The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) (50 page)

Art lit a new cigarette and took a deep sucking drag, which he
held so long the smoke all but disappeared.

"Everyone has trials and tribulations, Mabel. Everyone. I've been
alive for fifty-three years, and in that time I've learned one thing and
one thing only. There ain't a problem on this great green earth helped
by feeling sorry for yourself. Nope, not one."

Art looked out the window, his teeth moving and his moustache
bobbing the way it did when he was deep in thought. Suddenly his face
lightened. He clamped his elbows to his sides and gave a little shake.

"It's chilly in here. You know what we should do? We should go
to the dining car and get some ice cream. Whenever you catch a chill
you should eat something cold-suck on an ice cube, say, or locate a
polar bar. It makes the temperature outside your mouth feel warm by
comparison, and when you really think about it, warmth by comparison is about the only type of warmth there is."

To which I looked at him adoringly and thought, Oh, Art. Please.

Soon after, the train took a turn south and we crossed over the state line
into Texas. There was an hour's whistle stop in Dallas, during which we
got out and stretched our legs and each had a barbecued turkey leg. We
got back on board, and it was outside of Houston that Art stood and
started putting clothes into his suitcase. I looked at him questioningly, a
look that caused him to grin and stop packing for a second and say, "This
is our stop, Mrs. Rooney. I'd get myself ready to go, if I were you."

I hurried to get my things together. When the train next stopped,
a Negro porter came and took our things and carried them to the platform, Art instructing him to check them at the baggage counter. When
all that was done he tipped the porter, who thanked Art and strode off whistling. Art took a deep breath and had an admiring look around the
high glass-ceilinged station.

"Well, Art," I said. "I know you want to keep me guessing, and
my guess is since you've checked our bags, Houston isn't our final destination, and that maybe you want to do a little sightseeing before we
move on. Am I in the right ballpark?"

"You are, Mabel. I have a little Ringling business to attend to here
in Houston, but other than that you're right on the money."

We left the station and Art hired a taxicab and we crossed downtown, Art saying nothing but smiling like he had something up his
sleeve. As for me, I'd been to Houston many times previously, and had
always marvelled at what an ugly town it was, a reaction I was pretty
much having again. I suppose the problem was it was more or less a
port, meaning most of the buildings were either warehouses storing
whatever came through Galveston Bay via steamship, or darkened hotels
frequented by seamen on shore leave. What Houston didn't have was
the normal upside to big city life, that being restaurants and markets
and theatres and people everywhere. Why this was, I wasn't sure, and
the only thing I could think was that Houstonites grew so used to
staying put during the sweltering heat of summer they forgot to break
the habit when the weather got more agreeable.

After ten minutes or so, we stopped in front of a squat building
indistinguishable from all the other low buildings on whatever street we
were on, except there was a sign on the door reading "Peterson & Co.,
Animal Traders." Art rang the doorbell. After a bit, a man answered,
his face breaking into a smile when he saw Art.

We all went in, Art introducing me as his new wife and Peterson
as one of the most respected men in the animal wholesale business. We
were in a giant room filled with animals of every description, and we
had to speak loudly to be heard over the noise. The air was thick with
dander, and though I found it unpleasant to breathe, Art didn't look like
it was bothering him in the least.

Art told Peterson he needed to replace three animals: a camel
that'd just died of fever, an elephant who'd passed on from old age and
a llama that'd gone deaf and could no longer follow instructions during the pell-mell of the opening spec. Peterson nodded and told him to
take a good long look around, and to let him know if there was anything else that caught Art's eye, for most of the animals had just come
in and were as yet unspoken for. Peterson wandered off, leaving Art
and me to roam up and down aisles crammed with crates and cages and
large wooden boxes, each filled with an animal either sleeping or sniffing at the spaces between slats. Truth be told, I found it all a little sad,
for the animals obviously weren't getting enough sunlight (or loving,
for that matter), and I felt guilty for creating a need for this kind of traffic in creatures.

Art, too, looked a little displeased.

"The shipment must've been from South America," he said,
pointing around as if to indicate he wasn't about to find an elephant or
a camel among them. He did pick out a llama, saying it was a nice
healthy specimen with good-sized hooves and a temperament that
could be worked with. Art then invited me to have a peruse, which I
was already doing. After a few minutes, I found a crate carrying two
ocelots, which interested me because they weren't the local variety but
had come all the way from Patagonia, meaning they were smaller and
their coats more mottled. Though I couldn't work them, ocelots not
being anywhere big enough to thrill a crowd, I did think they'd be an
interesting addition to the menage, and when I told this to Art he
bought the pair as well. After filling out some paperwork in Peterson's
office, we stepped outside. A grey coupe was parked at the curb, and
our bags were piled up in the rumble seat.

"Well," Peterson said, "there she is. I just had her serviced, so as
long as you don't hit anything you won't have any trouble. You two
have a good time and ..."

He said something else, though I didn't hear it because by then Art had taken the turn and had started the engine and was revving it to
make sure the gas flowed properly. I climbed in and we all waved and
there were smiles all round and then we were off. Over the sound of the
motor ratcheting itself up to travelling speed, Art explained he'd been
able to borrow the motorcar because Peterson was not a bad sort and
because the circus bought as many animals as all of Peterson's other
clients put together. Art then looked at me, blinked, and said mostly it
was the second reason.

I smiled, not because of Art's witticism but because I was starting
to feel like we really were on vacation: the top was down and wind was
flapping our hair and once we got away from the homeliness of the city
we started passing cypress trees and pines and live-oaks and it was all
pretty, every bit of it. The bay road was mostly sand, meaning we got
dry-mouthed pretty quickly, so after a bit we stopped at a tiny little
town where everyone wore suspenders and chewed on toothpicks.
There was a general store, where we bought glasses of lemonade and
jerky for when we got hungry later. Art also had the presence of mind
to chat up a local sitting at the counter, who upon hearing what we were
doing offered us a pail of water to pour over the radiator.

After another hour or so, we reached a rickety wooden suspension bridge, which we crossed so as to pass onto the island of
Galveston. The road led through town. Though it was off-season,
there was still the odd person about and the odd cafe open, so I told Art
I wanted to stop and have a look about.

"All in due time," he said. "All in due time, Mabel. First, we have
to keep an appointment."

Pretty soon the road banked to the right, and the next thing I
knew we were driving along a breakwall, and beyond that the Gulf of
Mexico stretched choppy and blue to infinity. I gazed out over the water
and felt my body lose its tension, something that happened whenever I
fell witness to a vanishing point. I asked Art why he thought this was so
and of course he had an answer. "Fear of death," he said without blink ing. "It disappears. When you look out over water, and you feel like
you can see forever, the mind starts thinking maybe some things really
can last forever. That maybe some things really are eternal. Once the
mind figures that out, it's only natural it starts suspecting maybe the
thing that make us us is also a thing that has the potential for everlife.
And once the mind figures that out, well. It's not long before it realizes
it's been doing a whole lot of worrying for nothin'."

I looked at him, agog.

"The only trick," he added, "is holding on to that feeling when
you're not looking out over an ocean or an undisturbed stretch of flatland. I'll tell you, it's a trick really separates the men from the boys, if
you know what I mean."

A few seconds passed.

"Tell me," I finally said. "You make this stuff up on the spot, or
do you actually spend time thinking about it?"

"Mabel. I lived in a four-by-eight-foot cell for fourteen years. I
had time to think about pretty much anything I cared to and other
things besides."

After a bit the seawall gave way, and instead of the waves crashing against piled stones they broke choppily over smooth, light brown
sand. Though the weather was nice and sunny and verging on warm,
there now wasn't a soul around. We started passing neat little clusters
of houses on the beach side of the road, some of them no bigger than
huts and all of them painted either pale blue or a sunny yellow. We also
passed signs bearing the names of the resorts: "Seaside Cottages" and
"Ocean View Suites" and "Sandy Shore Rentals." I started suspecting
we were going to spend our honeymoon in a rented cabin on the water,
a proposition that suited me fine, for as I've said I've always associated
sun and waves with time off and the opportunity to recuperate. I
had my suspicions confirmed when Art pulled into the very last set of
resort huts on the spit, a tidy grouping of little houses called Sunny
Side Cabins.

"Well," Art said, "what do you think, Mabel? We'll have sun, the
ocean, all the seafood we care to eat. Most important, we'll have time
alone to contemplate our navels, and according to some religions there
isn't a thing in this world more important to contemplate."

Without waiting for an answer, he pulled up in front of the first
cabin in the row, which looked better appointed than the others: lace
curtains were hanging in the windows and the garden was tended and
there were window boxes filled with late-season flowers struggling to
bloom. A little sign reading "Office" was over the door.

Art tapped on the door. We could hear a radio playing inside. Art
tapped more forcefully, until we heard the radio being turned down and
steps shuffling toward the door. A lace curtain was pulled aside, and
though we couldn't tell for the glare we both knew we were being
looked at, so we smiled and generally tried to look honest. The door
swung open, and we were said hello to by a dumpling of a woman
wearing a knitted pink sweater. Her hair was a frizz of grey, and her
cheeks were so rosy and round that when she smiled, as she was doing
at that moment, her eyes narrowed into slits I was amazed she could see
out of. She was so little she had to crane her neck upward to look into
my face, which was a change of pace for in a typical crowd of adults I'm
almost always the smallest.

"Well, hello!" she said in a croaky voice. "You must be the
Rooneys. I'm Bertha Wain, the owner. Gosh, you two must be tired.
I've just made tea. Would you like to have some?"

Art and I exhanged sure why not? glances and followed her shuffling steps into her little yellow kitchen. We sat at a wooden kitchen
table and watched as she padded around the room, collecting spoons
and milk and a sugar bowl, then pouring hot liquid into little cups bearing the words "Galveston Island, Vacationer's Paradise."

When we were all seated, she turned to me and said, "When your
husband contacted me I was surely surprised, for as you can see it's offseason. Normally people aren't interested in coming this time of year-they complain about the wind and the salt spray it kicks up-but
your husband said you two were looking for a place where you could be
by yourselves seeing as this was your honeymoon and all. Well, I don't
think you'll be disappointed. It'll just be you and me and the gulls for
the next week, my Harold having passed away seven years ago now, all
of which I explained to your husband here and he seemed to think it
was just fine."

We talked a little bit more, mostly about our long train trip and
the weather that time of year in Galveston, though when we told her
we were troupers with the Ringling show her face lit up and she said
she was a fan and sure enough she had a thousand questions, mostly
about the secret lives of the bigger stars and how on earth we managed
to up and move the whole thing every single day. After a bit, I started
to get restless. Seeing this, Art waited for the next natural pause in the
conversation, at which point he drained his tea cup and said, "I can't
wait to see our cabin."

"My oh my of course" was Bertha's response. "And here I am,
keeping you two lovebirds from yourselves. Where are my manners?
They just flew out the window when you told me you were circus folk,
I suppose. Gracious, what did I do with that key?"

She got up, a movement involving a lot of chair-leg scraping and
the use of her forearms, and then rooted through a half-dozen kitchen
drawers, pushing aside egg flippers and potato mashers and meat
pounders, until she finally found a key on a looped piece of string. We
followed her across the sand, which was slow going, Bertha taking the
opportunity to inform us she was a sufferer of lumbago, and that if you
happen to have lumbago there's not much worse you can do for yourself than walk along a sandy beach. True enough, her motion was
mostly in the shoulders, her back ramrod stiff as she walked.

We reached the last cabin in the row. Just beyond was the end of
the cove, the beach turning to light bramble and then a promontory covered in a sparse pine forest. "If you want to make a fire," Bertha said, pointing, "you'll find all the deadwood you can possibly use. Plus you'll
find the spit offers a little protection from the wind, which we do sometimes get here in November. Other than that, I think you've got everything you need. I put in towels and bedding and there's a pump out back
so you'll have no shortage of water. It's right next to the outhouse, so
you can kill two birds with one stone, if you catch my meaning."