Midway attention-getter

Usage examples of carny.

Solemnly-and sometimes tearfully-we said good-bye to Joel and Laura Tuck, to Gloria Neames, Red Morton, Bob Weyland, Madame Zena, Inna and Paulie Lotus, and other carnies, telling some that we were taking a brief pleasure trip, telling others the truth.

Most were owned by the concessionaires and their families, but a score or two were the property of the Sombra Brothers and were rented out to those carnies, like me, who did not hold title to their own accommodations.

Gibtown is the winter home for carnies from nearly every road show in the eastern half of the country, not just from the Sombra Brothers outfit.

The carny crew started arriving in twos and threes, and by the time Julius and a pair of the burlier games workers had returned with the coffin, all of them were there except for Monk, Batman, and Priscilla.

Itinerant short con and carny hyp men have burned down the croakers of Texas.

The carnies had shut down the Ferris wheel, Dive Bomber, Tilt-a-Whirl, and other rides.

With the departure of the marks, the carnies had gone to their travel trailers, which were parked in a large meadow south of the midway.

I still had to dispose of the corpse and clean up the blood before daylight made things more difficult for me and before morning brought the carnies back onto their midway.

I sensed that clannish, secretive mind-set of a lifelong carny, so I talked for a bit about the gillies and ragbags I'd worked in the Midwest, all the way through Ohio, while he continued to tinker with the generator and remained mute.

I cut across the sunny midway rather than walk around the entire concourse, and the next carny I met was a big man coming toward me with his head down, hands in his pockets, shoulders slumped, altogether too defeated-looking for a day as golden as this one.

His mouth was open slightly, his teeth like the stained and weathered pickets of an ancient fence, as he contemplated me and what I'd said, as if he might inquire further or offer advice, but he was too good a carny to pry.

I half expected one of the visitors to rush in with word that a carny was missing or even that one had been found dead in the vicinity of the Dodgem Car pavilion, and then they would all look at me because I was an outsider, the newcomer, a likely suspect, and they would see guilt in my face, and .

By the time I closed the concession and headed for the meadow at the back of the county fairgrounds, where the carnies had established their mobile community, it was a few minutes after one o'clock.

Among carnies, however, there is a strong and treasured sense of community that, year by year, never diminishes.

As I approached and then walked in among the first trailers, lights were extinguished here and there as weary carnies went to bed.