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

by Robert Hough

  "Mabel!" he said. "How in Sam Hill you doing?"

  I let a pause go by.

  "Better come, Roger. Better come."

  He got there shortly after the supper hour. I didn't answer the door, seeing as I couldn't hear him over the TV and two radios blaring. Luckily, he had the smarts to come on in, finding me on the living room sofa.

  esus."

  First thing he did was run around and turn off all the racket, and then he galloped into the kitchen and grabbed me a glass of water and a hunk of Velveeta. Though I pushed them away, he insisted, and figuring he was a guest in the house I eventually became amenable to getting something in my system.

  First thing I said to him was, "Oh, Roger, why in the hell didn't you tell me Chief and Tyndall were still working?"

  "I was afraid to, Miss Stark."

  "Goddammit, Roger. I feel like a fool."

  "Plus I figured Parly was going to."

  "Well, maybe he should've."

  After that, it got difficult to communicate. Roger mostly kept his eyes fixed on the carpeting, and he kept rotating his wedding ring, something he tended to do when nervous. Course, I wasn't helping, which was strange given a few hours earlier he was the only one on earth I figured could stop me from doing something desperate. Maybe it was my last shred of dignity talking.

  Roger's face lightened and the corners of his mouth sneaked upward. "Miss Stark. I was wondering if you might let me show you something."

  "Depends what it is."

  "If you're curious, you'll just have to wait and see."

  Here I asked him a few more questions about the nature of the surprise. Roger wouldn't answer any of them; instead, he rose to his feet and kept shaking his head and saying, "No no no, Miss Stark. You're just going to have to trust me. We'd better hurry or we'll miss it."

  Here I figured if I couldn't trust a person like Roger then there wasn't much point in trusting, period. Getting to my feet was difficult given all the Hamm's I'd poured into myself, though once I did I let Roger guide me outside the house to his car. Course, he did this by putting two fingers on my elbow just like the police officer had.

  We got into his car and headed northeast on Highway 5. Roger drove faster than the speed limit, which I ordinarily wouldn't've tolerated. After about half an hour, we got so we could see the foothills of the Tehachapis, which I knew well for I'd crossed them every year I was on the Barnes show. We drove a bit more, neither one of us saying anything. Then Roger made a right onto another smaller road, this one unmarked and gravelly, like the kind ranchers use. Only you could tell this one wasn't in use anymore, for the space between the tire ruts had grown over with weeds and chaparral. Probably the land had been bought up by developers willing to let it sit idle until the value went up.

  "Roger, where are we going?" I asked.

  Instead of answering the question he looked at his watch and said, "Oh good, Miss Stark, we're here right on time." It was dusk, the shadows lanky.

  We followed along the little path as it inclined a drumlin. I pretended to be cranky, saying, "Jesus Christ, Roger, you're going to get a tire stuck," though I was doing it mostly to hide the fact my curiosity had been pricked and pricked good.

  Roger stopped the car just as the lane turned into a footpath. We were parked before a split in the drumlins, and the path seemed to lead up between the two of them. I peered up it, squinting for effect, and said, "You can't possibly expect me to trot on up there like a mountain goat, Roger. I've had me a long day."

  Fortunately, by this point he understood I was just being disagreeable out of reflex. He grinned, and came around my side of the car to let me out. This time when he took my elbow, I shook his hand away, saying, "Good grief, I can manage."

  So we walked up the path, Roger leading the way. As I'd thought, the path split the two drumlins but instead of leading back down the other side it stopped on a ridge. Roger invited me to sit on some boulders and we both looked out over a valley.

  "Roger ..."

  "Shhhhhh, Miss Stark. It's just about to happen."

  Roger pointed, and I realized he was pointing at the sun, which was getting ready to dip below the mountains on the far side of the valley. As soon as it did, it started to turn colour, filling the valley with a thick golden light.

  Then it happened. My mind's eye and that valley blended into one and I saw things, floating and shimmery. Like Rajah's face. Like Al G. Barnes's mischief grin. Like an audience on its feet with the lights turned up.

  Like: Art.

  After a minute or so, when the gold had downgraded to a rusty copper, Roger turned and said, "Well, that's it."

  "That was something, Roger."

  "I'm glad you liked it. We might as well go."

  "Might as well."

  We left the ridge, and because it was getting a little on the dark side I didn't shake Roger away when he took my elbow. We got in the car, and Roger headed back to my house in Thousand Oaks at a speed aimed to calm. I kept on looking out the window at the city lights in the distance.

  "Roger?"

  "Yes, Miss Stark?"

  "You ever wonder why things happen?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "What makes the things that happen, happen? God, you figure? Or is it all just luck? What do you think, Roger? If it's God running things, I could live with that, but pure dumb luck? I'm not sure how wild I am about that...."

  He looked at me, his lips slightly parted and the rest of him white as a halibut. "I don't know what you mean, Miss Stark."

  I let the matter drop, figuring he was a young man and it was a mistake bothering him about an old person's concerns. Still, was no denying I felt like gabbing.

  "Tell me something, Roger."

  "Uh-huh?"

  "You got yourself a baby at home."

  "Yes, Miss Stark."

  "Then why work so hard? If I had little ones I'd put them before tigers, believe you me."

  He didn't say anything, and I felt bad about turning naggy.

  To make amends I said, "Roger?"

  "Yes, Miss Stark?"

  "That sunset. It helped. It did."

  "Don't mention it."

  "Well, just so you know."

  "You're welcome, Miss Stark."

  "Helped put my head on straight. I owe you one, Roger. Maybe I'll knit that little gaffer of yours a sweater. I'll bet she's a sweetie. How come you never brought her around?"

  "I never thought you'd be interested, Miss Stark."

  "Well, I would've."

  There was a pause.

  "Well, just so you know, Roger. I feel better."

  "I'm glad."

  "No, really. I feel like a new woman."

  This went on and on, my thanking the boy but never telling him exactly what it was I'd decided while watching that sunrise. It felt good, finally having myself a plan I knew, without a doubt, I could make happen. For the truth of the matter is, there's something about gazing on majesty that makes the big decisions seem so small as to barely be decisions at all.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE NEW MENAGE BOSS

  HE WAS: DRESSED IN DUNGAREES AND STEEL-SHANKED BOOTS and a heavy cotton work shirt, rolled to the elbows. Maybe fifty years old, with a thick grey-flecked moustache veering toward walrus but not quite getting there. Cheeks red, and latticed with little burst veins like cinnamon-coloured spider webbing. Left leg afflicted with a limp, the inside of his left shoe worn down to a thinness, so that as he came toward me he made a brushing noise against the earth (such that even now, an eternity later, I recall that brushing noise, and it feels so real I have to stop myself from looking around on the off chance his ghost has decided to make an appearance). Hunch-shouldered, perhaps through worry, perhaps through years of hard lifting, his arms bent slightly at the elbow and swinging slightly with each step. Cigarette parked at the corner of his mouth, his natural breath drawing an infusion of smoke that was constant. An anchor-with-rope tattoo on his forearm that'd faded to the colour of k
elp.

  He was only a few inches taller than me, though he looked like anyone would have a time trying to knock him down. His hair was ample and slightly reddish, and it swooped off wavy to the left, which made me think he straightened it by using the fingers of his right hand as a comb. His eyes were a pale blue grey, a shade below robin's egg, and his skin looked like it'd seen more than its fair share of the sun: baked and wrinkly, though with enough of a reddish hue I had to wonder if he had a little Indian blood in him. His arms were gristly and criss-crossed with ligaments. Plus they were oddly shaped: narrow as a woman's at the wrist though widening to the size of a horse hock at the elbow, the whole effect being practically vase shaped. His back he kept stiff as a board, which looked out of place atop his odd, hiccuping gait. His legs and butt were skinny, his pants saggy and riveted with the dirt an animal boss can't help but pick up by nine in the morning. But his most remarkable feature was his fingers: dry and stubby and covered with little nicks and scars, the nails coated with a shade of polish that wouldn't've looked out of place against a summer sky.

  He stopped in front of the cage belonging to a two-year-old menage lion named Betty. It'd been stormy the past couple of days, the skies chunky and dark. Like always, the change in atmosphere affected some of the animals, the menage filling with the sound of females announcing themselves with loud, heartfelt bellows. So it was with Betty. A day or two earlier she'd gone into heat with a vengeance, which would've been fine except it was causing a commotion among the males: the pungency of her spray and the generally pink and inflamed condition of her privates was giving them ideas that conflicted with the existence of their cages. The danger, of course, was they were going to hurt themselves while trying to butt their way through the bars.

  "Good day, Betty," he said in a voice deeper than I expected on a man wearing nail lacquer. "I hear tell you're a little rambunctious these days. Not to worry, sweetheart. It's the weather to blame, not you. Pssssst psssst psssst...."

  Betty perked up her ears and looked at him. Then she arfed, a signal she had no immediate plans to move from the back of her cage, where she'd spent most of the past two days rubbing herself and looking aggressive. Her entire underside was gummy with laid-down straw.

  Meanwhile, he cooed, "It happens to the best of us, darling. Nothing to be ashamed of. If you could just come this way old Art might be able to offer you a little relief......

  He placed his right forearm through the bars, anchor side up.

  "Here, sweetheart," he said, "come to old Art. Come on, girl. That's good. Psssst psssst psssst. Don't be wary......

  Betty kept looking at him as though he was a crazy person, while Art kept making pssssst pssssst pssssst noises, eyes glinting the whole time. Finally, it worked. Betty lifted the front half of her body, and then the rear half of her body, until she was wholly standing. As she lumbered toward the front of the cage, goop dripped out of her hindquarters.

  When she reached the bars she sniffed Art's forearm, something that made my heart thrum: though she was a good lion what Art was doing was foolhardy and nothing but.

  Still.

  Betty sniffed daintily, as though his tattoo released a pacifying scent, which was remarkable seeing as how any calmness she may've once had had pretty much disappeared with the change in weather. Art just let her, offering such encouragements as "That's it, Betty," and "You have yourself a good long smell, sweetheart." After a minute of sniffing she seemed to be satisfied, for she turned herself right around and lifted her tail, letting him press his forearm into the oozing pink furrow that was her vulva.

  "That's it," Art said. "Now you go ahead and have yourself a nice long sit."

  Betty's eyes closed, and she started rubbing herself, slowly and deliberately, against his forearm. After about a minute or so she stopped and gave her torso a little side-to-side shimmy, a motion causing her crevice to accept more of Art's vase-shaped arm, till it disappeared so fully it looked like he had an elbow and a fist with nothing in between. She purred and licked her lips and produced a big lion grin. Then she resumed her slow, sawing motion on his arm. After a bit, she picked up the pace a little, and after another bit she picked up the pace in a way that was nothing but wanton. Her chin was pointed to the ceiling and her tail the same. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her forepaws were rigid as tent poles. Meanwhile, she pistoned-no other word for ither torso hammering against Art's forearm, his arm probably getting chafed something awful for the inner folds of a female cat are leathery and rough no matter how lathered up. Meanwhile Betty was growling and howling and spitting and screeching and shrieking and generally making sounds like she was getting murdered. After about thirty seconds, she finished, let out a hiss that sounded like a venting steam valve, and in one smooth motion turned and took a lethal swipe at the arm that'd just pleasured her.

  Art must've been expecting this, for he snapped his arm back through the bars and then held it out for her to look at. He was smiling. This caused Betty to growl and slink off to the back of her cage, where she had her first real nap in days.

  As the cat dozed, he started whistling while he rolled his sleeve down. Forty-three years later, I remember the name of the tune, it being the sort of detail that makes up for its lack of significance by refusing to ever die: was "Farmer in the Dell." He finished rolling down his sleeve, though when he did he didn't move on. Or at least he didn't move on right away. Instead, he whistled the whole song, start to finish, throwing in a lot of warbles and flourishes for good measure. Only when he finished did he clear his throat and get to his feet and walk straight over to where I thought I'd been hidden.

  "Hello," he said.

  "Hello."

  "You're Mabel Stark, aren't you? The Mabel Stark."

  I nodded.

  "In that case I'm going to say something and I hope you don't find me out of order saying it. What they're doin' to you on this circus is a crime. A waste of God-given talent. I just want you to know I know that."

  I gave a good long look at this strange little person. He had the sort of bearing that men who've been coddled don't have, by which I mean beaten down yet hopeful as a child. Plus he had those colourful fingernails, set against a criss-crossing of nicks and scars, the contrast of which was so odd I had to force myself not to stare. Meanwhile he stood there smoking, the pause dragging on long enough he started to look a little wounded. Was then I realized I didn't like the thought of him wandering off so soon.

  "You sitting?" I asked.

  He hitched up his trousers and lowered himself with a grunt to the hay bale next to mine. After lighting his next cigarette off the old one, he tossed the butt into tanbark. I didn't say anything, for he'd reminded me how upset I was at my general state of affairs: after the Ringlings pulled their cat acts I'd been thrown in the High School display, horse riding being something I'd learned to do poorly way back on my first season with the Barnes show. It was also something I hated about as much as it's possible to hate anything, High School riding being a prancing, finicky business, better suited to schoolmarms than real performers.

  In other words, I was brooding so hard I'd almost forgotten the new menage boss had taken a seat beside me.

  Art finally broke the silence. As he spoke, smoke billowed off his cigarette and out his mouth and through his nose, his face looking like a little smoke factory.

  "I saw your act last year in Baraboo. Marvellous. Just marvellous. That group sit-up-each head cocked at exactly the same angle, why you could've run a tightened string in front of their faces and each nose would've touched. And the rollover. I don't believe I've ever seen a group rollover when every cat comes back on its pads at exactly the same time and at exactly the same speed. I honestly don't know how you do it. I honestly don't. You, Miss Stark, have a one-of-a-kind act, and believe me when I say I'm not a guy who exaggerates to make his point known."

  "Thank you," I said, feeling honestly pleased: those touches he talked about were the product of early-morning training sessions
and sessions conducted at night when you were so tired you swore you'd fall asleep on your feet. I was never quite sure why I bothered, seeing as no one ever seemed to notice, my only rationale being that goals and standards have a way of making life feel more meaningful.

  "Funny," I said. "You're talking about the group act when the thing people always remember about me is the wrestler."

  He grinned, and where his lips separated smoke tumbled out.

  "The wrestler. His name's Rajah, yes? Sure. Sure. That's a good act too."

  Though he'd just paid me another compliment, his voice didn't sound as enthused as when he was talking about my group act, all of which was cockeyed seeing as how Rajah was the one who'd made me a household name.

  "You sound like you liked the group act better than the wrestling act."

  "Well, of course. Don't you?"

  I looked at him, an eyebrow cocked.

  "Now, don't misunderstand me. I like a wrestler as much as the next guy. But it happens. It happens. You get a cat when he's young and spend all your time with him he will start thinking he's more human than animal. And because he thinks of himself as human, he will start thinking you're his bride. It's called nature, and while it's impressive you caught that bit of nature in a ring that doesn't mean nature is always beautiful. Fact of the matter is, nature can be a little brutish when it has a mind to, and here I'm talking about the way he used you as his own personal rubbing post. All that bellowing and drooling. It's a hell of a trick he didn't kill you in the process, but you have to admit it was still a trick. But the group act. Christ. The first time I saw it I got goosebumps."