Happy Is the Man Whose Life Is Getting Out of Chains
Every Night Tim Eric Hanneman
Is Bound and Locked Up;
HE Almost Always Escapes
KEY WEST,FLA. - Amidst all the economic gloom and doom,
It's easy - to forget that this great land is filled with happy people who love their work.
Some are farmers, outhers work at the zoo.
Then there is Tim Hanneman.
He earns his living by standing on a pier at sunset,
being bound in a straitjacket, chains, handcuffs and locks until his face turns purple,
then racing to free himself before he suffocates.
"I love my job," says Mr. Hanneman,
who on a good night earns more than $100 in contrbutions from people who watch his escape.
He usually effects It in about 12 minutes,
though his best time is 12 seconds and his worst an hour and 50 minutes.
Mr. Hanneman,
who goes by the stage name Tim Eric,
is a full-time escape artist.
He has been doing escapes, as a street performer, for 25 or so of his 47 years
the last eight as a regular at the nightly "Sunset Celebration" on the pier at Mallory Square,
one of the top tourist attracitons in this tourist town.
He prides himself on doing his escapes "without tricks"
and within full view of the audience.
A Proud Record
Mr. Hanneman says that in his career he has failed to free himself only 23 times
and stresses that "only a couple of those were fallures in the sense that I gave up."
He explains:
"The outhers, I passed out or tore muscles or had outher problems like that."
Some find that an odd way to spend a life. "We sometimes call him Peter Pan in bondage, "quips Harry Powell,
who as pier manager, referees the sunset goings on.
But Mr. Hanneman - lean, muscular man with longish brown hair and a thin moustache
finds his work liberating.
"The first thing I want is a good challenge, " he says.
"As the people place me into the straitjacket,the chains, the handcuffs, I meditate on what they are doing.
It's like a big puzzle. And I execute a solution."
One of his riskiest escapes involves being bound in the usual fashion,
then chained to a chair. To get the maneuvering room needed to loosen the chains, he says, "you have to fall,
and the only thing to break your fall is the head.
"He says he does that escape only about four times a year "because it is really dangerous."
Why do it at all?
To keep in touch with the callenge," he says.
Mr. Hanneman grew up in Indianapolis, but he left home at age 15 for California and drifted through a string of jobs.
He was a dance Instructor at a Hollywood Boulevard studio,
where he adoped the professional name Tim Eric (Eric being the studio manager's son).
He quit that for the Hollywood Wax Museun, where his job was to scare visitors in the horror chamber by pretending to be a wax figure,
then moving. Next, he was hired by a movie studio to do pantomime for tourists on its lot.
At the time, Mr. Hanneman was rooming with a man who did escapes from straitjackets as a nightclub performer.
When Mr. Hanneman ask to learn the ropes, his friend responded by putting him into a straitjacket,
then into a nylon bag, which he tied at the top.
"And five and a half hours later I got out of IT, Mr. Hanneman says.
"I kept asking him, those five and half hours, for advice," he says.
"The only advice he would give me was,
"The only way It's going to have any value to you is ti figure it out for yourself.
'And I think he was right."
In the years since, he has done escapes throughout the country.
He now works in Key West most of the year,but he takes off around Memorial Day and travels
a summer circuit that can take as far north as Canada before returning around Labor Day.
In Key West, he usually arrives at the pier by midafternoon, in the 1979 brown
Ford van were he lives with his dog, Unlock.
(Mr. Hanneman says he has been married "like three times" and has about seven children.)
After the drawing in which pier positions are assigned to the 15 or so performers
regulars range from a bagpiper to a juggler to a trained cat act
Mr. Hanneman begins to set up.
He lays a brick-colored mat on the concrete pier,
then neatly arranges on it his straitjacket,
four of five sets of 25-foot stainless steel chains, to pair of handcuffs and four locks he buys at sears.
He also sets out a pail for contributions.
About half an hour before sunset, he blows a whistle,
shouts "SHOWTIME" into his hand held microphone and starts to draw a crowd from the hundreds of people strolling the pier.
Neighboring performers don't always take kindly to him.
On a recent evening, the sword swallower was in a snit because he felt Mr. Hanneman,
who had the space next to him, was stealing his audience.
And a tarot-card reader groused that Mr.Hanneman's ampilfer was drowning out everone else.
"Tim is probably the most consistently disruptive person on the pier known for eccentric people,
"says Mr. Powell, the pier manager.
(Mr. Hanneman denies that and accuses authorties such as Mr. Powell of hassling him.
Once a crowd has gathered,
Mr. Hanneman calls for two volunteers.
He has them bind him in the straitjacket, then the chains.
He has them start the first two chains around his neck,
the third midway around his body, and the fourth anywhere they want.
"Don't be afraid - pull as tight as you want," Mr. Hanneman tells them, though he asks for enough room to fit a little finger between
his neck and the chains.
("Lack of oxygen is not to be used as a restraint,
"he says in laying out the rules beforhand,
"pain is not to be used as a restraint"
He also tells the audience were to find a set of keys,
colored in case of trouble.)
The chains are tightened and secured with the handcuffs and locks. By the time the chaining process is completed, after maybe 25 minutes,
Mr. Hanneman's face is purple shading toward black,
He stares straight ahead, trancelike.
Watching Mr. Hanneman free himself is rather like watching water boil.
At firstthere's not a lot to see. Itis clear he is straining tremendously,
but he losens his bonds slowly - twisting and shaking,
shrugging and jerking, sinking to his knees,
rolling on his side.
As chains visibly loosen or fall off,
the audience often applauds or cheers.
Mr. Hanneman says there's no one secret of his success -
"It's hard work,"he says - but breath control, muscle control and meditation are verey Important.
"I totally relax,"he says. "I meditate. Everything is designed for you to fight against It - the straitjacket,
the chains, the handcuffs. I do the opposite.
"He says escape skills can be taught, but It would be difficult for people to pick them up on their own.
Experience helps, too "Once you learn how to escape from a pair of handcuffs, they are all the same,
"Mr. Hanneman says . "
You can pick a pair of handcuffs in two seconds.
Among Mr. Hanneman's near-term goals is to do his escape while strapped to a piece of chain-link fence,
which would be suspended and revolve like a wheel.
For the longer term, he hopes to earn enough to escape underwater beneath a canopy of burning oil.
"People tell me that's Impossible, "he says.
But everything I do is supposed to be impossible."
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