“flat
stores,” or games of chance that offered no winning numbers. As “gentlemanly agents” who sold “conversation” and bragged about “turning the duke”—not
just hustling the customer out of his money, but shortchanging the count with a skilled slip of the hand—they were a disgrace to the honest men among them.
In those first years, the young Tom Parker kept his nose clean and stayed out of trouble. In fact, “he just didn’t make an impression,” according to McKennon. But one thing
McKennon does remember about Tom Parker: he went by yet another name. “I used to know what it was, but it wasn’t Parker,” he begins. “At a showmen’s convention about
fifteen years ago, he was the speaker, and I had to introduce him. I said, ‘He was just a so-so concessionaire until he found that boy from Memphis and went into the business of creating
names.’ And I used that name he had on the Jones show. Afterwards, Parker came up and said, ‘I didn’t know you knew that, Joe.’ ”
Parker may have felt compelled to use another alias during the AWOL and desertion period of his military service, and perhaps carried it over to the early part of his Johnny J. Jones days. But
to carnies such as Larry Davis, Parker’s decision to hide his true identity simply isn’t worth noting.
“You could know a guy ten years in that era and not know his real name,” offers veteran concessionaire John Campi.
Indeed, Jack Kaplan, Parker’s best friend throughout his carnival years and an associate for decades to come, never felt the need to ask his true identity. The two slept next to each other
in railroad cars for months on end, but Kaplan had no idea what Parker did before the carnival, or even where he came from, although he noted that “in 1933, he was [still] talking like a
Dutchman: ‘Brassa, was ist los, ja, ja, ja’ ” Parker’s refusal to elaborate on his past was considered neither mysterious nor unusual. It was simply part of the
carnies’ silent understanding.
For those who did feel a need to shield either their identity or their predilections, the carnival offered a perfect place to hide. It was also fraught with danger, a situation that tends to
bend the mind-set of the fraternity.
In the Depression years of the ’30s, especially, those who worked thecarnivals trusted no one, and the strain of always having to watch their back often led to
frayed nerves and sometimes tragedy. Stabbings on the lot were not uncommon, nor was a callous attitude toward death and the survival of the fittest. It was all a part of business as usual.
Parker so identified with that lifestyle that he sought out the company of concessionaires, midway operators, and sideshow performers long after his carnival days were over.
“When we were traveling across country,” says Byron Raphael, who frequently drove Parker in the late ’50s, “he often took me to these little carnivals that were so small
they didn’t even have a big tent. He knew where they were, all through the states, and the first thing he would do was to search out the midgets and the freaks.
“In California, between Barstow and Bakersfield, there were billboards every hundred yards, ‘See the Thing! Half Man, Half Animal!’ He took that really seriously. We’d
stop and go in there, and it would be very dark, very eerie, and ‘the Thing’ would be this poor pathetic black person on his hands and knees in a low cage. He had a tail on him, and
long hair, and when he would growl, it was really frightening.
“The Colonel loved that, and at these little carnivals, he loved the fat lady, and the bearded lady, and he would sit and talk with them for hours. He was a very superstitious person. I
remember him being very respectful of the Tarot reader. Every place we stopped there was always one woman who would sit in a little hut and read your fortune. He would say, ‘This woman is
very good. She can read the crystal ball.’ Then he’d go
stores,” or games of chance that offered no winning numbers. As “gentlemanly agents” who sold “conversation” and bragged about “turning the duke”—not
just hustling the customer out of his money, but shortchanging the count with a skilled slip of the hand—they were a disgrace to the honest men among them.
In those first years, the young Tom Parker kept his nose clean and stayed out of trouble. In fact, “he just didn’t make an impression,” according to McKennon. But one thing
McKennon does remember about Tom Parker: he went by yet another name. “I used to know what it was, but it wasn’t Parker,” he begins. “At a showmen’s convention about
fifteen years ago, he was the speaker, and I had to introduce him. I said, ‘He was just a so-so concessionaire until he found that boy from Memphis and went into the business of creating
names.’ And I used that name he had on the Jones show. Afterwards, Parker came up and said, ‘I didn’t know you knew that, Joe.’ ”
Parker may have felt compelled to use another alias during the AWOL and desertion period of his military service, and perhaps carried it over to the early part of his Johnny J. Jones days. But
to carnies such as Larry Davis, Parker’s decision to hide his true identity simply isn’t worth noting.
“You could know a guy ten years in that era and not know his real name,” offers veteran concessionaire John Campi.
Indeed, Jack Kaplan, Parker’s best friend throughout his carnival years and an associate for decades to come, never felt the need to ask his true identity. The two slept next to each other
in railroad cars for months on end, but Kaplan had no idea what Parker did before the carnival, or even where he came from, although he noted that “in 1933, he was [still] talking like a
Dutchman: ‘Brassa, was ist los, ja, ja, ja’ ” Parker’s refusal to elaborate on his past was considered neither mysterious nor unusual. It was simply part of the
carnies’ silent understanding.
For those who did feel a need to shield either their identity or their predilections, the carnival offered a perfect place to hide. It was also fraught with danger, a situation that tends to
bend the mind-set of the fraternity.
In the Depression years of the ’30s, especially, those who worked thecarnivals trusted no one, and the strain of always having to watch their back often led to
frayed nerves and sometimes tragedy. Stabbings on the lot were not uncommon, nor was a callous attitude toward death and the survival of the fittest. It was all a part of business as usual.
Parker so identified with that lifestyle that he sought out the company of concessionaires, midway operators, and sideshow performers long after his carnival days were over.
“When we were traveling across country,” says Byron Raphael, who frequently drove Parker in the late ’50s, “he often took me to these little carnivals that were so small
they didn’t even have a big tent. He knew where they were, all through the states, and the first thing he would do was to search out the midgets and the freaks.
“In California, between Barstow and Bakersfield, there were billboards every hundred yards, ‘See the Thing! Half Man, Half Animal!’ He took that really seriously. We’d
stop and go in there, and it would be very dark, very eerie, and ‘the Thing’ would be this poor pathetic black person on his hands and knees in a low cage. He had a tail on him, and
long hair, and when he would growl, it was really frightening.
“The Colonel loved that, and at these little carnivals, he loved the fat lady, and the bearded lady, and he would sit and talk with them for hours. He was a very superstitious person. I
remember him being very respectful of the Tarot reader. Every place we stopped there was always one woman who would sit in a little hut and read your fortune. He would say, ‘This woman is
very good. She can read the crystal ball.’ Then he’d go
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