The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) (9 page)

"Enough, I suppose."

"They good people, Louis?"

Here he paused, long enough his answer didn't exactly fill me
with confidence.

"Good enough, Mabel."

Three weeks passed, maybe a little more, till the day came when Louis
was leaving for good and of course he threw himself a going-away
picnic. Clowns on stilts wondered about, and there were kegs of free
beer along with a banquet table covered with food. Word got out,
JungleLand filling that day with old troupers, wranglers and carnies,
half wanting to wish Louis their best and the other half attracted by the
notion of free food. Must've been three, four hundred people easy.
Midway through the afternoon I was standing at the banquet table, in
front of the cheese-and-pickle roll-ups, waiting to get at the tray of
devilled eggs, when I smelled something: menthol and perfume, with
some spearmint gum thrown in for good measure. I turned and saw a
woman in tight pink pants with a flowery shirt tied at the waist. She was bare ankled, and her hair had been lacquered into a beehive; a tornado
wouldn't've ruffled it. With her do and her heels she must've stood six
and a half feet tall. Her bracelets and big hoopy earrings jangled. When
she bent over to reach a buttered bun at the back of the table, her navel
almost grazed the roll-ups.

Now none of this bothered me unduly, though it's true I dislike it
when women dress in a manner designed to redirect the eyeballs of
men. What did bother me was her reaching hand held a burning Pall
Mall, pinioned between the second and third fingers. The ash had gotten to be about half an inch long, and if it fell the breeze would've scattered it over the buttered buns, the cheese-and-pickle roll-ups, the pigs
in a poke, the tuna-filled cherry tomatoes and most important the devilled eggs, which in my books are the only excuse for having a picnic in
the first place.

She noticed me eyeing her.

"Oh hello," she said, while straightening. I had to lift my chin to
look her in the eye.

"Hello," I replied, and I wish I could say there wasn't a hint of
frostiness in my voice. If she noticed she didn't act like she did. Instead,
she shuffled around her plate and her cigarette and her glass of rose
wine so it was all teetering in her left hand, thus freeing up her shaking
hand. She held it out and said, "I'm Ida Ritter. How do you do?"

My whole body sank.

"Mabel Stark. I'm fine."

This answer caused her to chew more vigorously while looking up
and away. "Wait a minute," she finally said. "Aren't you that tiger lady?"

Here I looked at her, trying to keep the daggers out but by God it
wasn't easy. As you know I was centre-ring with the Ringling show of
the twenties, and saying to me, `Aren't you that tiger lady?' would be
akin to going up to a Cadona and saying, `Aren't you from that flying
family?' or asking a Wallenda if he'd once walked a highwire. It was
disrespect, pure and simple, not to me particularly but to the whole history of the circus. Had it been anybody else, I would've told them
so and stormed off, devilled eggs or no devilled eggs.

Instead, I said, "Yes, that's right," and was pleased when someone recognized her and came over and told her how great she looked.

Well. With that introduction problems were bound to happen
and sure enough they did. I was with my tigers one morning, about to
lay down sawdust, when who should come up but Ida, this time wearing tight leopard pants, an insult to the leopard world if you ask me,
along with cat's-eye sunglasses and a pink blouse tied just above her
navel. She had a cup of coffee in one hand and a menthol in the other.

"Beautiful," she said, gesturing at my babies, "beautiful animals."

I stopped working and paid attention for I was still acting like
there was respect between us.

"You got that right, Ida. There's nothing more beautiful."

"But chubby. I see some sway on a few of 'em. For instance, that
one. What's his name?"

"Her name."

"Sorry. What's her name?"

"Goldie."

"Well, what do you think, Mabel, is it just me or is Goldie looking a little padded around the haunches? I was just wondering if maybe
these cats could do with a half pound less of chuck a day."

Here I looked at her, doing my best imitation of calm, though
inside I was seeing red, for tigers need at least fifteen pounds of meat
daily or their coats pucker. Was nothing but cheapness, Ida's suggestion, and designed to aggravate; everyone knows if it were up to me I'd
feed them their favourite hippo steaks each and every morning.

"Well now that's an idea Ida," I said. "I'll talk it over with Uncle
Ben and see what he thinks."

"Good," she said and walked away, those teetery pink slippers
making her ass wiggle.

A few days later, the same thing happened. I'd just thrown the cats their meat and was taking a breather when I heard those slippers
slapping the ground. I turned, fearing the worst, and there she was,
smiling and chewing gum, gesturing with a lit cigarette.

"Well, good morning, Mabel. My oh my those tigers are looking
gorgeous as ever.

"Suppose they can't help it."

"Yep. They sure do look fantastic. You're doing one bang-up job
around here, Mabel."

I took a deep breath and waited for it.

"But I couldn't help notice one or two of them have coats that
could use a little shine. Like that one. What's his name?"

"Her name," I said, "is Mommy."

"Beautiful tiger. Beautiful bones. Ever thought of rubbing a little
vegetable oil into her coat?"

Here I could've killed her, the benefit of vegetable oil being a
wives' tale that got out on circus lots about fifty years ago, probably
started by a vegetable oil salesman for it does nothing but make their fur
look soggy plus it'll gum up pores and make them groggy. Was an
insult, pure and simple, my having to take instruction from a woman
who didn't even know that. Instead of losing control, I stared straight
ahead, communicating my displeasure through wordlessness and an
expression gone stern. After a while Ida took the hint and added, "Well,
of course it's completely up to you. Bye now."

By that point I was fuming, so I went off to find Uncle Ben and
told him he better talk to Jeb and get him to rein in his wife if he didn't
want fireworks. Ben said he'd do what he could, which turned out to be
not much, for the very next morning Ida was back again, smoking and
drinking coffee and telling me how beautiful my tigers were, before
suggesting I give them a little milk of magnesia.

"It's good for their bones," she added in that syrupy voice of
hers, and it was the intent her chirpy tone was disguising that finally
made me snap and call her the worst thing you can call a circus person.

"Listen to me, Ida," I said. "Listen to me good. You're a carny.
You're a concessionaire. You really expect me to care what you think
about tigers?"

Her face turned white and she stormed off, that silly back end of
hers wiggling like electrical current was running through it. Since then
we haven't talked. If we pass each other on the connection we both go
stony and don't say hello. Thank God, Jeb and I get on, or I'd be out
already. Still, you overhear things. Rumours, whisperings, snackbar
chatter. Like Ida's pressuring Jeb something hard. Like she figures
she's got more pull on account of she has a flat stomach and boobs
propped high as mountain peaks. Like she figures she can get what she
wants because a certain type of man goes for her.

Like the great Mabel Stark might retire soon.

Then.

A few weeks later. Young squirt, Irish mug, wavy red hair, tiny
round eyes, keen as a wood plane, twenty-five at the most. I first laid
eyes on him at the beginning of the day, while in the process of wheeling my big old Buick convertible off the Ventura freeway and into the
JungleLand parking lot, where I was about to take my favourite spot by
the fence under the giant oak. Was exactly 6:20 in the morning. Same
time as I always got there. Only that day was different, for as I was
wheeling my big old Buick convertible into the parking lot I noticed
there was another car in the lot, and in that car was a guy behind the
wheel, coffee cup in hand, staring at the front entrance of JungleLand
so hard you'd swear he'd fallen in love with it.

So I got out. He got out. Instantly I knew he was a new cat guy
and my day was ruined. First of all, he had marks on his forearms I
could see all the way from the other side of the lot. Second of all he
knew who I was-that much was obvious. He came toward me, beaming, and I looked at him, not smiling, until we got close enough I could
see he was fixing on introducing himself. Just walked on by, I did, acting like he'd never entered my line of vision.

Shortly after nine, with the cats fed and dozing, I found Uncle
Ben and asked him who in the hell the new guy was.

"The cage boy? Haynes is his name. Roger Haynes. From
Oklahoma, I believe."

"Where they find him?"

"Working the Beatty show. Trained with Beatty himself before
the cancer kicked in."

"Beatty!"

"That's what I heard."

"Oh Jesus Christ Ben, there you go! They have to spell it out in
neon lights! No guy who's trained with Beatty and who's got his marks
is going to take a job as a cage boy unless he figures he's not going to
be a cage boy long! Oh Christ Ben you might as well start saying your
goodbyes now cause if anyone ever tries to take my cats away from me
I've got a neat little .38 in my bedside table. Oh Jesus Christ this
is awful...."

On and on I went, practically hysterical-that's the way I get
sometimes-until Uncle Ben started telling me I was wrong, no one's
trying to take my job, that Haynes was taken on for the lionesses and no
one's going to have to shoot herself anytime soon. On and on he went,
painting a rosy picture, and because he has a voice that naturally calms
people I started to feel a little better even though there wasn't a thing in
the world to feel better about. In the end I promised I wouldn't march
up to Ida's office and clobber her personally, Uncle Ben saying he was
mighty relieved to hear that.

That was a Wednesday. Come Saturday, I was getting ready to do
the biggest show of the week when who should turn up and start moving my pyramids around but Roger Haynes. You could tell he really
wanted to prop the act, and for a second it occurred to me he didn't even
realize he was there expressly to oust yours truly, a thought I immediately chased away because in the long run it really didn't matter.

This, more or less, was what I said: "You little son of a bitch.
Don't you ever come around my goddamn tigers and don't you ever
show up round this cage line and don't you ever walk up and down my
cages." Then, because of the way I've been feeling of late, by which I
mean broody and tallying the things I've done, I tossed in a piece of
information even he didn't deserve. "I killed a man once," I told him,
"and I'd gladly do it again now get."

The boy went white, turned and walked off. As for me, I felt bad
about doing it, and would've gladly felt bad doing it a second time.
Suppose I'm fear-aggressive, a term normally reserved for wild animals
but suits some people too.

Six months go by. I don't say boo to him. Pretend like he's not
even there. Problem is the little bugger's so eager and driven he
reminds me of me, and when that happens it's a struggle keeping your
hostility at a pitch where it'll do any good. Plus it's obvious he has the
tiger bug in him and he has it in him bad, and there's so few of us
around who do it's hard not being gracious when you meet one. Plus
he's always the first one to work in the morning, which is saying something seeing as how I'm there by 6:15, and I'm told he's often still there
eight at night, offering to help where help's needed, a time I'm already
asleep. And goddamnit if those lionesses don't look better than ever.

What I'm saying is, a little battle kicked up inside old Mabel. On
one hand, he was obviously in the business of snaring my livelihood,
whether he'd figured it out or not, so it was natural my giving him the
cold shoulder and nothing but. On the other hand, he was working so
damn hard he really did deserve an act of his own, especially considering he'd done it all before with that philistine Clyde Beatty.

Come July, and Uncle Ben took his annual two-week vacation
betting on horses in Santa Anita. A few days before he left, he came up
to me and said, "Well, Mabel. You're gonna need help in the morning."

"I know."

"I've asked Roger."

"Roger? You say Roger? Uh-uh. No way. Ain't no way that little
Okie pissant's gonna gum up my cage bars with those ham-shaped
hands of his. I won't stand for it, Ben, and you know it."

"Now, Mabel," he said in his smoothest simmer-down voice,
you and I both know Roger's the only cage boy with tiger experience,
and you and I both know he's the most qualified." To this I sputtered
something in protest, something with a few swear words thrown in,
though we both knew he was right. In response he said, "Ah now,
Mabel, don't you worry, I had a talk with Roger myself and I said
point-blank, `Listen here, kid. You tryin' to take Mabel's job?' You
should've seen the look on his face. Horror, is what. Started stammering and saying, `Shit no Mr. Bennett I'm not here to take her job. I'm
here to learn from her and her only. Why you think I took a job as her
cage boy? Oh Mr. Bennett don't think that.' So I said, `You sure `bout
that, Roger?' And he said, `Sure I'm sure. Beatty's up and gone and that
makes Mabel Stark the greatest living trainer on the planet. Hell, she
might've been that when Beatty was alive. I've learned the Beatty way
and now I want to learn the Mabel Stark way.' He said that, Mabel. Said
every word. You know what else he said? He said, `Mabel Stark's a hero
of mine, Mr. Bennett, and there's no way I'd ever do something like
that to one of my heroes.' You gotta meet this kid, Mabel. Not an insincere bone in his body."