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

by Robert Hough

  These, then, were my memories of my honeymoon, my final recollection being the delicious sadness I felt the day we packed our clothes, said goodbye to Bertha Wain, took one last look at the Gulf of Mexico and drove the Ford back to Houston. There we spent a night in a hotel before starting our train ride back, a ride that for some reason seemed twice as long as it had on the way out. Fortunately, we'd stocked up on dime novels to keep us occupied, the only problem being at times I'd feel so excited and happy at the prospect of starting our lives together I couldn't even focus on the words. Breathless, I was, and a little delirious because of it.

  The first thing I did upon stepping off the train was go see Rajah, who'd spent the entire week in his cage seeing as there hadn't been a cage boy willing to take him out and walk him. Having not seen him for a week, I took in his appearance with new eyes. He hadn't been worked seriously for five years, so in addition to growing foul-tempered he'd swelled to almost six hundred pounds, a size nearly impossible on a Bengal. Mostly he looked shaggy and old and huge. I went in and tried brushing him, but his hair was matted and I didn't have the steel-tooth brush. To make matters worse, he kept rolling away from me, a way of showing he was definitely and without reservation pissed off. To appease him I tried stroking the soft spot between his front legs, though he'd have none of it, growling and gently batting me away with the back of a paw. "Rajah!" I said, "What's gotten into you?" and was then he purred and rolled over and sidled up toward me and started rubbing himself against me. I sighed and moved away, something that seemed to wound him even more than being left a full week in a cage. He bellowed, and then roared, and then waved a paw in my face, and I was starting to think it might be smarter if I got myself out of there when a switch got thrown inside Rajah and he turned into a sulky old kitty. He came over and sank his head into my lap and licked my palms. I stayed a good long time with Rajah that day, and when I left it was with the promise things were going to get back to normal and he'd have lots of time outside of his cage and he was not to worry, I wasn't about to let my prize wrestler turn into a skulky old menage cat anytime soon.

  Art and I spent much of the holidays opening presents the workingmen had brought to our wedding. A lot of them were things you would've expected: half pints of rye whisky and decks of playing cards and stacks of poker chips. But mixed in were gifts that tugged hard at the heartstrings. One of the stake pounders had his momma make up a recipe book of southern dishes, like ham hocks and black-eyed peas and a few dozen rice-with-okra combinations, all of which I'm partial to. Another gave us a soap carving of a tiger riding an elephant, which was so realistic from a distance it looked like polished ivory. (I'd have it still, except one day I accidentally left it by an open window and rain got at it.) One burly old white workingman, who'd been with the show for years and was therefore called Mayor, gave us a big rusty latchkey, which he'd obviously found in a field somewhere. He'd then glued it to a plaque, above the words "Art and Mabel's key to the city."

  By the new year, I'd started spending a lot of time working with the eight Ringling tigers, reacquainting them with the idea of doublehoop jumping and rope walking so they'd be ready to join the Robinson show at mid-season. I also figured I better get Rajah's head around doing his wrestling act again, so early one freezing cold February morning I went and got him, and instead of taking our usual walk through the yard I led him to one of the training arenas. It was cold that day, his breath rolling like San Francisco fog. He took his seat command without a fuss. I turned my back to him, and acted like I was stupid and deaf in front of a howling audience. I whistled, and soon after understood I had a problem, for instead of playfully jetting off his pedestal he growled and dismounted and lumbered gracelessly toward me, standing on his hind legs and hitting me hard on the shoulders with his paws. I hit the frozen ground hard. Rajah flopped on me, and roughly did his business. Wasn't any playfullness or affection or hammy acting involved, just a cat relieving himself on whatever was available and even as I was being rubbed against I knew it'd look nothing but vulgar to an audience of rubes.

  That night, Art had a look at the plate-sized bruises on the back of my shoulders. He also helped me wrap bandages around my wrists, both of which were aching.

  "Mabel," he said when he was done, "I suppose you know Rajah won't be getting any better."

  I sighed. Art was right, rogueness being something that always sets in sooner or later, the bottom line being in Rajah's case it'd happened much later than normal and for that I should've been grateful. Still, it was a disappointment and a sadness, though at the same time it was one I could live with seeing as there was so much good in my life. And when I say good, understand I mean better than good, wonderful even, for there we were, Art and I, a night or two later, nude and warm and snuggling in bed, a place where the truest sorts of conversations take place.

  "Mabel," he says.

  "Yes, Art."

  "I have an idea."

  "You usually do."

  "The one thing still missing from your life is the squalling of a little one, which is a problem that's not about to go away all on its own and for which I can see only one possible solution."

  "And what might that be? Immaculate conception, maybe?"

  "Nope. We adopt."

  I laugh out loud.

  "For Pete's sake, Art. Who on God's green earth is going to give a baby to a pair of troupers, one of who's been in jail and one of who's been in a loony bin, no less?"

  "Well, of course it won't be a baby with a complexion anything like yours. But if you can stomach a baby with my ruddiness times a factor of two, I can tell you for a fact there are a lot of Indian toddlers out there who need any kind of parent they can get."

  I turned my head, and saw he wasn't smiling or kidding or pulling my leg. We talked a bit more, the tone of our voices lowering in volume and gaining in warmth, and before you know it a plan came together: after Art and I finished the year with the Ringling and Robinson shows, we'd regroup in Peru and head South Dakota way. There we'd scrounge ourselves up an Oglala baby, Art being part Oglala himself and therefore partial to the idea. Just hearing Art's closing words on the subject-"This time next year you'll be somebody's mother, Mabel"-made my heart skitter. So I lay holding myself, knowing sleep wasn't going to come easily, not that night, for I was feeling as breathless as I'd felt on the train ride home, and to make matters worse I couldn't stop thinking how amazing it is that the moment you start thinking a thing can't happen is generally the same moment it does.

  Two weeks later, the circus started the season with its annual stadium show at Madison Square Garden in New York. This meant I had the privilege of watching Clyde Beatty's act twice daily, Beatty having added another Nubian who was more ragged and unkempt and bitter than the other four cats put together. Now. When watching his act that spring of 1927, did I get furious at the way he beat his animals? At the stupidity of rubes for cheering him? At the fact it was him down there, soaking up applause, turning famous, being mobbed by White Tops reporters and generally basking in the limelight that comes from being center-arena Ringling? A little. I admit it. But the point is only a little, for it mostly felt like Beatty was a joke on a grand scale, designed to show the world that someone up there has a good sense of humour rather than a malevolence about him. That's how good I was feeling. (Art, meanwhile, fumed his way through each and every Beatty performance, one matinee actually turning to me and saying, in a voice half joking and half not, "I wish one of those Nubians would use a pistol on him.")

  After New York, the circus moved to Boston, where we did the other stadium show of the year. After that, we started moving like a real circus, jumping every night, mostly clinging to the eastern seaboard though with the odd, quick jaunt inland. When a circus of that size goes on the move, everyone gets busy, busier than you probably think is possible, though that year my busyness was twofold. I was still riding High School for the Ringling show while trying to get the eight cats ready for the Robinson show and at the
same time trying to figure out how I could include big old Rajah in an act without another tiger getting hurt. There wasn't a second when something didn't need doing, when a tiger hadn't chipped a tooth or the hay hadn't gone mulchy in the feed car or my horse hadn't stepped on a piece of glass and needed it pulled from its hoof. Trying to do all this, I slept maybe five hours a night, something that didn't bother me for I was so excited about the turns my life was taking I found I couldn't relax enough to sleep anyway. One night, around early March, maybe two o'clock in the morning, I was struggling to sleep when I looked over at Art, who was lying there with a heaviness and a stillness suggesting permanence. A notion popped into my head, a notion that made my eyes widen even though it was dark in the Pullman and there wasn't a whole lot to see other than Art's moustache quivering as he drew breath.

  Oh my, was the thought. Oh my, oh my, oh my.

  He's here to stay.

  The following morning came up smoky, by which I mean cool the night before though intending to get hotter, causing a puffy haze that dampened everything from the shin on down. The train had pulled in sometime during the night, meaning by the time I got up the lot was alive with the frenzied, beehive activity that always predicts the putting-up of canvas. I went to the cookhouse and had coffee and eggs with Art, who then rushed off to oversee the construction of the menage tent. I had a few minutes off before they unloaded the tiger cages, and seeing as I couldn't sit still I thought I'd take my second cup of the day outside while strolling the connection and watching the circus getting built. By then the centre poles were up, the big top in the air and wafting, and the elephants getting ready to work on the half poles. A group of stake drivers were pounding in the pegs that the sidewall lines would be attached to. I stopped to watch, for it was always a thing of beauty, watching the stake pounders do their job: armed with a sixteen-pound sledge, they'd hit the peg with the full weight of their backs and shoulders and then deflect the head of the hammer in a single smooth strongarmed motion. A split second would pass before the head of the stake was hit by the next Negro. Had someone made a mistake, such as glancing off the stake or pulling away the sledge too slowly, hammers would've collided and the rhythm lost and maybe someone hurt. It never happened; with five men around a single stake, the sound was like Tommy-gun fire, the stake sinking not in a series of jolts but in a motion that was practically seamless, each man taking three hits until only the stake head and the knot of the sidewall line showed above turf. Then all of them would move, in step, to the next stake. As they worked, they chanted, providing a rhythm for their pounding. Working this way, they could sink three or four stakes into the earth every minute, meaning the whole tent would be done in about an hour.

  I stood watching, gleeful as gleeful gets, when it happened: a pair of unseen hands descended from the air and clamped themselves around my rib cage. I took a deep breath, only to find I couldn't quite draw in enough air to satisfy whatever urge it is that makes us take a deep breath in the first place. At the same time, I was feeling dizzy and claustrophobic, which is a weird way to feel when you're out in the open. Thinking maybe I'd caught something, I went over to a bench set up next to the after-show tent and I lay on it and closed my eyes. After a few minutes the sensation had decreased enough I could pretend it wasn't there.

  Then, two days later, I was standing outside the blue curtain during the performance, surrounded by other performers waiting for their displays, when I felt those hands reach around me and squeeze and not let go. A small puff of air left my lips, causing a quiet gasp, and I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. I took a deep breath, again found I couldn't get enough air and decided I better do something about it. With my head lowered slightly, I took off down the connection and found the tent where Doc Ketchum dealt with illnesses and injuries. I told him what was happening, and with a puzzled expression on his face he suggested I try breathing into a small brown paper bag, which he then provided. I lay down and breathed into the bag, the paper crumpling and ballooning with each breath, my mouth and air passages filling with the dry taste of brown paper. To help further, Doc Ketchum snuffed out his lamp, making the tent dark and restful.

  "Now you keep doing that, Mabel, and I'll be back."

  About ten minutes went by before he came back and lit his lamp. He asked if I was feeling any better, and when I told him I was he suggested I carry a brown paper bag in case this ever happened again. "That," he added, "and maybe you should get a little rest."

  Right then and there I made a decision to do the bare minimum with my tigers, figuring so what if they were a little rusty when I moved them over to John Robinson. I also pledged to eat better and get more rest and relax more in the evenings with Art, playing cribbage or reading books or shooting the breeze or turning off the lights and pursuing a little married-couple enjoyment. But the odd thing? The thing should've told me trouble was brewing? I didn't tell Art about my shortness-of-breath problem, a fact nothing short of bizarre seeing as I told him everything about everything. Art didn't notice I was acting funny, or if he did he didn't mention it.

  Most likely it was the former, for he'd gone out and bought a baby-name book and was spending his evenings poring over it, saying each name out loud in as many different ways as the name could be said, as though trying to unlock the mystery behind the way it sounded. ("Abigail. Hmmm. Abigail. Abigail. Has a nice a ring to it, don't you think, Mabel?")

  For the next week I was fine-no dizziness, no tight-chest feeling, no sensation the world was somehow unreal and I wasn't a part of it. Then, late one afternoon, I was walking down the connection when it hit with a fury I can barely bring myself to describe. It was as though those big hands had found their way inside my chest and were applying themselves directly to my lungs. Tears came to my eyes, jiggling my vision. I started choking.

  I happened to be passing the menage, and though my initial impulse was to visit Doc Ketchum, I didn't do that; instead, I found myself hobbling into the tent and fighting to pull in lungfuls of dander and elephant smell. I found my way to Rajah's cage. I let myself in and sat down beside him, doing all I could to catch my breath. The remains of a shank-it was split in three places, the marrow scooped-lay beside him, which probably explained why my big tiger was asleep, licking his lips and no doubt dreaming about earlier days. I patted him and felt sorry for what happens to old male circus cats.

  "Oh, Rajah," I said in a soft voice. "The problems this world'll think up."

  Rajah swept his tail in a wide arc across the floor until it came to rest against my thigh. I held it, thinking of all the times I'd given him bottles of warmed goat's milk in the middle of the night back when he'd been a kitten and Louis Roth my husband, and since it was a memory that made me feel maudlin I was glad to be there, at that very moment, with my baby tiger. Dreamy, I felt, and disconnected, like maybe I didn't understand why fear had to be such a big part of being alive. Without really understanding why, I reached out and took one of Rajah's big paws and petted it, saying, "It's all right, Rajah. It's all right. I don't know how I'll do it but I swear your retirement won't be spent in this awful old cage." I turned his paw over, and ran my fingers over the pebbly underpadding. Doing so made me feel tingly and warm. Again, without really thinking, I found the spot between the pads that makes a tigers' claws pop out, and I pushed with both thumbs. They came into view, not so much popping into sight, but rising slowly, like they were being inflated. They'd grown jagged and sharp, and I swore as soon as I was able I'd give myself a few hours with Rajah to groom his coat and file his nails and clean his teeth. It was a crime the way I'd been treating Rajah, it really was, especially considering all we'd been through. I noticed I was breathing a little better, just being with Rajah, and I placed the inside of my forearm against the tips of his claws, the sharp curving points making an impression in skin. I pulled, opening up the first layer and leaving three straight, bubbling red shallow furrows. As I did, I sighed. It felt wonderful, all that pressure in my chest releasing
, a fine mist puffing from the openings in my arm and sifting through the steel arena bars.

  A minute went by, with me just watching the blood seep to the surface of my arm, when I popped out of my trance. My head jerked from side to side, to see if anybody had noticed, and a keen embarrassment set in. I unrolled my sleeve and held the material to the three red lines on my arm. Every time I pulled the sleeve away, the wounds looked like they'd stopped bleeding, but then after a few seconds blood would start rising to the surface and I'd have to clamp the material of my blouse to the skin again. It grew sticky and orange in spots, though after a bit the flow was more or less staunched. I fast-walked back to our Pullman suite and applied some carbol and when the whole thing was clean and not bleeding at all I changed my blouse, throwing the other away so there wouldn't be any evidence.