The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) (57 page)

Old Dad started rattling the door and Sheik went for the tunnel.
We were using the old swing-type door, and in his panic Old Dad
swung the door into another tiger, and that tiger was none other than
my oversized Bengal, Zoo, who'd nursed a grudge ever since the time
I hit him for refusing to ball walk. He jumped straight into the air and
came down resentful. He lit on me as I was struggling to get up, taking a big gnaw of muscle from my right leg. I hollered and he let me
go and I somehow got to my feet, though as I did I could hear blood
swishing in my boots. I took my whip and hit Zoo hard, sending him
to the far side of the arena. At this point, I was so light-headed I started to think I could finish my act so long as I got that demon Sheik on
his pedestal. So I called, "Seat," while looking Sheik straight in the
eyes. When he didn't move, I buggy-whipped him on the nose. He
approached his pedestal, stopped, thought about his pride and
charged. On my broken leg I sidestepped him, though the sudden
move sank my left boot in mud and mired my foot. Suddenly I was as
stuck as sin.

Throughout, Old Dad had been hollering and waving and rattling the cage door like mad and for some reason Sheik chose that
moment to respond. Problem was, he responded at the same time as a
tiger named Mary, who was one of my quieter cats and had probably
figured she'd seen enough. The two collided at the tunnel entrance.
Mary howled and Sheik went insane. Came straight for me, not making a sound, mouth wide open, murderous. I jammed my training
stick hard down his throat, though Sheik was so mad he howled and
swiped at the stick while I pounded the tip again and again into the
back of his throat, all of which might've saved me had Zoo not decided to attack. I didn't see him until his jaws seized my right leg and
slammed me into the mud, a motion snapping the ankle that'd been
mired. On my way down Sheik hit me with a roundhouse to the head
and though it was a glancing blow he'd used full claws so it took off
a big piece of scalp and a thicket of my precious blond hair. This angered Zoo, and he tore apart Sheik's right shoulder, Sheik backing
off for fear of having the same done to the other side. With Sheik
banished, and me driven halfway into the mud, and the other cats
either backed up or on their pedestals, Zoo relaxed. Took his time,
even. He looked down at me, licked his chops, and with forepaw nails
peeled back my belly, from navel to rib cage, like he was opening a can
of herring.

Then lie bent over and dined.

It's hard to say why I didn't die that day. All I know is I should've, and
that I wouldn't've even minded, what with Art six feet under and Rajah
fighting somewhere in Mexico. Often I feel like I've got two angels following me around, one good and one bad, neither one of them gentle,
and they were duking it out that day. Question is, was it the good angel
decided I was going to live, or was it the bad one?

At any rate, two people also helped out that day. The first was
me. Though my memory is foggy past a certain point, I'm told that
after having his first mouthful or two of stomach muscle Zoo was so
pleased with himself he picked me up by the hip and shook me like a
ragdoll while roaring. This freed my right arm and I somehow got my
pistol out of the holster and fired it point-blank into the big cat's face.
He got singed bad with powder and backed off quick. The second was
none other than Capt. Terrell Jacques, the future one-eyed Terrell
Jacobs, who ran in the cage when no one else would and started dragging me out. Hunks of me were coming off in the mud, so after a foot
or so he picked me up and being a strong, squat man carried me out like
a bride.

I spent much of the next two years in hospital. Though I don't
remember a lot, I do remember the drugs they gave me were full of the
same analgesics I'd once taken for marital impediments, and because I
had bad associations the hallucinations were frightful. Still, they were
preferable to the pain, which I can't in any accurate way describe.

At times they'd think I was getting better and they'd let me out.
I'd return to the circus, where they'd have me count tickets or invoice
costumes, though after a few days or a few weeks something would go
wrong. I'd have doubling-over pain, and the doctors would have to go
in again, rooting around with needle and thread, looking for some tear
they'd missed or something new that'd opened up since the last time.
After a month or so, they'd release me, and something else would foul
up. Infections were always setting in, the fevers horrendous. Was one
period I couldn't make waste properly, causing me to swell up and turn
orange and feel like I'd swallowed a watermelon whole. Back I went to
hospital for more operations, and more recuperations, and more doctors huddled around my bed, stroking their chins. By the time I was
shitting properly, my eyesight problems kicked in again. The partial
scalping Sheik gave me-I wore hats now-had monkeyed with my
vision, and there were days I couldn't see much more than quartersized circles of light surrounded by pitch-black. So I went in for the
operation that scared me the most. Thank God, when they took off the
bandages I could see what I was supposed to, though the headache
caused by all that light made me wish I couldn't.

You name a problem, I had it. Arthritic pain from having my legs
broke? Yep. Migraines from blod clots? Uh-huh. Nightmares? Panicky
feelings? Digestive incidents? Indeed. Waking up in the morning with
hardened blood on my lips and cheeks? With it cracked and dry in the
folds of my neck?

Back I'd go.

Worry was another problem. Back then, circuses had a policy saying
troupers paid their own medical bills. Each time I left hospital, the
amount of money I owed the doctors grew, the numbers getting so big
after a while they practically lost meaning. Each time I stared at one of
those gargantuan bills I'd tell them the same thing: "Suppose about all
I can do is try."

When I finally left the hospital for the last time, in 1930, I reckoned I owed almost $4000. An orderly wheelchaired me and my suitcase to reception. I stood, heart pitter-pattering, something that made
my insides hurt. (Laughing, breathing heavily and coughing had the
same effect. For hiccups I practically needed morphine.) Meanwhile,
the woman at reception got my papers ready. I signed on dotted lines,
not bothering to read what I was signing, figuring whatever it was was
bound to be bad. Then the woman put her elbows on the desk and
smiled and wished me luck.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

"I don't believe so, Miss Stark."

"The bill. The bottom line. How much?"

This triggered a look of confusion on the woman's face, and she
began looking through the papers in my file.

"No ..." she said. "It says right here you're paid in full."

I looked at her piercingly, though why I'd do that to a person
who'd just given me such good news is hard to say.

"Well, that makes me want to ask a question. Who in Sam Hill
paid it?"

The woman's face furrowed and she thumbed through my file
again. Then she shook her head and clucked.

"It doesn't say. Do you really want to know?"

"I really want to know."

She got up and wandered into a back room. I heard conversations. After a minute or two she reappeared, holding a sheet of paper
that had the crinkly look of a receipt. She came back toward the desk.

"Apparently," she said, "it was the Ringling Brothers Barnum &
Bailey Circus."

By this time, John Ringling had bought out Mugivan's American
Circus Corporation, the story being that Ringling and Mugivan met in
a hotel in Peru, both parties knowing they couldn't survive with each other as competition. Was a coin flip, the winner having the option of
buying out the loser. If nothing else, this should teach you about the
quirkiness of fame: had Jerry Mugivan won a single coin toss, history
probably would've made him famous and not John Ringling.

Ringling now owned every decent-sized circus in America
(excepting a few renegade outfits operating out of Hugo, Oklahoma),
and I suppose he thought he was being nice when he took me off the
Robinson show and sent me back to the Al G. Barnes Wild Animal,
which he now owned lock, stock and barrel as well. Mostly what it
was was sad. Al G. hadn't had anything to do with the show since he'd
sold to the Mugivan crew in 1929. Apparently most of the acts left too,
feeling the Al G. Barnes Circus just wouldn't be the same without Al
G. himself at the helm. Others who didn't care, workingmen and
first-of-Mays, had long since moved on. Fact was, I didn't know a
soul and didn't have much energy for socializing. Even winter quarters had changed; the show now bunked in a town called Lodi, a few
hours south of Venice. Though the new quarters were cleaner and
bigger and more efficient, something about them made me pine for
old companions.

I started working up an act with eight Barnes tigers, which put me
face to face with all kinds of things I wasn't exactly feeling strong
enough to go face to face with. Ambition, for one. Memories of Art, for
another. Or this: pondering why it is that chasing the exquisite should
be so all-fired risky. Believe me, these were heavy questions, the kind
that open up stitches if you think about them too much. No matter how
hard I tried to push them away they kept coming: in dreams, in the quiet
moments of morning, during the lull following a meal eaten alone.

This time I faced facts. For the first time in my life I made concessions. I didn't like doing it but I was too hurt inside to do otherwise.
I taught the cats rollovers, sit-ups, hoop jumping, everything rubes
liked in a picture act. Even trained up a ball roller, a trick that took me
all of two afternoons. This got me written up in Bandwagon and White Tops and the local paper, though of course a lot more ink went to the
Barnes fighting act, a young good-looking guy by the name of Bert
Nelson. Whereas I had the third display, he went on as close to the end
as was possible without bumping the flyers. When reporters came, it
was his tent they crowded. When wild animals were portrayed on
Barnes paper, they were his yellow lions and not my well-trained
Bengals. I was no longer marquee status, and with my head half tore off
I can't say I was the least bit sorry.

I started spending a lot of time in my rented bungalow, a neat little house with a backyard in a neighbourhood filled with Barnes
troupers. It was a nice place, with shrubs and a sunny kitchen and more
hot water than a single person could ever use. In the backyard I put a
chaise longue, and in the morning I'd sit and watch the sun come up, a
wool cap and sweater keeping me warm. I did a lot of knitting, and I
followed Jack Benny. At night I ate early, and went to bed around the
time most people start thinking about what they're going to do with
their evening.

Then, one night, the taste of supper still lingering, there was a
knock on the door. I answered it, and saw a person I'd never realized
meant so much to me.

I pulled him to me.

"Jesus, it's good to see you!" Though he was wearing his serious
face, a second tight hug turned it into the beginnings of a smile. "Well,
don't just stand there-come in."

Dan nodded and took off his hat and stepped in. In the eleven
years since I'd seen him, he'd made the switch from middle-aged
Negro to elderly Negro, and it looked like the switch could've gone
more smoothly. There was grey in his hair, mostly at the temples,
though if you looked close little individual grey hairs spotted his entire
head, not unlike the odd blue fibres in a red mohair blanket. He'd lost
only a little weight, but since he didn't have much to lose in the first place, the impression he gave now was one of ricketiness. Plus all that
stooping from worry had crooked him over for good, so that he now
carried his spindly frame in the shape of a question mark. On the positive side, he wasn't suffering from any obvious disfigurements, Dan
having always been one for staying out of fights.

I couldn't stop hugging him-it was like he was some totem from
better times sent expressly for my relief. After a bit he got embarrassed.
Started blushing and gently easing me away, so I sat him down and got
us both a can of beer and started with "So how are you?"

Here he gave one of those shoulder-bobbing chuckles old black
people give when contemplating hardship.

"Can't rightly complain. Retired, of course."

"You living in Venice?"

"Oh my, yes. Took the train down when I heard you was back
with the Barnes show. Them trouping days is over for me. I'm settled
now. In one spot."

"Takes some adjustment, doesn't it?"

"It sure do, ma'am. It surely do. Had Sunday-night insomnia for
near half a year."

"I tried it once myself. Remember when I married that millionaire and settled in the Cajun end of Texas? One of the main reasons I
upped and left was I found being stationary a chore."

"Well, I know what you mean, Miss Stark. I know what you mean
fo' sure."

"You renting a bungalow?"

"Nope. Living at the St. Charles."

"The St. Charles? That old place? What's it like now?"

"Different. Filled with folk less reputable than circus folk."

"Jesus, I didn't know that was possible."

"Well, it is, Miss Stark! It surely is!"

Here we both laughed, heartily, though when we stopped there
were long moments of silence.

"Do you have enough money to live on, Dan?"

"I wouldn't say enough exactly. But some."

"It's a crime, what happens to circus folk, isn't it?"

"It surely is, Miss Stark. It surely is."

That silence, again.

"Dan, was money the reason Al G. sold his circus?"

"Course. He'da never sold otherwise. Not him. Got taken to
the cleaners by Miss Speeks. I suppose she got herself better lawyers
than Mr. Barnes's first wife had. Was a crying shame, seeing what it
did to Mr. Barnes. One day I walked into his office, and his head was
in his hands and he said, `It seems, Dan, I have found myself in a
deplorable situation financially.' Can't you just hear him saying that?
In that way he spoke? It was the way he said it scared me, like the
fight had gone out of him and that was something I never thought I'd
see happen to Mr. Barnes. A week later Jerry Mugivan came calling
with an offer."