I'm writing this article with the assumption that most readers of a journal as specific as this already know something of sideshows. I feel it would make for a pretty tedious reading to have to explain the socio-economic background of either shows or those who presented themselves in them. There are books on the market that attempt this sort of explanation, providing you're sufficiently stoked-up with coffee to combat drowsiness while reading them.

Sideshows are not for the placard-carrying-social-awareness-crowd. Most of them seem to lack the ability or determination to cope with their own problems and find some weird solace in joining groups which espouse public outrage concerning issues that are generally so abstract they defy definition much less solution: "Yes, I'm a fat slob, no, I don't know where my teenage daughter slept last night or why she smokes crack but, by God, I do know they shouldn't put monkeys in cages."

I so love these brainless ditto-heads. The next time one of them uses one of those, "What kind of message are we sending here?" phrases on me I think I'll barf all over them so they can take my message down to the corner dry cleaners.

So much for the pre-story ranting; now on to Otis Jordan.

Nineteen sixty-eight was a year of changes, an evolutionary year for me in which I discarded - in the order of their importance to me at the time - two vehicles, an occupation, and a marriage. I was at that wonderful age when I regarded all temporary setbacks as "learning experiences." That year, after the divorce and the donation of a truck and trailer to resolve same, I realized that I was learning myself into instant poverty. Also, as part of this cavalcade of revelations, I discovered that I was sick of extracting money from the patrons of carnival games. This, I had decided, was not show business.

Fortunately for me and my sagging economic situation, show business - or at least a reasonable facsimile - was only a few steps away at the back end of the midway.

The "back end" of this particular carnival offered four girl shows and a sideshow. It was early afternoon and the banners on the ten-in-one were down and rolled up. I remember thinking that, no matter what acts were advertised, they'd have an awfully hard time grabbing attention away from the four prurient pleasure palaces.

I cautiously ducked under the teaser curtain, half expecting to encounter a snarling dog or an ill-tempered roughie who'd encourage me to leave. Finding neither, I stood and surveyed the tent's interior. It was a pretty average-looking sideshow. A long main stage with the usual props: an electric chair, a sword ladder, a nail board and so on. A small platform with a bladebox sat at one end of the tent and a blow off curtain sectioned off the opposite end. I had worked a lot of shows that look just like this one. I guess it would add a touch of romanticism to say that the sight evoked some sort of Thomas Wolfe moment for me but it didn't. I was, in fact, on my way out of the tent, mentally resigning myself to a lifetime of petty larceny on the front end when a voice stopped me.

"Johnny?"

I couldn't quite imagine who'd know me here, nor could I quite determine where the voice was coming from.

"Johnny," the voice came again, this time with a hint of urgency.

I made my way to the end of the main stage since the voice seemed to be coming from somewhere behind it.

"Yeah, I'm coming," I ventured, now even more puzzled as there was nobody in the area behind the stage.

"Oh sorry-you're not Johnny," the voice said from under the stage.

"Well, I was a few minutes ago," I replied now bending down to see the challenger of my identity.

"You're not black," the voice that had now grown a body-or sort of a body-retorted.

Peering into the dim light beneath the stage, I found myself staring at a rather bemused looking black man with twisted arms who was, for some reason, propped up in a washtub.

"This is true," I said. We observed each other for a second or two and then burst out laughing.