My carny days are over

(Havre Daily News reporter John Paul Schmidt spent two days as a carnival worker at the Blaine County Fair. This follows up on his stint as a pig wrestler at the Great Northern Fair last year. Here is his report on his adventure in Chinook.)

Last year, I braved the pig-wrestling pits at the Great Northern Fair and was trodden over. “Big Betty” sent me into hiding from fairs for a year, until the prospect of carny life lulled me back into the game.

In an official Havre Daily News investigative series, I looked to the next fair story to tell after pig wrestling. It’s my attempt at gonzo journalism, which is an objective, first-person form of journalism that puts the writer in the shoes of the subject.

I am Gonzo the Clown.

The Blaine County Fair’s carnival put out a call for help, as they were in dire need of warm bodies to fill the blank spots in their staff. I applied, kind of.

Interviews were held two days before opening day. The interview consisted of me giving my social security and telephone numbers to a stranger and the stranger telling me to show up the next day at 9 a.m. I told her I wouldn’t be able to, and she told me that would be fine. The pay was $400 a week, prorated to the three days I would be working. I didn’t do the math.

I was to be a ride operator.

The fair began Thursday and I took off from Havre Friday. I donned my cheap straw cowboy hat and walked into the carnival as it was being set up for the day. I was then asked if I was afraid to talk to people, to which I responded in the negative and promptly assigned to the balloon dart stand.

I was given $20 for a bank and a crash course in how to lure people to play the game and the loose formula of what prize to give in exchange for popped balloons and money. I was then left to my own devices.

It started slow. At first, I gave out the occasional and weak “ready to throw some darts?” People ignored me, unless they were already going to play the game before I said anything.

My first customer was a kid from 4-H, who was having a show next door to the carnival. He gave me five bucks. $5 gives you three darts. $10 gets you seven and $20 gets you 15.

He popped one balloon after throwing three darts. He looked abject as I handed him the smallest prize possible, a 50-cent green alien man. It’s the prize I give out for zero or one balloons popped. It’s how I was to get customers — even if you miss, you win, every time.

“I’ll tell you what, buddy, if you want to play again, I’ll give you a fourth dart on me,” came out of my mouth. I was told about this tactic in my crash course. It worked.

He popped two more balloons and seemed pleased with himself. I whooped and hollered with him as he popped the balloons and then gave him a small stuffed purple dog, which he received with a smile before running off back to the 4-H show.

That kid gave me $10 to throw darts, and I gave him a toy that cost the carnival $1. He thanked me for it.

By the end of my first shift, I had figured it out: Emasculate young men walking with their dates and get them to participate in the American cliche of a man proving his worth at a fair by winning a date a prize through sheer cunning and skill.

If small children make eye contact with me, it’s easy to excite them with the laser strapped to my forearm and the promise of a prize, even if they lose. They tell the parents and the parents pay me.

If a group of high school girls walk by, give the most boisterous one a plush rose and don’t stop talking until they walk away. I would say there is at least a 50 percent chance they would play if they still have money. They keep the rose and the cheap prize I give them for however many balloons they pop. Profit.

So forth and so on.

After a while, you start to get creative with your calls to arms. Anonymity means there is no reason to be embarrassed.

“Don’t be a maroon, pop a balloon!” in an old-timey carnival accent.

“There are two things I hate!” I yelled at nobody in particular. “These malicious, rude balloons and the fact that no one is popping them!”

Watching the same people come through the fair is an exercise in sociology and brought up many questions I couldn’t answer, such as: What is it in a little kid that drives them to punch the face of the large stuffed tiger on my stand next to the darts? Many kids’ first reactions to passing or playing at my booth was to just wail on these tigers.

The carnies themselves were nice enough people and ran a gamut of personalities. Billy, the 19-year-old kid next door to me who was working a game I wouldn’t even know how to describe, and his 7-year-old sister had been in carnivals since they were able to walk and speak to customers.

The woman working the cotton candy booth joined the traveling carnival to get out of a depressive funk she was going through in her hometown. She left her unworthy husband and got on with the carnival to get away. She made a boyfriend out of a long-time staff member and she said he treated her very well.

The guy working the big metal slide got in trouble with the county sheriff for taking videos of girls going down the slide. He had a mental handicap. I heard he was fired.

All of them received $400 a week if they traveled with the carnival. Free board, free transportation, and they get dropped off where they got on the bus. Not a terrible deal, perhaps. Especially for someone down on their luck. It’s a good opportunity for someone with a felony charge who is having trouble finding work in their town. The carnival said they conduct background checks, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t do one on me.

Twelve hours a shift. $400 pro rated if you just work one fair. That’s making less than $6 an hour, if I did my math correctly, which I probably didn’t. The only way to even make it kind of worthwhile would be to travel with them, which they tried to get me to do. I would hit the road with them to Shelby and then the great backyard of America and at the end of August, they would drop me off back home. Tempting.

It was an interesting experience. I’ll never do it again. Unless I need the resource and a place to stay.

My carny days are over.