Russell Banks - Lost Memory of Skin

Though he’s never seen a snake like this before — never seen a snake that’s so big and scary it blocks everything else out of his field of vision — he knows that it’s a full-grown Burmese python, one of those three- or four-foot-long pet snakes somebody got tired of feeding live mice to and dropped off one night in the Panzacola where it grew to maximal size and gradually moved its diet up the food chain to the top, so forget about mice and rats, now it’s eating deer and feral cats and dogs and the occasional pig that wanders off the farm into the swamp and if it got hungry enough it could grab and crush and devour without dismembering a human being.

Despite the air-conditioning inside the car the Kid is sweating. His thumping heart rushes blood to his face making his ears ping like high-pitched alarms. His palms are wet and for a few seconds he’s afraid he’ll pee his pants. If he starts talking he’ll block out enough of his fear with his own voice and be able to control his body better so he says to the Writer, It’s a fucking giant python, man! Don’t get outa the car or do anything to piss it off ’cause even though they’re not poisonous like water moccasins they can move really fast on the ground and they can break every fucking bone in your body and eat you, man. They’re pure evil and they know no fear. In fact you better put the fucking car in reverse and back it the fuck up in case it decides to attack the car.

The Writer laughs. He pulls out his iPhone and reaches for the door handle. I want to get a picture of it.

Dude! Are you fucking nuts?

The Writer ignores him and gets out of the Town Car and steps to the front fender a few feet away from the middle of the slow-motion body of the snake. He props his elbows on the hood and holds up his iPhone and snaps off half-a-dozen pictures of the serpent as it slithers past the car and slides into the gully at the far side of the road and disappears into the high grass and palmettos.

Grinning in triumph the Writer returns to the car and gets in and clicks through his iPhone photos. Wow! Amazing! My editor’s going to love this. Perfect ending to the story, a twenty-foot Burmese python living in America’s Great Panzacola National Park. And I’ve got photographic proof.

Crossing his arms over his chest the Kid slumps down in his seat. You’re just lucky he wasn’t hungry right now. That snake is evil, man. Pure evil.

Where do you think you are, Kid, the goddam Garden of Eden? Snakes aren’t evil any more than they’re good. They’re just following their nature. Which as long as we don’t screw them up by putting them in cages and zoos is snake-nature. Good and evil, Kid, that’s strictly for us humans. It’s only human nature that’s divided into good and evil.

No way, man. Everything in the universe especially human nature is good and evil mixed. But that fucking snake is pure evil, man. Which is why God put him in the Garden of Eden. Don’t you read the Bible?

The Writer smiles, drops the car into gear and drives. A few miles farther on as they approach the Appalachee ranger station the Writer says to the Kid, I’m going to assume there’s no cell phone service out there in the swamp. For my article. But also with respect to the question of whether you called the cops and told them where to look for the Professor’s body.

Thanks. A lot.

But if you didn’t do it, who did?

Whoever put him there, I guess. Or else the Professor himself called it in.

Right. But judging from the condition of his body, the Professor must have been in the canal since he first disappeared, which was right after he dropped you off out here. Hard to phone in your location when you’ve been underwater for four days and half-devoured by crabs and eels. So it must’ve been whoever put him there.

I guess.

But why would the person or persons who chained him to his van and drove it into the canal want the body discovered?

Beats the shit outa me. Anyhow, they were bicycle locks, not chains.

And why would the police decide so quickly that it was suicide?

Like I said, beats the shit outa me. Is this what writers do all the time, sit around asking themselves questions that can’t be answered?

Yeah. And when they can’t answer them they write about them.

Why?

To give somebody else a chance to answer them.

Does it work?

Sometimes.

The Kid lightly taps the DVD in his cargo pants pocket. He brought it with him from Appalachee because he thought he might see the Professor’s widow at the canal and if so he planned to give it to her then and there without comment and just walk away whistling. But she wasn’t there. Now he’s almost glad she wasn’t because he’s thinking of telling the Writer about his interview with the Professor, get the Writer’s take on the Professor’s story and maybe even let him watch the DVD even though he promised he’d not give or show it to anyone but the Professor’s wife Gloria.

Then he changes his mind. He can’t let the Writer play the DVD on his computer. That would rip up his deal with the Professor and it would be like he stole the ten K from him instead of being paid legitimately for a job yet to be completed.

Maybe he could get away with telling him about it though. Don’t tell him everything. Long-story-short kind of thing. See if he thinks it’s one of those unanswerable questions the Writer likes so much.

WHEN THE KID AND THE WRITER ARRIVE at Turnbull’s Store Cat and especially Dolores are eager to hear all about the recovery of the disappeared professor’s body from the canal which the Writer gladly reports in detail, even including his speculation as to how the police knew to search for it at that exact spot. The Writer is the excitable talkative type and seems to want to upgrade Cat’s and Dolores’s level of excitement as if to compensate for their generally low-key personalities. The Kid tries fading from the scene inside the store and hangs back by the door at the edge of earshot with Einstein and Annie. Something about hearing the Writer’s version of events makes him uncomfortable: in his telling the story gets simplified and crude even though everything the Writer says either is factual or if the facts aren’t known is rational.

The Writer checks his watch and announces that he’s off to interview the ranger for his magazine article before the man leaves the park. As he passes the Kid at the door he asks him if he plans to spend the night in the houseboat and the Kid says why the hell not, he’s got no place else to stay and he’s already paid for it, so yeah.

Will you be taking the boat into the swamp tonight?

Not after seeing that fucking snake, man. I’m gonna keep it tied tight to the dock. I got a dog and a parrot to protect.

The Writer laughs at that. How about I drop by later for a visit? Check out what it’s like to cruise the Panzacola in a rented houseboat.

Whyn’t you just rent one and take it for a ride yourself? Maybe you’ll run into one of those giant snakes and snag some more pictures.

No time. And not necessary, Kid, since you’ve already done the boating for me. Anyhow I’ve got to get back to Calusa tonight. Early flight to New York tomorrow, he says and hurries off to interview the ranger.

The Kid shrugs and reaches down and scratches Annie’s boney forehead. The dog lies down and closes her eyes with pleasure and flops her tail twice against the tile floor. From his cage Einstein watches the Kid and Annie with what looks like empathy for both. The Kid is surprised by how relieved and glad he is to see Annie and Einstein after being away from them for only a few hours and they seem relieved and glad to see him too. He thinks all three of them must be scared of being abandoned and their shared fear is drawing them closer together. Of course they don’t know about his past habits and longings and his many failed attempts to be a normal person but then they’re animals — or rather an animal and a bird — and are therefore innocent and if the Writer is right they are beyond good and evil and cannot judge him. And will not abandon him. And he will not abandon them.