spin of the wheel, and another space would be blocked off. The skillo operator explained that when all the spaces were blocked off, the customer would win a large sum of money. As the customer got closer to filling in all the spaces, the skillo operator would encourage him to increase his bets. The operator would look around nervously and whisper, "I don't own this game, but I'd like you to win. If you do, maybe you'll give me a small piece."
The operator would slip the customer five or ten dollars and say, "Bet this for me, will you? You can't lose now." And the mark would feel as though he had a confederate. Jeff became an expert at milking the customers. As the open spaces on the board became smaller and the odds of winning grew greater, the excitement would intensify.
"You can't miss now!" Jeff would exclaim, and the player would eagerly put up more money. Finally, when there was only one tiny space left to fill, the excitement would peak. The mark would put up all the money he had, and often hurry home to get more. The customer never won, however, because the operator or his shill would give the table an imperceptible nudge, and the arrow would invariably land at the wrong place.
Jeff quickly learned all the carnie terms: The "gaff" was a term for fixing the games so that the marks could not win. The men who stood in front of a sideshow making their spiel were called "barkers" by outsiders, but the carnie people called them "talkers." The talker got 10 percent of the take for building the tip - the "tip" being a crowd. "Slum" was the prize given away. The "postman" was a cop who had to be paid off.
Jeff became an expert at the "blow-off." When customers paid to see a sideshow exhibition, Jeff would make his spiel: "Ladies and gentlemen: Everything that's pictured, painted, and advertised outside, you will see within the walls of this tent for the price of your general admission. However, immediately after the young lady in the electric chair gets finished being tortured, her poor body racked by fifty thousand watts of electricity, we have an extra added attraction that has absolutely nothing to do with the show and is not advertised outside. Behind this enclosure you are going to see something so truly remarkable, so chilling and hair-raising, that we dare not portray it outside, because it might come under the eyes of innocent children or susceptible women."
And after the suckers had paid an extra dollar, Jeff would usher them inside to see a girl with no middle, or a two-headed baby, and of course it was all done with mirrors.
One of the most profitable carnival games was the "mouse running." A live mouse was put in the center of a table and a bowl was placed over it. The rim of the table had ten holes around its perimeter into any one of which the mouse could run when the bowl was lifted. Each patron bet on a numbered hole. Whoever selected the hole into which the mouse would run won the prize.
"How do you gaff a thing like that?" Jeff asked Uncle Willie. "Do you use trained mice?"
Uncle Willie roared with laughter. "Who the hell's go time to train mice? No, no. It's simple. The operator sees which number no one has bet on, and he puts a little vinegar on his finger and touches the edge of the hole he wants the mouse to run into. The mouse will head for that hole every time."
Karen, an attractive young belly dancer, introduced Jeff to the "key" game.
"When you've made your spiel on Saturday night," Karen told him, "call some of the men customers aside, one at a time, and sell them a key to my trailer."
The keys cost five dollars. By midnight, a dozen or more men would find themselves milling around outside her trailer. Karen, by that time, was at a hotel in town, spending the night with Jeff. When the marks came back to the carnival the following morning to get their revenge, the show was long gone.
During the next four years Jeff learned a great deal about human nature. He found out how easy it was to arouse greed, and how guillible people could be. They believed incredible tales because their greed made them want to believe. At eighteen, Jeff was strikingly handsome. Even the most casual woman