Harry Crews - A Feast of Snakes

“No, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

“Damn right,” said Coach Tump. “Well, he’s one of mine too. All I got’s my boys. I don’t like to brag. I don’t brag.” His face got redder as he talked. “Ever goddam one of’m eat bullets. One of my boys is George ‘Big Freight’ Lester!”

“Who?” said Duffy Deeter.

Coach Tump lifted one of his heavy legs and hustled his balls. “You don’t know who Big Freight Lester is?”

“Don’t believe I do,” said Duffy. He did, of course, know who he was but he didn’t want to sound as though he followed football. Besides, he was jetting a tight feeling, claustrophobic, standing walled in on three sides by Willard and Joe Lon and their coach, and it was making him nervous. He always got mean when he got nervous.

“Big Freight ain’t been nothing but all-pro ever year since he left Alabama is all he’s been. He was one of mine too. Mean as a snake.” He leaned down in Duffy’s face, who didn’t give an inch but pushed back and up with his own hard little face until their noses were practically touching. “Where’d you say you was from?”

“Florida,” said Duffy.

“Went to Florida once,” said Coach Tump. “Coaching clinic. Never went back, never expect to. Cain’t trust any country where ever tree’s got a light in it and a stick propping it up.”

Willard put his hand on Duffy’s shoulder. “He’s all right, Coach. This’n right here is all right.”

Coach Tump Walker hacked up a lunger, spit, and hustled his balls again. “He all right?”

“He is all right, Coach,” said Willard.

He looked at Willard. “Boy, I want you to stay out of the bottle tonight.” Then to the ladies: “You don’t mind if a old man has a drink, do you? Chill’s coming up now that good dark’s here.” He didn’t wait for an answer, but reached a bottle from his baggy hip pocket and raised it. In the flashing light from the beauty contest stand where the musicians were sweating and screaming his thick throat pulsed in four quick, heavy spasms. He held the bottle out and looked at it. “It’s one last drink in here, if anybody’s …”

“Go on, Coach,” said Joe Lon, “I got another one ain’t been cracked in the pickup.”

“It do help on a chilly night,” said Coach Tump, finishing it.

Luther Peacock, Buddy Matlow’s deputy, burst suddenly through the people packed together near the right side of the stage and came toward them. Even though the temperature had dropped ten degrees in the last few hours, Luther was sweating. His khaki shirt was sticking to the center of his chest.

“You got to do something,” he said to nobody in particular, although he was looking at Susan Gender.

“What?” said Joe Lon.

“Where’s the Sheriff?” Luther said. “Nobody seen Buddy?”

Willard belched and said, “I ain’t been looking for him.”

“Well, I have. I looked everwhere and he ain’t nowhere.” Luther stopped and looked into the crowd surrounding them on all sides as though he might see Buddy Matlow. “Sumpin’s wrong,” he said. “Sumpin bad’s wrong.”

“Buddy’ll turn up,” said Coach Tump.

“It’s gone be trouble,” said Luther Peacock. “I cain’t handle it by myself.”

“Handle what?” said Hard Candy.

“You ain’t heard they turned two over?” said Luther.

“Turned two what over?” said Willard.

“Campers. It’s just too many of’m here and it ain’t enough water and it ain’t enough room. They more fights this year than I ever seen before and now on top of it, Buddy Matlow’s disappeared.”

“Buddy ain’t disappeared,” said Joe Lon. “Most likely layin off in the bushes with somebody he’s trapped.”

Coach Tump said: “Don’t talk like that about a teammate.”

Just then there was a scream, a loud squealing scream over by the papier mache snake that cut right through the music. They could see a tight little knot of people flying about over there, almost as if dancing, so rhythmic did the knot move. But they all knew they weren’t dancing.

“Better go see what that is, Luther.”

For the first time Luther seemed to calm down. Joe Lon was one of the organizers of the Rattlesnake Roundup and Coach Tump was Honorary Chairman. If they were going to take all of it so lightly, Luther decided he would too. “I know what it is over there,” he said, sucking his teeth reflectively, “and I ain’t going near it.”

Joe Lon took Elfie’s arm and guided her a step or two away. He put the keys of the pickup in her hand. “Take these keys and git back to the trailer.” She started to speak, but he shook his head. “I don’t like all this. I never seen’m so rank.”

Just as Elfie was leaving a tall, very thin man squeezed out of the crowd near the tree. He nearly cried he was so happy to see Coach Tump. He actually threw his skinny arms around Coach Tump’s enormous shoulders and pressed himself against the straining mobile belly swinging under the coach’s shirt. “Jesus, Jesus,” he was saying.

Coach Tump turned his head off to the side and looked at Joe Lon. “This one’s the one,” said Coach Tump. “Tainted.” Then he mouthed the word again: tainted.

The thin man seemed to see Luther Peacock for the first time. He turned loose Coach Tump, who had conspicuously kept his hands off him, enduring his embrace, and rushed over to Luther. He had to bend down to put his face in Luther’s. “Sheriff, am I glad to see … am I…”

“Not the Sheriff,” said Luther. “Deputy.”

“They going nuts over by my camper. They …”

“Going nuts everwhere,” said Luther, turning his hands up to examine his palms. Then he looked out over the crowd surging toward the stage where the band was beginning to falter. “I ain’t responsible.”

“They break open my camper, it’s enough snakes in there to kill half of Georgia.”

“I seen’m,” said Coach Tump. “Sumbitch’s got five hundred penned …”

“Cobras,” the man said, “Russell’s Viper, Mambas, Spotted rattlers, Mohave rattles, red diamonds, westerns …”

“Name Tommy Hugh,” said Coach Tump. “He brought five hundred snakes to the Roundup.”

“Tommy Hugh,” said Tommy Hugh, shouting to make himself heard above the crowd. “I got pygmys and corals, an anaconda even. You got to do something.”

“I believe, Gender,” said Duffy Deeter, “Mystic, Georgia, has done tore its ass this time.”

Willard Miller, his voice flat, laconic said: “It’s blood in the air. I can smell it. I can smell the goddam blood in the air.”

The band had quit now and the principal of the school was up on the stage trying to start the beauty contest. He was shouting into the microphone but every time he shouted the crowd roared back at him. He finally stopped, staring red-faced down into the surging men and women as he might have stared down at a crowd of unruly children in his auditorium. Except that his face was very red and he’d gone past just being scared. What showed in his eyes and on his trembling mouth looked like terror.

“What the hell we gone do?” said Joe Lon.

“We best go up there and git this straightened out,” said Coach Tump, pulling his pants high onto his belly and then turning them loose and letting them slip again to the place where they rode low on his hips. Without waiting for an answer he charged toward the stage, his tackle-busting belly leading the way, knocking men, women, and children off their feet. When they got to the stage, he and Willard Miller and Duffy Deeter turned to face the crowd, while Joe Lon vaulted lightly up beside the principal and took the microphone. The principal smiled but he looked on the verge of tears. He shouted, “Joe Lon, you … you …”