I was born into a circus family, we were aerialists, acrobats, and animal trainers. We had horses then; we added leopards later. (For the record, I don’t support performing animals in the circus.)
I was 14 years old and we were going to perform in Reading, PA. All the circus animals we kept in a garage-type of building next to the building where we were going to perform. The circus performers all stayed in their trailers and campers in a parking lot about a mile away.
Someone had to stay with the animals at all times, so I volunteered. Hey, I was 14 and I thought it would be cool to be away from adults and with the animals.
There were horses (ours) at one end of the building and elephants at the other end. I made a nice bed on several bales of hay where I could keep an eye on the horses.
Sometime around o-dark-thirty, a loud sound woke me up. It was one of the four female elephants and she was trumpeting, flapping her large ears, and running forward, and then backing up. You see, they all had chains around their legs (I know, I don’t like that either), so she could only go so far forward.
And, then, while I was standing there and trying to wake up, her chain broke…
She came running from the end of the garage toward me, with her ears flapping. Not a good thing!
I froze for a second and processed what was happening: Where could I run? The door was too far to reach in time. If I stand still, she might likely hurt me – maybe crush me.
I was a skinny, shy, pimply 14-year-old kid, so I have no idea why I did what I did next.
I grabbed a broom laying up against the hay bales, and I began to brandish it like it was a weapon.
And, then, I screamed. I think it was out of pure fear, but something pretty primal sounding came out of my body.
But here’s where it gets interesting; I started running towards the female elephant while screaming and swinging the broom.
Later, I thought, “What the fuck was I thinking!?” She could have squashed me like a grape. I get more scared thinking about it now than when it actually happened.
For some reason, the female elephant stopped in her tracks.
Apparently emboldened, I kept moving toward her with the broom, yelling all the while, and she backed up. And, then she seemed to calm down.
I waited for what seemed like an hour but was probably more like 5 minutes. I then left the building, found a payphone (yes, it was that long ago), and asked the police to contact the elephant trainer who was about a mile away.
After the trainer came to secure the elephant and soothe her, I did manage to fall back to sleep on bales of hay. But, every little sound the animals made that night woke me back up.
I never thought much about this afterward. Maybe because the memory of it was pretty activating. Maybe because I felt sorry for that female elephant and her attempt at freedom.
However, after that, I did walk with a slightly increased sense of personal power after I managed to stop a charging elephant.