The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) (51 page)

She jiggled the key, and we followed her into the cabin.

"This is it," she said. "Home for a week. You like it?"

She was breathing deeply, and while she rested I took a look
around. The kitchen was small, holding nothing more than a stove, an
icebox, a few cabinets and a table for two. On the table was a vase filled
with cut flowers and a bowl of oranges. There was a counter separating the kitchen from the living room, the same counter our hostess was
at that moment leaning on, huffing and holding the small of her back
and saying how she really had to get over her mistrust of doctors and
go see one. The living room was wood panelled, with an oval crocheted
rug flanked on both sides by sofas that'd obviously seen better days but
at the same time looked comfortable and plump. Behind one of them
was a door, which, I presumed, led to the bedroom. Behind the other
was a wall decorated with an old oil painting of two children walking
in woods.

But the cabin's best feature was the picture window, taking up the
better part of the wall facing the beach. Our view was sand and sun
sparkling off water and beyond that a good long glimpse of nothingness. As I took in the view I'd have for the whole of the next week, it
occurred to me if this wasn't a place where I could relax then that place
didn't exist, all of which should explain why I acted so out of character
and went up to poor old huffing Mrs. Wain and hugged her while saying, "Oh, yes, Bertha. It's wonderful!"

Bertha left and we unpacked and when we were done we stood by the
picture window and admired the view, Art saying he had a half a mind to go have a dunk in the surf. The next thing I knew, we were both
splashing around like fools, the water cold but not nearly as cold as I
would've thought. We got out and the breeze condensing all that saltwater on our skin was cold, so we ran shrieking to the cabin, where we
towelled off and got dressed again. Then we went into town. While
most of the stores along the Strand were closed, there were a few shops
open that serviced the locals, including a place for groceries. We
stocked up, throwing anything that caught our fancy into the grocery
carts, as well as paraffin for cooking and a big bag of ice to keep our
provisions from spoiling.

By then, it was starting to get dark, and as we drove out of
Galveston the sun was settling low over the gulf. As Art drove I
watched, for it was something to see, a fat burning ball fanning bands
of orange over the water. Back at the cabin, Art ran around and collected driftwood in the dwindling light, and every time he found something big enough and dry enough to burn he'd give a little holler. He
came back inside with an armload and built a fire while I made us a supper of corn, potatoes, salad and clams in butter. By the time I was done
the cabin was warm as a bun. We ate by lamplight, the cabin having no
electricity, Art giving a satisfied little grunt after every mouthful and at
times saying, "My goodness, Mrs. Rooney. If I'd known you were such
a culinary expert I would've asked for your hand in marriage earlier."
Here I giggled and took a mouthful of clams and I tell you, I might as
well have been tasting food for the first time, which is a strange experience for anyone but particularly for a woman with nearly forty years
and five husbands under her belt. I took a sip of beer-Art was drinking iced tea-and practically grew maudlin at the thought that someone, at some time or another, had sat down and been smart enough to
invent a drink as cool and delicious.

We were just polishing off a big slab of store-bought chocolate
cake when Art announced there was something we just had to do.
Before I had a chance to ask what that thing was, he was through the cabin door and running around giving excited little whoops for the second time that evening. I turned down the lamplight and tried watching
Art through the picture window, his running figure crossing through
bands of moonlight. Was then I saw the spark of a match, and before I
knew it Art had a bonfire going on the beach. He came back inside the
cabin and fetched blankets.

"Well come on, Mrs. Rooney," he said. A minute later we were
both out on that beach, lying on blankets next to the heat of a fire, staring upward. There must've been a million stars out that night, of the
twinkling, blinking and shooting varieties. Art pointed out Orion, the
North Star and the Dippers. He pointed out some other constellations
with long Latin names, and though I couldn't make them out I said I
could just to be agreeable. Then we fell silent and held hands and generally felt good being alive, which is a wonderful and rare experience
and really ought not to be disturbed by small talk. Only problem was,
I didn't have Art's ability to let my mind go blank. What I'm saying is,
a single thought popped into my head, refusing to leave or turn into
something different, and it wasn't long before keeping it to myself
started to feel like torture.

I took a deep breath, looked into the side of Art's face and asked
him something I'd been wondering about for as long as I'd known him.

"Art," I asked softly. "Why is it you make yourself up like a
woman?"

I looked for signs I'd offended him, seeing as it was a topic he'd
never raised himself, another thing that'd always struck me as odd seeing as he was a man who, next to tending to animals, liked nothing more
than talking. He looked out over the water. Seemed to me he was taking his time composing an answer.

"Well, Mrs. Rooney," he finally said, "that's the big question,
and to answer it I'll have to ask you to remember I wasn't always the
man you know now. No siree. For almost forty years I was driven by
devils, which is one of the worst ways a person can be but unfortu nately one of the most natural. After a while, you get so you don't even
notice how tired you are, fighting yourself all the time, and it's this sort
of tiredness can cause a person to make mistakes he'll have to think
about for the rest of his life. In my case I ended up in prison, and I'm
here to tell you it was terrible. Three inmates per cell, guards as mean
as mongrels, food so poor you could barely swallow it. One day I
decided I'd had about enough, so I went up to this one guard I hated
worse than the others and said something long and full of profanity. It
got his attention, and when he turned around I hit him as hard as I could
in the teeth, just to make no bones about who was crazy and liable to do
anything. He and the other guards beat me so bad I pissed blood for
weeks. Then they threw me in the hole, where you're supposed to get
food and water but since I'd attacked a guard I got nothing. Soon I got
so thirsty I even tried drinking my own orange water. Finally, I decided I'd been born rotten and nothing was ever going to change that, so I
might as well lie down and die.

"Now this is the sort of decision that frees a man, and allows him
to take a good hard look at himself. Or maybe it was the fact I was weak
and delirious and still bleeding from the insides. To this day I'm not
sure. I only know I put myself on that cell floor and I prayed to the
Creator and I asked him to please take pity on me when I came up to
meet him. A day went by. Another. I didn't die, or leastways was pretty sure I hadn't. On the fourth day it happened."

"What happened?"

"I got visited."

"Who visited you?"

Art shrugged.

"Hard to say. He was partly man, partly animal and partly
neither, though I'd hate to call him a creature for it's a word that implies
lowliness and there was nothing lowly about him. What he was
isn't important. What is important is he had something he wanted to
tell me."

"Which was?"

A smile crept over Art's face.

"He told me I am what I am and everything has a reason and the
sooner I understood that the better. Then he was gone. I lay there,
mulling, coming to conclusions, sizing up life, thinking maybe I'd have
another go at it if I ever got out of this hole. I was there another three
weeks. First thing I did when I got out was paint my toenails the way
the squaws always used to. After that, the fights and the drinking
tapered off, till the day I noticed I was no longer a man who fought and
drank, you understand?"

I told him I did, though the truth is I was struggling. Like so many
of the things Art said, it made sense only if you stopped trying to explain
it to yourself with words. Course, this is easier said than done, so after a
bit I asked, "You mean you wear makeup so's not to hit people?"

"That's a pretty simple way of saying it but seeing as the simple
way's often the best way I'd have to say you're right."

I thought about this a bit longer, though eventually I gave up and
asked Art if he felt inclined to get on with the honeymoon. He said he
certainly did, so we got up and held hands as we walked away from the
sparking fire. Inside we blew out the paraffin lamps and got undressed
and crawled underneath an eiderdown comforter. For a time we lay listening to the sound of waves lapping at the beach, though it wasn't a
long time for we were both feeling happy and warm and in love. We
kissed and held each other and whispered words of adoration. I was
about to take hold of Art's forearm when he guided my hand toward the
part of a man's body more commonly put to use on the first night of a
honeymoon. I whispered his name in a way that posed a question, for he
was ready as ready gets and I thought maybe I was imagining things. He
answered by slipping inside me, so easily it was as though we'd done it
a thousand times previously, and for the first time I learned of a satisfaction that has nothing to do with ardour and has everything to do with
a human being's desire for being pressed tight against another body.

Afterwards we snuggled and talked about how we were going to
do some exploring the next day. Art fell asleep with a smile on his face.
I tried to sleep too, but couldn't, for I was still thinking about what Art
had told me. Course, the reason I couldn't stop thinking about that
story was I'd seen myself in it; was little use denying I'd spent my whole
life locking horns with others, and while I could find a reason for each
specific battle, I couldn't find a reason why I'd had so many of them,
the one possibility being it wasn't others I'd been fighting all along.

No sooner did this thought come than a floodgate opened in my
head, and all the reasons why I deserved the way I'd been treating
myself came rushing in-everything from the way I felt about my
mother to my having cooched in a sideshow to some of the things I'd
done to advance my career to the things Rajah and I had done together, in the dark, my mouth pressed into fur so I wouldn't be heard over
the clacking of the train. Suddenly, I wished I was clothed. I put my
hands over my eyes, the way a child will when trying to make herself
disappear. I curled up, if only so there'd be less of me. There likely
wasn't a woman on earth who'd sinned worse than me or more often,
though it wasn't this fact that had me sobbing deeply and quietly so as
not to waken Art. If I was feeling emotional, it was because I was lying
next to a man who knew me and knew everything I'd done and still,
still, had never once thought to hold it against me.

We spent the rest of that week playing like children, which was a way
I'd never felt as a child so it was all new and exotic and glorious. Long
walks were taken, cookouts were had, evenings were spent under the
stars, next to a fire, watching constellations and feeling lucky to have
found a place so private. The entire universe might as well have been
up there for us and us only. Bertha let us use a pair of bicycles that were
property of Sunny Side Cabins, and instead of taking the car we'd
pedal into town to buy milk or bread. On the Tuesday morning, we
found a drugstore tucked off the Strand, so we stopped and had a soda float each and bought paperbacks. That afternoon the wind kicked up,
the sand swirling so fiercely it was unpleasant to be outside, so Art and
I just lay around on the two sofas, reading our murder mysteries, listening to the cabin's loose shingles clatter in the wind. This all gave Art
an idea, and the next day we cycled back into town where he bought the
makings for a kite; that afternoon he tacked it together and it flew like
a bird, though when it came time for my turn I got distracted and it
slipped from my hands. For all I know, it's still out there somewhere,
following the gulf stream to who knows where. We ate mostly seafood,
though one night I roasted a chicken. One morning Art got up with the
sun, and by the time I awoke he'd netted some mullets from the gulf,
which he'd filleted and was frying in butter alongside eggs and potatoes. At night we made love under that eiderdown cozy, something Art
was starting to get good at, his theory being the salty air was energizing him in a way he had no control over. I slept well, and if I had any
bad dreams they were gone for me by morning.

These, then, were my memories of my honeymoon, my final
recollection being the delicious sadness I felt the day we packed our
clothes, said goodbye to Bertha Wain, took one last look at the Gulf of
Mexico and drove the Ford back to Houston. There we spent a night in
a hotel before starting our train ride back, a ride that for some reason
seemed twice as long as it had on the way out. Fortunately, we'd
stocked up on dime novels to keep us occupied, the only problem being
at times I'd feel so excited and happy at the prospect of starting our
lives together I couldn't even focus on the words. Breathless, I was, and
a little delirious because of it.

The first thing I did upon stepping off the train was go see Rajah,
who'd spent the entire week in his cage seeing as there hadn't been a
cage boy willing to take him out and walk him. Having not seen him for
a week, I took in his appearance with new eyes. He hadn't been worked
seriously for five years, so in addition to growing foul-tempered he'd
swelled to almost six hundred pounds, a size nearly impossible on a Bengal. Mostly he looked shaggy and old and huge. I went in and tried
brushing him, but his hair was matted and I didn't have the steel-tooth
brush. To make matters worse, he kept rolling away from me, a way of
showing he was definitely and without reservation pissed off. To
appease him I tried stroking the soft spot between his front legs, though
he'd have none of it, growling and gently batting me away with the
back of a paw. "Rajah!" I said, "What's gotten into you?" and was then
he purred and rolled over and sidled up toward me and started rubbing
himself against me. I sighed and moved away, something that seemed
to wound him even more than being left a full week in a cage. He bellowed, and then roared, and then waved a paw in my face, and I was
starting to think it might be smarter if I got myself out of there when a
switch got thrown inside Rajah and he turned into a sulky old kitty. He
came over and sank his head into my lap and licked my palms. I stayed
a good long time with Rajah that day, and when I left it was with the
promise things were going to get back to normal and he'd have lots of
time outside of his cage and he was not to worry, I wasn't about to let
my prize wrestler turn into a skulky old menage cat anytime soon.