Crazy Mofos: Kirk Jones | Outside Online

Outside Magazine, June 2004

Page:

Crazy Mofos
Without a Barrel (cont.)

THE POLICE CONFISCATED Krueger's camera and escorted Jones, with a throng of reporters in tow, to Ontario's Greater Niagara General Hospital for three days of testing, psychiatric evaluation, and rest. "The media was camped out front the whole time," says Jones, "but the psychiatric ward had lock upon lock upon lock. No one was getting in."

Well, almost no one. Halfway through Jones's stay, a package mysteriously made its way past security. Inside was

"Why does a man want to sail around the world, or ski to the south pole? Perhaps it's in mans destiny to try these things."

an Ozzy Osbourne sweatshirt and a note from Diane Sawyer inviting him to share his story on Good Morning America. "Somehow, they found out I was an Ozzy fan," Jones says. "That really impressed me."

Jones accepted Sawyer's offer and appeared on GMA, along with the tabloid-style news show Inside Edition—but not until he'd spent three days in an Ontario jail, where he was charged with criminal mischief and performing an illegal stunt, then released on $1,000 bail. (He pleaded guilty last December and paid fines of about $3,600.) After his television interviews, Jones spent a couple of days sightseeing in New York, compliments of the GMA producers. Then he caught a flight to Portland, Oregon, and quietly receded into the obscurity from which he'd come.

Obviously, Kirk Jones hoped something big would come out of his jump—lasting fame, perhaps, or a place in the record books—and you can see why he got his hopes up. If a professional daredevil like Evel Knievel had announced that he was going over the falls without protection, the stunt would have been globally televised, and people would still be buzzing about it.

All Jones got was an Ozzy sweatshirt and a trip to the local mental hospital. In a way, he did get the new life he wanted, but so far it's been a mixed bag. These days, Jones has a vague role as a "performer" in the Florida-based Toby Tyler Circus. For all practical purposes, he's a carnival act.

"I don't want to call him a human oddity, but he is one," says Philip Dolci, 40, media director at the Toby Tyler Circus. Each year, he explains, the circus recruits "the latest, greatest attractions" from around the world. (Past crowd pleasers include Khan, the eight-foot man from India, and the Wolf Family, Mexican brothers covered from head to toe with hair.) The week after Jones went over the falls, Dolci hired a private detective to track him down and invite him to check out opportunities with the circus. In mid-November, Jones signed a one-year contract, and he began touring with the troupe in January.

Having grown up near Niagara Falls, I appreciated what Jones had done from the outset, and I wondered why he had taken such a colossal risk. After pursuing him on the phone for a few weeks, I finally get a chance to meet him on a warm southern morning in Biloxi, Mississippi, one of the early stops on the Toby Tyler Circus's 11-month, 42-state tour.

Jones doesn't look like much of a showman: He has watery green eyes, thinning brown hair, and a slight double chin speckled with stubble. He slouches when he sits, and when he talks, he mumbles. But when I offer to take him to breakfast at the International House of Pancakes to discuss his trip over the falls, Jones jumps into my car and gushes at the prospect of leaving circus life behind for even a few minutes.

"This is great!" Jones exclaims as we drive past the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library, with its giant Confederate flag, and the Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum, with its handful of underwhelmed visitors. "This is why I joined the circus—to see the country. So far, all I've seen is a bunch of auditoriums and parking lots."

On some level, Jones sees himself as a happy-go-lucky version of Sir Edmund Hillary. He likes to describe his plunge as an epic leap of faith in which he proved to himself and the world that he was capable of greatness. "Why does a man want to sail around the world alone, or ski to the South Pole?" he asks, as we slide into a booth at IHOP. "What makes a man want to do the impossible? Perhaps it's in man's destiny to try these things."

The comparison is apt, to a degree. Like Hillary and other great 20th-century adventurers, Jones ignored conventional wisdom and dared to challenge the forces of nature. But he can't credit his success to hard-spent years of physical and mental preparation; he can't claim that skill had anything to do with his survival. In essence, Jones played Russian roulette and won. Any bravery he exhibited has been overshadowed by his apparent recklessness, not to mention the unheroic specter of suicide. Is Jones a kind of explorer, or a man in need of counseling? There's a fine line between those two personality profiles, and Jones's makeup seems to involve a little bit of both.

Over pancakes, Jones says his hard times started a few years ago, when he was laid off from a sales position at his parents' gauge-manufacturing business, in Canton, Michigan, 30 miles west of Detroit. More trouble came last September, when Ray and Doris Jones, whom Kirk had lived with for most of his adult life, sold their floundering company and retired—just the two of them—to Portland.

"They were always the backbone of my existence," he says. "When they left for Oregon, I felt an emptiness and a void, and I'm sure that was a contributing factor in my decision to challenge the falls."

The word challenge is foremost in Jones's current explanation of why he did what he did. Gone are any references to dead-end depression; these days, Jones invokes the bright smile and cliché phrases of a motivational speaker. "In life, you don't regret the things that you do; you regret the things that you don't do," he tells me with a wag of his index finger. "Sometimes you have to believe in yourself, even when no one else does. I had a deep inner belief that I could do this."

It's this new, upbeat Kirk Jones that the Toby Tyler Circus hired as a headliner. He's billed as the World's Greatest Stuntman, although his current responsibilities include little more than marching in the opening parade, signing autographs, and answering questions about his jump during the 20-minute intermission.

It's not quite the movie deal or fat book contract he'd hoped for, but Jones isn't complaining: The circus gig comes with a $50,000 salary, a warm place to sleep, and—thanks to some last-minute contract negotiations—all the cherry snow cones he can eat.

"That's my diet," he says. "I eat three or four of them every day."

Page:

•	Subscribe to Outside and get a FREE Gift!

•	Give the gift of Outside Magazine!

•	Subscribe to Outside Online's free weekly e-mail newsletter featuring gear reviews, fitness advice, galleries, podcasts, and more.