Chapter Five, the Road Dog Diary by Ray St. Louis
By the time I got off the plane, found my way to the baggage claim, gathered up my suitcase, stilts and
army tent, and lugged it all out to the pick-up area in front of the terminal it was pushing midnight. On the
flight I had been working up a plan as to how I was going to get from the Houston airport to the Texas
Renaissance Festival in time to get hired on for the weekend. Now that it was time to put the plan into action,
I was having serious doubts about its likelihood of success. At best I figured I had nine hours to get to my
destination. Problem was, I wasn't quite sure where that was.
Jack had told me the festival was outside the city limits near some small town whose name I couldn't
remember. Wherever it was, it would require taking a bus, at least that was my thinking at the time. So the
first move would be to get to a bus station. I couldn't afford a cab so I hopped on a downtown shuttle
figuring that would be a cheap way to get close to an all-night bus station. At first the shuttle driver wasn't
going to let me stash my stilts on the floor along the center aisle; he was worried about other passengers
tripping over them. I asked the half-dozen others that were on board whether they had a problem with it.
When they all said they didn't, the driver relented and let me board. I was becoming determined to make it to
this Renaissance fair; I wasn't about to let the scruples of an airport shuttle driver stop me.
The shuttle dropped me off at a downtown hotel that, I had learned en route, was five blocks from a
Trailways bus station. I threw the strap of the duffel bag containing my heavy army tent over my head and
across my left shoulder, and balanced my stilts on my right shoulder stabilizing the forward portion of the
long ungainly bundle with my right hand the way one would carry a pair of skis. With my left hand I picked
up the heavy leather suitcase. Had I known I was going to be carrying all this stuff, I'm sure I would have
found a way to leave some of it behind.
Loaded down the way I was, a slow waddle was the best I could manage, stopping about every half block
to rest. I thought about leaning the stilts against a building and coming back for them, but I didn't want to
leave anything unattended for even a moment. If someone ran off with my stilts, thinking maybe it was skis
or something else, I would be out of my only chance for making a little money, and the whole trip would have
been for nothing.
Downtown Houston at 1 A.M. cultivated the usual inner city night life: drunks, pimps, prostitutes, flabby
businessmen and professional types in suits looking to get laid or blown before returning to their hotel rooms,
vagrants, homeless people. No doubt, a few junkies and coke heads thrown in for good measure. As I
plodded down the street with my odd and cumbersome assortment of gear, I could feel that all eyes were on
me. This is a switch, I thought; they're all looking at me like I'm the weirdo.
Eventually I made it to the bus station. I carried my gear inside and set it down in front of the ticket
counter. I asked the male attendant if there was a bus going anywhere near the Texas Renaissance Festival
that could get me there before morning. After comparing notes with a couple of other Trailways employees
and checking maps, he said he could have me in Conroe by 3:30 A.M.
“How far is Conroe from the fair?” I asked.
“ ‘Bout fifteen, twenty moll, give or take,” he replied in a thick Texas twang.
“I don't know,” I said. “I don't see how I'm going to get from there to the fair at that time of the morning.”
“Well, they got an all naahht truck stop right there on the Interstate ‘bout a quarter moll from where the bus
drops off. You could hang out there in the restaurant till the sun come up, then try to hitch a rod. That's 'bout
the best ah can do.”
I didn't have a better plan so I bought the ticket. I had five dollars left in my travel stash, enough for
breakfast in Conroe and that was about it. If I didn't make it to the fair and line up a way to make some
money over the weekend, I was going to be in big trouble.
I stood in the unlit lot of a closed service station that doubled as a bus stop in Conroe, Texas. The bus had
dropped me there in the wee hours of the morning, and then taken off. The station was on a freeway service
road. About a half mile up I could see the lights of a truck stop. It was definitely a little farther than I'd been
told, and uphill from where I stood. Nevertheless, I whispered a heartfelt “thank you” to the gods of the road
for having sent my way a Trailways ticket agent who didn't have his head up his ass. I loaded up and began
the deliberate, labored trek up the hill to the truck stop like an over-burdened Grand Canyon pack mule on the
homeward leg.
When I reached the truck stop, I leaned the stilts and the duffel bag with the tent against the outer wall
figuring I could find a seat where I could keep an eye on them. As I was doing so, a young black truck driver
came out the door. He stopped in his tracks and stared at me as I was situating my oddball, heavy load like I
was some kind of alien from outer space.
“What you got?” he asked with a puzzled look on his face.
Before I knew it, I was telling him not only the specific nature of my load, but the entire hard-luck story of
my journey. I was so punch drunk from the stress and the lack of sleep that words just came flowing out of
my mouth like mental diarrhea. I knew I was acting and sounding like an idiot but I couldn't stop. After a few
minutes the driver said “You weird” and walked away. I decided I'd better get some food and coffee into my
system. I picked up my suitcase and went inside.
I killed a few hours eating scrambled eggs and sipping coffee. The eggs came with white toast (the waitress
said they didn't have wheat and gave me a funny look when I asked) and a small bowl of grits, which I had
never eaten in my entire life. "You're not in Kansas anymore," I said to myself. I wasn't in Minnesota either,
best try the grits. I wasn't sure how to dress them up, but they looked like the Cream of Wheat cereal my
mother had fed us as kids, so I figured milk and sugar was the way to go. Then I saw a truck driver a couple
of stools over melting pats of butter on his hot grits followed by a layer of salt and pepper. I decided that
must be the standard method of preparation and was about to do the same when I saw another driver dressing
his grits up with ketchup.
Now I was totally confused. When I spied yet another driver across the way mixing his grits with his eggs
and topping the whole mess off with Louisiana hot sauce, I gave up. Evidently, there was no correct way to
prepare grits. Sticking with the thing I was familiar with I tried the milk and sugar, than quickly decided I’d
made a mistake. I made a mental note to try the butter, salt and pepper method next time.
I looked at my bill and recounted what was left of my travel stash and realized I would be down to my last
dollar after paying for the breakfast. I meant to hang on to that dollar until I made some more. I had never in
my life been entirely penniless; I didn't want to start now. The waitress would have to forgive me for not
leaving a tip.
At the first light of dawn, I paid my bill and walked outside to gather up my belongings. During breakfast, a
couple of drivers had given me directions to the Texas Renaissance Festival. I knew I had to backtrack on the
Interstate a ways, then take the exit for the road that led toward a town called Magnolia. I still didn't know
what time the fair opened but I imagined I had only a couple of hours left. I doubted I would get a job unless I
got there a reasonable period of time before opening. I hauled my heavy load down to the entrance ramp of
the Interstate and stuck out my thumb.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later, a cowboy in a straw hat stopped his pickup truck and gave me a ride to the
exit I wanted. After another short wait I scored a ride to Magnolia. Now I was only a few miles from the fair.
I was beginning to think I just might make it. It was nearly 8 A.M. One more ride and I would be there.
Within minutes, a white van driven by a man who turned out to be a wood craftsman with a booth at the
fair picked me up. I had made it. It had taken a station wagon, a delivery truck, an airplane, a shuttle bus, a
Trailways bus, a couple of pickups, a van and my thumb but I had made it. For the first time since my car's
engine died, I was without anxiety. I allowed myself to relax and immediately felt totally exhausted. It was all
I could do to tell the wood craftsman the story of my journey. I guess he felt sorry for me because he offered
me the back storage room of his booth to stash my gear while I was getting my bearings at the fair. I got the
feeling that he didn't see anything strange at all about lugging a pair of stilts, a suitcase, and an army tent
halfway across the country to a Renaissance festival where there may or may not be a job waiting. In fact, he
seemed to regard it as perfectly normal, unlike practically every other human being I had come across since
leaving Minnesota. I was getting my first lesson in Renaissance camaraderie.
It’s kind of funny, and fitting too, I suppose, that my first glimpse of a Renaissance festival should come
from behind the scenes. The wood craftsman, Glenn was his name, took a left from the main road up a dirt
road marked with a sign that read “Participant Entrance.” The road followed along behind a curving row of
old world appearing buildings that I found out later to be craft booths. Short sections of wood fence between
the booths were intended, I gathered, to keep the paying customers on the front, more respectable side. Smart
move, I figured. If the public ever had an opportunity to look at what I was looking at, they would all be
thinking the Renaissance festival was kind of a dump.
Litter of every size, shape, and description—piles of old rotting lumber, broken and faded signs, torn scraps
of tarpaper and other remnants of construction, bolts of weathered burlap lying half buried in mud, torn
plastic garbage bags spewing beer cans and paper trash, rusted auto parts including engines and
transmissions—cluttered the spaces behind and between the buildings, all the buildings looking unfinished with
sheets of clear plastic stapled over holes in walls, shingle-less roofs covered only with tarpaper. Nearly every
building exhibited unpainted plywood or particle board. Here and there loose trim boards hung precariously by
a single nail. Everywhere weeds grew up except where car or pedestrian traffic had beaten them down.
All in all, it had the look of a depression era shanty town. However, once I made the connection to my
theater experience, and remembered the way we always piled the leftover debris of production behind the
scenes just out of sight of the audience, it didn't seem so bad. It was still show business stagecraft. This was
just a bigger stage.
I unloaded my gear in Glenn's back room, then headed out the front of the booth for the fair office in the
direction Glenn had pointed me. I took a few steps into the fair site, then turned and looked at the same row
of booths from the front side. It was a complete transformation. Buildings that had the appearance of shacks
from behind were now magnificent castles and princely palaces decked out with flags and banners, beautifully
painted signs, and ornately scrolled gingerbread trim. Many of the shops were painted in variations of rich
earth tones, while others sported brighter colors. The overall result was magical. This was a fantasy land to
be sure, a place where dreams came true.
I wasn't much of an expert on Renaissance period architecture, but I could tell in an instant that historical
accuracy was a minor consideration due to the montage of styles and architectural ideas. In one row of
booths you might find a medieval castle next to a Bruegel-esque stone cottage next to a Victorian manor next
to a Byzantine mosque topped with onion-head towers. I was beginning to feel a lot less concerned about the
authenticity of my makeshift costume.
I crossed the site and exited on a service road to another backstage area where I found an older mobile
home that had been converted to offices. A sign near the door said “Texas Renaissance Festival, Office.”
Uniformed security guards wearing sidearms, sunglasses, and gray felt cowboy hats were stationed out front
surrounded by a mixed and ever-changing crowd of costumed Renaissance villagers. It was a scene that
reeked of contradiction and anachronistic irony. I pressed my way between the bodies of dukes, beggars,
fishwives and courtly ladies until finally making it to the door and knocked. A buxom lass in peasant attire
answered and asked what it was that I wanted.
“Is John Broussard here?” I asked. I had learned his last name from Glenn on the ride from Magnolia.
“King John?” she replied.
“Yeah, I guess. The owner of the fair.”
“Yeah, he's here. Come on in.” She led me through a room full of people talking on telephones and
shuffling papers and grabbing stacks of fair programs, to a back room that I assumed to be Broussard’s
office. On the way she whispered to me, “Everybody around here always calls him King John.” Her tone
suggested it might be wise if I did the same.
“Sorry, I'm new here,” I whispered back.
We entered the back room office where a gangly middle-aged man with dark wavy gray-streaked hair and
well-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard framing a drawn-out jowl stood dressed only in a pair of white tights.
Several attendants carried in elegant costume pieces for His Majesty like acolytes bringing vestments to a
priest.
He takes this king thing seriously, I thought. “Excuse me,” I said trying to get his attention. “King John?”
He turned his head slowly in my direction, looked at me with weary, half-closed but still intimidating eyes,
and spoke in a low voice that sounded like it had been hand-rubbed with coarse sandpaper.
“Who are you?”
“I'm an entertainer. I was wondering whether I might be able to get a job.”
“What do you do?”
“I walk and dance on stilts.”
“I’ll give you twenty-five bucks a day.”
“I’ll take it.” At that point Broussard switched his attention back to the people dressing him. Our
conversation was over. Evidently, our king was a man of few words, at least as far as business was
concerned. I walked back to the front door with the buxom girl who had let me in. She congratulated me on
landing a performing job with only two weekends left to the fair since that sort of thing usually wasn’t done.
She told me I could pick up my pay right there at the office come end of the day Sunday. I thanked her and
left to find Glenn’s booth and start getting into costume. My Renaissance festival performing career was
about to get underway.