The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) (20 page)

In three weeks time, we were both more or less healed and raring
to get back to work. I decided to visit Al G., and as I walked across the
lot the pain I felt with each step was so light I could almost pretend it
wasn't there. After chatting my way past Dan, I found Al G. relaxing in
his rail car, a smile framing the spot where his cigar stuck from between
his teeth. Was a third of the way through the 1916 season, and he had a
lot to smile about. He'd more or less won his divorce case, having
settled for a lot less than Dollie had originally asked for, and his circus
had grown to four rings with well over a thousand animals. Even the
matinee houses were full, Barnes's theory being that a lot of young men
were taken with the idea of seeing one more circus before America
started sending soldiers to France. He'd bought a private rail car with
a bathroom and electric lights, his other theory being that show owners
ought to make the papers once in a while with what he called "demonstrations of flamboyance." It'd belonged to the millionaire William
Holt, so we all called it the Holt car. Al G., feeling this undignified,
named it Francesca.

"I'm through with the lions" was what I told him. "Just don't
have the knack. Louis does, but I don't. And I know that's hard to
believe, what with every trainer on earth saying it's the lions that're
easier to read. Hell, Louis is one of them-he can't believe I prefer the
tigers, but I can only tell you my experience has been the exact opposite. Those lions are like a mystery to me. Maybe it's because they're
pack animals. All I know is I get their signs mixed up every time. Tigers
are what I want. If you got me one or two more, I could put on an act
every bit as famous as Louis's finale. So what do you say?"

Al G. pretended to think it over, his fingertips pressed together
so they formed a church steeple. After a bit, an eyebrow lifted and
he smirked.

"Was there anything else, Kentucky?"

"Well, just so happens there is, Al G. There is at that."

A week later I headed into Boise city hall as Mabel Stark, born Venice,
California, my proof a fake birth certificate one of the grifters got for
me from who knows where. I came out as Mabel Roth, wife of the
greatest big cat trainer of all time. The ceremony was in the Idaho capital, thanks to a blowdown cancelling a show and freeing up a night; we
had the reception right on the lot, Al G. paying for everything, something he offered to do when Louis asked him to be best man. Was a couple of roast pigs and bathtubs full of beer and ice. Everyone came, from
the performers to the workingmen to the Wild West performers to the
sideshow freaks, which is why if you look at the pictures of my third
wedding you'll see a girl with arms skinny and hairy like a spider's; a
pair of Siamese twins from Patagonia named Eco and Ico; a man from
Russian Alaska whose body was covered in fish scales; our famous dogeating Ingorrotes of the Philippines; a half-and-half named Geraldine
who wore a beard covering the right side of the face only; and Bosco
the glomming geek, who bit the head off a live squirrel and then swallowed it as part of a toast to the bride.

The minstrel band set up and played until dawn, and we all
danced as the wind whipped our hair and clothing. In the distance was
the town, giving off a soft glow, and seeing as we were all dancing and
feasting and generally having ourselves a good old-fashioned bacchanal it was hard not to feel like a band of drunken gypsies, parked on the
outskirts of town. Everything went right that night. Though the workingmen got so drunk most of them could barely stand, they were kind
enough to keep the fighting and town looting to a minimum. As for
Louis, he stayed sober, though not so sober he didn't crack a smile and
dance a little himself come midnight.

And Al G.

Good old Al G. Laughing and beaming and telling stories but mostly just presiding and strolling the circumference and admiring the
little city he'd built. Sometime around one or two in the morning I
noticed he'd disappeared, though a bit later he came back and was
wearing a trench coat, which I figured he'd put on because of the wind.
I was dancing with one of the Wild West boys when he came up and
apologized to my partner and asked if I could come with him. I excused
myself and followed Al G. to the sidelines, away from the merriment.
There, he looked at me. He was so quiet and serious I thought maybe
I'd done something wrong. After a half-minute he couldn't contain
himself any longer and he broke into a big smile.

"Thought I'd let you have your wedding present now." Then he
opened his trench coat and showed me the real reason he'd changed;
two Bengal punks were hanging on, their claws dug into Al G.'s vest.
They were fluffy and mewing and red as pottery. I'd never seen anything more beautiful in all my life. Tears came to my eyes and I put a
hand to my mouth and I drew breath through fingers and no matter
how I tried I couldn't find the wherewithal to get out the thanks lodged
in my throat.

Instead, I named them on the spot. The one on the left I called
Sultan. Was the other I named Rajah.

THE NEXT DAY, SULTAN LOOKED SNOTTY AND SHAKY AND
when I checked the wicker basket the morning after that one of
the punks was moving and one of them wasn't. Sultan just lay there,
nose caked, spirit gone out of him. Funny how you can tell when someone or something's up and died: they take on a stillness that has the look
of forever.

Louis and I didn't tell a soul, at most maybe one or two cathouse
groomers who saw my agitation. Somehow the news spread anyway, and
it took less than twenty minutes for the sideshow manager to come looking for us, offering to buy Sultan for a pittance so he could put him in a
jar and add him to his pickled punk display. Even though he was a good
half foot taller than Louis and stockier, he backed off quick when Louis
waved his riding stalk under his nose and accused him of being a goon.

That afternoon, Rajah and Sultan and I went for a walk in a forest near the lot, Rajah in the crook of my right arm and Sultan in a
wicker basket I'd slung around my neck like a fruit picker's trough. Once we got there, I took it off so I could start digging. The ground
was tough, but not too hard to get the shovel tip through. Though
Rajah was old enough he could walk in a stagger, he mostly stayed
close to me, fidgeting and rolling in leaves and chewing my pant cuffs
and generally not paying the attention the circumstances were due.
Meanwhile, I dug a little hole and kept Rajah amused by talking to him.

"Now I know what you're thinking, little tiger, that your brother
dying means you're all alone and believe me I know that can be a frightful prospect. But you don't have to think that way, on account of you've
got yours truly to keep an eye out for you, which believe me is a better
deal than I ever had. And I know I'm not a tiger but for some reason I
can think like one, in fact there are times I think maybe I was one in a
former life. God knows stranger things have happened, so I'd say I'm
pretty much the next best thing, wouldn't you?"

On and on I went, blabbing about tigers and loneliness and how
the two somehow go together, until I'd made a nice little hole and
placed the shoe box containing poor old Sultan inside. I shovelled over
the hole and tamped it down nicely and when I was finished I marked it
with wildflowers.

"There. Should be an okay place. Won't get too hot in the summer, nice view through the leaves, I like the way the sun dapples...." We
stood there for a few minutes more, letting Rajah pay his final respects,
though to be truthful he was more interested in gnawing nervously on
his own tail than in feeling mournful. After letting a wave of sadness
come and go, I bent over and put the basket back round my neck,
though this time with Rajah in it. We tramped out of the forest and
back to the circus. On the lot I looked for Louis, as he'd promised to
get me a live nanny goat seeing as how Rajah was having trouble wrapping his head around the idea of a baby bottle and hadn't eaten much
for two days.

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.