You’re about to lose an arm…

This post originally published on Nov. 29, 2013…

Another story from that circus that was holed up for the winter. This was in the boonies in Central Florida. The Clyde Beatty show.

I’m out walking around among tents and cages, tigers roaring, monkeys chattering. I’m looking for a good story. Amid tractor trailers, railroad cars, scaffolding, I see a guy sitting on a bench, wrangling with a wrench on some kinda broken gimcrack. Next to him are two rows of cages. Inside, buncho tigers. Big ones.

There’s an aisle between the cages about three feet  wide. I’m talking to this guy. He’s one of these guys who takes some time to think about what he’s gonna say. Then he takes some time saying it.

I just wanna know where the people are who run the place, the people who decide when it’s time to let the lions and the tigers and the elephants and the monkeys sit still.

He’s telling me who, where to find em, what it’s like being off the road. What it’s like being on the road.

Then, casually… ’’You’re about to lose an arm there, fella.”

I’m standing next to a tiger, Bengal mebbe. About the size of a Jeep. I’m looking at the tiger. He’s looking at me.

“We don’t walk between the cages,” he says. “We go around.”

Says the tiger is real fast. Pretty sure the guy’s laughing at me, or he should be.

Either way.