“They say it’s going to drop two feet of snow.”
“I should go home, then,” I said. “What about the people in the box?”
“They weren’t going anywhere anyway,” said Lila, and I agreed with her.
I parked my car inside the big barn, next to the tractor which we had never used. I didn’t believe the storm would amount to much, but Suzette said she could feel its severity in her bones.
It started snowing and strong winds began to howl through the trees. I had been hoping Lila would invite me upstairs to spend the night with her but instead she pulled out some blankets and offered me the couch. Suzette’s bones were right about the storm. It was big and strong, and I slept well with the snow swirling about outside. One of the cats curled up and wedged itself behind my knees.
* * *
The storm didn’t let up until past noon the next day. It was a doozy, covering the ground in a heavy blanket of snow and knocking over several trees on the Harper sisters’ land. The snow had built up so thickly on top of their old barn that the roof caved in and we had to dig out my car and the old tractor too. The general digging out took a long time and I couldn’t get back to my house until the following day. Lila came with me when I did return and we were surprised to find that a large tree had crashed down upon the box. The metal structure had been ripped from the concrete foundation and now it lay flipped on its side, covered in snow. There was just a hole where it once stood, with a ladder leading down to the world below. Together Lila and I explored the cavern. It was like a submarine down there, a hallway of rooms filled with old instruments and dusty computers. The people were gone. Signs of a hasty exit were evident, half-packed bags, unfinished food in the refrigerator. Had Dr. Cox come to their rescue in the middle of the storm?
We thought the place was empty but then we heard a little meow. Lila ventured down a hallway and discovered her lost cat, Sinclair, lying happily on a bunk bed.
“Sinclair!” she exclaimed, her eyes welling up with tears. “Sinclair, it’s you. I knew it. It is you.”
I was confused, of course, because I had been under the impression we had buried Sinclair some weeks earlier.
“That must have been another cat,” said Lila. “This one here is Sinclair. I’m sure of it.”
They certainly did seem to know each other, this cat and Lila. She stroked his ears and kissed him, while he purred loudly and kneaded his paws into her lap.
“Perhaps he was reincarnated,” I suggested.
“Perhaps,” said Lila. “I’ve heard of that happening to Manx cats from time to time. They are an ancient breed.”
Surely Suzette would have another explanation, but I for one was willing to accept some of this logic. Who knows what can come of breeding cats and rabbits on some faraway island? Who really knows the power of the great winter storms?
I heard no more from Dr. Cox and his scientist buddies at NOAA. They abandoned their ion study, I suppose. Or maybe they had learned all they sought to know. They say NOAA can control the weather now, that there are satellites roaming the skies with giant mirrors, and certain airplanes seed the clouds with chemicals unfamiliar to us civilians down below. It’s all for our benefit, they say, a great equalization of the rampant forces we’ve unleashed upon nature. We have to do it, they say, otherwise we won’t survive the changes to come.
SNAKEBITE
We were riding in a car together, Clifford, his wife, Jolene, and I. Clifford was at the wheel and Jolene sat next to him, up front. I was in the back. We were running late, on our way to the wedding of a friend named Margaret out in the hills of Virginia. According to Jolene, I was underdressed. I had neglected to bring a tie and, instead of shoes, I was wearing a pair of sneakers.
“You look like a jackass,” said Jolene.
“It’s a country wedding,” I said. “This is appropriate.”
Clifford refused to weigh in on the subject, but I did notice he was wearing a tie and some nicely polished shoes. I wondered if maybe someone at the wedding might have an extra tie which I could slip on before the ceremony. There probably wasn’t time for that though. I could put the tie on afterward, but then everyone would know that I was just taking action after the fact. I looked down at my ratty sneakers and realized Jolene was probably right. I looked like a jackass.
We were driving on a country road and it was spring, a sunny April day in the mountains. Clifford sped along trying to make up for lost time. The hillsides were green and popping with little white flowers. There were some yellow ones out there too. Even a person like me, poorly dressed and feeling glum about it, could appreciate the beauty of the day.
Jolene said, “Look at this weather. Margaret’s a lucky gal. Well, about the weather anyway.”
Jolene was not fond of Margaret’s husband-to-be. He was a lanky plumber’s assistant from Culpeper named Luke. I liked him fine, though months earlier I’d actually advised him not to get married. He had confided in me one night that he was thinking about proposing to Margaret and I told him that they didn’t seem as if they were ready for that. The very next day Luke bought a ring from the pawnshop and got down on his knee. That’s how much my advice was worth to him. Jolene felt that Luke was a “simpleton.”
The wedding was set to take place at a farm. We were about twenty minutes away, nearly there, when we came upon a plump man waving his arms in the middle of the road. His vehicle, an older-model Cadillac, was pulled off to the side, and one of his pants legs was rolled up to his knee.
“Don’t stop,” said Jolene. “We’ll be late.”
“I have to stop,” said Clifford. “He’s waving.”
“Drive around him.”
Clifford slowed down and tried to coast by slowly but the man flung himself onto the hood of our car. Clifford hit the brakes and the man just lay there on his belly, breathing heavily.
“Get off!” yelled Jolene.
“I think there’s something wrong with him,” I said.
“Good observation,” said Jolene. “Speed up, Cliff. We’re late as it is.”
“Don’t do that,” I said.
Clifford was trying to think things over. The man on the hood lifted his head and gazed at us through the windshield, his round face covered in sweat. He had a little brown mustache perched above his small, thin-lipped mouth.
“Help me,” he said to us.
“Oh Jesus,” said Jolene.
I sensed an opportunity here to make myself useful. I opened up my door and got out to confront this fellow.
“What’s going on here?” I asked him.
The chubby man pointed down toward his ankle, the one with the cuff rolled up. “I got bit,” he said, wincing. “Snakebite.”
I stepped forward and examined the spot on his leg. There were indeed two red small holes, fang marks, I suppose, where a snake, or some other small animal, had struck him. It didn’t look like anything very serious to me.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“Oh God, yes!” said the man. “I think my leg’s gone numb.”
Jolene leaned her head out the window and said, “Tell this person to please get off our car.”
The man gave Jolene a pitiful look and slowly rolled off the hood, landing gingerly on his one good leg.
“We’re late for a wedding,” I explained to him.
“I think I’ve been poisoned,” said the man. “I could really use some help. I can’t drive like this. My leg’s nearly paralyzed.”
“What did the snake look like?” I asked.
“It had stripes and some colors on its head. A little guy. Those are supposed to be the worst kind, the little ones. Right?”
“What color was its head?” I didn’t know much about snakes, but this seemed like a sensible question.
“Orange, I think. Or red. Maybe white.”
“Get in the car, Georgie,” Jolene said to me. “We’re leaving.”
The snake-bitten man gazed at me with beady, helpless eyes. They were like two rais
ins set in a mound of dough. “Don’t leave me here,” he said. “I’ll die.”
Clifford honked his horn and lurched forward.
“Please,” said the man.
I made an executive decision just then. “Hop in,” I said. “We’ll find a doctor at the wedding.”
Jolene was disgusted at this development and told Clifford to hit the gas and ditch us both before we could climb in the car. Clifford saw no way out of it though, and waited until we’d gotten inside before he began to drive. Jolene shook her head and muttered curse words as we picked up speed. She remained unconvinced of our passenger’s plight even after we showed her the fang marks on his ankle.
“It looks like you got bit by a mouse. Are you sure it wasn’t a mouse? Or a rat?”
“I’m sure, madam,” said the man. His name was Willis Cotcher. He told us he was on his way to visit a lady acquaintance a few hours south and had stepped out of his car to relieve himself when, as he put it, “the serpent struck.”
“Serpent, my ass,” said Jolene. “I don’t believe this shit. We can’t just bring a stranger to Margaret’s wedding.”
“He’s dressed for it,” I pointed out.
This was true. Willis was wearing a light blue suit and, I noted with envy, a sporty tie. I thought about asking him if I could borrow it, but I would have felt badly about putting him at even more of a disadvantage. I realized too late that I should have asked if he had another tie back in his car. That way I could have put it on as we were driving.
Willis twisted about in the cramped backseat and began to moan.
“My leg,” he said. “It feels like it’s full of sand. I can’t look at it. Is it turning blue?”
Willis lifted up his leg and it was indeed a little blue. There was a bruise developing around the two holes in his ankle.
“Oh wow,” I said.
Willis’s face got pale. “I’m going to vomit,” he said.
“Oh, you’d better not,” said Jolene.
“I might faint,” said Willis. “I feel dizzy.”
Clifford spoke up. “What shape was its head?”
“Its head?” asked Willis. “Do you mean the snake’s head?”
“Right,” said Clifford. “Was it shaped like a triangle?”
“You mean pointy? Yes. Yes, I believe it was. Is that bad?”
“What about its eyes. Were they colored?”
“They were green. Or maybe yellow.”
“Sounds like a cottonmouth to me,” said Clifford.
“Is that bad?”
“Well, it’s not good.”
“Oh Lord,” said Willis. “I can’t feel my leg at all. Am I paralyzed?”
Right as he said that Willis lifted up his leg and moved it around.
“It’s not paralyzed,” I said.
“We need a knife,” said Clifford. “Cut an X over the snakebite and suck the poison out.”
“What?”
“That’s what you’re supposed to do. It’s in the Boy Scout Handbook. You suck out the poison.”
“Who sucks out the poison?”
“You,” said Clifford, looking back at me. Willis looked at me too. He was sweating profusely now, nodding his pudgy head.
“I’d be most appreciative,” he said.
Clifford opened up the glove compartment and fished out a small penknife. He handed it to me.
“Here you go,” he said.
I turned to Jolene for some sort of confirmation that this was a poor idea, but she seemed through with the matter.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “You’re the dumbass who let him in the car. Go ahead and suck on his foot. Maybe it’ll help.” She cracked a smile when she said that. This was amusing her, apparently. I took the knife from Clifford and flipped open the blade.
“Cut deep enough so that you draw blood,” said Clifford. “That way you’ll get most of the poison out when you suck on it.”
“Is this safe?” I asked.
Willis was beginning to shake. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I can take it.”
“I mean the blood,” I said. “Is it safe for me to suck on blood? How far are we from the wedding? Maybe I should wait.”
Clifford said, “Don’t wait another minute. Every second counts when you’re dealing with venom.”
So now Clifford was an expert on this subject. In all the years I’d known him I’d never once heard him discuss snake venom. Willis trembled some more and pushed his beefy leg onto my lap.
“Please, Georgie,” he said to me. “I don’t want to die. Just get it out, please.”
I sized up the spot and tried to hold his leg steady. Clifford slowed down a little and turned to look back as I made the cut. The knife was not as sharp as one would like for such an operation. I had to press down pretty hard just to break the skin. Willis let out an anguished howl.
“Oh Jesus!” he cried.
I was making a mess of it. Instead of a neat X I carved a set of short ugly gouges around the two original tooth marks left by “the serpent.”
“Quickly,” said Clifford, “suck it!”
Little curly hairs sprouted up from Willis’s beefy leg. He was pretty much sobbing from the pain now, and sweating like a hog. His leg felt like a big wet sponge.
“That blood’s going to stain your pants,” said Jolene.
This was true. A line of blood trickled down Willis’s calf and into my lap. I wiped it away with my hand, and then leaned down and shut my eyes. I placed my lips on Willis’s leg and sucked his salty, musky blood into my mouth. I tried not to taste it, but as soon as it hit my tongue I began to gag. I kept myself there for just a moment longer, to preserve the appearance that I was still extracting something, and then I popped my head up and spit Willis’s blood out the car window. It dribbled against the side of the car in a string of red slime.
“Turn here,” said Jolene.
We’d arrived at the wedding. What an entrance! Clifford pulled the car into the middle of a bumpy meadow where everyone else had parked. Willis sat there heaving and mopping sweat from his brow. Clifford handed him a handkerchief and told him not to let his blood get on the car seat.
“Did you get all the poison out?” Willis asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Sure. I got it. I think I did.”
“Maybe you should try again,” said Willis.
“I got most of it,” I said. “I’m pretty sure.”
Jolene stepped out of the car and said, “Damn it, we’re late. Come on, Cliff, the ceremony’s already started.”
Clifford looked at the two of us, me underdressed, and now stained with blood, and Willis panting dramatically in the backseat.
“We’ll find a doctor at the wedding,” said Clifford. “You wait here, Mr. Cotcher. Come on, Georgie.”
I got out of the car and tried to smooth out my clothes. There was a big spot of blood on my thigh and some smaller ones on my shirt. I ducked my head back in the car.
“Excuse me, Willis?” I said. “Do you think I could borrow your tie, just for the ceremony?”
Willis looked very put out by this request. I would have felt badly about asking except that I’d just sucked poison out of his leg. Plus his blood had ruined my clothes. It seemed like a reasonable trade. Willis begrudgingly loosened his tie and placed it in my hand.
“I’m leaving,” said Jolene.
“You should try to relax,” Clifford said to Willis. “The less your heart pumps, the less the poison can spread.”
“What?” said Willis.
Jolene grabbed Clifford and the two of them walked away.
“My leg’s still numb,” said Willis.
“We’ll find a doctor,” I told him. And then I added, “A good one,” hoping that this would make him feel better. I trotted off across the meadow to catch up with Clifford and Jolene.
The ceremony was well under way, like Jolene had said. Everyone was sitting outside on hay bales facing the bride and groom. As we got closer we could hear
the preacher saying something about the long journey they were about to embark upon together.
Jolene was mortified. “I can’t believe we’re late for this,” she said.
“We didn’t miss the vows,” I pointed out. I was trying to get my tie on as we walked.
“Who do we know here that’s a doctor?” asked Clifford.
Jolene said, “Clifford, you are not going to disrupt Margaret’s wedding to find a doctor for that idiot. He’ll be just fine.”
Clifford thought about this and, predictably, deferred to Jolene’s judgment. We sat down in the back row just as our friend Amanda stood up front and began to play something on her accordion. Luke looked out over the assembled guests and swallowed deeply. He appeared pale and unhappy. Margaret’s face was stern and resolute. She looked nice in her white dress though. And there were flowers in her hair.
Amanda shut her eyes and swayed back and forth with the slow rhythm of whatever hymn it was she was playing on that accordion. The song was interminable. People began to shift about on their hay bales and look at their watches. We were all sweltering under the sun and I became increasingly worried about Willis back there in the car.
Finally the preacher stepped forward and made Amanda stop. She nodded and took a seat. The preacher smiled out at us and remarked at what a handsome crowd we were. Everyone chuckled. This process was taking forever. I can never understand why they always drag a wedding out like that. We all couldn’t wait to get out of the sun and find the bar. It occurred to me that if Willis were to die now I would have sucked on his leg for nothing.
The preacher backed up and took the hands of Margaret and Luke into his. He was a bit of a hippie, this preacher, with his stringy gray hair pulled back in a tight ponytail behind his head. He wanted everyone to join in on the blessing. We were supposed to channel good energy toward them, or something like that. I looked out toward the car and saw that Willis had gotten up from the backseat. He was standing there propped up against the car with his head resting in his hands. He peered over in our direction and then began limping awkwardly across the field. His bad leg moved stiffly, as if it were wrapped up in a cast. Eventually Willis fell down, face-first, and did not get up.
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