The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book)

by Robert Hough

  As it turned out, the goat trainer had flatly refused to volunteer one of his, saying Rajah would tear the goat's stomach out the day he turned tiger. Hearing this, Louis turned and walked away, his feeling being that trying to persuade anyone of anything was a chore undignified and therefore beneath him. Instead, he'd gone into town and bought a farm goat, who was waiting for us when we got back, tied to a side-wall peg and chewing something not ordinarily considered food.

  Was a tough sell, acquainting Rajah with the nanny goat, both of them bleating mightily when we put them together. It occurred to me I could lure Rajah by putting some sweetened milk on my palm and leading him to the nanny's teat, which I'd also lathered up with sweet stuff. After a few tries, Rajah got to suckling, though the goat whinnied at having something other than a kid's mouth come in contact with her. Still, she was swollen to discomfort, and once Rajah started to relieve that discomfort she stopped complaining and returned to gnawing on a boot sole.

  Later, I put Rajah in his basket with a jackrabbit and a mongrel pup so as to stay warm, my fear being he had his brother's weakness for pneumonia. That night I tossed and turned with worry, and when we finally reached town I darted to the menage car to make sure Rajah was okay. Though I found him playing with his two bunk mates, rolling over and under them and taking friendly little nips, I considered this as evidence I'd just been lucky. Practically shaking with worry, I asked Louis if he minded my taking the three animals and putting their basket in our stateroom. He agreed, mostly because he'd been kept up by my tossing and turning and sighing.

  Days, I'd do my acts and tend my cats, and when I wasn't doing that I was with Rajah, playing with him and tussling with him and taking him on strolls. On occasion I took him to town with me, carrying him if the streets were wet so his paws would stay dry and he wouldn't get chilled. These shopping expeditions always attracted stares and attention, so it was fine with Al G., though they stopped the day I got on a streetcar and the conductor told me I couldn't board carrying a live tiger. I asked why not, and he told me cats and dogs can't by law ride public transportation in the city of New Orleans. Naturally I said Rajah was a tiger, which is neither cat nor dog and therefore had nothing whatsoever to do with the city's ordinances.

  I was wrong, of course, a state of affairs that generally makes people argue all the more vigorously for their way of thinking. So I told the conductor, who was Louisiana-fat and perspiring badly because of it, that only a damn fool would ever confuse a Bengal tiger cub with a common tabby, to which he said he couldn't give a shit if it was a purple Chinese puma, a tiger's a feline and that's all there is to it. Next thing you knew, we were in a yelling match I wasn't about to lose, the only problem being a reporter was on the streetcar and the whole thing got written up in the next morning's paper.

  ("Mabel," said Al G., raising an eyebrow, "this kind of publicity I don't need. You know how much these Dixie cops are taking as it is? ")

  With all this fresh air and attention, Rajah grew as fast as he would've in the wild, though he still had a tendency to jump if he heard loud noises, such as car horns or a pistol shot. His tigerly instincts settled in with his muscles: one morning when he was about two months old, I came awake to find Louis standing over the basket, his face curdled. "For Christ's sake, Mabel," he said, "look at vat your tiger has done!"

  I zipped out of bed and took a gander. Sometime during the night, Rajah had gutted the rabbit and then worked on the neck of the puppy. The fact he'd done it without waking us showed he'd killed them fast as a lightning bolt. This pleased me, for it indicated he was growing into a tiger and not some strange barnyard hybrid, though I lost my smile the moment I noticed one of Louis's favourite performing jackets, a heavily brocaded riding coat with epaulettes and gold buttons, hanging on a hook just above the basket. Somehow, during the melee, bunny entrails had splashed upward and ruined the sleeves and waistband, a fact now causing Louis to be in a mood and a half.

  "Jesus I'm sorry, Louis."

  He finally picked up the coat and waved it in my face, saying, "I do not know if ze stains will come out!" There wasn't anything I could particularly say to defend myself or make him feel better, so I said nothing, and after waggling the garment for long enough to make his point, he stormed out, leaving me to feel guilty and clean the mess as best as I was able. Meanwhile, Rajah mewed proudly.

  The season ended two days later. We returned to Venice, Al G. going around and telling everyone the price of feed had gone up in Portland and that's why he'd moved winter quarters back down to Venice. Louis and I took a room at the St. Mark's, and because I couldn't bear the thought of putting Rajah in a cage, he came with us. Louis insisted Rajah had to sleep between me and the side of the bed, instead of in the middle. That way, Louis wouldn't have to put up with getting pawed and scratched whenever the animal dreamed, something that was a nuisance but that I didn't mind so long as I knew my little baby was safe and happy.

  This living arrangement lasted until the manager complained his chambermaids were afraid to go near our room, so we rented a furnished apartment on Pacific Avenue overlooking the ocean. From the rental office you could hear waves and gulls, sounds I'd learned to associate with California and being between seasons and having time to collect myself. The manager's name was Randall, and after asking our names he gave us an application form. In the space where it asked about pets, Louis looked at me with a smirk and, in a rare display of wit, wrote: one.

  We moved in that day, me with a lone circus trunk, Louis with boxes and boxes of clothes, equipment, medals and memorabilia. His collection of whips and crops alone took the better part of a steamer trunk. That night, he went back to the lot and returned with Rajah mewing pitiably in a leather duffel bag. We opened the bag. Rajah poked his head out. To show his displeasure at being transported thusly, he stepped onto the carpet and micturated like a Roman fountain.

  Using this same bag, I'd smuggle Rajah out of the building and down to winter quarters, where I'd play with him for hours, rolling him on the turf and scratching his ears and teaching those little teeth how to chomp down without breaking skin. When we tussled, I'd squeal like a child, something that made people stop and watch for I wasn't the sort of woman known for making sounds of delight. If Rajah forgot about his claws, I'd purr to him, or I'd rub him low on the belly and say, "Now, Rajah ..." until lie learned to be gentle as possible with me. Around this time, I rewarded the nanny goat for loyal service by weaning Rajah, figuring it was only a matter of time before he disembowelled her as well.

  That day was the first day I gave Rajah a shank King had completely cleared of meat. Rajah sniffed the bone a few times before putting a paw beneath it and a paw above it and chewing on the joint, tilting skyward. He licked his lips and started to purr afterwards. The next day I gave him another bare shank, and this time he learned the trick of snapping the bone in two and getting out the marrow by turning his tongue into a dipping spoon. When his teeth and stomach had strengthened, I started giving him bones with a little horse left on, which is exactly how a mother tiger weans a kitten, though in the middle of the night I still had to give him a bottle brimming with heated goat's milk or he'd cry something horrid. Problem was, this necessitated fumbling with a hot plate and metal spoons, and no matter how quiet I was the clinking would wake Louis. He'd sit, remove his eyeguard and hiss "For Christ's sake, Mabel! Can't ze fucking tiger sleep elssver?"

  Then.

  Was just after the New Year, 1917, a time when it seemed everything was changing. The country was gearing up for war and Dixieland music had come north and for the first time baseball games were played on Sunday. Mary Pickford was big, as was Charlie Chaplin, who made a million dollars a year, unheard of then-even John Ringling didn't make that much. Communists were fixing on taking over Russia, and the Charleston was all the rage. I knew all this because Louis loved the papers, loved riffling through them while shaking his head and saying ffffffft whenever he saw something that riled him. Oddly enough, it was th
e same sound he made at the height of his physical affections; were I to make a list of the things I remember most about Louis Roth, that sound would be on it, along with his drinking, his fussiness, his accent and his wee privates.

  Which brings me to the night I'm recalling. After midnight, we were all in bed, by which I mean Louis and me and Rajah, who by this point was the size of a golden retriever, though much stronger and with a beauty no dog's ever going to possess. Louis came awake with one thing on his mind and started to nibble my ear, a sensation like being bothered by a horsefly, but one I pretended to enjoy for Louis was a man and like all men insecure in the lady-pleasing department. This progressed to kisses on the neck and one of his big hands sneaking over my body and taking hold of a breast and squeezing it like he was testing an avocado for ripeness. After a bit more fondling, that hand travelled downward and took hold of the hem of my nightie. He pulled it up, with me adjusting myself so he could get the hem over my hips, until it was rolled up around my armpits like a life preserver.

  This gave Louis free roam, and because I was his wife and had duties I whispered encouragement, nothing too specific but words promotional in tone. I felt him rooting and rubbing and generally causing friction in places men think women enjoy their friction. Throughout, I had my back to him, the front of my body facing Rajah, who was sleeping and licking his lips and making little high-pitched tiger snoring sounds.

  Louis's hand landed on the inside of my left leg. He applied a little pressure, indicating he wanted that leg bent and lifted. I complied, and a minute later felt him ease his thumb-sized manhood on inside.

  Now, there're adjectives that can always be applied to a man's lovemaking style, and the ones describing Louis Roth's were frantic, silent and tireless. Went at it like a muffled piston motor, he did, not a sound escaping his lips, working himself to such a frenzy the bed started to squeak and buck something rabid. Meanwhile, all of Louis's plunging pushed me forward, so the front of me started rubbing up against Rajah, and when I say front of me understand it was the front of me that counts, the sensation made all the more notable by the fact a tiger's coat is covered in oil, and that oil was rubbing off and turning me slick and warm as an oyster fried in butter. Soon as this happened, I found I couldn't catch my breath, my discovering for the first time how safe and wonderful not catching your breath can feel: I was practically dripping in tiger oil, and other effluents besides. Meanwhile, Louis was pistoning and Rajah was snoring through his nose and I was between the two of them, though at the same time I didn't particularly care who or where I was, for until that point I'd always considered my body a necessity, a thing that carries you around and nothing more. That night I discovered it was also something that can give you a ride, like the ceramic horse on a Carry-Us-All, and that when this happens if you close your eyes your body will let you go and you can soar. The sensation built and built, to the point I was starting to wonder if I was about to explode-not a bad way to go, if you ask me-and as this question got posed louder and louder inside my head I clenched my eyes and saw an image of a bed containing a man and a woman and a tiger, a frenzy of motion beneath the blanket, the women opening her mouth and groaning in a way that would've made a longshoreman blush.

  Which woke Rajah.

  He sprung ceilingward. In mid-air his entire body revolved, so that he landed claws down, hissing and growling and taking swipes at Louis, though he really couldn't do much given I was between them, and it would've defeated Rajah's purpose of defending me if he'd scratched me to ribbons in the process. Course, Rajah's fury was nothing compared to Louis's, as his pistoning had been disturbed and if there's anything that'll turn a man nasty it's disturbing that. So he hisses, "Oh for Christ's sake I haff had it," and he gets out of bed and seizes Rajah by the tail and pulls hard enough I thought the tail might come away in Louis's hands.

  Rajah's belly hit the floor with a splat, and the sound of his nails being dragged toward the door set me to screaming, "No no no, please Louis you're hurting him," to which my husband replied, "Ziss cat is out of control." Then he opened the apartment door and, swinging Rajah by the tail, pitched him into the hallway. I lay there for less than a second, listening to my baby yelp and yowl and generally sound terrified, before I jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway, gravity pulling my nightie back down into place.

  Rajah was cowering in a corner and peeing. I went to him. Reached between his hind legs and tickled his pleasure spot.

  "You just never mind about him. He was in the army so he has ideas about orderliness that don't include sleeping with his wife and a tiger. That I'm saying is, it's his fault, little tiger, not yours...." Hearing this, Rajah snuggled into my arms like he used to do as a punk. Shaking like a leaf, he was. I lifted him and stood, a movement requiring all my leg power and then some, as he was up to maybe 150 pounds. At this point, I heard voices and footsteps, and I could tell by their urgency that the people making those noises were not in any way relaxed. So I did the only thing occurring to me, which was to step inside the communal washroom and sit in a darkened cubicle and cradle Rajah, the whole while saying, "That's all right, baby. Don't you worry-nothing's going to bother you, not while I'm here, baby...."

  Well. You wouldn't believe how many people come running when you throw a live screeching tiger out of your furnished room in the middle of the night. Police. Firemen. Randall, his hair standing on end and a pair of pants pulled on over his pyjamas. Neighbours, all looking sorely aggrieved, as if we'd started a grease fire in danger of spreading. Emergency-type people with thick denim gloves and axes in hand. Reporters with little flip pads and hats marked Press. A dog catcher holding an oversized butterfly net, who took one look at Rajah when I emerged from the bathroom and said, "Holy shit," before turning tail. Even the odd drunk and insomniac wandered in off the street to see what all the noise was about. Was a scene and three-quarters, and the best thing I could think to do was carry Rajah back to the room and hold him and whisper into his ear. Meanwhile, Louis stood outside, a foreigner with a thumb-shaped impression in the front of his long underwear, trying to provide some sort of reason why we shouldn't be arrested for disturbing the peace and endangering the public and generally living like wild gypsy animal hostellers.

  After a bit of sputtering he came up with "Vee are viss the circus. Vee are viss the Barnes show. Vee are circus people."

  Funny thing was, it was an excuse people seemed to buy.

  We were evicted again, this time forced to live in our parked Pullman, which bothered Louis for he'd gotten used to electricity and a flush toilet in the off season. Rajah was relegated to his own cage in the menage, which made him about as happy as Louis was: soon as I closed him in he took to pacing in front of the bars and crying. When I went to check on him the next day, I noticed a few spots on his body that weren't quite bald but were coming close: up high on his right shoulder, in the middle of his forehead, two-thirds of the way down his tail. Next day, more hair fell and the next day more still; within a week his thin spots had graduated to full-fledged bald spots, poor Rajah now more skin than coat. Two days after that, when he'd lost pretty much all the fur God had given him, I leashed him and walked him across the lot to the Holt car. I knocked, and Dan let me in.

  Al G. was inside, smoking a cigar and looking pleased as punch about his latest acquisition, a mountainous blond vaudevillian named Leonora Speeks. Tall as a giraffe, she was, for she wore heels and bundled her hair atop her head in a wilting celery arrangement she referred to as a "waterfall." To achieve this effect, her hair was pulled so tightly away from her forehead it tugged on the corners of her eyes, giving her a look that was vaguely Shanghai. I suppose exotic was the word for Miss Speeks. When she walked, her whole body looked like jelly set in motion during a faultline tremor.

  She was the first to speak when we entered Al G.'s car, and by this I mean she took one look at Rajah and jumped to her feet and squealed, her palms thrust upward like a holdup victim's. It was mostly effect, this, Miss Speeks
taking any opportunity to jump up and down in those high teetering shoes, a movement that set her bosom to bobbing in a way was practically dangerous.

  "What on earth is that?" she cried while throwing herself into Al G.'s lap and wrapping her arms tightly around his head, all of which had the net effect of pressing Al G.'s face in the cavern formed by Miss Speeks's chest, a bit of theatre causing Dan and me to look at each other and roll our eyes. Al G. said something, though I couldn't make out what it was, given the muffling job still being performed by the endowments of his latest wife.

  Now, you'd think any man would be embarrassed at having such a nitwit for a companion, but of course here I'm thinking like a woman; when Miss Speeks finally rose from Al G.'s lap and straightened her dress, he looked like he'd conquered an ocean, by which I mean redfaced and beaming. Course, this expression didn't last long, for he was finally able to take a good long gander at Rajah. His blue eyes widened.

  "Jesus, Kentucky. That poor animal." He rose from behind his desk and walked up to Rajah and crouched and let Rajah sniff his hand, and because Al G. had the gift you could practically see Rajah relax. Al G. sat there a minute, thinking, until finally he said, "Attention, Kentucky. Some TLC. It's about all I can think of."