The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) (19 page)

Funny thing was, I obliged. Scratched him behind the ears and
said, "All right Samson, you made your point." Then he got up and led
me to the blue curtain, as well behaved as a Dalmation, the audience
clapping and howling and wiping away tears. Outside the big top, people saw my costume had turned red from the elbow down. There were
screams, though not loud ones. I was starting to stagger from faintness,
and blood was beginning to make its way over my fingers, the colour
red mixing with field earth. My good hand, gone ash white, was still
holding the leash of that panting contented lion, seeing as Louis was in
the menage and was no way anybody else was going to lead Samson
off. I stood there for minutes and minutes, feeling silly and weak, the
trickle of blood from my sleeve turning to actual flow. After a bit, the
ground started to teeter like a see-saw, the voices around me turning
slow and unnaturally deep.

I woke up in darkness, circus-lot sounds nearby. My eyes adjusted to the
dimness well enough I knew I was in a rail car, though I didn't know
whose until Louis came in with a lit kerosene lamp in one hand, a bowl
in the other, and a cloth over his shoulder. He must've just finished the
evening show, for he was in his performing getup. Steam from the bowl
rose into his face. I looked around the car. It was full of old furniture,
lots of dark wood and red velvet, the walls covered with framed photographs of Louis: with his platoon back in Hungary, performing in the
George R. Rawlings show, putting his head in a lion's mouth, guiding
a trio of lions through a rollover. In another he was posing with Al G.,
Al G. beaming and draping his arm over Louis's shoulder, Louis looking stonefaced and uncomfortable. Was also a framed New York Times
article from 1905, reporting that Louis was the first to ever put his head
in the mouth of a lion, which was pure horseshit seeing as Van Amberg
was doing it back in the 1800s.

A sheet separated myself and the bedspread, and my arm was
resting on a mat of towels. The wound was stinging, no doubt from
carbolic acid. Because it was animal inflicted, they'd left it open so it
could froth up and drain. Louis sat down. Instead of looking in my
eyes, he looked at the wound, gently turning my arm so as to inspect it
from different angles.

"So," he finally said, "vee haff had a little accident."

"Looks that way."

"Hmmmmmm. I haff seen much vorse."

"It'll scar?"

"Oh yess."

"Good."

He took the cloth and dipped it in the hot water and began to
wipe the wound. The cut looked long and pristine, like a canoe, though
built with layers of pink softwood. Louis kept looking at it, couldn't
take his eyes off it, and might've stared at it for a whole lot longer had
the rail cars not started shunting. He left, saying he'd be back, and an hour later, when the train was built and we were about to make the next
jump, he returned carrying another bowl of hot water and another
clean cloth. He washed the surface of the wound till it was pretty and
pink and glistening in the soft light cast by burning kerosene.

"Zer," he said, though he didn't stop, for he then poked an index
finger into the cloth and dipped the point of the cloth into the warm
solution. The train started to pull out of the station, Louis waiting for
the jiggling to settle into regular motion before he did what he was
intending.

Which was: press that carbolic-acid-and-warm-water-soaked
cloth, made pointy with an index finger, into one end of my wound.

"We must make ziss thoroughly clean," Louis explained. He put
a bit of pressure on the tip of his finger so that it separated the folds of
the wound and dipped inside, producing a stinging that didn't, in any
way, stay confined to the length and breadth of the wound. I wriggled a
bit and tried to stay ladylike, though it was hard seeing as Louis's finger
was moving toward the centre of the wound, splitting deeper layers of
skin, the sensation mounting in a way that was practically vengeful. Air
hissed through my teeth, and I arched my back, though I didn't yell
out-I wanted to show him pain was something I had a higher than
average tolerance for.

"Zer," Louis kept saying, "zer zer zer. Iss better now, I sink. No
chance for infection. Vee don't want you getting meningitis."

I lay there a bit longer, may've even fallen asleep, while Louis
took a chair in the corner, polishing his boots and the buttons on his
tunic. When he felt the wound had stopped seeping for good, he pulled
out a roll of sterilized gauze and wound it snug around the arm, wrapping the bandages to just beneath the elbow.

"I sink is better now you get some sleep," he said. "In ze next
town maybe we let it drain some more and get some stitches, no?" I was
just about to oblige when a thought occurred to me.

"Louis," I said, "where're you gonna sleep?"

"Me?"

"Yes you."

"Ziss is not a problem. I vill sleep in ze chair. I haff done so many
many times. Ziss is a talent I haff developed...."

"Now Louis don't you be ridiculous. This is your car, and if anyone's going to sleep in the chair it's going to be me."

"This is not possible. You must keep your arm supported or ze
ache will be horrible. I vill not allow it."

"Then you're just going to have to climb in. I'll skitter over and
make room. Thankfully, there's not a lot of me so I don't take up much
space.

"I don't ..."

"Louis. There's polite and there's just plain stupid, and you
bunking in that chair overnight is nothing but stupid. You're a cat man.
If anybody needs to be fresh come morning it's you...." With this his
face soured-he was seeing things the sensible way, even though the
sensible way also happened to be my way and he obviously didn't like
being wrong. He got up and blew out the lamp, and I heard clothes
being pulled off and on in the dark. I wriggled to the side of the car,
and he got in bed wearing a long white flannel nightie.

Course, the tension made sleep impossible, and for the longest
time we just lay side by side, not touching, staring up at the car ceiling,
listening to each other breathe lightly and rapidly. Was after who
knows how long I finally heard Louis whisper, "Mabel?"

"Yes?" I whispered back.

"I vass hard on you in ze beginning. I am sorry."

"That's all right, Louis."

"Many sink they can be cat trainers. Zey know vee are paid well,
and zey sink it is glamorous. If I don't chase zem away, zey can get hurt
badly. It's for zer own good."

"I know that, Louis."

"I didn't understand you had ze gift."

"Water under the bridge, Louis."

There was a long pause, Louis and I lying there listening to rail
sounds and rumblings. Finally he said, "Al G., he tells me you are an
orphan?"

Another long pause. I could feel Louis's eyes on the side of my
face. Meanwhile, I was considering whether I really wanted to get into
the whole orphan thing or not.

"Nope. Don't know where he would've heard that. Funny how
rumours get started."

"So you're parents, zey are alife?"

"Yep. Back in Kentucky. Working tobacco."

"Hmmmmmm," Louis said while doing something I'd stopped
expecting: one of his big sinewy hands crossed the great divide and
took hold of the two smallest fingers on my good hand. The word
finally popped into my head, and though I was tired enough to beat the
band I wiggled toward the centre of the bed and I sidled up. A second
later I felt Louis's lips on mine-his breath was warm and tasted of
sourmash-and I felt one of his hands slide inside my blouse.

After a bit of kissing and massage, I encouraged his hand to travel southward; though he did nothing more than rest his fingers on the
spot where I'd placed them, his hands and fingers were trembling so
badly there was a natural vibration that was not in any way unpleasant.
Meanwhile, I reciprocated, pulling up his nightie and giving him a
caress; he was tiny, that man, perhaps the size of a thumb, something
that gladdened me for it wouldn't take much eagerness on my part to
accommodate him. After a lot of kissing and touching, I rolled over and
reached between my legs and guided him inside.

After a few slow-moving strokes-men do that to show they're
gracious, though you can always tell they consider it an annoyancehe began to move like greased lightning, one hand on my shoulder and
one on my left breast, the bed now jiggling faster than the rail car holding it, and throughout Louis was completely silent except for a fffffffffft sound coming right at the end. Was like a punctured tire, though I took
it as a signal he'd had his share and was ready for sleep.

He got out of bed and, without looking at me, washed his face
and hands and privates as thoroughly as he'd cleaned my wound. Then
he got back into bed, tried to say he loved me, couldn't, and fell asleep.
I stayed awake, counting rail lights, heart beating like a rabbit's, a single thought doing circles and loop-de-loops and Slides for Life in that
curly blond-haired head of mine.

Al G. would hear about this.

He'd hear about this come morning.

True to his word, Al G. bought me a wild Bengal from an Indian captain who had his freighter parked in San Francisco Bay. I named her
Duchess. She was so wild for a while it looked like I was going to have
to use a collar and chains to break her, which is a terrible way to train,
carrying grudges pretty much being a hobby with tigers. Finally I gentled her onto her pedestal, though it took more than a month, and the
first time I mixed her with King and Queen she opened a gash on
Queen's nose, and to keep order I had to buggywhip Duchess harder
than I'd ever hit an animal. She turned on me and lashed at my hand and
would've done worse had Louis not been beside me to bring a whip
down hard on her nose and eyes, which backed her out of the strike
range but only just. She sat growling and looking scary. Meanwhile,
Queen arfed at the tunnel door and King stayed on his seat, though his
eyes were slit-like and fixed on Duchess's every quiver.

While Red got the cats back into their cages, Louis held my
injured hand in his own. The injury wouldn't've been so bad except a
nail had caught the ring Louis had given me a few weeks previous, and
it was the ring that'd torn through skin and muscles and fractured the
joint, the finger now flopped over and hanging on by nothing more
than skin and tissue on the far side. It took more stitches than you'd
think a finger could take and never worked right after that. The one consolation was Louis nursed me again, and that nursing resulted in
more nighttime affection, which pleased Al G. for the more Louis and
I were together the less Louis seemed to drink. Even I was happy, for I
wanted a baby and figured Louis would be as good a man as any to have
one with.

I had more wound cleaning later that season, up in Washington
State, after Al G. gave me a new stallion to work during the riding act.
First day in practise it bucked me, my head hitting frozen ground,
opening a gash over my eye and breaking three ribs and putting me in
a coma for a week. When I finally came to, I suffered from bad neck
pain and partial blindness and a dizziness that was better some days than
others but was never totally gone. Louis put cold compresses on me,
and if I was up to it he'd clean the twisting gash above my eye with the
mildest of ammonia solutions. To restore the vision in my left eye, he'd
have me sleep with a witch-hazel pack, a remedy he swore by but did
nothing but fill the car with the smell of fermented bark. For a full year
my eyesight bothered me, until the next tiger Al G. bought me, Pasha
was her name, took a swipe at me during a matinee in Leavenworth,
Kansas. She opened a gash wasn't that serious but that bled like only a
headwound'11 bleed-women were fainting and children screaming.
Oddly enough, my vision started coming back in my left eye, and the
double vision that'd bothered me every time I turned my head went
away too. The doctor said the cat must have ripped away a blood clot
caused by the horse fall. Who knows? While I lay in hospital Louis
went out and bought a half-dozen hats for me to look at, as I needed
something to wear while the shaved patch grew back. I told him I
couldn't decide, seeing as they were all so pretty. Louis clicked his
heels, went back out again and paid for them all.

Or: in 1916, Al G. sent me and Louis to San Bernadino to put on
a lion act for some Orangemen. Midway through the act, an attendant
decided he'd help out by reaching through the bars and slapping a stubborn cat on the rear. The lion screamed-not roared but screamed and after that all hell broke loose, cats attacking everything in sight
including the pedestals and the bars and the other cats and of course
me, my only distinct recollection being I was dragged around the cage
by the arm until Louis ran in and tried to save me, getting himself
chewed something furious on the right leg. Was a blur of panicking
lions and screaming people and men rushing in with guns loaded with
blanks and the air filling with flying hair and gob. When the cats were
finally cleared out, Louis and I were left lying in bloody heaps. We
looked over at each other and, I swear, smiled.

Louis and I recuperated together, my cleaning him as best as I
was able considering my arm was wired in two places, Louis cleaning
me as best as he was able given the slightest movement caused him pain
that sliced up and down his body like a knife. I was proud of him. The
jostling of the rail car at night caused him such pain he couldn't sleep,
and even then he stayed clear of the bottle. We were both a mess of bite
and claw marks, Louis joking I'd brought him good luck, for until then
a lot of people described him as the best unmarked trainer in the circus
whereas now he was the best, period.

Basically, we had ourselves a system. We'd take cloths and dip
them in a boric solution before rinsing them thoroughly and hanging
them on a line stretched across our rail car. Those we used for wound
cleaning. We also mixed up several different batches of iodine solutions, each one slightly less strong than the one before. We kept them
in Mason jars, lined along one wall on the floor, and as we recuperated
we used weaker and weaker solutions, until the seeping got mild
enough we could get stitches and wear bandages and move around.
Once we started with bandages we changed them every day, Louis
insisting we wash our hands in an ammonia solution. If the rips got
sore, say if we hadn't stayed still enough during the day, we'd numb
them with ice or creams cooling to the touch, for I didn't trust
painkillers and Louis worried he might develop a taste for them.
Or we'd talk our way through, diverting the mind being a lot more powerful weapon than people generally realize. It worked like a charm,
every bit of it. We both got through without so much as a hint of infection, and that's saying something when you're dealing with cat marks.