Snake Girl VS the KKK

by Peter Joseph Swanson

  “It’s Burt! You dirty rat!”

  Burt laughed, tossing his scarecrow prop aside. “Did I scare anybody? I hope so. I got a new mosquito bite on my ankle and it really pisses me off!”

  Michael said, “Let’s pass around the bug spray one more time so we can really get into nature!”

  Burt asked Michael, “So what was the point of that story?”

  “The moral of the story is… get that blowjob! And… never forget your first boyfriend.”

  Burt looked unhappy. “I don’t know if it was porno enough… not enough to be able to join a sex club. You’re slipping. We should have just read a story from a Playgirl for some fun.”

  “Not porno enough?” Michael stomped. “What? It ain’t ever gonna be published in Readers Digest, that’s for sure!”

  Burt shook his head. “It just didn’t excite me in the way that matters. It didn’t give me a hard on.”

  Michael bawled. “Aaaah, that’s because you were off busy getting ready to scare everybody good! Now let me in the sex club!”

  “Yeah,” the others spoke up.

  “Let him in.”

  “The story was cool!”

  “And I bet he’s good in the sack!”

  Michael did a bit of a belly dance again. “And I’m good behind a bush, too!”

  Burt shook Michael’s hand. “Okay. I’ll stop being a jerk. Your story was cool. It was practically autobiographical… except your real life is even weirder. It’s unanimous that you pass the bard stage of our initiation. Now you go to the final step. You go all the way in the Druid Sex Society final step!”

  Michael rubbed his palms together in excitement then dropped his pants again. “All the way?”

  “No, not that, not yet. Put your pants up. First, you will pick your totem. Your totem will be your shadow self. You must use your totem in a real life setting to prove that your totem is really you. After you’ve used your totem in a real life setting we’ll know you’re one of us, one of the great Sex Druids… and not just some scaly snake girl…”

  “Do what? Tonight?”

  “Not tonight. It must be later that you use your totem in a real life setting, in the light of day with straight people around, preferably in their ritual setting, with one of us as a witness.”

  “That’s one tall order. In their ritual setting? I have to go to a fucking suburban shopping mall?”

  Burt gave a nod. “You figure it out.”

  Michael asked, “And what do me and my totem do?”

  Burt said, “Your totem will speak to you and give you an order. You will listen. Only by listening do you hear.”

  Michael frowned. “That is confusing.”

  Burt nodded. “It is. Everybody has interpreted their own totem differently. Everybody here has acted out a different way of showing that they understand their totem.”

  Michael asked James, “What did you do?”

  James answered, “I can’t tell you now.”

  Burt said, “We can all tell you only after you’ve passed the test in your own way. First things first. You have to pick your totem in the first place. You do that now.”

  Michael scratched the side of his head. “How? Pick a card?”

  “To pick your totem you must go into a prophetic dance.”

  Michael shook his head. “Like what got everybody shot at Wounded Knee?”

  “No! That was ghost dancing and that’s often different. We are not at Wounded Knee. We are not being shot at. This is just a thing that we do for our own group. We do it our own way. We do it for ourselves.”

  “Oh. Cool.”

  Nelly Tom blurted, “The dance is sometimes leapfrog until somebody gets stuck.” He smiled wickedly at Michael as if he could be a wise-ass, too.

  Michael smiled back at him as if he could have done better. “Are you a frog?”

  Burt explained, “A totem is your animal spirit that is like you and you are like it.”

  “Oh. I thought a totem was a pole.”

  “Yes, a pole of totems.”

  Michael made an exploding gesture with his hand as if a light bulb had lit up above his head. “Oh! Sure. Gotcha.”

  Burt added, “We won’t tell you what our totems are, not until you’ve discovered yours. Then you’re free to have sex with anyone who is out of your totem group. Bears cannot have sex with bears. Cats cannot have sex with cats. Bears can have sex with cats. No incest.”

  “I don’t think that’s called incest.”

  Burt warned, “Don’t be difficult. In real life, no. In our own totem world, yes.”

  Everybody took all their clothes off. They danced making a circle around him, chanting, “join us join us join us”, in a trance-inducing monotone. Michael danced naked in the middle, starting a freeform rhythmic stomp, then belly danced, but then he decided he wanted to vogue. He strutted back and forth and pretended he was on a fashion runway.

  Then he loudly shouted, “Out!” They all stopped dancing.

  Burt said, “I think you know who your totem is.”

  “Damn right. There’s no question. It is …”

  Burt put up his hands. “No. Not yet. First we all put our clothes back on.”

  Michael protested. “But I like the look of so many naked men around me. What an impressive array of penises.”

  Nelly Tom said, “Thanks.” He pulled on his.

  “Put your clothes back on!”

  Michael whined, “The pants don’t fit anymore.”

  “Put your clothes back on now!” Michael did but stayed barefoot. Then Burt asked him, “Do you know who your totem is?”

  Michael nodded and said he did.

  “Without a doubt?”

  “Yes!”

  Burt said, “You can’t change it later.”

  Michael assured him, “I would never want to do that!”

  “Who is your totem? Who. Is it a snake? I bet it is. How original for you. You can forever be Snake Girl.”

  “Damn no! Diana Ross!”

  Burt frowned. “She’s not an animal. She’s a superstar.”

  “I know.” Michael put his hands defiantly on his hips. “But my totem spirit is a superstar. There is no question.”

  “Miss Michael! You’re being difficult! You’re not even trying. Now we’re all going to have to start over!”

  Michael stomped his bare foot. “No! I’m Diana Ross! I mean my totem is. And you can’t tell me it isn’t! You can’t tell me who isn’t sitting on my shoulder. I bet you all thought that knowing me that it would be a snake, but no. It’s a superstar and that’s all I can say—and you can’t decide it for me. And you can’t say how the invisible world is. It’s the way it is for me and it may not be that way for you but I can’t help that. We all see the world our own way.”

  Burt insisted. “She is a human.”

  “Not to you and me. We’ve never gone shopping with her at the grocery store. To us, she is an idea! She is a dream! She is a million drag queens all over the world at the very same time singing the love theme from Mahogany—the call of the wild, the song of the most primal life and death and survival.” Michael threw his arms up and sang in his breathy girly voice, “Do you know where you’re going to?” Then he added, “She is the wind and rain and all the stuff of volcanoes! She is birds and cats and rose gardens! Diana Ross is in me—as the pulse of nature is in me!”

  A man said, “Amen! Let him in.”

  Another joined in, “Let him have Diana Ross. It’s fabulous. It’s the modern world. We have to expand our idea of totems to fit the modern world.”

  Nelly Tom shouted, “There’s a lot more spirits out there then just the ones of the animals and plants. Nowadays there’s the stars… the superstars… and they do all send out a strong energy.”

  A man nodded. “Superstars speak to us in spirit form!”

  Another man said, “And we’re all gay. And Michael was a drag queen. What do you expect?”

  Burt reluctantly nodded. “Yes. I worked with Mic
hael when he was a drag queen. And he was one of the better ones.”

  Michael insisted, “Thee best!”

  Burt corrected him, “No, the Dolly Parton drag queen was the best.”

  “I was the best!”

  “You were weird. They all liked ‘9 to 5’ better. They could relate to that. They all have to work for a living.”

  Michael pranced around. “I was special! I am still special. I’m not just one totem. I’m like Dorothy and have absorbed the three totems of the scarecrow, tin man and lion. And the Wizard and the Witch! That’s five! They are all archetypes—all totems! Diana Ross absorbed Dorothy. I absorb Diana Ross. I have become an overarching totem! My totem is beyond nature but not yet supernatural. My totem is the lavender twilight that touches both night and day! I’m not on a totem pole but part of a totem wheel! A totem ball in 3-D! I am the modern evolution of the totem!” He struck a star pose, throwing his arms up again, and sang more from Mahogany in his exaggerated screechy breathy Diana Ross impersonation.

  Burt finally nodded to agree, after Nelly Tom started to sob in sympathy for Michael. “Okay Michael. You’re such a special case that you change our rules here and now. Of course you would only have the totem of a superstar. What was I thinking? A totem has to not only fit you but fill you. Only Diana Ross can command such a giant stadium.”

  Michael held his arms out like a superstar again. “I’m too fabulous to be one animal. Do animals take the Concorde? Do animals get nominated for Grammy and Academy Awards? Do animals ski in the Swiss Alps one day and lounge on some private beach the next with a nude bartender? Do animals have breakfast at Tiffany’s? Do animals get nose jobs and fake hair glued on?”

  Burt chuckled. “No, and neither do you. That takes money.”

  Michael’s face darkened. “Oh. Fuck me.” Then he smiled. “But the best things in life are free. Sex. And I get to choose who I get to have sex with tonight who isn’t in a superstar totem category, right?”

  Nelly Tom jumped up and down. “Choose me! Choose me!”

  Michael smiled at somebody else. “James, are you a superstar?”

  He chewed his lower lip. “Nope. I’m a bear.”

  “Great. Then I chose you and it won’t be incest.” Michael took James’ hand and led him away to the shadows. They stopped when they walked into a tree. Michael kissed James’ ear. “What do you like to do? Top? Bottom? Lips? Foot fetish? What. I’m versatile. What.” Michael pushed his lips against James’. He rubbed his tongue between his tight mouth. “Loosen up.” Michael started to unbuckle James’ belt.

  James squeezed Michael’s hand to stop him. “Leave the belt on.”

  Michael hooked his fingers in the waistband of James’ jeans. “For now. Maybe.” Michael rubbed his own crotch across James’ thigh. “Let’s play kissy face and rub our nipples together for a while. That’s enough to drive anybody wild. And that’s just act one. Then I kill myself as I attempt contortions out here in the dark that cartwheels me off into the creek, or something.” He laughed. “I know that creek. It’s really eroded and that’s quite a drop off. Let’s not wander too far.”

  James chuckled as he pushed Michael’s hand off his chest. “I don’t know what I want to do. I just want to hold you. That’s all for now. Just hold you in my arms.” They sat against a tree and he wrapped his arms around Michael.

  Michael conceded, “Whatever floats your boat. This feels nice.”

  “As kids at summer camp I thought about how I wanted to hold you. Just hold you. Just like this. Just hold you and talk about the world and what it would be like to be all grown up. What it all would mean. For now this is my dream come true… my childhood dream.”

  Michael leaned into him. “That’s nice. Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve such bliss… the bliss of dreams coming true.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. You’re grabbing for it every chance you get.”

  Michael agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I get it or deserve it. Sure I look at men out in the world going about their business and I wonder what that is. Shit. I don’t know what life is. I don’t know how people get by. I know what I do. I wake up. I have coffee if I can. I think about all the beer I shouldn’t have had the night before. Then what. Another day. I try to do stuff. I try to do something. I wonder what other people do that’s better.”

  James said, “Being kind is a good start.”

  Michael guffawed. “Oh, I’m a jerk. I know it. I’m a mean nasty little tart. An acidic drag queen scaly snake bitch. It’s in my blood, I know it. I try not to think mean thoughts but they come out. I’m a horrible mean fag! But I’m not too bad, I don’t think. I’m pretty sure I’ve known worse.”

  “Like how are you so bad?”

  Michael thought. “Hmm. Well, for one, I used to tell fat lady jokes. And then after years of doing that, so that now it’s too late, I realized that a real gentleman would never have done that. Nice people don’t do that. They just wouldn’t ever think that way.”

  “Did you tell those jokes right where a fat lady could hear them?”

  Michael adamantly shook his head. “Oh no, no. That would hurt her feelings. I would feel bad. I would feel like I was in trouble.”

  James asked, “You don’t like hurting people’s feelings?”

  “Of course not. I’m a bitch but I’m not a bitch!”

  “Then you’re not all that bad… not really. Not a monster, at least.”

  Michael said, “I grew up thinking fat ladies were monsters.”

  “Well, they are a bit bigger than a little boy.”

  “And Mom always said such mean things about being fat. Mom said it was a sin to indulge in gluttony. Mom said it was terrible to let yourself go like that. Mom said it looked ugly. Mom said people who get fat are terrible. But I never saw the real monster with my own eyes. I was too scared.”

  James asked, “What are you talking about?”

  “When I was little we went to the little carnival that came to town every year. A few times there was a fat lady at the few sideshows they usually had at the very end of it all. She had her own little trailer with a window where you went up to see her, like I had my own trailer when I did Snake Girl… just little sideshow sized things. When I was a little kid the sideshows scared me. I wouldn’t dare see the fat lady. I was very scared of that one, especially, like it was some monster. Mom went in and said it was terrible. But that wasn’t anything compared to how Mom would rate everybody when she was out at the shops. At the drop of a hat Mom would tell me, ‘she’s too fat’… like what could I do about it? I had my own eyes. I could see everybody for myself. So why the hell was she telling me for? What a stupid bitch! Mom was a stupid bitch. I wonder if I’m like Sybil now. Red room! Red Room! Red room!”

  “Wrong movie.” James chuckled. “And so to this day you find yourself doing that—being so judgmental? I don’t think that’s what really bothers you. That’s dime a dozen. At least you’ve learned to hold your tongue. I think you’re really upset and you feel rotten because you know you broke your mother’s heart when you ran away from home.”

  Michael nodded. “Yeah, true, the older I get the more that haunts me. I’ll be cursed with that for as long as I live. There’s nothing worse. Even after they’re dead they can remind you that you broke their heart. But what about my heart? It seems I don’t get to have one. I didn’t ever get a chance to get one. I have to have my own wife and kids if I’m going to have a heart. Damn. Otherwise, what I feel doesn’t count to anybody.”

  “Yeah, the world just sees what it wants… what it’s able to see.”

  “From what I could see, the thing that upset Mom and Dad the most about my running away was it embarrassed them at church. And I couldn’t be their farmhand anymore. They had counted on me to get all that stuff done… and be their family prop at church.”

  James said, “That’s what you could see but you’ll never know how they felt deep inside.”

  “They were never shy about letting me
know how they felt about junk. At the drop of a hat they’d comment on anything they wanted to. They never wanted to know how I felt. They were strict about teaching me to keep it all buttoned up.” Michael moaned. “I’m not nice. Mom wasn’t nice and mothers always put all of their fears into you.”

  “Now isn’t that a line from Pink Floyd’s The Wall?”

  Michael nodded “I learned the whole album. I knew that if I did then it would help me have a deeper personality.”

  James bristled. “Why are you so damn worried about having a personality?”

  Michael pushed tight into James’ embrace. “I don’t know. I just always feel like I’m missing out on something. I feel like I could be more than I am. I feel like there’s feelings I should be feeling but I’m not, and things I should know about but don’t. I always feel like I’m in the middle of a nervous breakdown and if I take all my clothes off I’ll somehow be seen for who I really am.”

  James chuckled. “I suppose.”

  “I was being serious. I just don’t know how to say it. Let me try it this way. I always feel like there’s a whole new big thing that I could be doing that would be the real me. Then I’d know who I am because I’d be doing it.”

  “Like doing what?”

  “Maybe I should really be a spy in Russia.”

  “Now you’re just being full of shit.”

  “No! I really mean it. Why not? Why is it always somebody else who is doing the fantastic stuff? I don’t know. I have to have some skills that I could actually get paid for, what real people get paid for, a salary that buys a house and car, don’t I? There has to be something about me that would make me a better secret agent than anybody else!”

  James laughed. “That’s not going to happen tonight. Let’s come back down to earth.”

  Michael asked, “What do you worry about? What do you want to be when you grow up?”

  “I don’t want to get into all that now. Now let’s just remember when we were young.”

  “Yes. Let’s talk about when we were fabulously young and stupid. Almost everybody I knew hadn’t died on me yet. Nobody had been murdered, or had an overdose, or gotten AIDS. It’s terrible when people die on you. For one, because then they don’t call you on the phone anymore. It’s just this nothingness. Sometimes you just find yourself sitting and staring at the phone and wanting it to ring but you know it never will… not with them on the other end ever again, anyway… because they’re dead and gone. I think the worse thing I worried about as a dumb farm kid was rabies. I was just terrified some crazy skunk would come flying out at me. It never happened to me or anybody I knew. I was too dumb to worry about an accident with the tractor or equipment that could crush me. God knows why I was driving the tractor at that age. I was a dingbat. I should be dead. Those were the days. Summer lasted sooo long! Let’s talk about that summer. Ah, that summer at camp.”