Harry Crews - A Feast of Snakes

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.

His daddy glanced at him briefly. “How you feeling?”

“I’m all right.”

“You feeling all right?”

“I told you.”

“I thought you’d gone crazy shore.” He spit a long stream of tobacco juice and passed Joe Lon the bottle he was sipping from. “What the hell ails you, anyway?”

Joe Lon sat, refusing to answer.

“It’s just Buddy’s dick cut off got you upset. Enough to upset anybody. Hope they catch the sumbitch done it. But they won’t. Never do. Anybody worth a shit gits killed, they never find out who done it.” He leaned forward and looked around his son. “Evening, Elf. Things been lively, ain’t they?” Without waiting for an answer, he looked back to his son. “You got anything on the fight?”

“I got a dollar or two down.”

“I hope you didn’t give no odds. Tuffy’s got all he can handle with this sumbitch.”

“I don’t give odds on nothing,” said Joe Lon.