an RV, the insider’s term for a recreational vehicle, alternately called a motor home, a camper, or, according to my dealer, a honeymoon on wheels. While the workers (as well as some of the clowns and musicians) lived in sleepers—semitrucks with cots in the back like overnight Italian trains—the performers were required to provide their own accommodations. After a crash course on mobile living (“Think small,” I was told by a friend and RV fanatic, “but not too small. If your milk falls out of the fridge during a drive you don’t want to get wet”), I settled on a four-year-old, twenty-three-foot Winnebago Warrior. Essentially a Chevy van with a hotel room on back, it came complete with two miniature beds, a shower, a toilet, a stove, a television set, and a refrigerator more than four feet from the driver’s seat. It also had a small table, which for me was a requirement, since I may have been the only person in history to run away and join the circus with a laptop computer.
    After my initial encounter with Hippo, one that was repeated in one form or another every other night for the rest of the year, he decided that since I was a clown I should be parked directly behind Clown Alley, the small tent used for dressing that was located halfway down the line of trailers and near the side doors of the tent. While there was nothing wrong with this resolution in DeLand, where the lot was a large, open fairgrounds, this decision proved to be one of the worst things that happened to me all year. The reason: Hippo tried to park me in the same spot in every town, so even if there was a fence (as in Hinesville), a ditch (as in Hendersonville), or a Wal-Mart Dumpster (as in Waycross), the undisputed Mr. Least Congeniality of the Circus tried to squeeze, cajole, or harass me into the same place in every town we played. In the beginning I hated our thrice-weekly fights, but by the end I came to see them as a badge of honor. After all, he treated me just like everyone else.
    Once I had my