Dege: What inspired you to become a carnival worker?

Carny: I was broke…homeless.

Dege: Where were you living at the time?

Carny: Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Dege: You guys are kind of shifty. Do carneys do a lot of drugs?

Carny: I’m not at liberty to say.

Dege: Come on, man.

Carny: Well, some carnys do. Some don’t.

Dege: I’d heard they like crank?

Carny: There’s some of that. You know, weed, coke, crank.

Dege: Give me some carny lingo. Slang. What do ya’ll call each other?

Carny: You’ve got your Ride Jockeys. They run the rides. And you’ve got your Jointees. They operate the games and booths.

Dege: Anything else?

Carny: And you got your Sticks—the guys that walk around, carrying stuff on a stick.

Dege: That guy’s called a “Stick?”

Carny: Yeh.

Dege: I love all that! That’s cool. Each type of work environment has its own slang. What’s a Shark?

Carny: A Shark is a guy who preys on a Mark and runs a rigged game. A Mark is any old town person…or a townie.

Dege: Are all the games rigged?

Carny: No.

Dege: What percentage of the games are rigged?

Carny: Nah, now you see, I can’t talk about all that.

Dege: Come on, man. It’s anonymous. Nobody’s going to come hunt you down. Nobody’s gonna read this shit.

Carny: The Flat Stores are usually the ones that are rigged.

Dege: Which ones are the Flat Stores? What is that?

Carny: The Coke bottle games. And the stuff where you’ve got to throw a football for yards. You cannot win…unless it’s something on the cheap. Under $5. Anything with numbers.

Dege: What about the thing where you shoot the squirt guns in the balloons?

Carny: That’s called a Hanky-Pank. You don’t win much on that…nothing of value.

Dege: You see? Hanky-Pank! You’re holding out on me with these cool slang terms. What about these games where you hook something or stand up a bottle?

Carny: That’s called an Alibi Joint.

Dege: Badass name. What’s it mean?

Carny: That’s where you’ve got to do something just right with all these rules or you don’t win. There’s always an excuse why the customer didn’t win it right…that’s why they call it an Alibi Joint—the Jointee's always got a reason. Hand tossed or whatever, you can’t win.

Dege: What other games are rigged?

Carny: There are no rigged games anymore. State laws. They’ve got people that check all that now.

Dege: Bullshit! Well…let me rephrase. In the old days, what’s some other game-stuff that was rigged?

Carny: Bushel Baskets. Pull-em-Up Coke. Anything with a guy standing in there with nothing in it…just a big old Spoof Doll…anything to win money.

Dege: Bushel Baskets?

Carny: Anything where you put or throw stuff in basket.

Dege: What was the second one?

Carny: Pull-em-Up Coke?

Dege: Yeh, what’s that?

Carny: They’ve got a 6 ½ once Coke bottle, sitting there…and you’ve got to stand it up with a hook.

Dege: That’s rigged?

Carny: Yeh, one side’s heavier than the other. They can push it up all they want, but it’ll never stand up. It’ll always fall to the side.

Dege: Shifty! Very crafty. Are most Carnys pretty shifty in general or is that just a stereotype I’m riffing on?

Carny: In the old days.

Dege: Do they rip each other off and stuff?

Carny: In the old days.

Dege: How old is the “old days?”

Carny: It used to be that the Ride Jockeys wouldn’t get along with the Jointees. They’d have little wars. Fight among each other.

Dege: Carney Wars!

Carny: Yeh, but they always stuck up for each other, though, when they start fighting.

Dege: Did you ever get in any fights with any of the other Carnys?

Carny: Yep. Got initiated and they beat me up.

Dege: Like a gang?

Carny: Yep. And another time with a Ride Jockey.

Dege: What happened?

Carny: His girlfriend.

Dege: Were you messing around with his girlfriend?

Carny: Nah, I was just talking to her…and he got all upset. Started some shit.

Dege: Right.

Carny: But they all stuck together, because it was one of the other Jointees that knocked me out.

Dege: And you were a Jointee also, huh?

Carny: Yep. Got knocked out by one of my own people.

Dege: How long did you work as a Carny?

Carny: 4 years.

Dege: On the average, how much money did you make a week, working as a Carny?

Carny: About $300. Sometimes it’s busy. Sometimes it’s slow.

Dege: What motivated you to get out of the carnival business?

Carny: Lafayette.

Dege: Here?

Dege: What kinds of valuable things do people throw away?

Garbageman: All kinds of shit. Microwaves, TV’s, Hundred dollar shoes. Beds. Lamps. Furniture.

Dege: Some good stuff?

Garbageman: Especially in them rich neighborhoods. They be throwing all kind of shit away. You ever been to Le Triomphe. You ought to see their trash.

Dege: Nice?

Garbageman: Like brand new shit. Even our driver be jumping out the truck to grab some of that shit.

Dege: What’s the best thing you ever found?

Garbageman: Found watches. Sun shades. Some nice TV’s. Whatever.

Dege: Where do you guys stash stuff when you find something you want to keep?

Garbageman: Back of the blade…there’s a space where you can lay shit.

Dege: That’s cool. I bet ya’ll grab a lot of stuff after Christmas time.

Garbageman: That’s when it be jumping. Shit everywhere.

Dege: How strenuous of a job is it, being a garbage man?

Garbageman: It’s hard work, man. It’ll break you. Break your back. Come home smelly. Exhausted. Shit all over you. Sometimes you might bump cans 12 or 13 hours, out there.

Dege: What’s that mean?

Garbageman: Bump cans; pick up trash. That’s what we called: Bumpers. Ride on the back of the truck and bump them cans. You got drivers and bumpers.

Dege: I dig the slang that develops around particular vocations. It’s like separate insular worlds.

Garbageman: Drivers ain’t shit without their bumpers, though. Bumpers got to do the hard shit or the trash ain’t going to get picked up.

Dege: How’s the pay? What do ya’ll make an hour?

Garbageman: $65.

Dege: A day?

Garbageman: Yeh.

Dege: How long have you been doing this job?

Garbageman: Couple years.

Dege: How was your first day? Hard?

Garbageman: Man, it’s been almost two years and I’m still not used to it. Everyday I come home spent.

Dege: Did you lose some weight when you first started?

Garbageman: First two months I dropped 20lbs.

Dege: Name me some fucked up things people throw away.

Garbageman: Dead dogs. Dead chickens. Fish. You look in the can and see about a billion maggots.

Dege: Smell bad?

Garbageman: That was my first time seeing that shit…some big, fat…black maggots.

Dege: Black maggots?

Garbageman: Oh, look…I almost throwed up. Some big ass, old black maggots…long and fat…swoll up.

Dege: Now that’s some sick shit.

Garbageman: You don’t wanna know. Sometimes they get on your arm and shit. That’s the only thing I don’t like about the job.

Dege: Those maggots.

Garbageman: Yep. You go in certain neighborhoods—you can smell it…when they got something dead. I know how to smell a maggot from a mile away, now. My sense of smell’s gotten better since I started doing this job.

Dege: Seems like it’d be the opposite.

Garbageman: Well, you smell so much bad shit—good stuff be smelling even better.

Dege: What determines which neighborhoods smell worse than others?

Garbageman: Well, you know…the ghettos. (laughs) They be having a lot of dead shit…but them rich neighborhoods be having it, too. I done seen a lot of them maggots in rich neighborhoods. But it ain’t like the ghetto. Ah, man, sometimes every trashcan be having something stanky up in it.

Dege: Bad days.

Garbageman: Sometimes them maggots and the red ants be fighting over shit in the cans. Fighting for space like they having a war. Them ants be killing them maggots.

Dege: What about rats?

Garbageman: No, rats. I think if I’d see a rat, I’d probably tap out.

Dege: What do you mean tap out? Like wrestling?

Garbageman: I’d quit. I don’t like no rats. I’d tap out on that shit.

Dege: Is there a lot of turn-around in the garbage business?

Garbageman: You can quit and come back in six months if you want, cause they know it’s a hard job…and they always need people. Bumpers, they can’t keep them. Most dudes quit in a week…or less. That’s some hard shit. You’d quit in a day.

Dege: Yeh, I don’t think I could hang.

Garbageman: Nah.

Dege: How much do those trashcans weigh? The heaviest ones?

Garbageman: 100lbs. And don’t let it rain. Shit. A wet-ass trashcan? All day? Lifting them things? That’ll kill you.

Dege: That’s a workout, huh?

Garbageman: Ah, slopping around in the rain, bumping them cans full of water and trash? You don’t wanna know.

Dege: What’s the biggest thing you’ve seen someone try to throw away?

Garbageman: Sofas.

Dege: Will those fit in the truck?

Garbageman: Yeh, just crush it with the blade. That blade fucks everything up. Crush right through just about anything.

Dege: When I was a runt, waiting for the school bus, we’d treat the garbagemen like rockstars. We thought they were the shit, screaming at them. We even knew their names.

Garbageman: Sometimes people scream, but it’s cuz we blocking the street.

Dege: How many hours a day are you working?

WorkingWoman: 16hour days.

Dege: They make you work that long?

WorkingWoman: Well, I’m trying to play catch-up. I don’t have enough hours and I need the money.

Dege: Wow. How often do you do that?

WorkingWoman: For the next couple weeks, and then I’ll go back to 12hour shifts. And I’m fixing to start a second job.

Dege: When do you sleep?

WorkingWoman: I don’t sleep that much. I don’t need it.

Dege: How do you do it?

WorkingWoman: I was never much of a sleeper…even before I had my kids. I’m raising them by myself.

Dege: That’s pretty tough.

WorkingWoman: Well, I like to stay busy. I don’t like to sit around and do nothing.

Dege: I’m the same way. I got to be doing something or I get jittery and weird. If I’m sitting on the toilet, I’ll read the ingredients on the shampoo bottle just to have something to read or do.

WorkingWoman: Yeh, I’m like that, too. I don’t see how people sleep all day and let their lives go by, doing nothing with themselves. Being lazy.

Dege: Yeh, but I’m beginning to think its unhealthy—this Western, accelerated mindset. Pushing and pushing. It’s a competitive culture we live in. Maybe in the long run, it’s not good.

WorkingWoman: But you got to do something. You got to work to survive. That’s the day and age we live in.

Dege: Do you mind if I interview you?

NHP: Not at all, I’m a normal-human-person with things to say, so…

Dege: On the average, how long does a “Normal-Human-Person” spend looking at porn on the Internet, per day?

NHP: Looking at porn? A day? I guess about 15 to 20mins…normally. It used to be more—when I first got my computer—but I got burned out.

Dege: What’s your preference…for porn?

NHP: I like lesbo porn. I don’t like to see another dick in the picture. Girl on Girl is two for the price of one. That’s what I like.

Dege: Why no dicks…even in heterosexual situations? Would you describe yourself as homophobic?

NHP: No, it just turns me off…and there’s a lot competition…you know…with those big old, foot-long dicks.

Dege: Dude’s ain’t fronting.

NHP: Where do they find these people?

Dege: No idea. Fast Ball Question. What did you eat for breakfast this morning?

NHP: I skipped it. I don’t eat breakfast.

Dege: How much do you make a night?

Strip Club DJ: It’s $50 a night, plus tips. Tips come from the dancers. You get $10 or 10% of what they make in a night.

Dege: How much do you average a night?

Strip Club DJ: On a good night…me, myself…I’ll walk out of there without about $200.

Dege: That’s pretty good.

Strip Club DJ: Yeh, it’s alright. I do pretty good.

Dege: How long have you been doing this?

Strip Club DJ: I’ve been dj’ing music about 18 years.

Dege: How long have you been doing it in a strip club?

Strip Club DJ: About 8 months.

Dege: What kind of music do strippers usually like to dance to?

Strip Club DJ: Mostly R&B and hip-hop, but some of them dance to rock & roll.

Dege: Do you see some crazy stuff?

Strip Club DJ: Almost every night.

Dege: What kind of shit?

Strip Club DJ: Just about everything—girls giving blowjobs, fucking the customers, stealing from one another—fights between the dancers—all kinds of stuff.

Dege: Is this every night?

Strip Club DJ: Not every single night, but every once in awhile, something sparks off.

Dege: How’d you get started dj’ing?

Strip Club DJ: Trail rides.

Dege: Explain what that is exactly.

Strip Club DJ: You know, people get together on their horses and do a ride or camp out…after the ride.

Dege: What kind of music do they like on the trial rides?

Strip Club DJ: Zydeco, Cajun.

Dege: What’s your favorite kind of gig?

Strip Club DJ: I’d probably have to say a wedding. Ain’t nothing can beat a wedding. They pay good.

Dege: How much?

Strip Club DJ: Like about $500, depends how long. Sometimes that can make almost double that if it’s a long reception.

Dege: What kind of work do you do?

Bricklayer: I’m a bricklayer.

Dege: How long?

Bricklayer: 35 years.

Dege: How do you like that kind of work?

Bricklayer: Oh, I like it. I enjoy it.

Dege: How’d you get started?

Bricklayer: My daddy.

Dege: So you do pretty good, doing that, huh?

Bricklayer: Yeh, I like it.

Dege: It’s good exercise.

Bricklayer: Yeh, it is.

Dege: This may sound stupid, but what the hell are bricks made of?

Bricklayer: Baked clay and some other stuff.

Dege: What building are you most proud to have worked on?

Bricklayer: A building in New York City. 25 stories high.

Dege: What do you like most about bricklaying?

Bricklayer: Just the art of it.

Dege: There’s a creative element to it?

Bricklayer: Yeh.

Dege: (silence)…

Bricklayer: Building something from scratch.

Burglar: I just got out of jail.

Dege: What for?

Burglar: Simple burglary. I was looking at 24 years.

Dege: That’s a lot of time for simple burglary, huh?

Burglar: Well I just came off a bad jag. I done been busted for 5 or 6 other burglaries.

Dege: How’d they catch you this time?

Burglar: Caught me red-handed…at the place. Dropped it down to a misdemeanor.

Dege: How long were you in jail?

Burglar: 6 months…but I just did 6 years before that on another one. I been locked for all the 90’s…since 1989. A year here. Another there.

Burglar: I just got out the other day and I been throwing down. Running the street. Smoked a lot of crack. Weed. Just running, running, running. Then I drank one beer yesterday and it fucked my stomach up and they had to call the ambulance.

Dege: Just one beer.

Burglar: That one beer fucked me up.

Dege: But all that other shit didn’t really fuck you up…just that beer.

Burglar: Just that one beer. I died and went to heaven and they went back to hell. Found out while I was almost dead that my momma’s sick, my sister’s sick. Everybody in my family’s sick.

Dege: While you were all fucked up.

Burglar: I almost died. That’s why they called the ambulance. I had a vision about all my peoples—how they was doing and who wasn’t doing so good. I seen it. Found out they was all on medication.

Dege: That’s weird. How do you break into houses?

Burglar: Go through a window. A door. Anything. The roof.

Dege: What about security alarms?

Burglar: That ain’t nothing. You just cut it.

Dege: And do you case the place a little, check it out?

Burglar: You just look at it. Make sure nobody’s home. When you on that dope, a lot times you don’t care. Do reckless shit.

Dege: You grew up in the country?

CreoleWoman: Yeh, me and all fifteen children. My brothers and sisters.

Dege: What’d ya’ll do back then?

CreoleWoman: Worked in the field. Picked cotton. Break okra. Do house work. I’m 54 years old…and the 7th child.

Dege: Was coming to Lafayette a big deal, like coming to the “City.”

CreoleWoman: Oh, yeh, we’d all love coming to town. And everyone would try to marry someone from town to get out the country, you know? That’s the first thing. A country girl will not marry a country boy, cuz you want to move to town.

Dege: How did you like that kind of work back then?

CreoleWoman: Oh, it was fun, cuz you didn’t know any better! That’s all we knew, so we’d make the best of it. How can you miss something you never had? So, to us, that was it. That was life. And we enjoyed it.

Dege: How often would you go into town?

CreoleWoman: We came shopping twice a year. We come once before school and right before the holidays. And that was it. You never came to for anything else. And you never missed it. Like today, you put a dollar in a child’s hand, they run to the store.

Dege: What would ya’ll buy then?

CreoleWoman: You got all your clothes for school. By the time school was starting, the crops was getting ready to fold. So you’d finish with you work and then go to school. You’d go shopping with all your money in a little sock. Didn’t have no purse—just a sock. You came to town…got your shoes. You got two pair of shoes. One for church and one for school.

Dege: School and church.

CreoleWoman: On Sunday, you went to church on the bus or in the wagon…and you dress up in your new clothes.

Dege: How would ya’ll meet city boys, if you only went to town twice a year?

CreoleWoman: Because they would come from town to work in the fields. They would get a bunch of city people to come work in the fields…to make them some money. And the first one that would wanna marry you, you just want to take off and leave. You made a lot of mistakes.

Dege: Falling in love.

CreoleWoman: My first husband…ah, man, he sweet-talked me and I married him. I stayed with him for 10 years. We had two sons and stayed together for 10 years, but we wasn’t meant for each other. Started fighting.

Dege: Where’s he at now?

CreoleWoman: Oh, he died. Both of my husbands died. I lost two husbands. First one died with cancer and my 2nd one died in the 24hr store. He was trying to make extra money, because he’d go to school in the daytime and work at night.

Dege: How’d he die?

CreoleWoman: They robbed the store and shot him. That was ten years ago. I told my daughters that I’m never getting married again—just too painful. Relationships, they’re not…if you don’t know what you’re getting into, don’t do it…because a lot of people marry for the wrong reasons. And it ain’t always the men’s fault. I was immature; I just wanted to get out of the country. It just wasn’t meant to be.

Dege: What advice would you give somebody about relationships?

CreoleWoman: Just don’t use anybody. And take responsibility for your mistakes. Don’t go blaming everybody for your own decisions. And don’t be too much of a nag. I was a “nag.”

Dege: What’s a nag?

Dege: How long have you been messing with those O.C.’s?

OC Addict: About 3 years. And Lortabs, too.

Dege: Would you consider yourself an addict?

OC Addict: Yeh.

Dege: What do you like about them?

OC Addict: It takes the pain away from me. I have a lot of problems with my back and my ex-husband was really abusive to me. If I take one in the morning, I can do all day with pain. I can bend myself up like a pretzel if I have to…but it does get you high.

Dege: It’s amazing how many people are on Lortabs and painkillers and such.

OC Addict: I know.

Dege: I’m not one to judge, cuz I’ve had my own problems, but it seems like all of America is one big junkie right now.

OC Addict: All kinds of…classes of people are on that shit. It’s crazy. Rich people, poor people. Young and old people.

Dege: What is your preferred method of ingesting the drug?

OC Addict: I snort them. Just grind them up. Pill crusher. One of my best friends shoots them…and her husband is the vice-president of an oil fiend company. She’s 42.

Dege: Rich lady.

OC Addict: Yep, and she shoots them. I’m 26 and don’t have shit, so it shows you how it effects everybody.

Dege: All strata of society.

OC Addict: That’s why my advice to anybody is: if you’re not on them, don’t ever do them…cuz it grabs you by the balls. Just this past week, I’ve met two chicks…both their brothers died from OD’ing on them. OC’s and cocaine mixed together.

Dege: Somebody’s making some big money off of all this—pharmaceutical companies and such, because I’ve never seen shit this widespread. It’s like a big, open front in the bullshit they call the Drug war.

OC Addict: Oh, yeh. Doctors are writing scripts all over the place. It’s bad…and I’ve tried to quit.

Dege: During the times when you’ve tried to quit, what were some of your withdrawal symptoms?

OC Addict: Vomiting, diarrhea, chills, shakes, migraine headaches…just overall feeling of being sick. Mood swings, really bad.

Dege: If you had to do it all over again, would you?

OC Addict: I wouldn’t have taken shit.

Dege: What do you think about them gas prices?

Man: There ain’t no gas shortage. They’re just turning it up. Cranking the price up. Awful shame.

Dege: Mass manipulation. They’re fleecing us with bullshit.

Man: This economy, here, in America. Almost 15 years…it’s been going on like this here. I never seen it go on that long. Ain’t been this bad since Reagan. It was bad then.

Dege: I hear you.

Man: You can bet them rich people that’s with Bush—they making money right now. That’s how it always goes. They put their people in office so they’s can make they money. Everybody else gets poor. Got to suffer. It’s a shame.

Dege: What do you think about that war in Iraq?

Man: From the beginning, I was for it, but when I seen where it was going, no, no, no…I changed my mind. It’s a money deal. Somebody making money off that war…and it ain’t me.

Dege: You’re paying for it.

Man: That’s right…with my tax dollars.

Dege: Notice how the price of gas and oil conveniently go up during the spring and summer months…when people are taking vacations and traveling?

Man: You bet I seen that.

Dege: How come the news doesn’t refer to that as “price gouging?’

Man: Them news people up in the pockets of them gas people.

Dege: Absolutely. Does it seem obvious to you that Halliburton and these other big oil companies are profiting off the American tax dollar?

Man: Big time. Big time.

Dege: How do you feel about that?

Man: Ain’t happy about it. Look at people’s lives. I served in the Navy for 4 years. Them soldiers ain’t making no money off that stuff, but somebody’s getting rich.

Dege: I hear you.

Dege: How long have you been an insomniac?

Insomniac: Since I was a kid…as long as I can remember.

Dege: And how many hours of sleep do you get a night?

Insomniac: About two hours a night. Maybe three at the most.

Dege: What sort of side effects does this have on you during the day?

Insomniac: Yeh, I have a bad short-term memory loss. I don’t have a problem with long-term—I can remember all of that. But as far as the day to day, minute to minute stuff…I lose it all the time.

Dege: That’s got to be frustrating?

Insomniac: It is, believe me, it is.

Dege: What do you do at night if you’re not sleeping?

Insomniac: I work at 3 different jobs. I go to school. I’ve got to stay busy or I’ll go crazy. I’m a waiter, I work at a printer, and I do telephone solicitations.

Dege: What do you do with the extra money you make?

Insomniac: I spend it on different things. Furniture. I go out. Try to have fun. And I put some in the bank.

Dege: Have you even been to a doctor for this?

Insomniac: Yeh, they did a sleep-disorder study on me. It didn’t help. Some people have narcolepsy…where they fall asleep at random. I’m the exact opposite; my body forces me to stay awake.

Dege: Does this condition run in your family?

Insomniac: No. I was in the military for years and it worked great in that environment because you constantly have to get up and go do training exercises.