Canis Major

by Jay Nichols

It was the snake’s fault.

  Russell sat before the large, glossy black Baldwin grand, his stockinged foot working the pedal, five of his fingers dancing effortlessly across the wooden keys. His mind wandered—as it was apt to do—into the unchartered realms of imagination and speculation, where what ifs dominate and hows and whys cease to exist. His thoughts doubled up on themselves, like the fabled snake swallowing its own tail, until the beginning was the end and the end was something he couldn’t fathom.

  And it really was the snake’s fault for existing in the first place. Where had it come from, and where will it go when it dies? After all, it has to end up someplace.

  It had sneaked up on Russell when he was least expecting it: while bent over his desk upstairs, floundering through an especially difficult and pointless Pre-Calculus assignment. The instant the scraping sound registered in his ears, he knew right away who and what was making it. Turning in his chair, he caught Apollo red-handed, the dog’s head coming out from under the bed with the plastic handle to the guitar case in his mouth. Russell reprimanded the Dane coldly: "No, boy! No guitar."

  Apollo dropped the handle from his mouth and sat next to the case with the hissing white snake on top of it. In defiance of common sense, the dog then rested his chin on the hard black surface next to the coiled serpent’s sibilating mouth.

  "Get away, boy!" Russell shouted, leaping across the room. Arriving at the bed, he wrapped his arms around the Great Dane’s torso and dragged him away from the guitar case. "You crazy or something? You’ll get bit!"

  From the opposite corner of the loft, Russell eyeballed the spiraled albino and mentally drew up plans for an escape. Maybe if he were to go downstairs for a while, it would leave on its own. It had probably climbed the outside of the house and entered the room through the open dormer window. That would be the way it would leave, too. If it stayed, Russell would kill it. He’d smite it. He knew how.

  Because I’m a killer. I’m an animal, he thought suddenly, the filter between his conscience and the dark recesses of his primitive brain momentarily faltering, letting in a little bit of the past summer through the cracks and hairline fissures.

  No, I’m not. I’m an Artist.

  As if that thought alone—that affirmation—of who he thought he was could change the events of those August days some three months ago.

  On the guitar case, the snake remained perfectly still.

  Russell stared at it and said, "We’re going to do this on the count of three, Apollo. Get ready. One…two…THREE!" At three, the dog and the Artist bolted through the door and raced down the two flights of stairs to the living room below.

  Darrel and Diane looked up to the sound of thunder on the staircase. When Russell reached the landing, Darrel shook his head dismissively to the exaggerated expression of alarm on his son’s face. My boy is about as loony as they come, that slight shake of his head said, and the "boy" picked up every nuance of what his father was too afraid to say aloud.

  "There’s a snake in my room!" Russell announced to the people who had raised him.

  Coldly, distantly, they studied the standing figure from their comfortable spots on the couch. Their lack of outreach, of empathetic understanding, said it all, and Russell, not for the first time in his life, wondered why fate had thrust him into the hands of such unbelieving souls—souls who never saw anything worth seeing, whose worlds were muted and dull and uninspired.

  "I swear to God, there’s a fucking snake in my room. Stop looking at me like I’m crazy! I know what I saw!"

  The adults went on staring at the Artist like he was a freak show oddity and not their own flesh and blood, because, in a way, he wasn’t. Besides sharing a few superficial physical traits, Russell was nothing like his father or mother.

  And they hate me for it. They don’t understand me, so they despise me.

  "I’ll heat you up some dinner," Diane said finally, moving her eyes to meet her husband’s. "Why don’t you and Apollo go play piano till it’s ready."

  Russell knew what that meant. It meant they were going to talk about him behind his back, like they always did. "What are we going to do with him? He’s not normal. Why can’t he be like other kids?" He knew the routine. He knew he was "The Russell Problem." He hated them as much as they hated him.

  "Come on, boy," he said, leading the dog to the room with the humongous piano planted dead center in it. Once inside, Russell closed the door behind him, sat on the bench, raised the fallboard, and began to play.

  His stockinged foot worked the pedal, and five out his ten fingers behaved perfectly. But the other five—the ones on the other hand—lagged behind, forcing him to slow the tempo to a crawl. He was just noodling around, but it still irked him to do it. He never used to drag. Now he dragged all the time.

  Then he stopped altogether. Clutching his cramping left forearm to his chest, he let out a muffled cry.

  What’s wrong with me?

  Now the scar in the center of his palm was screaming for attention, so he had to give up massaging his arm for massaging his hand. After the pain there subsided, he attempted a slower piece, but every time he spread his fingers to play an octave, a fresh cramp would set in and compel him to stop.

  "Goddamnit!"

  Diane cracked the door open. "Dinner’s ready, sweetie." Noticing her son’s downcast head, she stepped in and, from behind, affectionately kneaded his slumped shoulders. "You need to stop worrying so much. The doctor said to give it a couple more months."

  Russell looked up at her. "‘Moonlight Sonata.’ Kid’s stuff, and I can’t even play it right."

  "Be patient. That’s all I know to say to you."

  And she was right. There was no other combination of words in her arsenal of motherly wisdom that could have quelled the hellish torrent roiling inside of him at that moment. She just didn’t have what it took.

  Then, playfully, she punched his shoulder. "Eat your dinner before it gets cold."

  She left the room after that, closing the door softly behind her. Russell turned to face the keyboard and with his right hand began playing the languid, plaintive melody from Romeo and Juliet—the movie version from 1968. His left hand he rested on the dome of Apollo’s head.

  What if it never heals? What if the cramps never go away? What am I supposed to do then?

  Even as he asked, he knew.

  Change.

  If the wound never healed properly and his hand and arm ached for all eternity, then he’d just have to find something else to occupy his time.

  But whatever I’d choose won’t be as good as this. Nothing tops this. This has always been my ace up the sleeve and ticket away from this planet of form and function. I’d kill myself—

  "I’d never do that," he said to the top of Apollo’s head. "Never ever ever."

  Watching his right hand, Russell listened to the strange melody it composed on its own. For the first time in a season, he grinned widely, his soul filling with the light of creation and the elusive forward pull all artists are invariably addicted to.

  Hell, yes! Now this is what I’m talkin’ about!

  Without realizing he was doing it, he brought his left hand up to the keys and began punching out a counter-melody in the bass register. It was the greatest musical piece he had ever composed, and he was still composing it! Steeped both in sadness and joy, a somber thread of reflection wove inconspicuously through the strains of sound, like the breath of life itself. Whatever was coming out of him, it was gluing the sonic cathedral together, building it higher and higher, providing him with the framework for a new home.

  Apollo stood and cocked his head at the piano. He was just as clueless as his owner as to where the music came from. They both knew where the sound came from, but the music…

  Isn’t mine. I can’t create. Nor can I destroy. I can only watch and experience, because when something this great comes along, I’m powerless to its whims. I allow it to toss me about and ravage my brain because I’m just happy it
chose me.

  Then, when both dog and master were at the zenith of their shared excitement, the whole structure came tumbling down. Russell’s arm cramped and his fingers faltered. He began hitting keys that had no business being touched.

  "No!" the Artist shouted as he tried futilely to bring the slowing digits up to speed. "You can’t do this to me! Not now!"

  But his fingers didn’t listen; they didn’t do as Russell bade.

  Tears blurred his vision as the last of the song unraveled under his fingertips. When all that was left was a tinkling of random notes, Russell, in one fluid motion, screamed, stood up, stomped on the damper pedal, and crashed his right forearm across two octaves’ worth of keys. The harsh discord rang out sinisterly in the room, making Apollo whine and the picture frames rattle against the wall.

  "I can’t do it," he told the dog’s upturned face over the sustained din. "I suck."

  As the noise died down, the door swung open and Darrel stuck his bald, freckled head inside the room. "Can you please cut out that racket? It’s two o’clock in the goddamn morning!"

  Russell didn’t bother turning around. Why should he? What did the man behind him know of inspiration? Time of day doesn’t matter to the muses. Apparently neither does torturing the crippled with promises they can rescind at a moment’s notice.

  Russell waited until the door slammed, and he waited for the distant click of his parent’s bedroom door closing in its frame. When all was still, he got up and left the piano room. He didn’t want to see the instrument ever again—not if it was going to torture him like that, like the way the snake in his bedroom had tortured him by merely existing.

  That…fucking…snake.

  He wondered if it was still there as he picked at the cold, leftover turkey and dressing with the long tines of his fork. Hours ago, his mother had covered the plate with a sheet of cellophane and placed it in the fridge. When he had taken it out, he hadn’t bothered reheating it. Her cooking wouldn’t have any more taste warm than it had cold.

  Per usual, Apollo sat on the floor next to his master’s chair. Russell tried his best to skirt the issue, but his mind kept circling back to the hissing, white snake on top of his guitar case.

  Where had it come from, and where will it go? Will I have to kill it?

  The universe was silent.

  "Let’s go, boy," he said, getting up and scraping the majority of the meal into the trash can. Apollo stood and followed his master across the dark living room, up the dark flights of stairs, through the dark, little hallway, and into the lamplit bedroom. Russell walked around the foot of the bed first.

  It was still coiled up on top of the guitar case, but now the tip of its tail was in its mouth. Hot November wind blew in through the open window, and Russell, feeling the pull of his favorite spot in the world, went there to sit. From his perch in the cubbyhole, he eyed the hissing abomination. The serpent was less than five feet away from his dangling feet, but somehow he knew that he was safe. It wouldn’t attack. Not now. It had had its shot for glory and its moment was gone. It was nothing but a pitiful garden snake anyway—harmless to everyone and good for nothing.

  Without thinking, Russell climbed out the window and onto the roof, where he stood and peered at the moonlit landscape below him. The grand oaks that had lined Deer Street were now charred skeletons, as was the rubble beyond them. For miles, the barren land stretched, a ubiquitous reminder that the past never goes away, that the past isn’t even the past, that the snake, having lost its mettle, ends up swallowing its own tail for sustenance.

  Pete’s house was gone too, swallowed up by the conflagration that, for some reason, had chosen to extinguish itself on the sidewalk in front of the Whitford’s house. Main Street had been spared, but other than that, the whole town had burned—some places worse than others. A handful of residences suffered only mild damage, but most were gone—burned down to the ground from which they had risen. Because they were all organic, all made of wood, and like wood, had to suffer the fate of either burning or rotting. They had chosen to burn.

  And I should have burned, too, for the way I treated them. I was the worst one of all.

  Looking over the edge of the roof, he hastily calculated the angle from which he could fall from it and die the quickest. It was funny, really, that even now, while plotting his own death, he could still worry about how much it would hurt when his head struck the brick walkway.

  I really am chickenshit.

  A warm breeze began to blow. Rooster tails of soot whipped up the side of the house but not high enough to reach the roof. In the dark cloud, Russell lost sight of the walkway. He screamed shrilly in his throat.

  Turning his view skyward, he silently cursed God and all of creation for picking on him, for choosing him to carry so much of their burden. Normally Russell wasn’t one to complain about stuff he couldn’t control, but nothing about it had been fair. They knew how he was—hell, they had made him—but they still…

  They still kept piling it on me. They knew I’d fail. They knew I’d chicken out. Even when I was holding everything together, it was constantly slipping through my fingers. I could never get a tight grasp on what they wanted from me. I’ve led the life of a bowling pin—I swear to God I have. Setting me up just so they can knock me down again. It must make them feel real big to be able to do that to me. It must make them feel like real winners.

  Orion stared down at him from his allotted seat in the heavens. Him and that stupid dog of his, Canis Major. Russell spat at them both, but in its ascent, he lost sight of the globule. Three seconds later, the wad splattered between his eyes. Furious, he turned and sprinted for the side of the house.

  Once he reached the edge, the plan was to jump, do a somersault or two, and land on the driveway below. He didn’t care if he died, survived, or ended up a cripple—a real cripple. There would be beauty in his descent even if no one was there to witness it other than Orion and his goddamn hunting dog. Russell knew how pretty the sound of his breaking body would sound to them, how resplendent the crunch would ring in their ears.

  Like the sound of victory.

  He would have done it, too—would have committed to the leap—had it not been for the single, deep, resonant bark that brought him to a skidding halt less than an inch from the precipice, leaving him to pinwheel his arms and wobble backwards to keep from falling into the abyss.

  After regaining his balance, he turned to see adroit Apollo walking toward him. His long tail hung low. He approached cautiously, as if expecting a barrage of ill-tempered words and gestures, which was exactly what he got.

  "Apollo!" Russell scolded. "What the hell are you doing out here? Go back inside! Now! Do you want to fall and get yourself killed?"

  The Great Dane whined, then lumbered his prodigious body around and sulked back to the open dormer. Russell watched the house swallow up his dog. With Apollo gone, he turned and looked back into the void, but the resolve to jump was gone. For now.

  He had broken another promise. This time it was a promise he had made to himself. In haste, he had promised to jump from the roof. Then he had wimped out.

  That’s not true exactly.

  But there would be other chances, other times. Who knew, one day he might actually do it.

  So, temporarily out of options, he made his way back to the window and climbed inside. In the short tunnel of his cubbyhole dais, on his hands and knees, he crawled, and what he saw waiting for him when he raised his head stopped his heart beating.

  On the floor, dead center in the room, Apollo stood frozen in the universal symbol of supplication: butt high in the air, head low to the ground, chin resting on outstretched limbs. He bowed to his troubled and damaged master, and Russell knew that he wouldn’t stop bowing until he told him to stop bowing.

  Russell looked at his dog looking back at him and thought again of the snake swallowing its tail. Then he averted his gaze to the actual snake resting atop his guitar case, but the snake was gone.


  It was never there at all.

  In its place was a leaf of paper from an artist’s sketch pad, its surface glossy from the application of several dozen runners of scotch tape, the picture in the middle fragmented like the panes of a unicolor stained glass window.

  A cartoon arrow arcing over the most luxuriant, splendidly-drawn thicket of wild grain. That’s all it was. But it was so beautiful, maybe the most beautiful thing he had ever seen or could ever hope to see.

  You shouldn’t have been there, Michelle.

  Then it all came crashing back, the memories he had tried so hard to suppress. With all his might he struggled to keep them at bay, but to their charge, he was powerless.

  I should have let you fire that arrow, Pete. You would have hit him. I know it. And I should be going over to your house tonight. Today’s your birthday. You probably thought I’d forget, but how could I? It’s two weeks to the day after mine.

  Russell sat on the dais, brought his knees up to his eyes, and buried them there, as if cutting off his outer vision had any effect on the inner kind.

  I am who I am, and they tried to change me. I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but I’m sorry, Pete. And I’m sorry, Michelle, Debbie, and Hector for letting you guys down. I’m sorry for what I am, and I’ll be sorry until the day I die.

  He remained for a lengthy moment in blindness. Then as each night must birth a new day, he gradually removed his knees from his eye sockets, put his feet to the floor, and walked the short distance to the drawing. He plucked it from the guitar case and traced the lines Michelle had drawn, as well as the seams where she had ripped the masterpiece in a fit of raw, unbridled frustration. He brought the image back to the dais to study it some more.

  You would have been great, Michelle. I was an idiot to think otherwise.

  He allowed the drawing to slip from his fingers and fall to the floor. The wind currents in the room rustled the sheaf, making it hiss.

  Apollo still bowed to him.

  Russell always hated when Apollo did that. All dogs really. Bowing to your master was such an empty, vacuous trick—the type of trick only dumb dogs and insecure owners thought was cute. Oftentimes he wondered who had taught his dog to do that. His parents? Maybe. But for the life of him he couldn’t recall witnessing Apollo bow to anyone other than to him.

  "Don’t do that, boy," he said quietly.

  Apollo rose to his feet.

  Russell looked from the dog to the painted-over claw marks on the door to the crackling sheet of paper on the floor.

  I’m the most horrible person on the face of the earth.

  Apollo stepped forward.

  I’m not an Artist. I’m a Failure. It’s not my fault, though. They placed too much on my shoulders. What the hell did they expect?

  Apollo stepped forward again. Then again. With the next step, the pad of his left front paw touched the center of the drawing and he quickly raised his leg and whined. Carefully, he hopped over the picture and limped the remainder of the way to the window dais. Once there, he lowered his large, narrow head onto his master’s lap and snorted gently.

  Russell sighed in kind and brought his head down to meet the Dane’s. With his long-fingered hands, he rubbed his friend’s sturdy flanks and whispered softly into the triangle of his right ear. His words were no louder than the drafts of hot autumn wind blowing in through the open window.

  "Oh Apollo…"