The Boy from Fishhook
The Source
The Story of Robert Earl Hughes
By Ken Bradbury
Willem Kline Jim Yale Keith Bradbury Rich McCoy Brenda Yale Melissa Mueller Sylvia Burke
Cast of Characters Robert Earl Hughes Reporter 1 Carnival Barker Georgia Hughes Abe (Abraham) Hughes Reporter 2 Quincy Doctor Student 1 Student 2 Student 3 Marian (schoolmate) Gerald Kurfman (store owner) Mrs. Kelly (teacher) Evangelist Ada Sykes (teacher) Waters (schoolmate) Mama (mother of child in ditch story) Henry Zigler Quincy Herald Whig Reporter Guy Hughes Curly Metz Baylis Citizen 1 Baylis Citizen 2 Ripley Reader AP Reporter Tribune Reader Trend Executive Soldier Bill Rogers Donna (Johnson) Donald Hughes Poorhouse Matron Georgia’s Father State Official Officer Minister Radio Announcer Mrs. Nash Caterpillar Rep Draft Board Hollywood Life Reporter
Dr. St. Louis Post Dispatch Reporter Hannibal Theatre Owner Lillian Hughes Surratt Daisy (Shecklesworth) Blue Bell Exec. Fishhook Loafer Quincy Interviewer Springfield JR Texas Seamstress Peoria Journal Star Wesley Dennis Drunk One Drunk Two Johnny Meah David Surbeck Anne Logsdon Duwaine Elliott Chicago Reporter Conductor Wisconsin Doctor Wesley Dennis, Sr. Ambulance Driver Photographer New York Times Reporter New York Seamstress Narrator Waitress Napanee Doctor Receptionist Dr. Bowen Dr. Burket Singer Traveler Rich McCoy Margaret Whiteside Bob Natkin Henry Alvarez Will Georgantas WGEM Reporter Preacher (Cale) Manley (85)
The play is presented in one act.
(Music Cue 1: Blessed Assurance) (Cast enters.)
REPORTER 1/KEITH: July 10th, 1958. Robert Earl Hughes, the carnival fat man who weighed in at more than half a ton, died Thursday morning after he had been stricken by measles during his last days spent in his specially made bed right here in Bremen, Indiana. REPORTER 2/JIM: After unsuccessful attempts to admit him in a South Bend hospital he was brought here to administer oxygen from portable cylinders since they could not get through the doors of the hospital. Dr. C.R. Burket rigged up a special tank and facemask. REPORTER 1/KEITH: He seemed to respond quickly to treatment but death came at 6:30 Thursday morning when he succumbed to uremia and heart failure. With him at the time of his death were his brother and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Guy Hughes and Mrs. Hughes’ parents. REPORTER 2/JIM: Because the dead man’s body could not be lifted from the bed, the trailer was hauled to the Huff Funeral Home and placed at the garage door where the embalming was completed using portable equipment used years ago in private homes. The relatives then took the body, still in its trailer, to Benville, Illinois for services and burial. REPORTER 1/KEITH: Hughes belonged to the Baptist Church.
(Music Out)
ROBERT: I was big. I mean, there’s no hiding that. I was . . . big.
(Carnival photo of Robert displayed)
(Music cue #2: Carnival Music)
CARNIVAL BARKER/RICH: Hey-ha! Hey-ha! Hey-ya! Step right up! The Eighth Wonder of the World! On display for one day only! Step right up! 25 cents! One quarter of a dollar! Ten cents for the kiddies! Ladies, we have smelling salts available lest this horrendous sight be too much for you!
(Photo of Virginia holding baby Robert)
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: I was 20 years old when Bob was born. Lord, I’ve told this story so many times. . .he weighed nine pounds and that was enough. Georgia Hughes, Lewis County, Missouri.
CARNIVAL BARKER/RICH: Robert Earl Hughes! The World’s Fattest Man! Right here inside this tent! Don’t go home tonight without seeing this! 25 cents to view this freak of nature!
ROBERT: Lewis County was already famous. It was the home of Miss Ella Ewing. She wasn’t as well known as Mark Twain of Hannibal right next door, but she stood eight foot four inches tall, the tallest woman who’d ever lived. In Lewis County we grew things big.
CARNIVAL BARKER/RICH: Hey! Hey! No shoving! There’s plenty of this boy to go around!
(Music fades out)
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: My husband Abe and I picked up our first-born and crossed the Mississippi. . Sharecroppers. 1926. Moved to farm near Fishhook, Illinois.
ABE/KEITH: You couldn’t get to our farm with a car because of the creek. .
ROBERT: . . .which didn’t matter at all since we couldn’t afford a car. . or electricity. . or running water.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: He was a happy baby.
REPORTER 2/BRENDA: Quincy Herald Whig, here. How old was he when he got sick?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Oh, I don’t know. A few months. Whooping cough. It was terrible. Kids would cough for weeks . . .a bad, hard cough. . .Bob would cough so hard it’d sit him up straight in his cradle. . .then this “whoop” sound when he tried to get air.
ROBERT: Nowadays you can get vaccinated against whooping cough. All I could do was cough. . . and wait.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Then two more boys came along. . .Guy and Donald. Three boys, no electricity, no running water. I was a busy woman. Still am.
ROBERT: . . but mother noticed something.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: He seemed. . .I don’t know. . . rounder than the other boys. We took him to a doctor.
QUINCY DOCTOR/MELISSA: He’s two years old? He’s big. Too big, seems to me.
ROBERT: The lady was sharp.
QUINCY DOCTOR/MELISSA: You want my opinion. . .and this is just an opinion. . .he coughed too hard. . . damaged the pituitary gland. It’s a hormone center at the base of the brain that affects growth.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: So how do you fix it?
QUINCY DOCTOR/MELISSA: Can’t.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Can’t?
ROBERT: That was it. . . “Can’t.”
QUINCY DOCTOR/MELISSA: Medical science can’t do anything about it. He may live maybe until he’s fifteen. His heart won’t be able to keep up.
ROBERT: I pretty much stayed away from doctors after that. No need to spend money on a verdict that’s hopeless. Besides that, they wanted to experiment on me. So I ignored them and went to school instead.
(Cue 3, School bluegrass)
(a scramble of seats, then. . . )
STUDENT 2/BRENDA: Oh my goodness.
STUDENT 3/RICH: Look at him.
STUDENT 2/BRENDA: Mama told me he was coming. They live across the creek.
STUDENT 1/JIM: Wow!
STUDENT 2/BRENDA: You’re how old?
ROBERT: Seven.
STUDENT 3/RICH: You’re taller than all of us and you’re . . .you know. .
ROBERT: Big.
STUDENT 3/RICH: Yeah. Big. So…I mean. . how. . .
ROBERT: How big? 225 pounds.
STUDENT 2/BRENDA: And you’re . . . ?
ROBERT: Seven years old. A 225-pound 7-year-old. I weighed the same as my teacher.
ALL STUDENTS: Wow!
(Early School photo of Hughes)
ABE/KEITH: I took to walkin’ my boys to school. Guy and Donald could make it on their own, but if Robert got stuck in one of them mud holes, then. . .well. . .
ROBERT: I’d be stuck.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: I worried some. . .how he be treated by the other kids. “You don’t have go.”
ROBERT: I want to, Ma.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Kids can be cruel.
ROBERT: Ma didn’t need to worry. This wasn’t New York. It was Fishhook.
MARIAN/MELISSA: We’d growed up with Robert. We never knew anything. He was heavy, sure, but that didn’t matter. We were all poor. It never occurred to us to make fun of him.
ROBERT: And when I got so large that I couldn’t run with the other kids then they invented other games that I’d fit in. One was “Get Earl Down.”
STUDENT ONE/JIM: Get Earl down!
STUDENT TWO/BRENDA: Get Earl down! (Adlib kids’ noises.)
ROBERT: They’d make a circle around me at recess and they’d all try to jump on and bring me down and I’d whirl and whirl around and bat ‘em away and nobody. . . nobody laughed any harder than I did. (Kids’ noises out.)
MARIAN/MELISSA: You couldn’t mistreat Earl. He was too kind. And when we played Hide and Seek we’d hide behind him.
GERALD/RICH: Saturday night was the big night in Fishhook. Everybody came to town to my store to do their trading. They’d bring in eggs and milk and take home what they needed for the week. I remember the first night Robert Earl came to town with the family. His dad had spread soft drink cases in the back of the pickup to even out the load.
(Fade out Music Cue 3)
ABE/KEITH: Step up on them scales, son. Let’s see what you amount to.
ROBERT: I didn’t mind. . I wanted to know.
GERALD/RICH: Okay, here we go. . 200 pounds. . 250. . . 300. . . my, my son. . 350. . .I kept adding counterweights. 378. . . . 378 pounds. How old are you, son?
ROBERT: Ten. Ten years old, Mr. Kurfman.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: I didn’t watch Earl’s calories. . .My other boys wanted marshmallows. Why shouldn’t I let Bob have ‘em?
GERALD/RICH: Folks would come in to do their shopping then grab a handful of treats to give the Hughes boys when they came in. The family just didn’t have any extra spending money.
MRS. KELLY/MELISSA: I know that teachers aren’t supposed to have favorites, but Earl was mine.
(School Picture of Robert Earl)
ROBERT: And she was my favorite teacher. Of course in a one-room schoolhouse with only one teacher I didn’t have many choices.
MRS. KELLY/MELISSA: If he read something he’d remember it forever. He only needed one time.
ROBERT: They made a special chair for me, and every month that chair got tighter and tighter.
MRS. KELLY/MELISSA: He couldn’t jump, but he leap-frogged over all the other kids in reading and writing. I couldn’t get books to him fast enough.
ADA SYKES/BRENDA: My name is Ada Sykes Pearn. In February Robert came to my school. He was in seventh-grade and weighed more than 400 pounds. He brought his own furniture with him from a previous school. . . a kitchen table and a reinforced chair. But sometimes he scared us.
(Music Cue #4, Breathing)
STUDENT ONE/JIM: Robert!
STUDENT TWO/BRENDA: Robert!
STUDENT THREE/RICH: Miss Sykes!
STUDENT TWO/MELISSA: Miss Sykes, do somethin’!
ADA SYKES/BRENDA: He’s okay. . . . .Robert, you’re okay aren’t you? . . . .
STUDENT THREE/RICH: Miss Sikes! He’s not breathin’!
ADA SYKES/BRENDA: Each breath was labored and sometimes he’d skip a breath. It scared the children.
STUDENT ONE/JIM: He’s not breathin’, Miss Sykes!
ADA SYKES/BRENDA: Give him a minute. . . Robert? Robert, can you catch your breath? . . There was nothing we could do but sit there and watch. . .and hope he’d take another breath. A local doctor offered to put him in the hospital and diet him, but his mother said. .
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: He is the healthiest boy I have. Never even has a cold.
(Fade out Music Cue 4)
ADA SYKES/BRENDA: Fat was considered healthy in those days. For lunch he’d sit out on the ground with his legs straight out in front of him. It was a struggle to rise and he reminded me of an elephant trying to get up. I was told that early in his life his father did not claim him, but as he gained more notoriety his father seemed to be proud of him. But my, that boy liked to read.
ROBERT: We couldn’t afford books or magazines or newspapers but folks would always bring me theirs. . . and westerns. I loved to read westerns.
GERALD/RICH: Hop onto the scale, Earl! It’s that time of year. . . easy. . easy . . .there it is. . 500 pounds! How old are you now?
ROBERT: Twelve. Twelve years old.
WATERS/KEITH: I was his buddy and we’d sit on the school’s porch and eat lunch. Robert Earl carried his to school in a gallon bucket. . . that’s all they could afford. He’d have. . I don’t know. . three or four sandwiches. . peanut butter or egg. . .but so would I!
MARIAN/MELISSA: We were kids. We didn’t think much about death. Robert never spoke about dying, but we all knew he wasn’t supposed to live long.
ROBERT: Fishhook was a small community.
MARIAN/MELISSA: Word got around town that he was supposed to die pretty quick. Then one day in fifth grade we thought he did.
(Music Cue 10, In the Ditch)
STUDENT 1/JIM: Mama! Come help! It’s Robert Earl!
MAMA/SYLVIA: Child?
STUDENT 1/JIM: Robert Earl! We can’t move him! Get Daddy! Quick!
MRS. KELLY/BRENDA: Everybody in the neighborhood went running down to the ditch.
ROBERT: I was in fifth grade. . .it had been raining for days and the dirt road to our house had turned into a mud slick.
STUDENT 1/JIM: He’s down there, Daddy! See his shirt? He can’t turn over, Daddy! Help him!
ROBERT: I’d slipped and fallen into a deep ditch. . face down.
DADDY/RICH: I’ll go fetch a tractor!
MRS. KELLY/BRENDA: Is he breathing? Robert Earl, can you hear me?
ROBERT: Mud is easy . . . but shame. . that’s something else.
STUDENT 1/MELISSA: Somebody’s got help him!
MRS. KELLY/BRENDA: We tried. . . but it wasn’t any use. Somebody hold his head up out of the mud!
(Cue 10 fades during the following)
ROBERT: While everybody in town crowded around the ditch and watched, it took one tractor and a rubber belt off an old threshing machine . . . .but I was out. That was nothing. . the worst. . .the worst day of my life was still coming. Age fourteen I weighed 550 pounds. I couldn’t run and play with my classmates, my school chair wouldn’t hold me any longer, and it was just too dangerous to walk to the muddy roads. We still didn’t own a car. And I remember that awful day at the end of my seventh-grade year.
ABE/KEITH: I can’t be runnin’ down the road every time you fall down, boy.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Abe. . .
ABE/KEITH: He’s had six years of schoolin’. . .he can read good.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: He loves school, Abe.
ABE/KEITH: And I think he’s had enough.
MARIAN/MELISSA: Some said his daddy made him quit.
ROBERT: I was getting to be a problem.
ABE/KEITH: Enough’s enough.
ROBERT: Ma?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: That’s just fine, Bob. You can help me around the house.
ROBERT: Ma was my best friend. . .always.
ZIGLER/RICH: Mrs. Hughes?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: That’s me.
ZIGLER/RICH: Henry Zigler, Zigler’s World Class Amusements.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: I don’t need nothin’.
ZIGLER/RICH: No, no ma’am. I’m in the amusement business. . . fairs, carnivals. Word around these parts is that you’ve got a young man who’s quite an attraction.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: If you mean Robert Earl, yes, he’s my boy.
ZIGLER/RICH: And just how big is he?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: 600 pounds on his 15th birthday.
ZIGLER/RICH: You’re kidding.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Why?
ZIGLER/RICH: Ma’am?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Why would I be kidding?
ROBERT: Hardly left the farm any more. Too much trouble. I could still put on my shoes if I sat on the edge of my six-legged bed and pulled one foot up at a time.
ZIGLER/RICH: Mrs. Hughes, I have an idea that’ll put a ton of money in your pockets!
ROBERT: Dad bathed me every day with sponges. . still no running water in the house and I just couldn’t reach all of my body.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: What’re you talkin’ about?
ZIGLER/RICH: The carnival, Mrs. Hughes. The fairway. . the world’s largest boy!
ROBERT: I adored Mama. I mean that. We’d wake up early and she’d help me dress. . always in a fresh shirt and overalls. Mama would never let her boys be dirty.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: He’s just fifteen.
ZIGLER/RICH: Mrs. Hughes, I’ve heard that he may not. . well . . .you know what I mean.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: I think I do. He may not live much longer.
ZIGLER/RICH: Could make a mighty comfortable living for you folks after. . . you know. .
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: After he’s gone?
ROBERT: I didn’t eat any more than any young fella. Normal appetite, but boy did I get thirsty. Used to run my brothers to death bringing me water. I’d help Ma wash dishes, peel fruit and pitch a little hay. . feed the chickens if I could sit down. But mostly I just wanted to read. . National Geographic, Zane Grey, John Deere magazines. . and anything about the places I’d never been.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Mr. Zigler, it’s been good talkin’, but I’ve got chores to do. Some of us work for a living instead of showin’ ourselves off.
ZIGLER/RICH: But what about my offer? The kid could be the star of World Class Amusements!
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Then who’d feed the chickens?
ROBERT: Mama turned down a bunch of offers. She didn’t want to put her son on display.
GERALD/KEITH: Robert Earl! Good morning! Got a whole sack full for you!
ROBERT: Gerald Kurfman would keep a sack behind his counter at the Fishhook store. Whenever folks’d get done reading a magazine or book they’d bring it to Kurfman’s store for me.
GERALD/KEITH: Want a map to find your way home?
ROBERT: A map?
GERALD/KEITH: I’ve had to make up maps to your house. . .so many folks stoppin’ by wanting to find your place and see you.
ROBERT: Got to be quite a crowd out there some weeks.
QUINCY HERALD WHIG REPORTER/JIM: “Quincy Herald Whig, November 1942. I interviewed young Robert Earl Hughes of rural Fishhook, Illinois, yesterday and was delighted by the disposition of this happy young man. Only sixteen years old but weighing in at an astounding 600 pounds young Hughes has difficulty walking, but his friendly countenance is the size of his waistline.”
ROBERT: Why do they say that, Ma?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Say what?
ROBERT: “He’s friendly.” Whatta they expect? Why wouldn’t I be friendly?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Oh, people are like that, Robert. Don’t mind it.
QUINCY HERALD WHIG REPORTER/JIM: “He has a pleasant personality and a sense of humor.”
ROBERT: Tell you the truth. . . it made me wonder sometimes. If everybody thought I should be unhappy then was I makin’ a mistake? I wasn’t any different from any of the folks around Fishhook. I supposed everybody had a sense of humor. Didn’t they?
QUINCY HERALD WHIG REPORTER/JIM: Thanks for the interview, son. You’re a friendly kid.
ROBERT: I know. That’s what they tell me. But at least the guy from Quincy sent me a free subscription to the paper. That was the best part. . . but what I really wanted. . .
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: You know we can’t afford that, Robert.
ROBERT: I know, Ma, but if we could. . .
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Just think about something else.
ROBERT: A camera. People would stop by and take my picture . . .
QUINCY HERALD WHIG REPORTER/JIM: The kid had a great smile.
ROBERT: I’d always smile because I was looking at their cameras. I wanted to take pictures of the things I’d seen. . . even though I hadn’t seen much. . . yet.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Bob! Here’s another visitor for you!
EVANGELIST/RICH: Do you know Jesus?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: It’s the Jesus people.
ROBERT: Know him?
EVANGELIST/RICH: Have you asked Jesus into your heart?
ROBERT: Lots of young men showed up to preach to me and lead me to Christ. I listened. They seemed disappointed that I’d already done that and they talked sort of fast. I guess they thought I didn’t have much time left.
EVANGELIST/RICH: I’d like to pray with you, son.
ROBERT: They just kept coming. I suppose you can’t know Jesus too well. . . and I suppose that every young preacher in the world wants to be the first one to tell you about Him.
EVANGELIST/RICH: Let us pray!
ROBERT: I got prayed over a lot. Nothin’ wrong with that. But the preachers hardly ever brought cameras. I already had prayer. What I wanted was a camera.
ABE/KEITH: Let’s go, folks!
GUY/JIM: Hang on, brother!
ABE/KEITH: You hangin’ on, Bob?
ROBERT: “I’m ready, Pop!” I’d ride in the back of our horse-drawn wagon to get to town. Mama would laugh at the way the flesh on my arms would wiggle when we’d hit the bumps. Didn’t bother me at all. . .I wanted to get out and see things. Hey, Curley!
CURLY METZ/JIM: Yeah, Bob!
ROBERT: Got room for me today?
CURLY METZ/JIM: Curly Metz. . . I was the rural mail carrier and I sort of rigged up the back of my pickup so it’d haul a big boy. . . Some days folks would get more than their mail.
ROBERT: They got me! And one day when I got home from ridin’ with Curly, I had a talk with my folks.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Whatta you think, Abe?
ROBERT: Please, Pa.
ABE/KEITH: I ain’t sure it’s a good idea.
ROBERT: The little town of Baylis was just seven miles away. . .
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Oh, let’s give a try. Robert wants to get out like other boys.
ROBERT: I wasn’t exactly like other boys. . . 20 years old now and over 700 pounds, but we took off for the Baylis Fall Festival. We’d already done an appearance at Meredosia and folks seemed real interested in looking at me.
Cue 11, Baylis Bluegrass)
BAYLIS CITIZEN 1/MELISSA: There he is!
BAYLIS CITIZEN 2/BRENDA: I’ve heard of him! It’s the Hughes boy! Would you look at that?
BAYLIS CITIZEN 1/KEITH: My good God a-mighty! That boy is big!
BAYLIS CITIZEN 2/JIM: I gotta get a picture of this!
ROBERT: A day I’d never forget. . .I got to talk to so many people . . . more people than I could even remember! We sold 160 pictures of and took orders for more.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Lord help me. . . $240.03. Never seen that much money in my life. That’ll buy a lot of grapes.
ROBERT: I loved my grapes. I could eat ‘em all day and never got thirsty.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: We can buy us a grape tree with this!
ROBERT: They set a record for the Baylis festival. . .5000 people. Mama was happy. Pa was . . well. . .amazed. And then. . .well, then things started happening pretty fast.
RIPLEY READER/JIM: Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Featuring the world’s largest man!
AP REPORTER/MELISSA: The Associated Press has published Robert’s picture all over Europe and Asia!
TRIBUNE READER/BRENDA: The Chicago Tribune ran a photograph of Robert Earl in his “Sunday best,” church outfit. . .
ROBERT: I always wore regular pants on Sundays. Me and my brothers never missed Preacher Manley’s sermons. . .and Ma and Pa never went.
TREND EXECUTIVE/KEITH: Send this to the press! My company, Trend Trousers of Indiana, noticed that Robert’s Sunday pants were too tight. We’re making a new pair right to his measurements… 110 inch waist, 128 inch seat, 62 inch thighs, and 46 inch knees. . . and make sure every newspaper gets a copy of this, Harold.
SOLDIER/JIM: I saw his picture in Germany…right there in the Stars and Stripes newspaper.
ROGERS/KEITH: Mrs. Hughes! Mrs. Hughes! Bill Rogers with Midwest Amusements!
(Fade out Cue 11)
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: We’re all out of pictures.
ROGERS/KEITH: No, I’ve got my picture, Mrs. Hughes. Do you have a minute?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Would you look at that boy? Just look at him! Surrounded by all those folks. I’ve never seen him so happy.
ROGERS/KEITH: He’s quite a kid. 700 pounds, I hear.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Likely more. We don’t get to town much to weigh him.
ROGERS/KEITH: That your jeep over there?
(Jeep photo)
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Just got it. . .Bob just fits. Our first automobile.
ROGERS/KEITH: Mrs. Hughes, I’d like to make you an offer that’ll buy you a whole lot more than a new truck.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: You a huckster?
ROGERS/KEITH: Huckster? Mrs. Hughes I own the most high-class amusements in the Tri-State area!
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: A carnival.
ROGERS/KEITH: Outdoor family entertainment.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: A carnival.
ROGERS/KEITH: Well yes, a carnival.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: We ain’t interested. I got no wish for folks gawkin’ at my son.
ROBERT: Mama was a country woman. She wasn’t comfortable speaking hard to strangers. . . but you did not mess with her boys.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Did you pay for that picture?
ROGERS/KEITH: Ma’am?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: That’ll be twenty-five cents. Cash money.
ROBERT: Ma, here’s one close by. . .and it’s for kids.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Kids?
ROBERT: Perry High School had a Halloween Carnival every year. I begged Ma to let me go.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: It bothers me, Bob. I never want to see you shamed in front of folks.
ROBERT: The folks in Baylis didn’t laugh at me, Ma. They had fun talkin’ to me. I had fun!
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Wasn’t nobody laughin’? The little kids?
ROBERT: They were crawlin’ up in the truck with me, Ma. We were all laughin’. Please?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: And it’ll be this then another one and before you know it. . .
ROBERT: “It’s to help them raise money, Ma.” I just wanted to talk to folks. “Please, Ma?”
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Well . . .
ROBERT: Just this once.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: So we set up a tent in Perry.
ROBERT: Then. . . nothin’. Nobody would come in. “I don’t understand it, Ma.”
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: I don’t either. They’re just standin’ outside the tent.
DONNA/MELISSA: (Robert’s Perry friend) They’re afraid, Robert.
ROBERT: Afraid? Of me?
DONNA/MELISSA: No. They’re afraid of hurtin’ your feelings. They won’t come in because they don’t want to embarrass you!
ROBERT: Well, word got out around the school that I was feelin’ sad because I was sittin’ there all alone alone. . . then all of a sudden . . .
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Good Lord A’mighty!
ROBERT: The kids just came streaming in to talk to me!
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: We’re gonna need a bigger tent!
ROBERT: I loved Mama. I guess every boy loves his mama, but in my case. . .well, it was more. It was . . . a big love. All my life. . . all my life folks’d ask me how I could be so happy, being big and all. It never occurred to me to be otherwise. . . and I think. . I think that was because of Mama. She never treated me different than any of her children. . . and when it got so I couldn’t get out much, had trouble walkin’ and such. . . it was Mama who was already right there with me. Folks’d come out to the farm to have a look at me and she’d always tell ‘em. . .
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Talk about yourself. Tell him about the places you’ve been and things you’ve seen.
ROBERT: She knew I liked that.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: And if you got pictures, show him those pictures. He’s smart. . he’s derned smart, but he wants to know more about the world. So go ahead…he’s right in there. Go talk to him.
ROBERT: Oh Mama. Such a woman. Some days she’d work herself to death just so I’d have something to do.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: You gonna sit there all day or you gonna do some work?
ROBERT: I loved to feed the chickens. . . they’re like people, you know. . all different personalities. . .but I had to sit down on a stump. So Mama would help me out to the chicken yard then hurry to scoop up the ground corn in a dishpan, then run it out to where I was sitting so I could do the feeding. She could have done the whole thing in two minutes but she took an hour. . . just so I could do it.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: These peaches won’t peel themselves.
ROBERT: Yes, Ma.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Think you could pull yourself away from that book long enough to mash these taters?
ROBERT: I remember that morning. I sat myself up in bed and called out “Mama!” . . (a beat) Mama! (a beat) Mama? (his breathing increases) Mama? I saw it there on the kitchen floor. . .her mop was lyin’ there in her hand. . .I could see her. ..
DONALD/JIM: It was my turn to scrub Ma’s floors the day before, but I got busy and that night there was a dance in Mt. Sterling. “I’ll scrub ‘em when I get back, Ma! I promise!” Then me and Guy piled into the Jeep and took off to get our girlfriends. But Ma. . . she couldn’t let a floor go unscrubbed.
ROBERT: (crying out) Mama! . . . . . . . . . . .Mama! (a long beat, then) I couldn’t help her . my own mama was lying there on the kitchen floor and I couldn’t do a thing. . . I. . . couldn’t help her. . . (a long beat, then) It was a neighbor. . quarter mile away. . . he heard me shouting. . . he heard me crying. He ran to his truck and came over . . and found her.
(Music Cue 12, Missouri Poor House)
(Photo: Missouri State Poor House)
POORHOUSE MATRON/BRENDA: This is it. . .your room.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: For all of us?
POORHOUSE MATRON/BRENDA: It’s the Missouri State Poorhouse, sister, not the Taj Mahal. Two meals a day, you do your own cleaning. You come here for free and this is what you get.
ROBERT: My Mama’s life had been hard.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: I’ll be honest. . . Robert was my favorite. I was the first-born of fifteen kids, but I never really had much of a family until he came along.
GEORGIA’S FATHER/RICH: Where in the hell’s the kids!?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: My father didn’t amount to much. . .
GEORGIA’S FATHER/RICH: I’m home! Where’s supper! Too damned many people in this house! Hell with it! I’ll sleep in the corncrib!
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: He’d only come home on weekends then he was always mad. He hated having us kids around and he’d sleep out on the corn.
GEORGIA’S FATHER/RICH: No food in this house?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Us kids would sneak into the neighbor’s fields at night to pick what we could to eat. The neighbors knew it and allowed us to get what we could, but they finally turned him in for child neglect.
GEORGIA’S FATHER/RICH: What kinda country is this?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Then they locked him up for “violently resisting arrest,” and that’s how we ended up in the Missouri State Board of Charities and Corrections. . . the state poorhouse.
POORHOUSE MATRON/MELISSA: Hope you brought your own sheets. This ain’t no hotel.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: And that’s where I met his father. I won’t even tell you his name. In the poorhouse. It was over quick and all I was left with was this precious thing called Robert Earl. But I was scared.
STATE OFFICIAL/JIM: It’s a law, Ma’am.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: No!
STATE OFFICIAL/JIM: Sorry. Just doin’ my job. Now hand that little girl to me.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Two years before Robert Earl was born I had daughter. . . the Missouri law said that kids born in poor houses had to be taken away for adoption soon as they was weaned. I wasn’t about to give up Robert.
OFFICER/RICH: Your name Weatherby?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Yes?
OFFICER/RICH: Illinois State Police. I have some bad news. Your father died.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: Died?
OFFICER/RICH: Well, to tell you the truth, somebody killed him. I’m sorry, Ma’am.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: My Pa got in a fight with his supervisor and the guy hit him over the head with a coal shovel. Just as well. He was no help to any of us. Then little Robert caught the whooping cough. It was all just too much.
AP REPORTER/BRENDA: Associated Press. Chicago. Big news in the world of medicine as Dr. Louis Sauer of Northwestern University has developed a vaccine to prevent whooping cough, that killer of so many infants and children!
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: But that was just a few months before Robert was born. We didn’t know anything about it. I prayed. . . I prayed for a miracle.
ABE/KEITH: Ma’am?
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: . . and he walked in.
ABE/KEITH: My name is Abraham Guy Hughes . . . folks call me Abe.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: He didn’t have much money, had six daughters and no sons, and his wife had died at 26-years-old. My sister, Hilda, had met him when she was workin’ at Siloam Springs. She set us up. “Folks call me Georgie.”
ABE/KEITH: Georgie.
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: And you’re. . . ?
ABE/KEITH: Abe.
ROBERT: That was it. Not much of a courtship. Fact is, he needed help. He needed a wife and he needed sons. Ma fit the bill on both of those. I was six months old. . . just the age where the state was about to take me away. But she didn’t know if Abe wanted me. Just as they were leaving the poorhouse that day he said. . .
ABE/KEITH: Don’t you want your baby boy?
ROBERT: Ma said that her knees buckled and fell onto his chest sobbing with joy. Ma was the best friend I ever had. Abe was my legal Pa, but I belonged to my mother. . and now she lay there on the kitchen floor.
(Cue 12 out)
MINISTER/JIM: Margaret Georgia Robinson Hughes of Lewis County, Missouri, died at her home in rural Fishhook, Illinois yesterday. She is survived by three sons.
ROBERT: Survived? Sort of. A stroke. I was 21 and I lost my mother and my best friend on the same day. The doctor said that the first hour after a stroke is critical. . . but all I could do was shout. . . and cry.
(Cue 13, Phillip Morris Commercial then. . or video)
(Cue 14, Radio Music)
RADIO ANNOUNCER/RICH: The Mutual Broadcasting Network and Phillip Morris cigarettes proudly present! “The Heart’s Desire Radio Show!” . . . and here’s our first letter of the week!
MRS. NASH/MELISSA: “Dear Heart’s Desire, I live in Michigan and am trying to raise five kids all on my own. Christmas is coming and I have barely enough to feed them much less money for any gifts from Santa Claus. It’s my heart’s desire to give my children a good Christmas. Enclosed is my five dollar entry fee.”
RADIO ANNOUNCER/RICH: And we have a winner! Dear Mrs. Nash, Phillip Morris cigarettes and the Heart’s Desire Radio Show will be sending you a train set, a large doll, and a rocking horse. . . plus we’re returning your five dollars! Stay tuned to hear next week’s finalists!
ROBERT: “Dear Heart’s Desire . . . I’ve been very large all my life, not able to work. I’m said to be the world’s largest man. I’m 21 years old and weigh 754 pounds. I am not able to get around. My Heart’s Desire is for a radio and a camera, so if I do get to go anywhere I can take pictures. . . . I’m too large to work. My belt is 110 inches around, and if you’ll send me these things, I’ll never forget you.” I won. They sent me a radio and a camera. It was like my mother had sent me a gift from heaven . . my world began to get bigger.
(Cue 14 Out)
CATERPILLAR REP/JIM: You the Hughes boy?
ROBERT: I am, Sir.
CATERPILLAR REP/JIM: I’m with Caterpillar Tractor Company. We’d like to take your picture on one of our tractors. 25 bucks and all you gotta do is sit there and smile.
ROBERT: It turned out to be a little more complicated than that. It was hard to get a guy my size up to the seat. They had to take the tractor and shave off a dirt bank to make me ramp to climb up. But with Ma gone, I got this notion that maybe there’s was some way I could help the family pay a few bills.
ABE/KEITH: Bob, you know I’m busy on the farm. So are your brothers.
ROBERT: I don’t want to be a bother, Pa.
ABE/KEITH: It’s just that I can’t take you places like your mother could. Times are tough. We need to work the farm.
ROBERT: I wondered what Ma would want me to do. She never wanted folks gawkin’ at me. . .
GEORGIA/SYLVIA: I’ll never allow anyone to laugh my son. Never.
ROBERT: . . . but she always wanted me to be happy. . . and nothing made me happier than meeting new folks. Pa didn’t have time to take me around, but I had friends. . Junior Stauffer and some others. . . and I had my Pa’s truck.
(Photo: Robert and Friends at pickup truck)
(CONT.) And I started getting offers from fairs and carnivals. . . just show up for fifty bucks, sometimes a hundred. They’d stand behind a fence and pay 25 cents for my autographed picture. Tell you the truth, I loved it. Folks would sometimes stay for an hour and I liked that. I wanted to hear about their lives.
DRAFT BOARD/BRENDA: Greetings from the U.S. Selective Service System! Mr. Robert Earl Hughes is requested to register for the draft.
ABE/KEITH: He can’t make it all the way to Mt. Sterling.
ROBERT: So they came to me. . the largest man to ever register for the Draft. Five foot nine and over 700 pounds. I never got called into action. . .but when that made the news I started getting calls.
HOLLYWOOD/JIM: Mr. Hughes?
ROBERT: Yes.
HOLLYWOOD/JIM: This is Mr. Robert Ellis Hughes, the fattest man in the world?
ROBERT: Robert Earl. Yes, I’m pretty big.
HOLLYWOOD/JIM: I’m from Hollywood and I want to put you in the pictures!
ROBERT: What for?
HOLLYWOOD/JIM: ‘Cause everybody in the world wants to see what you look like!
ROBERT: I’d never met anybody from Hollywood . . .so. . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNSFjVIL1tI
ROBERT: One movie crew sent three bathing beauties to come pose in a pair of my overalls. They were nice girls. . . . and the offers kept coming.
LIFE REPORTER/MELISSA: A three-page spread in Life magazine!
DR. ST. LOUIS/KEITH: Mr. Hughes?
ROBERT: Hello?
DR. ST. LOUIS/KEITH: I’m a heart specialist from St. Louis. I’d like to examine you.
ROBERT: That’s kind of you, sir. . . but I’ve been examined enough. Besides that, doctors are expensive.
DR. ST. LOUIS/KEITH: I’ll pay you.
ROBERT: You’ll do what?
DR. ST. LOUIS/KEITH: I’ll pay to examine you, Robert.
ROBERT: Well, that was hard to pass up. So the doctor gave me a good look-over.
POST DISPATCH REPORTER/BRENDA: St. Louis Post Dispatch! St. Louis doctor to examine 700 pounds of Illinois farm boy!
DR. ST. LOUIS/KEITH: It is my professional opinion that Robert Earl Hughes possesses the heart of an 1100-pound steer!
ROBERT: A steer. Okay. I’d have favored “bull.”
(Photo: Robert in Store Publicity Shot)
(CONT.) . . but that just brought more publicity. Before I knew it I was going on display in auto parts and clothing store, movie theatres. . . I enjoyed it all. . .so many people to meet. Only one sad day, I guess. . .
HANNIBAL THEATRE OWNER/RICH: Hey, this is a real treat, kid. Havin’ you here to open the Orpheum Movie house in Hannibal. Just look at the crowds!
ROBERT: I been looking forward to this one, Sir. More than any of the others.
HANNIBAL THEATRE OWNER/RICH: Great!
ROBERT: Never seen a moving picture in my life. . . today’s sort of a dream for me, Mister.
HANNIBAL THEATRE OWNER/RICH: Uh . . . look kid. About that. It’s a movie theatre, you see? I mean, we got regular seats and everything.
ROBERT: I can’t watch the movie?
HANNIBAL THEATRE OWNER/RICH: You’d have to stand. Ain’t got seats that big.
ROBERT: I can’t stand that long.
HANNIBAL THEATRE OWNER/RICH: Hey, but it’s great havin’ you here, kid. Come on folks! Have a look at the fat kid then buy a ticket! Come on! Come on!
ROBERT: So I went home. I liked seeing all the people, but I really wanted to see a movie. When you spend so much time reading about things, well . . . you want to see them. Folks don’t know any better so they don’t understand. . .they don’t think about how we’ve all got two “me’s” inside us. . . There’s the “me” that other people see. .
(Photo of Robert)
. . .and then there’s the “me” that I see. Ma used to say that everybody was like that. . . the inside guy and what folks see. I always wondered if that was true. I always hoped it was. I don’t know. All I know is . . .
(The picture clicks off quickly)
. . . me.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Robert!
ROBERT: Ma’am?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Shirts ready! Let’s see how it fits.
ROBERT: She was sort of an angel that God sent us. My brother Guy got married two years after Ma died and Lillian came to live with us.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: My, but you are a big boy! 23 years old and how heavy?
GERALD/JIM: Easy boy…just step on the scales. . 820 pounds! Still growin’!
ROBERT: I broke one bed after another. . .my brothers had to keep rebuilding them.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Now just sit still a minute and I’ll get this shirt on you. Lordy, Lordy. One shirt. . . this piece of material started out 9 feet wide and 18 feet long. That’s a lot of cotton, Robert.
ROBERT: She was a Godsend. She wasn’t Ma but I always figured Ma had sent her. So one day we got this idea. . Lillian, can you drive a tractor?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Don’t know. Never tried.
ROBERT: I’d never really done much on my own. It was always other people telling me where I should go and what I needed to do, but this one time. . .
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Looks simple enough to drive. Guy’s gone to town. What you got in mind?
ROBERT: I had a half-sister, Dora. . .hadn’t seen her forever. “Lillian, could you get me on the back of that tractor? I wanna go visiting. ”
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Well, we won’t know unless we try. Come on, Robert. Just tell me where to start pushin’!
ROBERT: It took me half and hour to climb into the wagon with me pulling and Lillian pushing from behind.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: We can do this, Robert!
ROBERT: Oh, I give up.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: No you won’t! I say you won’t and you won’t!
ROBERT: I can’t make it. . it’s too high!
LILLIAN/MELISSA: You’re gonna! I swear you’re gonna! Just another foot! Come on, boy! We can do this!
ROBERT: (a beat, then) We did it. Lillian pulled me the three miles for a surprise visit. One of the best days of my life. Seems like I had a lot of them.
GUY/KEITH: You did what?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: He was just fine, Guy. We had the time of our life today. Robert was happy!
GUY/KEITH: He’s always happy. But my tractor. You drove my tractor?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Your tractor is fine, Guy.
GUY/KEITH: I can’t believe you drove my tractor.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Robert told me how to do it. Why don’t you take his advice sometime?
GUY/KEITH: Like what?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Learn to be happy.
ROBERT: People were nice to me.
SURRATT/JIM: Son! I’ve got a deal for you!
ROBERT: Sir?
SURRATT/JIM: Somethin’ I want you to see. . .right here in my truck.
ROBERT: It’s . . .it’s a chair. . .a mighty big chair.
SURRATT/JIM: Here’s the deal, Robert. I saw you in Meredosia last summer. . at the festival.
ROBERT: Sorry. . . I guess I don’t remember you. Lots of folks there that day..
SURRATT/JIM: Oh, I know. . . don’t expect you to. But I noticed they had you sittin’ on bales of hay. . . and you pretty much crushed ‘em. You were nearly on the ground by the time the thing was over.
ROBERT: I remember that. Couldn’t get up.
SURRATT/JIM: Well, here’s the deal. I didn’t measure you that day, sort of worked from memory. . .but I made you this chair. It’s reinforced with so much wire and steel that you’ll never end up on the ground again.
ROBERT: But I can’t afford. . .
SURRATT/JIM: Nope! Nope! My gift to you. Just somethin’ I wanted to do. Me and the boys down at the Chambersburg Sportsman’s Club.
ROBERT: Everywhere I went . . . so much kindness.
DAISY/SYLVIA: Mr. Hughes, I doubt you know me, but I saw you at the Baylis Festival.
ROBERT: Her name was Daisy Shecklesworth.
(Shecklesworth photo)
DAISY/SYLVIA: I have never met a young man with such poise and intellect.
ROBERT: I had a dictionary so I looked those words up. They were both good words.
DAISY/SYLVIA: . . . and I see you have a great many pen pals.
ROBERT: I did. After my name started getting in the papers people would start writing and I always wrote them back. . . and my biggest pen pal? Robert Wadlow from Alton! The tallest man in the world!
DAISY/SYLVIA: In a few days you’ll be receiving a package from me.
ROBERT: It was the very next day. . .writing paper, pencils, and more postage stamps than I’d ever seen in my life.
DAISY/SYLVIA: . . . and there’s one other thing I’d like to discuss with you.
BLUE BELL EXEC/RICH: Yes, I’ve heard of him.
DAISY/SYLVIA: You own that big company in Iowa that makes overalls?
BLUE BELL EXEC/RICH: Blue Bell Overall Company. That’s us.
DAISY/SYLVIA: Well, I have just one dandy idea to get your pants company some big publicity.
ROBERT: A brand-new pair of overalls . . .and a custom-made fleece jacket. Winters were hard. People always worried about me getting hot in the summer, but the winter was worse. There was a lot of me to get cold.
DAISY/SYLVIA: I hope you don’t mind.
ROBERT: We called her “Aunt Daisy”. . . a kind and generous woman. . . and she became my friend for life.
GERALD/JIM: He’s down! He’s down, boys! He fell under the scale!
ROBERT: It was weigh-in day at the Fishhook store and I slipped.
FISHHOOK LOAFER/KEITH: Where’d he go?
GERALD/JIM: He’s under the scale! I can’t get him up!
FISHHOOK LOAFER/KEITH: Robert? You breathin’, Robert?!
GERALD/JIM: I can’t even get ahold of him!
ROBERT: Nobody could. . .so I did it myself. 825 pounds that day and I got every pound out from under the scale at the Fishhook store. And it was the day the Quincy paper came to interview me.
QUINCY INTERVIEWER/BRENDA: You okay?
ROBERT: I’m fine, I guess.
QUINCY INTERVIEWER/BRENDA: So . . . you’re such a happy kid.
ROBERT: Aren’t you?
QUINCY INTERVIEWER/BRENDA: What’s that?
ROBERT: Happy. Aren’t you happy?
QUINCY INTERVIEWER/BRENDA: I guess nobody’s ever asked me that.
ROBERT: They ask me that all the time.
QUINCY INTERVIEWER/BRENDA: Ever thought of joining a circus?
ROBERT: I like to get out and see things, but I like home, too.
QUINCY INTERVIEWER/BRENDA: When will you get married?
ROBERT: Well . . . a fellow has to get a chance first.
SPRINGFIELD JR/MELISSA: Springfield Journal Register, here. What’s this about a Texan shirt?
TEXAS SEAMSTRESS/SYLVIA: “Dear Mr. Hughes. I see by your pictures that you seem to be out-growing your shirts. If you’d send me one of you shirts then I’d be happy to make you a few bigger ones.”
SPRINGFIELD JR/MELISSA: And you trusted her? What if she was just looking for a souvenir?
ROBERT: I always trust people ‘til I find out otherwise. . . .and she sent me the shirts.
SPRINGFIELD JR/MELISSA: Why do you think you’re so fat?
ROBERT: I suppose that’s the way God wanted me.
PEORIA JOURNAL STAR/RICH: Peoria Journal Star! Where exactly do you live? What county? The papers keep printing different places.
ROBERT: The Pike and Brown County lines run right through our living room. During the day I sit in Pike County and at night I go to bed in Brown.
PEORIA JOURNAL STAR/RICH: And just how big are you now, Robert?
ROBERT: I’m 27 years old and I last weighed at 945 pounds.
PEORIA JOURNAL STAR/RICH: You’re kidding.
ROBERT: Why would I do that?
PEORIA JOURNAL STAR/RICH: And how do you get dressed?
ROBERT: Well . . slowly.
(Cue 15, Carnival Music)
CARNIVAL BARKER/KEITH: Hey-ha! Hey-ha! Hey-ya! Step right up! The Eighth Wonder of the World! On display for one day only! Step right up! 25 cents! One quarter of a dollar! Ten cents for the kiddies!
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: 1954. . . that’s when we decided to join the carnival.
ROBERT: Mother was gone and we needed the money. . . but more than that, I wanted to see the world. Lillian’s parents were ready to take me on the road.
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: . . .and Robert’s father was no longer able to work. . .Alzheimer’s was setting in.
ROBERT: Folks worried about me. But me? I was just excited to get going.
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: It was the W.A. Schafer Company Carnival, right out of Texas. We traveled down there in a covered farm truck.
ROBERT: We made enough to buy a second-hand television. My world got bigger.
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: Oh shoot! Hang on, Robert!
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Look out!
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: I can’t hold it, Lillian! Hang on! Hang on!
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Oh dear God. Robert’s in the back.
ROBERT: We crashed the truck in Texas. . . . I was okay, but the TV got busted.
(Photo: Side show)
CARNIVAL BARKER/KEITH: Robert Earl Hughes! The World’s Fattest Man! Right here inside this tent! Don’t go home tonight without seeing this! 25 cents to view this freak of nature!
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: We had offers from all over. Every carnival had a fat man or lady, but they hardly ever got bigger than 500 pounds. They padded them out in fat suits with bulky shirts and pants. . . fakes. But Robert. .
ROBERT: . . .I was the real thing.
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: 946 pounds and 28 years old. We signed on with the Shaffer show and one day I told Robert. . . “No more ridin’ in that truck, boy! I bought us a trailer!”
ROBERT: A trailer?
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: Bought it from two Siamese twins. It’s perfect, Robert! You can eat and sleep in one end and we’ll open up the back side for folks to see you! But there’s just one thing. . . and you don’t have to do it.
ROBERT: They wanted me to take off my shirt to prove I was real.
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: So he did. . . Robert always wanted to make folks happy. . then one night at the Texas State Fair.
(Bring up Carnival Music)
DRUNK ONE/RICH: He’s a fake!
DRUNK TWO/KEITH: Naw he ain’t. .
DRUNK ONE/RICH: Ain’t nobody that big! Just another carny trick!
DRUNK TWO/KEITH: Whatta you know? You’re drunk!
DRUNK ONE/RICH: You ain’t?
DRUNK TWO/KEITH: That looks like real flesh to me!
DRUNK ONE/RICH: Five bucks!
DRUNK TWO/KEITH: Huh?
DRUNK ONE/RICH: Five bucks he’s a fake!
DRUNK TWO/KEITH: How you gonna prove it?
DRUNK ONE/RICH: Gimme that cigarette!
DRUNK TWO/KEITH: What’re you . . . ?
ROBERT: Uncle Wesley!!
DRUNK TWO/KEITH: You can’t do that!
ROBERT: Uncle Wesley!
DRUNK ONE/RICH: See there? He flinched!
ROBERT: Somebody!
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: Hey! Get back there! I said get back! Somebody call the police! Robert! Robert, they burnt you, boy. You okay?
(Cue 15 out)
ROBERT: I’ll heal. If I’d had my cane I’d taken them out.
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: We moved back the barrier so folks couldn’t reach him. . . ‘course that meant he couldn’t shake their hands. . . hated to do that.
ROBERT: I really hated to do that. Sometimes when the carnival traffic was slow I’d talk for an hour to folks. . . but in Texas, well, I finally got one of my dreams.
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: We’re gonna do it!
ROBERT: You’re kiddin’, Uncle Wesley!
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: Nope! You’re gonna see a movie!
ROBERT: And we did it in style. Mickey Cohen was a famous gangster and he had an armored car specially built. . big, big seats. The guy who owned it took me to a drive-in movie in Texas. I’ll never forget that night.
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: We’re booked solid, Robert! Texarkana, Tyler. . even Dallas!
ROBERT: Are we paying the rent, Uncle Wesley?
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: Well . . . expenses, insurance, payin’ off the promoters. . .takes a lot of 25-cent tickets to pay for all that. But are you happy, Robert?
ROBERT: Goin’ places I’d never been. . .seein’ things I’d never seen. ‘Course I was happy. . . .but folks kept askin’.
(Music Cue 16. . Stroll Over Heaven)
(CONT.) And when they did I hardly ever knew how to answer it. I suppose I was always happy. I supposed everybody was. My teacher, Mrs. Sykes, gave me a book once. . . said I could keep it. It was called, The Lives of Great Americans. I liked it because they had pictures of famous people. I remember the chapter on Abraham Lincoln. He said, “I suppose that people are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” . . . I guess I made up my mind.
(Picture of Hughes)
JOHNNY MEAH/MELISSA: “I drew the posters for the carnival and I remember his smile. . . not a superficial grimace for the show clientele, not the befuddled grin of an idiot. . .a genuine, friendly smile worn on the face of a man who wanted to make people feel comfortable with him.” Johnny Meah
ROBERT: That was the hardest part. . . just getting folks to feel comfortable.
DAVID SURBECK/SYLVIA: “I saw Robert Earl Hughes when I was in high school. . .at the Illinois State Fair. I told my buddies, ‘How often do you get to see a 1100-pound man?’ so we went. There weren’t many that day so we had a nice long visit . . .”
ROBERT: I liked those times the best. . . just a few folks and we could talk.
DAVID SURBECK/SYLVIA: “He was very kind. . . a sweet person . . . a good conversationalist.”
ROBERT: I wanted to know all about the folks who came to see me.
DAVID SURBECK/SYVLIA: “He held his arm up for us and the flesh would almost reach the ground. Such a nice guy. Every time he was in the area I’d go see him.” David Surbeck, White Hall, Illinois.
LUCILLE/BRENDA: “If he ever once met you, he would always know you. He had a memory out of this world.” Lucille Hughes
ANNE LOGSDON/MELISSA: “What has slipped away in the mists of time are the stories of Hughes generous nature, his tolerance of a cruel world, his steady love of family and friends. A big man with a big heart to match.” Anne Lodsdon, journalist, Mt. Sterling.
DUWAINE ELLIOTT/KEITH: “He had such a youthful face. I’ll always remember his young face.” (Music Cue 16 Out)
(CONT.) Duwaine Elliott . . . . . undertaker
ROBERT: So when they’d say, “Robert, are you happy?” I’d say, “Well . . . sure. How about you?” This fellow with a Chicago magazine drove down to do a story.
CHICAGO REPORTER/RICH: Okay kid, here’s the lead. “Robert Earl Hughes is trapped in a huge body!”
ROBERT: Trapped?
CHICAGO REPORTER/RICH: You don’t like the word?
ROBERT: Sounds scary.
CHICAGO REPORTER/RICH: Look kid, I’ve got to get this story off. . . you got a phone? . . .Is this the road I take to Quincy? . . . .Kid, I’m under a deadline here.
ROBERT: Sounds like. . . well, it’s sound like you’re trapped, Mister.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Robert?
ROBERT: Morning, Lillian.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: We had to move your dad.
ROBERT: Move him? To where?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: The State Insane Hospital in Jacksonville. He’s just lost his mind, Robert. Kept getting worse. Yesterday he tried to hit Guy with an axe because he moved the horses where he couldn’t see them out his window.”
CONDUCTOR/JIM: All aboard!
GUY/KEITH: Let’s go, Robert!
ROBERT: What about Pa?
GUY/KEITH: Nothin’ we can do. The train’s leavin’.
ROBERT: We’d come home in the spring to plant the crops then take off again. . this time, 1956, with Olson’s Rail Show, a carnival that toured the East and Midwest on a train. . . except me and Dennis had to follow along in the covered truck. I just couldn’t climb onto a train anymore.
CONDUCTOR/JIM: All aboard!
(Music Cue 17, Carnival)
CARNIVAL BARKER/RICH: Step right up! Yow-sa! Yow-sa! Yow-sa! Here he is, folks! Robert Earl Hughes! The biggest man to ever walk the face of the earth!
ROBERT: And we were off.
CARNIVAL BARKER/RICH: 1500 pounds of living, breathing human flesh!
ROBERT: I guess a thousand pounds wasn’t enough. They billed me at 1500.
WISCONSIN DOCTOR/SYLVIA: Mister. . . .uh. . .
ROBERT: She just stood there. The first doctor I’d seen in twenty years. I had a bad cold and couldn’t go on that night.
WISCONSIN DOCTOR/SYLVIA: Mister. . .
ROBERT: Robert. Call me Robert. They’d told the lady doctor what I looked like but when she walked into the tent she just stood there. Shee couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
WISCONSIN DOCTOR/SYLVIA: You . . uh. . you’re. . .uh. . .
(Music Cue 17 Out)
ROBERT: I think the doctor needed a good doctor. Shee couldn’t even talk.
(Video: Ed Sullivan Show..or audio 17.1) (If audio only: ANNOUNCER: “Ladies and Gentlemen! Direct from New York City! The Ed. . Sullivan. . Show!”
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: (as the video or audio fades) You ain’t gonna believe this!
ROBERT: Just when things were slowing down a bit. . .
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: I signed it! I just signed the contract!
ROBERT: Signed what, Uncle Wesley?
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: The Ed Sullivan Show! New York! We’re goin’ to New York!
ROBERT: And Uncle Wesley didn’t even drink.
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: . . and the Steve Allen Show, Arthur Godfrey, Jackie Gleason!
ROBERT: It was quite a day on our Missouri farm.
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: And read this. . .just read that number, Robert.
ROBERT: Forty thousand dollars. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. No more twenty-five cent admissions with forty percent going to the promoter. So when do we leave?
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: Well Robert, that’s the problem I’m workin’ on.
AMBULANCE DRIVER/JIM: Back it up! Back it up easy! Easy! Easy now!
ROBERT: They hauled me in our truck to Hannibal where they put me in an ambulance.
(Photo of loading Robert)
AMBULANCE DRIVER/JIM: Careful! Careful now! Take your time, big boy! Just take your time!
ROBERT: I always took my time. Had no choice.
AMBULANCE DRIVER/JIM: Shut the door! St. Louis here we come!
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: I think I got permission, Robert. This here letter’s from the Civil Aeronautics Board. . says they can haul you in the freight department of the plane.
ROBERT: And there we went. . .into the wild blue yonder. . . two pilots, two Wesleys, me and a bunch of suitcases. . . and two very nervous horses. That was it back in the cargo hold. Me and the horses.
(Cue 18, Christmas Harp)
PILOT/SYLVIA: We’ll be landing in New Jersey in ten minutes. Fasten your seatbelts, folks.
ROBERT: Not much chance of that.
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: Look at that, Robert! The sent us a taxi to the St. George Hotel!
PHOTOGRAPHER/BRENDA: There he is! The fat kid! Hold it right there! Just let me get this shot!
NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER/MELISSA: New York Times here, Mr. Hughes. Is this your first trip to New York?
NEW YORK SEAMSTRESS/SYLVIA: Hold still, honey. Just let me get this tape around your. . . whoa. . I ran out of tape measure.
ROBERT: I was to play Santa Claus on television.
NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER/MELISSA: Look at this headline in the New York Times! “Is he too big to fit in the TV screen?”
PHOTOGRAPHER/BRENDA: Can you turn just a little, sir? I want to get a profile!
ROBERT: It’ll take a minute.
NEW YORK SEAMSTRESS/SYLVIA: Get your cameras out of here! I’ve got to make this kid’s Santa suit!
ROBERT: It was pretty wild. When do we go on, Uncle Wesley?
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: They said they’d call.
ROBERT: It’s been a week.
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: He seemed like an honest fella, Robert. . .and I signed a contract.
ROBERT: Another week passed. . . “Uncle Wesley?”
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: Sittin’ in this stupid hotel room for two weeks. . . nothin’.
ROBERT: Have we been fooled?
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: I don’t know, Robert. God, I feel awful for you. I’m awful sorry, Robert. I’ll tell ‘em we want to go home.
ROBERT: They drove us to a Salvation Army post in New Jersey and just sort of dumped us there. No way home. No forty thousand dollars. They got off with hundreds of free pictures of me and we got nothing.
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: I talked to the captain. He’s . . .I don’t know. . .he’s gonna try somethin’.
ROBERT: We never were sure who paid our way home. Uncle Wesley was a good man, but he wasn’t a lawyer. They got a picture of me in a Santa suit and . . .
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: . . .we got nothin’, son. I’m sorry. I’m powerful sorry.
ROBERT: I wore the Santa suit all the way back to St. Louis. It was all I had to keep off the cold.
(Music Cue 18 fade out)
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: Looks like we got shystered, son.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: How’s Robert takin’ it?
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: You know Bob. He always assumes the best of folks. . . he always trusts ‘em. I suppose he’s pretty much down today.
ROBERT: But he was wrong. I got to see parts of the world I’d never seen before. . .and I met the mayor of New York. (a beat, then) Are you happy, Robert? I guess maybe I am.
NARRATOR/SYLVIA: 1957! Florida! All over the South!
(Music Cue 19, Carnival)
CARNIVAL BARKER/RICH: The fattest man in the world! Appearing shirtless! He sits on bale of straw and belly nearly touches the ground! Six foot tall! 122-inch waist! 40 inches around each arm! And listen to this. . .I said listen to this! 1041 pounds!
WESLEY DENNIS, SR./KEITH: No more little carnivals. It was all the big state fairs from now on!
(Fade out Music Cue 19 during this. . . )
ROBERT: I couldn’t take care of myself much any more. . . just feed myself. Everything else. . well, somebody else had to do it. I couldn’t even get up and down by myself. . .then that night in Nashville.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: We got the call, Robert.
ROBERT: Lillian?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Your daddy. He’s dead. We’ve gotta go home.
ROBERT: I can’t. Folks are expecting me at the show tomorrow.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: You never want to disappoint people, do you?
ROBERT: “I guess Pa can take care of himself.” . . but I promised to be there at the fair. They went to the funeral without me and Dennis. I had a contract and I never let anybody down.
NARRATOR/SYLVIA: 1958! The Gooding Amusement Company! King of Midwest Entertainment!
ROBERT: I think maybe I liked this tour the best of all. They let me bring my whole family along! Guy and Lillian and their girls, Wesley Jr. and Sr. and Dennis’s wife, Esther.
WAITRESS/BRENDA: Hey there, big boy.
ROBERT: She was a waitress in Wisconsin.
WAITRESS/BRENDA: Hope you don’t mind my puppies playin’ on the floor there.
ROBERT: I like dogs. I had me two of ‘em. . .Australian Shepherds. . . named ‘em both Sheppie. What kind’s them you got?
WAITRESS/BRENDA: Ain’t they cute? Miniature pinchers. Purebreds.
ROBERT: “Cute little rascals. Wish I had mine back.” And then she said something that just made the whole trip for me.
WAITRESS/BRENDA: Tell you what. . . you’re a pretty special guy. I heard of you, but in person. . .well . . .you’re so . . you know. . .happy.
ROBERT: I guess I am.
WAITRESS/BRENDA: How’d you like a puppy?
ROBERT: You’re kidding. But they’re expensive.
WAITRESS/BRENDA: And you’re pretty special, Robert. Here’s the deal. I raise dogs. You just put a little sign up everywhere you go. . .advertise so to speak. . .and as soon as I get these pups weaned I’ll send one right to you.
ROBERT: It was quite a week. . .soon as I got the promise of the puppy we headed for the Mermaid Festival in Indiana. All the local girls would be wearing their half-fish costumes. . . but something . . .I don’t know. . . something was wrong.
(Cue 20, Cello)
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Robert? What’s the matter?
ROBERT: I. . . I don’t know.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: You sick?
ROBERT: I don’t feel bad…just…tired, Lillian.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Well, why don’t you take a nap?
ROBERT: No. . .I don’t want to. I’m afraid I won’t wake up.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: What?
ROBERT: I’m not kidding. I got this feeling. . . that’ll if I go to sleep I’ll never wake up.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Now you stop that. You know better than to talk like that.
ROBERT: You asked me how I feel . . . that’s how I feel. (a beat, then) Lillian?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Yes?
ROBERT: What if that happens? What if I go to sleep and don’t wake up?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: You’re talkin’ foolishness, Robert.
ROBERT: . . .and one more thing. . .
LILLIAN/MELISSA: What is it, Robert?
ROBERT: My legs. I . . .(a long beat) . . . I can’t feel my legs.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: You. . . ?. . . Guy! . . . Guy, come in here! Robert! Bob, talk to me! Talk to me, Bob!
GUY/JIM: I’ll call a Doc.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: I can’t wake him up, Guy!
GUY/JIM: He’ll be okay. . he’s tired, Lillian. That’s all. . .just tired.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: I can’t wake him up!
NAPANEE DOCTOR/RICH: I’d say. . measles. Can’t tell for sure.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: His toenails . . . they’re blue! Robert, wake up!
NAPANEE DOCTOR/RICH: Heart attack. . . maybe. . . I don’t know. Call the hospital.
RECEPTIONIST/SYLVIA: You say a thousand pounds? We can’t handle that at Elkhart. We can’t get him through the door.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Robert! Is he asleep? What’s the matter with him?
NAPANEE DOCTOR/RICH: Maybe a coma. I just can’t tell. Take him to Elkhart anyway. Don’t have a choice.
DR. BOWEN/KEITH: Mr. Hughes arrived at our hospital in a large semi-trailer. . lying on a very large bed. We couldn’t get him through the hospital doors so we ran an oxygen line out to the parking lot.
GUY/JIM: Is he breathin’?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Robert!
DR. BOWEN/KEITH: He had a rash and a fever. . . congestive heart failure.
DR. BURKET/SYLVIA: The nurses had a terrible time trying to keep him clean and of course they couldn’t move him. . . we had to link three blood pressure cuffs around his arm to get a reading. We couldn’t get a catheter in. . . too much flesh.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: It’s been five days, Guy. . . he’s no better. I wonder if he even knows what’s happening.
GUY/JIM: Doubt it. What day is it?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Sunday. I’ve been washing him every day.
GUY/JIM: Why don’t he have any clothes?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Makes it easier for the doctors. His stomach covers everything, Guy. I ain’t embarrassed to wash him.
GUY/JIM: He’d be shocked to know who was washing him.
(Cue 20 out)
ROBERT: (a long beat, then weakly) “I know. . . I know who is washing my feet.”
(a long beat, then) NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER/RICH: (after a long beat) And those were the last words he spoke. This New York Times reporter has followed the lingering death of the world’s largest man all week and today, July 10th, 1958, Robert Earl Hughes died. . . 36 days after his 32nd birthday.
DR. BURKET/SYLVIA: I called the neighboring hospital . . . asked if anybody wanted to perform an autopsy. They declined.
GUY/JIM: We don’t want one either. We’re takin’ our boy home.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: He knew it.
GUY/JIM: What?
LILLIAN/MELISSA: He knew this was his last tour. He wanted me to bring all his pictures on this trip. . . then he took pictures of the house before we left. He knew it, Guy. He knew he wouldn’t be coming home.
(Cue 21, Old Rugged Cross)
(picture of Hughes)
ADA SYKES/SYLVIA: It was strange. I’d been his teacher and I heard the news when I was in India. . .all over the front pages.
DUWAINE ELLIOTT, UNDERTAKER/KEITH: They parked the truck in our drive and we did the embalming right there in the trailer. Took eight hours. I’ll always remember his young face.
MARIAN/MELISSA: We were in the car coming back from White Hall and it came on the radio. . . my old classmate was dead.
DUWAINE ELLIOTT/KEITH: “He had such a youthful face. I’ll always remember his young face.”
SINGER (KEITH): (singing) On a hill far away, stood an old rugged Cross The emblem of suffering and shame And I love that old Cross where the dearest and best For a world of lost sinners was slain
(music continues under)
TRAVELER/RICH: It was the strangest thing. I was in London, riding on the Underground tube, their subway system. They have a lot of tourists so they put a map of the train routes on the way above your head. I looked up and . . . I couldn’t believe it. . .a picture of Robert Earl Hughes advertising the Guinness World Records Museum. I’m from Perry and there was this Fishhook boy on a London train.
BOB NATKIN/BRENDA: I was a photographer on the North Side of Chicago, 1951. This New York photo agency paid me $25 to travel downstate and photograph the kid. There was this rage going across the country of publishing pictures of fat people. Robert’s pictures are now in an art gallery in Chicago.
(Photo of an Natkin shot)
HENRY ALVAREZ/JIM: My name’s Henry Alvarez. In the 1970’s the Guinness Records people started building museums to get some of the tourist trade.
(picture of Alvarez & Hughes sculpture)
(CONT.) I’m a sculptor and they hired me to make a life-size figure. It had to be fiberglass since they wanted to put them on the outside of all their museums. He was the big draw. San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, New York. It was all Hughes.
WILL GEORGANTAS/RICH: I was a member of the music group Thunderegg and I remember seeing his pictures in the Guinness World Records book. I always wondered. . .what if his kindness and generosity were as big as his size. . . so I wrote this kind of silly song about how he rises from the dead and absolves everybody of their sins. . I remember the final lyrics. . . “For if a spirit’s always bigger than the form that it assumes, then there is no bigger spirit that the ghost of Robert Hughes.”
(Music Cue 21 out)
WESLEY DENNIS/JIM: I drove the truck that pulled his trailer from Indiana back to Illinois. We lived in Missouri now, but his heart was always in Fishhook. Even though his bed was reinforced, it broke under all the weight after they’d embalmed him. When we looked back there he was sitting up straight. My Dad turned white. It really upset him.
WGEM REPORTER/BRENDA: Good morning from WGEM news. A sad and precious cargo arrived at the O.L. Bemis Sales Barn this morning as the body of Robert Earl Hughes made its way home.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: A couple dozen of us had gathered to get him ready.
WGEM REPORTER/BRENDA: A forklift with webbing transferred the body to the casket and his touring semi truck delivered the body to the Rounds Funeral Home in Mt. Sterling.
GUY/JIM: Here’s where the rumors got it all wrong. He wasn’t buried in no piano case. The Guinness Book said the casket was “the size of a piano case.” Fact is, Robert’s casket was made by Embalming Burial Case Company of Burlington, Iowa. The company was on summer vacation, but fifty employees volunteered to come back to work to help us out.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: It was beautiful. . .cloth-covered.
(Photo: Robert in casket and other funeral shots)
WGEM REPORTER/BRENDA: The cypress and steel reinforced casket was too large to fit in the door of the funeral home so the viewing took place in a carport outside the business. Reporters were allowed in at 6 p.m. with the general public viewing the body at 7 p.m. WGEM News.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: He wore his overalls and an attractive blue print shirt. And his face was still sort of smiling. That’s just what Robert would have wanted.
(Music Cue 22, Blessed Assurance)
WGEM REPORTER/BRENDA: A crowd upwards of 1500 mourners gathered to take their last look at this beloved son of Fishhook.
GUY/JIM: Shoot, Robert Earl didn’t have 1500 friends around here. . . some were just gawkers.
WGEM REPORTER/BRENDA: The Illinois State Police accompanied the casket to tiny Benville. Crowds began gathering around 7 a.m. for the 10 a.m. service so it was decided to open the casket early for viewing.
KAY BERRY PARKER/KEITH: He was my cousin, but my folks wouldn’t let me go to the funeral. They were afraid it would be filled with people looking for a freak show.
GUY/JIM: Robert’s casket was over 1600 pounds by that time. . a dozen strong men. . .and a hoist on a tractor to lower him into the ground.
(All but the remaining speakers rise and pass by the imaginary casket. As the remaining speakers finish, they too rise and file past the “casket.”)
QUINCY HERALD WHIG REPORTER/JIM: The Quincy Herald Whig, July 13th, Benville, Illinois. Robert Earl Hughes, the world’s biggest man, came home yesterday to final rest. . . home from the hurdy-gurdy carnival to the peace of the Benville Cemetery, a few miles from where he spent the greater part of his life. In the picturesque century-old burial place, Robert Earl was eulogized for his thoughtfulness of others and cheerfulness as a crowd of more than 1500 persons gathered. Even in death Robert Earl was unable to enjoy the privacy which had escaped him throughout his entire life. The inquisitive and the morbid mingled with scores of neighbors and friends of the Hughes family. To some extent, Robert Earl’s funeral was a production. Photographs of the man were on sale and picture taking was permitted during the services.
GUY/JIM: Had to keep an eye out. . .some folks were grabbin’ for souvenirs. . . flowers. . the handle of the church door.
PREACHER MANLEY/RICH: My brothers and sisters. . .
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Preacher Cale Manley did the service.
PREACHER MANLEY/RICH: My brothers and sisters in Christ. . .
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Robert used to go to Sunday services at Manley’s when he was boy.
PREACHER MANLEY/RICH: We come here today to commit to the arms a God a big man. . big in heart, big in spirit. Let us listen to the word of the Lord from the Gospel of Luke. . .The Blessed Man.
GUY/JIM: Two lines of folks passed by the casket. . .took nearly ‘til noon. They’d set up a table at the end of the line where folks could buy pictures of him for fifty cents. . .sort of a way to help pay the burial costs.
RICH MCCOY/SYLVIA: My sister sold souvenir programs of the funeral. The family could use the money to pay for Robert’s services.
RALPH ORR/KEITH: They didn’t raise enough to money to pay for a tombstone so the boys in the Perry Anti-Horse Thief Association raised the rest.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Maymie Williams and Daisy Parker sang “The Old Rugged Cross.”
GUY/JIM: So many memories. . .
LILLIAN/MELISSA: The pictures are mostly in black and white. . .didn’t show his hazel eyes. He had beautiful hazel eyes.
WESLEY DENNIS/KEITH: He was a good-lookin’ fella. You just had to know where to look.
GUY/RICH: Folks at the carnival wouldn’t want to leave. . not because they were lookin’ at him. . .he was just a good fella to talk to.
WESLEY DENNIS/RICH: He believed in God.
LILLIAN/MELISSA: . . .and how he did love that little box camera.
GUY/JIM: It’s funny. These days when I see someone so heavy, I think, “That’s a happy person.”
MARGARET WHITESIDE/SYLVIA: I remember talking to him at the Illinois State Fair. He was sitting there among the carnies and noise and the screaming kids, but he had such a peace about him. That beautiful smile. I just loved talking to Robert.
QUINCY HERALD WHIG REPORTER/BRENDA: “Thus ended the funeral of a big man, big in size and in heart.”
(Music Cue 22 out)
ROBERT: (a long beat, then) It was strange. . .almost funny. . . the funeral was under a tent. A tent. Crowds and noise and music and pictures for sale. . . I was under a tent again. . .with people. . lots and lots of people.
(Music Cue 23, Final Carnival)
CARNIVAL BARKER/RICH: Hey-ya! Hey-ya! Hey-ya! Step right up! The Eighth Wonder of the World! On display for one day only! Step right up! 25 cents! One quarter of a dollar! Ten cents for the kiddies! Ladies, we have smelling salts available lest this horrendous sight be too much for you!
CARNIVAL BARKER/KEITH No pushing! There’s plenty of room inside the tent! The Eighth Wonder of the World! Hey-ya! Hey-ya! Only 25 cents! The thrill of a lifetime! Here for one night only! One quarter of a dollar! A show for the whole family! Hey-ya! Hey-ya! CARNIVAL BARKER/JIM The Eighth Wonder of the World! On view for only 25 cents! The chance of a lifetime! Kids are welcome! A genuine educational experience! Hey-ya! Hey-ya! Hey-ya! Step right up! Plenty of room inside the tent! Hurry! Hurry! For one night only!
(Cue 23 fades)
(Only Lillian and Robert remain onstage.)
LILLIAN/MELISSA: Are you happy, Robert?
ROBERT: (a long beat, then) What do you think?
(Cue 24 Come Thou Font )
(and the lights dim out on the stage, leaving only the overhead photo of Robert Earl Hughes)