Rattlesnake & Son

by Jonathan Miller

  I packed the backpack with a number of power bars and red bulls that I had bought during a long-forgotten Costco run.

  I pressed a button. The trunk opened, and I put in the sleeping bag I had bought at REI for a future camping trip with Marley. I sensed that this journey would take more than one day. The trunk then closed on its own. I would have to carry the urn up with me.

  I chugged a Red Bull, extra-strength, and the car started. I headed for the Big I interchange. I exited, got on the frontage road, and found a place to park next to a small urban oasis filled with public art.

  I took a pinch out of the urn and let it fly to the four winds. It scattered in all directions before shimmering and then disappearing. A moment later the urn became like the planchette, the little heart shaped piece of wood on a Ouija board. This ceramic planchette directed me north, and then released the pressure. I didn’t question it, got back into the Lincoln and headed north on Interstate 25.

  There was a logical explanation, right? An insect in the urn, or something like that? But I looked down inside and saw only ash. I certainly didn’t want to disturb the ashes to see if something was in there. The urn started rattling again at the Saint Francis Drive exit in Santa Fe.

  Why Santa Fe? Well, why not Santa Fe? Marley had never been there, but stated he’d always wanted to go that day we went to the Santa Fe Diner down south.

  The urn didn’t vibrate again, or do much of anything as I drove into town. Not knowing what to do, I parked in the dark state parking lot and walked to the adobe New Mexico Supreme Court complex.

  I took a pinch of the ashes out of the urn and spread them over the bridge, over the Santa Fe River. The rattling inside the Ouija urn grew louder, as if to say I was on the right track. Then it stopped. Santa Fe was only worth a single pinch of Marley.

  Holding the urn with both arms outstretched, this planchette in my hands turned southeast, back toward Albuquerque. I got back into the car, chugged another Red Bull, then drove south on Cerillos Road, past Walmart.

  No reaction from the urn whatsoever. I did feel very cold in the car, although I hadn’t adjusted the thermostat. Marley sure didn’t want to stop near any Walmart in New Mexico. He was banned for shoplifting, and a ban from Walmart lasted for all eternity.

  I got back on the interstate southbound at the end of Cerillos Road. An hour later, in Albuquerque, the rattle started again. I picked it up in my right hand, and felt directed into exiting onto Lomas Boulevard, the gateway to downtown. I parked by my office, but didn’t go inside. I would be closing it up anyway. That part of my life was over. I threw a pinch up in the air to celebrate the law firm of Rattlesnake & Son. The ash just vanished, literally dust in the wind.

  Where else would Marley want his ashes to float over Albuquerque? I held up the urn and felt it turn toward the district courthouse. I walked a few blocks, ignoring the Native American woman who shouted “skin-walker” as I went past, and hurried inside the building.

  Unfortunately, the urn beeped as I went through the metal detectors at the courthouse. Had Marley been cremated with a belt buckle on?

  The guard checked inside the urn and shook it a bit. “There’s nothing in there but ashes,” he said.

  “Just dropping off my son,” I said.

  A beep behind us distracted the guard, and he turned to frisk the next person, a guy who seemed to have a bazooka in his front pocket. I hurried away and took the elevator all the way to the top of the seventh-floor atrium. It had a great view all the way down to the fourth floor.

  This atrium had a special place in my heart. Luna and I were married there on the fourth floor. I had a feeling that this atrium with its massive windows, would also play a part in some future story for our family. I heard the rattling, took a pinch out, and let the ash fly.

  After rising from a blast of air conditioning, the ashes floated down and shimmered in the sunlight, but dissipated before they hit the ground. Marley would have liked it that way.

  A guard appeared behind me. He grabbed my arm as if he was afraid that I was going to jump. Did I give that kind of vibe?

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

  “Saying goodbye to someone,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to jump.”

  He didn’t say anything more, but it was time to leave before they took me into custody. I left the Second Judicial District Courthouse, crossed the six lanes of Lomas Boulevard by foot, and was now in front of the Metro and its nine stories of marble.

  “I don’t want to go through another security check,” I said to the urn.

  The urn seemed to agree. I walked around the courtyard until I heard the rattling next to the sculpture of the scales of justice. Had the scales gotten bigger over the last few weeks? I opened the urn, took another pinch of ash and let it into the wind. A whirlwind blew the shimmering ash onto one of the giant scales. Amazingly, I heard the brass sculpture lower the scale just an inch. A human soul weighed seven grams, right? Did those grams lower the scale, if only by an inch?

  Thankfully, no one else noticed the scale move.

  I held the urn in my outstretched arms and spun around. People were looking at me, but I didn’t care. Go east! The urn seemed to say with its vibrations. Go east!

  I didn’t stop at my office, but got back in the Lincoln and headed east, past the Big I interchange. The urn kept pointing me eastward, all the way east to Tucumcari.

  I took the exit for Tucumcari Mountain and headed onto the dirt road toward the flat summit. I had said that the summit reminded me of a discount Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, the site of the climax of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

  Somehow in the bright sun, the discount Devil’s Tower looked positively angelic. Were the aliens supposed to come down now? I didn’t feel anything, didn’t hear anything.

  After some spins around the mountain, the urn directed me toward a water tower downtown near the high school. I got back in the Lincoln, and after a few wrong turns finally found the water tower. It was the one with the giant Tucumcari Rattlers mural we had seen on our last trip.

  Tucumcari, home of the Rattlers, could be a branch office for the Rattlesnake & Son. I lifted a pinch of ash and let it fly. The ash floated toward the water tower. Maybe I imagined it, but it seemed like the purple rattlesnake did a lap around the water tower, like a victory lap.

  Even the giant “T” on Tucumcari Mountain seemed to stand for “triumph” as it briefly glowed turquoise.

  I didn’t know what would happen when I scattered the last of Marley’s ashes. I looked down in the urn. I only had three or four pinches left. I would have to make them count.

  I went west toward Albuquerque, and suddenly, the rattle on the Ouija urn directed me to Exit 263, the San Ignacio interchange. Marley and I had come here at sunrise on our way to Tucumcari, but now it was sunset, magic hour.

  I parked by the dumpster, took the urn and walked to the little lake. Marley had remarked that the way the tiny lake reflected the sunrise reminded him of the northern lights. The sunset played with the lake surface even more so.

  I dropped a pinch in the little lake, and for one moment the entire lake glowed pink. Could I see Marley’s face reflected in the water? I couldn’t be sure.

  It was dark now and I was exhausted on this short winter day. No amount of Red Bulls could revive the dead. I decided to spend the night here by the lake. I grabbed a power bar, took the sleeping bag out of my trunk, and got ready for bed. I kept waiting for something to happen after the sun set, but it never did. In this clear air, the stars were like beacons. I thought I saw a star rise over the east, but it was just a helicopter that flew loudly overhead, scaring the birds.

  So much for taking my son camping.

  • • •

  I woke before dawn, not bothering to wait for the sunrise. I washed my face in the cold water of the tiny lake, as if baptizing mys
elf. I picked up the urn, and the rattle indicated that I needed to get going west. I chugged a Red Bull and started the Lincoln.

  When I hit the Big I, the rattle on the Ouija urn pointed south.

  Where do you want me to go, Marley? Back to T or C?

  There was nothing whatsoever from the urn until I reached Lemitar, Exit 156. Maybe it was a bump, something I ran over on the interstate, but the urn suddenly turned toward the exit.

  This time it wasn’t the urn that rattled. My whole car began to shake, until I was directly in front of the Promised Land billboard.

  Mister I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man, and I believe in a promised land, I sang along with Bruce Springsteen.

  I got out of the car and let a pinch of ash fly. A gust of wind took it right up to the billboard, which then lit up as if promised land was written in purple neon.

  A trucker pulled up right behind me. “Did you see that?” the trucker asked from his window.

  “You mean it’s real?” I asked.

  The neon then faded. It was just a dirty billboard now. We looked around. A police car had emergency lights that only had red and not blue, and the tone of the red light was a little off. There was nothing magical about it. I still wondered about what the promised land was promising.

  The trucker then drove toward the old warehouse I had seen in my dream. It looked to be a storage space slash dump site slash homeless encampment. A man, and a woman holding an infant, walked out of the main opening to the warehouse. The small family got in the trucker’s cab. Then the truck kept headed north on the frontage road.

  Maybe this was the promised land after all.

  Still under the now faded sign, I held the Ouija urn upright in my hands. I felt it turn south. I only had one pinch left. This would be it. I no longer had any idea what to expect, but I knew something was going to happen, something big.

  I tried to stop thirty miles south at the Santa Fe Diner exit, but I didn’t feel it in my gut. Marley had been to the real Santa Fe. No need to go to the pale imitation. The Ouija urn kept pointing south. Did it want me to go to the spaceport? How about the border patrol station, or all the way south to Caldera Academy?

  Not even!

  The Ouija urn vibrated quite violently right at Exit 78, the exit for Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. I took the exit and then pulled off Date Street near the first gas station in town. But something was wrong. The urn spun around and around, as if confused. Could a ghost lose its way? The urn then fell over and landed on the passenger seat. Thankfully, nothing spilled out.

  Operating on instinct, I headed toward Luna’s house and parked on the side of her road. I wasn’t sure whether I should go in or not.

  My phone rang. I was disappointed when I picked up and it was only Luna. She could see me out her bedroom window and waved at me. “Are you coming in?” she yelled. “Are you done yet?”

  I waited for a second. I heard a rattling indicating that I needed to keep moving. “Not yet.”

  “I’ll see you when you’ve finished,” she said.

  The urn pointed me northward, toward the Elephant Butte reservoir. I left the Turtleback subdivision and turned on the main road that headed toward the lake. Just as I reached the top of the rise, with a beautiful view down toward the blue waters, the urn pointed at a mechanic’s shop with the improbable name of Benny and the Jet Skis.

  Benny and the Jet Skis? This was the grand finale? I had never been here. Even worse, I hated Elton John and remembered telling Marley so.

  Why would Marley want me to see Benny or his jet skis?

  I signaled to make a left turn, but was blocked by a convoy of military vehicles heading up from the lake. Colonel Herring rode shotgun yet again. Were they doing amphibious assault war games on the lake, or was this just a December beach day for the former colonel and her old pals? Did she need an entire regiment to carry the volleyball net?

  I waited a full five minutes before every vehicle in the convoy had passed. I almost left, but my whole car was shaking, and it wasn’t just from the passing jeeps.

  This was a test, I knew. I needed to find out why the hell this forgotten mechanic’s shop was the place my son wanted to spread his final pinch.

  After the last jeep passed, I finally turned into Benny’s. I nearly regretted it and turned around. The place was deserted, and all the lights were off. But, I had to make sure. I got out of my car and waved to a dark window, just in case.

  A mechanic hurried out of the store as if he had been expecting me. He had a name sewn in his blue work shirt: benny. Benny looked like he had fallen asleep waiting for me and wiped his bloodshot eyes repeatedly. I had never met the man and wondered again, why he was so important to Marley.

  “Why are you so late?” he asked. “You were supposed to be here a few days ago. I gotta close up for Christmas eve.”

  I said what I always said in every single one of my adventures since I became the Rattlesnake Lawyer, quoting a line from a forgotten movie. “Sorry, I’m late. Traffic was a bitch.”

  “You the guy here about the jet ski?” Benny asked. I now noticed there was a jet ski in front of the garage. The jet ski was already on a flat-bed trailer, under a tarp, ready to go. “Someone named Denise said you’d be here to pick it up, and that I should help you haul it to the lake.”

  Denise had called! I must be in the right place. I got it. It was now getting dark. “Yeah, I’m the guy. What I’m supposed to do with it?”

  “Denise said I should take it down to the lake to set it up.”

  Thankfully, Denise had already paid the hauling and set up fees, whatever that was.

  I followed Benny as he hauled the jet ski to the lake and loaded it into the water with a winch.

  “Do you have something to tie it down?” he asked.

  I looked at the lake. The waters were incredibly peaceful in the sunset, and it was still light enough to make out the opposite shore and the islands. Rattlesnake Island glowed in the distance. Was someone setting a camp fire out there?

  “I think I have enough time to take it out for a moonlight run,” I said.

  “Be careful. There’s a storm coming in.”

  Benny clearly wanted to get back to his life; he gave me a wave and got back in his truck.

  I packed my sleeping bag and the last of my supplies into the storage compartment of the jet ski. I put the urn into the storage area as well and shut the plastic door. I stayed in my jeans, sweatshirt and sneakers, and prayed I wouldn’t get too wet.

  The sun was setting, but my location was clear—Rattlesnake Island. It was a straight shot in the twilight.

  Jet skiing at twilight with a storm coming in? What the hell was I doing? I revved the motor and headed straight for the mysterious camp fire on the island. By the time I arrived on the shore of Rattlesnake Island, the campfire had gone out, but the ashes were still smoldering. There was no other sign of habitation on this tiny island the size of a tennis court.

  I beached the jet ski on the shore, then I opened the front storage compartment. I didn’t reach inside, though. Instead, I shook the urn and spread the last of the ashes into the wind. A breeze blew them skyward.

  “Now what?” I asked the waters of Elephant Butte.

  The sun set in a final bloody burst and the whole two-million-acres of water in the lake turned blood red an instant before it turned black.

  The empty Ouija urn didn’t move any more, and was ice cold to my touch. I just lay it on the beach. It would let me know when it was ready.

  The moon soon vanished behind a cloud and it was totally dark. If it hadn’t been for the gentle wash of the waves against the island shore, I could be back in the desert.

  The darkness didn’t last forever. A few minutes later I spied lightning in the distance—and thunder. Benny had been right, I probably shouldn’t jet ski back in the storm. I was stuc
k here for the night.

  Using the flashlight app on my phone to illuminate the shore, I did my katas—my martial arts exercises, all the way to Long Form four. Perhaps I was doing my Kung Fu, like Caine, but my enemies were within. Still, my katas scared the lightning away. It soon became deathly silent, except for the soothing sound of the waves. It was barely eight o’clock according to my phone, but I was exhausted.

  Eventually, after I watched shooting stars and made several wishes, I opened my sleeping bag on some high ground that was surprisingly soft, and got inside for the night. I didn’t fall asleep right away. I worried that the jet ski might drift out into the water, stranding me on this deserted island. I had to have faith, right?

  I felt strangely safe. I sang the Gilligan’s Island theme song and wondered if I would ever get off this island.

  • • •

  It was the third day of my quest, Christmas Day, and the sun woke me up as it rose over the rhino hills on the east side of the lake. The lake turned an amazing pink in the rays of the sunrise. I went down and washed my face in the water. After, I felt purified.

  At my feet, I recognized Marley’s pink fanny pack floating in the tide.

  I opened up my son’s lost fanny pack and found the figurines from Walmart that had started this adventure—the figurines he had molded together to create a rattlesnake that held the scales of justice.

  “I made that. It’s you.” That’s what Marley had said when I first saw the figurines. It’s me? Had I come all the way out to this desert island to find myself?

  There was also a playing card rolled up and jammed into one of the scales. I didn’t have to straighten it to know it was the three of clubs.

  The three of clubs? That was it? Marley’s ghost had taken me on an odyssey for a stupid card trick?

  I wasn’t like Scrooge at the end of a Christmas Carol. I was still the same old me? Or was I?