Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

“Hey there,” Silas said at the bottom of the porch steps. He had to speak loudly to be heard. “How you doing?”

Not looking him in the eye. “I help you?”

“This your residence?”

Looking out toward the road, at the dog. “Yeah.”

“That your animal?”

Stringfellow closed the door and stood on the porch. “Yeah. Shut up!” he yelled. “You need something?”

“Just want to talk to you, you got a minute.”

“I ain’t rode on the highway no more. Just off-road, like you said.”

“Glad to hear it.” The dog was loud. He put a hand to his ear. “Can we talk? Inside?”

The young man looked behind him, the door. He pulled on the knob. “Ain’t got time right now. I’m in the middle of something.”

Silas came up the steps and Stringfellow backed away. He dropped his cigarette over the rail. He was barefooted. He looked at the cup in his hand and set it on the rail behind him, among the beer cans. “What you want to go inside for?”

“So I can hear.”

“What for?”

“I just want to ask you a few questions.”

“Bout what?”

“That dog.”

Stringfellow looked toward the road, behind him. He shrugged and got his coffee mug and opened the door. Silas followed him in, taking a deep, silent breath, not smelling the marijuana or meth he’d hoped to, just beer and cigarettes and filth. He spotted an ashtray on the coffee table but saw no roach or paraphernalia. The room was small and shadowed, its Venetian blinds drawn, fast-food wrappers on the table. A row of aquariums along the counter, each screened at the top and containing a snake or two or three, it was hard to tell, their bodies looped and strung over limbs and coiled in the dark corners, all perfectly still, like rubber snakes.

“You a reptile collector?” Silas asked, remembering Larry saying herpetologist, keeping an eye on Stringfellow where he’d retreated in the corner, rubbing his coffee mug like he was rosining a baseball. When he noticed he was doing it he set it on the windowsill and pushed his hands in his pockets.

“It’s a hobby,” he said, pulling out a package of Camels and a lighter.

“Mind if I look?” Silas asked him. “Snakes and me, we don’t always get along. This here’s how I like em. Behind glass.”

Stringfellow was having trouble getting his lighter to work. “Go on.”

Silas went around the counter into the kitchen, scanning the room, the aquariums between the two of them, and bent, his face inches from a fat cottonmouth, lying like a big burnt arm. He could see its frozen frown, the pits under its slit eyes, flicking tongue the only sign it was alive. Through the smeared glass, Stringfellow got his cigarette lit.

“What was it you wanted?” he asked. “I’m kinda busy.”

Silas moved to the next aquarium, this snake smaller, brightly banded in red, yellow, and black.

“This a coral snake?” he asked, remembering the rhyme Larry had taught him: red on black, a friend of Jack, red on yellow, kill a fellow.

“Naw,” Stringfellow said. “King snake.”

“Is it true they’ll eat a rattlesnake? Swallow it whole?”

“What I always heard. Ain’t never tried it, though.”

Silas stood straight, his eyes better adjusted to the dark room, and saw a monster mask on a shelf by another aquarium, on a bookcase over against the wall. It was familiar, a zombie.

“That mask,” he said.

Stringfellow followed his eyes.

“Where’d you get it?”

Fidgeting. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t know.”

“Someplace.”

Outside, the dog continued to bark.

“Wait a second,” Stringfellow said. “Just hang on.” He was sweating now, sucking on his Camel. He crossed to the door.

“Hey.” Silas hurried around the counter, following him outside, on the porch, down the steps, expecting to see Stringfellow fleeing. Instead, he was over by the dog, yelling for him to shut the fuck up.

Silas came down the steps, gripping his pistol in its holster. “Hey,” he called again.

“Hang on!” Stringfellow’s hands trembled as he got the pit bull by its collar, the animal growling now and snapping, focused on Silas. “I’m just gone try and get him calm!”

The dog bit backward and nipped Stringfellow’s wrist. He let go but had its collar with the other hand and with the bleeding one he hit the back of its head. “You sumbitch.”

“Back up,” Silas was saying, coming around the porch, reaching for his radio and not finding it. He reached in his pocket for his cell phone. “Hey,” he called again.

When Stringfellow unclipped the dog, it was like he’d set off a cannon. It hit the ground once then came at Silas in the air before he could draw his weapon, was on him tearing his arms and hands, growling like a motor gone haywire in its ribs. They fell hard, him pushing at the hot slick jaw and trying to keep his face away and get his hand around its throat. He closed his eyes and turned his head and batted at the face and then it got his arm, he felt the deep teeth. Somebody, he, was yelling, wrestling the dog in the mud, his elbow in its muzzle, a bone snapping. With his other hand he clutched the loose fur of it throat and closed his fist, felt the cable of its windpipe in his grip and latched on.

Then he heard a shot, very close, and rolled. Another shot, loud and ringing. The dog yelped, blood on its fur. It was hit. Or he was. Dog trying to get away now, but now it was Silas wouldn’t let go. Using it for a shield. Stringfellow yelling, “Get him!” They’d rolled under the porch. Silas heard another shot and saw the man’s running legs, bare feet. Felt cold mud in his arm. The dog was trembling and he lay behind it, fumbling for his gun. Shit smell everywhere. Another shot, mud splashing in his eyes. He clung to the pit bull, the dog shaking and biting weakly at him. Silas had his pistol now, awkward in his right hand. He put the barrel to the back of its head and fired. It shivered once and lay still. Stringfellow’s footsteps over the porch, loud ringing shots as he fired into the wood yelling, “Killed my dog!”

Silas was scrabbling under the house, his left arm numb and useless, he could feel his heart pushing out blood. Overhead, the front door slammed and Stringfellow thundered over the floor still yelling about his dog. Silas crawled past pipes in the muck and more beer cans and toward the light at the other end, stink of sewage, came out the same time Stringfellow leaped from the back door holding a long revolver. He didn’t see Silas behind him on the ground aiming his shivering pistol with his right arm. He fired and missed and fired again. The young man screamed and fell but got up holding his thigh and limping away, shooting blindly, a window shattering, echo of aluminum siding. Then he made the pine trees at the edge of the yard, through the bobwire, and was gone.

Silas lay breathing hard, fighting to stay awake. His mouth so dry. He looked at his arm and saw how bad he was bleeding. Saw a jag of bone, mud and straw in the wound. He set his pistol down and tried to tear off his shirt for a bandage but his strength was gone. He looked behind him under the house, past the mound of dead dog, saw his Taser flattened in the muck, saw his Jeep’s tires. He pulled himself up and stood against the siding.

He remembered his cell phone but couldn’t find it.

The door was open, hip level, no steps. He lay backward in it and pulled his legs inside. Holding his hurt arm, which looked like hamburger meat, he got to his knees, rising in air that smelled of cordite, using the wall to prop himself up, the room blurred. No telephone, just a cordless base on the end table. He clutched his arm, warm blood running through his fingers. He lurched across the floor and fell over a table, upsetting an aquarium, glass breaking, a rattlesnake’s dry buzz filling the room. He rolled onto his back and saw the snake slide over the carpet. Saw the monster mask looking down from its shelf. He wanted to get up but couldn’t let his hurt arm go. He was freezing. The snake crawling by his head.