Circus Days     Thomas Turman   © Copyright 2026 by Thomas Turman

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

But I take two tentative steps toward them.

The bald man hits them with a stout metal-tipped stick shouting the sad-eyed giants into a line. He and another short frowning man immediately drive their line of performers along the train, across the tracks and into the open field where the billowing, white circus tent is being raised in the slight breeze. I can’t take my eyes off the sad and gentle-looking elephants. Ever since going to the San Diego Zoo when I was three, I dream about elephants.

Most of the people around me are gawkers from the stores along Colorado Blvd. here in Alhambra. I am the only kid. I sneak along the lumbering gray line as close as I dare, hoping to make friends with my dream animals.

My dad has ordered me to come down here and ask for a job. He is always doing things like this. I am sure he is trying to make me grow up beyond my nine years.

“Hey kid! What the hell are you doing back there? This ain’t no show ‘ya know. Get out’a here,” this from the frowning guy.

“Wait, Barge, not so fast.”

“Naw, Telly, look at ‘em he’s a runt kid.”

“But look, he’s not scared. We could use him while we set up.”

Barge marches over to me and frowns down on me. “You ain’t scared of these three, then you’re dumber than you look kid.”

Telly elbows Barge aside, grabs my shoulder, and says, “Come ‘ere kid.” He drags me along the line of elephants to the lead animal. “Say hello to Bella.” He lets go of me and instead of running, I reach up and stroke what I can reach of the solid, prickly shoulder next to me. I didn’t know that elephants have these short hairs all over. Bella’s only movement is to swing her trunk slowly back to snuffle up and down my body. I think she is saying hello. I almost pee my pants, but I also have a huge smile on my face.

“I’ll be damned, Barge, I think we got us something here. You want a job, kid? A dollar a day to help us keep these three ladies of the circus happy while we’re here.”

Before I can answer, “He’s too little, Telly. They’ll mash him into peanut butter.”

“Naw, he understands ‘em. Some people just do,” and here Telly leans down close to me, jerks his head toward Barge and winks.

“I’ll show him what to do. You just go on.”

Barge sloughs off through the still-high grass aiming more frowns at me.

“I’m going to stake my ladies here in the shade of this tree and your job will be to bring them water, food and clean up after them when they poop. OK?”

I nod my understanding. “You know, if you put them over on that side of those trees they will be in shade all day because the sun is going that way,” and I point to where the sun is now at 9:00 in the morning.

“Damn, you’re right. For that you get another dollar.”

I help Telly haul the three-foot-long wood stakes with chains attached over to where the ladies are patiently waiting. Telly bashes the wood stakes into the ground with a giant, wooden mallet and hooks up the chains around their front legs. “Always approach them on their left, OK?”

“OK.” But, I rub up against them whenever I can. They ever-so gently lean back into me, and I know they won’t mash me into peanut butter.

I’ve never carried two five-gallon buckets of water before and certainly not all the way from the hydrant at the street, across a grassy, lumpy field. The water weighs as much as me!

Bella, Molly and Carol love the water, but they drink it in ten minutes! I have to make the trek again. When I get back they don’t drink so fast and spray me with what’s left over. They all snort and stare at me with their left eyes right on me. Are they laughing at me? Thanks ladies!

Off to the side of where the men are putting up their tent, I find an abandoned four-wheel cart with a wheel off in the dirt with some other abandoned junk. It has wood side stakes and will be good for hauling water and food. I can see that all it needs is a cotter key to get this thing back in service. I find the circus mechanic, get a cotter key, replace the wheel and I’m able to haul water and food to the ladies easier and quicker.

Hauling their poop is a different story. First of all, my cart is only big enough to carry one elephant’s waste to the big steel bin. This bin was set up by the farmers who use the poop as fertilizer. Shoveling the crap up and into the bin is hard work and nothing like the fun excitement and music I can hear from the tent a few yards behind me across the field. Once, when I look up, sweating and tired, Telly waves at me from across the lot and gives me a “thumbs up”.

I work for the rest of the day and Telly gives me two dollars. “You did good kid, so you get a raise. See you tomorrow morning at six?”

“OK, but could it be 6:30? I have a paper route to do.”

He fussles my hair and says, “Sure, 6:30.”

I work for two more days while they finish setting up the circus and the carny rides. Bella, Molly, Carol and I are getting along fine. Bella especially likes to nudge me into Molly who then pushes me back. Barge yells at me again not to get between them, but I can’t resist. I’m like a tiny ping-pong ball to them, but, at 3000 pounds each, they are remarkably careful and gentle. The only problem is Barge. He doesn’t like me and shouts at me whenever he can. Luckily Telly is usually around to save me.

The ladies are not in a zoo, but I think they are not much better off. Maybe they should be un-staked in some hot animal part in Arizona or somewhere like that?

Late one evening before I leave, I’m tired and sitting in the grass next to Bella. She bends down to get her eye as close to me as she can and wraps her trunk around the chain on her left leg. With a slow, steady pull she slips the long stake right out of the ground and sets it at my feet. I don’t move. She goes to her front knees, then her rear knees and rolls over in the grass next to me closing her eyes. They could go to Arizona anytime they want. After seeing them so bored for my days here, I wish they would escape.

Just before the opening show on Saturday morning, after I finished with the ladies, I find Telly outside his trailer sitting at a piece of plywood on a barrel. The makeshift table is covered with coins. He is sorting and messing them around while trying to count them. I watch for a while, and say, “If you make a stack of 10 dimes and then just make stacks equal to that one, you can get the final number quicker.” He glares at me and continues to sort the coins.

“I saw you doing this yesterday, so I went to the bank and got these paper tubes they use for coins. It says right on here what should be in them. If you use them you’ll know quickly how much you have.”

“Don’t just stand there, get over here and help me!”

I do and quickly we have the total wrapped up for the bank. “You know, I could use a sharp kid in the ticket booth. How about I show you how it works. You’ll have to come early to take care of the ladies, but you’ll make a lot more money.”

He’s hasn’t misled me so far, so I agree. He takes me over to the tall wood ticket booth at the side of the entrance to his whirling swing ride called “Whirl-away”. The booth is about three feet square and six feet high with a door in the back and a high, open window facing the path between the rides. Whirl-away is a creaking, groaning thing that spins people in seats out at the end of a chain by centrifugal force. It is a popular, scary ride with people screaming their joy as they fly out around the central pole.

In the booth, he shows me that I would have many coins on my side of the extended counter at the open window to make change. I notice that the price of the ride for kids and adults is not an even coin, so change will almost always have to be made. He also indicates the edge of the counter is banded by a metal strip raised up just the thickness of a dime.

“Watch this now.”

He slides two nickels and a dime out on the slippery wood counter and asks me to swipe them off the counter from the front. The counter is too high for me, but I reach up and scrape the nickels, but the dime stays on the counter, caught in the metal rim.

“You leave it there until they walk away. If they walk away, what’s left is yours. They never check their change and you’ve made a dime. The counter is high so most people can’t see the money. If they do check, you have left the dime there and they can have it, but it works almost every time.”

He then shows me that there is a spotlight aimed to create a shadow on the left edge of the counter.

“You can hide a quarter in the shadow. You flick it over with your left, little finger. If they come back it’s still there, if not you just made 25 cents.”

To give change for a quarter, he tells me to slide out two nickels and a dime, instead of two dimes and a nickel.

“They’re used to getting three coins for a quarter.”

Another nickel in my pocket. He shows me how to keep my fingers wide and how to slide coins with one finger quickly and with authority.

He sets me up for the day show. He helps for the first hour and then leaves. When he comes to take over for the evening show, I’ve made $12.50! I’m feeling like I’m a robber or something, though. I sure can’t tell my dad about this. He thinks I’m learning how to work.

I make the mistake of telling my friend Craig about all this and he tells his parents who tell my mom and dad. Dad finds me at the swing booth on the last night and yanks me out of the booth by the back of my shirt and hauls me home.

So much for running away to the circus.