Origins

Carnie Talk

by John Thurston

When the carnival was in town recently, I was unable to counter my nine-year old’s pleas to spend my money or, truth be told, resist my own urge to revisit scenes from my misguided youth. I was once a carnie and while I didn’t relish being a mark, I had my innocent son as an excuse.

Entering the midway, my son and I soon encountered an assortment of flat stores and gaff joints. These agents were playing strong — it was a fireball operation and they were having a red one. I was thinking that they were probably off the nut already.

We passed a joint with a big crowd out front. "Look, dad, let’s play that one!" my son exclaimed, tugging on my arm.

"No, son, with a tip like that, it’s certain they’ve got a couple of sticks out front and the clems aren’t copping."

"Pardon?" the polite little fellow gasped.

"Never mind. I’ll explain later." I was already getting into the spirit of the place, but not in a way that I wanted to share with my son.

Further along, we saw a smaller crowd surrounding a man winding up to throw a baseball. "How about this one, dad?"

"No, that guy’s a sharpie and besides, the agent’s going to alibi him."

"Dad, I can’t understand you."

"Later."

We passed more flat stores. Each explanation I gave for not playing was as incomprehensible as the last. I began to feel guilty.

"Let’s find a hanky pank," I told him.

"Okay," he responded glumly, already having given up on trying to figure out what I was saying and despairing of taking home any prize.

I glimpsed a deserted dart game in a doniker loke. "Let’s try that," I said, spotting the "Prize-Every-Time" sign. Slum was the best we would get out of this show.

"Yah! I’m good at darts!" I couldn’t tell the lad that skill really didn’t matter.

"Prize-Every-Time! Three darts for five dollars!" croaked the grizzled veteran of many a summer on the road.

"Listen, bud, I’m no live one. My son just wants to throw a few darts," I replied.

"Sure, sure," he wheezed.

"Sounds like you’ve blown your pipes grinding." This caught his attention.

"You with it?" he asked.

"And for it," I answered.

"What’re you doin’ out there, with the townies?"

"I lost the itch when I became a father. How’d you end up with this rag bag?"

"Oh, I’ve been with the big shows. Just passing time now."

"Rough life," I commiserated.

"Yah. Don’t know no other."

"The office leave you enough to get through the winter?"

"Once they’re in the barn and done with the pencil, my end gets me to New Year’s."

"Here, give the boy some more darts," I said, as I slipped the man a bill.

"A double sawbuck!" I ignored that he swung with it, sliding it in his kick.

"There any shows?" I asked.

"Naw. I seen the freaks, the geeks and the cooch all go down. We had pickled punks until a few years ago. No shows now."

"Well, son, let’s see what else we can find," I said to the boy. He had been watching us in total bewilderment since throwing his last dart.

"Don’t I win anything? I broke a balloon," he pleaded.

"Here yuh go, sonny," the man rasped as he pulled down the biggest piece of plush in his flash.

Eyes beaming, he reached for the prize.

"Thanks, old timer. Come on, kid, let’s go ride the simp heister."

"Geez, dad, are you going to talk normal again some day?"

A carnival is a business that supplies midways to fairs and other events; carnie is of course a derivation, and true carnies welcome the name. The word midway was first used to describe a collection of outdoor amusements at the Columbia World’s Exposition in Chicago in 1893, when the Midway Pleasance was provided as a sop to the need for entertainment at an event that was supposed to be uplifting and educational. The Midway Pleasance saved the economic fortunes of this 1893 version of a world’s fair.

Most midway goers know they are viewed as marks, but they won’t know where the word comes from. In the early days of the carnival, when an agent or game operator encountered a live one or someone with money to spend, and the agent had got all he could from this patron, he would slap him on the back, ensuring that his hand was covered with dust. The patron would then be marked, so that other agents down the line would know that he was a live one.

Store and joint are carnie terms for games. A flat store is a game the sole purpose of which is to take money from marks as quickly as possible; prizes are awarded at the discretion of the agent. A gaff joint is a rigged game, the gaff being the device used to control the game. To play strong is to use a gaff extensively to keep the store as flat as possible; the term also describes girl shows that test local morals. A fireball operation is a carnival on which there are no limits to how strong the joints and shows can play.

A red one is a profitable engagement during which it is easy to pay the overhead or get off the nut. The latter expression is said to come from the nineteenth-century circus, the creditors of which might come on the grounds and take the nuts off the wagon wheels until the creditors were paid off.

A tip is a crowd gathered at a joint or show. They might be there because an undercover carnie or stick seems to be winning lots of prizes. Carnies have many terms for their patrons; clem is one of them. To cop is to win a prize.

A sharpie is someone who is very good at a skill game; a true sharpie will have set up a version of the game in his basement and practised at it all winter. If the skill game is run by an alibi agent, he will have any number of explanations as to why the sharpie really didn’t win this time, but will if he plays again.

A doniker is a toilet and a doniker location or loke is one that is not good for business. Slum is a collective term for cheap prizes, worth a couple of dollars a gross.

To blow your pipes is to lose your voice because of the excessive talking required to appeal to the public for hours and days on end. To deliver such an appeal is to grind.

To be with it and for it is to be a carnie with the best interests of the industry at heart. The phrases are used as code words among carnies, allowing them to distinguish themselves from townies.

The barn is winter quarters, where the carnival is stored between operating seasons. The pencil is the instrument that the office uses to adjust the figures so that an operator owes more to the office than he can take for his own end or pay.

A double sawbuck is a twenty-dollar bill; carnies have their own terms for all denominations. To swing is to steal and a kick is the pocket where money is kept.

A geek is a carnival performer who bites the heads off chickens and snakes; the word seems to come from an English dialect term for fool. Cooch is a variant of hoochie coochie, the term for pseudo-Oriental, sexually suggestive dancing; the term originated at the 1893 Chicago fair, probably as an English corruption of a foreign term. A pickled punk is a still-born fetus, often deformed, preserved in a jar of formaldehyde; also called a "cough-up skeleton." All of these things were once features of various types of side shows. Some carnies remain nostalgic for those days.

Stuffed toys are plush. When they are used to decorate a joint, they are called flash.

Simp heister: the Ferris wheel. Go figure.

John Thurston has been trying to redeem the many years he wasted as a carnie by turning that experience into a book about the carnival.