Give This Story a Title

>>> The Lady's Shave
By staff writer NG Hatfield
March 6, 2008

If you're reading this right now, congratulations. Not only are you probably one of the smartest readers of PIC and the internet at large, you're also privy to an opportunity.

Okay, enough horseshit. I'm having trouble giving this story a title. Real trouble, considering I'm trying to get it published with an indie press. So, if you would, post what you think would be the best title, along with your email address, in the comment box. Or email me, whatever. I just need ideas.

(The tentative title is below.)

P.S. “This story sucks” is not an appropriate title and will not be used.

A Snake at Bull Run

After the sparkler burnt out, when he had tossed the snake back into the river and cracked open our last beer, he said he’d probably like the Fourth of July in Hell.

But it wasn’t a holiday. It was the epitome of a season. A hideously beautiful summer. Standing in the bastard wisdom of a river, a people, a snake that swam away as fast as he could. A story he’ll never tell to his snake buddies. A story of the first evil.

Before all of this: the bridge above the Bull Run River. Old, menacing, stunning. Its girders were twisted and ugly; they hooked and bowed around themselves, stressed from the years. At its joints, welds bubbled up and looked like shiny, dented helmets. Little rusted bolts popped out everywhere; the pavement was cracked and dry even when people spilled beer all over it. A testimony to the alluring fallibility of everything American and unbeaten.

I ran my hand along the metal bar nearest my waist and a little corrosion rubbed off on it, “Jesus.”

“What?” McCoy asked.

“He laid the snake out on the sharp apex of a rock, like something about to be guillotined.”

“This thing is about to collapse.” I wiped my hands clean on a Zeppelin beach towel.

“Yeah,” he laughed.

I expected more conversation from him; he only walked off the bridge, then down a little hill to a gravel parking lot just beyond the road. He was excited about getting in the water, seeing the women and such. I didn’t blame him for that. Though, the other guys and I stayed on the bridge to enjoy the view with the locals for awhile.

“This place is fucking beautiful,” I said. A cigarette felt appropriate. I lit one and looked down.

Under the bridge, huge stones. Hundreds of square feet of a buffed rock overshadowed the water. A little beach too, where some white Rastafarian had placed a steel drum set and was playing, pretty well, for about a hundred people on a half-mile clearing of sand.

“Yeah, too bad it’s such a pain in the ass to get here,” Shaun said. He was still a little pissed because his Focus had hit a pothole and scraped its chassis on the drive to this place. To his credit, though, it was one-lane dirt road and pretty dangerous. Cars were coming, cars were going. Both paused when they met at various dangerous junctions. I had a feeling that everybody knew one false move and their car would roll down the steep, hundred-foot cliffs and kill everybody inside. For this reason, I didn’t smoke the joint they had all passed around. I didn’t want to risk getting paranoid on a trip like that.

“Could be worse,” I laughed, “at least, they share the road here.” It seemed like some of that attitude prevailed on the riverside too. Beers were tossed off the rocks to people traversing the Bull Run in canoes. Joints and blotter acid amongst the rednecks and college students. I liked that, I said, and stamped out the cigarette. It felt like heaven might.

“Hell yeah,” Shaun laughed, looked back up from the valley as a girl ripped a Velcro harness and tightened it around her waist, “What’s she doing?”

“Looks like she’s fucking…what do you call it?” Josh asked. “Bungee jumping.”

I didn’t like the idea of bungee jumping, I said. “But I wouldn’t mind just flying off this fucker.”

From behind me I heard, “Don’t you jump.”

I turned around, a few old men were leaning against the beams, drinking Budweiser. I couldn’t tell by the look of any of them who to ascribe the voice to. I only stared in their general direction, “I’ll jump if I fucking feel like it.”

Some guy wearing an AC/DC hat and a pair of bright orange swimming trunks came up to me, backhanded my chest and pointed down near the rocks, “You see that foam?”

I looked over the edge again. A thin froth of yellowish white stuck to the rims of the rocks. The water moved below it, pushing the suds into an indolent float. With that energy forcing movement, the bubbles looked like a constantly morphing being. It was slow, it was ugly, but for all I could tell it was nevertheless alive.

“That’s fucking deadly sal-mon-ella.” He took a drink, “That shit’ll kill your ass if you drink it.”

“I don’t plan on drinking that shit. I just–”

“Bullshit.” Another guy came up to our conversation. “Strep throat. Strep throat. Larry, Williams’ son drank some of it last week when he did that tire swing into it. A sore throat all’s he got. It’s strep throat.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” I asked.

“Well Jack here took some classes out at the community college.” He pointed to his friend and scoffed, “Biochemistry.”

I nodded.

“And I just been a local hob for thirty some odd years. Don’t take too goddamned much time to see what you kids have been doin’ to this place. Tossin’ beer cans all over the place and shit. No wonder it’s as shitty as it is.” He took a drink from his beer and tossed it off the bridge. I appreciated the irony. And the long silence that followed.

Below, the rapid clangs and clings of the steel drum merged with the banter of students. A dog sprinted off a rock’s cliff to grab a Frisbee that had landed in the water.

I finally asked, “You ever see anybody die jumping off this?”

“We jumped this shit when I was your age all the fuckin’ time.”

“But nobody died?”

“Nope.”

“Huh.” I looked down again. Eighty feet or so to the river. It didn’t seem like the fall would kill me. Still, I kept my knees locked and my shoulders tense to the idea of a push from behind. If I was going down, it was on my own terms. “I told my buddies on the ride here that I’d be the first to jump.”

“Stupid idea, damnit.” The old guy in the orange trunks slid a bottle of beer from a red Igloo cooler, “See that rock there?”

“Yeah.”

“See that spray paint on it?”

I could only see the remnants of a blue line or two. “Yeah…what’s it say?”

“It said, ‘My brother died here. 2007. Please don’t jump.’”

“Huh.” I tried to make out the words on the rock. I could see what looked like to be a blue letter B under a fine layer of sand.

“You’ll die. I fucking promise.”

Even though he might have been right about the rock, my death, the deadly poison floating on the river, I felt brazen. And I had made claims on the ride down. So, I bet him that I wouldn’t die. Three beers. All I had left wrapped up in my towel.

“You’re on.” He shook my hand and tipped the hat back to scratch his head. “I just hate to get drunk for your funeral.”

I said fuck it, threw my legs over the corroded iron bars and asked Shaun to bring my towel down the mountain with him.

My hands stuck tight to the lowest bar on the bridge. As I dangled there, I could see the entire valley. The lush, green trees, the river flowing and snaking down for miles. An uninhibited view that would have been pretty enjoyable had I not realized (at the same exact moment I figured out I could see the entire valley) that I was not quite capable of pulling myself back up to the bridge.

“Jump fucker! Jump!” McCoy yelled from below. He was standing on the rock with the blue B on it. “Do it and I’ll give you a fucking beer!” I knew it was his friendly way of saving me from the embarrassment of climbing back to the bridge. After all, the entire riverside was watching.

You can’t think about it, I thought. And I let my fingers slide off the bar.

I held myself under to fuck with my friends. Under the water, that is, with the stinging pain on my ass from the awkward angle in which I had landed. I smiled, though. I knew they’d jump too, if they thought I was hurt.

I didn’t take into account until much later, the danger of my friends jumping from the bridge into the water so close to me, but I just felt like I’d revel in my courage a little and wait it out.

And it wasn’t long until they jumped. Josh, Shaun, Alvie. They all came down from the bridge as McCoy dove in from the rock. They swam to my aid and pulled me up to the surface.

I was laughing. Almost crying with amusement. The muddy water went up my nose, in my mouth a little.

They didn’t take long to figure it out.

“You fucking bastard,” Josh said.

“Goddamnit,” Shaun said.

McCoy didn’t say anything, he just shook his head and smiled.

Three Budweisers fell from the sky and landed with smacks, splashes a few feet from Alvie’s face. “What the fuck?” he said. Once he realized what they were, “Looks like these are ours now.”

“You can have ‘em.” I swam back, laughing all the way to the shore.

It was probably an hour later when I heard McCoy shout “Fuck!” He was still swimming in the Bull Run River and appeared to be petrified of something.

“No see,” I said, “that doesn’t work after I fucking fooled you.”

“No! Snake!” He quickly paddled backwards, staring on one spot in the river.

Alvie was maybe ten feet from McCoy. He swam over, calmly said, “Yep, that‘s a fucking snake.”

I ran up to the edge of our rock and squinted. It looked dead, a thin strip of rubber, floating near the froth that the old men above had warned me about.

Alvie now had his hands up and was standing on a steep rock that declined into the river. “I’m going to catch that shit,” he said.

Josh said, “You’re a crazy fuck.”

“What?” Shaun was with me and Josh on the rock, but had just had noticed our interest, “What?” He was trying to light a fire that was too close to a stereo Alvie had brought. Black Sabbath was blaring out the conversation for him. “What the fuck is going on?”

“A snake!” I shouted. A few swimmers within earshot heard me and started swimming ashore with a significant amount of panic.

“What?”

I walked over and turned down “War Pigs.” I said, “A snake. You know. A snake.”

“Oh.”

“Goddamnit.” McCoy was on the beach beside our rock now. “It looked like a fucking eel or something maybe.”

“So…it’s an eel?” Shaun asked.

“Goddamnit,” I said. “I don’t know, then.”

“Nope,” Alvie was now completely ashore, holding the prize by its neck, “it’s a fucking snake.”

Ten minutes later, most of the swimmers had returned to the water. Somebody yelled up, “Thanks man! That’s hardcore!”

“Damn straight.” Alvie flashed a smile down to them and went about fucking with the snake. “Killing you is easy! You, motherfucker. You. You. You.” He was now up on our rock holding it at arm’s length.

He reiterated for us, “Killing is easy. Especially a fucking snake.” He shook it, violently with each word. And “snake,” particularly, as though the thing had always been his enemy.

“Irish blood.” Josh, apparently catching the idea too, shrugged as he laughed. “He’s fucking St. Patrick.”

“That so?” I asked.

Alvie turned his head to me and then back to the snake. A moment of anger, I thought. Or maybe simply, vindication.

“Why don’t you watch that thing a little better?”

“Should I?” He looked at me again.

“Yes. I think you fucking should.”

He turned again to the snake, studied it and asked with great emphasis, “Why?”

“Because we’re fucking miles away from civilization and if you somehow get bitten I’m can’t do shit for you.”

“I don’t think I need to.” He smiled again. “Just take a look at it, man. Take a good, good look at it.” He laid the snake out on the sharp apex of a rock, like something about to be guillotined, and crouched down by it. Both hands held its neck.

“I can see it. I’m not the type to hang around a fucking wild snake and not keep my full attention on it.”

“Can you see it, man? Can you really?” He polished a thumb along the head’s rust-colored scales, pushing in enough that it looked soft, like padding. Aside from the threats of killing, it would have been impossible to tell from afar if he was taunting it or simply giving it a thorough massage.

“Yeah.”

“Then tell me what you see.” He removed a hand to point at me, “You’re a writer, fucker. Just tell me what you see.”

I told him that it looked at least three feet long. And quick. I said I’d call it a reddish brown color and probably, from the nasty way it slashed around, pissed off and ready to puncture the fuck out of any of us.

“That all?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not very good. For a writer.”

“Fuck you.”

I drew back a little to the muddy face of the mountain and opened my beer. It seemed okay to do so now I was at a safe distance. Plus, Alvie had the snake pinned with its mouth open towards the river and if it was able to escape his grasp, it’d probably just slither off the rock back into the river.

A little later, maybe twenty feet away, I spotted a small hole in the rock where water had pooled. I needed an excuse to escape the snake so I walked over to it. Inside, I saw that it was filled with hundreds of little yellow butterflies, trembling around the water, perhaps drinking it.

I spat into their crowd and saw them scatter; they poured out of the pit like bats from a cave.

“Christ.” A few hit my shoulders and others brushed my face. Little taps of feathery wings. “Bullshit.” I turned, waved my arms around my head and walked back another few feet, up a rock and jumped onto another. I pulled myself to another rock, then another. Once I saw that I could no longer continue climbing, I turned to check out what my buddies were doing.

I noticed, from my new position, that I could see everything in the valley again. A small group of girls had encircled Alvie, they were lighting cigarettes, picking their bathing suits from their nice little asses and drawing in the danger like sex; my other friends drank beers, laughed and argued over something of no apparent importance; the muddy water of the Bull Run River flowed down the valley to a mountain and bent out of sight; a Billy goat perched on a rock similar to the one our beer was settled on and looked up to me; the swarm of butterflies twittered across the river; a young girl failed terribly on a rope swing as they flew around and under her; the snake was glued to the rock. I heard its hissing, said to myself, “There is no ruin here.”

The girls had left and I had climbed back down. I kind of wanted to talk to them, but Alvie had pinned the snake to the rock as he talked for awhile and eventually asked for their numbers. They declined and swam down the river to some kid who was shooting off bottle rockets.

“That’s a copperhead.” Shaun was examining the snake over Alvie’s shoulder. His hands were on his knees and his legs kept shifting his weight.

“Yep,” McCoy agreed.

“Those are poisonous, right?”

“Yep.”

“Yeah Alvarez, hold on to that shit.” Shaun shuffled a few steps back, not moving his hands or changing the position of his back. I think we had always known that it was a poisonous snake.

“Seriously,” McCoy asked Alvie, “you can kill that thing with your bare hands?”

“Who said anything about bare hands, motherfucker?” He was calm, drunk as he fished a large wet knife from a mesh pocket and snapped it open, “but I think we oughta fuck with it a little first.”

“Fuck with it how?” Shaun asked.

“Don’t know,” he thought for a second, “You got any firecrackers?”

McCoy walked over to the stereo and shuffled the contents of a large, brown bag that held the fireworks. “Looks like we used ‘em all.”

Alvie planted the knife upward in a small mound of sand and opened the snake’s mouth by pressing hard on the back of the head. The snake jerked; it had been in captivity for a little over thirty minutes, but it was probably too tired to buck like it had.

“Whoa. Take a look at this shit,” Alvie said. He picked up the snake, turned it around on the rock and pushed on its mouth again. It was a hellish thing, the mouth. White, sharp, sticky fangs. Across them, some sort of slime sparkled in the sun. A thin filament of gold that reminded me, for some reason, of a chain my father wore.

Shaun, who always had a knack for summary, said, “Damn dude.”

Josh said, “I think it’s time to let it–”

A Frisbee landed on our rock and bowled to a stop, startling the few people closest to the snake. Some mutt, probably a collie, ran over, scooped it up with its mouth and watched us.

I yelled at it, “What the fuck, dog?”

It sprinted off as its owner whistled.

“How about these?” McCoy slid a narrow box from the brown bag. He strutted up to Alvie and handed it to him.

“Sparklers?”

“Why not?”

Alvie looked disappointed then hopeful, “What the hell.”

McCoy slid a dull gray stick from its plastic wrapping and handed it to Alvie. The snake must have felt the loosening of his grip, or maybe the tension building in the air. It gave out another hiss and began whipping around again.

Alvie held on and pushed down. The snake stopped moving as he angled the sharp, narrow end of the sparkler to the mouth and slid it in with considerable ease.

“We’re going to Hell for this,”Shaun said. A crowd had gathered and a few laughed outright, a few nervously. Somehow, I believe Shaun had described the sentiments of the latter.

Alvie held McCoy’s Zippo to the end of the sparkler, “Fuck Hell. I‘m already going there.” A mild detonation sent out the bright white flickers and the snake coiled up its loose end, belted out with a newfound vigor.

Alvie picked it up from the rock with the sparkler still down its throat and waved the pale ember off in circles. He shouted, “God bless America!” and, “Uncle Sam, don’t tread on me!”

“Iron Man” came on the stereo and he ran over, turned up the volume and zipped the snake up and down, playing an air guitar with a long, leathery, ignited pick.

It was a strange dynamic between the people who saw Alvie and the snake. I like to think we all knew it was immoral. But maybe not.

The guys in the water rose their wet hands up and pumped fists, clapped forcefully to the beat. The girls around the river cheered, jumped, swayed, strolled, hopped, cha-chaed, tush pushed and tripped the light fantastic.

It was the new, American snake dance: a sexy, tribal boogie.