Polaroid Paragraphs #17 - Snake Charms

My brother Kyle and I had been throwing the football around in the front yard and were resting when he brought up our neighbor again.  The McKellan’s stupid terrier had come yapping at us while we were throwing, so we were playing keep away from it.  It would race back and forth, but still wouldn’t shut up until we put the football on the ground.  Then it lost interest and ran off.  

“They should keep that mutt inside before someone gets tired of it and barbeques it, right, Timmy?”

“Don’t call me Timmy!

“Alright, Timmy Tim McTimmerson, I won’t call you Timmy anymore.  So anyway, Timford, about Ms. Naylor …”

“You’re so full of it, Kyle.”

“Full of what, Timbert?”

“You know … bs.”

“You mean bullshit? Come on, little Timosaurus, mommy’s not here. You can say big boy words without worrying about getting spankies.”

“I’m not … shut up, butthole.”

“There ya go. Now would I steer you wrong?”

“Always.”

“Hey, that time in kindergarten doesn’t count. Or all the other times. Besides, you’re a fourth grader now. You’re almost-almost a man. At very least, you’re almost a real boy."

“I don’t care – she’s not part snake. That’s just stupid!”

“I have proof.”

“You can’t have proof because it’s not true.”

“I have pictures of piles of old snake skin she pulled off – just sitting in her garage. One piece is shaped like a foot and even has a piece of toenail attached.  You remember that first time she had me mow her lawn ‘cause her mower was broken?”

I did remember that.  Not that it helped his case any.  Miss Naylor was about the first customer he had when he started earning summer money by mowing lawns in April.  Pretty good for an eighth grader, but he was tall and friendly and talkative and that got people trusting him easily.  Plus, people knew her and liked her perfect yard, so if he was alright with her, they figured he was alright.

“You still don't believe me?  Here, I’ll show you the pictures.”

“That’s stupid.”

He swiped his cell phone and opened up straight to the pictures.  Dark garage, dark garage with a wall of lawn equipment, dark garage with trash bins and a really bright window, dark garage with really bright window and rolls of bubble wrap on the floor, but it didn’t look exactly like bubble wrap.  He saw my reaction and went on to the next picture.  His flash was on for this one and sure enough, that looked like sheets of snake skin. Big sheets.

“Yeah, ok, so she has a snake.”

“No snake. You could ask her.”

I didn’t say anything, and neither did he.  After waiting a moment, he got up from the ground and brushed his pants.

“Go ask her, squirt, and then you’ll believe me.”

Three days later, I was at our neighbor’s door with my best friend Steve and the perfect plan.  We’d tell her that Steve's cat is missing and we’re asking around, has anyone seen it and all that, then we’ll say we hope nobody’s pet snake has eaten it and see what she says.

One ring of the doorbell and a pause, and I was ready to go. Away. Steve grabbed my arm as I turned to run and said “I hear footsteps” and that just made me want to leave more – and faster.

She opened the door and I suddenly wished I was twenty years older, or at least in puberty and had some clue what to do with it.  I had no idea what sex is like, but I was pretty certain it involved her. She smelled like flowers and coconut milk and her blouse was open just a little narrow bit, but it went down almost to her bra.

“Yes ……..?”

I realized that I was supposed to be talking, saying something meaningful with words, but didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to be talking about.  Suddenly, I erupted. “Do you have a snake?  I mean we think we saw a snake loose in your yard, and was wondering if maybe one of yours got away.”

Her eyebrows squeezed together. “A snake in my yard?” She glanced toward the back of her house, and I realized she was thinking we’d been peeking at her in her back yard.

“In the front yard, ma’am.  Over there, and then it was gone.” I pointed somewhere to the left, between our houses.

She gave me a funny smile, though, and said, “No – I don’t have any snakes – and I’m not missing any, either.”  She looked over at Steve, who had been openly staring at her breasts the entire time.  She glanced down at them, then up at me, then back at Steve, then back at me again.

Her smile got a little tighter and she said, “Y’all two run along now” and as she was closing the door, I heard her mutter “... boys and men, they just get younger …” to herself.

I caught my brother later and told him that she has no snakes, like it somehow proved my point, but he saw through it.  “Yeah. I know, Sherlock. Now let’s talk more about the skins.”

Like good detectives, we looked at the pictures of the skins again, zoom in and zoom out, and he even printed one off of his computer.  “C’mere” he said to me.

So I followed him to our back yard and we peeked between slats of the wooden fence between our yard and hers.  We looked straight out on to her lawn and the edge of her patio area.  She was actually out there, getting ready to tan, and she had smeared lotion on her body.  Her body was ... well, just what young boys dream about.

“What are snakes, Timmy?”

“They are … huh?” I didn’t know what he was asking, what he wanted me to say there.

“ … cold-blooded. They're cold-blooded, simp. And what do cold-blooded animals do to stay warm?”

“They lay in the sun.”

“Uh-huh. And what’s she about to do, Timmy?”

“Lay in the sun.”  I made the “you’re still an idiot” face, but he didn’t back down.

I walked away, but Kyle stayed at the fence, watching her.

That night, I had a dream that my friends and I were playing out in her back yard, throwing the football around.  I tossed it to my friend Danny and it bounced into a big bunch of bushes.  She didn’t really have bushes like that, but in the dream, she did.  We waited, but Danny didn’t come back out.  We waited a little longer and we started calling him, but still no Danny.  We figured he was playing a trick on us, so we all went over to the bushes and looked in.  Not too far back was the ball, punctured flat and covered in slime.  We were scared, but we went in looking for Danny.  We kept going back and back and back in this endless bunch of bushes until we came to a clearing and there was Miss Naylor. She was laying on a rock in just her bikini bottoms, and soaking up the sun, and she had got the most enormous belly I’d ever seen, in a dream or out. Danny’s clothes were nicely folded right next to her, with his underwear on top. She turned to look at us, and her jaw was hanging open wide.  It snapped shut and she said, “Can I help you boys with something?  I just had lunch, but I can give you a snack” and she started throwing handfuls of mice at us.

I woke up before any of the mice hit me.

I thought about that dream most of the next day, and when I wasn’t thinking about it, I was thinking about her, no mice or enormous belly, just her and her bikini.

After that, a couple of days went by, and Kyle had been watching me the whole time, waiting for me to say something.

After dinner, we were taking out the garbage bins when I told him. "I want to see them myself."

"Heh-heh, yeah, I wanna see ‘em too.  Oh, you mean the skins? You’re startin' to see the light, huh, poindexter?"

I sneered at him. "Yes, the skins, you pervert. I just wanna see them myself."

"I'll take you tomorrow.  I'll tell her I think I left something in her garage and you're going to help me look for it. A wrench or something."

I had another dream about her that night. She was sunbathing and every now and then, she peeled a layer of skin off and rubbed her whole body down with sunscreen. Her whole body - bikini area and all.

I woke up really not wanting to go to school.  I didn't even want to get out of bed.  I wasn’t sick. but I didn't feel right.  All that got me, though, was one of those looks from mom, so I went to school.

I was sitting at the dining room table doing homework when Kyle came in and slapped me on my arm.  "Come on, sparky. Let’s go before it gets dark. I worry about you, and I don't want you to be in the garage after dark."

We were walking up the driveway when he said "Hey-hey-hey … better idea. I'll keep her busy at the front door and you go check out the skins.  I know she leaves the side door on the garage unlocked after she’s home – the one facing the yard."

That sounded even better to me, so while he continued to the front door, I snuck down the side of the house, and under her carport.  The big door was wide open, but it was also completely exposed to view.  I gave Kyle time to knock on the door and for her to start that way. I counted to ten, then ran between the kitchen windows and the garage and slipped inside.

There were two windows on the side of the garage facing her yard and the skins weren’t under the first one. I found them on a shelf under the second window.  They were stretched out over long plank shelves just under the window.  They were smaller than they looked in the pictures – the longest maybe two feet long - but they were still from something big.  There were also long tubes of skin and some random patches.  It was all flat, as far as I can see.  Nothing like Kyle was saying – no hand or foot shapes in the skins.  I tried to picture her arms.  I tried to imagine her legs.  I knew it was stupid, but I could imagine where each of these pieces might have come from.  At the end of the top shelf were what had to be rattlesnake rattles, and big ones, too, I was sure.  I was feeling around on the lower shelves and still trying to keep watch out the side window when I heard “Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch!” I ducked down and held my breath until I realized it was the sound of the big impact sprinkler in our back yard starting up.  I reached over and touch the rattles just to make sure they were still there, though, and not magically reattached to a snake. My fingers were suddenly a little shaky, and my knees felt like I’d just spent half an hour running bleachers.

On the far end of the third shelf, there was a piece about as wide as my hand and maybe a little longer. I ran my fingers down it and around the edges.  It was thin, like a little slice of air folded over itself.  I ran two fingers back and forth, stroking it.  My eyes were closed and I was just imagining … the imagining was working so well that it was like she was standing there in front of me.  It was soft and silky to the touch and I could practically smell the milk and flowers from her perfume.

The smell just hung there in the air as I caressed the skin with my fingertips, and then the light changed in the window. A shadow crosseed left to right, then back to the center.  I knew I was done for.

She spoke. “What in the ~” and I stumbled out of there. The rest of the words must’ve just bounced off the window or fallen out on the floor, ‘cause they sure didn’t make it to my ears.  I skidded a little getting started, like a stupid cartoon character, and part of me just knew that she was going to wrap her tail around me and drag me under her Tahoe.  I swear to God I would’ve peed, if there had been any in my body at the moment.  Right before Kyle had come to get me, I’d gone, so I was dry. Fortunately.  So, other than the pea gravel on the garage floor, there was nothing to slow me down and distract me.  I barreled down the length of her Tahoe and jumped over a pile of lawn bags next to the garage door, and just kept going.  I didn’t even stop at our house, but ran three houses down to the end of the block, then looped around behind the Simpson’s big bushes.  I waited and listened for a slithering sound, even though I knew she’d never chase me like a snake.  “It’s five o’clock in the afternoon, stupid.  She’s not going to change into a snake in the middle of the street in the middle of the day. Moron.”  Somehow, that made me feel better, like everything was going to go back to “normal” and start to make sense again.

I sat there for a good ten minutes, expecting the Simpson’s to come give me heck for messing around in their shrubs, but they never appeared, and I never even saw their curtains move.  Finally, I slunk back home and went in the house on the far side, away from Miss Naylor’s house.

Kyle had to have waited forever for me to come back, because the moment I went into the hall from the kitchen, Kyle jumped out at me.  “Boo! She’s gonna swallow you whole!”  He laughed and laughed while I pounded him pointlessly with my fists.  I’ll admit I cried a little, just from being so mad.  Honestly, I’m so stupid that I didn’t realize I was being set up until right that moment.

Once he stopped laughing, though, it was like it had never happened.  He got up and tugged me up, called me Squirt, and told me to help set the table.

That night, in my room, I was changing into pajamas when I found that palm-sized piece of snake skin in my pocket.  I hadn’t even realized I’d tucked it away.  That scared the crap out of me, even while, at the same time, I was pleased.  I had a trophy.  She might come for me in the middle of the night, kill me and take it back, but for the rest of the day, I had a trophy.  I took my trophy and slipped it into an old sandwich bag and hid it under my dress socks.

I laid in my bed for a while, listening for the wrong kind of sounds in the house, or outside my window.  I imagined what those sounds would be, and what she’d have to be doing to make them.  I shivered, but I also was excited.  I mean parts of me were excited, you know.  I got up after laying there forever, and it was only 11:20, but it felt like almost time to get up, I was so awake and so tired at the same time.  I went in to pee, sneaking down the hall so I didn’t wake Kyle or attract attention from my parents, or get eaten by our neighbor, then came straight back. 

Before tumbling back into bed, I dug the skin out of my sock drawer.  I held it up to the pale light coming in through the window.  I smelled it.  I ran my fingers down it and tried to go back up, but it’s against the grain.  I fell asleep rubbing it slowly down my arm again and again and again. 

In the morning, when I woke up, it was flattened between my cheek and pillow, and I was sure it had left sleep marks on my face, but the first thing I noticed was the smell, then I reached up and felt its texture again.  It was Saturday morning, and I didn’t have to get up any particular time, so I just laid there, running it all over my body, and just as it was starting to get very personal, my mom knocked on the door and immediately walked in.  I knew she couldn’t see anything, but I knew she was already mad at me.  She never looked over her glasses us like that unless we were already in serious trouble about something.  She stood over my bed and gave me the third degree about “ransacking our neighbor’s garage in search of God knows what” and I knew better than to either argue or try to explain. 

“Did she come over ~”

“No, young man, I haven’t seen any sign of her so far this morning.  Your brother was concerned about what you were doing and filled me in on everything this morning over breakfast, which you missed.”

I started to open my mouth, then remembered there was nothing I could say right then that was useful or helpful or productive or not going to get my head taken off. 

I nodded and kept nodding for a while as her lecture wound down.

The only thing I could really do to redeem myself at that point – start redeeming myself anyway – was to take the initiative.

“Yeah, so I feel bad about yesterday, and I think I should go over and …”

I didn’t know what it was I was supposed to do.  The right step to start with was apologize, but that was only going to get me partial credit.  What else did I want to say?

“ … apologize and ask her if there’s something I can do to make up for it.”  I said the words, but as they came out, they chilled me.  Offering to spend time in the snake lady’s yard, letting her size me up and decide what kind of snack I would make, was just terrifying.  I wanted to not believe any of this, but part of me I knew was going to insist on it, whatever I might say.  Plus, as much as I was dreading going back and committing to spending time there, I was also excited in a creepy kind of way.  That would let me spend time around the skins, and around her boobs, and I knew Steve was going to be jealous.  Heck, every boy I knew was going to be jealous of getting to spend time around her – however much time was necessary. 

So, yeah, I was excited and terrified when I crossed over into her yard.  She opened the door in a tank top that was even more distracting than her blouse the day before.  I looked directly into her eyes, and tried hard to focus on her face, but there was part of my brain that only was aware of what was dangling not far from my face.

“Uhh … I just came over to apologize for being in your garage yesterday.  I wasn’t stealing anything. I was … looking … for …” seriously – was I going to tell her I was looking for evidence she was a snake woman?  “… my baseball.  We were playing catch and I thought … and we lost it and I thought maybe it had gone in there, since the door was open and all … and my brother was supposed to be asking if it was okay.”

“Your brother?”

“When he went to your door.”

“He never came to my door yesterday, umm ….” She left the sentence hanging. She wanted me to add my name at the end.  “Why don’t you come in, uhh …?”

“Uhh … Tim. It’s Tim or Timmy, but I really should be going.”

“It’s okay, Tim, I just made pizza and you can have a slice while you explain.”

It did smell really good, so obviously I was going in.  I could have pizza and be around her boobs and the only risk was my life and maybe my eternal soul?  Easy decision.

Walking through the foyer to the kitchen, my own brilliance struck me full in the face, “My mom knows I’m over here.”

“Uhhh … okay, Tim … good for her.”

“Well, you know, ‘cause … umm … I don’t know.” I can’t think of an excuse for saying that, so I just quit. What could I say? “Uh, just in case you are a snake lady that eats little boys, someone knows where I am.”

“She sent you over to apologize, is what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, I mean … yeah, that’s what I was trying to say.”

“Uh-huh …”

Why’d she hand me the line if she wasn’t going to believe it?

We sat and ate pizza, which, it turned out, really had just come out of the oven and wasn’t some kind of trick to lure me in to my death.

We talked about why I was in the garage, and I stuck with the baseball story, and she seemed okay with that.  I was pretty sure she though the real reason I’d snuck into her garage and was hanging out by the window was I wanted to watch her sunbathe.  As long as she wasn’t mad about that, I figured it was safe to let it go.  We also talked about big brothers and what a pain in the butt they are.  She gestured a lot while she talked, and I watched-without-watching a lot as she jiggled with each gesture.

I couldn’t help notice, though, how wide her mouth opened and how much pizza she could bite off whenever she took a bite. She never did bite off a lot, but it was like she was ready to. That made my heart race a little.  She chewed slowly before swallowing, and then dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin.  She’d take a little sip of her Diet Coke, and then dab her lips again.  There was never anything there, and she never even messed up her lipstick, not in the eating or the drinking or the dabbing. It was as perfect at the end as it was when we started.  

I offered to do chores for her to make up for being in her garage without permission, but she just laughed and said that wouldn’t be necessary.  She gave me that look again as she said it, the “I know what you really are wanting to do in my yard” look.

I had two pieces and I thanked her, then I washed it down with the rest of my Dr Pepper, and jumped from the table and raced out.  I didn’t need her seeing me to the door – or seeing anything else for that matter.  She’d never let a little perv like me in her yard again.

Mom gave me the third degree when I got back and made me promise I was telling the truth about being invited in for pizza and her not even wanting me to do anything for her as penance.

That night, I was lying in bed, trying to shut my brain down, when I reached over for the skin on my bedside table.  It was cool and silky, but it warmed up fast.  It was just a little more dried out than the day before, but it still felt good.  I thought about her as I rubbed it on my cheeks and my boner came back – the one the made me run out of her house in a panic.  The skin felt so good on my face, I started rubbing it on my chest and arms, and I imagined it was her hand that was rubbing me, touching me.  My window was open and the moonlight and the wind were coming in.  I imagined her coming in silently through the window, shushing me as she got to my bed, her snakey hand caressing me, her fingers wrapping around my arm in a way only she could, and then she’d kiss me and slide her hand into my shorts.  I must’ve fallen asleep right then, and taken my fantasy into the dream.  My eyes were open.  Her hand was moving around in my shorts, caressing me like she had a hundred fingers all wiggling and swirling around, and her breasts swayed back and forth in the moonlight.  She stroked me and kissed me and flicked me with a snakey tongue.  Just before I … you know … her other hand, with its really long and slender fingers, wrapped itself all the way around my throat and tightened a little.  She said, “Never tell, Timmy. Never-ever” and her fingers tightened more.  She kept tightening them around my neck, and shaking her head.  She said, “It can be our secret” just as I closed my eyes and exploded in my shorts.

That was the first time, ever, I’d had that happen. If I’d known it just took a little of the right kind of stroking, I’d have discovered it by the time I was three.  I just laid there, with my eyes closed, and my breath slowly catching up.  The breeze smelled like flowers and coconut milk.  I drifted off to sleep. When I woke next morning, I couldn’t find the snake skin for a moment, then I remembered.  

I had that dream a lot over the next couple of years, and went through a number of snake skins. Miss Naylor moved to Houston when I was in 7th grade and got married to a herpetologist.  Go figure.  In fact, I ran into her and her husband years later at a Texas herpetologist conference.  Imagine that.