The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) Read online

  Praise for The Final Confession o/'Mahel Stark:

  "Rollicking . . . Hough dutifully traces the peaks and valleys of Mabel's remarkable life. . . . Mabel's tale is sprinkled with bits of fascinating circus lore."

  -Jenny Oftill, The Washington Post

  "You'd be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable novel. . . . [Hough's] colorful account of [Mabel's] wild life-in and out of the center ring-is irresistible."

  -The Dallas Morning News

  "Utterly human . . . Hough has ensured that [Mabel] remains brightly lit in the arena of memory.... Unforgettable."

  -Emily Carter, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune

  "Mabel Stark developed an act so original, so daring, so brave, that it puts all the stupid human tricks on today's reality shows to shame. ... Hough has constructed a captivating portrait of a woman and a way of life that no longer exist."

  -Regis Behe, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

  "Hough packs his sprawling novel with fascinating details that leave you wondering what's true and what's imagination."

  -Jody Jaffe, The Baltimore Sun

  "Astounding . . . Hough captures the attitude and emotions of America through the first half of the twentieth century.... Hough brings a humanistic humor and melancholy to the otherwise freakish proceedings.... Heartbreakingly honest and insightful ... Feels like a sort of Great American Novel."

  -Erik Henriksen, The Portland Mercury

  "Narrating with a saucy, bouncy verve, [Mabel Stark] recounts a life story that is one part John Irving, two parts blue movie."

  -John Freeman, Time Out New York

  "Engaging ... Though this is historical fiction ... the truth Hough (and to some extent his heroine) finally uncovers is timeless... . [Mabel is] a woman of her times who tried her best to rise above the tragedies of her youth and did so with style for much of her glorious, courageous life."

  -Clea Simon, The Boston Phoenix

  "Stark's whole life was like ... a series of rip-snorting ups and downs, as frequently harrowing as a Saturday-afternoon movie serial."

  -John Griffin, The Arizona Republic

  "Attention-grabbing ... [Rough's] depictions of the many maulings Stark suffered at the paws of her beast are particularly gripping, especially her most gruesome attack, by two full-grown male tigers."

  -Amy M. Bruce, Baltimore City Paper

  "Rippling with brawny energy, its prose tangy with regret and pride, [The Final Confession of Mabel Stark] gives off the smells and tastes of circus-world exuberance."

  -Jesse Barrett, City Pages

  "As involving as it is informative, as moving as it is riveting ... It's an exotic and exciting picture of the circus's golden age and one talented and tormented (and well-scarred) star. This is a wonderful novel, which marks the debut of a writer to watch."

  -Lynn Harnett, The Portsmouth Herald

  "Rich in the atmosphere of circus life, this graphic, slangy fictional reminiscence also offers some surprising, deft metafictional touches."

  -Publishers We e k/v

  "Outspoken, earthy, sometimes repentant, and always indomitable, Mabel leaps into life with the vigor of her beloved tigers. The result is a novel as fascinating as it's heroine."

  -Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman, Magil Book Reviews

  "A marvelous debut ... about the life and amazing adventures of the greatest female tiger trainer in circus history and narrated with delicious humor and wan-nth.... Just about perfect. One of the most entertaining novels in years."

  -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  "Exuberant ... An exciting and entrancing portrait of life in what was then the most popular public entertainment in the land. . . . Hough reveals Mabel's inner self by giving her a voice and a way of telling her story that is unique and idiosyncratic. Mabel's voice, her perspective, her attitude is one of the great pleasures and great achievements of the novel."

  -Alden Mudge, Bookpage

  "Utterly captivating and thrilling fictionalized life of the greatest female tiger-trainer in history ... It is also a snapshot of the circus at the height of its popularity in America in the early twentieth century-an age when circus performers were superstars."

  -The Bookseller

  "Rambunctious Mabel Stark is brought to life from her journals and letters, and although Hough uses artistic license to fill in the gaps of his research, his intimations are all too plausible here, where the truth is certainly stranger than fiction."

  -Elsa Gaztambide, Booklist

  "Hough's energetic writing brings bittersweet memories spilling off the page.... The Final Confession of Mabel Stark is made in a voice so compelling that fact and fiction cease to mean much. . . . This book has teeth."

  -The Times (London)

  "[Hough] writes exceptionally well: his prose is clear and he is good a set pieces that show us the various staging posts in Stark's life.... It is perfect movie material.... The book skims over comic, sad and tragic episodes alike. Refusing to get bogged down in introspection or analysis, the narrative pushes forward. It is well-crafted entertainment."

  Sunday Herald

  "Hough's Mabel may be mostly invention but she's a fiction who tells it straight. It's a clever conceit, structuring the book around a testy, superannuated confessee: the story steams along like a Ringling train, fuelled by Mabel's self-obsession, unsolicited advice and wry perspective."

  -The Ohserver (London)

  "This book is hilarious. It is frankly impossible not to fall in love with the heroine, a woman other women would like to be, and men would like to tame. . . . This book is an uplifting account of a life lived to the hilt."

  -Irish Examiner

  "Never flagging, the compelling story thunders along like a runaway circus train bearing a dangerous cargo of painful memory, wild animals, grotesque characters, and outlandish stories."

  -The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

  "One hell of a journey . . . Hough vividly renders the big-top life, from the working men to the divas in the ring ... a world of blood and death ... of illicit sex and mysterious pasts."

  -Vancouver Sun

  THE

  FINAL CONFESSION

  OF

  MABEL STARK

  A NOVEL BY

  ROBERT HOUGH

  To Sootie, Sally, Ella

  CONTENTS

  THE BARNES SHOW

  The Athenian Tailor ... 2

  The Young Psychiatrist ... 24

  JungleLand ... 46

  The Southern Cotton Mogul ... 63

  The Hungarian Military Officer ... 95

  The Bengal Punk ... 134

  JungleLand ... 164

  The Handsome Bigamist ... 175

  THE RINGLING SHOW

  The Ringling Accountant ... 206

  The Ex-Polar Bear Man ... 239

  JungleLand ... 265

  The New Menage Boss ... 298

  Art ... 328

  JOHN ROBINSON / BARNES

  Lucky Barnes ... 394

  JungleLand ... 422

  Research Notes ... 425

  Acknowledgements ... 429

  PART ONE

  THE BARNES SHOW

  CHAPTERI

  THE ATHENIAN TAILOR

  HE IS: TALL, KNOBBY-KNEED, THIN AS A QUARTER POLE, IN HIS shop on Seventh Street, craned over his tailoring bench, applying white piping to a vest, when the pain in his lower right abdomen becomes a searing white-hot agony. He moans and keels over his work table, clutching at himself. This causes Mr. Billetti, the produce vendor in the market stall next door, to come running. After a moment of panic (arms flapping, hoppin
g on one spot, saying, "Holy-a cow, holy-a moly"), Mr. Billetti throws his groaning friend onto an empty wooden cart, laying him on the flatbed ordinarily reserved for rutabagas and eggplants. He rickshaws Dimitri all the way to St. Mary's, bursts through the doors, and cries "Help! I needa help!" before collapsing at the toes of the Virgin Mary.

  Ten minutes later, they scalpaled Dimitri open and removed what was left of his appendix, which by that point wasn't much, a squishy burst purple thing the size of a prune split lengthwise. Then they wheeled him into Ward 4 and parked him halfway down the right aisle, asleep and wearing a white flannel hospital gown. After about a half-hour or so, I wandered over and took my first long gander. He was lean and sharply boned and what the other trainee nurses called handsome, with his fine nose and wavy hair and olive-toned skin. Even unconscious he wore a smirk; later I figured out he wore it so much during the day his face had learned to fall that way natural when he was asleep.

  As the poison spread through his body, he plumped up and turned the colour of a carrot. His hands looked like they'd burst if you pricked them. He slept around the clock, the only painkillers in 1907 being the kind that put you out like a light. On day three, I happened to hear two doctors discussing what all that stuff circulating through his body was likely going to do to him. "Either it'll kill him," the older one said, "or it won't. I suppose we'll have to wait around and see."

  After three or four days, it became obvious Dimitri was choosing the second option, for his bloating eased, his skin returned to a colour more salad oil than carrot and he didn't look so mortuary-still when asleep. While emptying a chamber pot near his bed one morning, I took a moment to look him over, fascinated by the way his chest hair curled like baby fingers over the collar of his gown. Suddenly he opened his eyes and without bothering to focus said, "What is it your name, beautiful girl?"

  Now this had a discombobulating effect on me, for not only was he the first person since my father had died to pay me a compliment, but he'd come out of what was practically a stone-cold coma to do it. I looked at him, perplexed at how he'd managed this, seeing as most people come awake so groggy and confused it takes them an hour to remember which way is up. I finally put it down to instinct, like the way you blink when onion vapour gets in your eye. When I turned and left I could feel his eyes struggling to get a bead on my crinolined backside.

  "Maybe next time you stay longer," he croaked, "maybe next time, beautiful girl...."

  That afternoon he asked for scissors, a bowl of hot water, a razor, a towel and a mirror, all of which I delivered when I was good and ready. Over the next half-hour he hacked at, and then trimmed, and then razored, the beard he'd grown over the past six days. When he was finished he looked at himself, closely, angling the mirror a hundred different ways so he could examine every nook and cranny, including the one burrowing deep and gopher-hole-like into the middle of his chin. "Aaaaaah," he exclaimed, "now I am feeling like new man!" Only his moustache remained, pencil thin and dark as squid ink.

  Soon he was getting up and roaming around and starting conversations with other patients. Didn't matter those on the receiving end were weak and pallid and in no shape at all to hold up their end; Dimitri would sit and share his opinions on his country, or the tailoring business, or the hospital food, all of which he thought could be better. (He was the sort of man who smiled when complaining.) When he wasn't chatting, he was flirting with the nurses, both trainee and regular. Once, I was having a drink at the water fountain near the end of the ward when I felt a hand alight on my right hip and give it a little polish. Course, it was Dimitri. I spun around and slapped him and told him he'd better holster those mitts of his if he wanted to keep them. From then on, every time he passed me he'd look like we shared a secret-a secret he'd let me in on when and if it pleased him.

  All this fraternization infuriated our head nurse, the jowly and old-before-her-time Miss Weatherspoon, no doubt because she was the only one he didn't turn beet-red with attention. She'd order him back to bed, only to have him grin, shrug his narrow shoulders and pretend he couldn't speak English. It was a show of insolence that perked my ears, for I'd had my problems right off with Miss Weatherspoon, my not being the world's greatest fan of people in love with their own authority. One day when Dimitri was up and roaming and responding to her bossiness in Greek, she grew flustered and decided to complain to one of the doctors. I happened to be walking by and saw her, salmon coloured, motioning with a crooked finger, face muscles tight as fencing wire. "But you said bedrest only" was the bit I heard. This caused the doctor, an older man named Jeffries, to roll his eyes and say, "Oh, all right, Beatrice, periodic bedrest if it'll make you happy." This put Miss Weatherspoon in an even worse mood than usual, which is saying something.

  Suddenly everything needed doing all at once. Worked off our feet, we were. I got sore joints from scrubbing body parts. Two of the other nurses-lucky ones, I mean, with options-up and quit that afternoon. Right near the end of shift, Miss Weatherspoon decided Dimitri needed a sponge bath, so she ordered another trainee nurse named Victoria Richmond to do the job. Now, at that time it was popular for girls from good families to have a stint at nursing too, mostly because it gave them something to do while waiting to bag a husband. Victoria was such a girl: sixteen years old, skin like alabaster, blond ringlets, father a tobacco baron from the right side of Louisville, had a home to go to at night instead of the dorm for live-aways. In other words, she was the kind of girl I had trouble seeing eye to eye with, for every time Miss Weatherspoon told her to do something she'd lower her eyes, curtsey and say, "Of course, ma'am. Right away."

  She did so this time as well, after which she turned on her heel, practically a pirouette it was, and went off to fetch a bowl and her favourite pink bathing sponge. When she reached Dimitri's bed she pulled the curtain and stepped inside, at which point I got bored and started doing something else. About a minute went by before me and everyone else on the ward, patient or staff, got interested again. And I mean real interested, for there was a screech, sounded like metal being sawed, and then Miss Richmond sprinted all girly toward the doors, elbows tight against the body, knees pressed together, lower legs windmilling sideways. Her sponge was still gripped in one hand, and as she ran it left a series of watery drips on the floor. When she was gone it looked like an oversized slug had passed by.

  When the commotion was over, Miss Weatherspoon marched to Dimitri's bed and turtled her head through the split in the curtain. We all watched. She extracted herself and stood, her face featureless as a plank. A thought crossed her mind-you could practically see it passing, as her eyes slendered and her features sharpened and the edges of her mouth crept ever so slightly in the direction of the ceiling.

  "Miss Haynie!" she bellowed.

  I moved fast enough so's not to be insubordinate but definitely not running like Victoria Richmond would have.

  "Yes, Miss Weatherspoon?"

  "It seems Miss Richmond has had to take her leave. I'd like you to complete the patient's sponge bath."

  "Yes, Miss Weatherspoon."

  "Oh ... and Mary?" She hesitated, savouring the moment. "If you enjoy your employment here, I suggest you be as thorough as possible. For unless I miss my guess, this patient is not the ... how shall I put this? This patient is not the cleanest of individuals, particulary in regard to his daily ablutions. His private daily ablutions. Do I make myself clear? I'll inspect him when you're finished."

  "Yes, Miss Weatherspoon," I said again, this time stressing the part of her name that announced to the world she was unmarried and thick at the ankles and not about to get younger anytime soon. Truth was, I was annoyed and mightily so, for I barely had an inkling of what she was driving at, Miss Weatherspoon being the sort of woman who never said what she meant for fear of breaking some social convention invented so recently she hadn't yet heard about it. Instead, she went at things in circles, erasing her tracks with words that did little more than eat up time. Fortunately, with people lik
e that body language generally makes up for any vaguenesses; the gloating leer plastered across her face informed me this task was lewd and distasteful and intended solely to show who was boss. My only defence was to pretend it didn't faze me in the least, so with as much calm as was musterable I turned and went looking for my sponge.

  Upon reaching the patient's bed, I stepped inside the curtain. Victoria's bowl of warm water still sat on the metal bedside table riveted to the wall. Dimitri, meanwhile, looked like a child who'd been caught lying. "I'm sorry," he said, "I could not help..."

  I nodded as though I understood, even though I didn't, the upshot being his apology didn't relax me in the least, if in fact that's what it'd been meant to do. "Good morning, Mr. Aganosticus," I said all professional. Then I pulled back the bedsheet and took my first look at the body of my future first husband. Or at least I would've, had he not been furry from neck to spindly ankles and all points in between. On top of it all floated his crucifix, chain lost in the underbrush. Rooted and awestruck, I marvelled at how the hair swirled over his body, like a curlicued forest, growing lighter in some spots and heavier in others, the centre of the jungle falling in the exact vicinity of his privates. If he had a penis and testicles, they were lost under the jungle canopy, a fact that caused me to breathe a sigh of relief. My plan was: when I got to the critical part of the bath, I'd reach beneath the upper branches, give him a quick once-over and call him abluted.

  I started on his neck, where gaminess can occur in the folds of skin. Dimitri closed his eyes. When I wiped his chest he sighed, which I took as a sign of encouragement. I moved my sponge over the area directly below the rib cage, where you can feel breath being drawn. Dimitri sighed again, and I felt encouraged again, and I proceeded to steer my hand a little lower, dampening the area where, on a less furry speciman, the stomach would've ended and the hair would've begun. I heard a gasp. I looked up and saw he had the same sheepish expression he'd been wearing when the sponge bath had begun. A second later, I saw what he had to be sheepish about, for there it was, his manly levitation, slow but unstoppable, rising through the jungle folds, like a totem pole being hefted by natives. I could practically hear the drumming. Though my heart was pounding and my insides felt airy, I couldn't bring myself to look away: long and log-like it was, with a gnarling of grey-green veins that seemed to funnel skyward and provide sustenance to a bulbous, maroon headpiece.