Years enough ago, I was a cocky young first-of-May with Ringling Brothers Circus, spending my first season in clown alley trying to learn all I could from the old slapstick masters while thinking I was hot stuff.
“I quickly fell in with the circus hierarchy, which decreed that the roustabouts — those weary and abused men who scooped up the animal droppings, and who put everything up and then pulled it all down again — were the only thing lower than clowns. The roustabouts were, indeed, a motley crew — wasting their slim earnings on nothing but carnal and bibulous pursuits. I spoke to them only when it was absolutely necessary.
“Their circus uniform was dark blue Levis and a light blue cotton twill shirt with the Ringling logo embroidered on it. Each man had three sets of clothes, which were gathered and washed once a week — leaving each roustabout in an extremely fragrant condition during the warmer months. They bunked together in one train car, and their breakfast was coffee and doughnuts. For lunch they got a dukey box — a baloney sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a mushy apple. They had to get their own dinners.
“That year, the show played Madison Square Garden for two months in the spring. The train was parked about 10 blocks away. So I walked to the Garden each day.
“One morning as I was making my way down the street, I noticed a man lying in an alleyway. He was dressed in the Ringling roustabout uniform. I assumed he’d been out drinking the night before and had gotten rolled and dumped in the alley.
“Serves him right, I thought self-righteously, as I arrogantly stepped over his legs. He can sober up by himself and get down to the show under his own power.
“I had not gone more than a few yards when I heard a melodious voice shout: ‘Somebody give me a hand here, please!’
“I looked back and saw a very, very elegant lady stepping out of a limousine to rush over to the roustabout.
“My conscience, never a very active organ before, smote me, and I turned back to help. I told her I was one of his fellow workers with the circus up at the Garden.
“We put him in her limo, where she used her silk hanky to wipe some of the dried blood off his face. He had come to while we were helping him into the vehicle and weakly explained that he had been on his way to the show early that morning when he had been robbed and then pistol-whipped.
“He insisted on going to the show and refused the lady’s suggestion that he should be taken to a hospital. She then handed him all the money she had in her purse, plus several complimentary passes to the Metropolitan Opera, where she was singing.
“As we drove up to Madison Square Garden, she gave me a quizzical look and asked: ‘Why didn’t you stop to help him?’
“I had no good answer to give her. Instead, I blushed furiously.
“After we had been dropped off, I helped the roustabout into a side door and over to the elephant tubs where the roustabouts congregated before each show. His comrades took him from me and were about to thank me for helping him out, but I couldn’t stand their misplaced gratitude and fled to clown alley as if pursued by fiends.
“I’d like to use my extreme youth at the time — being only 17 years old — as an excuse for my callow and unfeeling behavior. But I know that I have had to struggle against a cold and callous and judgmental heart all of my life.
“I do remember that roustabout’s name, some 45 years later. Vlady. From Poland.
“I hope he doesn’t remember anything about me.”
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