John Godey - The Snake

The snake no longer came out of its burrow during the daylight hours, except for a brief period each morning to bask on a nearby rock.

On this night, as it had on several previous nights, it drank from the Loch, lying midway between the East and West drives. On the way back to its burrow it surprised a squirrel on the ground. The squirrel leaped for the base of a tree and began to scramble up, but the snake, its head already reared high, launched an upward strike and sank its fangs into the squirrel's haunch, just above its bushy tail. The squirrel squealed, and slipped back momentarily, but recovered and scampered upward.

The snake did not pursue the squirrel up the tree. It waited below, coiled, staring up into the shadowed branches. Its sharp eyes picked up the squirrel when it began to fall, and followed its descent to the ground. After eating the squirrel, the snake returned to its burrow. The process of digestion, already begun by the injection of venom, would take approximately six hours.

Holly showed her press card and a tall, muscular, aloofly courteous Purie wearing the armband of a member of Christ's Cohorts led her down an aisle of the Tabernacle to the front row. The man sitting next to her was a city news reporter from the Associated Press. The rest of the row reserved for the press was empty.

The A. P. man said good morning, and in an ambiguous tone that mixed gallantry and resentment, complimented her on looking so fresh and dewy at the unearthly hour of 9:30 A.M.

She acknowledged with an ambiguous smile of her own. Was it her fault that it took a full week before she began to show the stigmata of fatigue? Well, not that it was any of the A.P. man's business, but she had spent most of the night awake, agonizing over whether or not to rush downtown to Mark Converse's place and cradle his head against her breast.

Want, need, what was she, a blue-ribbon semanticist? But last night the distinction had seemed important, and so she had remained in her bed and paid for it with hours of sleeplessness.

The Reverend's recruitment meeting had drawn a full house. Every seat in the Tabernacle was taken, and there were dozens of standees at the rear and against the side walls. The crowd, young, mostly in its early twenties, was hushed and expectant. Holly looked at the flyer she had been given at the door. It was an application form for membership in the Church of the Purification. No selling copy, no hype, just a chaste logo that read "Church of the Purification" and a few dotted lines for name, address, age, present religious affiliation.

"They're getting members," the A.P. man said. "According to our church news man, they've been signing up in droves, the usual white kids from good families."

The Purie membership was overwhelmingly middle class, with access to money through their parents, no matter how much the parents were opposed to their joining. Whatever else you said about the Reverend, Holly thought, he was shrewd. He read the public mind-at least that segment of it that was likely to respond to his primitive appeal-with great accuracy. Latching on to the issue of the snake, however blatantly opportunistic it might seem to be, looked certain to pay off in enlarged membership and increased revenue to contribute to the support of his various real estate holdings, not to mention fuel for his gas-eating limousines, the cost of expensive red silk linings for his cloaks, the salary of his personal French chef…

The organ played a sudden monitory chord in a minor key. A dazzling white spotlight settled on a white door at the side of the stage. The organ repeated the chord, held it in a trembling vibrato. The door opened and the Reverend Sanctus Milanese strode toward the podium. The spotlight accompanied him, focusing on the brilliant scarlet of his calotte, leaving his face in shadows.

"The footlights are dimmed; the curtain is up, the star has appeared," the A.P. man said, "and that magical moment before the performance begins is at hand. I hope to hell it's a good show."

But it wasn't really, Holly thought. Not that it was bad, either, just that it wasn't new. Her notes read: Star in fine fettle, but material old hat. Usual burning eyes, evangelical tones, well-timed swirl of cape to show red lining, for which I would willingly become Purie if he would give me a bolt so I could make a seductive housecoat. Rings same old changes on established theme. Snake is Satan's messenger. Can be captured only by the pure in heart-guess who? The location of the lair in which the evil serpent lurks will soon be vouchsafed to us by Him. All in good time, however, for He moves in mysterious ways His miracles, etc. Drama trite, leading man terrific. Give it one star.

Nevertheless, the audience was eating it up. Not a muscle twitching, barely breathing, eyes glued to the figure on the dais.

The A. P. man whispered, "Same old crap." He was obviously disappointed-as she herself was-that the meeting was not producing any dramatic news.

The Reverend was expounding on the villainous role the snake had played throughout the history of man and religion. The symbol of Evil from time immemorial. Ever the servant of the Devil, eager to do his most heinous bidding. From time im-mem-morial. The serpent in the Garden of Eden, traducer of Eve… Now if he had said seducer, Holly thought, we might have had a flashy bit of revisionist theology.

The A. P. man said, "I was half hoping he would come up with something wild-like the Chinese thing."

A year earlier, for some fancied slight, he had had his adherents try to set fire to the Chinese Consulate on 65th Street.

Somebody behind them shushed the A.P. man. They didn't want to miss a word of the Reverend's wisdom. Well, it was their privilege. Holly let the sound of his voice wash over her. She had really been glad that Mark Converse had phoned her, and not terribly surprised, either. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and the Empress of all the Russia’s. She had really wanted to go to him, and only the intervention of her guardian angel, who checked in whenever she became too susceptible to her emotions, had prevented it. Right on, guardian angel, mustn't be all that biddable, chaps lose respect for a girl who's that available. Right? Bullshit.

Better to follow where the heart-and loins-led.

The Reverend was driving hard into his peroration, making his pitch for recruits. Come to us, come to Purity, offer God a sign that you long to be purified, enlist in the legions of the pure, who shall inherit the earth more surely than the meek, step forward in purity into the presence of the Lord…

With an operatic swirl of his cape, red and black mingling richly, the Reverend walked off attended by the faithful white spotlight.

Holly said goodbye to the A.P. man and started up the aisle. At the door, a wooden box was beginning to overflow with membership applications. The Reverend was on the beam, Holly thought, he was riding the snake's tail to glory.

The event that came to be known as the Day of the Dog was inspired by a "name withheld" letter to the Daily News suggesting that dogs, which were constantly turning up snakes (often when they were least wanted), were better equipped to sniff out the snake in the park than cops with a degenerated human smelling apparatus. The writer added that, if the police refused to employ the Department's own dogs for this purpose, individual dog owners should organize their own posse.

The idea became an instant success. Before the day was over, hundreds of dog owners began to bombard the special police line; others, accompanied by their pets, picketed police stations. What was a more or less spontaneous, unorganized movement suddenly solidified with the fortuitous ascendancy of a Mrs. Reginald Campbell, who, finding herself singled out by a television interviewer at the scene of a picketing, announced that there was no time to lose, that the very next day was none too soon. She exhorted all dog lovers within the sound of her voice to appear at the park tomorrow in the forenoon with their animals, which would then be unleashed and, having located the snake, bark loudly and reveal its hiding place.