Sammie & Budgie

by Scott Semegran

  He seemed rather surprised that we were there in the first place as if he had expected to not interact with anyone at all, all day, every day. After releasing the balloon in his hand, he said, "Can I help you?"

  "Yes, we're here for a tour," I said, looking around, hoping to get a glimpse of the exotic animals we were about to see. "Do we have to buy tickets?"

  He continued dutifully blowing up balloons and releasing them to the ceiling. There must have been thirty or more balloons up there, dancing around the brownish water stains in the ceiling tiles. "Tour? What do you mean a tour?"

  "You know? To see the snakes."

  "Snakes?" he said, confused. As he blew up the next balloon, I turned to see Sammie and Jessie mesmerized by the balloon's expansion as it filled with helium. "Do you mean snake?"

  "Snake?" I said, looking around. I had this weird feeling like I was being filmed or something for a televised practical joke or a blooper or a reality TV show or something. That's what I get for growing up watching five hours of TV a day. "This is the Snake Farm, right?"

  "Yep."

  "And you have snakes at the Snake Farm, right?"

  "Well," he said, standing up then pulling up his sagging jeans. "We have one snake. Her name is Meryl, as in Meryl Streep. She's back there." He pointed to a door at the back of the building.

  "You only have one snake?" I said, surprised.

  "Yep, just Meryl. And she's getting old. We may not have her around much longer. Then we'd have no snake," he said, chuckling. He thought that was pretty goddamn funny, I could tell, because he was snickering and wheezing and laughing all over the goddamn place. One of his job duties at the Snake Farm must have been comedian and we were his captured audience. Great, just great. "You want to see her?"

  I looked at my kids and Nat and gathered from their nods and stares that they were willing to follow me to see the one and only snake at the Snake Farm, something that I thought was completely preposterous for a tourist attraction like this. I mean, you can't consider yourself a farm of animals if you only have one animal. Right? That's what I thought.

  I nodded then "Juan" stepped out from behind the glass counter. He was thin and lanky and close to my height, his red ball cap getting him almost there. His worn jeans were a tad too short, revealing green argyle socks with yellow and brown lines from beneath his high-water, denim, end seams. He walked with a slight limp, the type of gangsta limp that an inner-city, hip hop kid would implore at da club on a Saturday night when thinking the ladies were watching him as he strolled to the bar for whatever was on special. We followed "Juan" through a door at the back of the room, into another room, one that was also sparsely furnished or decorated, except for a wooden table at the back with a single aquarium on it, the table sitting between two windows with saggy, dusty, aluminum blinds. Next to the aquarium was a small, red sign that said "Meryl" in gold letters. That must have been their official color motif: red and gold. Fabulous! Inside the aquarium lay a snake, thin and grey and lifeless. We gathered around the table, peering at poor Meryl through the dirty glass, who looked five minutes away from death. There were a few crickets in the tank, too, and I imagined they were her lunch. But instead of eating them, poor Meryl allowed the little buggers to hop inside the tank, unimpeded, like a cricket gymnasium. They used her snout as a diving board to the small dish of water at the opposite side of the sad aquarium from her.

  "Feast your eyes. Behold!" our hip hop host said, grinning. "Meryl the snake!"

  "What's wrong with it?" good ol' Sammie Boy said. He leaned closer, peering through the grimy glass of the aquarium with inquisitive eyes, his hand resting between his brow and the glass. "It looks like it's dead."

  "She's not dead. I don't think she's dead," he said, leaning over then rapping the glass with the knuckle of his index finger. Meryl's pointy tongue slid out of her mouth in slow motion but the snake was otherwise motionless and stiff. The poor thing looked like it had had it with "Juan's" knuckle. I bet she'd have bit him on the face if she could have, sinking her fangs into the hollow sinus cavity behind his big nose, injecting any poison she could muster into his big, fat, annoying head. "See! Not dead."

  "This sucks!" little Jessie said, crossing her arms defiantly. "This is the worst snake farm ever!"

  "I have to, like, agree with her. Very disappointing," said Nat, standing behind all of us a few feet away. "This isn't much of a farm at all."

  I looked at my family and the babysitter and ascertained that they weren't mad at me at all for bringing them to the Snake Farm. They seemed genuinely disappointed with "Juan" and the sad showing of Meryl the near-death snake and I could tell by how they all stood back from the sad excuse for a roadside attraction, looking around the even sadder room for an easy escape, hoping our hip hop tour guide wouldn't rap the glass of the aquarium again. Meryl was certainly a sad sight, not worthy of being put on display for unsuspecting tourists to leer at, expecting a freak show or something. I think, more than anything, Meryl was waiting to be put out of her misery or, at least, released into the brushy area behind the building so she could slither away then die peacefully--alone.

  "Are there any more animals to look at?" said Sammie Boy, looking around in hopes that some animal--any animals--would appear. He probably would have been happy with a pill bug or a silverfish or a roach or something crawling across the floor. Kids are easily entertained like that; it doesn't take much to please them. It's true.

  "Well," said "Juan," putting one of his hands in his back pocket and using the other to cock his baseball hat upwards, his sweaty, creased brow revealing itself. "The only other animals we have are in the pet store. And the dead ones at the taxidermist!" He started laughing again, like a hyena, sniffling and wheezing and hacking all over the place. He really thought he was something else, something funny. He wasn't even remotely funny, just annoying as hell.

  Sammie turned to me, his whole face aglow with animal possibilities, his eyes shimmering with renewed hope, and said, "Can we go to the pet store, Daddy?"

  Jessie caught his enthusiasm--like the flu--grabbed my shirt too, and said, "Daddy, please! Can we go?"

  I looked at Nat and she returned a concerned look, pointing to her wrist again as if she was pointing to her imaginary watch whose hands were imaginarily turning in time, an obvious reference to the fact that we were on this road trip for a specific reason, which wasn't to look at animals on the side of the road. We were supposed to be going to visit my dad--grumpy ass, retired Col. Burchwood. You thought I forgot about that? Well, I didn't. But obviously, I wasn't in the biggest hurry in the world to get to San Antonio. Don't judge me. OK?

  "We should, like, go soon," Nat said, reinforcing her wrist / time pointing / observation thingy. "Don't you think?"

  I looked at my kids and demonstrated to her their excitement for the pet store, then said, "But look at them? They're excited." Nat rolled her eyes. I turned to "Juan" then said, "Is the pet store open? Can we go in?"

  "Hold on," he said, reaching for his belt and unclipping a walkie-talkie. "Let me buzz Olaf."

  "Who is Olaf?" I said.

  Instead of answering me, he pressed the button on the walkie-talkie and said, "You back from break?" His eyes caught mine then he glanced at the walkie-talkie, his eyebrows rising, requesting some patience. After ten or so seconds of crackling and hissing, an answer came through the ether.

  "On my way! Be there shortly!" said Olaf, through the tiny speaker of the walkie-talkie.

  "Juan" smiled then said, "Follow me."

  My kids yelled hooray and we all proceeded to follow our hip-hop tour guide to the front of the Snake Farm building, through the front door to the gravel parking lot outside. He walked to the front of the adjacent, dilapidated white building and stood on a small, cement pad at its front. The entrance was covered by a locked, screen door with a small sign hung on it. The sign said, "Be Back!" Next to those words was a yellow Sticky Note with these additional words handwritten on it: in 30 minutes. There was
no indication of when the 30 minutes started or where Olaf had gone or what he was doing. For all we knew, Olaf could have been doing anything.

  "Juan" looked off into the distance, the brim of his baseball hat keeping the bright sun from blasting his eyeballs out of their sockets. I had this nagging question that kept at me and I wanted to know the truth. So, I said, "Is your name really Juan?"

  He smiled, shook his head, then said, "Why, yes it is. Do I not look like a Juan?"

  I was caught off-guard a little by his answer. I wasn't expecting him to say yes. I didn't really know what to say actually. I felt like a complete idiot. "I don't know."

  "How is a Juan supposed to look like?"

  An uneasy smirk appeared on my face, revealing a level of uncomfortableness that I wasn't ready to express to someone I had only known for less than an hour. Don't you hate it when someone catches you in your own bullshit? Yeah, I love that. I looked in the same direction as "Juan," hoping that Olaf would instantly appear to save the day and let us in the pet store, away from the uncomfortable feeling I was wading through. I didn't see anything or anyone yet in the distance. Sammie and Jessie were making the best of standing outside, both of them chasing each other in an infinite loop of the game Tag. Once one tagged the other, their game reversed and their circle of fun rotated the other direction. Nat spent her time looking at her phone, scrolling through pictures of puppies or kittens or shoes or something like that.

  After a minute of this uncomfortable standing around, I finally noticed a plumb of dust rising in the distance, a tan-colored cloud coming up from the shrubs and cacti, accompanied by the sound of an engine, buzzy and high-pitched. I could make out a helmeted figure on an all-terrain vehicle, zig-zagging back and forth, making its way in our direction. The closer it got, the louder the engine got, revving faster when it jumped from the ground, more dust flying when it landed in the dirt. The sight of the all-terrain vehicle caught the kids' attention and they stopped playing Tag. Sammie stood on a parking space curb, shaded his eyes with his hands, then said, "Look, Daddy!" He couldn't believe his little eyes.

  Before we knew it, the all-terrain vehicle and its rider were on the edge of the gravel parking lot, jumping a small hill then landing in the gravel, sending a wave of tiny stones and sand and dust toward us. The rider turned off the engine, dismounted, then approached us after taking his helmet off, leaving it on the seat. As he walked toward us--who I could only assume was Olaf--he took his backpack off and unzipped it as he walked. Then, stopping next to "Juan," he handed him the contents of the backpack: a liter of Big Red soda, a pack of Marlboro Red cigarettes, a package of Cheetos, and a lottery scratch-off ticket.

  "You owe me $2.50," Olaf said, annoyed. "And an extra ten minutes on my break tomorrow."

  "You got it," said "Juan." "These folks would like to go in the Pet Store."

  "No problem. Sorry for the wait, folks. Everyone needs a break from work every once and a while. Am I right?"

  "Yeah!" said Jessie, excited.

  "Do you have birds?" said Sammie, curious.

  "Do we have birds?" said Olaf, pulling a large key ring from his jeans pocket, maybe with 50 or so keys on it of various shapes and sizes. He found the key he was looking for, unlocked the door, opened it, then said, "You'll have to see for yourself."

  Inside, we escaped the hot sun for the air-conditioned tranquility of the pet store. The choir of animals sang, eagerly waiting to be adopted or purchased: puppy barks, kitten mews, bird chirps and whistles, fish aquarium hums, and so on and so forth. The smell was undeniable: cedar chips, puppy poop, kitty poop, fish food, tank water, you name it. The pet store was jam-packed with cages and tanks and aquariums and pens and boxes and stacks of pet food of all kinds and racks of pet supplies and toys and the like. It was in stark contrast to the Snake Farm, the solemn mausoleum of Meryl the Deathly Snake--sad, pathetic, and simply not fun at all.

  The kids squealed for joy as they careened through the store, looking at one animal for a second or two before moving along to the next excited animal. Jessie and Sammie held hands and they blazed through the store. Olaf got a kick out of seeing their excitement before sitting on a wooden stool behind a similar glass counter to the one in the Snake Farm. Unlike "Juan's" pile of crap from whatever convenience store Olaf had come from, he opened a single power bar, one made of granola and dried fruit, taking a large bite then chewing it thoroughly, like a cow chewing its cud.

  Nat and I stood in front of the glass counter, watching the kids as they hurried up and down the aisles of pets and supplies. I leaned on the glass counter then said, "How long have you worked here?"

  "Oh, man," he said, his mouth full of granola and dried fruit. Bits and pieces flew from his lips as he talked. "Since I was a little kid. Our dad owns the pet store and the Snake Farm. Normally, he would be the taxidermist on duty but he's on vacation right now. He's in Corpus Christi."

  "Your dad is the taxidermist next door?"

  "Yup," he said, finishing the power bar then tossing its wrapper in the trash. "It's weird not having him around. Been nice and quiet."

  "I see," I said, looking at Nat. She was still perusing her phone, now looking at photos of clothes and shoes and purses. She wasn't interested in what Olaf had to say, at all. Nat was funny that way. She could come off as aloof, whether she intended to or not. She was just that way sometimes.

  But before I could continue my scintillating conversation with Olaf the granola-spitter, Sammie started screaming from the back of the store, a high-pitched squeal like you would hear a kid make on Christmas morning, an ear-splitting tone that was pure joy.

  "Daddy! Daddy!" he said from the back of the store.

  Nat and I abandoned Olaf. In the back of the store, we found them sitting on the concrete floor, Sammie across from little Jessie, a small bird perched on his index finger. The bird was mostly light blue with some grey and yellow feathers on his head, speckles of black dots scattered across his body like pepper grounds. Sammie had the biggest smile on his face that I think I had ever seen in his entire life. In fact, he was so gobsmacked, I thought he might pass out.

  "Wha cha got there?" I said, bending down on one knee. The little bird turned its head to look at me. He looked completely at ease on my boy's little finger.

  "Daddy, you won't believe it," he said, so consumed with joy and astonishment that I thought he was going to cry. "I found Budgie!"

  "Who is Budgie?" I said before immediately regretting that question. Of course I knew who Budgie was. How could I not?

  "Look," he said, raising his hand with the bird on it. "He has a letter B on his chest."

  I took a closer look at the parakeet's chest and, sure enough, there was a little splotch of white feathers that--if you looked hard enough and with the right amount of imagination--looked a lot like a capital letter B. It's true.

  "Wow, Sammie, I think you're right. It does look like a letter B."

  "Can I keep him? Please!" Sammie gave me a look of sheer helplessness and despair, as if we didn't take the cute little bird then he would become suicidal or something like that. I wasn't sure what to do. I was really conflicted.

  "Sammie, we can't take the bird right now. We're on our way to see PeePaw. Remember?"

  "But Daddy," he said, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, desperation soaking through the brown of his irises. "I'll do anything. We have to take Budgie! He's my best friend!"

  Crap. I mean, I had Sammie on the verge of tears with his dream bird perched on his finger, Jessie also about to cry by osmosis, Nat looking at me like I was crazy for giving in to my son's desperate pleas, and Olaf the pet store clerk peering over a dog and cat collar display, granola crumbs stuck on his lips, a puzzled look on his face. What was I to do? I was in a tough spot, I tell you.

  "Sammie," I said, gently. "Put the bird back in its cage, son. We have to go visit PeePaw."

  "But Daddy--" he said, tears detaching themselves from the corners of his eyes, leaving wet trails o
f pain and disappointment and suffering on his cheeks.

  "Maybe on the way back home, we can stop here again."

  "But what if someone else buys him?!" Sammie said, desperate. "I couldn't live with myself if someone else bought him, Daddy!"

  I was caught a little off-guard by this last plea. I mean, kids can be pretty dramatic about stuff, especially when they want toys or candy or cake or something like that. But I knew Sammie was pretty sincere about wanting to take this little bird home, I could tell. It just wasn't the right time to consider taking a pet in the car. But I didn't know how to articulate that to my boy. I was at a loss for words. Can you believe that? Me at a loss for words? I looked to Olaf for advice.

  "I can hold that parakeet for you, not let anyone else buy him."

  "Will you?" Sammie said.

  "Sure," he said, smiling. "Let me get you a marker and a piece of paper so you can write your name on it for me." Olaf disappeared for a little bit then reappeared next to us on the floor, a Sharpie in one hand and a 3 by 5 card in the other. "You'll have to put the bird in his cage so you can write your name down."

  Sammie gently placed the parakeet back in its cage and closed the door. Budgie--as Sammie called it--sprung onto the side of the cage, like a magnet to metal, at the closest possible point to Sammie, and stared at him with his little bird eye through the metal bars, as if to say, 'Are you coming back for me?' Their bond was undeniable. Sammie then took the marker and card from Olaf and scribbled his name on it, in tall, thick letters: SAMMIE. He slid the card in the front of the cage, at the bottom behind the bird seed holder. Sammie wiped the tears on his face on the front of his t-shirt then stood up, looking up at Olaf, then said, "Take care of Budgie. We'll be back soon."