The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) (13 page)

"Sure are. And I hope I'm making myself clear too. I wouldn't go near that sewer rat if William H. Taft asked me and I certainly won't go
near him for the likes of you."

"You will!"

"I won't!"

"Goddammit, you will!"

"Goddammit, I will not!"

Con T. Kennedy, brother-in-law of C. W. Parker and in charge
for that reason only, chose that moment to put his cigar back in his
mouth. This freed up his dominant hand so he could use the back of it
to slap me across the face. Was something men did to women all the
time back then; still do, I imagine, though it's mostly moved behind
closed doors for the laws against it seem to get used more.

He'd swung from the elbow, meaning he hadn't hit me hard,
though was hard enough my right cheek stung and my vision went jiggly and wet. At this point I knew I was supposed to give in, to suddenly pretend I'd come to my senses. Con T. had already put his cigar back
in his mouth and gained that smug expression men get when they think
they've dealt with a situation. It was this smugness I couldn't stand,
more so than being smacked, so when I hit him back I threw from the
shoulder, clipping him sufficiently hard the cigar flew out of his mouth
and he bent over, holding his nose.

Now, when it comes to men, all you have to do is make the word
vulnerable pop into their heads and they slink off like wounded boys,
completely amazed someone's challenged their kingly status. (Lions
are the same way, which I suppose is a reason I've always favoured
tigers-punch a tiger in the face and he'll practically weep with gratitude you at least tried to make things interesting.)

Con T. straightened up. He was sputtering and pale and his eyes
were messed with respect and he fought to get his breath. When he did,
his yelling sounded high-pitched and girly, the content being more or
less "You get the hell outta here, you're through you're fired I'll see
to it your name's ruined you'll never work in this business again" to which I said, "Yeah well fuck you and your shitty little two-bit grifter
show," which was quite an insult seeing as the Parker show unit two was
probably the biggest carnival in the country.

By the time I hit the midway all eyes were turned and peering
through dust. I couldn't calm my breathing, and the bones in my hand
were aching fiercely. To simmer down I decided to go visit Al G., he
being the only real friend I had on the show. Thankfully, his tent was
up and he was in it, dressed impeccably as always, from his spats to his
double-buttoned vest to his clean white straw boater, none of which
had been dirtied by the air's brown dust. He was drinking a pale green
liquid with Dan. When I entered they both looked up, Al G. giving me
his charmer's grin. He pulled a chair for me and invited me to join them
and I wanted to kiss him I was so thankful. Dan, meanwhile, looked
rubbery with concern.

"So," Al G. said through a grin, "unless I miss my guess the Great
Parker Carnival will be leaving Lubbock prematurely?"

"Looks that way," I said, though by then I was starting to come
apart a little. Was all that adrenalin backing up and getting stuck
now the fight was over; if you've never had it happen, believe me it
hurts a fair bit more than the fist-swinging part. Trembly, I was, with a
stomach ache thrown in. Plus I didn't have anywhere to go, again,
something I'd learned to fear more than anything. I started blubbering,
so Al G. gave me a finger of the apple brandy he bought in Amarillo
and advised me to drink it down. This settled me enough to tell him I
was thinking of marrying a Texan I'd met out Beaumont way.

"You love him?"

"Nope. You think that's wrong?"

"Kentucky," he answered, "please. There are so few things in this
world that are just plain wrong. Murder, maybe, though even that can
be a matter of necessity. Am I right, Dan?"

"You right, governor," Dan said, smiling now himself. "You just
plain right."

I finished my drink so Al G. gave me another. As I wasn't a
drinker, it hit me like a ton of hens, which was good because I needed
a whole lot of courage to do what needed doing. Which was: stagger back
to the Dancing Girls tent, announce the Little Egypt position was vacant,
thank them sarcastically for their affection and support and loyalty, and
tote out my unpacked bag.

Then I walked through dust and bugs and heat to the railway station, arriving bitten and hot and bedraggled. Bought myself water and
coffee and a sandwich and got them all into me before taking the same
train out of town that'd taken me into town.

I sat beside a housewife from Dallas and across from a Bible salesman from Utah. Basically I forced myself to chin-up, and by the time we
hit our first stop, some rinky-dink place I can't remember the name of, I
was starting to think what'd happened was not entirely bad.

In Dallas I sent a cable to the Texan. He came promptly.

I told him it had to be a city hall wedding, that I wasn't one for pomp and
circumstance and was one for small numbers, such as, oh, I dunno, let's
say for the sake of argument, two and two only? Course, my already
having a husband back in Louisville along with a committal warrant
bearing my name was the real reason any kind of production was low on
my list of priorities. He agreed right off, which surprised me, for I'd
heard Texans liked to do everything big, and I figured he'd want a giant
banquet with an orchestra and shrimp cocktails and Chinese fireworks
and sides of beef roasting over mesquite plus the entire population of
Beaumont thrown in for good measure. Maybe it was him living so
close to Louisiana, Cajuns generally being happier with simple things
than Texans.

So I got married as Mary Haynie of Princeton, Kentucky, and
became Mary Williams of Beaumont, Texas. I liked it that way, for it
was as though Mary Aganosticus of Louisville had never even existed.
Afterwards, we took the train all the way to San Francisco, which was fine by me, California being far away from Kentucky, a place I wanted to forget forever and most particularly on my honeymoon. We ate
in the Continental and afterwards took a caleche to the Regency. Our
suite contained a French sofa and teak sitting furniture and a pondsized four-poster. The bathroom was the size of the car where I'd
slept with the Dancing Girls of Baghdad. We drank champagne on
our balcony, overlooking a bay gone beautiful with mist and boat
lanterns. From below we could hear the clip-clop of hooves and
the foghorns of freighters on the water. When it got chilly James
suggested we go inside, which was fine by me. I wasn't nervous, or at
least not unduly, for I was eager to figure out if my body could do
what a woman's body ought to be able to do, or whether my not being
able to have a baby was just hokum dreamed up to get me out of
Dimitri Aganosticus's hair.

I told James I needed to get myself prepared, at which point little Mrs. James Williams of Beaumont, Texas, retired to the Pullmancar-sized bathroom, where an assortment of powders and lotions and
mists were applied to various and sundry bodily portions. A silky little nothing of a negligee, the product of two weeks' worth of cherry
pie, was pulled on. I looked magnificent. I just did. I opened the door
to the rest of the suite. James was waiting in bed, wearing pyjamas,
and before crawling in beside him I noticed his initials were on the
breast pocket. He leaned over. Gave me a quick kiss on the mouth. I
settled back for more, confident that under such circumstances I'd
soon be overcome and with the moist openness they talk about nowadays in romance novels.

Well. Did that happen? Did that happen to the misted and powdered and negligee-wearing Little Egypt of the Great Parker Carnival
company, unit two? To the greatest sexpot this side of the Mississippi?
Not on your auntie. James said good-night, rolled over and began snoring like a fat man.

All of this was severely curious business, for back when he used to
watch me from the last row of the Superba his eyes practically flamed,
even though the rest of him stayed still and respectful. I put it down to
his age and the long day we'd had. Maybe he'd been tuckered by all the
excitement. I, on the other hand, couldn't sleep, a problem that's bothered me my whole life, so I lay awake thinking about everything under
the sun, the trouble with sleeplessness being that things you'd thought
you'd put behind you have a way of popping up and staring you in the
face and demanding attention.

Next day we started home, three full days through desert, looking at sand and cactus and rickety wood-plank towns that looked like
their whole purpose was to give fire something to do. We ate in the
first-class dining car and spent our nights in a first-class coach, him
sleeping and me staring up at the ceiling while thinking, Huh?

Finally we reached Beaumont. From the town square James hired
a Negro wagon driver to squire us along country roads and lanes; while
I'd been told the house was out of town, I'd never imagining it'd be this
out of town. Having passed miles and miles of cotton fields, swampy
forest and squatters' shacks, James finally said, "Here we are," as we
turned onto a narrow two-track lane.

We came over the rise, and there it was, his house, the sight of
which made me say "Oh, my lord" under my breath. It was big all
right, and getting bigger as we approached up a long driveway lined
with live-oaks. I suppose most women would've been pleased, for you
don't really understand how rich a man is until you see his house, and I
admit a part of me was tickled pink: I may not look like much but I'm
smart enough to know this bit about money not buying happiness is
pure malarkey, the simple truth being rich people are happier than poor
people on account of the things poor people have to do whenever the
slightest bit of trouble flares up. So part of me was ecstatic. At the same
time I was nervous, for in true antebellum style the house had marble
steps and Greek columns and a high arching door; when put together under a coat of creamy white paint it looked a whole lot like the loony
bin in Hopkinsville. I felt my shoulders levitate to my ears and my
mouth parch. In fact I wanted to say, Let's live somewhere else, James,
except he would've responded, Why, darling? and the fact of the matter was, at age twenty-three, I had secrets.

We went inside.

"Do you like it?" he asked, and of course I told him I did. As I
took a look around-well, more turned on my heels with my mouth
gaping-he rang a bell and before I knew it a pair of Negro women,
each built like an elk, was standing in front of me.

"This is Melba, the cook, and this is Willa, our maid."

"Pleased to meet you."

"Our pleasure," they said, the flatness in their voices suggesting
it was anything but. Worse, they finished up by muttering the word
ma'am, which I found embarrassing seeing as I was half their ages and
had figured my addressing them as ma'am might be more in keeping.

James took me on a tour. Quite proud of his house, he was; like
all homes of that size it'd been in the family for generations. He took
me from room to room to room. There were nineteen of them, not
counting the cellar. In them were crystal chandeliers and Persian carpets and mahogony furniture and fine bone china and oil paintings in
gilt frames. Beyond that, I won't go into any detail, for counting another person's riches is boring. I'm only mentioning the man's wealth so if
later I tell you material things don't impress me you'll know it's a statement coming from a woman who, for a brief period of time, was about
as rich as rich gets.

Plus James had a car. Every morning, after a breakfast of oatcakes and black coffee, he'd put on a pair of goggles and a funny
leather driving hat that clung to his skull like a bathing cap, and he'd
head out to his Model T. Some mornings I'd watch him getting his
exercise with all the crank turning and lever pulling necessary to get
the thing going, and then when it was finally moving it travelled no faster than a cart pulled by pair of workhorses. Furthermore, the thing
usually stoppped before making it out of the driveway (which admittedly was a half mile long) and I'd watch him, off in the distance, jump
out and start lever pulling and crank turning to get the damn thing
mobile again. Then, to demonstrate his appreciation for all things
automotive, he'd give three long blasts on the klaxon before turning
onto the road.

He was in love with the motor car and often said it was going to
transform the way America did business, that it was a genuine gift from
the future and that he'd already invested money with Mr. Ford. As for
me, I thought it a little suspicious he'd put so much stock in a sputtering heap of nuts and bolts when his very own Little Egypt was going
untouched and unloved each and every night.

My days? Whew. Slow as tar, they were. Some days slower.
You'd think after all I'd been through in the last decade or so I'd be
eager for a little peace and quiet. Truth is, I'd thought that's what I'd
wanted, only to discover that movement has a way of getting into your
bones and making you feel disjointed when it's not there any more. It's
like wearing a hat. At first you put it on and it feels scratchy and warm
and tight. You wear it for a while, and you stop noticing it's there. Then
you take it off and your head feels scratchy and warm and tight all over
again, even though there's nothing to cause the sensation. The same
with the business of shifting your body from one piece of ground to
another. After a while it starts to feel like the earth beneath your feet is
stable and still and reliable only when it's rushing.

To kill time I'd ask Melba to pack me a lunch ("Yes, ma'am,"
she'd say, her expression as flat as a board). Then I'd take long walks
along country roads, making myself guess what was behind each bend,
each gnarled and twisted live-oak tree, each rise in the camel-coloured
earth. More often than not it was more of the same. I soon grew bored
of this and started taking a blanket and setting myself in spots well
away from anywhere in particular. I'd take a book and stretch out for hours. Sometimes I'd even unbutton my blouse and warm my flesh in
the sun, all the while concentrating on the way air smells come autumn.
For a time, I even managed to persuade myself I was happy, or at least
that safe was a worthwhile substitute.