A Feast of Snakes (19 page)

Joe Lon knelt in the dirt beside the dog and smoothed him down with a heavy brush. The other dogs were making a terrible racket now that he had brought out Tuff. Joe Lon’s head felt as if it might crack like bad glass and fall in pieces on the packed dirt where Tuff stood in his widelegged stance, leaning slightly against the leash, his torn and scarred ears struck forward on his head. For a long time Joe Lon brushed and talked to Tuff in a soft, sympathetic whisper, telling him he was about to get to do what he had been bred and trained to do, that it wouldn’t be long now before he could show everybody that he was the boss pit of all the bulls.

When he did look up for the first time, there in the bleachers on the opposite side from the dog fighters, sitting side by side, solemn and unsmiling, were Berenice and his wife, Elfie. He felt the sudden thrust of fear start in him. He couldn’t think what they might be doing together. Elfie had been sullen and unusually quiet that morning. She’d hardly spoken to Coach Tump when he came into the trailer. Joe Lon didn’t know what it was about and he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want anything except possibly to howl and he couldn’t do that with everybody there watching.

Willard Miller came down out of the bleachers and sat on his heels on the edge of the pit. “Buddy Matlow ain’t gitten his dick sewed back on; he’s dead.” He spoke in a hushed, careful voice. “Berenice’s daddy says he was dead before they got to the hospital.”

“Jesus,” said Joe Lon. He felt a little sick to his stomach. “The poor bastard did catch some shit in his life, didn’t he.”

“Nobody deserves to have his dick cut off. Listen, go up and bring the whiskey down here, would you?”

Willard got up and went into the bleachers. When he did, Elfie got up and came down to the pit. She didn’t come into it but stood on the edge, watching him.

“What you and Berenice doing?” he said finally.

“She come by.”

“What for?”

“Talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Us.”

Joe Lon wished to God Willard Miller would come back and stop her talking to him. He raised his eyes to the bleachers and saw Willard standing up beside his daddy, looking down upon them but making no move to bring the whiskey.

“She told me what you said.”

Joe Lon vigorously massaged Tuff’s haunches.

“She said you said you loved her true. True love.”

“Don’t,” said Joe Lon. “Christ, don’t.”

“Said you put it in her … and then stuck it in her … and then back again. Back again even after … after you … after the other.”

He could only stare up at her dumbly.

“You never done that to me, Joe Lon, honey.”

“No,” he finally managed to say, “I never did.”

“Does it mean you don’t love me with true love?”

“No,” he said. “For God’s sake, Elf, git back up there and shut up about this. You don’t know what the hell you’re saying.”

“I know what I know,” she said. “After she told me I looked. She showed me and I looked. It’s on the sheets. It’s all over the sheets in my own bed, you and her and everthing.”

“Elfie, goddammit, git away from me.”

“Joe Lon, honey.”

“What?”

“I cain’t look at the babies any more. I tried this morning after she showed me and I cain’t look at the babies any more. I’m too shamed. You shamed me so I cain’t look at my own babies.”

She turned and went back up the bleachers. Joe Lon called to Willard Miller and he started down the bleachers but then stopped. Joe Lon followed his gaze to the place Willard was looking and Berenice had started down the bleachers toward him.

Christ, they were taking turns. They were all going to take a turn at him. “You gone bring me the goddam drink, or what?” he shouted up at Willard Miller. But Willard didn’t move.

The first thing Berenice said was, “She knows.”

“Berenice,” he said. “I may have to kill you.”

“I made a clean breast of it,” she said.

Joe Lon savagely massaged Tuffy’s broad, muscled chest. “I told everybody. I even told Shep. It was something about poor Buddy getting his … that happening … the way it did and all. His blood is all over the living room. I couldn’t stand it. So I told just everybody. Shep said he understood and he’d always love me.”

“Love you,” he said.

She turned and went back up the bleachers. He watched her go and saw that Shep was sitting with Elfie now, talking earnestly, head to head.

Willard came down with the whiskey. “What’as you waiting for?” demanded Joe Lon.

“I didn’t think I ought to break in on that. What was it they’as saying to you anyway?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, here comes the fucker from the debate team to give you some more nothing.” Willard turned and went back up the bleachers to where the dog fighters had just cracked another bottle.

Sure enough, Shep was coming down into the pit with him. Joe Lon didn’t think he could stand it. There was a sudden blood lust on him. He was afraid he might fall upon Shep and tear his throat out.

“I come to tell you about Sheriff Matlow,” Shep said.

Joe Lon opened his mouth to say he didn’t want to know anything, that he couldn’t stand to have anything else told to him by anybody. But instead of speaking he simply croaked, a hoarse, cracked noise deep in his throat. He opened the whiskey Willard had brought down and took a drink.

“Listen,” said Shep in a shy, deeply embarrassed voice, “I know about you and Berenice. About how you were lovers. How in love you both were a long time ago here in Mystic. Love … Well, love … And then yesterday at your house …”

Joe Lon stood up and stretched his neck to breathe. He felt as though he had his head in a sack of cotton. The dog fighters had moved down a little closer to the pit. They sat now in the second row. They stared intently at his daddy’s Tuffy, who had not barked or even growled but still stood with his dark ears forward on his head, leaning in the direction of the other penned bulls where they barked and growled and howled in their cages.

“Walk him around, boy,” called Big Joe. “Take him around the pit.”

Joe Lon led Tuff through a tight little circle around and around the pit. They were betting up there, making the bets that would stand tonight between the owners. Shep had never stopped talking, saying he understood. Berenice had told him everything and he understood everything. Joe Lon wanted to tell him that he didn’t understand anything but he didn’t trust himself to try to speak.

Shep followed him around the pit, close at his shoulder on the opposite side from Tuff. “… and he actually handed me his … his penis. Put it right in my hand and the blood was everywhere. It was cut off clean, I mean smooth at his belly and the blood was pouring out of the place where it was cut like it was a spigot. A blood spigot.”

Joe Lon turned his pale, stricken face to Shep and managed to say: “Why you telling me this?”

“He said to,” said Shep. “I thought I told you. He said to.”

“Said to?”

“In the back seat, we got him in the back seat, and the doctor was driving and the last thing he said to me was, tell Joe Lon.”

Joe Lon walked faster. The murmuring voices of the dog fighters floated into the pit over the constant barking of the caged bulls. More people had come into the bleachers now. High on the east side. Mother Well sat beside Victor, the snake preacher. As he watched, they both stood up and started down the bleachers seats toward him.

“Joe Lon,” said Shep. “He said that. That’s what Sheriff Matlow said. He said: Tell Joe Lon. But…”

Victor, the tight tufts of twisted hair shining in the weak sunlight like screws driven into his skull, was coming directly toward him, and Mother Well was a step behind him. Joe Lon had stopped. They were staring right into his eyes and he couldn’t look away.

“… but I think he was trying to tell me something else. I mean I think Sheriff Matlow wanted me to tell you some
thing.
That’s the way it sounded. Tell Joe Lon … Then he died. Just quit breathing.”

Joe Lon stood in the pit and watched Victor and Mother Well come right up to the barrier and stop. Everything seemed to move at three quarter time and there was about it the quality of a nightmare. Mother Well had a handful of snake rattles. She rolled them through her fingers like beads. Joe Lon could see each of them separate and distinct as they moved against the marble-smooth skin of her hands.

Victor raised his arms and his voice boomed into the pit: “I heard Jehovah speak terrific from his holy place and saw the words of the mutual covenants divine chariots of gold and jewels with living creatures starry and flaming with every color lion tiger horse elephant eagle dove fly worm and the wondrous
serpent. .
.”

Joe Lon started to howl. He let his head drop back on his shoulders and howled directly into the blue sunless sky.

“… clothed in gems and rich array human in the forgiveness of sins according the covenant Jehovah.”

Joe Lon didn’t stop howling and Willard Miller came over the barrier with a forearm flipper that struck Shep such a lick it carried him all the way out of the pit.

Big Joe and the other dog owners were on their feet and Big Joe was calling to Joe Lon not to go crazy like his sister did. “Don’t go crazy, Joe Lon! Don’t go crazy!”

Victor was still booming away above him there, saying now: “I want you snakes! I want
all
you snakes!” And the dogs had been so stirred up by all the howling and hollering they were going crazy in their cages. Even Tuffy was howling, his head back, looking into the same blue empty piece of sky with Joe Lon.

Joe Lon fainted, or passed out, or maybe he went crazy there for a while because when he woke up he was in a dark room in his daddy’s house. Elfie was there and so was Willard. Joe Lon first heard Beeder’s television on the other side of the wall and beyond that the slashing, abrupt sound of dogs fighting and over the sound of the dogs the awesome roar of people screaming.

“You awake, Joe Lon, honey?” He didn’t answer but let his eyes swing to Willard, where he stood on the other side of the bed. “You know what I said, Joe Lon, honey? Member? I didn’t mean that. Don’t you worry a minute. You hear? I love …”

“What time is it?” asked Joe Lon.

“Damned if you didn’t go down for the count, Biggun,” said Willard Miller.

“What time is it?” His head was splitting and his tongue felt swollen.

“It ain’t midnight yet. Ain’t far away though.”

“Midnight? It cain’t be.”

“We got over to Doctor Sweet’s, he given you a shot. He said it was most likely Buddy and everything caused you to do it. Jesus, it was a mess, too. I went over there and seen the car they hauled Buddy in. Looked like somebody’d butchered a hog in it.”

“They know who killed him?”

“No, and I don’t look for them ever to find out either. Weren’t but several hundred had reason to cut his dick off.”

“Who’s with the babies?”

“Sarah’s sleeping over. They fine, Joe Lon, honey.”

“How come I’m here? Why ain’t I home?”

Elfie opened her mouth to speak, then shut it and looked at Willard.

Willard said: “I think everbody’s afraid you’d go nuts over there and … Shit, I don’t know what you mighta done. What the hell
did
go wrong with you anyhow?”

“I don’t know,” he said. And he didn’t. But he knew he’d been scared there in the pit as he’d never been scared before. And it was not any one thing that scared him. It was everything. It was his life. His life terrified him. He didn’t see how he was going to get through the rest of it. He was miserable beyond measure. Everything seemed to be coming apart. He could see the frayed and ragged seams of everything slowly unraveling.

“Fuck it,” said Willard. “It don’t matter. Anybody’s subject to go a little nuts now and then.” Willard snorted an ugly little laugh through his nose. “I think I about broke three of the debate player’s ribs for him.”

“You probably shouldn’t a done that.”

“Nobody blamed me for it. You was hollering and he was the closest to you. I didn’t know what was happening. I hit the first thing I could see. It happened to be the debate player.”

“What ailed that goddam preacher?”

“Nothing. Shit, he was just putting in his order for you snakes. He wanted to buy’m that’s all. You didn’t burn a fuse over that, did you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it any more.”

“Good,” said Willard. “It’s beginning to bore the shit out of me, too. Next time you go nuts, I’d be obliged if you’d do it when I’m not around. You bout tore my goddam ear off.”

Joe Lon sat up on the side of the bed. He remembered it all now, the old man shouting about snakes, everybody coming to him in the pit, barking and barking at him, and the overwhelming feeling that he was going to be in there the rest of his life with everybody he’d ever known filing past to tell him how he’d failed. When he’d got started howling, Coach Tump and Duffy and Willard and his daddy had all fell on him and thrown him in the back seat of the Coach’s old Oldsmobile with his daddy screaming for him not to go crazy. He even remembered taking hold of Willard’s ear and refusing to let go on the ride to Doctor Sweet’s.

“Shit,” said Joe Lon. “You should a goddammit let me alone.”

One final ragged cheer went up from the dog fight behind the house and then there was silence except for the steady drone of the television on the other side of the wall.

“I got to get Tuffy and go,” said Willard. “It’s his up.”

“I’m coming,” said Joe Lon.

“Hon, do you think you ought to go out there?”

“Where’s my goddam shirt?”

“Coach Tump said he’d handle the dog with me.” Willard gave Joe Lon his quiet, savage smile. “You going semi-nuts and all.”

Tuffy was kept in a dark cool cage in the old man’s room for the final hours just before a fight. Joe Lon spoke to him while Willard leashed him. Tuffy stretched, yawned, shook himself, and then seemed to hear the noise of the crowd outside for the first time. The short wiry hair rose on his shoulders, his ears got up, and a little slobber slipped spinning from his mouth. They led him down the hall to the back door and then through the dark to the ring of light where the bleachers and the aisles and all the open spaces under the bleachers were packed with men, women, and children. Their faces under the lights looked flushed and damp even though it was nearly forty degrees. Novella Watkins, wearing her little gold-gilt crown of snakes, sat in her place of honor at the head of the pit as was the custom after the beauty contest. Her daddy, a pig farmer, sat on one side of her and Slimey, one of the leaders in the rock band, sat on the other. Slimey still had on his sequined suit. A space opened up for Willard, joined now by Coach Tump, to get through to the pit. Joe Lon went to sit with his daddy just behind the barrier on the right side, not because he particularly wanted to sit with him but because his daddy kept a place there for himself and his friends and it was the only spot left to sit down.