From “Beggars of Life” by Jim Tully

 

CHAPTER III

AMY, THE BEAUTIFUL FAT GIRL

 

 

IN FIVE WEEKS IT WAS SPRING. I left the town in a box car one April morning and hoboed about Kentucky and Indiana for several weeks, and then secured a job with Amy, the Beautiful Fat Girl, whose side-show was the leading attrac­tion with The One and Only Street Fair Company.

 

Amy weighed nearly five hundred pounds. Her act consisted of dancing upon a heavy glass stage while she held a long piece of white gauze across her shoulders. This was supposed to make her represent an angel. My job was to shift the differently coloured lights upon her as she danced.

 

An electric light shone under the small stage, which had not room enough under it for me to sit up. In a cramped position, I would shift green, yellow, blue, orange, and many other coloured pieces of isin­glass above the light under the stage. The stage and Amy would take on the colour of the glass which I operated. I could hear the applause of the audience as Amy warmed up to her work of looking angelic. Her heavy feet would pound the stage directly above me, and I would always feel relieved when she moved away. Amy had once cracked one of the heavy glass pieces in the stage, and I, of course, hoped for the good of all concerned that she would not fall through it and break the electric globe.

 

Amy wore rings as large as bracelets. The diamonds in the rings were of many sizes. She had many chins. They ran like the ridges of mountains down to her throat. There was a small red valley between her throat and breasts, which rose like two mountains. They shook as she danced. She was quite the heaviest angel I had ever seen.

 

Amy drank liquor as no angel had ever drunk it before. Often, when the day's activities were over, she would get gloriously drunk and maudlin. At such times she would forget the strain of being a heavy­weight angel and become immensely human.

 

Her "spieler," as she called him, was not a man who could stand much liquor. He was called Happy Hi Holler, and in street fair circles he was considered the best side show barker in existence. He could have talked a ghost into seeing its shadow. But a few drinks sufficed for Happy Hi Holler. The first drink would make him melancholy, the second would make him sleepy, and the third would make him unconscious.

 

It was different with me. I was born with the gift of drinking. So, I became Amy's liquor secretary. It was my duty to see that she was always well supplied. This was a task which I found delightful. As the street fair always played a week in each town, and as those were the happy days when bootleggers did not exist, I had no trouble in sup­plying Amy with many quarts each day. At the end of each week, Amy would give me sixty dollars. This would relieve her of any worry about liquor for another week.

 

Amy had been a circus freak for years, and, strange to say, she had been a woman with many lovers. Happy Hi Holler had been her sweetheart for over a year, but as he could drink very little, she found, as time went on, that they had less and less in common. Often when John Barleycorn had won another bout with Happy Hi, Amy would tell me of her affairs with men.

 

A Russian midget had loved her when she was with Barnum, but once in a quarrel, Amy had slapped him a trifle too hard, and almost dislocated his neck. After that Amy had insisted that her lovers be big men. I had learned something about women from those who had lived in Rabbit Town in the red light district of St. Marys. Old Raley had told me of their kindness, and whenever life treated me more harshly than usual, I would tell my troubles to them. All unconsciously they had helped me to understand the moods of Amy.

 

I never knew Amy to frame over three sentences in any conversa­tion. She seldom talked unless asked a question directly, and then her answer was never one of over five words.

 

However, she liked people who talked, and I was gabbier when drunk than Happy Hi Holler was when sober. I remembered all the doggerel I had ever read, and nearly all the poetry. At that time I could remember almost the exact words of conversations held weeks before.

 

She had a favourite piece of doggerel, which was nearly endless. Verse after verse it gave in detail the history of one poor girl and her relatives.

 

Her pa was sent up for horse stealing,

Her ma is a pigeon-toed Hun,

Her sister's a sport in old Wheeling,

And her brother's a son of a gun.

Her cousin was a drunkard in Cincy,

He died with a peach of a bun,

And her uncle's a preacher in Quincy,

A nutty old son of a gun.

 

Amy would listen to this doggerel for hours at a time and laugh loudly the while. Her many chins would pucker up as she laughed, and make her face as round as the full moon. Always the quart bottle of liquor was near her.

 

The seltzer bottle was always near the whiskey. Amy was fond of seltzer and whiskey high-balls. When she became particularly illumi­nated, she would act quite girlish, and pick up the seltzer bottle and squirt some of its contents in my face. I would join in the laugh, for Amy was my boss, and a generous one besides. I felt that she must have her fun, and though a trifle confused, I would keep on reciting doggerel while the seltzer itched in my eyes, and trickled down my face.

 

Amy's legs were as big as telephone poles, and her arms were larg­er than the legs of a big man.

 

She had all the vanities of her sex. Her cheeks were painted red like ripe Oregon apples all the time. Her shoes were always a size too small for her. She complained constantly about aching feet.

 

At about this time, one or two of the western states had decided to dispense with liquor. By taking such a drastic step they deprived their citizens of the opportunity of ever witnessing Amy do her angel dance. For Amy refused absolutely to travel with her caravan in dry territory. When I told her the result of one wet and dry election, I heard her speak the longest sentence I had ever heard her utter. "What the hell's the country comin' to?" she asked.

                                                                            

I was later to travel with a great circus through the south, and to wrestle a trick mule with a dog and pony show, but I was never to meet another person quite like Amy. And the parting day was close at hand.

 

Now, when the night comes down, the immense shadow of the big, free-hearted woman comes before me. She was a pagan with the simplicity of a child. She would swear terribly at me when the strain of her angel dance was upon her. And then, the elephantine woman would pet me when in her cups.

 

Her voice was as heavy as herself. She was not over thirty-five years old. Her hair was raven black. She combed it straight back from a forehead that sloped directly back from her eyebrows. Her nose was big and flat, and her nostrils were as large as pennies.

 

All her upper teeth were gold. "Damned nigger dentistry," she called it. She would have no other women about. She seemed to wish nothing to remind her of daintiness, or grace.

 

The parting came in Sioux City. I was given sixty dollars to get the next week's ration of liquor. I fell in with some other men who had left the Street Fair Company. I became drunk, and was robbed of some of the money. Afraid to face Amy again, I left for Chicago.

 

I never heard of her again. But I remember. And I wonder if she does. It is not the first time that money has come between friends.