The Serpent King

by Jeff Zentner

  “I can get financial aid.”

  “Oh great, more debt. That’s what we need. I could use another few holes in my head while you’re offering.”

  “You always say ‘our debt.’ I didn’t rack up this debt. You guys did. Why should it fall on me?”

  “Because we’re a family. And families go through hard times together, that’s why. They don’t run off by themselves and leave the others alone to fend for themselves. I dropped out of high school to marry your father and have you. I bathed and fed you. I’ve worked six days a week cleaning motel rooms by the highway and six nights a week at a gas station to give you the best life I could. And it’s not much. But we have each other and we have Jesus.”

  “I want more.”

  “That’s greed and pride talking.”

  “I’m tired of this town. Do you know what it’s like? To have his name? To wear that millstone around your neck? The stares and whispers? The weight of this blood?”

  Her eyes blazed. She stabbed the last pieces of her cake with her fork. “Do I know what it’s like? Of course I do. You think people don’t whisper about me? They whisper about me most of all—wonder where I went wrong. Why I didn’t know. Why I wasn’t good enough. What more I should have done. God gives us trials. This is our place to experience them. You think I’ll let gossipers drive us from our home and fail God’s test? Think again.”

  Guilt seized Dill. He felt that he was once again failing a test of faith. Like he was afraid to pick up yet another serpent. He hadn’t intended to bring up college. Certainly not on his mother’s birthday. In fact, he hadn’t even realized he’d been thinking about it.

  “Mom, I’m—”

  She didn’t look up. “This is the last I want to hear of this. I’ve not said much as you’ve gone running around with Lydia and Travis all the time. But now? I want you to honor me.”

  Dill hung his head. “Okay. Fine. Sorry.” He wanted to tell her how much he’d miss Lydia when she left; that that was part of the reason he wanted to go. So that his life wouldn’t end right as Lydia’s began. But his mother surely would have been even less sympathetic about that.

  A long silence between them. They listened to the clatter of their decrepit refrigerator and the ticking clock on the wall.

  “Did I ruin your birthday?” Dill asked.

  “Never cared much about birthdays,” his mom said, getting up to take the plates to the sink. “You’re a year older. That’s all.” But she didn’t say no.

  The book. Perhaps his redemption. “Hey, I almost forgot. Hang on. I got you something.” Dill jumped up and ran to his bedroom. He hadn’t bothered to wrap The Templar Device. They didn’t have any wrapping paper, and he sucked at wrapping presents anyway.

  He returned to the kitchen, the book behind his back.

  “Dillard. You shouldn’t have,” his mother said. Of course, she didn’t say it in the sense of you shouldn’t have…kept me waiting so long, the way most people did. She meant it.

  He handed her the book. “Mr. Burson down at Riverbank Books thought you might enjoy this. Happy birthday.”

  She looked up at him. “Is it—”

  “Of course it’s Christian.”

  She leafed through it. Sure enough. Jesus. She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. “Thank you, Dillard. You’re a sweet boy. Between this and the call I got from your father earlier, I feel very blessed.”

  “I’ll clean up in here, Mom. You can go read your book or take a hot bath or something. That’d make your back feel better.”

  Dill went to the sink and washed the dishes. Soon, his guilt for bringing up college and excitement over getting his mom a gift she didn’t immediately hate had both worn off. A sort of dull ache mixed with anger replaced it. Anger at Lydia of all people. It was unfair to direct his frustration at her, even inwardly. It was unfair to blame her for the fictional zero-sum game of her successes equaling his failures. And yet he indulged the feeling. It wouldn’t be fair to be angry with his mother on her birthday.

  First things first. I need to thank all of you who read and shared and said nice things about my interview with Laydee. That’s already become the most-viewed article here (thanks to all of you who retweeted it). I was so, so nervous, but she was so, so awesome and lovely and everyone buy her music, please and thanks.

  Here’s a picture of me looking very happy indeed thinking about the whole affair. I’m wearing a Missoni top over a dress I snagged at Attic in East Nashville. My bag is from Goodwill. The wedges are from Owl and the necklace is Miu Miu.

  It’s the end of September. So what, you ask? So if we consider autumn to be the Saturday of the year—and we should, because autumn is the most awesome part of the year, just as Saturday is the most awesome part of the week—then that makes September the Friday of months. Which means it is also awesome. Which means I’m officially on the lookout for good autumnal movies. Autumn porn, if you will. Leave me suggestions in the comments. I love wearing autumn colors. I love it when it gets cool enough for me to start doing interesting things with layering. I’m addicted to jackets (big surprise there, Dear Reader). Autumn basically turns me into a fifty-year-old woman. I go to Cracker Barrel and buy my Autumn Harvest Yankee Candle (the only thing with “Yankee” on it that makes it past the front door of most Southern households). This is only one component of my insatiable hunger for coziness. Pumpkin spice everything is another component. I would eat pumpkin spice scrambled eggs in the middle of October. I would eat a pumpkin spice steak. I would eat [insert personal choice of food that would be disgusting in pumpkin spice form].

  I love a witchy, dark, gloomy autumn day, when it rains from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed. And you can listen to Leonard Cohen and wrap yourself up in a warm blanket of exquisite melancholy.

  I will say this for Tennessee: it does autumn well. We break out the wreaths, the cornstalks, the hay bales, the wood smoke, and the scarecrows. The leaves are amazing. I can’t believe this is probably my last autumn in Tennessee for a while. I’ll miss it. I hope wherever I end up rocks autumn at least half as well.

  I’m in one of those periods where every ounce of my mental energy is being diverted elsewhere (college-y stuff, etc. and so forth), to the point that I don’t feel like I have anything particularly important or insightful to say. That’s when I’ll sometimes answer frequently asked questions because HEY, FREE INTERNET CONTENT. Anyway, let us begin.

  Q. Why do you always spell “Forrestville” as “Forestville”?

  A. Because Forrestville is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the Ku Klux Klan, which makes my town’s name roughly as awesome as if it were “Hitlerville.” Oh! And bonus! It’s in White County (not named after white people, as far as I know). Point being: it’s the worst. And as I always say, forests are way better than racists. So I always write “Forestville” because YOU MUST BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD. Anyway, the dropped “r” from Forrestville stands for “racist.”

  Q. What year are you in school and where are you going to college? What do you want to study?

  A. Senior and that remains to be seen. Here’s my list, starting with my first pick and then in no particular order: NYU, Oberlin, Smith, Brown, Sarah Lawrence, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Vanderbilt, Vassar, Wellesley. I want to study journalism.

  Q. Who are your style icons/role models?

  A. Both real and fictional (please feel free to Google copiously): DOLLY PARTON (obvs), Margot Tenenbaum, Zadie Smith, Debbie Harry, Natasha Khan, Angela Chase, Veronica Mars, Jenny Lewis, Patti Smith, Dee Dee Penny, KatieJane Garside, Meg White, Donna Tartt, Florence Welch, PJ Harvey, Beyoncé, Stevie Nicks, Joan Didion, Frida Kahlo, Martha Gellhorn, Anaïs Nin, Flannery O’Connor.

  Q. Who are your favorite designers/houses?

  A. Rodarte, Rick Owens, Vivienne Westwood, Prada, Billy Reid (I’m still a Southerner).

  Q. Are you a lesbian?

  A. The answer to this very
much depends on who’s asking. If it’s any of the above-mentioned ladies, the answer is an emphatic yes. The Birthday Party–era Nick Cave? No. Young Willem de Kooning? No. Labyrinth-era David Bowie? No. Bottle Rocket–era Luke Wilson? No. The Royal Tenenbaums–era Luke Wilson? Also no.

  If the asker is yet another random Internet troll who literally believes, in this day and age, that it’s an insult to call someone gay—in a passive-aggressive manner no less—then the answer is whatever makes you the most uncomfortable, threatens your sense of self, and throws your tiny brain into a tizzy. So the answer is probably yes, I am a raging lesbian. All other askers I take on a case-by-case basis.

  Okay, that’s enough for now. More later. In the meantime, enjoy these pictures of my haul this last Saturday from the antique store up the street from my house. That’s the other thing the South rocks, by the way. Antique stores.

  As she uploaded her post, she looked across the library table at Travis. He was texting vigorously with a faraway expression on his face. He didn’t look carefree, per se. But as close to it as she’d ever seen him. Travis read a text and started giggling silently. He put his forehead on the table and shook with muted laughter.

  His laughter was so infectious and jubilant, she couldn’t help but be taken in. “Okay, dude. What? Who are you texting?”

  He wiped his eyes. “No one. Nothing.”

  She regarded him with good-natured suspicion. “You are the world’s worst liar.”

  Dill finished loading Ms. Relliford’s groceries in her car.

  She reached out a shaky hand with a dollar. “Here you are, young man. Thank you so much for your help. Have a blessed day.”

  Dill accepted the dollar and tucked it in his shirt pocket. “Yes ma’am, thank you. Have a blessed day.”

  He took his sweet time walking the cart back into the store, relishing the brief moment spent outside before returning to the air-conditioned cold and slight smell of rotting meat and spoiled vegetables of Floyd’s.

  Dill loved being on bagging duty on these early evenings in late September. The sun was still strong, but it lacked the vitality of the summer sun. It felt faded. He caught a subdued hint of cut grass wafting from somewhere. How was it possible for love of a place and hatred of it to exist so comfortably side by side?

  As he approached the store, wrestling the cart (how did shopping carts always have at least one bum wheel?), a little girl rode the chipped, plastic coin-operated pony ride out front.

  Dill smiled at her.

  She giggled. “I’m riding the pony!”

  “Yeah, you are! Good job, lil’ cowgirl!”

  The ride stopped and the little girl swung her leg over the pony to dismount. In her rush she caught her sandal on a curl on the pony’s mane, and tumbled face-first to the hard concrete. She scraped her chin. She looked at Dill for a second with huge, blue eyes filling with tears.

  Uh-oh.

  She began to wail. Like a tornado siren.

  Dill ran over and knelt beside her, rubbing her back. “Oh no! Sweetie! Hey, hey, don’t cry. It’s okay. It’s okay. Shhhhh. Where’s your mama?”

  She was inconsolable.

  Dill picked her up gently, murmuring in her ear. “Hey now, hey, let’s go find Mama, okay? We’re gonna find Mama.”

  Then, from the end of the parking lot, frantic shouting. “Hey! Hey! What are doing?! Put her down!”

  Dill looked up to see a wild-eyed woman sprinting toward him. He set down the little girl, who was still howling. “Ma’am, is this your—”

  “What did you do to her? Why is she crying?” the woman shrieked. She knelt and shook her daughter by the shoulders. “Daisy. Daisy, honey, what’s wrong?”

  A crowd had begun to gather. “Go get the store manager,” someone said. “Allison, is everything okay?” someone else called.

  Dill’s face burned. “Ma’am, I was just walking by and she was riding the pony and she f—”

  The woman stood and got in Dill’s face, radiating wild fury. “You stay away from her. Stay away. I know who you are. You’re Dillard Early’s son. You don’t touch my child. Got it?”

  “Allison, I think Daisy—” someone called.

  “I don’t care! I don’t care! He does not touch or get near my daughter.”

  Mr. McGowan, the store manager, pushed through the crowd. “Okay, okay, everything all right here? Ma’am?”

  Her voice still had its brittle razor’s edge. “I go to put the groceries in the car. I leave Daisy on the ride. I turn around and he”—she pointed at Dill, a contemptuous curl in her lip—“is right there and Daisy’s crying.” Daisy continued to wail, as if there were some doubt that her mother was telling the truth.

  “She fell,” Dill said. “I was trying—”

  Mr. McGowan raised his hand, cutting Dill off. “Dill, why don’t you go back inside. Ma’am, I’m very sorry this happened. I’m sure Dill meant no harm.”

  That’s enough. That’s enough of this. Dill’s voice rose with his temperature. “Hang on. I didn’t do anything wrong. I think she just feels guilty because she ran off and let her kid get hurt.”

  “How dare you? You can’t talk that way to me. You’ve no right. I’m a good mother.”

  “Dill?” Mr. McGowan said sharply. “I will handle this. Please go inside.”

  Dill and the woman exchanged final mutually reproachful glares, and he turned and walked inside. He went straight to the dimly lit employee break room, where a sitcom rerun played on the decrepit TV. He slumped at the table and ran his hands through his hair.

  After a few minutes, Mr. McGowan came in. Dill started to speak. Mr. McGowan cut him off. “My Lord, Dill! What’s gotten into you, son? You can’t talk to customers that way.”

  Way to stand behind your employees, Floyd’s. “Mr. McGowan, I did not do anything wrong. I was helping that little girl. What was I supposed to do? Just let her cry?”

  “Well, you could come get me—”

  “You know why that woman acted that way.”

  “Yeah,” he said softly. “I do. Allison’s husband, Chip, is a Church of Christ pastor. So she probably wasn’t keen on your dad even before all that mess. People don’t like when other people say they ought to be twirling snakes around to be right with God.”

  “Yeah.” Dill didn’t say anything. He just stared straight ahead. “Well, I better get back to work.”

  “You got…what…fifteen minutes left on your shift? You can go ahead and go. I’ll clock you out regular.” Mr. McGowan sounded apologetic.

  “Okay.” Dill rose from the table without meeting Mr. McGowan’s eyes, removed his green apron, and walked slowly to the library, where he was meeting Lydia and Travis. He felt thoroughly battered.

  When Dill got to the library, he saw Lydia and Travis sitting at the table farthest from the ever-vigilant eye of the librarian, Ms. White, who was quick to shush.

  Lydia made a grab for Travis’s phone. He giggled and held it out of reach. She stood and leaned over the table, making another grab, almost tipping onto the table as Travis leaned back in his chair, holding the phone still farther from reach. She came around the table, sat next to Travis, and started tickling him. He squinched up, giggling, as she pawed at his phone. Ms. White cast a withering glare in their direction and shushed them.

  “Dill, help me,” Lydia said in a loud whisper as Dill walked up and set his backpack on the table.

  “No, Dill, help me,” Travis whispered. “We’ve been friends for longer.”

  “Yeah, but I keep Dill from looking like a dingus. Come on, Dill. I suspect Travis is texting a secret girlfriend. We need to know about this.”

  Dill tried to look happy and play along, but he wasn’t succeeding. And seeing Lydia and Travis, apparently without a care in the world between them, horsing around while he basically got accused of being a child molester, was more than he could handle. “No, I’m good. I need to use the Internet while I have the chance.”

  He gave his library card to Ms
. White and took a computer. He didn’t actually need to use the Internet so much as he needed to not be near happy people.

  He told himself that he wasn’t consciously looking for an excuse to ruin Lydia’s mood. He told himself that it was a bad idea for him to read Lydia’s blog at that moment. So that’s exactly what he did.

  Resentment grew in him as he read post after post.

  I’m so excited for college. I’m so excited to leave all this behind. I have no friends so I spend all my time alone writing cool blog posts and vintage shopping and taking pretty pictures. Nope, I don’t have a single friend. At least no one worth mentioning. No one I’m not embarrassed to mention.

  By the time he logged off and got back to where Lydia and Travis were sitting, Lydia was back working on her computer, and Travis was back texting.

  “Dill! I got his phone. He’s been texting someone named Amelia. Travis has a girlfriend, dude.”

  Travis blushed and he scowl-smiled. “No I don’t. She’s just a friend from the Bloodfall forums.”

  Lydia turned to Dill. “I think Travis has Bloodfallen for this girl. See what I did there?”

  Travis began to protest. Dill tried to laugh, but the rising black dome of rage pushing up through his chest and lungs cut him off. “Yeah.”

  Lydia sat for a second, her mouth agape, her hands outstretched in front of her. “Dude. Come on. We have the chance to tease Travis about a girl and you’re just letting it fly free like a dove.”

  And then the black dome of rage burst and hot lava flowed through him. “Let me ask you a question.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just curious. How come you have never once mentioned either Travis or me on your blog? Are we that embarrassing to you?”

  Lydia’s good cheer crumbled away in an instant. She stared at Dill with an acid expression. “I’m sorry, do I owe you an explanation for what I say or don’t say on my blog?”

  Dill tried to affect a casual, who-cares tone, with little success. “No. I just think it’s sad you have friends you’re embarrassed by. That’s all.”