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

by Robert Hough

  The other surprise was each and every attendee had cleaned himself up-those were polished foreheads giving me little nods of recognition, and those were clean hands giving me little waves, with clipped nails and bandaged cuts besides. Many of them had had haircuts, and the ones who hadn't had combed their hair, many of them pomading it to one side. Far as I could tell, every last beard had been trimmed, which is saying something seeing as how all workingmen wore beards. I'll tell you it was a sight, all those smiles as I walked down that aisle, showing teeth that, while not exactly white, had been baking powdered to a state just this side of clean.

  In other words: I was a touched Miss Mary Haynie from the earthy part of Kentucky, and crying enjoyably because of it. Art was waiting for me at the front of the room, and of course he wouldn't be Art if he didn't have a surprise in store: his best man was none other than a tiny little elephant we all called Baby. Seeing this, I laughed through my hiccuping tears, the workingmen seated nearest the aisle laughing along with me. When I reached Art he held my hand with the one not holding on to Baby's leash.

  With that, the ceremony started. The minister was Unitarian, and as a result didn't wear a robe, just a normal everyday church-going jacket. When he started in on the service I faded out, for I'd heard those words-the ones starting with "Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today" so many times I practically knew them by rote. To pass the time, I let my mind wander and I started thinking about how absurd life is, my being the only woman at my own wedding and marrying a man most wouldn't describe as being particularly male and still my being pleased about every last bit of it. I came back to the here and now around the time the minister told Art it was ring time. Art whispered something to Baby, and Baby raised the tip of his trunk. It held a little powder-blue box, which Art took and opened. I gulped. The ring was emerald, and what's more I knew the reason why: I'd once mentioned to Art the most beautiful colour on earth was the colour of Rajah's eyes. By now I was really crying-try wanting something for your entire adult life and finally getting it-so to a background of whimpers and sniffles I heard that Art was to kiss the bride. A second later Art's hands were on my waist and his lips were on my lips and his moustache was tickling the underside of my nose and I was officially Mrs. Mabel Rooney, Bridgeport, Connecticut.

  At which time lunch was served.

  Art had hired a bunch of local teenagers to tend to the food, and they came out with bowls of potato salad, macaroni salad, ham slivers, chicken pieces, turkey hocks, cheese cubes you name it, we served it-and they set them on a series of buffet tables against one wall. Art and I served ourselves first, after which we sat and ate and watched the workingmen line up, not a hint of pushing or elbowing or name calling, only a lot of smiling and jovial talk. With such orderliness it wasn't long before they were all back in their seats, plates heaped high with food, a plastic rose in front of every third man, and oh was it comical watching them try to eat turkey hocks with cutlery instead of their bare hands. Throughout, there wasn't any swearing or bawdy joke telling or fights over who did or did not pass the salt. Prior to the big day, Art and I had talked long and hard about whether we should give them beer, our decision being we'd put enough for two each in big ice buckets around the room. Turns out we needn't have. Not one workingman had a beer. Most wouldn't even look in the direction of the tubs, sticking instead to the pitchers of water and iced tea on the tables. Was as though they'd all gotten together and voted not to go near anything containing even the smallest amount of liquor, which I later learned was exactly what happened.

  Mostly, it was what I call a nice sociable event, a lot of pleasant chatter without all the fussing, dust-ups and fornicating that tend to come along with circus parties. Since we'd started first, Art and I finished eating before anyone else, so we went from table to table, thanking them all for coming, and I can tell you they were all a hundred times more appreciative than any of the performers would've been. We'd done a good thing, inviting those poor men. We just had. When we were done our little tour, Art and I found ourselves standing by the door to the Polish Welders Association Hall. Art looked at me, giving me that Art grin.

  "Well, Mrs. Rooney?"

  "Well, Mr. Rooney?"

  "I suppose we should go."

  "Yes, I suppose we should."

  He pushed open the door and we stepped outside. Was a coldness to the air, but not a bad one, owing to the sun in the sky and the clearness of the day. The car Bailey had squired me in was parked outside, the keys in the ignition and our packed bags in the rumble seat. Art helped me into the car, and by the time he got in himself some of the workingmen were coming out and making the first ruckus of the day, though was a ruckus more along the lines of whooping and hollering and wishing us a great honeymoon. We drove off, waving and feeling like royalty. As we made our way through town, other drivers honked when they saw the "Just Married" sign roped to the rear fender. Pedestrians waved and a friendly cop, seeing the carnations glued to the headlights, directed us around a broken water main.

  Ten minutes later, Art was hoisting both our bags onto a train that, believe it or not, didn't belong to John Ringling. As we sat and waited for the train to leave, some of the workingmen showed up on bicycles and began waving and being generally boisterous outside our compartment window. A few turned cartwheels, and one made swimming motions in the air for no clear reason I could think of. We laughed anyway and waved and generally felt light as feathers and eager for travel. After a few more minutes a whistle blew, and blew again, and the train started to jostle, my not bothering to ask Art where we were going because I knew under no circumstances would lie tell me.

  Four days we were on that train. Normally when I travelled, I had a hundred things on my mind-which tiger had a toenail problem and which tiger was suffering from a churny stomach and which tiger was balking on a rollover and which tiger was showing testiness during the tunnel-in. With my mind so occupied, I often missed what went rolling by my Pullman window, the fact the Ringling show travelled mostly at night not helping. This time, with no tigers to worry about and my mind eased by my new last name, I had a chance to take a good long look at the countryside. In other words, I felt like I was seeing it for both the thousandth time and the first.

  Just outside the Connecticut state line, the train veered close to Manhattan Island, close enough I could see office buildings and the Brooklyn Bridge and, looming over them like a watch mother, the Statue of Liberty. (Was always my opinion New York City was crowded with tall buildings so that those arriving would see them and be impressed and think, Jesus, what must go on in this country?) After chugging through New Jersey, we travelled through the steel towns of Pennsylvania, the industry of which impressed the part of me valuing hard work above all. Next stop was Washington, the nation's capital and regal because of it, Art and I having just enough time to get out on the platform and eat a vendor frank and wish we could visit the government buildings. We reboarded, and for the next long while there wasn't five minutes in which the train was heading in a straight direction; was nothing but curves and inclines and declines, the train making a potpourri of noises, from the locomotive straining up the side of a mountain to the brakes rushing air to stop the train from hurtling down the other side to the screech made when train wheels cornered on worn-out gauge. Every once in a while, as I peered out the window, the forest would break, and I'd see a mountain peak and someone else would see it too and say, "Look, there's Mt. Mitchell" or "Hey, whaddaya know-there's Sassafras Mountain, will you get a load of the mist no wonder they call them the Smokies."

  Took us a full day and a half to get through Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. We must've seen a hundred little logging towns, the houses all made from wide-bore timber, smoke pouring out of each and every stone chimney. On the station platforms, little white children with close-cropped hair would try to sell us packets of sap gum or homemade string-with-ball toys, waving at the train as it pulled away to the next little mountain town. By the time the
terrain turned swampy, the trees dripping moss and the land cloaked in the mystery poorness causes, I knew we were skirting the tops of Alabama and Mississippi. Suddenly the children greeting us at each whistlestop were black and so wanting for nourishment it made the back of my throat ache: they were dressed in rags, and living in houses made from tarpaper. In one town-I forget the name, Holly Springs maybe-Art bought a bag of apples from a station vendor and started handing them out, though he stopped when the older kids started pushing down the younger ones to get more than their fair share.

  The train picked up speed when we hit the wide-open spaces of Arkansas and Oklahoma. And while I won't say those states are as J lovely to look at as other parts of the country, I will say there's an impressiveness in the ability to remain unchanging. As we gazed out our compartment window, watching all that scrub roll by, the eye got drawn to simple things it wouldn't've noticed in the mountain states. A lone homesteader shack, still in use. A cow getting branded. A vulture sitting lazily on a fence post, nothing around him for as far as the eye could see. Funny how a little hill, one that would've looked no bigger than a pimple in the Appalachian states, can be a source of fascination and meaning when it's all alone and surrounded by flat space.

  During those two days or so, with nothing must-see on the far side of the window, Art and I did most of our talking-was a lot of handholding and baby voices and blabbing about the future, till finally I asked one of the many questions I had about the origins of Arthur J. Rooney.

  "Art, I want you to tell me something. Do you, or do you not, have some Indian blood coursing through those veins of yours? If you do, just tell me, because to my mind anyway it's nothing to be ashamed of and I'd really just like to know."

  He blinked several times, thinking, before providing his answer.

  "Some," he said.

  He didn't say anything for the next half-minute or so, which is a long time for a pause in the middle of a conversation.

  "My mother was Indian."

  "And your daddy?"

  Here Art took a deep breath.

  "Peddled whisky on the reservations. Or at least I'm told he did. I never knew him. My mother was his best customer. You can probably guess how she paid him, considering I'm sitting here talking to you. Since she was in no state to raise a little one, the other squaws mostly banded together and took care of me. They say every man is a product of his environment, and my environment included ten mothers, no fathers and more confusion than is generally considered beneficial to the welfare of children."

  "When did you leave the reservation?"

  "When they passed that damn Boarding School Act. I was ten years old when they sent me to a white school. I didn't fit in with the white kids there and I didn't fit in with the Indian kids there, so I mostly spent my time with the workhorses and with some stray dogs the schoolmaster fed with scraps. Without the company of those animals, I think I would've gone crazy. I suppose in a way I did, what with all the fussing I did after I ran away. I did that when I was twelve, and I spent the next five years doing whatever it took to keep an Indian boy alive on the streets, none of which I'm willing to talk about, for the appetites dreamt up in some of those frontier towns are unfit for the ears of a good woman like yourself. One day I hitched a ride into Laramie. I figured I'd stay a few days, maybe a week. I ended up staying fifteen years."

  Art lit a new cigarette and took a deep sucking drag, which he held so long the smoke all but disappeared.

  "Everyone has trials and tribulations, Mabel. Everyone. I've been alive for fifty-three years, and in that time I've learned one thing and one thing only. There ain't a problem on this great green earth helped by feeling sorry for yourself. Nope, not one."

  Art looked out the window, his teeth moving and his moustache bobbing the way it did when he was deep in thought. Suddenly his face lightened. He clamped his elbows to his sides and gave a little shake.

  "It's chilly in here. You know what we should do? We should go to the dining car and get some ice cream. Whenever you catch a chill you should eat something cold-suck on an ice cube, say, or locate a polar bar. It makes the temperature outside your mouth feel warm by comparison, and when you really think about it, warmth by comparison is about the only type of warmth there is."

  To which I looked at him adoringly and thought, Oh, Art. Please.

  Soon after, the train took a turn south and we crossed over the state line into Texas. There was an hour's whistle stop in Dallas, during which we got out and stretched our legs and each had a barbecued turkey leg. We got back on board, and it was outside of Houston that Art stood and started putting clothes into his suitcase. I looked at him questioningly, a look that caused him to grin and stop packing for a second and say, "This is our stop, Mrs. Rooney. I'd get myself ready to go, if I were you."

  I hurried to get my things together. When the train next stopped, a Negro porter came and took our things and carried them to the platform, Art instructing him to check them at the baggage counter. When all that was done he tipped the porter, who thanked Art and strode off whistling. Art took a deep breath and had an admiring look around the high glass-ceilinged station.

  "Well, Art," I said. "I know you want to keep me guessing, and my guess is since you've checked our bags, Houston isn't our final destination, and that maybe you want to do a little sightseeing before we move on. Am I in the right ballpark?"

  "You are, Mabel. I have a little Ringling business to attend to here in Houston, but other than that you're right on the money."

  We left the station and Art hired a taxicab and we crossed downtown, Art saying nothing but smiling like he had something up his sleeve. As for me, I'd been to Houston many times previously, and had always marvelled at what an ugly town it was, a reaction I was pretty much having again. I suppose the problem was it was more or less a port, meaning most of the buildings were either warehouses storing whatever came through Galveston Bay via steamship, or darkened hotels frequented by seamen on shore leave. What Houston didn't have was the normal upside to big city life, that being restaurants and markets and theatres and people everywhere. Why this was, I wasn't sure, and the only thing I could think was that Houstonites grew so used to staying put during the sweltering heat of summer they forgot to break the habit when the weather got more agreeable.

  After ten minutes or so, we stopped in front of a squat building indistinguishable from all the other low buildings on whatever street we were on, except there was a sign on the door reading "Peterson & Co., Animal Traders." Art rang the doorbell. After a bit, a man answered, his face breaking into a smile when he saw Art.

  We all went in, Art introducing me as his new wife and Peterson as one of the most respected men in the animal wholesale business. We were in a giant room filled with animals of every description, and we had to speak loudly to be heard over the noise. The air was thick with dander, and though I found it unpleasant to breathe, Art didn't look like it was bothering him in the least.

  Art told Peterson he needed to replace three animals: a camel that'd just died of fever, an elephant who'd passed on from old age and a llama that'd gone deaf and could no longer follow instructions during the pell-mell of the opening spec. Peterson nodded and told him to take a good long look around, and to let him know if there was anything else that caught Art's eye, for most of the animals had just come in and were as yet unspoken for. Peterson wandered off, leaving Art and me to roam up and down aisles crammed with crates and cages and large wooden boxes, each filled with an animal either sleeping or sniffing at the spaces between slats. Truth be told, I found it all a little sad, for the animals obviously weren't getting enough sunlight (or loving, for that matter), and I felt guilty for creating a need for this kind of traffic in creatures.

  Art, too, looked a little displeased.

  "The shipment must've been from South America," he said, pointing around as if to indicate he wasn't about to find an elephant or a camel among them. He did pick out a llama, saying it was a nice healthy spe
cimen with good-sized hooves and a temperament that could be worked with. Art then invited me to have a peruse, which I was already doing. After a few minutes, I found a crate carrying two ocelots, which interested me because they weren't the local variety but had come all the way from Patagonia, meaning they were smaller and their coats more mottled. Though I couldn't work them, ocelots not being anywhere big enough to thrill a crowd, I did think they'd be an interesting addition to the menage, and when I told this to Art he bought the pair as well. After filling out some paperwork in Peterson's office, we stepped outside. A grey coupe was parked at the curb, and our bags were piled up in the rumble seat.

  "Well," Peterson said, "there she is. I just had her serviced, so as long as you don't hit anything you won't have any trouble. You two have a good time and ..."

  He said something else, though I didn't hear it because by then Art had taken the turn and had started the engine and was revving it to make sure the gas flowed properly. I climbed in and we all waved and there were smiles all round and then we were off. Over the sound of the motor ratcheting itself up to travelling speed, Art explained he'd been able to borrow the motorcar because Peterson was not a bad sort and because the circus bought as many animals as all of Peterson's other clients put together. Art then looked at me, blinked, and said mostly it was the second reason.

  I smiled, not because of Art's witticism but because I was starting to feel like we really were on vacation: the top was down and wind was flapping our hair and once we got away from the homeliness of the city we started passing cypress trees and pines and live-oaks and it was all pretty, every bit of it. The bay road was mostly sand, meaning we got dry-mouthed pretty quickly, so after a bit we stopped at a tiny little town where everyone wore suspenders and chewed on toothpicks. There was a general store, where we bought glasses of lemonade and jerky for when we got hungry later. Art also had the presence of mind to chat up a local sitting at the counter, who upon hearing what we were doing offered us a pail of water to pour over the radiator.