I received a call from Leonard, the union shop steward, to go down that night to the Kennedy Stadium in northeast Washington, DC, and run a spotlight at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. No matter I’ve never done it before. I’m an all-around man, I do most anything comes to hand, to quote Mississippi blues man Bo Carter.  

 

I’d arrived in Washington during one of the hottest summers in years, fresh out of college, having majored in film production. I was traveling with my film student buddy Bob, whose millionaire father was supposed to be financing a feature film to be shot in D.C. I was to get the job of assistant director. But the film wasn’t made, Bob went back to Oregon, and I was stranded in D.C. with no money and no friends. So I hit the streets, looking for film work wherever I could get it.  

 

That’s how I get hooked up with the film worker’s union, International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE), leading to many freelance gigs on news teams for the national and local TV networks. The union also supplied stagehands for the National Theater and Kennedy Center. 

 

In August the Ringling Brothers circus came to town on its annual tour. After receiving Leonard’s call, I arrived that night, eager to please and hopefully turn this assignment into a recurring gig for the duration of the circus’s two-week stay. 

 

Most of the lighting crew on the circus worked the big powerful arc beam lamps, the spotlights.  The job is harder than it looks, because the lamps are bulky, heavy, and dangerous, burning carbon rods to produce the brilliant light. I was ready to learn, but Mike, the leader of the fifteen-man crew, took one look at me and realized I was a tenderfoot. He didn’t want to run the risk of any screw-ups on his watch, so he assigned me to an easy job: house lights.   

 

The man in control of the house lights switch had the power to make the whole Big Top go pitch black or to bring light to a dark tent. Kind of like God. I was placed up on the balcony, wearing headphones and inhaling the aroma of sawdust, popcorn, and elephant dung. I listened to Mike’s directions as he followed through a minutely choreographed script of the whole performance.  We agreed that every time he said, “Paul, the lights,” I would hit the switch, and depending on what the lights were doing at the time, at the moment I hit the switch they would naturally do the opposite; if the lights were off they would come on, and if they were on, the house would go dark.   

 

Everyone else on the light detail was assigned numbers. Mike would bark, “Number 12, your light,” and that man would bring his lamp to bear upon whatever action was in the arena.  The only problem with the plan, Mike had a friend named Paul on one of the lights, and on occasion he would lapse from saying “Number 12” to saying, “Paul, hit the clown in the left arena.”  

  

Comes the time for the lion tamer event. To the din of great applause, the European lion tamer walks into a cage with half a dozen lions and tigers. The house lights are up. As he formally salutes the crowd, I hear through the headphones, “Paul, hit your light.”  By now my thumbs are responding like automatons, and as soon as I hear my name my thumb hits the switch and the whole house goes pitch black.  The lion tamer is now in total darkness surrounded by jungle beasts. “Paul, not that light! Bring up the lights, Paul, now!” A split second of terror. I hit the switch again, expecting to see the body of the lion tamer protruding from the mouth of one of the lions, but thankfully he’s still alive, taking the whole thing in stride like the professional he is. 

 

I did not receive a call-back to return to the circus the next night. Instead, Leonard called and asked, “Paul, you ever work in a projection booth?” 

 

“Like where?” 

 

“Like at the movies. Half the theaters in town are unionized. You think you can handle it with a little training?” 

 

“Sure, I don’t know why not.” 

 

“You think you can work in the porn theater over in northeast?” 

 

I wondered what kind of training you needed for that gig.