Family Thang

“I called the police,” Ebb said.

“Police!” Eric shouted. “Ruth Ann, tell these cowpokes what’s really going on. We do this all the time, don’t we? Tell em! Tell em, Ruth Ann, before the police come.”

Ruth Ann walked away. “Yes, we do this all the time. I love being dragged to a motel room by a naked man. It’s exciting. See you on the news, Eric. Ta-ta.”

“No, Ruth Ann. Tell em the truth. Ruth Ann!” She’d turned the corner, flipping Eric a finger before disappearing.

Eric smiled nervously. “You guys mind I go to my room, put my clothes on? I’ll come back. Give me a few minutes, I’ll be right back.”

“Mosey along, young fellow.” He lowered the shotgun. “The lady’s gone. But let me share this with you, partner. I don’t saddle up with a man who forces himself on a woman. That kind of thing chafes my hide.”

Eric shook his head. “Sir, believe me, even at gunpoint, I wouldn’t chafe your hide.”

The man spat a wad of tobacco a few inches short of Eric’s feet. “Next time I see you forcing a woman, any woman, to do anything, it won’t go so easy. You see what horse I’m riding, boy?”

Back to boy again. Eric nodded and backed up toward his room, not giving a damn if Silver was hitched around the corner.

Inside the room he closed the door, locked it and threw on his clothes. A siren warbled in the distance. Shit! He ran to the bathroom, pried open the small window and shimmied out. Thank goodness he’d registered under an alias.

He hurried to his truck and hopped in. It whined but didn’t start. The siren sounded closer. “Damn!” No other choice, he got out and ran through the woods.

Chapter 5

Albert, an albino boa constrictor, slid across the lawn. Its owner shouted, “Albert, you get back here! You know those people don’t like you.”

Albert kept going, not realizing he was slithering perilously close to the yard next door where his owner’s neighbor had posted a sign on his unfenced property that read All Snakes Will Be Shot.

“Albert, you hear me! I said get over here!” Robert Earl crossed his arms and stomped his feet. “Stupid snake,” and walked over and picked up Albert.

Disoriented midair, Albert wriggled fitfully.

“Bad snake! Bad snake!” Robert Earl tapped the six-foot, orange-and-white snake on its bulbous head. “When I tell you come here, I mean come here!” He tapped it again, to ensure it got the message.

Albert almost wriggled free… Robert Earl grabbed its midsection and held it up eye to eye. “Do you hear me?” Onyx eyes stared defiantly at him, so Robert Earl shook it. “You hear me?”

Albert flitted its black forked tongue.

“Okay, then. Stop acting like you don’t know come here from sic em.”

“Robert,” Estafay called from inside the back porch.

“Yeah.” He couldn’t see her through the wire mesh screen. “Yeah, honey.”

Estafay stuck her head out the door, her eyes never leaving Albert. “Telephone.”

“Who is it?”

“Someone from the mill.”

“Dang! What they want? Okay.”

When Robert Earl, holding Albert, crossed to the house, Estafay quickly retreated. He dropped Albert into the snake house, three plywood boards abutted to the skirting panel. Two days ago Albert had companions, two rattlesnakes, Killer and Diller, who escaped after a storm blew the boards down.

Robert Earl went inside and picked up the phone in the kitchen. “Hello.”

“Robert?”

“This him.”

“Robert, Dale Brown. Over at the paper mill. We were wondering when you were planning to come back to work.”

“Y’all was?” Robert Earl replied, sitting at the kitchen table, stretching the phone cord to its limit.

“Yes, we sure were. When are you coming back?”

“You know I just buried my daddy yesterday. The mound on his grave hasn’t leveled. If there is a mound. Sometimes they don’t cover the hole till days later, you know. Why it’s a good idea to check on em.”

“I didn’t know that, Robert. If you could give us a rough date to when you’re coming back. We need to mark something on the calendar.”

“Uh… I really don’t know when I’m coming back. When a man’s daddy is murdered it takes time adjusting, even though I couldn’t stand the sorry rascal. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here.”

“I understand. I just need a—”

“Do you really? Or are you just talking? Your daddy probably still alive while mine is six feet under. Worm food. Smelling like—”

“Robert, I hate to cut you off. I just need a date. Take all the time you need, just give me a date when you think you’ll be able to return to work.”

Drumming his fingers against the table: “I’m not coming back.”

“Are you quitting?”

“Yeah,” and hung up the phone.

Forget him! Go back, go back for what? So Dale and his buddies could continue laughing behind his back, calling him the snake man and handing him the majority of the work load. Forget him, forget em all! He noticed his fingers were shaking.

Might’ve been a bad idea, he thought, remembering the long line he’d seen at the unemployment office. He started to call Dale back.

“No!”

He had money coming, and once he got his hands on it he would go down to the mill and tell Dale and his buddies to kiss his rusty, black butt. And once he got his money he could finally catch up on all his bills, start his own business.

Estafay entered the kitchen wearing a red terrycloth bathrobe. “Bad news?” she asked, taking a pot from the cabinet.

“Dale wanted to know when I was coming back to work.”

Estafay filled the pot with water from the tap and set it on the stove. “What you tell him?”

“Told him I’d come back when I feel like it, not a second earlier. Told him not to call me no more. Dale ain’t nothing but a devil. Smile in my face then talk about me behind my back.”

“Rent due next week,” Estafay reminded him. “And a payment due on those teeth in your mouth.”

Robert Earl took out his dentures and set them on the table. “When we get that money I’m buying me some real teeth, the kind don’t hurt my mouth. Won’t have to work at no smelly mill, either.”

Estafay scooted around Robert Earl and opened the refrigerator. “Not on the kitchen table, Robert. How many times must I tell you? That’s nasty!”

He put the dentures in the front pocket of his gray flannel shirt.

“Robert, that’s not where your teeth go. And the next time I find them inside the refrigerator, they’re going in the trash.”

“Freezing em makes em softer on my gums.”

“Put them in ice water, not my refrigerator.”

Robert Earl hung his head, his chin resting on his chest. My refrigerator? He was the one who bought it. Shoot, he’d bought everything in their one-bedroom house. Estafay sat at the table opposite him.

“Robert, do you really think a snake hole can make money here, in a small town in the sticks?”

Robert Earl jerked his head up. “Not a snake hole, Estafay. A combination gas station and exotic snake farm.