Snake Girl VS the KKK

by Peter Joseph Swanson

  Tony glared at Michael, curious, wondering what his genuine intentions were. He crossed his arms in front of himself. “Oh, yeah, sure. Okay. You in a band or something?”

  “Because I look weird?”

  Tony smiled and shrugged, looking up and down the length of Michael’s long hair.

  Michael sat a short distance away and opened his bag. When Michael noticed Tony studying him he quickly looked down causing a lock of hair to slip and obscure his face. After pushing it aside and throwing it over his shoulder he coquettishly glanced back up. “We met?”

  “Are you famous?”

  Michael nodded his head toward the nightclub. “Snake Girl, in that place.” He pointed towards the jutting crumbling garland cornice. “Doesn’t it look more like something out of Beneath the Planet of the Apes?”

  “Snake? Apes? Huh?” Memories made Tony start to blush, he looked away towards the squirrels. “Last night? You! You were the one who took a flip off the stage?”

  Michael winced. “I still hurt all over from that.”

  Tony put his hand over his mouth to cover a smirk. “That looked dangerous.”

  “It wasn’t planned. Nowhere is safe anymore. They say it was a dangerous night to be outside, too. But I missed everything. I didn’t see a thing. I was inside.” He shuddered.

  Tony looked around. “See what?”

  Michael asked, “You missed it too, then?”

  “Missed what?” Tony didn’t mean to make a sour face as he imagined gay men murdering each other with disease or drugs… or maybe even a jealous-lover knife fight to the death.

  Michael frowned. “They say there was a pickup truck driving around and some redneck was yelling ‘fag’ at people who were walking to the bar. I’d have yelled ‘KKK’ back at him but he probably can’t spell that much. Did you see that too?”

  “A truck? Like that? No.” Tony didn’t seem concerned.

  Michael looked around. “I can’t imagine there really being a KKK around here. I don’t think those kinds of people organize beyond gathering at the TV to watch football. I bet. Thank god, a mob of them out running amuck would be dangerous.”

  Tony shrugged. “That was all? Just a pickup truck driving around being rude?”

  Michael looked miffed for a moment. “No, it did not end up with a dead body so it did not end up on the news. But…it’s scary at night when that happens!”

  Tony was thinking about himself. “I thought I’d be eaten alive yet here I still am to live and tell.” He laughed nervously.

  “Oh, sure, eaten alive, just sucked out like a cream puff on too many blue pills.”

  “Blue pills? Okay.” Tony shook his head to show he didn’t get it.

  “Sure.” Michael threw his hand in the air. “If you don’t know how to finish a sentence you’ve already started just start talking about blue pills. It works every time for me… I think.”

  Tony gave a nod to pretend he followed that. “Oh.”

  “Blue pills. Blue pills. Blue pills. It sure as hell beats all,” Michael got nelly. “Pills for when you need something to say.” He got manly again. “You can even say it really drunk.”

  Tony blinked a few times. “Sure. Okay.” He watched Michael take a big bite of his sandwich. A few alfalfa sprouts fell. Tony looked at where they rested on Michael’s lap and then glanced down at his own boots in embarrassment. “You were very good, in a crazy way. You looked so… unusual.”

  Michael chuckled. “I’m glad I impressed somebody.”

  “Oh.” Tony nodded, feeling uneasy. He wondered if he should just get up and leave.

  “I looked rather ridiculous, didn’t I?” Michael asked with a chuckle. “Just a total train wreck.”

  “I thought you looked…well…you know. Like a lady. I mean, you know, a mighty weird one…like Halloween…but it was fun…I guess.” Tony asked, “Where’d you find that song?”

  “Liked it?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Michael grinned with pride. “I wrote it.”

  “Oh, wow, that’s cool.”

  “It’s no big deal. I slapped that one together in one six-pack. It showed. Some of my songs are a tad better… tad. Maybe I should add drums so everybody can dance. Drums are so horny that way… if you think of dancing that way… as some sort of sex with clothes on, sort of thing. Don’t you think drums are like sex? I need more sex. I mean, as in, sex sells. I want to sell. I’m a star!”

  “Okay.” Tony swallowed and looked around. He wondered how he’d excuse himself. He didn’t know the rules of the culture so he nodded and looked up at the trees, feeling stupid. “It was neat seeing you look one way and yet sound another.”

  “How you mean?” Michael mumbled through his sandwich. “Do tell! Tell me all about how talented I am! Let’s wax poetic about Snake Girl.” He smirked.

  “You sing good and all… but you sing… like… like a guy…but you looked, well, you know, um… girly. I said that, already.”

  Michael smiled a thank you then pushed the food to the side of his mouth. “With my face I take after my mom. I’m prettier than her, poor thing, but that’s because she’s careless and she somehow let herself get older than me. And then there’s that awful perm.”

  “My girlfriend said you looked like Jaclyn Smith. You do! Kinda. Weird.”

  Michael raised his eyebrows as if piqued. “That’s a bourgeois TV star. I think I look more like a movie star… Ava Gardner at her prime.”

  “Okay.” Tony obviously didn’t know how to imagine that.

  Michael looked off across the park. “Who knows what it means to be prettier than your mom? My older brother always hated that. He always punched me in the face and said it was to try and ugly me up. It didn’t work.”

  Tony stared.

  Michael laughed it away, “Oh, it’s nothing. I just don’t see them anymore…unless it’s time to be tortured at a family reunion on the family farm. I don’t know why they do those things. I don’t know why everybody doesn’t think it’s as awful as I do. Everybody is there in one place to torture me—by them being who they are and I being who I am.”

  An old hunched man at the war memorial slowly got up and shuffled off as if he moved through gravity differently than everybody else. Both watched him.

  Then Michael cleared his throat and said, “That’s a nice belt buckle you have.”

  Tony looked at it. It was a plain silver belt buckle. “It’s okay.”

  “Is that metal?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I touch it? I just wanna see.”

  Tony wanted to jump up and run away. “Of course not. It’s just a belt buckle.”

  “Oh, okay. I wasn’t going to steal it.”

  Tony added, “It’s no big deal.” He frowned down at his belt buckle and shifted his weight to get up.

  Michael noticed where some crumbs had fallen on his lap and indiscreetly flicked them away then went on to rub his crotch a bit too much as if there were more crumbs. “Oh God, I hate a dirty hotdog.” Then he acted as if he hadn’t done that. “You don’t go to the bar often, do you?”

  “Oh no. No! I just went there once because a friend dragged me… a girl friend. She did! She did it!”

  Michael raised his left eyebrow to mock Tony. “Oooh? Did she now.”

  “She’s nuts. She wants to be Nastassja Kinski. She’s my best friend, though.”

  Michael lowered his brow and took a final bite from his sandwich and lost a few more sprouts to his lap.

  Tony looked at them again and waited for the man to wipe them off. He wanted to just do it for himself and have it done with—then he realized what that would imply. He sat on his hands.

  Michael frugally folded his paper bag. He finally introduced himself. “My name is Michael. I was named after an archangel, I suppose. Who else? Do you know that I have my very own holiday? It was yesterday. September twenty-ninth is St. Michaelmas Day… in England, that is. I’ve yet to figure out how to celebrate it other t
han light a few candles and tell altar boy jokes.”

  Tony asked, “What’s that?”

  “Well, this altar boy gets a Snickers bar…”

  “No, the holiday.”

  “I don’t know… other than that I missed it again. What’s your name?”

  “Tony.”

  “Tony? Tony.” Michael said it over a few times. “Tony. Like Antony who drove Cleopatra ape bananas until he fell on his sword and she stuffed a snake in her bra and lots of pretty blue pills came out and… blue pills…”

  “Tony.”

  “Well, Tony, thanks for the company and divine conversation and for not running from me screaming in holy terror because of my great intimidating beauty.” He laughed at himself. “Hopefully I’ll catch up with you again. Stop by the bar sometime and I’ll see that you get drunk enough to eat.” Michael squinted at him and remembered when he was once so green.

  Tony asked, “Huh? What are you staring at?”

  “Oh, just your belt buckle.”

  Tony looked at his belt buckle. “Sure. Some belts are cool… I suppose. Okay.”

  “Yes, I like to have cool things.” Michael nodded an adieu then walked resolutely away.

  “Bye.” Tony watched him go, watching his hips and shoulders. The man didn’t move like common people; he looked almost feline. Then Tony noticed how his own jeans pushed out at the crotch and he realized Michael probably wasn’t looking at his belt buckle very much after all. He felt somehow molested. His imagination wandered, wondering what that would all bring about.

  * * * * *

  That night Tony dreamed that he was at the downtown fountain and he wanted Michael to touch his belt buckle. So he reached out and took Michael’s hand and pushed it between his legs. The fountain suddenly worked again for the first time in years and shot water in a ferocious hot blast. He woke up wet. He got up and changed his underwear, annoyed, then went back to bed.

  Chapter two

  Two days later Tony walked to the corner convenience store driven to eat sour cream and onion potato chips. Entering the store Tony spotted Michael. He turned red and wanted to go right back out the door but he didn’t, deciding not to look like such a flake. He took a deep breath and walked up to Michael in a contrived effort to act casual. “Hi.”

  Michael turned in surprise. “Oh, hi! Tony!” Michael held out his hand. “Pleased to re-meet you.”

  Tony blushed again as he took Michael’s hand with caution. “You again! You again! You! Blue pills!”

  “Blue pills?”

  “It’s what you said to say when you don’t know what to say. Or whatever you said… but I don’t know now…” he trailed off.

  “Oh, that’s right. I’m Michael in case you forgot. In case you’re as bad with names as I am. But I remembered yours.”

  “Yeah I remember.” Tony quickly released his hand from Michael’s because it felt so warm and pleasant. “I’m Tony.”

  “That’s right.” Michael smirked a bit. “Well, what have you been up to?”

  Tony wondered why he didn’t know what to do with his hands since he couldn’t just grab the man and kiss him. He wondered why he would think to want to do that to a man in the grocery store—or anywhere. He interlocked his fingers. “Oh… just school and… like… stuff.”

  “Cool.”

  “Okay.” Tony suddenly decided that he was looking stupid. “Well, um, so, gotta run!” He rushed away.

  Before turning the corner he looked back. Michael had a big grin on his face. Michael winked.

  Tony wanted to vaporize. He found himself in the middle of another isle, shaking and realized that he didn’t know where he was in the small store. He walked up to a woman examining the shelves. “Excuse me, ma’am, could you tell me where the chips are?”

  “I don’t work here.”

  He hurried away, feeling even more rattled and wandered confoundedly down the next aisle until he found the snack section—a place he’d been to countless times before. He couldn’t fathom why he was being so stupid so he seriously wondered if he’d just had a stroke. He put his hand on his heart.

  When he finally made it to the checkout, he met Michael again. “Hi,” Tony said timidly.

  Michael nodded.

  Tony admittedly enjoyed seeing Michael again. He wanted to stand very close.

  “Where’s the party?”

  Tony looked around. “Huh?”

  “The chips?”

  Tony briefly giggled. “Oh… no party. I was just going to eat them.”

  “Oh. Cool.” Michael put his few items on the conveyor belt, then turned back to ask Tony, “Where you live?”

  “Oh, just a couple of blocks that-a-way.”

  Michael looked off in the direction. “Hmmm.”

  “Eight ninety-six,” the middle-aged woman behind the conveyor belt said as she stared at Michael.

  Michael looked at his small cluster of groceries in surprise. “Here’s a ten. Please be kind to it.”

  Tony urgently wanted to say something fascinating and clever. “I love chips.”

  “What are you doing right now? Let’s eat some of those chips right now!” Michael licked his lips. “What are you doing the rest of the day?”

  Tony frowned. “I have to get back. Dad is expecting me.”

  Michael flipped his long hair behind his shoulder, abruptly turned, grabbed his own bag, and hurried away.

  Tony watched his backside and felt the most perplexing urge to run after him and tackle him, feeling so overwhelmingly alone that he suddenly had trouble breathing. By the time he was home he’d already consumed half of the chips and felt vaguely poisoned from the amount of sodium. When he walked in the kitchen he discovered that his father was talking to Lizzi on the phone.

  “Perfect timing,” Dad said, relieved to be rid of her, rubbing his ear.

  “Thanks, Dad.” Tony grabbed the receiver from his father. “Hello, Lizzi. What’s new? Did you dream you were Nastassja Kinski again and did you get another award?”

  “No, dummy! Let’s go to the river again. But tomorrow. I can’t go anywhere today.”

  “Why.”

  She said, “I’m way busy. Let’s go tomorrow.”

  “No, why am I going anywhere?”

  Lizzi stated, “Because you’re my friend, dummy! This time let’s go to the beach. I want to steal some sand to plant some cactuses and I don’t want any grodie sand. I just bought a little set of cactuses at the drug store. It all came in one little plastic doohickey and I need to replant them. I don’t want to go all by myself so you have to come with me.”

  Tony asked, “River?”

  “Why not? It’s been so awesome outside all week! This Indian summer won’t last. Or if you’d rather we could just go down to the town dump and roll around in the radiation but then we’d be all alone. I’d be all alone. I always feel alone when I’m just with you. You’re always a million miles away. I want to see real people. And you’re supposed to be my boyfriend so you have to come with me so I’m not alone.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m your boyfriend?”

  “Tony! Don’t be such a dork! You’re a boy! And I don’t want to go alone and when I’m with you at least I don’t look alone if anybody sees us!”

  “The river sounds fine. Yeah, there’s some nice places to get sand.” Tony noticed a warm gust blowing at the curtains in the hallway.

  “Be careful of quicksand,” Dad warned. Tony gave him an odd look. Nobody in these parts ever died of quicksand. “And be careful of the ticks,” Dad added. “I heard a fellow at work say they could carry AIDS but the government won’t admit it.”

  “I thought that was mosquitoes.”

  “It’s all blood.”

  * * * * *

  The next day Michael lay on his free couch. It had been abandoned in an alley. He inspected a bruise on his knee. The night before, he’d fallen up the stairs. He hoped the bruise was only that. He hoped it wasn’t AIDS. He felt sick. He didn’t recall ho
w many cheap beers he’d had the night before. Awake, now he felt as if he was in the 1975 horror movie BUG where a huge cockroach crawled into the woman’s eye and then caught her head on fire, somehow. He returned to thinking about Tony. He couldn’t believe how cute a young man could look while standing in a grocery store. “Tony! Tony! Tony!”

  The phone rang. The shrill racket drilled into his ears like screws. He grabbed it. “What? What! What!”

  “Hello, sweets.”

  “Is that you Alex? Now what? Before you answer me… tell me… is there too much mousse in your hair right now?” Alex was another friend from the gay bar.

  Alex said, “Making fun of me and my mousse is not a personality.”

  “I have genuine personality enough… I’m pretty. I’m so pretty I give good face. Why did you call?”

  Alex answered. “Girrrlfriend, have you written anymore phony letters to your mother?”

  “Oooh!” Michael moaned, rubbing his forehead. “Shit! I just put lotion on my head and it’s all your fault. Oh no, I just put hand lotion all over this phone, too. Oh crap. This would be a good time for the bomb to drop. I have a headache so just blow up everybody! Did you call for a reason? Oh, that’s right. Can you talk dirty to me and sound just like Billy Idol? I want to hear Billy Idol. That’s what I was pretending when you interrupted me.”

  “Hand lotion? You mean Booby Mama Booty Lube?”

  “Yes, it’s the best because the bottle looks like a Flash Gordon spaceship.”

  “Did I interrupt something?”

  “Yes. See? I was starring in a porno movie with Billy Idol! And no, I can’t afford Booby Mama all the time. The Booby bottle I have here I stole from the dressing room. Somebody took it on stage and pretended it was their microphone.” He was lying about Billy Idol. He was really thinking about Tony. He put the phone to his crotch and yelled. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hello? Hello?”

  Michael put the phone back to his ear. “Oh shit, I just put lotion on my ear.”