The Snake Charmer

 

            Nothing would grow in the yard—not grass, not flowers, not even weeds. It remained a plot of dirt, as they found it when they moved into the newly built home with white walls and white carpet. The house stood at the top of a hill, at the end of a street that had no name yet, because the city had forgotten to give it one. Kim had a good history with plants, as did Anne, but neither could make it happen. One thing they could grow, however, was rattlesnakes. The creatures pooled at the back fence, made of chicken wire, so they could not work their way through. Yet somehow they did.

            The Saturday of their first week, he sat on the porch, knowing of the rattlers, but intent on having his time outside. Early March had come, chilly and refreshing. He had on his thick back-East sweater, with the collar zipped all the way up.

He wouldn’t have chosen the magazine on his own. The New Yorker reminded him of the best and the worst of New York literary mores—the nit picky lines of favored poets which stretched the mind, not at all, and the newest short stories of well-seasoned writers like Mary Gordon, which he waded through wimpy cartoons to find, usually placed near the back. It was a gift from his brother Jeffrey, who often had a critical article on some new or old poet. He had written a book on the Romantics, Jeffrey. His father bragged about him to Kim, whenever they spoke. “Oh, Jeffrey’s got a new article out,” he would say, his voice audibly rising like the moon in the sky—when full you couldn’t miss it.

Thanks to his original passion for literature, Kim had met Anne at Rutgers, she doing her dissertation on Poe, he on Twain. That was the story they always told people. The truth was different. They had actually met at a gas station in Virginia, each on their way to settle in at school a week before classes, his down comforter bulging in the back seat, her things neatly packed in bags and boxes. They recognized each other in the lecture hall later that week.

Back in college, Kim had held hopes of becoming a world renown critic, but instead had become a librarian in northern California, in Pittsburg, just twenty minutes drive from their new home. Anne had succeeded in pursuing her chosen path, a writer of articles on literary figures, as well as a consulting editor for well-paying companies in San Francisco. Mostly she worked from home in the comfort of her office.

            As Kim was peering at a silly cartoon of a white bear and a squirrel, he heard a squeaking noise. Following the plaintiff cry, he landed his gaze just outside the protective fence, on a small brown animal. The mouse squeaked at regular intervals, but what was its concern? A moment later, he saw the cause—a snake reared its neck and head, ready to attack. The mouse, frozen in fear, did not run. In an instant, the snake had it by the head, the tips of the whiskers quivering from the jaw, what was still visible.

He couldn’t look away. The snake appeared to be squeezing the mouse's body, this morsel not progressing much further inside, frozen as the reptile's inner juices consumed it. He couldn’t hear the snake at all, could only see it coiling and shifting, like a woman rolling a stocking onto her leg. Finally, after what seemed like eternity, Kim threw the magazine onto the chair, grabbed his glass, knocking a few ice cubes out, and went inside.

            The next day, he drove up his steep street towards home. It was only noon. The wind blew the leaves off the trees easily, for they were still young. On the plum trees, little buds began growing like bunions from elbow and knees, the first sign of Spring. The trees had survived a winter of daily rain, deluge to the point where gutters were useless, and the murky liquid had run like watercolors down the sidewalk.

            He pulled up into the driveway. Anne wouldn’t understand, he thought, sharp pains like pins pricking his forehead. The incident at the library this morning hammered into his head. Why did he feel this way? The last time he was covered in shame, like mud, was when he was twelve, when he stole a watch at a department store and his father spoke to him in a tone he hadn’t heard before or since.

            Margo, one of the assistant librarians in training, had come in two hours late. Anticipating the due date of her baby girl for months, she had come in more and more bellyful, so that, unable to squeeze through the turnstile entry, she entered through the emergency gate, which beeped each time. Today, she arrived with a flat belly. A wave of silence came from her, surrounding her. Her form was not just flat, but deflated, the pale look on her face a testimony to her experience. Everyone crowded around Margo, patting her on the back or hugging her gently. Margo. Her eyes were red but could no longer cry. Even the mean head librarian, Mrs. Ward, “The Vulture” stood to the side patiently for a few minutes, allowing this to happen, seeming to connect with the tragedy at hand. But then, she clapped her hands, saying “back to work!”

            Kim, back at checkout, counted the seconds by his pulse, and waited, knowing she would make her move. He had been pleased for Margo, with whom he talked to many times about their literary indulgences, and, as she became rounder, he enjoyed her letting his put his hand on her stomach to feel the fetus kick, and listened while she confided in him of how she had been told she wasn’t fertile, but then the surprise to she, her husband, and the doctors, when she became pregnant. They would stand out of range of the Vulture and whisper. He told her that he did not have any children because he and Anne chose not to, but that, as the eldest brother, he had a lot of experience with kids. He reveled in her joy and the pink color which became more present on her cheeks as the months went by.

Then the yelling started, jolting Kim out of his reverie. This was nothing new, as the Vulture had verbally ripped through the muscles of enough employees in his time, three years now, since before they bought the house, when sometimes he would straggle in a few minutes late from of his longer commute from Berkeley. He had received the eye of The Vulture during those mornings, and would peer back at her with skinny pupils to dissuade her, succeeding where others fell into her lap as prey.

All because her husband died a long, miserable death, and the fact that she took care of her mother, a woman who, from all reports, had beaten Mrs. Ward when she was little. The result, her misshapen nose, which hung like a watering bucket, the kind with the long arching spout, and in her case, the bone curving out, in, then down. If she ever cried, which Kim doubted, the drops would linger on the end of the spout before falling into her mouth.

            Normally, library customers would look up momentarily roused out of their meditation on books, but today, browsers at the computer catalogues, people in the stacks, and even the most lowly employees shelving in the rafters, stared unashamedly at this display of the Vulture, her arms extended as if about to fly, her voice striking out against the dark wooden walls of the old interior, which tried to absorb it but couldn’t.

            Kim knew that Margo, in her weakened state, could not survive this—the yelling, the insults, the threats. He had to act. He jumped off his stool and pushed the low swinging door, making his way past the computers, past the regulars, who, mid-morning, had nowhere else to go, the long-haired woman who greyed with every week, her eyes under scored, the elderly man with a full head of auburn hair, miraculously, whose suspenders held up natty wool pants, the young black woman with her over-sized backpack, which she never took off and a frizzy natural hairdo, wide like a lion’s mane, her eye sockets bulging. They all inched forward, crowding around the two women. Kim had to push through to get to the heart of the scene.

            “This is the last time you sand bag,” The Vulture said. She pulled at Margo’s arm. “Let’s go to the back room,” she said to her.

Attempting to pull away, the sleeve of Margo’s long blouse tore. The sound rose to the tall ceilings, echoing, as if many blouses had ripped.

“I don’t feel well,” Margo said, looking pale.

Kim intercepted her, grabbing the Vulture’s arm.

“You have no right getting involved,” Vulture said.

“That’s what you think.”

“Well then,” The Vulture pronounced, “you should both leave right now and don’t bother coming back.” She pointed at Kim with her long knitting-needle forefinger.

“She’s weak,” Kim shouted back.

Margo’s dark curls framed her small round face. The white collar of her blue dress…or was it his mother’s?

Her blue dress. No, his mother’s...
            His mother's white gloves dropping to the floor, as she stood in the door frame of their small apartment in Queens. His younger brothers and sisters making noise in the background. Her body, a sack of flour, falling forward, then sinking. His father rushing around for the ammonia when he should have been calling emergency, the decisive moment of action lost.

At fifteen he was already her height. She was small-boned and delicate. Without her, they had Aunt Itch—they called their father's sister that because she was always scratching her head. This woman cooked and cleaned that week, sleeping on the little sofa in the living room, shuffling the kids off to school every morning, scolding them, and helping with homework all at once. Without their mother, their father wordlessly slumped in his chair reading, eyes focused on the same place on the page while Kim and Jeffrey argued, or two of the younger ones wrestled in the bedroom with the door open for all to hear. Their father lived in his own mind then. They looked to their mother’s return as a mending of misbehavior and overly strict ways of Itch. He missed his mother's soft perfume, which she dabbed on her wrists when she and her father went out. He missed the gentle hug she gave every afternoon after school and at bedtime.
She always wore blue, and it was blue they buried her in. blue forever, like the cornflowers she kept in a vase at the kitchen window.

A loud noise.
What was happening? Not his mother now... The Vulture was screaming at him. He opened his eyes. He had her on the floor, and was hitting her. He felt the hands of people on his arms, prying him off her.

“Call the cops!” she yelled, her eyes a fiery yellow.

When he got up and looked around, Margo had gone. Then he left before anything else could happen.

He sat in the driveway, sunk into his car seat, unable to rise, hands still on the steering wheel. He didn't know what happened after he left, but he imagined that no one had called the police because no one at the library would cooperate with The Vulture. He imagined they had finally revolted. Perhaps she would leave, he thought, entertaining what he knew was impossible. One thing was for sure—he wouldn’t be returning. His heart thumped, pulse in his ears. Removing his hands from the wheel, he rubbed them together. A mixture of sweat and grime covered them. And what else— something red. Dried blood. From what? The Vulture?
He didn’t remember the drive home, couldn’t believe he had hit a woman, not matter how much he hated her. He felt like he was on high speed, even though he was still, sitting in one place.

The garage door opened. Anne walked out, her head cocked to one side. She dressed for summer always, even in this chilly air, with short pants and flip-flops, a lavender tank top revealing her pale arms.

She tapped at the glass with her fingernail. “What are you doing?”

He felt like a fish in a fishbowl. Kim got out, leaving the car in the driveway. He closed the garage door and they went in.

“Why are you home so early, honey?” Anne asked, gentle rise in her voice.

            What should he tell her? What part of the truth did he know? What had actually happened? His head felt dizzy.

“Honey?” Her forehead wrinkled. “You shirt’s torn. Your hair—you look like you’ve been in a tornado.”

He couldn’t speak. Why wouldn’t she leave him alone?

“Come on. Tell me,” she said.

He knew she hated his silence, but could offer nothing.

He opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the back porch. Yes, he would sit as if it were Saturday. The air was crisp, the sky clear. He would just breathe. It was not Anne’s fault that all this had happened, but he had to slow down. He collapsed onto the slatted chair, losing all his energy suddenly. He would enjoy the fresh air, browsing through a magazine.

He heard a rustle. Expecting to see renegade newspaper or a magazine that had blown off the glass topped table, instead he spotted the brown rattler. It stared at him.

The snake seemed to be waiting for Kim to make the first move. His body felt paralyzed from exhaustion from the library incident. Most people would not only expect a quick reaction in dealing with a deadly snake—they would demand swift delivery of the varmint to its death before it got a hold of ankle, wrist, or neck.

He and Anne had joked about one of them getting bitten by a snake. She said they shouldn’t both be in proximity to a snake—that one of them should be safe, and so, with this philosophy in hand they took turns sitting on the porch, ridiculous though it felt. He envisioned flashing red lights racing up the street, blood streaming down Anne’s neck where the snake’s fangs would puncture her.

He could see Anne watching him from the other side of the closed sliding door, in his periphery. Her form shifted, white against the glass.

“Don’t move too quickly,” he heard her murmur.

            He focused on the snake’s eyes. Golden green, they twinkled. Was it winking at him? They reminded him of his cat, Cleo, when she was about to attack, eyes narrowed, whiskers on end, always expected yet in the quick moment unexpected. The snake did not have whiskers. But he did notice the pulsation of what you could call its neck, like a bellows. He could even see, in the coolness, puffs of air released at the same tempo. He thought of the song, “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and how the story comforted him as a child, in how a wild animal could befriend a boy. He was that boy now.

What would possess this snake to make amends with a man, an animal hundreds of times larger than it and clearly a threat. It knew it’s own power. To some, it was an ancient god dressed in gold armor with a sword drawn.

It rose before him, eyes facing eyes, its sides bulging out.

Kim continued to stare directly at the snake’s eyes, trying to intimidate it.

Now, now, Kim spoke silently to himself. He must act, now. But it was too late. Pain shot up his leg. He saw nothing.

He couldn’t move. No knees. Then collapse. He heard nothing save his own shallow breath. He could see only gold.

When he was a teenager, the day his mother came home from the hospital without their new little sister, he had seen her pale face, sunken eyes, the bones above her eyes protruding. Her face was white, then blue, before she fainted. Before anyone could come help her, she faded away.

She could not defend herself against the clawing within. Too early the baby had decided to come, too soon before it could survive outside her walls. There was no blood on the carpet, only light and air coming through the windows of the apartment. One moment she was there, coming back to them, and the next she left for good, leaving his father and all five children in the wake. The little ones danced around in the freedom of her absence as he tried to rain them in, the first few months before they all settled into the grim future. His father drank himself to sleep each night down at the corner bar, stumbling in after they were all asleep, except for Kim, who kept a watch out. The man was not angry, just beaten.

He recalled this time now, sitting there, gasping for air.
Normally Kim was mild. This one afternoon, though, against the Vulture, Kim had used the anger his father was never able to act on. There was no other answer. He could never go back to the boy he once was. He could not protect his mother from the specter of death, not then, and not now.

Pain radiated from his leg, piercing. His chest felt numb.

He tried to sit up, but couldn’t. The cement under him was cold, assuring. Like ice, but permanent.

Someone was putting pressure on his leg. He tried to bend forward. A couple of men lifted him onto a stretcher.

He looked up. Anne bent down and put her hand on his cheek.

Someone was holding his arms down. Someone was putting a mask over his face.
            Air. He could breathe again.