Stone Junction

Ahhhhh. Better. You all settled? Okay. The story is ‘The Snake.’ And before we begin, let me make it clear that the snake in this story is not symbolic. It’s not a phallus. It’s not the Tempting Serpent, the Wingless Dragon of Unspeakable Evil, the Devil’s Lariat, or an emblematic metaphor of any form but its own. The snake in this story is a garter snake, a small, brightly striped, harmless, viviparous member of the genus Thamnophis. A critter of reptilian cast. A discrete expression of being. A life. THE SNAKE

I was visiting friends on the northern California coast, two women I’d known since high school, Nell and Ivy. It was about this time of year.

Since I can’t stand cultivating anything except bad habits, I’d been assigned to peeling potatoes while Nell and Ivy worked in the garden. I was rinsing the spuds at the kitchen sink when Nell and Ivy came banging through the screen door, clearly upset, each holding half of a snake writhing in her hand. One of them had accidentally chopped the snake with her hoe.

They laid the snake’s thrashing parts on the table. Ivy looked at Nell. ‘What do you think?’ Her voice had that tightness you hear at the edge of a bad car wreck.

Nell said, ‘I don’t think we can stitch its insides together.’

Silently fretting, they watched the parts twitch on the table, barely glancing at me as I came over for a look. It didn’t look good.

‘How about tape?’ Ivy suggested.

‘Sure,’ Nell said, ‘we can try. Maybe it’ll regenerate.’

I told them, ‘Snakes don’t regenerate.’ I’m a realist. Nell and Ivy are usually realists too.

‘Maybe this one will,’ Nell said, at once angry, defiant, hopeful, sad.

They used shiny black electricians’ tape. I helped, holding the upper half still while Ivy carefully wrapped.

We stretched the snake out in a shaded redwood planter to recuperate. I promised to check on it occasionally so they wouldn’t have to hike up from the garden.

When I went out a half hour later, the snake was dead.

True story, folks. I dedicate it to all of you realists as a reminder that some gestures transcend failure. I buried the snake in the planter box, fuel for the flowers. Because if you draw your breath down to its tattered center, dance with your ghost through the moonlit mountain pass, hurl your heart in the forge and your soul in the river, you can feel that the stone is a living fountain that dissolves and coagulates, sunders and joins; and then you can imagine that snake slithering through the high spring grass like a phantom glimpse of flame, and you can follow it if you’re brave enough, crazy enough, foolish, desperate, daring, hungry, dumb. Enter your wounds. Heal. Escape.

And when you get loose, come join me. I’ll meet you at Jim Bridger’s grave as soon as you can get there. We’ll make music we can’t hear alone, celebrate beauty yet to be born, take the Devil by the fucking horns and wrestle him to the ground. We’ll shoot for the stars, sweetheart. We’ll waltz in the moonlit cemetery like fallen gods, stand revealed, naked as air, and kiss each other’s scars.

Till then, my invisible friend, this is the Dream Joker bidding you his tenderest toodeloo. Dream on. THE THERAPEUTIC JOURNALS OF JENNIFER RAINE APRIL 3

Whhhhooooooooowweeeeeeeeee! And who, my goodness, is he? I’m in love! I can’t help it and don’t want to. The DJ done got to me.

I couldn’t sleep and was just lying there listening to Mia breathe, feeling our breath trapped in this room, how we just keep breathing ourselves, getting so down I had to get up. So I snapped on the radio and twirled the dial, looking for music or just another voice to get mine out of my head – and there he was, loud and clear. The boy can talk that talk, and it was like he was saying it straight to me. Magnificent gestures, the flame of snake flesh burning in petals, the stone river that sunders and joins… it was love at first flight.

Short flight, though – five minutes and he was gone. I listened to the spit-sizzle static on the blank channel for another hour before I let him go. I can’t feel whether I should follow or wait. He’s a bad-boy, which I like, and he does talk good. But sometimes wildness is only the fear of being held, and talking the talk isn’t walking the walk. I don’t feel he knows how lightning burns. I’m not sure he knows shit about birth, beauty, nakedness, or moonlight. But I love him anyway. I want to dream a real face for him. I want to feel him touch my scar. THE THERAPEUTIC JOURNALS OF JENNIFER RAINE TOO LATE THE SAME NIGHT

I never had a chance to dream. I woke as Clyde was crossing the room and before I could move he was on the bed, pinning me, trying to kiss me, he just wanted to kiss me, but I didn’t know that, how could I – rape, murder – how could I know? Jesus, I’m still shaking.

Clyde Hibbard, the retarded man I met my second day here. They’d loaded me with Thorazine when I’d been admitted, and Mia had wandered off. I was looking for her in the lounge. Clyde was the only one there, sitting on a beige vinyl couch, picking at the armrest as he stared at the IBM clock on the wall. He looked scared when he saw me; caught. I apologized, said I hadn’t meant to disturb him.

‘No-no, no-no, no-no,’ he stammered, ‘you didn’t, you’re not.’

I smiled to put him at ease because I hate to see people shrink up like that. Tried a little humor: ‘Guess I shouldn’t have said disturb, huh? Gotta be disturbed already to be here, right?’

It confused him. He tensed, like he was about to bolt, his jaw working for traction on something to say.

I barged right ahead. ‘I’m looking for my daughter, Mia. She’s eleven. Blond, blue eyes, wearing jeans, sneakers, navy sweatshirt with a hood. She’s imaginary, my daughter – wouldn’t think you could lose her, but they drenched me with so much