See You on the Backlot Read Free

of the Sideshow, greenie, and why you’re a First of May. Don’t you worry none, though – youstick by me and I’ll make sure that you’re with it by the end of the season, all right?
    OK, it’s time. You still have the carny roll I gave you? Looks like a big roll of bills, right? Only it’s just a few bills wrapped around paper to make it look good. Keep it close – and use that cash to front your way into the show. Watch out for grifters – con artists – and pickpockets. Remember – you’re one of us, now. If you do well today, there will be plenty more to do tomorrow… See you on the backlot!

CHAPTER 2
    What do you think of that, gazoonie? Another red date down! Tonight’s show was quite the draw – it seemed like the top was always full and the midway always clear. We turned tips one right after another, then it seemed like everyone wanted to pay to see the blade box up close and
still
drop a dime for the blow-off! Whew – nights like this wear me out. So once the lights are off and the crowds have gone home… I take some time for myself to pal around the lot before heading back to our top.
    Most nights I cut the jackpot – talk – with some of the old-timers, after stopping at a grab joint. Tonight is different, though.Some of the carnies have been talking about some old friends hoboing around who were coming through the lot – so I wanted the chance to hear their stories. Not just some yarns, I mean the real deal. That’s what cutting the jackpot is, sharing stories. Most of the old guys who’ve been on the circuit a while have something to say that’s really worth listening to. Even my old pops, when he’s deep in his cups, has a few things to tell everyone that are worth sticking around for.
    But tonight was a total disappointment as far as I’m concerned. Instead of shooting the bull with the greatest carnies in the world, all I found was two old tosspots, pissing in the wind and trying to get high off of whatever juice anyone would throw at them. They didn’t have no stories to tell or anything to share that was worth my time. I don’t think they were real carnies at all – since they couldn’t even speak a word of ciazarn (that pig-latin kind of code the carnies use that I’ve been trying to teach you). Then on top of that, after a few drinks one of them starts in on me about my show.Starts going on about how ‘in my day we would never do this…’ or ‘a real carny would do this instead…’ then rambles on about taking chumps and burning lots and complaining how everyone is working too hard and how they used to do it so they never had to do any work.
    Sorry if I’m being rude, but those old rummies make me so mad. It’s bad enough I blow my pipes getting the words out to the huge crowds I got coming to see us. I can barely talk to these guys because of it, so it makes it hard to step up when they start talking about my da. They don’t know my pops. They don’t know me. I could tell the other carnies were getting uncomfortable when those old bums started talking stuff about what happened to my mum and how they think my pops is running our show into the ground. That’s why I left… I don’t need that kind of…
    Well, anyways, I need to get back to look over the receipts and do a last count. Pops always handles it, but I feel better if I can get an idea about how much the show is really bringing in. Now I realise you’re probably wondering how we make our money, what with all the shorting and dings that come with running our show. It kind of goes like this:
    Pops rents our space on the midway from Big Mike for the run of the location. Big Mike runs the carnival fence to fence – so we never have the problems of an independent midway, where some idiot locals with a booth might end up having a beef and giving our whole show a bad name. Everyone’s in competition with each other on our midway, sure – I mean, if someone else takes a dollar out of a yokel’s pocket,