Under the Electric Sky (5 page)

“I'm gonna beat it out of your hide,” he told the guy and they went to it.

The hotdog bandit landed a kick that set Soggy back for a few seconds. When he caught up, he lunged at the man, landing a few direct jabs, some of them with enough force to paint the man's face with his own blood. Down he went and it was all over. The fists of steel had prevailed and the iron heart beat a merry tune inside Soggy's chest.

Soggy quickly made his way to the front office to pick up his ticket home from Jack. It was a good run, he figured, and there'd be other things, none quite as spectacular as working on the carnival, but there was always the rail yard or the fruit stand.

“No, it's all right,” Jack told him. “I saw it all and you took a lot from that guy.”

Jack never intended on sending Soggy home that day or any other for that matter. He was too strong a worker and having a little muscle on the show was a valuable business investment in those days. Carnival workers responded well to guys who scared them; it was the nature of the business. The workers were a tough lot and here was a guy who could handle them. A disposition to fight was not considered a liability in the carnival business; it was exactly the attribute needed to succeed. It was rough on the show and Soggy had just proved his worth in single combat, the way soldiers proved their bravery during war. He wasn't a thug – not here. Here he was management material.

Soggy flourished on the carnival after that. He acquired more concessions, including highly coveted gambling joints, and learned the business side of things from Jack and the old master himself, Bill Lynch. He became connected with the carnival on a deep level, the same way Lynch had and the old showman recognized it. Both of them had seen the City of Lights and knew there was no going back. These feelings toward the carnival ran much deeper than the ordinary job does for the regular man. They didn't leave at five to make a commute home for supper. They were already home. It was their life and they breathed it and...
it was in their blood
.

There were others who shared the same plasma as Soggy and Lynch and none of them could leave the carnival either. They all quickly realized they were struck with the carnival virus and that became the thing to say if anyone asked why they did this kind of work. “It gets in your blood,” most carnies still explain of their careers with personal satisfaction.

But it stood to reason with Soggy that if they all had a common blood condition, then they were all related. It wasn't a virus at all, but rather a lineage, a bloodline, a DNA that separated carnies from other men. The Bill Lynch Shows was a family, he came to realize and a tight-knit one at that. There were spats between workers on the midway, but it was just like any other family. Everyone could get over disagreements quickly, like two brothers fighting in the dirt and then playing catch an hour later.

Over the years, Soggy became a central figure in the family by force of his personality. The adventure was upon them and Soggy took a lead role amongst the carny brethren. He worked the old charm effortlessly and everyone instantly liked him, the way people had when he was a teenager. He had a down-home sense of humour, an ineloquent pattern of speech and had developed a magnificently rusted out voice caused over years of heavy smoking. He still wore a dark pompadour, brushed forward and down from the top of his head, leaving only a small space for a forehead between his hair and eyebrows. When he spoke, people automatically listened and he always had time for a laugh. There was something real about the man and every carny identified with him. Who else could get away with telling a female carny she looked like she was putting on weight? That was Soggy striking for the heart again and people respected him for it, even if there wasn't much tact involved. Everyone went along with the adventure and Soggy was at the centre of it, the place he always managed to be.

The boxing ring had provided excitement in the early years, but the carnival was where he belonged and by the early 1950s he had given up boxing to pursue it completely with no regrets. He was a king in the City of Lights and it was everything he had imagined. He was making decent money running a few of the games and having a hell of a time on the grand adventure.

He was a local boy making good in the rough world of the carnival and as he went along he began to understand Lynch's ethos of a Maritime-run carnival by and for the people of the Maritimes. Not only did he understand it, he was an integral part of it.

By the 1960s, Soggy was second in command on the number two unit, under Jack, travelling from town to town across the Maritimes through the warm, breezy summer air. Anywhere it blew, that's where the Bill Lynch Shows would appear. Things were looking good for this new king of the lights, but there was always a matter he had meant to deal with back home and it was now starting to wear at him. Back when he was fifteen, he had met a young woman by the name of Eleanor MacDonald at a local dance and of all the coincidences, she happened to live on Dorchester Street as well. Soggy and Eleanor had kept a relationship going for over fifteen years, even though the last few summers had taken him out of town. Eleanor worked at a restaurant in Charlottetown and had two weeks of vacation each year which she spent with Betty, Soggy's sister, travelling around with the show. The girls would meet up with Soggy and the carnival in North Sydney and travel through to Truro, working the cookhouse or a joint, wherever they were needed. Betty would tease Soggy about the long and yet-to-be-official courtship with Eleanor to which Soggy would reply, “Not until I have a place to live.”

So Betty solved that issue by selling her brother a parcel of land next to her house which, again, happened to be on Dorchester Street, next door to the old home where their mother had operated a convenience store after Frank had suffered a stroke. Soggy built a house with the money he had earned out on the show and he and Eleanor legitimized their long-term relationship marrying in 1963.

There are moments in a man's life that define what type of life he will live from that point on. Soggy Reid's moment came two years later when Eleanor gave birth to the couple's first and only child, Frankie. Soggy had been out fishing on the West River Bridge, just outside of town with a friend that day and by the time Betty had located him, Eleanor had already delivered. Soggy made his way to the hospital to meet his son. A couple of days later, the proud parents received the shocking news from doctors that Frankie had been born with Down Syndrome.

It was emotional for everybody involved. Nobody knew what to say or do for Soggy and Eleanor. But Soggy accepted it and understood he had a duty to his son and wife to make things work. He felt the paternal instincts immediately and swore to make his son's life the best it could be.

Frankie Reid fell asleep as a baby to the whirring of the Merry-Go-Round at night. He was raised on the carnival, tagging along with his parents as they criss-crossed the Maritimes for the summer, a new and welcomed addition to the Lynch Shows family, with carny brothers and sisters who always had time for him. Soggy was adamant both Eleanor and Frankie stay with him throughout the season. He wanted to make sure neither one of them went without. It was a good life and the family – all of them – were happy.

Soggy had strayed from church in the years since joining the carnival. After Frankie was born, Soggy returned, attending service at St. Peter's Anglican in Charlottetown in the off-season. Soggy had lived hard to this point, but he knew Frankie had been a blessing and a reason to change. The handicapped children he was obliged to fasten to rides for free were always somebody else's. Now, he understood without doubt what it meant and why it was important. But all of that didn't go far enough for a man of Soggy's character and determination. There were other things that could be done to make life better for less fortunate people. And he would see to it that those things were accomplished in whatever form they might come to take.

Soggy Reid became boss of the number two unit after Jack Lynch died in 1970. He managed it through the 1972 season, at which point Bill Lynch took ill. In October of 1972, Lynch passed away at the Halifax Infirmary.

Six months later, Soggy and Jack Lynch Jr. formed a partnership and bought the show from the Lynch estate. Soggy knew he had to take the financial risk and get involved because the fear on the show after Lynch's death was that a new owner might not run the show the way a Maritimer would. People from outside the region would never get it and there was always a natural, healthy distrust of anyone from Ontario. They would never understand that the Bill Lynch Shows were more than mechanical structures and bright lights, more than a business.

Jack Lynch Jr. was never really “with” or “for” the show as carnies like to say and needed Soggy to handle most of the managing duties. The Bill Lynch Shows had run for forty-eight years and Soggy was not going to sit back and watch it die. It was the Maritime tradition, the place that had given his life meaning and about four hundred others' – the family couldn't be let down. He didn't have the $100,000 buy-in, but his brother Johnny and old friend Bill Michaels had enough each to split the financing and lend him the cash. He repaid it by the end of that first season. More importantly for Soggy, the show was saved and continued in the same fashion Lynch had established: as a family tasked with the inherent duty to small towns and the Maritime people who made them up.

Jack Lynch Jr. sold his interest to Soggy at the end of the 1975 season, enshrining him as the undisputed King of The Road, with a show that rivalled only Conklin Shows out of Ontario for the largest on the continent. The heart of iron was beating loudly and happily and those boys' dreams were living out in the flashiest way imaginable. Some men spend their entire lives never locating the very thing their heart desires most and here was Soggy Reid at forty-five, proud owner and chief proprietor of the City of Lights. This hard swinging, wisecracking, street-smart east Charlottetown grade seven drop-out, had become the owner of his own fate, the master of the Maritime carnival and he had done it on his own terms. That kind of thing is deserving of respect and Soggy had earned it. He was buying new $100,000 rides and looking to expand the business any way he could. Things were good.

But that first year as sole owner was more than he bargained for. By July, a man was lying dead on his midway. The guilt was overwhelming. The old iron heart was thudding irregularly. It seemed like the whole universe was coming down and there was no escape. It wasn't a dream anymore. It was a cold dose of reality courtesy of gravity and some cracked metal plates.

The City of Lights Flickers

T
he province of Nova Scotia has no record of any magisterial inquiry called into the death of the man in Port Hawkesbury ever having taken place. Spokespeople in both the Departments of Labour and Justice have refused to explain where the file might have ended up, and simply admitting they lost it is too deep a shame for those proud and diligent bureaucrats in the province. There are any number of reasons for this and it's hardly worth speculating about, but it is curious.

According to newspaper reports, the inquiry, conducted by Judge Leo MacIntyre, determined the death was a direct result of a defect in the gate locking mechanism of that particular chair on the Paratrooper. The spring that activated the locking plunger was damaged, resulting in a small discrepancy of distance between the plunger and the plate which, on its own, wouldn't have been disastrous. But the metal plate on the bottom was cracked and bent and the side plate of the chair was bent as well, which meant there was nothing to hold together the bottom plate and plunger pin.

Allison Tupper, a consulting engineer who examined the ride, testified there were no natural forces at work that would have caused the gate to swing open. The force riders feel on the Paratrooper as it spins is on the rear of the seat, but at times through the cycle there is downward movement that Tupper said could encourage people to shift their legs, potentially moving the bar. The reflex while riding is to grab the bar and if this had happened on that particular chair, at the right time, the gate would have swung open.

The safety inspector for the Department of Labour's Amusements Division testified that he had inspected that ride earlier in the week for the better part of an hour, but hadn't inspected every seat and did not notice the strike plates being bent at that time. George Scott added that the only issue he discovered with the main structure of the ride was that nails were used used where cotter pins should have been, but he did not consider it a serious safety issue and told the carnival workers to correct it.

The precise details mattered little to Soggy. It was a defect in the locking mechanism that caused the death; he was sure of that after it was over. The bar had been pushed and the gate had flown open, sending a man into the twilight and, and...

...And it all came crashing down on Soggy. This was never the way it was meant to be. Soggy had been a hard-ass boss, physically disciplining any worker who slacked off or screwed up. Owning the carnival was a dream, but he ran it with the intention of keeping it; it was his livelihood and he had invested too much to watch it destroyed by lazy employees. Nobody on the show had the nerve to piss Soggy off with their incompetence. They knew they had to work hard under this owner or suffer the consequences, which could mean a severe beating and threats of worse.

In spite of his best efforts, the chief proprietor of the City of Lights was looking at the prospect of a large lawsuit. More than that, he couldn't stomach the thought he may have been responsible for someone's death. He started drinking hard that summer and his personality shifted as the depression swept in like a rainstorm on an empty midway. He considered his options. The solution, as clear as he could see it, was to sell the show. The family would be disappointed and let down, but none of them understood the intense pressure of keeping the show on the road. The old heart was pumping erratically and felt like rubber.

“He took it very hard. He was really upset,” recalls his sister, Betty MacLean. “I got some of his friends to go over and talk to him, but I don't think it did much good. He was in an awful way.”

Word travels fast in the carnival industry and within weeks Jimmy Conklin had heard Soggy was interested in selling and sent a guy down to the Maritimes to study the books for close to a month. The death had taken place in late June and by the time Soggy and the Bill Lynch Shows pulled in to play Soggy's hometown of Charlottetown for Old Home Week in August, Jimmy Conklin was there with a group of key people from his outfit. He was fully prepared to purchase and assume control of the show that hot summer afternoon.

And then the carny family – the Bill Lynch family – made their voices heard. Soggy had always been there for them and it was time for them to return the favour. They all shared the same blood, after all, and they knew how hard he had taken the death. It looked like the end of the Bill Lynch Shows as the region had come to know it. Conklin was from Ontario and none of the Maritimers on the show were willing to imagine how the local institution would be run with an Ontarian in charge.

“I was depressed, I was tired,” Soggy told Fred H. Phillips in the August 1982 issue of
The Atlantic Advocate
. “I almost took Conklin's offer. Then the carnies came into the picture. They signed a declaration, almost to a man, to the effect that they would walk off the show in a body if I sold it.

“So, no money changed hands, nothing was signed...”

They had rallied around their boss, the head of the family, saving the Bill Lynch Shows and their own way of life.

The gesture meant far more to Soggy than most of them realized at the time. It changed his life and a lot of others, in due course, afterwards. It gave him the strength to continue and the old iron heart glowed.

“I remember them passing it [the declaration] to him – he was on the steps coming down from his trailer – and they were all standing there,” Betty says. “And even Conklin was there. But when he got that he said, no, that was it, he wasn't going to sell. It meant so much to him that they would do that. I know him. I mean, hell, he was … when his eyes fill up you know that.”

A few of them got together later and presented Soggy with a plaque:

Presented to The King of the Road

Clarence (Soggy) Reid, World's Finest Showman

From the ride personnel of 1976,

Thanks for keeping the show together.

That October, the inquiry into the death exonerated Soggy and the Bill Lynch Shows, after Judge MacIntyre ruled that no particular person could be held accountable for the tragic events of that day. The inspection should have been carried out more thoroughly, however, forcing MacIntyre to recommend that more detailed inspections of rides should be conducted by the Department of Labour in the future.

Soggy continued on, heartened, and ready for anything. He grew the business, eventually running up to five shows over the summer terrain of the Maritimes. The lights were shining brightly on Soggy's back after that.

OOO

Betty MacLean lives in a tidy bungalow a few blocks from the Dawson House Bed and Breakfast in Charlottetown. The Dawson is an old Victorian-style manor, the boyhood home of former P.E.I. premier Joe Ghiz and if rumours are to be believed, a ghost or two still haunt the place. Betty ran the bed and breakfast for a number of years after retiring from the carnival circuit, recently selling it and moving to a more modest home. Things changed after Soggy's death and she wasn't the only one who felt it.

On this late spring afternoon, around the time old carnies would be getting the itch to head back on the road, her new home is abuzz with people coming and going amidst renovations. Soggy's brother, Johnny, sits at the kitchen table with Betty's daughter Melissa and a friend as they reminisce about the King of the Road, whom they know better as Clare. The kitchen fills with the voices of everyone talking at once while pointing at old photos and carnival memorabilia on the table, some of them freshly dug out of moving boxes.

Melissa hands me a photo of Soggy at Disney World with Frankie, a few other kids and Mickey and Minnie. I study it for a few seconds. At first it looks like Mickey Mouse is wearing a pompadour similar to Soggy's between his famous ears.

“And of course, look where he is, because he never wants to be out front,” she says with a laugh. The photo was taken on one of the trips Soggy funded for Frankie's classmates and teachers. He took a group to Florida annually, where they stayed at a home he purchased near the famous carny city Gibsonton (or Gibtown, as it's known in certain carny circles).

Soggy also invited his top workers down to Florida for a few weeks during the winter for professional development and a little sun. He took care of the people close to him and the underprivileged. In keeping with Lynch's tradition of giving back, Soggy donated untold amounts of cash to a variety of charities throughout the region, as well as ensuring kids everywhere had free tickets to the show. He set up a Frankie Reid bursary to assist university students looking to work in the field of mentally challenged healthcare, which still exists today. His work with the mentally and physically handicapped reached folk-hero-like status. Former P.E.I. Premier Catherine Callbeck remarked that Soggy “was a person with a big heart who brought joy to thousands of people. His special dedication and support to the physically challenged and mentally handicapped was truly exceptional. He touched so many people in so many ways.”

After getting over the Paratrooper death in 1976, with the help of his crew, Soggy went about work with a newfound vigour. He purchased the best rides he could find and grew the business quickly. He never accepted having to turn down community groups who wanted to sponsor him to play their towns, so the solution was to make the show big enough to cover them all. He was running fast and free in the late 1970s' Maritime economy and the money was pouring in as the Bill Lynch Shows expanded beyond anyone's imagination. And at the heart of it, like the old master he had learned from, he was giving back to his people.

By the early 1980s, the Canadian chapter of the Showman's League of America recognized Soggy as their Showman of the Year, with a dinner in his honour at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. The kid who had dreamt the dream of a boy had made it, finally. It wasn't easy, but he had succeeded and now his peers were recognizing him for it.

“The Premier of Prince Edward Island [Jim Lee] flew from Florida to Toronto to get there,” Johnny says from across the table. “See, that would be quite an honour for a Prince Edward Islander to become Showman of the Year in Canada. It was quite a thing. It meant quite a bit, to have the Premier come down and honour you with his presence even though you weren't in your hometown and especially because the Premier was away on vacation.”

Premiers don't do a lot of celebrating with their constituents anymore, I let slip out.

“No, they won't even go to your funeral now,” Johnny quips.

Betty says the premier flew to Toronto because Soggy had earned the respect of people outside of the carnival business as well as those involved in it. He had started from nothing and worked his way up, like a typical Horatio Alger character and so had the premier.

“They both came from nothing and made something of themselves,” she says.

Soggy got involved in charities because he wanted to make life better for people. He had made it to the big time, but he never forgot where he came from.

“Well, we came from nothing, from very, very poor,” Johnny says. “My mother, at supper time, we'd go along the railway tracks and she'd cut dandelions. We'd take them home and she'd salt them and fry them with olive oil and onions and we'd eat it with pita bread. That was our supper. When ya got nothin'...”

Soggy went further with the charities than most people. By 1980, he was involved with an annual telethon that aired on Island Cablevision 10 every February, raising money for handicapped children's camps in the province. Although Soggy took Lynch's lead in staying out of the charity spotlight, the fundraiser eventually came to be called The Soggy Reid Telethon. Soggy worked the phones, which is to say he called people and “asked” for donations.

“Clare would call people, his friends with money and tell them they were donating,” Betty recalls. “He didn't ask. People would just donate after he told them to. That was the strength of his personality.”

“You know, I think Frankie, when he was born, everything in the family shifted and made you realize really what was important in life,” Melissa adds. “I think that's maybe where his thoughts were when he became involved in the charity work.”

Later that night, I stopped back by Betty's to drop off some papers she had loaned me. The house that had been buzzing all day was quiet. We sat at the table and talked a bit longer about Soggy. Betty is a kind, friendly woman who still misses her brother.

“It was just such a shock to everybody when he died,” she said. “Melissa loved him so much. She used to say she didn't have anything to worry about and felt safe when Clare was around. After he died, she never felt the same.

“There was always something about him, ya know? His personality. He had that something some people have that you can't explain.”

Upon Soggy's return to the church after Frankie was born, he met Father Mac, the “carny priest”, one winter in Florida. Soggy would have him perform a service for the workers every year in Charlottetown. It wasn't that everybody had to go, but as one old worker said, “You go to church or you're in trouble.”

“When Frankie was born it was a shock to everybody,” Betty admitted. “But we loved him right away. And Clare was the best father ever. He loved Frankie, he was his life.”

A wail sounded out from downstairs, prompting Betty to her feet in a flash. For a woman in her 70s, she is remarkably spry. She moves quicker than a lot of twenty-year-olds when provoked into action. She went downstairs and came back a few minutes later. It was Frankie. He had made a mess and after she cleaned him up, she brought him upstairs for an introduction.

Frankie Reid is now forty-three years old and healthy. Betty has been looking after him since Eleanor died, a year after Soggy in 1996.

“We love Frankie and I wouldn't trade him in for anything,” she said, after the introduction.

Frankie enjoys playing bingo and when the fair is in Charlottetown, you can find him walking the midway with a hereditary interest. In a sad twist of irony, Campbell Amusements out of Ontario, the company that has the contract to play Old Home Week these days, actually charge Frankie admission.