Strays

by Remy Wilkins

  Rodney ran the side of his hand under his nose. “Want me to go get it?”

  Ray turned and waved him to follow. “Nah, the paper will be at the road. Otis doesn’t like driving up to the house.”

  “He delivers the paper, too?”

  “Yeah. How do you know Otis?”

  “I met him when I, uh, when I went to get the mail yesterday.” They passed through the dining room.

  “Otis, Outis, Odi, Odiferous.” Ray chanted. “I saw the mail this morning. Thanks. I usually wait and pick it up when I get the paper.”

  He followed Ray into the kitchen where the smell of breakfast had already complicated the air. There was a chorus of over-easy eggs accompanied by the applause of sausage sizzling next to them. Boiling on the stove was a pot of grits and, as they entered, there was a pop announcing toast. His stomach chimed in.

  “What time is it?” he asked as he gave the sausage a closer sniff.

  “Just a hair before nine o’clock. Grab the juice out of the fridge for me.” He gave the grits a stir.

  “Guess I was pretty tired.” He pulled open the door and found a pitcher with orange juice. He set it on the counter behind him.

  “I usually get going a lot earlier, but I thought I’d wait till you were up before starting breakfast. Couldn’t let you eat alone on your first day here.”

  Rodney pulled a jar of red jam out of the fridge. He held it up. “Cherry?”

  “Strawberry,” Ray answered. “I grew them myself.” He lowered the heat and put a lid over the grits. His hand brushed the empty stove burner, and he jumped and snatched his hand back. “Fibditch, rapscallion.” Then he turned off the burner. “Always looking to burn me,” he muttered with a slight smirk on his face.

  Rodney ignored the comment and pulled out two cups to fill with the frothy juice.

  “I usually start the grits too late, but I think I timed it perfect today. They’ll be ready as soon as we get the table set.”

  They bustled in and out of the kitchen setting up plates and forks and knives. When they finally sat at the table there was a tower of toast, a mound of eggs, a fallen forest of sausage, and a pond of grits.

  Rodney’s eyes popped at the spread before them. “I’ve never seen so much food for breakfast.”

  Ray cut tiny tires of sausage with his fork. “That’s because you normally sleep too late when you come to my house. Besides, you prefer cereal.”

  “I never knew you did this for breakfast, though.” He watched as Ray began spreading butter on the toast like he was sharpening a knife. He accepted two planks of toast offered to him and took a sip of cold juice.

  Ray leaned back in his chair with a hunk of sausage on his fork. He held the fork up and closed his eyes, “I love sausage. I love sausage. I love sausage.” He then put it into his mouth and smiled as he chewed.

  Rodney laughed. He dissected his sausage while maintaining the demarcation between grits and eggs. Ray sat back with his coffee and watched him.

  “You eat just like your dad. You’re very precise in your bites and while you chew, you look like you’re planning your next one. Like a chessmaster, you’re two or three plays ahead.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s just funny.”

  They sat in silence and ate. The sun angled through the window in its slow hoist into the sky, like a pole-vaulter planting his beam.

  “I don’t think I ever watched my dad eat,” said Rodney while staring at his food. He spread his grits over the plate with his fork in slow swirling motions. “I don’t think I’ve ever noticed how my mom eats either.”

  Ray chuckled, his smile causing his beard to bristle. “Talks to her food too much, ya ask me.” He caught Rodney’s eye and gave a wink. “Come on, let’s go get the paper. I want to show you the stone snake, and a walk’ll do us good before the drive.”

  * * *

  Rodney and Ray followed the road as it looped around the ridge. The air was still cool, but already the day had begun to shift. The moss canopy grew thicker as they went deeper into the woods and the branches stretched almost to the ground.

  As they approached the bridge Rodney asked, “Why do they call it the Second River? And don’t say ‘because there’s two’.”

  “Well, that is the reason, but you’re right that wasn’t what it used to be called.”

  “What was that?”

  “I don’t know its original name or anything, but it was once called the Wine River.”

  Rodney peered over the rail into the dark water. “The Snake and Wine Rivers.” Rodney nudged a rock off the edge and watched it plop into the water. “Why’d they call it that?”

  “I don’t know. But what people don’t notice is that when the two rivers join, it’s the Snake that’s swallowed up by the Wine, yet it’s still called the Snake River.” He snorted and shook his head.

  “Why did they change the name to Second River? Wine River is way better than that.”

  “It was during a time when people thought that wine was bad. So they changed it.”

  “But snakes are bad. Why didn’t they change the name of that one?”

  Ray laughed and turned to keep walking. “Some names don’t seem as dangerous as others.”

  Rodney jogged to catch up. “What about my name?”

  “What about it?”

  “I think Mom wants me to change it.”

  “Does she?”

  “But I don’t know what to change it to.” Rodney picked up a stick and snapped it in half.

  “Your mom is thinking about changing her name back to Lauter.”

  “Virginia Lauter. Virginia Niemand.” He slashed back and forth with the two stick fragments. “I don’t get it. What’s the big deal?”

  “Names are important.”

  “Is that why you named my bat?” Rodney flung one of his sticks into the woods.

  “Of course.”

  “How long did it take you to think of a name you liked?”

  “Not long. I was holding it and I thought it was well balanced.”

  “Libra.”

  “I’m an amateur astronomer.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever paid attention to the stars.”

  “Maybe tonight I’ll take you up to my observatory.”

  They arrived at the mailbox. Ray reached into a plastic tube fastened underneath the box where the paper was put. He slapped it against his palm and on a whim he opened the mailbox.

  “Hup, ya missed one last night.” He pulled out an envelope and turned it over. “It’s for you. Wow, been here a night and already you’re getting mail.” He handed the letter to Rodney.

  “That’s weird. Otis didn’t put anything in the mailbox, he just handed it to me.” The letter was addressed to Ray’s Nephew, but no sender and no return address or even a stamp. It must have been slipped into the mailbox after he had returned to the house.

  He flipped it over and saw an “O.S.” written in pencil on the back. Rodney slid it into his back pocket not wanting to open it in front of Ray.

  “Come on, let’s hustle back before it gets too hot. The mountain awaits!”

  * * *

  The drive to the park at the apex of Skeleton Mount took an hour; it was a slow slithering up the north-facing slope. The rattle of Ray’s car was muffled by Ray’s choice of music or, in his words, “the dulcet tones of the Iron Maiden.” At odd moments Ray would rattle off a few lines and then stop, as if that were all he could remember. He’d thump the steering wheel in time with the guitars. Occasionally, when the drums were especially moving, he’d strike the wood beads that hung down from the rearview mirror with a finger.

  Ray wore denim coveralls over his tie-dye shirt while Rodney had opted for a T-shirt and shorts. Ray howled the chorus “Fly on your way, like an eagle!” while Rodney fiddled with the air condition
er.

  “Hot?” Ray asked, while turning the volume down on the music.

  “Little bit.”

  “Do ya like the music?” Ray bit his lower lip and jostled in his chair to the beat of the song, pumping his head to the beat.

  “No.”

  Ray laughed. “Yeah? Hm.” He turned the volume down till it was a low hum, just beneath the rumble of the groaning engine as they climbed the mountain. “I guess it’s an acquired taste.”

  The park had been built in the late seventies to capitalize on the historic stone snake and the nearby scenic waterfall. There was a small visitor center with bathrooms and information about the stone effigy as well as a picnic area and a gift shop selling snake trinkets and food. In the play area there were see-saws, monkey-bars, swing sets, and a rusty old merry-go-round.

  The parking lot was about half full, fifteen cars scattered about the gravel lot. They got out and stretched. Rodney noticed that Ray performed the same ritual as his mother; arms held out in a T, then raising them above his head he performed a deep bow. Rodney added a few toe touches and then trotted after Ray.

  Ray began his informal tour of the park. “That’s the Second River. It comes from a lake northeast of here called the Wedowee Lake. The name means Old Water.”

  Rodney followed him as he veered away from the visitor’s center and the playground. “Where we going, Uncle Ray?”

  He glanced around. “Stone snake’s this way. That stuff’s just for tourists.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand and continued on the dirt path that led into the trees. He continued the history lesson. “The story goes back ages—over two thousand years ago, a Thunder Snake was caught here.”

  “Thunder Snake? That like a dinosaur?” Rodney kicked a twisted pine branch out of his way.

  “Maybe. The story says that the Paleo-Indians round these parts built a stone wall to mark its death, right where it fell.”

  “Paleo-Indians?” Rodney asked with an eye squint.

  “Ancient. Here-before-the-Indians Indians.”

  “Ah,” he said, not sure he understood. Ahead he saw a wood sign, black with yellow letters, and behind it the beginnings of a stone wall. He ran ahead, nearly falling over when a stick snared a sock.

  “Watch it, don’t brain yourself against the snake,” called Ray.

  The snake was a tightly packed line of stones with a zig between two small zags, like a V with tiny wings. The V was broken down, crushed and toppled by time, and all along loose stones had fallen away like it was molting.

  Ray picked up his monologue. “If you stretched it straight, the whole thing would be almost two football fields.”

  There was a series of iron posts beside the path, connected by a heavy chain, partitioning the snake from the visitors. Signs requested people to stay on the path. They walked toward the head of the snake, drawing nearer to the river.

  “I can’t imagine killing something this big. Does the story say how they did it?”

  “Well, reports differ on that point. Some say the earliest people in Alabama brought down the great Thunder Snake with a song. Others said the enemy of the great serpent, the Warrior of Light, threw it down from the heavens.”

  “The Warrior of Light? Cool.” They arrived at the river and stopped. It was slow-moving, a brackish dark green. He looked to see the waterfall, but a bend obscured it.

  The head of the serpent was a huge, solid block of stone that was nearly six feet high. There was a split at the bottom that gave the serpent a mouth, perhaps carved. Rodney leaned against the chain to see if he could touch it. His fingers were a mere flicker of a stone tongue away.

  “So the Warrior of Light beat it up and threw it down to earth. Did it scare the Indians?”

  Ray plucked a weed from the ground, broke off the end and stuck the stem in his mouth. He made a sucking sound before continuing, “The version of the story I like is that there was a corrupt medicine man, a person who can communicate with the spiritual world, and he called down the Thunder Snake.”

  “What for?” He turned, leaning back on the chain.

  “What? Calling down the Thunder Snake? For power, of course. Make a deal with the devil, you know.” Rodney nodded his head. Ray went on, “But before the Snake made it to earth, the Warrior of Light fought it and imprisoned it in stone.”

  Rodney curled his lip and hung his mouth in a look his dad called the Hayseed, usually following with his own mocking rendition. “How do you capture a giant space snake in a rock?” He held onto the chain and began swinging.

  Ray bent down in front of Rodney, putting his hands on his knees. “Don’t you know? Demons are subject to stone.”

  “That’s dumb.” He rocked himself to his feet. “So the Thunder Snake is like a demon that can be captured in stone if the angel does it? Lame.”

  “Whaddya mean ‘lame’? That’s cool.” Ray’s eyes seemed to leap with imagined stories.

  Rodney went to the river and instinctively began looking for rocks to toss. “Nah, I like the Warrior of Light and the Thunder Snake fighting, but it’d be cooler to kill it with a sword.”

  Ray joined him in rock tossing. “You’ve obviously never fought a Thunder Snake. The Warrior of Light was overwhelmed, and she was the only angel there to fight it, because she was the guardian of the Thunder Snake.”

  “Wait, the angel’s a girl?”

  “Or a guy.” He looked over at Rodney before launching another pebble into the dark flow of water. “It’s just a story. So the Warrior of Light, in an act of desperation, captures the serpent in stone. This is a bad idea because now the Thunder Snake is in the physical world. If it ever escapes the stone prison, she, the angel I mean, won’t be able to fight it.”

  “How does a Thunder Snake escape from rock?”

  Ray gave a scratch to his beard; Rodney could hear it above the plips and bloops his pebbles made as he slung handfuls into the air, watching them fall like comets into the water. “Um, I think that if you smash the head it becomes free.”

  “Smash the head?” Rodney turned to look at the head stone of the snake effigy. “Seems like that’d kill it.”

  “Yeah, probably. Maybe blood sacrifice. Evil always loves a good blood sacrifice.”

  Rodney nodded as if he knew.

  “But those’re just some guesses. The story goes that the Warrior of Light must stay here and drive away anyone that comes to free the snake.”

  “That’s a cool story, I guess.”

  “Now let’s go get some snake sandwiches.”

  Rodney looked at Ray to gauge his seriousness. “What? That’s gross.”

  Ray nodded. “Snake sandwiches. ’Swhat they call hot dogs here at the park.” He put his arm on Rodney’s shoulders and directed him back to the visitor center.

  “Does everything have to be so weird here?” Rodney said, as they retreated from the river, following the long-dead stone serpent back through the woods.

  Chapter Three

  THIS MORTAL LIFE

  The “snake sandwich” was no better than any of the hundreds of hot dogs Rodney had eaten in his lifetime. Ray tried to get him to load up on condiments, but he wanted only a single stripe of mustard. He carefully ran a thin beam down the length of the sandwich and held it up to Ray for approval.

  Ray ate his first snakedog in two bites, licked his fingers clean and raised his second to his mouth before he turned and grinned. “I luff dese,” he said, with his cheeks bulging.

  They were in the car and heading down the mountain before Rodney had tucked the last nub between his lips.

  Rodney entered the Corleonis slump-shouldered and hot. He kicked off his sneakers, leaving them on the floor behind him, and wandered into the living room. He lay down on the cool couch and closed his eyes.

  He could still feel the weaving of the car down the mountainside, the roll an
d bounce and jostle. He’d suppressed nausea the whole way back as Ray burped up the onions he’d stacked on his third and fourth snakes. The crack of wood heralded Ray’s entrance. Rodney rolled over onto his back.

  Ray closed his mouth on another burp and rolled his shoulders. He beat on his chest before speaking. “Whew, ugh, shouldn’t have had that fifth snake. Can’t help myself sometimes.”

  “Yeah, the sauerkraut wasn’t a good idea.”

  “Ergh, nor the chili. So, needless to say, I won’t eat dinner, but let me know when you want something.”

  “Alright.” Rodney felt something underneath him and he rotated to pull it out. His hand closed on the letter from this morning.

  Ray turned and held up a hand. “I’ll be in the library sleeping underneath a book.”

  He turned over the letter to examine the “O.S.” on the back, then slid open the flap and withdrew the page inside.

  Kid,

  My name is Otis, the mailman. I hope I didn’t frighten you with my concerns about your uncle. If you want to talk, feel free to come to my house. I’m just down the road, first turn on the right. No big deal if you don’t want to. Just watch out.

  Otis Schlange

  “Otis Schlange, O.S.” he said aloud. He wondered what sort of trouble Otis thought was going on. Perhaps he knew more about some crazy things Ray did. His dad always needled his mom about this or that oddity, such as sprinkling a pinch of salt on his shoulder or blowing on your face before bedtime.

  There was talk about a controversy at the church Ray attended in town. He had heard his mom whisper about it when he was out of the room: Ray had been kicked out. Perhaps Otis had more information on that. He considered dropping in for a visit and stuffed the letter back into his pants pocket. He heard Ray bark from behind the closed library door, “Beat it, I’m sleeping, knucklehead. The sun still shines.” Rodney waited for more but it seemed that Ray had settled back into his chair and resumed his nap.