Coney Island – Page 2 – Boy Outa Brooklyn

The Brooklyn Boys vs. The Boy Scouts

Norman Rockwell painting of a nice Boy Scout — **Not in my troop**

We are a blue-collar Scout troop without a full uniform between us – more Bowery Boys than Baden Powell. We don’t buy our gear at the official Boy Scout store which is strictly for fagateers but at the Army surplus stores on Canal Street. Who cares if our canteens leak and our hatchets shatter? They are what General Patton’s soldiers used and that’s all that matters.

Only once is our tough-guy veneer pierced. It is when we encounter a disfigured boy who pitches his tent right next to ours at a Boy Scout Jamboree. The merit badge sash he wears across his torso contains more badges than our troop has won in its entire history. He is also an Eagle Scout and a member of the Order of The Arrow. This is like being a Green Beret and a Navy Seal. He is tall and well built. But, atop his perfectly formed body sits the most deformed head and face I have ever seen. His skull is squashed, elongated and lopsided. His features are randomly stuck onto the front of it like the plastic ears, mouth and nose of a Mr. Potato Head – a Mr. Potato Head who has been dropped from a great height. He has one misshapen ear on top of his skull and another down near his chin so that his glasses hang on his face in a vertical rather than horizontal line. His eyes, nose, and mouth are not much more than holes. Imagine the face of Charles Laughton in The Hunchback of Notre Dame drawn by Picasso then put through a wood chipper.

The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters — **We weren’t as tough as we pretended to be.**

Boy Outa Brooklyn a murder memoir by Jack Antonio
Image: The smiling face of Steeplechase Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn. — Available as a paperback and eBook amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
And as an eBook here

Attack of the Killer Dwarf

Souvenir postcard from Steeplechase Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn. — Steeplechase Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn
Better than Disneyland

I am seven and in Coney Island’s Steeplechase Park – a magical relic of a Victorian amusement park. I’m lost in a dark hallway and I’m ascared. I must have taken a wrong turn getting off the Shoot-the-Chute.

Shoot-the-chute at Steeplechase Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn

I open a door and I’m in the employees’ locker room. Right before me sits a dwarf-clown in whiteface but only halfway into his Pagliacci costume. Baggy clown-pants below. Guinea T-shirt on top. He is smoking and reading The Daily News. He sports a popular tattoo – a black panther climbing up his forearm and drawing drops of red blood with its claws. The dwarf-clown gives me a genuinely malevolent look – not one of those stagey, evil dwarf-clown looks so popular in modern horror-movies. This dwarf-clown hates being a dwarf. Hates being a clown. Hates being the same size as this seven-year-old punk standing before him. Hates me. “Get the fuck outahere,” he rasps.

I get the fuck outathere.

The Viking Giant

Johann K. Petursson, The Icelandic Giant. — **Johann K. Petursson and his lunch.**

That same year, I see the freak show at Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus held in the old Madison Square Garden where Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jake LaMotta, Rocky Graziano and Rocky Marciano fight. It’s where Emile Griffith from the Virgin Islands kills the Cuban Benny “Kid” Paret. At the weigh-in, Benny calls Emile a “maricon” – that’s spic-talk for faggot. In Round 12, Paret is out on his feet but trapped in a corner and held up by the ropes. The homosexual Griffith shows no mercy. Remember what I told you about our dusky brothers not liking each other? Remember what I told you about boxing promoters feasting on that hatred? The Garden reeks of that bloody history. And, with the circus in town, it reeks of lion piss and elephant dung. (Henry Miller, like me a Brooklyn boy, wanted an English language that reeked of lion piss and elephant dung. I doubt Henry ever smelled them in combination. The stench stung my eyeballs and melted the enamel from my teeth!)

The Ringling freak show features sword-swallowers, snake-handlers, fire-eaters, bullwhip-crackers, knife-throwers, fat men, skinny men, rubber men, a family of albino midgets and the star of the show – Johann K. Petursson, the Icelandic Giant – the Tallest Man in the World. Johann is no sissy giant, no puny, pituitary-gland pussy he. Johann is a true giant – 8’ 8” tall and brawny with a bear pelt draped over his shoulder.

Johann wears a tall Viking helmet with horns as tribute to his forebears and to make himself look even taller. My father buys me one of Johann’s green plastic rings as souvenir. The giant places it on his finger for a moment as consecration. I can fit all five of my five-year-old fingers inside it. I still have that ring.

Johann K. Petursson souvenir ring as sold at Coney Island and Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. — **The Sacred Relic**

Freak-O-Rama

Vintage freak show banner depicting two-headed baby as seen at Coney Island — **Facsimile = an ancient, dusty, wax model floating in a filthy jar filled with formaldehyde**

Coney Island is where I see my first freak show. I am five and my father holds me up to see the stage. Outside the tent, a painted banner depicts a ferocious man with a head shaped like a ten-foot-wide light bulb. But, inside the tent, the meek, sickly man on-stage has only a slightly swollen head. He drives a nail up his nose to try and compensate for his disappointing deformity. My father explains that the man has a disease and the show is a gyp. There is also a woman on-stage who has dry, scaly skin. Outside she is depicted crawling through a swamp on all fours – a woman’s head on the body of an alligator. But, inside – no such luck. Another gyp.

Times Square Baptism

The classic stripper - Lily Christine aka - "The Cat Girl" — **Sex-education instructor in 1950s Brooklyn**

When we climbed out of the Times Square subway station, I was mesmerized. I’d been to Coney Island plenty, but this was something else again, something electrifying. It was the lights – up and down and all around, lights neon, fluorescent and incandescent, lights all moving, all colors and all ablaze – even in daylight; lights that outshined the sun. The billboards were alive – a gigantic man blew smoke rings while Mister Peanut tipped his hat. I didn’t know it then but I had been rubbing shoulders with Diane Arbus and Bettie Page, both working in that 1956 Times Square world – a world of bustling strangers. A world of men in hats. Women with handbags. A world that smelled of Howard Johnson, Orange Julius, Nedick’s, popcorn and pussy. I was six and I could smell it; six and I could feel it; six and I could taste it. Times Square was a dirty dangerous place. And, I loved it.

Mr. Peanut neon sign in Times Square, New York — **My mentor – Mr. Peanut**

Elvis blasted from the music stores and frigid winds blasted from the air-conditioned theater lobbies. I passed a newsstand and an excited man shouted “Extra!” I passed a doorway and a crazy man shouted “Cocksucker!” I heard the shuffle, scuffle and beat of the footfalls. I heard the horns, hollers and bleats of the cabbies – “Ya got wheels! Use ’em, Mac!” I saw my first “Street Corner Messiah.” He wore a sandwich board and was very worried about God. I was transfixed by him. I wanted to ask him why he was so worried but I was pulled away.

Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium in Times Square, New York — **A history lesson in Times Square**

It was the bestest birthday party ever. We saw the Torture Chamber in Ripley’s Believe It or Not“ Odditorium.” Then we visited Hubert’s Museum – a freak show in a 42^nd Street basement. It was even spookier and sexier than Ripley’s! We gaped at Hubert’s Cowboy Giant, midget, flea circus and Congo Witch Doctor. We gawped at Princess Sahloo and her sluggish snake. I determined that I would live in Hubert’s Museum as barker, caretaker and flea-wrangler. I would befriend the Witch Doctor, play pinochle with the midget and milk the snake.

Hubert's Museum and freak show on 42nd street in New York — **Oh, for a time machine!**