The Serpent King

by Jeff Zentner

  “I miss Travis too, Dill. Every day.”

  “It’s not just about Travis.”

  “I know.”

  Dill rolled onto his back and stared up at Lydia. “Stay,” he said softly.

  “Okay, but I seriously think you’ll feel better if you get out of bed and let me take you somewhere.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I mean stay. Please.”

  She felt a fist grip her stomach as she understood. “Dill. I—”

  “You’re going to say you can’t. But that’s not true. You can. You just won’t.”

  Not this. Not now. You promised. I mean, you didn’t promise exactly this. But it was inherent in the promise. She looked him in the eyes. They were glassy and vacant. “I won’t. I won’t because I can’t.”

  “You can do anything you want. You could stay.”

  “Dill, please don’t. This is not fair. I’m not staying. You leave. Leave like me. Leave like Travis’s mom.”

  “I—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. You can’t. But that’s crap. You can. You just won’t.”

  “I can’t. I can’t even get out of bed.”

  “Come with me. Come to New York. You can sleep on my couch. We’ll find you a job. I’ll hassle you about the Bible and give you guilt trips to make you feel at home.”

  “No.” His voice had a bleak resolve to it.

  “I’m not going to give up on you.”

  Dill rolled back onto his side. She grabbed his arm and gently tried to turn him back toward her. “Dill—”

  He threw off her hand. “Just go,” he whispered. “I want to be alone.”

  “You don’t need to be alone right now.”

  “The hell I don’t. I might as well get used to it. GO.” Dill had never been so sharp with her before.

  “No.” She tried not to sound as frightened and helpless as she felt.

  “Go!” he shouted. “Leave me alone!”

  She stood, grabbed his arm, and spun him onto his back. She tried to will her voice not to quaver, but was mostly unsuccessful. She jabbed her index finger into his bare chest. “Okay. You know what? You’re being shitty. You’re being unfair and it sucks. And if you think I’m going to just let you drown and not try to do anything about it, you’re dead wrong. So I’m going to let you wallow today, because sometimes people need to wallow, but believe me: I’m going to hold you to the promise you made me. And we’re going to fix that broken string on your guitar. Got it?”

  “Fine. Just go.”

  “You know how bad you hurt right now? I would feel that times a hundred—times a million if anything happened to you.”

  Dill didn’t answer. He turned back on his side. Lydia stared down at him, pitching around for one last thing to say. Something that could fix everything. The perfect joke. The witty rejoinder. The insightful quip. And for once her mind was barren.

  She turned and walked out. She stood for a second in the living room, clenching and unclenching her fists. Taking deep breaths, trying not to cry.

  As she closed Dill’s front door behind her, it felt like rolling a stone over the entrance of a tomb.

  She lay on her bed in complete, leaden exhaustion. School was shitty. Everything was shitty. She was about to put on her favorite music for calming herself down—Dill’s videos—when she remembered that all was not yet well there.

  Lydia knew Dill hated texting because it was so cumbersome on his ancient flip phone. But she texted him anyway because the sound of his gray voice hurt her heart. I’ve had the worst day and I need to know right now that at least you’re ok or I’m going to scream and break things.

  A few seconds later. I’m ok I guess.

  But he wasn’t okay. Despite everything, the darkness encroached. Day by day, the poison spread, strangling him.

  Sleeping didn’t help. It never left him feeling rested. He had dreams of serpents. Visions of handling them, allowing them to twist around his arms and neck. Of wearing their skins and skulls and fangs; unkempt, bearded, and reeking of decay; a derelict hull. Of passing Lydia, home from college, on the street, where he stared at her with dead eyes but with no words between them.

  Travis came to him in dreams, and they would make plans to live in a house together and have desks side by side and then he would wake up and for several seconds, he couldn’t tell whether it had been a dream. He dreamed that Lydia announced she was staying and not abandoning him after all. And he’d wake up and he was a day closer to losing the only thing he had left.

  Lydia looked at him with eyes that said she knew he was slipping away, disappearing before her like fog in the morning sun. And there was nothing she could do about it. And so he spent a lot of time alone. He wouldn’t return Lydia’s calls. Being around her—aware that the seconds were ticking away to her leaving too—made things worse. When they were together, she would take him to watch trains, but he couldn’t bear their life and energy. He had no space for it.

  His mom tried to reach him through scripture, by reminding him of Jesus’s travails. It didn’t work. And she didn’t have the time to do much anyway.

  Everything seemed muted and colorless. Every sound reached his ears as though through a thick wool blanket. He had no music in him. On the few occasions when he would sit to write, he ended up with a blank page in front of him. His fingers couldn’t form chords on his guitar strings. His voice left him. Lydia would show him the mounting likes and views of his videos in an effort to break through, but it never worked.

  Food had no flavor. All he could taste was the pervasive and consuming despair, like soot on his tongue. He stopped going to appointments with the grief counselor.

  He walked through his days like an apparition. The act of living felt wrong and harsh and uncomfortable. Nails on a chalkboard. A machine running without oil. Gears grinding and gnashing on each other, breaking teeth, disintegrating. Burning up. Wearing out.

  He would get up and go to school with Lydia, their rides mostly quiet, with Lydia trying to get him to talk. He would count the minutes until school let out, unable to focus or concentrate. He would go to work and perform his tasks in a somnolent haze. Then he would return home and go to sleep as soon as humanly possible, so that he wouldn’t have to interact with his mother. She also knew she was losing him. He could see it on her face, and that was just one more thing that hurt. He knew she was praying for him and he didn’t want to become one more unanswered prayer.

  And most of all, there was the crushing weight of destiny. The ossifying conviction that he was living out some ancient and preordained plan, encoded in his blood, built into the architecture of his name. Something horrible and inevitable.

  One day at the end of March, he woke up and wondered if he’d ever be happy again. It was a sunny day at least. The world was verdant, in contrast to the desolation inside him.

  He went to Bertram Park to watch a train. He had to wait a long time. Then he walked alone to the Column and climbed up it. He wore his favorite clothes. Ones Lydia had picked out for him.

  He sat with his back resting on his handwritten list of the things that he once loved. He closed his eyes and felt the sun on his face as he watched the light patterns behind his eyelids and thought about whether he had anything left to lose—if he had any reason left to stay. No.

  Would Lydia miss him the way he’d miss her? Probably not. Would she at least forgive him for breaking his promise? He hoped so.

  He wondered if he’d see Travis again. He hoped so.

  He wondered if his parents would miss him. Maybe his paycheck, but probably not him.

  He wondered how things might have turned out differently for him if he’d had more faith, a different name, or been born to different circumstances. He didn’t know.

  He wondered why it seemed like God had abandoned him. There was no answer to that question. Would God notice enough to be offended by what he was thinking about doing? He didn’t care.

  He looked down at the river and remembered the day of hi
s baptism there.

  He’s eight years old and dressed in a white dress shirt and black dress slacks that are both too big for him. His father’s told him that he’s following in the footsteps of Jesus, who was baptized in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. And Dill’s happy to be following Jesus, but even happier to have so pleased his father.

  His father tells him that baptism symbolizes a death, burial, and rebirth as a disciple of Christ. That it will wash away his sins. And this sounds pretty good to Dill even though part of him realizes he hasn’t had very much time to sin.

  The congregants line the banks and sing “Amazing Grace” as Dill wades unsteadily into the river, sinking into its mucky bottom as he tries to reach where his father stands, smiling. The river writhes around his calves, knees, thighs, and then waist. It feels alive, like a snake.

  His father takes his hand and holds him while he immerses him completely in the muddy water and quickly pulls him back up, dripping. Dill wipes the water from his face and the sound of applause from the riverbank becomes sharper as the water drains from his ears. His father hugs him. Dill wades back, singing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” in his high, clear voice.

  He feels cleansed. Like the river’s flow has swept away his every burden and worry.

  And as he gazed down, he longed for that feeling once more. He wondered if the turbid water gliding past could again carry away his burdens. Then he remembered the other time he had felt so free and clean. Standing on stage at the talent competition, looking into Lydia’s eyes.

  He waited for the indigo gradient of the sky as the sun went down, until the first star of the evening.

  Then he stood, gathered his courage, and decided to end this life and take his chances on the next.

  The knocking on the door grew more insistent.

  “Hang on,” Lydia called. “Just a second.”

  Knocking.

  “Chill already, jeez,” she called.

  She got to the door and opened it, and her pulse quickened.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  Dill stood on the doorstep. Tears streaked his face. “I’m here because I made you a promise. I need to leave and go to college or I’m going to die. I can’t do it without your help.”

  She fell on him and embraced him harder than she ever had. She almost broke her glasses against his cheekbone. Her own tears of joy fell on his neck.

  “Sweetie? Is everything okay here?” Dr. Blankenship said, coming to the door. “Dill?”

  Lydia broke the hug and exhaled quickly, fanning herself with her hand while she composed herself. “Yes, everything’s fine. Dad, I think we’ll be pulling an all-nighter. Dill is going to college, and because his decision is coming a bit late in the game, we’re in a hurry.”

  “You’ll need coffee. The primo stuff. And lots of it,” Dr. Blankenship said, starting for the kitchen.

  “And Pizza Garden. With bacon and jalapeño cream cheese. Stat!”

  “You hate Pizza Garden.”

  “I don’t love Pizza Garden. There’s a difference.”

  “What about Dill’s mom? She probably frowns on all-nighters at girls’ houses,” Dr. Blankenship said.

  “Correct,” Dill said.

  “And we can’t mention college to her,” Lydia said. “We need a solid lie.”

  “I’m officially required to tell you that I don’t approve of lying to parents,” Dr. Blankenship said.

  “I’m officially required to tell you who cares and let’s get cracking on that Pizza Garden,” Lydia said.

  “Touché.”

  “Okay. Lies,” Lydia said. “You’re not feeling well and you’re going to sleep on our couch?”

  “Not even close,” Dill said. “We need to go full Bible…I’m reading the New Testament out loud and witnessing for Jesus to your whole family, and everyone is caught up in the Spirit, and you all keep demanding to hear more and more.”

  “She’ll buy that?” Lydia asked, awestruck.

  “Wanting to believe something is powerful.” Dill smiled. A genuine one. The first Lydia had seen from him in weeks. Since before. They texted Dill’s mom with the story. She was pleased. Besides the Jesus angle, she was probably happy to believe that Dill was excited about something again.

  They spread out over Lydia’s room. They kept her printer hot with college, student loan, and financial aid applications. Dill, fortunately and unfortunately, knew all of his family’s relevant financial information, down to his mom’s social security number.

  “Dad?” Lydia called down at one point.

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “Start writing Dill a letter of recommendation for college.”

  “Coming right up.”

  They worked through the night. They quickly determined that Dill would apply to Middle Tennessee State University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Middle Tennessee State was Dill’s first choice, because of their music recording programs and Lydia’s sense of where Dill might thrive. She Googled it and discovered that seventy percent of the MTSU student body were first-generation college students.

  By dawn, Dill was ready to apply for college, complete with admission essay and financial aid documents. He and Lydia lay on her bed, side by side, staring at the ceiling, exhausted, quiet. Like marathoners who had just crossed the finish line.

  “Dill?” A long pause. “Can I ask you something?”

  Another prolonged silence. “Yes.”

  “How close did you come?”

  He drew a deep breath and held it before releasing it. “Really, really close.”

  “What stopped you?”

  “My promise. And remembering the talent competition.”

  She turned to him, lying on her right side, and put her hand on his cheek. “Thank you for keeping your promise. A world without you would break my heart.”

  He put his hand over hers and held it there for a while. Then he began slowly stroking her hand, running his fingers along hers.

  He thought he could hear her heartbeat. Or maybe it was his own, thrumming in his ears. Are you still afraid? Even now? Even as you listen to your own heart beating in death’s shadow? His hand moved more insistently on hers. She didn’t move her hand from his face. He slowly slid his fingers between her long and delicate fingers. The way he’d wanted to for a very long time. His heartbeat grew louder in his ears.

  Every part of her felt warm and liquid and flushed as Dill’s guitar-callused fingertips stroked the webs of her fingers. She spread them to let his in between hers. Whatever this is, I like it. However reckless, however unwise this is, I don’t care. I’d rather lose him this way than any other way. This was the most coherent translation of her incoherent thoughts. The wild delirium she felt might have been lack of sleep combined with too much coffee. But she didn’t think so. She’d been sleep-deprived and overcaffeinated before, and it didn’t make her desire her best friend’s hands doing all over her body what they were currently doing to her hand.

  Their fingers intertwined and they clinched hands. And here you thought that just deciding to keep living was the bravest thing you’d do this week. He went to the secret vault where he kept his talent show feeling. He opened it for the second time in twenty-four hours. He hoped it would sustain him one more time.

  With a quick motion, Dill turned onto his side and raised himself up on his left elbow, his face about a foot from Lydia’s. They looked each other in the eyes. He could hear her breathe and then stop. For a second Dill feared she would start laughing. But she didn’t. Instead, she parted her lips as if about to say something. But she didn’t. He thought the most alive he could feel was in the moment after he’d done something incredibly brave. Turned out, he also felt pretty damn alive in the moment just before.

  Dill discovered that there was another thing that came as naturally to him as making music.

  Dillard Early’s lips were on hers, and it was her first kiss just like it w
as his. But they acclimated quickly and after a few hesitant moments, the kissing really began. Face. Neck. Fingers. There was a lust and hunger to it that went even beyond sex. More primal and vital. The weight of years of longing for it.

  It is a very bad idea to take this sort of plunge with your best friend two and a half months before you leave for New York City. It is a really good way to have both your hearts broken. It is a really good way to be distracted in your new life. It is.

  It is.

  It is.

  It is.

  “Lydia?” Mrs. Blankenship called out, thumping up the stairs.

  Dill spun off Lydia like she was radioactive. They lay side by side, staring up at the ceiling, trying to catch their breath and stifling laughter.

  Mrs. Blankenship appeared in the doorway, mug of coffee in hand, dressed for work. “Well. You kids had quite the busy night, didn’t you?”

  “And morning,” Lydia said. She could feel Dill shaking next to her, trying desperately not to laugh. Don’t do it, Dill. Don’t do it. Keep it together.

  Dill let out an involuntary snort from the back of his throat. He tried to cover it with a cough. And that did it. Gales of laughter. Floods. Lydia turned to Dill and buried her face in his arm.

  Mrs. Blankenship studied them with a suspicious expression. “Ooooookay…I feel like I’m missing something.”

  “Nothing, Mom,” Lydia said, trying to gather herself, her voice muffled in Dill’s sleeve. “We were just laughing about a joke.”

  Mrs. Blankenship raised her eyebrows and leaned against the doorframe. “I like jokes. Tell me.”

  “Tell her, Lydia,” Dill said, pushing Lydia to face her mom.

  Lydia backhanded Dill in the chest and wiped away tears. She cleared her throat. “Okay, okay. All right. Okay. Knock knock.” She and Dill both seized up again, giggling.

  “Who’s there?” Mrs. Blankenship took a sip of coffee.