by Dudley Riggs
Approximately 2,100 blue seats.
900 red folding chairs—the reserved section.
One generator.
Four cage wagons, bull truck, cookhouse van, pie car, and other vehicles totaling 25 titled pieces of rolling stock.
The big top was new at the start of the fair; the trucks had only one season on them—or twenty-five thousand miles. No animals were included—all the livestock had left with the acts when the World’s Fair ended or had been returned to the World Jungle Compound in Thousand Oaks, California.
In all, there were 110 listed items. My dad now had everything necessary to run a circus—the Riggs Brothers Circus. Not necessary was item number 73.
Number 73 was a bronze casket containing the mummified remains of a male Tasmanian pygmy, which had been widely heralded as the Devil’s Child in a special sideshow presentation at the World’s Fair. My mother was appalled.
“I have not the slightest interest in being in that kind of show business,” she said. Nothing would allow her to think of herself as being anywhere near a sideshow or in any way associated with something called the Devil’s Child. She threw a royal snit, condemning the deal. “What are you thinking about, Riggs?”
On first sight, the Devil’s Child was startling to see. In life, this tiny man had a well-developed, athletic body, curly red hair, and an expressive face. It looked as if two short stub horns had erupted through his forehead, and he had a tail. His incisors had sharpened points, making his smile all the more menacing. In short, he looked like the Devil—with horns and a tail—actually, two tails. The Devil’s Child was presented stark naked, lying on blood-red silk satin inside the bronze casket.
I don’t believe Doc really wanted the Devil’s Child. It just came with the circus that he acquired from the World’s Fair, but for years he was reluctant to get rid of it. As a result, and with space being short on the bus, for years the Devil’s Child’s casket was stored in a compartment under my bed.
At that time, Grandmother Riggs, my parents, and I lived in a sixty-foot luxury motor home for about half the year; the other six months we lived in inexpensive hotels. The motor home, a former Greyhound bus, had been custom-built to our specifications by the Luxury Motor Home Company of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The double-deck bus was modified to create a three-bedroom, two-bath, home on wheels. The living space for three adults and me was tight, but roomier than most of our hotel suites.
At the height of the Riggs Brothers Circus, we had a full, three-ring circus that traveled by truck. It was a big show with more than one hundred trucks and trailers and a three-thousand-seat big top. Doc had a great eye for talent but a weakness for beauty, and a soft heart, so unemployed people kept joining the show, and the show got bigger and better. Other circuses had gone broke, but we stayed on the road, and animal acts with a lot of exotic mouths to feed joined our show just to get stock feed and enjoy the cookhouse. Doc said these acts could work with us until they found something better.
People used to think of the circus coming to town as a big event, and always being new and unique. Circus posters, programs, and announcements love to use a lot of colorful adjectives and alliteration, a tradition started by P. T. Barnum and exploited most effectively by the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus throughout the twentieth century.
“The circus must bring something new and wonderful, something the public has never experienced before. And it has to do that year in and year out,” our manager, Jack Roddy, would say. “An elephant was a real oddity back when Barnum was touring; he had the only elephant on this continent. Now it’s hard to find a kid who hasn’t seen, petted, or maybe even taken a ride on one.”
The circus menagerie brought a zoo of exotic animals to the people all across America at a time when the circus stood alone. The circus was important back then. The old big-top railroad circus made its impact on the country because it went to every major city. But the mud-show circus went to the people in small towns. A new town, a new audience every day. The circus was the only live professional entertainment they might experience all year.
Moving a “tented city” was very hard work that required a vast amount of labor, men working eighteen-hour days for little pay. “You have to respect the working men, they move the show,” Doc said. He never called them “roustabouts,” or “roughnecks,” or “razorbacks,” as some did. To Doc, they were essential and deserved to be called “the working men.”
When you were booked on a show, you might never get to know more than a few names, and the names you did know were ranked by your need to know. I didn’t need to know the property boy by anything other than Props. Or the electrician by anything beyond Alek. Pie Car John and Gofer and Gilly were named by their jobs. Old Number Seven was the driver of ticket wagon number seven. Lots of men were known only by where they came from, but Tex and Oakie were actually from Nebraska; it didn’t matter. There were also guys named Numb Nuts, Sprain Brain, and Killer. I never wanted to know where they came from, only that they could do the jobs they were hired for.
I didn’t need anyone’s name if I didn’t have to talk to them. “We must speak upwardly,” Grandmother Riggs taught me. “We only talk downwardly when it involves moving the help.” The circus was not a classless society. As a performer, I could speak to the front-office brass, other performers, riggers, and property boys. I was told not to talk to the rest. The canvas crew, trainmen, and the grandstand crew would be finished working by the time I got to the lot. Knowing workers’ job names was thought to be enough because the workforce kept changing with new hirings and firings about every week. Those working men who had started the season by giving up half of the first two weeks’ pay as a “holdback” could sometimes be counted on to stay all the way back to winter quarters in the fall. But many were like the show itself, “Here today, gone tomorrow.”
Circus booking agents used to make contractual arrangements with a town to present the circus and then would rent a vacant lot from the town and get the license. Then the circus came to town. “Circus Day” was a big deal and required a lot of labor. A “punk pusher” was employed to do what we called “pushing punk”—hiring eighth-grade children who would help put up the tent and the seats in exchange for a free ticket to a show. The kids would usually be seated in the cheap seats and might be called out to help during the shutting down, sometimes robbing the kids of the finale. But they could all brag that they had been “with” the circus.
We depended on people showing up and buying tickets at the door. Once when we were in Ohio, the preacher of one town gave a sermon and said it was sinful to go to the circus. We ended up with a small house, and we didn’t even have the money to buy enough gasoline to get all of the trucks to the next town. The Phillips 66 truck came in to gas up all the trucks, but we were only able to put one gallon in each truck.
We had to get off the lot the next day or else we would be fined and charged another day’s license. We had put just enough gas in the trucks to get them started up and off the lot, and then, one by one, they all ran out of gas along the way to the next town. In the meantime, the advance man went ahead and, luckily, sold an advertising account to a Texaco gas station, which then sent its tanker truck back down the road to gas up our trucks so we could all get into town in time to do the show.
By the third or fourth town after that, when everything was looking really dark, we’d do three full sold-out or “straw” houses—an exceptional kind of run in which all of the seats were sold, and additional people would be allowed to sit on straw on the hippodrome track in front of the rings to watch a slightly shortened show. It was feast or famine. We’d go from sold-out-plus houses to getting only one paid admission, all in a matter of a week. The circus business then was like gambling, but with very few jackpots.
Once, we did a full evening performance when there had been only a single ticket sold. Importantly, the solo ticket had been purchased by an unmarried woman, a schoolteacher, who happened to be the daughter of the loca
l sheriff. Everyone else in the audience was either a “punk” kid or people in on free passes. “There’s show business and then there’s . . . slow business,” said Lil. The show went on, and to make it less embarrassing, we moved all the people down in front of the center ring. This record small audience saw a full, two-hour and ten-minute performance for one paid admission. “Small house or SRO—the audience always gets a full performance of the Riggs Circus,” said Doc.
Whether it’s cold, or whether it’s hot,
We shall have weather, whether or not!
So proclaimed our announcer while standing in the center of the center ring. Prince Paul—he was Count Paul another year—was trying to calm an Oklahoma audience’s concern, a concern made evident by the quiet murmuring and chattering of the few families that had started moving toward the exits.
“Don’t worry, folks, this is just a passing shower,” he lied. “The show is not over yet. So please stay in your seats.” In the backyard we could hear the announcement, and I knew that this was going to be a night to “John Robinson” the performance. That meant to shorten it, a term named after a famous Civil War–era circus producer.
Our circus performance was only about a third over, so if every act worked its full routine, the audience had nearly one hundred minutes of show coming, and that was too long a time with the dangerous storm that was beginning to pick up some wind. The word was passed—“John Robinson”—at the same time that the canvas crew was rolling out of the sleeper, half-dressed, cursing, and complaining, but lining up around the stake line to pull down the guy lines and tighten the already water-heavy canvas.
“We have a public trust to entertain the audience and get them safely on their way,” Doc said in his best dressing-room style. “So let’s give them a wonderful performance in less than half the time.” Everyone rallied; each act performed its opening and closing routine, heard the ringmaster’s whistle, and took a bow.
The audience loved it and were home safely by the time the wind opened its act with a double flourish, raising the big top high enough to pull the quarter pole stakes and blowing the menagerie top completely away. I was frantically pulling my flying rigging out into the backyard when I looked up front toward the midway and saw that the banner line, the sideshow, and the menagerie were gone!
“Something’s odd,” I thought. “They haven’t started the tear down yet.” But those tents were gone.
Thirty thousand square feet of O. Henry canvas were trav‑eling like a big sail across the highway and over a mile of Oklahoma cornfield. In the big top, the boss canvas man hacked the center pole lines, which allowed the bailing rings to slide down the poles, collapse the balloon of canvas, and saved the big top. Later, as the sky cleared and the rain stopped, the emergency siren on top of the town hall finally started giving out its warning, an hour too late. In the rubble, our Greyhound bus was nowhere in sight. We had lost our home.
“It’s a good thing I John Robinsoned the show,” said Prince Paul. “At least nobody got hurt!”
The boss canvas man shouted something about getting a friggin’ merit badge and then getting the hell away from the poles just as the storm made a parting shot. Lightning struck the flag on the end pole, traveled down the steel cables, and grabbed Prince Paul. There was an awful smell like burned wool and ozone. Doc crouched down low, managed to drag him under a flatbed, where a Red Cross volunteer covered him up with a blanket. Paul was in shock for a while but recovered. A year later, Paul still used his “whether it’s cold, or whether it’s hot” line, but never with quite the same conviction.
We were tired, and we had lost much to the storm, but we had not suffered as much as the towners, where lives had been lost. The sun broke through the clouds as Doc said, “The canvas can be replaced—thank John Robinson and thank Chubb Insurance—we have a show to do in Tulsa.” He started making calls to reassemble the Riggs Brothers Circus.
Fortunately, Lil and Grandmother Riggs missed the storm. They had left for Tulsa that morning.
The Oklahoma National Guard found a few pieces of our former home. The frame and the motor had ended up in the middle of a cotton field two miles down the road. Small pieces of the custom plywood cabinets and parts of photo albums and show posters were found in the mud. I found one photo—of Riggs & Riggs: Those Different Acrobats—and wiped the mud away. We still had a circus, but no place to sleep. We were safe, and I knew that we would recover.
Because of the storm, the Riggs family lost not only show property and equipment, but also the personal belongings from our home. Grandmother Riggs forever grieved over family records, photographs, and show advertisements that were gone, and her beloved china tea service that she had kept intact since her marriage in 1895. Publicity photos, newspaper clippings, and the record of births, deaths, and marriages (which were kept in the otherwise unused family Bible) were gone.
And I began to feel that everything truly was ephemeral, just as Grandmother Riggs had always said. The circus had been wrecked, but I knew Doc would fix it. He mobilized the crew to start unwrapping the wet canvas from around a garage and motel that had been gift-wrapped by the wind.
Our clothing, contracts, show wardrobe, props, and “walk-around” money went with the storm. The American Red Cross provided army cots set up in the East Side High School gym and helped us wire Roddy for money. We were given some dry clothes and a hot meal and told to go to the church for emergency assistance. There was a line of about twenty people passing by a desk where small amounts of cash and some coupons were being handed out. A Salvation Army officer in full uniform cut the two of us out of the herd of the needy. This became a depressing moment.
“Ain’t you them show people?”
I nodded.
“We heard about you show people from Reverend Johnson. We can’t help you out. You should go to the Church of the Burning Cross over on the east side.”
We were strangers, transients, and the word circus on the side of our bus had alerted the “protectors” of the village. These folks had stayed away from the performance. “The storm came to punish the circus,” said one woman who would not look at me.
At the Church of the Burning Cross, we were met at the door by none other than Reverend Johnson, who quickly walked us back out of the church and down the cement steps, away from the eyes and ears of the volunteers.
“You are those show people, right?” he asked rhetorically.
We both nodded this time.
“Well, the long and the short of it is, we can’t help you out either. All our emergency money comes from the main office, and we can only give it out to local residents.”
(We must have riled something in his inner Christian.)
Doc was resigned to the news. “Well, thank you for the thought of it,” he said.
As we turned to leave, the good Reverend Johnson said in a half whisper, “You people can’t just walk into town as strangers and expect the town to give you a handout.”
I was taken off balance. “What? What is this?” Doc nudged me to shut up and move out.
He kept on. “No, you people do not deserve services in this community.”
(We did not request help and didn’t need the aggravation.)
By then some of the volunteers were coming closer to see what prompted the good Reverend Johnson to raise his voice.
It was an embarrassing situation. I wanted to explain that we were not trying to pull some con game. But a little prairie fire of anger was building up in me and getting snotty.
“Well, Reverend, we were just passing through your formerly fine little city when the tornado caught us like it caught a lot of your fine citizens,” Doc said. “We did not plan to burden you, and we will be on our way just as soon as Western Union can . . .”
Doc was cut off as someone who called himself Holy Brother Bobby came storming out of the church, red-faced, and sputtering, “How dare you come up here for a handout and then get sarcastic with Reverend Johnson here in God’s house! How da
re you!”
We were definitely not in God’s house. In fact, we were on the sidewalk, moving away fast, wondering why the term “circus people” had ignited so much angry noise.
“I’m going to call the sheriff on you,” Bobby shouted. “Maybe a night in our jail will make you infidel carpetbaggers civil. Maybe you will learn to fear God.” I was nine years old and was startled and struck dumb. We had lost everything, and now we were being threatened with jail.
As it happens, the jail had also blown away.
The next morning, we picked up cash wired for us from Western Union and caught the train. Despite our losses, we recovered enough to reopen two weeks later in Tulsa. As the train pulled out of the station, my dad was singing softly:
From the day you were born, ’til you ride in a hearse,
Things are never so bad, but what they might have been worse.
He sat and stared out the window for no more than a few seconds, and then, with a big smile, asked, “What do you suppose happened to the Devil’s Child?” We considered that question all the way to Tulsa.
I imagined some time in the future when the Church of the Burning Cross breaks ground to build their new church and unearths the Devil’s Child’s casket. I think something as durable as the Devil’s Child’s bronze casket most likely survived the tornado to provide one last laugh at Holy Brother Bobby.
Show people are always suspect. Back when people stayed put, when we brought the entertainment to the people, our arrival in each new town was an exciting time. CIRCUS DAY was a big event. Most of the people greeted us warmly, but there were always some who saw us only as outsiders. The Settled often greet the newcomer with fear, suspicious of newbies, “others,” transients, wanderers, feral strangers (who might steal their daughters).
The Other is both celebrated and feared. (He might be an outsider trying to become an insider! Aren’t we all?) And the Settled can seem imprisoned in small-town airlessness. Maybe it is part of the American character: we like to watch celebrities and what they do, and then we judge them harshly. In every new town, we were the Other.