A Feast of Snakes

by Harry Crews

  Her mother smiled but her lips were trembling. “You know chile, Mistuh Big Joe ain’t needin you. I spect he be just fine today lak he is. You gone back to bed. I’m gone git Brother Boy to go to the stow and git you some ice cream.” The smile jerked on her face and the lips still trembled. “Now how you lak that, chile?”

  Lottie Mae seemed to know quite clearly that she could not mention the snakes in her mother’s hair or any of the other snakes. She knew it would upset her mother and her mother would not see the snakes and not seeing the snakes would only give her great pain.

  “Miss Beeder,” said Lottie Mae. She meant to say more and thought that she had, thought that by simply saying the name she had explained what there was to explain about Beeder Mackey.

  Her mother took her hand away and said: “Good Lord knows it true. I’m gone git Brother Boy to go with you. You tell Mustuh Big Joe I got the miseries an you gots to come right back home here and hep me. Tell’m you come to do quick an go, cause you cain’t stay. Brother Boy can wait right there on the back steps for you.”

  Brother Boy was her seven-year-old cousin by her Uncle Lummy but the child lived with them because Uncle Lummy and Aunt Lily were bad to fight, fought all the time, had both been cut by razors, each by the other, and drank moonshine whiskey, sometimes separately and sometimes together in the bed, where they were not careful with their nakedness. Maude thought it was sinful and corrupt behavior and had asked for the child. They said she couldn’t have him but that she could keep him for a while. James Booker, whom Maude immediately started to call Brother Boy, had walked to their house with a little pasteboard box full of his things to stay awhile. He had been there two years and nobody ever mentioned anything about him going back home.

  It took her and Brother Boy, he holding her hand just as Maude had told him to, thirty minutes to walk to Big Joe’s house. On the way Lottie Mae saw a long metal truck with rattlesnakes nailed to the sides, she saw a whole parade of people—women, men, and children—carrying pictures of snakes—signs—nailed to the tops of wooden standards; then she saw a man get out of the back of a pickup truck with two dead snakes, held by the tail and hanging from each hand like pieces of thick rope. The man was smiling and after he got out of the truck he stood very still while a woman, shrieking with laughter, took his picture.

  A boy stood in front of the Mystic grocery store with a snake as big around as her leg and as red as blood draped around his neck. The snake was so long its tail and head both reached the ground. There were people everywhere: in the road, on the side of the road, in the ditches even, beside pickups and cars and buses. They were laughing and talking and shouting to one another and what came to her ears again and again and again from mouths on every side, shouted, said, whispered, sung, was the word: snake snake SNAKE SNAKE SNAKE SNAKE. They were all talking about snakes. She half expected the heavens to open up and start sending down snakes. She could feel their thick bodies dropping on her head.

  Brother Boy said: “Soda crackers sho am crazy bout snakes, ain’t they?”

  Her shoulders jerked. “What?” she said.

  That word had just come from Brother Boy’s mouth and exploded against the side of her head.

  Brother Boy said it all again.

  She shaded her eyes with her free hand and pretended to squint up the road. “We gots to hurry,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t touch me no snake,” Brother Boy said.

  “Mistuh Big Joe don’t lak it to be late,” she said.

  “You know they eat them snakes,” he said.

  “Brother Boy, don’t,” she said.

  He grinned slyly up at her fright and revulsion.

  “Every year them soda crackers eat ever snake which they cotch.”

  She lengthened her stride and turned loose his hand.

  “Go in the woods and cotch them snakes,” he sang. “Skin them snakes! Skin the skin off and put’m in the fry pan!”

  Lottie Mae stopped and turned on him. “Brother Boy!” she screamed. “You got… got to … got to …” She uttered the words until her tongue was hard in her mouth like a single enormous tooth growing out of her throat, because Brother Boy’s neck had grown serpentine, undulant under his enormous grinning head.

  She turned and ran and Brother Boy chased her all the way to the big house choking on laughter and talking about the white folks’ mouths full of squirmy snakes, chewing snakes, swallowing snakes. Right up through the big barren yard to the back porch and up the steps where she slammed the door in his face.

  Brother Boy abruptly stopped laughing, went down into the yard, and started throwing stones at a few dusty dirt-scratching chickens under a chinaberry tree that grew out beside the kennel where the killing dogs were kept.

  Lottie Mae went to the kitchen and made Big Joe’s breakfast: four eggs up, cornbread muffins, ham, and grits. She look it in to him where he was still in bed, propped up in a dirt-colored gown, with a rolled-up woman’s stocking pulled onto his head to cover his ears. Propped on the pillow beside him where his wife used to sleep was a bottle of whiskey. When she came in he started shouting.

  “Goddammit Maudy, how many times …” And then he stopped, staring at her. “Oh, Lottie Mae,” he said finally and then repeated several times, “Lottie Mae,” in a quiet voice.

  Lottie Mae said: “She got the miseries.”

  While she set the tray beside him on the bed, he rolled the stocking up until his ears were clear.

  “What say?” he demanded.

  “Miseries,” shouted Lottie Mae.

  “Lord yes,” the old man said. “I guess we all do, ever mother’s son of us.” He pointed to his bottle and then to his breakfast. “You got to put a bottom on whiskey,” he screamed. “Keep a bottom on whiskey and it won’t eat you guts out. What daddy used to say. What daddy used to say. Aye God, he’as right too. Food! Food!” he cried and rolled his eyes.

  She shouted twice in his good bad ear that she had to go pretty soon, that she didn’t mean to stay the whole day, because her mother had the miseries.

  “Miseries?” he shouted back. “Lord yes, I guess we all do.” As she was leaving he pointed to the wall at the side of his bed where the thumping sound of the television had been shaking an old Currier and Ives print of a bulldog fight. “Don’t forgit!” he shouted, his long bony finger trembled at the wall. “Don’t forgit! Food, slop jar! Food, slop jar!”

  “I’ll give her snakes,” said Lottie Mae in a quiet voice the old man didn’t hear.

  “And teller I hope she turns the goddam thing so loud she busts it. Teller that!”

  Lottie Mae went out of the room and down the long dark hall to the kitchen. She made up some flapjack batter because Beeder Mackey would not eat eggs or meat. She took the flapjacks and butter and cane syrup and a cup of black coffee into the room where the girl was watching a show on television. A man was trying to give two squealing white ladies a new car, except the two white ladies could not get the answer and it was driving everybody crazy. Lottie Mae put the tray on the bed and Beeder immediately sat up, threw off the blanket, and ate rapidly of the flapjacks and syrup, using her hands and making little grunts of pleasure as she swallowed. Lottie Mae stood at the window while Beeder ate, watching the silvered limbs of the leaf-stripped chinaberry tree under the bright winter sun. Two frightened ruffled chickens came running by, Brother Boy right behind them with a long stick in his hand. He swung the stick rapidly as he ran, narrowly missing the chickens’ heads.

  Lottie Mae could tell from the sounds behind her that Beeder Mackey had finished.

  She turned around and said: “I be afraid it rain snakes.”

  “Might,” said Beeder. “Wouldn’t surprise me whatever it was.” She pulled the covers tighter around her throat.

  “I don’t know what to do,” said Lottie Mae.

  “You know what to do,” said Beeder Mackey.

  Lottie Mae looked out the window for a long moment, watching Brother Boy race madly about the yard, ho
t behind the screaming chickens.

  Finally Lottie Mae said: “I misdoubt it.”

  “Kill it,” said Beeder.

  “Kill it?”

  Beeder smiled her sly sweet smile. “The only way,” she said.

  “I couldn’t kill nothing.”

  The smile left Beeder’s face. “Then find a place to hide.”

  “Ain’t no place to hide.”

  “No place?” said Beeder. “No place at all?”

  Lottie Mae said: “It be the onlyest thing I know. It ain’t no place to hide.”

  “You in trouble,” said Beeder. “Bad trouble. It’s one thing I can tell you though. Can you shoot a gun?”

  “Cain’t shoot no gun. Ain’t got no gun.”

  “Knife?” asked Beeder Mackey.

  “Razor,” said Lottie Mae.

  Beeder said: “Don’t be without you razor.”

  “I couldn’t kill it,” said Lottie Mae.

  “Just in case you can, be handy to you razor.”

  Lottie Mae took the tray and left. She came back shortly and got the slop jar. Beeder watched her carry it carefully out of the room. Directly she brought it back and slipped it under the bed. Neither of them looked at each other and nothing was said. The wild sound of the television filled the room. When Lottie Mae had finally gone Beeder lay very still and watched the little flickering screen where the Wedding Show Game was taking place. The woman wore a white bridal gown and the man at her side a dark suit. The man facing them had an open book in his hand. He was asking them questions. Every time they gave a right answer the audience screamed and another prize—a washer, a radio, a set of silver—was brought in to them.

  Beeder lifted her head about an inch off the pillow and strained to hear over the Wedding Show Game, or rather to see if she could hear over the Wedding Show Game. A sound came to her that she thought was the sharp deep barking of the pit bulls or maybe it was the mechanical thumping of the electric treadmill on the other side of the wall in her father’s room. Whatever it was, it seemed something was coming over the sound of the television, so she got off the bed and turned the volume higher, filling her room with the joyous sound of the wedding couple who had just been pronounced man and wife.

  Beeder lay back on the pillow, thinking how peaceful everything was, how peaceful she was even though they were always trying to trick her. How did they think they could trick her with poor silly Lottie Mae? But they never quit trying and never would quit. She knew that now. But the main thing was that she had found a place every bit as good as her mother’s. Sometimes she thought it might be better than her mother’s. But most times she did not.

  ***

  Willard Miller had come by while Joe Lon was still sitting at the little white Formica table in the kitchen. Joe Lon was on about his tenth cup of black coffee, which had revved him up so he had brought out the whiskey and set it beside his cup. Elf was humming contentedly at the baby-smelling sink because after his fourth drink of whiskey he had told her the apron she was wearing was pretty and he wished she’d wear it more.

  Willard came in and sat at the table with him and Elf asked if he was hungry and he said yes and Joe Lon said he was ready to eat something now himself so she cooked them both steak and eggs and biscuits. When she had it on the table she asked if she could use the pickup to go to the grocery store. Joe Lon said she could if she took the babies. “Of course I’m gone take them babies, Joe Lon, honey.” Willard watched the pickup pull away from the trailer and through a mouthful of blood-rare steak he jabbed at the window with his fork and said: “Great little woman,” said Willard.

  Joe Lon slowly raised his eyes, which were about the color of the egg yolks in his plate and in a dispirited voice said, “You sumbitch.”

  Willard laughed and wagged his thick blunt head, stopping only long enough to plunge another ragged chunk of beef into his mouth: “I seen Berenice too.” He stopped between words to chew and shift the meat with his tongue. “So I… goddam know … what you studying. Ain’t she turned into a world-beatin … piece of ass? I wonder if Hard Candy is gonna git super-star titties like Berenice gone off and done?” He winked. “Hard Candy’s already gradin out to a eighty-five.”

  Joe Lon took an egg yolk into his mouth and followed it with a drink of whiskey. “You meet the fag debate player?”

  “What?”

  “Debate player,” Joe Lon said.

  Willard smiled and sucked his teeth. “Yeah. Guy on the debate team. I met him. Sweet, ain’t he? Looks like a dirt track specialist to me.”

  The whiskey had now put Joe Lon in a sour mood. At least he guessed it was the whiskey. He belched and regarded Willard. “How the hell you play debate anyhow?” Willard stopped smiling, looked first serious and then angry. “It’d make you sick just to see it, Joe Lon. They play it with a little rubber ring.”

  “Rubber ring?” said Joe Lon, feeling an immediate bilious outrage start to pump from his heart.

  “That’s what it’s played with,” said Willard. “These two guys wear little white slippers and …”

  His voice loud with disbelief and shock, Joe Lon said, “White slippers.”

  “Little pointy fuckers,” said Willard. “And they throw the rubber rings to each other and try to catch the rubber ring in their mouth.”

  Joe Lon stood abruptly from the table. “Mouth?” he yelled. “Mouth!”

  “Right’n the teeth,” Willard said.

  Joe Lon lifted his palm, thick square fingers spread, and stared at it. “Berenice brought that sumbitch all the way to Mystic to shake my hand.”

  “Looks like it,” said Willard.

  “Goddam girl’s crazy.”

  “As I remember,” said Willard, “she’s crazy when she left.”

  Joe Lon wiped his plate good with a piece of bread. “I wonder what it is she wants?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me if it weren’t nothing more pressing than a good fucking.”

  “She’s subject to git that,” said Joe Lon. “Hell, I’m apt to fuck Shep before it’s over.”

  Beyond the window where they sat, through a haze of dust, campers and pickups roared by and children raced about screaming at one another. Lummy’s first cousin, RC, stood at the head of the dim road leading into the campsites, collecting ten dollars a vehicle. He’d grown up with Joe Lon and was going to a junior college over in Tifton. He kept good records, deposited the money in the bank, and never stole more than ten percent, which Joe Lon thought was fair. Besides, they just passed the cost on to the customer. “Daddy wants you and me to handle Tuffy Saturday night,” said Joe Lon.

  “I never thought he’d come to that,” Willard said.

  “Hearing’s got so bad the last few months he ain’t got much choice. He don’t want to, but he ain’t got much choice.”

  “Hell, I’d be proud to do it.”

  Joe Lon said: “I’ll tell’m.”

  Willard stood up. “Let’s walk out and see what we can see.”

  Joe Lon followed him to the door. “Just a bunch of crazy people cranking up to git crazier. But that’s all right. Feel on the edge of doing something outstanding myself.”

  “Bring the whiskey.”

  “I wouldn’t leave it.”

  The campers and tents were arranged in rows on the campground with narrow dusty aisles between them. Willard and Joe Lon walked across the road, stepped over a little dry ditch, and cut up toward the place where RC was taking money and telling people where they could find room to camp.

  “It’s about twenty more slots and we be full,” RC called as they passed.

  Joe Lon didn’t answer, only nodded. He couldn’t get his mind off Berenice bringing Shep all the way from Athens to shake his hand and couldn’t keep from wondering if that was all she had done. They walked slowly on between the rows of women starting charcoal fires in grills for hamburgers and men sitting in folding chairs sipping beer, yelling at children who raced mindlessly about with pet snakes. They finally paused in front
of a small, badly dented Airstream trailer pulled by a Hudson oar. There was a man squatting in the dust at the back of the trailer. They both knew him, or didn’t know him really, knew rather only that his name was Victor and that he was a preacher in a snakehandling church somewhere in Virginia. He came to the roundup every year to buy diamondbacks for his church. The congregation of the church never caught its own snakes, but would handle only those caught by strangers. Victor did not look at them when they stopped in front of him. He was wearing overalls and a denim shirt that looked as though he might have slept in them for a long time. His hair was white and full and twisted in tight coils all over his head and down his neck. It was actually Willard Miller who stopped at the Airstream. Joe Lon wanted to go on but Willard stopped and bent to stare into Victor’s face.

  “Fucked any snakes lately, old man?” The first rush of whiskey always made Willard meaner than usual.

  “Don’t,” said Joe Lon.

  Victor cut his eyes at Willard. He looked angry. He always looked angry. Joe Lon had never seen him any other way, like he knew something other people didn’t know, and whatever it was he knew was too terrible to say.

  “He ain’t nothing but a snake fucker,” Willard said.

  “Don’t do that, Willard.”

  Victor said: “The great dragon was cast out. The old serpent called the devil and satan which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.”

  Willard said: “It’s not enough shit in the world, we got to have this too.”

  “Leave him alone,” said Joe Lon. “Christ, he’s speckled as a guinea hen from rattlesnake bites.”

  “That’s no reason to leave him alone,” Willard said.

  “Yeah it is. He … he … Willard, he believes all that stuff about the snake and God.”