The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) (43 page)

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 kelp.

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."

This was a whole lot to digest (though later I'd learn this was usually the case with Art's take on things). So I just sat pondering, the mad
gone out of me, thinking, Who is this little man?

"So," he said after a bit, "the question is, How're you going to get
back in a tiger cage where you belong?"

Was a question made my situation come rushing back. I sighed
and said, "It's a problem."

"Everything's a problem. That's hardly an excuse not to do anything about it. That way when the next problem comes along you'll
only have the one problem to deal with instead of two. The way I see
it, the Ringling Brothers don't want a cat act, but they also don't want
any other circus drawing with your name. Am I right?"

"You're right, all right."

"Well, maybe they need a little convincing."

"They," I said, "are never around. They're always gallivanting
around Europe, buying up art or violins, or they're down in Florida
building homes the size of Rhode Island. They're impossible to get to."

"If they were easy to get to it wouldn't be much of a problem,
now would it? Listen, I got an elephant who needs a little TLC. You
want to come?"

I thought about this a second, said yes and followed Art out of the
menage toward the bull yard. On the way, Art picked up a newspaper
and a thermos of coffee. Meanwhile, he talked a blue streak.

"I'll tell you something. They weren't a second too early hiring
me. The condition of this menage-terrible. Terrible. I thought
things were bad with Hagenbeck, but this! When I took my first look I practically called up those crazy Jack Londoners just to tell them
what was what. Take a look for yourself." Here he motioned with his
arms. "Cockatoos losing their feathers, chimps with cage fever, distempered camels, hyenas so depressed they've quit laughing, poxed
lemurs, scurvied wombats, there's a Sicilian burro I swear has psoriasis-the poor bastard's practically standing in a hill of his own dandruff. Plus Zak-Zak being a llama they'd painted red and attached
horns to so he'd look suitably hell-sent during the new spec, "The
Wrath of Moses"-you had a look at him lately? All that paint has
clogged his pores so he doesn't sweat properly. It's no wonder he's
been so draggy of late. No, I'll tell you the truth. If those Ringlings
had waited just a little while longer they wouldn't have had a menage
for a new menage boss to take care of."

We reached the bull pens. Art began walking down the aisle separating the rows of enclosures, looking for the elephant that concerned
him. He stopped in front of the space holding Tony, a big African bull
who three years earlier had gotten loose during parade and had sat on
a knockwurst stand, killing no one but causing so much damage he
might as well have. He was about to be shipped off when John
Ringling, feeling drunk and silly, noted Tony's actions as being patriotic and deserving of a spot in the menage. Since then, the old elephant
had spent his time scaring children and trumpeting aggressively. Each
of his feet were shackled, something the bull men did with bulls
gone rogue.