Flying Funny: My Life without a Net

by Dudley Riggs

  We were still making halting mistakes, but as in jazz, we repeated the mistakes, laughing and having fun, and seeing this somehow infected the crowd. “Are they laughing at us or with us?” asked Bernie.

  “It does not matter one whit, as long as they’re laughing,” said Marylyn.

  The club used the title “Ad Lib Ad Absurdum” for a month. I spent the weekend commutes doing these short stints in front of the club audience, testing new bits and training my voice. After years of pantomime performing, I was finally using my voice onstage again.

  I still hadn’t figured out how to make the ad-lib duetsustain for more than a few minutes at a time. Marylyn’s intro took more stage time than the bit itself, and even with the light jazz support, it still felt short.

  Then Marylyn suggested we try working less cool and detached by turning and looking directly face-to-face. “Be friendly. Be polite. Listen harder. Smile more. If you have fun, the audience has fun.”

  We talked after every show, practiced our delivery, but avoided talking about the future. Bernie didn’t need me. And he certainly didn’t need my crazy “talk” piece. He had cheerfully indulged my “thing” out of friendship, but I knew that he would drop it if we had one too many bad shows.

  Once we could read and anticipate each other, the flow improved, and the stories got longer and began to actually make sense. Marylyn was beaming. “It’s almost like religion,” she said. Bernie believed in jazz. I believed in free association. Marylyn believed in art, beauty, and good manners. We talked long and hard and agreed to continue.

  I said we should bill it “Word Jazz.”

  On Saturday nights, right after the break when the lounge crowd was predictably relaxed and willing to participate, Marylyn set up the audience by asking for single-word suggestions, which she listed on a blackboard. The club patrons were only mildly interested until the lights went down, and she made the simple understated announcement: “And now . . . Ladies and Gentlemen . . . Word Jazz.”

  Standing back-to-back in a tight spotlight, Bernie and I took turns reciting what was advertised as “a made-up-on-the-spot story,” starting with that single word suggested by someone in the audience. The trick was always to honor the given word and try to inflect some meaning into the connections.

  One night it went like this: the audience-supplied word was whiskey, so prohibition logically came to mind as the second word. Then Al Capone. Then back and forth for about fifty words as we each took our turn responding to the previous word. Often and ideally, the lead word would circle back, so that depression, divorce, would carry the story back to the cause of it all, which was whiskey. A sad story that starts with whiskey and ends in divorce.

  When we spoke the last two words, we’d turn and face each other, shake hands, and take our bow. The story did not always have a point, but the audience applauded while we struggled, nearly out of breath, to make meaning out of random words. Soon we found that we could dazzle the audience with speed and vocal dexterity, but the story still needed to make some kind of sense. That was the hard part.

  When we tried to graduate from single-word exchanges to full sentences, we embarrassed ourselves in front of a friendly crowd. Suddenly tongue-tied, we verbally walked all over each other before Marylyn killed the lights. The audience laughed at us that night.

  Being laughed off the stage is not at all pleasant. If this were to happen again, I knew that Bernie would walk away from my act with no regrets. Bernie was fearless but not foolish. We had gotten overconfident and underestimated the heft of the task. I needed to go back to the basics.

  I thought: Responding to each single word is easy.

  “His word” cued “my word.” “My word” cued “his word.”

  A single word (usually), a small amount of meaning.

  But sentences are loaded with meaning.

  “His sentence” cued “my sentence.” That’s harder.

  Marylyn was right; this was not as simple as I thought.

  There is still a lot . . . of work to do.

  We were getting better every week, but by spring I was trying to finish classes and book circus dates for The Riggs Brothers. Marylyn and Bernie moved to Chicago to take other jobs. They each promised to keep in touch, and I promised to call them if I ever had paying work.

  My friends from the Fernland had never stopped asking me, “What do you really want to do? Really?” All through that winter as I commuted up to the Cities to be with Marylyn and Bernie, I was asking myself that question.

  When I returned to Mankato, I enrolled in an education department class titled “Stage Direction for Educational Theater,” aimed primarily at future high-school teachers. Students in my theater direction class were always talking theory and all manner of utopian dreams: plays they wanted to see, plays that would be fun to do, plays that they absolutely must direct. The list contained plays from every historical period and style from the past two thousand years, a vast canon of work that was overwhelming to me. I realized how little I knew about the great playwrights of the past and the beauty of theatrical literature. I was so busy doing shows, I missed seeing shows. I had missed how essential the playwright was to the play.

  My professor said, “First, the play has to be written, then, at a later time, after countless hours of work, it can be performed for an audience. It’s a process of many steps.” My head was still stuck, ruminating about the possibility of writing the play while performing it. So, in the hope of getting extra credit, I decided to test my Fliffus notion.

  So I posted a request for volunteer subjects on the theater department announcement board. I cobbled together an exercise that I hoped would make Fliffus legitimate. I thought I might get credit, maybe even acceptance. Here is what I told them:

  Exploring Fliffus: A Creative Tool

  This script was chosen because it’s stilted and stiff. No one talks this way anymore, as if anyone ever did. Let’s see if it’s possible to make it more conversational, like real people talk, more relaxed, more honest.

  You each have been given a copy of the script.

  Now, here’s what I want you to do for me: Ignore the title.

  Do a quick cursory read through of the script. Read it again, thinking about your character. Really think about your character.

  Now I want you to do the scene without the script.

  You now know your characters; you know where the story is going, so I want you to do the play without script but with your imagination engaged. Don’t try to remember the old lines, just create new lines.

  Allow yourself to move about. It’s ok to be open, spontaneous, and even a little wild. Don’t worry about going up on lines; you don’t have to memorize these lines because they are soon going to be replaced by your lines. As you walk through the scene, do what your character does, but let the words come off the top of your head. Keep an open mind.

  Use the first word that comes into your mind, and don’t worry about the words being the right words. These are your words so they are the right words. I’m looking for real, honest expression, based on how you and your character feel right now. This is a group enterprise; let yourself be part of the group.

  Allow your smartest self to stay in control. Avoid cheap shot conflicts. Don’t stop and judge what comes out. Keep going. Keep listening. Hear what’s said with an open mind. Everyone needs to know that their speech is respected. Remember, everyone has free speech even when you disagree with what they say. Once you hear it all, you may change your view.

  Try to think Positively Neutral.

  Try to suspend judgment about yourself and others. Be nice. Have fun.

  Let the story go where it wants to go. Listen to each other, and build on what you hear. We may end up with a totally different scene, and the scene may change your character. That’s good. We have to trust each other and not try to upstage each other. Help each other.

  We are all writing this script together. It does not have to tell the old story; it should tell a new s
tory that is the combined expression from each of you and all of us. Allow yourself the freedom to create something new even if it’s just here today, gone tomorrow. This is new to me, too. It’s just anidea being developed. We are trying something that I think can work.

  Your hardest task is to not judge what you’re doing.

  We don’t know what this will look like when it’s finished, but let’s have some fun and see where it goes. It might just become something wonderful.

  I received a curt note from my professor. “Observing your project, I couldn’t help thinking that the time and energy of these students could have been more wisely invested in the study of a more serious subject.” My interest in improvisation was seen as an avoidance of the real task of a theater student. In addition, I hadn’t yet realized that I needed to create an environment where this approach could work. It wasn’t well developed at this stage. There’s nothing so bad as a great notion that didn't work.

  The original script called for four women and three men and was selected at random from the school’s play library. Some of the student volunteers hated the idea at first but warmed to it by the third try after they’d gotten to know each other and that extra credit might also be shared.

  Some of my fellow students probably thought that I was a nut case. Fortunately, there were two Korean War vets there on the GI Bill, who were older than the rest and willing to take direction. They calmed the class. I was still standing out as the oddball to these students, all of whom wanted a teaching degree or a “Mrs. Degree.” Coeds were friendly until they learned that I would leave when I got another show-biz opportunity.

  11

  Never Let Them Know You Can Drive a Semi

  I get another show-business “opportunity.”

  That following spring, I was hired to be the center-ring star of a small but prestigious circus for a tour along the Alcan Highway in Canada. This was an opportunity to reach and entertain a new audience for circus and earn a large salary.

  Circus tours usually avoid moving heavy trucks and heavy elephants into the mountains. The show’s truck drivers were constantly complaining about the long mileage jumps and hazards of overheating the brakes and the terror of an uncontrolled runaway rig that you can’t stop.

  I didn’t have to worry about all that. As a privileged performing artist, I had the free time and was enjoying the beauty of the mountains from my own English sports car.

  One hot afternoon I had just passed a 9,200-foot elevation sign when I came upon the show’s “Number 7” truck, stalled with a blown motor. There was a huge hole in the hood, and the thrown pistons, which came to rest on the road about fifty feet away, had shattered the windshield. The black smoke, colored by the patrol car’s flashing lights, and the endless pacing back and forth by the big cats in the trailer lent a fearful seriousness to the scene.

  Angry roars from the caged animals prompted the newly arrived Mountie to unsnap the flap covering his revolver.

  The stainless-steel cages housed ten cats in all: three Bengal tigers, a puma, a leopard, a black-maned Nubian lion, and the four females of his pride. These were display animals, too old to work in a circus performance but still providing a menagerie display.

  The truck driver—a guy I knew as Charlie—was hanging plywood curtains over the bars and chattering to himself out loud. “I told them that this would need a new motor if we were going to do these mountains. I told them. Now that cop is freaking out about the cats. I got to keep them quiet so that jerk doesn’t go nuts and shoot them in their cage.” Charlie tended to get nervous around authority.

  The curtains seemed to calm the cats, so Charlie cooled down as well. The Mountie, however, was still on high alert, having picked up the agitated pacing of the cats.

  The owner of the show and the show’s lawyer were already there, talking to the captain of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and making plans to have the rig towed to the nearest town that had a Mack truck garage. There would be no performances and a delay of several days until a new motor could be located and installed. This was going to be a very expensive repair job and had to be paid with cash because no one would likely accept a check from itinerate show people. And there was another problem: the show was always short on big-rig truck drivers and Charlie—while being one of the very best—was not someone to leave behind in a town with a liquor store and in charge of so much money.

  The owner walked close to me and said: “I’ve decided to leave Charlie here with the truck and leave you here with the money to pay for the new motor. I just don’t trust Charlie to stay sober. So you are in charge. The show needs you. Get the motor in and try to catch up with the show by the time we play Saskatoon.”

  A large paper sack full of cash was thrust into my hand, then the owner said a polite good-bye to me and made a challenge to Charlie to stay sober. With that, he and the lawyer drove on up the mountain before I thought of saying no.

  Charlie got a room in the hotel near the Mack garage replacing the motor. Twelve miles higher up the mountain, I found a place to tow the trailer portion of the rig and waited with the very smelly and hungry residents of the menagerie.

  There were about nine hundred pounds of frozen horsemeat in the trailer freezer and no lack of enthusiasm atfeeding time. As a trapeze flyer, I had no experience with animal acts, and this was really not my job, but Charlie was down in the valley and the roaring had to be kept under control to keep the Mounties away.

  Each day I’d check on the motor and look in on Charlie, who was usually asleep or out of his room. I’d have a Chinese meal in one of three Chinese cafés in the small town and check the weather predicted for Saskatoon. On the fourth day, the truck was ready.

  Cash from the paper sack paid for the new motor, and we were good to go. I’d just go get Charlie, hook up the trailer, and we would be ready to roll south to Saskatoon.

  Going up the stairs of the Hoy Toy Hotel I could hear a lot of strident chatter in three-part disharmony. A twentyish Chinese woman, an older Chinese man, and a very young girl were all shouting at once. Charlie was drunk and mumbling something about not knowing how the girl got into his room. A man with a baseball bat shouted, “You go now! You Go! NOW you go!”

  I paid the hotel bill, apologized to the management, and tried to get Charlie over to the garage to pick up the truck. As he staggered past the Mountie station, the sergeant called out, “Which one of you fellows is the driver for that circus truck?”

  Charlie couldn’t answer. I said, in my very best legal voice, “He’s the driver, but of course he won’t be driving tonight. We only have to rejoin the show in Saskatoon in a few days. We plan to cross over the pass, pick up 37, go down past Prince George, and take 16 all the way to Saskatoon.”

  The sergeant looked at the map, laughed a little laugh, and, gesturing in my direction, said something to the others, who promptly broke up as if they had seen me take a pratfall.

  “I think you may have to revise your plan, son.”

  The laughter ended. The Mountie was now quite serious.

  “You most likely will have to delay your trip, or try to reroute yourself back through the States. You won’t get to Highway 37 because the ferry crossing closes at midnight tonight. Looks like you boys might be with us for quite a while,” the sergeant said in a kind voice. Then he turned back, all business: “Don’t even consider letting that drunk drive—today, tonight, or even next week.” He was obviously angry with Charlie, and I later learned there had been several police calls during his short stay at the Hoy Toy Hotel. Charlie had easily worn out our welcome.

  It was about 1,200 miles to Saskatoon, and if we had to go back down into the States and then back up into Saskatchewan, our trip would more than double. By the time we caught up, the show would have moved on to somewhere else. We absolutely had to make that ferry before midnight.

  I chatted with the mechanic, asking about the mountain, and he quickly got ahead of me: “You ain’t gonna try and drive this yourself, son? I m
ean, you do have a driver, don’t you?’”

  I assured him that Charlie had over a million miles on the road. “He is a fully professional driver,” I said. When he is sober, I thought to myself.

  It was now Saturday afternoon; Charlie was sleeping it off in the sleeping compartment behind the cab. The rig was gassed and ready. I figured it was time for Charlie to start doing his job. A half-drunk experienced driver who knows how to drive the truck trumps a totally inept terrified driver any day, right?

  When I opened the sleeper compartment hatch, an acid mist of gin and vomit blew into my face.

  “Hey!” yelled Charlie. “Are you ready for a little drink?’ He was happily singing a drinking song.

  Charlie was now the drunkest I had ever seen him.

  “Just relax, Charlie, I’ll be back with some coffee in a little while.”

  I closed the hatch and locked it.

  I considered my situation. Charlie was ten years older and about eighty pounds heavier than me with a lot of facial scars. Taking Charlie’s bottle away from him did not seem like an option. I got behind the wheel and stared at the dashboard. My anger at Charlie was tame next to the anger at myself for leaving college again for show business.

  I started the engine and drove slow circles around the parking lot, trying to talk myself into believing that I could drive, but never getting out of second gear.

  I had been told that missing a shift could be the beginning of a very fast freewheeling ride off the edge of this dangerously steep mountain.

  I put small Band-Aid markers on the tachometer, marking shift points for each of the gears. I was terrified that blowing a shift or overusing the brakes would end our lives.

  I was terrified, but I had to drive.

  The Canadian Rockies are inspiring during the day, but at night the beauty gets lost in the uncertainty of not knowing where you are.