The Circus Fire (13 page)

Back inside, May Kovar helped the people caught at the chute, picking up children and boosting them over, but no one would remember this. The papers focused solely on her heroics inside the cage, fighting her panthers beneath the blazing roof. A retired fire captain from New York City called her "the bravest girl I've ever seen."

But while her cats were out, and safe, the chutes were still there, and

the crowd was larger now. Men tossed children across and then vaulted over, but others struggled to get a grip on the bars, catching their knees and feet. Some failed and slumped back, swallowed by the next wave. The heat from above was like being stung all over by bees.

One man on the far side caught children thrown to him, then pulled the mothers over, but that kind of cooperation was rare. Each time one young mother tried to pull herself over, people behind her searching for purchase dragged her back. She kissed her boy and told him to run, then tossed him over the top of the cage. Hands hauled her down again. When she looked up she saw her son had caught his foot between the bars. He dangled upside down, his hands not quite touching the ground on the far side. She started to pull herself up and over, but, upside down, the boy reached between the bars and untied his shoe. It fell into the chute and he was free.

The seventy-seven-year-old man whose daughter's phone Sergeant Spellman was using to call the fire department managed to crawl over the chute and stumble from the tent, but took a drubbing from the crowd. In the confusion his earphones had been yanked out and crushed. In silence, he hobbled down the midway toward home.

A couple from Meriden were sitting on the aisle down low. They hesitated, and the first rush trampled the husband. His wife helped him crawl through the narrow gap between the chute and the grandstand. Outside, they had to climb over the tongues of the animal wagons holding the big cats, who roared and paced in their cages. May Kovar stood guard over her leopards, a cageboy soaking them with a hose.

Beyond the line of wagons, people streamed back and forth along the north side, searching for neighbors and family members. Edward Garrison and his grandmother wandered among them, hoping to find his aunt and cousins. His grandmother wanted to go back inside. Just then the two sailors who'd followed them all the way from East Hartford on the bus came out of the tent, supporting the aunt and the cousins.

Inside, the fire burned east. Officers James Kenefick and Henry Griffin toiled on the far side of the northeast chute, telling people to jump, then reaching over and tugging them across. The north grandstands held nearly three thousand people, and with the west end in flames, several hundred ended up here. It was a battle, the whole crowd trying to come at

once. Griffin remembered: "Boys stuck their feet through the bars, got them turned so they couldn't get away. Others were stuck or jammed so they couldn't move." They piled up on top, blocking the people behind them.

A fifteen-year-old West Hartford girl and her younger sister came tumbling out of the grandstand and into the scrum at the northeast chute. The older girl saw the officers running up and down the far side, pulling people over, and pushed her sister up on top of others who'd already fallen. As she lifted her sister, she looked down into the face of a young man slightly older than herself, unable to get up because of the layers pinning his legs.

An officer helped the younger girl across and was about to move on to someone else, but the girl held on to his hand and pulled him back toward her sister. He had to save her too, she insisted, and he did. They never knew what happened to the young man.

The Wallendas crossed the northeast chute. Herman Wallenda: "When the flames hit the roof, we saw we had to get down fast. We slid down the ropes and headed for the performer's exit, but people were so crowded there that we saw we didn't have a chance. So we climbed over the cage that lines the exit. That was easy for us—we're performers. But the public couldn't get out that way."

Herman's teenaged son Gunther was with him; they climbed over the northeast chute right by a quarterpole and headed out of the tent. When they looked back, people seemed to be getting out.

Fred Bradna, veteran of several top fires, saw the confusion at die northeast chute and ran over there. He pulled children from the pile and carried them to safety.

Dorothy Bocek, thirteen, had been sitting in the north grandstand with her married sister Stella Marcovicz and her nephew Francis, four. All three made for the northeast chute. Dorothy asked Stella what she should do. Stella, holding Francis's hand, said, "Just take care of yourself."

At the chute they got separated. Somehow Dorothy made it over, she didn't remember how. Outside, she couldn't find Stella and Francis.

The band played on, but not loud enough to drown the screaming. "They all sounded like beaten dogs," Emmett Kelly said.

Rich black smoke rolled up from the canvas. Pieces fell and caught in

women's hair, ignited their light summer dresses. The unpyrolized paraffin became a flaming liquid that rained down like napalm, burning skin on contact, staying aflame until the fuel was all gone. It sizzled as it hit the skin of children in sunsuits, blisters dotting their arms like chicken pox.

The fire consumed the roof pole by pole, the heat on top of the crowd like a giant broiler, making people duck and flinch away from it. Still it found them. One girl's arm burned where she had it wrapped around her father's neck. Hair burned, and bald spots—not from flame but radiated heat. It literally cooked people.

The roof over the center ring evaporated. Ropes holding heavy tackle and trapeze equipment burned through, sending everything crashing into the rings below.

Mildred Cook lost Eleanor in the mob at the bottom of the grandstand. She hoped her daughter had followed Don. She ran with Edward for the front door, toward the fire, hoping to sneak under it.

Or, according to the missing persons report, the three of them headed for the main entrance together. The heat descended on them, making them groggy. Edward said he was tired and wanted to lie down. He did, passing out immediately. Mildred then fell unconscious, but Eleanor walked on.

After saving the lady caught in the bleachers, Thomas Barber retreated with her out the front door. There was too much heat to go back in there, so he patrolled around to the north to make sure the animals weren't loose. He'd seen May Kovar's act and unsnapped the flap of his holster just in case. That his service revolver might not stop a leopard never occurred to him. When he turned the corner, the cats were all safe in their cages.

On the midway, police cruiser number 8 nosed through the crowd streaming around it and stopped by the white ticket wagon. Chief Hallissey got on the radio and told headquarters to detail as many men as they could to the scene. One of the men headquarters then radioed was Det. William Dineen, who knew his two children were inside the tent.

Hallissey called the city authorities, and through them the War Council. They'd need to mobilize everybody on this one.

Downtown, Engine 4 turned up Ann Street and saw a pillar of heavy black smoke rising into the sky. The men on the truck wondered what the hell it could be.

This ain't no time to faint, lady

The fire drove the crowd ahead of it, down toward the bandstand. People who'd thought they had time now realized they'd underestimated its speed. It was moving too fast and the east end was too crowded to get out that way. The fire was going to cut them off.

A girl was running around with her blouse on fire, batting at it. Another woman heard someone say her shirt was on fire. She felt the heat, and then a man struck her in the face and said, "This ain't no time to faint, lady."

One girl had gone to the circus for her eighth birthday. Her mother couldn't take her because she was eight months pregnant, so she went with an older neighbor. They came down the north grandstand after the first rush. People were walking on others trapped under chairs, crushed and screaming.

"We've got to help them," the girl said.

"We don't have time," the neighbor said, and she was right.

When they reached the chute, the woman took one look at the crowd and said, "We'll never get out this way," and turned around, leading the girl back up the stands, all the way to the top, right by a sidepole. There was no one else there, and the girl balked. The drop seemed far.

"You've got to jump," the woman said.

"I can't," the girl said. "I can't even climb the pole in gym."

"If you don't, I'm going to push you."

The girl jumped, grabbed on to the pole and slid down, the friction ripping the skin from her arm. The woman climbed down right behind her.

Now the crowd realized they'd never make the east end and stormed up the grandstands on both sides, searching for poles and ropes, any lifeline. At the edge, parents instructed their children to run outside and wait for them. People remember the jump as being twenty-five, thirty, even thirty-five feet, when actually it was only between ten and twelve—but they were children then, and twelve feet to a six-year-old is a long way down.

Adults at the bottom gathered to catch children, but there weren't enough of them for everybody. One man climbed down a rope with two

children on his back. People leapt for the sidepoles, slid down halfway and caught their hands on the rough guyropes. The ropes burned their palms raw, and they let go from the shock and fell.

Some people jumped, not bothering with poles or ropes. One group of boys had a favorite game called paratrooper; they'd climb up on garages and—Geronimo!—fly off, bending their knees and rolling on landing, just like in the newsreels. Now they had a chance to use their new skills. But the very young and very old hadn't practiced. There were scores of bad falls. One woman went over nearly headfirst. Little girls landed on their hands and broke their wrists and arms. An older gentleman broke his leg and had to be helped away.

And there were injuries among the catchers—black eyes and strained backs, scratches and bruises from being kicked. A minor price.

But even there behind the stands people weren't out of danger. In some places the sidewall was staked down to the ground so tight there was no way to struggle under it. This was especially true behind the northwest bleachers just to the left of the marquee and the ladies' room—a natural place for kids to sneak in.