The Serpent King

by Jeff Zentner

  Travis pulled up a metal folding chair and sat down. “Okay.”

  “So Dillard Serpent King used to have a home place up Cove Road. They had a little spread of land and Dillard worked in town as an auto mechanic. Dillard Serpent King had two kids. Dillard Preacherman and a little girl named…I forget now. Ruth. Rebecca. Something of that nature.”

  “Ruth,” Travis’s father said. “I believe it was Ruth Early.”

  Lamar spit in his can. “Anyway, Dillard Serpent King loved that little girl. I’d see them every Saturday come into town; she’d be dressed in a pretty white dress and they’d go for ice cream. Now, story goes that one day, Dillard Serpent King is sitting on his porch, whittling or doing something, and he hears a scream. ‘Daddy, come quick.’ So he runs toward the screaming and there’s Ruth lying on the ground. A big old copperhead’s bit her right in the neck.”

  Lamar formed a V with his two fingers and made a stabbing motion at his neck. “So Dillard Sr. shouts for Dillard Preacherman to go call an ambulance while he stays with Ruth. And Dillard Preacherman does, but it’s too late. The poison from the snakebite goes right to her brain and ffffffft. Dead.” Lamar drew a finger across his throat.

  Travis felt cold in the air conditioning in his sweat-sodden T-shirt. Between the quick-decaying rush of excitement from seeing Amelia for the first time and the caffeine making his head spin, he was glad to be sitting.

  Lamar continued. “So he buries his little girl on their land and then he goes funny in the head. Now, folks guessed at this part, but he started killing snakes out of revenge. Must have thought he’d better kill them all, since he couldn’t say which one killed his baby girl. He keeps showing up for work, but after a while, he starts coming in with snakeskins pinned to his clothes, and snake heads worn on a string around his neck. Well, it’s awful strange, but don’t nobody want to say anything to the man because he lost his baby. He gets worse. He wears more and more skins the more snakes he kills. He quits bathing and shaving and cutting his hair and he stinks like something dead. He gets skinnier and skinnier. Looks like a snake himself. Finally, his job has to cut him loose. He’s scaring the customers. He gets this weird look in his eye. I remember seeing him after things had really gotten bad for him. Shuffling down the street, snakeskins hanging from his clothes. That scraggly long hair and beard.”

  Lamar stared off, eyes unfocused, shaking his head. His voice became quiet. “Tell you what—you looked into his eyes? You saw a walking dead man. Gives me chills to think about it. I’ve seen things in my life. I been to Vietnam. I ain’t never seen anything like the way grief rotted that man from the inside out. Chewed him up. That’s when folks started calling him the Serpent King. They wasn’t trying to be ugly or funny. They was just trying to make some sense of it, I guess. Folks do that when they scared. Look out, they’d say. Here come the Serpent King. Folks is afraid of grief. Think it’s catching, like a disease.”

  Travis waited for Lamar to finish the story. “So what happened to him?”

  Lamar shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “All I know’s what I heard. That one morning, Serpent King went up to his little girl’s grave and laid on top of it with a Coke bottle of rat poison and drank it down and died there. Say Dillard Preacherman found him lying there. Can you imagine that? Seeing that happen? I don’t wonder why Dillard Preacherman got funny in the head himself. That ain’t to excuse him. But.”

  No one spoke. Lamar gazed out the window, a troubled look on his face. “I don’t like to tell that part of the story. Ain’t fond of any of the story, t’ be honest. But since your dad asked and he signs my checks.”

  “Don’t be an old pussy, Lamar.” Travis’s father spit in his can with a little clink. “So them Dillard Early boys are all a little touched in the head, seems. Sooner or later. About the time they decide to mess with serpents.”

  Travis’s stomach had started to feel like it had a snake or two writhing around in it. He shuddered. He tried to wrap his mind around Dill having this much darkness in his bloodline. Obviously, he knew about Dill’s dad. But this was different.

  “Such a damn shame. Think on that,” Lamar said, holding up a finger. “One snake did all this to one family.”

  “Don’t cry about it too much, Lamar,” Travis’s father said. “Ain’t you heard the story of Adam and Eve? One snake already did us all in. Whole damn human family.”

  “Seem like at least the two older Dillard Earlys both tried to be the Serpent King in their own way. The first by killing them. The second by handling them,” Lamar said, spitting in his can.

  Travis’s father spit in his can again, got up, and slapped Travis on the back. “You like kings and princes and shit? You still might not want to be around when your buddy snaps and tries to take his papaw’s and daddy’s throne. That ain’t no lucky name he’s got. That’s for damn sure.”

  Dill preferred studying at the library to studying at Good News Coffee. For one thing, he hated feeling pressure to buy something. For another thing, Good News, a Christian-themed coffee shop, provided him with too many reminders of a world he didn’t like thinking about, especially when he was with Lydia. But she insisted.

  “I’ll have the Luke Latte in the Good News Grande. Wait…Matthew Mocha…no, Luke Latte after all. Dill? I’m buying.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Come on.”

  “Fine. Plain coffee in the Victory Venti size.”

  The girl behind the counter handed them their drinks with a cheery grin and wished them both a blessed evening. Dill and Lydia found their seats.

  “How do we not have a Starbucks here yet?” Lydia asked. “I’ve literally seen a Starbucks that had another tiny Starbucks in the bathroom. And anyway, how is a coffee shop Christian?”

  “It implies that normal coffee shops are satanic.”

  “Which they totally are. It’s like, can I please just get a cup of coffee without having to kneel before Lucifer and pledge my eternal soul?”

  “Here’s your latte. Will that be cash, credit, or the blood of a virgin?”

  They laughed, content to procrastinate doing their homework.

  “We learned in church that the Starbucks logo is satanic,” Dill said.

  “Of course you did, and of course it is. What’s the reasoning?” She made air quotes around “reasoning.”

  “Mermaid demon.”

  “Ah, yes. But your new church is slightly less nutty, right? No snakes?”

  “No snakes.”

  “So while we’re here in the temple of Christian coffee, do you still have the snake verse memorized?”

  This was exactly what Dill hated talking about, but he humored her. “Mark sixteen eighteen. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

  “Bravo.”

  “You don’t know if I got it right.”

  “Eh. It felt right. It felt Bible-y. I have such cred coming here with you.”

  “I’m not that faithful. I volunteered for the praise band because I was scared of the snakes.”

  Lydia sipped her latte. “Well, I assume you could also play and sing reasonably well, not that I’ve ever heard you do both at the same time.”

  Dill shrugged. “I guess.”

  Lydia appeared to be pondering. “Back to the snakes. Do you think that’s what Jesus really meant? Maybe he was like, ‘And theoretically, you could probably pick up snakes,’ and Mark’s over there writing and he’s like, ‘You should literally pick up snakes. Cool, Jesus, got it!’ And Jesus is going, ‘Well, calm down with the snake business. Don’t be weird; just be a decent person. It’s really more of a metaphor.’ And Mark is writing, ‘Definitely pick up actual literal snakes and drink actual real poison like rotten grape juice or other Bible-y poison.’ ”

  “Who knows exactly what he meant?” Dill tried not to sound impatient with the conversation. He really did enjoy Lydia’s showing interest in his life.r />
  “I’m sorry, do you hate talking about this?”

  “No, it’s fine.” Let me just turn the temple of Christian coffee into a black pit of lies.

  “Am I going to hell for joking about it?”

  “Not if we find some snakes for you to handle. And I slipped some arsenic in your latte when you weren’t looking.” They laughed.

  Dill sighed, the way he did when he knew he’d procrastinated doing something for as long as he could. He fished around in his bag for his schoolbooks. “Homework on the first day of school,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Hey, Dill? Hang on a sec.” Lydia spoke quietly, the snark gone from her voice. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  Dill’s heart began to race. Over the past few years, when people had prefaced something they were about to say with “there’s something I want to talk to you about,” it proved to be nothing he wanted to talk about.

  “There’s something I want to talk to you about. Your father is in trouble.”

  “There’s something I want to talk to you about. We need you to testify.”

  “There’s something I want to talk to you about. Your mother was in a very serious accident coming back from visiting your father in Nashville, and she might not pull through.”

  “There’s something I want to talk to you about. With the house, the church, your father’s legal fees, and my bills from the accident, we’re about two hundred seventy thousand dollars in debt.”

  “There’s something I want to talk to you about. I’m leaving you behind to go on to a bigger and better life, and I’ll never think about or speak with you ever again.” Probably.

  “Okay,” Dill said.

  “I want to do some school shopping with you. The kind where you actually shop for schools.”

  Dill eyed her blankly, not quite processing what she was saying.

  “Colleges. I want you to go to college.”

  “Why?” Dill’s heart continued to race. What Lydia said wasn’t bad in the way he feared, but it still wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

  “Why?” Lydia appeared flustered, a rare condition for her. As though it hadn’t occurred to her that she’d have to explain why. “Because. First of all, college is good. You learn how to function in the very big world outside Forrestville and you set yourself up better for life. College grads make way more money. Millions more over their lifetime.”

  “So I’ll stay in Forrestville and I’ll be fine. And I don’t need millions of dollars. Only enough to live.” Dill wouldn’t make eye contact.

  “Dill, who are you kidding? You’re miserable here. All the whispers and stares. Come on. Plus, I would love it if you had some direction so that you weren’t getting mad at me every five minutes for having some.”

  Dill folded his arms. “I wondered when we’d get to the part where this is about you.”

  Lydia took a loud, deep breath through her nose. “Ergh. This is not about me. It’s about you improving your life and I happen to get something out of it—namely you not being so defensive about my refusal to spend my life stuck here. I’m trying to pull you up.”

  A sunshiny church youth group a few grades below Dill and Lydia came in and ordered cupcakes and smoothies. That used to be me. Dill waited for them to pass their table before responding.

  “You’re turning me into a project,” he said, his voice lowered. “It’s not enough to dress me anymore. Now you need to chart out my life for me.”

  “Are you kidding me? You think I see you as a project?”

  “That’s how you’re making me feel. Like a craft project. Like a photo series for your blog. Except not for your blog because obviously I’d never actually be on your blog.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Fine. I’m making it a project to make your life better.” Her voice crescendoed. Lydia had no discernible Southern accent until she got mad. “I’m so sorry for caring and trying to help you make your life better.”

  “Is it that or is it your fear of the stain of my sad life getting on you? So you have to polish me up and make me worthy.”

  “No, dude. You’re way off here, and you’re being gross about it. You’re scared of the thought of leaving and you’re projecting that fear onto me. You’re the one trying to make this about me. You think if you can convince yourself that I have totally impure motives for wanting you to go, you won’t have to face the possibility that you’re just afraid.”

  A couple of the youth group kids peeked over. Lydia gave them a firm mind-your-own-business stare. They pouted. One whispered something to the other, as if to prove Lydia’s earlier point about whispers and stares. Dill could make out “pastor” and “jail.” He gave serious consideration to the possibility that Lydia had hired them as plants. Wouldn’t surprise him.

  “Look,” he said, almost whispering. “I would love to go to college too. But I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “My grades.”

  “They’re fine. Not spectacular, but there are colleges who’ll take you just for having a pulse. But more importantly, you’re extremely smart. I wouldn’t hang out with you if you weren’t. Next.”

  “I can’t afford it. Even if my grades are good enough to get in, I can’t get a scholarship.”

  “Financial aid and get a part-time job. Next.”

  “I still can’t afford it because I need to start working full time to help my family get out of debt. I need to work more than full time, in fact.”

  “You’ll be of more financial help to your family farther down the road with a college degree. Next.”

  “I never planned on it. Going to college isn’t something Earlys are supposed to do. None of us have ever been.”

  Lydia rocked back in her chair with a smug bearing. “Finally, the real reason, and it’s the dumbest one of all.”

  “Thanks, but they’re all the real reasons. Especially the part about needing to help my mom. I’m all she has. My grandparents died. We don’t have any other living family nearby who still associate with us.”

  “I’m not trying to convince you to go to the Sorbonne or Harvard, Dill. Go to UT. Go to MTSU. Go to ETSU. Go to TSU. You’ll be close to home.”

  The youth group held hands in a circle, praying over their cupcakes and smoothies. Dill waited for them to finish.

  “Why aren’t you up Travis’s ass about this too?”

  “First of all, don’t assume that I’m incapable of being up more than one ass at a time. I can be up—” The youth group table cast dirty looks in her direction. She lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper. “I can be up many asses at the same time. Multiple asses. I cause rips in the space-time continuum with how many asses I’m capable of being up simultaneously. Stephen Hawking had to come up with a parallel universe theory to explain my up-asses omnipresence.”

  “So you’re up Travis’s ass?”

  “No.”

  Dill did a double facepalm.

  “Listen,” Lydia said. “I’m not bugging Travis because he’s fine here. And that’s because he doesn’t actually live in Forrestville, Tennessee. He lives in Bloodfall land. Trav will be happy stacking lumber during the day and reading books at night until he dies. That’s who he is. But you? I can tell you don’t want that life. Everything about you screams that you want a different life. This is how you do it.”

  “What if I moved to a different town and got a full-time job?”

  “Don’t do this halfway. Either go to college, learn something, and change your life, or stay here and be miserable. Don’t move to the next county over to be miserable. You’ll waste your time.”

  “This is all super easy for you to say. You have loving parents who support you and want you to succeed at stuff. You can afford college.”

  “So what if it’s easy for me to say? Am I not supposed to say important stuff because it’s easy to say? Counterintuitive much?”

  “I can’t. I just can’t. And all you’re doing is making me feel worse about my life. You’re
telling someone in a wheelchair ‘Walking is awesome. You should get up and walk.’ It’s not that easy.”

  “I’m telling someone in a wheelchair to walk who’s in the wheelchair because his dad and mom were in wheelchairs and he thinks he doesn’t deserve to walk, or he’s not walking so he won’t hurt their feelings.”

  “What gives you such access to my deepest thoughts and feelings? I never told you I wanted to leave Forrestville.”

  Lydia’s voice began to rise again. “Oh, give me a break. Ask any gay person in the world”—more reproachful looks from the youth group table—“if not voicing a desire makes it any less real. How can I tell you want out? Because you’ve laughed your head off during every Wes Anderson movie we’ve ever watched together. Because you’ve loved every music mix I’ve ever made for you. You’ve read every book I’ve ever recommended to you. And because I am your best friend and I want out of here. You are curious and hungry for experience, and it couldn’t be more obvious.” Her eyes blazed.

  “I have to work on my homework.”

  They sat and eyed each other.

  Lydia’s face softened. “Please think about it.”

  Dill took a sip of his coffee. “This has been the worst first day of school I’ve ever had. And that’s saying something.”

  The nagging dread that had accompanied Dill to Nashville rematerialized. Now not only would he lose Lydia at the end of this year, but he would also disappoint her. And worse, somewhere, circling and flitting around that dread, was another awful feeling: nothing makes you feel more naked than someone identifying a desire you never knew you possessed.

  She’s in ninth grade, sitting up a row and a few seats over from Dillard Early in English class. He rarely talks. He’s frequently absent. She’s heard her dad mention that Dillard’s dad got himself into trouble for having some pretty creepy porno on his computer and maybe that wasn’t all. This confluence of perverse sexuality and strange religion is titillating stuff in a small town. Well, it is anywhere, really. It’s made national news. It’s the hot topic for hacky late-night comedians who can’t resist the low-hanging fruit of snakehandling jokes. There are rumors that the porn was Dillard’s, which would be somewhat less creepy, since at least Dillard is a minor himself. Still, people steer clear of him—even the couple of friends he had from church.