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

by Robert Hough

  "Don't come back, all right? I mean it. This is silly."

  He looked at me sadly, for about as long as it takes to blink slowly three times. Then he promised he wouldn't, if that's what I wanted, but before he left he handed me a card and told me if I ever changed my mind I could cable him, day or night, let him know I was coming and no matter what he'd be waiting when I got there. Then he gave me a pitiful little nod of the head and left me eyeballing a gold-embossed business card. It read

  James Williams III Investments and Annuities

  and it was one of those moments a thought you're not proud of pops into your head and you examine it with surprise and more than a little self-contempt before chasing it away.

  Keep the card, Mary.

  It was so hot and dusty that year by the time we made it to our last stops in the panhandle it'd started to feel like we'd been condemned to wander Texas for the rest of our natural-born lives. Everyone was bored and mad and restless, which is what happens to troupers when you force them to stay in the same state for an extended stretch-it feels like confinement and it cheeses them off. The animals were nervous and losing hair, and a lot of the workingmen were drinking and the ones who weren't had taken off, Con T. having to recruit more stake drivers and roustabouts from local men's hostels so of course they were drinking nonstop as was their nature.

  Now. You take a group of sober men and place them next to a bunch of drunk men and the sober ones'll feel deprived, and believe me the thing men hate worse than anything on earth is feeling deprived. It's their greatest weakness. Go all crybaby, they do, probably from being spoiled by their mothers. So of course the drunkenness spread to the wranglers and the sideshow freaks and a goodly number of performers, the upshot being by the time we pulled into Lubbock we were all feeling crusty and in no mood, and in addition most of the men were suffering from headaches and the shakes.

  Lubbock. Christ. Was practically biblical in its awfulness, and I'm a woman who's read the Bible more than once so I know what I'm talking about. When the China call went up and we all looked out the train window ... well, a sigh went round. The town was low and it was ugly, sitting in a dust cloud the colour of dried blood. When we detrained it got even worse, for Lubbock appeared on the schedule the same time of year the panhandle got eaten up by locusts, and as we moved our bags to the wagons those big old bugs set to work, flapping in our hair, running over our clothes, getting inside our shirts, their fat little frog-sized hindlegs rubbing together to produce an evil, gloating hum. Every towner who could be indoors was, meaning we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was like a ghost town. Main Street was perfectly still, or would've been were it not for a hot wind blowing in from the plains, stirring up paper and scrub and brown-red dust. It got in your mouth and hair, choked the back of your throat and sent even the teetotallers on the show running for the nearest beer.

  So I went with them. The place was called the Town Inn, a big old saloon with only a few locals inside drinking when the entire cast of the Parker Carnival funnelled in. Whatever conversations had been going on stopped, townfolk generally regarding carnies as unwashed gypsies who dress themselves by stealing shirts off townie clotheslines, an idea incorrect only in the gypsy part: in all my years of trouping I never once met an actual gypsy though it's true we lived like them. No matter. When the barkeep saw we had money the draft beer started flowing and soon the room filled with chatter. I sat with the other Dancing Girls, even though their chumminess had worn off considerably since I'd been named Little Egypt. Still, was a day we girls needed to stick together, for of all the people drinking beer in that bar to forget their glumness we dancing girls were by far the glummest, Lubbock being known as a town where the dancers more often than not got called on to help square the grift. Even as we sat there gulping, we knew Con T. was meeting with the chief of police to work out the details, the police in Lubbock being so mean and drunk and full of themselves they refused to barter with the advance agent, insisting on speaking with the boss man himself.

  An hour later the call went out: Con T. needed to talk to me. As I walked over to Con T's tent it felt a little like the time I walked toward a bloody heap on an untitled tobacco field and nothing would make me believe it was my mother until I saw it all up close. I was going to have to fuck some fat greasy southern cop. That much was obvious. Yet as I went over there my mind took a little breather. If you'd asked me my name I probably would've looked at you blankly and said nothing more edifying than "Huh?"

  It was when I walked through those tent flaps and saw Con T. sitting there, smoking a cigar and looking guilty, that reality came storming back. Started to tremble, I did.

  He motioned for me to sit. I kickstarted the tete-a-tete.

  "What's it gonna be, boss?"

  "Usual stuff. Money. Whisky. Free tickets. A girl. I'm sorry, Mary. Seems Little Egypt's reputation has spread far and wide."

  "His name?"

  "Owen Lakes."

  "What's he like?"

  "Can't say he's a charmer."

  "What do I have to do?"

  "Go to his house. Be there at five. Have dinner. Dance with him if he asks. Wear your costume, of course."

  I stared back, blinking, all the while searching my brain for a tactful way of handling this. One didn't come. In Hopkinsville, I'd sworn I'd never deal with someone trying to take advantage by acting nice and cute and hoping they'd take pity. But seeing as I was sitting in the office of Con T. Kennedy himself, brother-in-law of the great C. W. Parker and therefore a man with clout, I tried chasing it away and landing on a strategy a little more compromising.

  Sure enough it didn't come, leaving me no choice but to do what I did. Got tired of waiting, I suppose.

  "Nope," I said.

  His face fell. His mouth looked like a pair of dropped pants.

  "Whaddaya mean, no?"

  "I mean what I say, Mr. Kennedy. This being the panhandle and the rough bit besides, I can picture Owen Lakes and what I'm picturing is fat and rude and sweating buckets, and I bet he's unkind to children and animals to boot. Under no circumstances will I go to his house, eat his food, listen to his music or in any way help him feel like a man. The answer is no. En Oh. You like Lakes so much you give him foxtrot lessons.

  It was obvious no one had ever talked to Con T. Kennedy this way, much less a lowly dancing girl. He got up and circled round his desk and came toward me. I stood to meet him, and we both made our eyes go snake-like.

  "Now you listen to me you little piece of West Kentucky trash. If it weren't for me you'd still be making wallets in the nuthouse so I'll say this one time and one time only. Tonight you will be entertaining the chief of police of the town of Lubbock, Texas, and you will be charming and you will be polite and when he asks you to dance you will say, `Oh, wonderful I saw your cylinder player I thought you was never going to ask.' Am I making myself clear, Miss Mary whatever-you'recalling-yourself these days?"

  "Sure are. And I hope I'm making myself clear too. I wouldn't go near that sewer rat if William H. Taft asked me and I certainly won't go near him for the likes of you."

  "You will!"

  "I won't!"

  "Goddammit, you will!"

  "Goddammit, I will not!"

  Con T. Kennedy, brother-in-law of C. W. Parker and in charge for that reason only, chose that moment to put his cigar back in his mouth. This freed up his dominant hand so he could use the back of it to slap me across the face. Was something men did to women all the time back then; still do, I imagine, though it's mostly moved behind closed doors for the laws against it seem to get used more.

  He'd swung from the elbow, meaning he hadn't hit me hard, though was hard enough my right cheek stung and my vision went jiggly and wet. At this point I knew I was supposed to give in, to suddenly pretend I'd come to my senses. Con T. had already put his cigar back in his mouth and gained that smug expression men get when they think they've dealt with a situation. It was this smugness I couldn't stand, more so than bei
ng smacked, so when I hit him back I threw from the shoulder, clipping him sufficiently hard the cigar flew out of his mouth and he bent over, holding his nose.

  Now, when it comes to men, all you have to do is make the word vulnerable pop into their heads and they slink off like wounded boys, completely amazed someone's challenged their kingly status. (Lions are the same way, which I suppose is a reason I've always favoured tigers-punch a tiger in the face and he'll practically weep with gratitude you at least tried to make things interesting.)

  Con T. straightened up. He was sputtering and pale and his eyes were messed with respect and he fought to get his breath. When he did, his yelling sounded high-pitched and girly, the content being more or less "You get the hell outta here, you're through you're fired I'll see to it your name's ruined you'll never work in this business again" to which I said, "Yeah well fuck you and your shitty little two-bit grifter show," which was quite an insult seeing as the Parker show unit two was probably the biggest carnival in the country.

  By the time I hit the midway all eyes were turned and peering through dust. I couldn't calm my breathing, and the bones in my hand were aching fiercely. To simmer down I decided to go visit Al G., he being the only real friend I had on the show. Thankfully, his tent was up and he was in it, dressed impeccably as always, from his spats to his double-buttoned vest to his clean white straw boater, none of which had been dirtied by the air's brown dust. He was drinking a pale green liquid with Dan. When I entered they both looked up, Al G. giving me his charmer's grin. He pulled a chair for me and invited me to join them and I wanted to kiss him I was so thankful. Dan, meanwhile, looked rubbery with concern.

  "So," Al G. said through a grin, "unless I miss my guess the Great Parker Carnival will be leaving Lubbock prematurely?"

  "Looks that way," I said, though by then I was starting to come apart a little. Was all that adrenalin backing up and getting stuck now the fight was over; if you've never had it happen, believe me it hurts a fair bit more than the fist-swinging part. Trembly, I was, with a stomach ache thrown in. Plus I didn't have anywhere to go, again, something I'd learned to fear more than anything. I started blubbering, so Al G. gave me a finger of the apple brandy he bought in Amarillo and advised me to drink it down. This settled me enough to tell him I was thinking of marrying a Texan I'd met out Beaumont way.

  "You love him?"

  "Nope. You think that's wrong?"

  "Kentucky," he answered, "please. There are so few things in this world that are just plain wrong. Murder, maybe, though even that can be a matter of necessity. Am I right, Dan?"

  "You right, governor," Dan said, smiling now himself. "You just plain right."

  I finished my drink so Al G. gave me another. As I wasn't a drinker, it hit me like a ton of hens, which was good because I needed a whole lot of courage to do what needed doing. Which was: stagger back to the Dancing Girls tent, announce the Little Egypt position was vacant, thank them sarcastically for their affection and support and loyalty, and tote out my unpacked bag.

  Then I walked through dust and bugs and heat to the railway station, arriving bitten and hot and bedraggled. Bought myself water and coffee and a sandwich and got them all into me before taking the same train out of town that'd taken me into town.

  I sat beside a housewife from Dallas and across from a Bible salesman from Utah. Basically I forced myself to chin-up, and by the time we hit our first stop, some rinky-dink place I can't remember the name of, I was starting to think what'd happened was not entirely bad.

  In Dallas I sent a cable to the Texan. He came promptly.

  I told him it had to be a city hall wedding, that I wasn't one for pomp and circumstance and was one for small numbers, such as, oh, I dunno, let's say for the sake of argument, two and two only? Course, my already having a husband back in Louisville along with a committal warrant bearing my name was the real reason any kind of production was low on my list of priorities. He agreed right off, which surprised me, for I'd heard Texans liked to do everything big, and I figured he'd want a giant banquet with an orchestra and shrimp cocktails and Chinese fireworks and sides of beef roasting over mesquite plus the entire population of Beaumont thrown in for good measure. Maybe it was him living so close to Louisiana, Cajuns generally being happier with simple things than Texans.

  So I got married as Mary Haynie of Princeton, Kentucky, and became Mary Williams of Beaumont, Texas. I liked it that way, for it was as though Mary Aganosticus of Louisville had never even existed. Afterwards, we took the train all the way to San Francisco, which was fine by me, California being far away from Kentucky, a place I wanted to forget forever and most particularly on my honeymoon. We ate in the Continental and afterwards took a caleche to the Regency. Our suite contained a French sofa and teak sitting furniture and a pondsized four-poster. The bathroom was the size of the car where I'd slept with the Dancing Girls of Baghdad. We drank champagne on our balcony, overlooking a bay gone beautiful with mist and boat lanterns. From below we could hear the clip-clop of hooves and the foghorns of freighters on the water. When it got chilly James suggested we go inside, which was fine by me. I wasn't nervous, or at least not unduly, for I was eager to figure out if my body could do what a woman's body ought to be able to do, or whether my not being able to have a baby was just hokum dreamed up to get me out of Dimitri Aganosticus's hair.

  I told James I needed to get myself prepared, at which point little Mrs. James Williams of Beaumont, Texas, retired to the Pullmancar-sized bathroom, where an assortment of powders and lotions and mists were applied to various and sundry bodily portions. A silky little nothing of a negligee, the product of two weeks' worth of cherry pie, was pulled on. I looked magnificent. I just did. I opened the door to the rest of the suite. James was waiting in bed, wearing pyjamas, and before crawling in beside him I noticed his initials were on the breast pocket. He leaned over. Gave me a quick kiss on the mouth. I settled back for more, confident that under such circumstances I'd soon be overcome and with the moist openness they talk about nowadays in romance novels.

  Well. Did that happen? Did that happen to the misted and powdered and negligee-wearing Little Egypt of the Great Parker Carnival company, unit two? To the greatest sexpot this side of the Mississippi? Not on your auntie. James said good-night, rolled over and began snoring like a fat man.

  All of this was severely curious business, for back when he used to watch me from the last row of the Superba his eyes practically flamed, even though the rest of him stayed still and respectful. I put it down to his age and the long day we'd had. Maybe he'd been tuckered by all the excitement. I, on the other hand, couldn't sleep, a problem that's bothered me my whole life, so I lay awake thinking about everything under the sun, the trouble with sleeplessness being that things you'd thought you'd put behind you have a way of popping up and staring you in the face and demanding attention.

  Next day we started home, three full days through desert, looking at sand and cactus and rickety wood-plank towns that looked like their whole purpose was to give fire something to do. We ate in the first-class dining car and spent our nights in a first-class coach, him sleeping and me staring up at the ceiling while thinking, Huh?

  Finally we reached Beaumont. From the town square James hired a Negro wagon driver to squire us along country roads and lanes; while I'd been told the house was out of town, I'd never imagining it'd be this out of town. Having passed miles and miles of cotton fields, swampy forest and squatters' shacks, James finally said, "Here we are," as we turned onto a narrow two-track lane.

  We came over the rise, and there it was, his house, the sight of which made me say "Oh, my lord" under my breath. It was big all right, and getting bigger as we approached up a long driveway lined with live-oaks. I suppose most women would've been pleased, for you don't really understand how rich a man is until you see his house, and I admit a part of me was tickled pink: I may not look like much but I'm smart enough to know this bit about money not buying happiness is pure malarkey, the s
imple truth being rich people are happier than poor people on account of the things poor people have to do whenever the slightest bit of trouble flares up. So part of me was ecstatic. At the same time I was nervous, for in true antebellum style the house had marble steps and Greek columns and a high arching door; when put together under a coat of creamy white paint it looked a whole lot like the loony bin in Hopkinsville. I felt my shoulders levitate to my ears and my mouth parch. In fact I wanted to say, Let's live somewhere else, James, except he would've responded, Why, darling? and the fact of the matter was, at age twenty-three, I had secrets.

  We went inside.

  "Do you like it?" he asked, and of course I told him I did. As I took a look around-well, more turned on my heels with my mouth gaping-he rang a bell and before I knew it a pair of Negro women, each built like an elk, was standing in front of me.

  "This is Melba, the cook, and this is Willa, our maid."

  "Pleased to meet you."

  "Our pleasure," they said, the flatness in their voices suggesting it was anything but. Worse, they finished up by muttering the word ma'am, which I found embarrassing seeing as I was half their ages and had figured my addressing them as ma'am might be more in keeping.

  James took me on a tour. Quite proud of his house, he was; like all homes of that size it'd been in the family for generations. He took me from room to room to room. There were nineteen of them, not counting the cellar. In them were crystal chandeliers and Persian carpets and mahogony furniture and fine bone china and oil paintings in gilt frames. Beyond that, I won't go into any detail, for counting another person's riches is boring. I'm only mentioning the man's wealth so if later I tell you material things don't impress me you'll know it's a statement coming from a woman who, for a brief period of time, was about as rich as rich gets.