The Snake Charmer by Patricia Abbott

When Shannon hurried through the house smelling of her old Vera Wang perfume, Art put down the newspaper. She was wearing eye makeup and heels he knew pinched. He continued to watch uneasily as she found her best coat in the hall closet and waved a silent goodbye. Hadn’t she mentioned seeing a movie with a girlfriend when she asked him to baby-sit? Pushing the play button on the remote for his granddaughter, Art headed for the kitchen window. Outside, a car door closed gently. He cocked his head enough to pick out a splatter of lights on the driveway. His daughter was with Corey Kruse. It was starting again.

Before he could absorb this, a small sound drew his attention. He turned to find Zelda staring up at him. “Eat?” she suggested, her Barney doll tucked tightly under her arm.

  “What happened with the video, kiddo?” he asked. Zelda twirled a piece of dark hair silently. Art walked back to the living room where a video played. In it, a man dressed in a rabbit’s costume was fondling a woman in orange velour. A cap of green fringe covered her head. The rabbit nibbled at the woman with absurdly large teeth and she screamed, shaking her leafy hair wantonly.

“What happened to Barney?” Art asked, his heart doing a crazy conga in his chest. Zelda bent over and retrieved a second video from underneath his chair. He could see Barney’s familiar face. “Is that where you found this one?” he asked, pulling the porn tape out of the VCR and waving it in the air. “Under Popop’s chair?”

Zelda nodded. Wincing, he got down on his hands and knees, coming up with several misplaced toys as well as two more unlabeled videos. They might be Sam’s, but his son hadn’t been home in weeks. Of course, they might have been under there for months along with the dust on his hands. None of them even played cassettes often since DVDs came along.

Art spent the evening watching the videos. By the time he’d finished all three — a wrenching ninety minutes later — he’d been treated to bondage, simulated mutilation, and acts he couldn’t even name. Hopefully, the plaid-skirted girls in School Lays were only dressed to look young. But why would girls in school uniforms turn on his twenty-one year old son? That seemed like an old man’s thing.

He dialed Sam’s number in Lansing, slamming down the receiver after four rings. The phone rang seconds later. Art heard the clatter of dishes in the background and realized his son had a guest. “I’ll get right to the point, Sam. Was it your videos Zelda found under my chair?”

“My what?”

“Videotapes. Zelda found one there, mixing it up with Barney and the Teletubbies.”

“I might have left a video at home,” Sam admitted.

“Peter Rabbit’s Revenge?” He heard Sam snigger. “It sounds a lot funnier than it was, Sam; it was hardcore porn.”

“Jeez. Well, they’re not mine, Dad.”

“Any idea where they came from?”

“Not a clue. Did Zelda watch much?”

“A minute would have been too much.”

  Art hung up a minute later and spent some time walking Sam’s friends through his head. He came up empty; Art’s only real friend, Stan, hadn’t been in the house in months.

Zelda woke up twice during the night and Art finally plopped her in his bed. They woke to find Shannon’s face peering down at them. “Is it an earache?”

  “Two ears,” Zelda informed her, pointing helpfully.

Shannon picked her up, putting a cheek to Zelda’s head. “She doesn’t have a fever.”

Groaning loudly, Art sat up. “Her ears are fine.” But his neck felt like a rod had been jammed inside it. He got out of bed, stripped the damp sheets off, threw them on the floor and headed for the bathroom.

* * * *

 “Have a good time last night?”

Shannon was loading the dishwasher. “Um,” she said noncommittally.

“What movie did you see?”

“We went downtown to Mario’s.”

“I didn’t know Mario’s was still in business.” His feet grabbed a rung on the opposite chair and he dragged it close enough to use as a footstool.

She turned around. “That same waiter’s still there, Dad. He was still wearing that stiff old tux — it’s even shinier than last time.”

He raised his voice over the noisy rush of water, saying. “The same customers, too? How is Corey Kruse nowadays?”

“Nice segue, Dad.” She wiped off the counter, her back to him again. “He’s working for his brother up in Saginaw.”

“Living up north, huh?”

“He’s home for the week. His mother asked him to do some electrical work while she’s in Florida.”

“When did he get a license?”

Shannon made a face. “No license, Dad, but he’s good at that kind of thing.”

  “I didn’t know you kept in touch.” He drained his coffee.

“Sometimes we run into each other. He’s still Zelda’s father.”

His back ached even more, his neck throbbed. “Has he been inside this house lately?” Or inside you.

Shannon paused. “I don’t let him spend time with Zelda. Not until. . .”

“You’re not thinking of getting back together?” She shrugged. “Okay. I get it.” He wheeled around, “Say, that reminds me, do you know whose porn it was Zelda found under my chair?” He wanted to shock her and he did.

“What?” A bruise-like blush spread across her face.

“Peter Rabbit’s Revenge, I think it was called.”

“Say it one more time.”

“I pressed the play button thinking it was Barney and Zelda watched Peter Rabbit fondle a carrot.” The cycle changed on the dishwasher. “It was a lot nastier than it sounds.”

  “You think it was Corey’s, don’t you?” The name cut through the air like a skunk’s stink.

“Seems like something he’d find funny. But, of course, it can’t be his. Or did you run into each other right in our living room?”

She flushed again. “Maybe. But I never saw him with any porn.”

Art was amazed. When had he been out of the house long enough to give Kruse an opening? “Take a look at it anyway. They’re on the closet shelf.”

“Lots of men watch porn.”

“Just watch it,” he told her, easing out the back door.

The cigarette tasted good. He kept an aging pack in the garage and smoked, as always, under the raised garage door, surveying their yard and the small frame house. He was probably going to have to pay to have it painted this summer unless Sam could make the time. Getting off and on ladders was beyond him now — ironically. Too much charging around in his youth, breaking through doors, carrying heavy equipment, running hard in short spurts, breathing in smoke. Add to that the long hours of doing nothing at all, cramped over a dented metal folding table shooting the breeze.

How would Lois have handled Corey Kruse? She had died eleven years earlier when a van hit her broadside as she was driving home from a PTA meeting. It was before Shannon had her first date, before Sam finished riding the pine in Little League, when Art still had most of his hair and all of his teeth.

“Dad?” Shannon said, stepping outside. “Hey, I didn’t know you still smoked.”“I don’t,” he said, grinding the butt out in a dead tomato plant.

“I’ve got to work this afternoon.”

“You never work on Saturdays.” Shannon worked in the city’s recreation department. He had gotten her the job himself after retiring from the Detroit Fire Department. First time, he’d pulled strings for one of his own, but she’d floundered long enough in a series of low paying jobs.

“Everyone’s down with the flu and the girl’s basketball league has two games scheduled.”

He nodded. “Look, I have a little errand to run before you go. Shouldn’t take long.”

* * * *

He had walked past Galaxy Comics a million times, picking up countless cartons of milk at the mom and pop grocery next door. Sam had been a frequent patron in his teens, seeking out rare editions of favorite comics. Art got the feeling that most of Galaxy’s patrons went there to read as much as buy. The rent was probably low enough in its slightly seedy location that the owner tolerated browsing, knowing a sale would eventually come.

  Art had heard Galaxy sold other stuff too. Inside, the store had the gluey, mousey smell of every used bookstore. Scanning the inventory, he saw books, magazines, posters and comics — all secondhand. A few racks held used videos and DVDs. In the back of the store, a person of indeterminate gender and years was sifting through a stack of pulps. The search was punctuated by an occasional grunt of pleasure. The sudden sound of dropping magazines brought a reprimand from the skinny fellow up front. “Hey, make sure they’re in the right order. If July don’t come after June and before August, I can’t sell it.” Grunting, the patron swept the pile up and began the task of reordering them, muttering under his or her breath.

“Have any porn?” The skinny guy was listening to a Red Wings game. Art wondered if Gordie Howe still played for the Wings on the vintage radio. Faded pink with several missing knobs, it was propped on a teetering stack of paperbacks. Wordlessly, the guy tipped his head toward the back where a curtain made from old bedspreads marked off the area. A handmade sign advising “18 or older” dangled from a rusted safety pin.

  Art pushed the curtain aside and found an assortment of videos that would make any perv go weak at the knees. Girding himself, he shuffled through the stacks, hoping for something. But the stuff looked fairly normal — if such a word could be used to describe porn. The women were clearly over eighteen. He didn’t see a single rabbit. Although there was a video called “School Daze,” none were titled “School Lays”. Apparently, high school was a popular locale.

  “Got any of the racier stuff?” he asked, pushing the curtain aside and sticking his head out. The clerk shrugged, paused a minute, and then threw a catalog down on the counter. Art walked over to the counter and thumbed through it, but after a minute realized he didn’t even know what he was looking for. What was it he expected to find here? If Corey Kruse was buying porn, it wouldn’t be on his corner.

He felt like burning the whole stinking smut shop down. He wondered if Sam had ever sneaked behind the curtain. Why mix products appealing to children with those intended for lonely adult males? And, most importantly, how could he deal with his daughter’s enduring lust for a dim-witted, ambitionless cretin? He couldn’t bear thinking about Kruse’s hands on either of his girls.

  “I know a place if you want to buy something special,” the skinny clerk said in a low voice. The high-pitched voice of the Red Wings announcer pierced the area suddenly and they both flinched.

  “Something special?” Art asked.

The guy’s eyes fluttered. “The kind of stuff we can’t sell here.” He motioned toward a younger kid who had just come in. The boy was knee-deep in superhero comics, a batting glove peeking out of his pocket.

“I see,” Art said. And he did. “That place you mentioned? Do they have any videos with little kids in ‘em?”

  “Boys or girls?” The clerk’s tone was casual, non-judgmental.

Art stepped forward and punched him in the nose. He hadn’t known it was coming till it did and really didn’t give a damn if someone called the cops. He felt good — better than he had in weeks.

After Shannon left for work, Art went into to his bedroom to pick up the dirty sheets from that morning. Zelda followed, going straight for the photo album. She opened it to the same page every time, or maybe the album just fell open there: it was a photo of Shannon dressed for her senior prom. “Pitty,” Zelda announced, trying to hold up the heavy album. “Momma’s pitty.” Art nodded, looking at the photograph.

“Find Zelda,” his granddaughter ordered. He thumbed through the album until the pictures of Zelda began. The album, of course, held no wedding pictures, no photos of a pregnant Shannon. It would probably make Zelda sad ten years from now when she realized her birth had not been a wholly joyous occasion. Would she find out her grandfather campaigned for an abortion, even insisting Shannon go to a family planning center, shoving newspaper statistics about single mothers under her nose. “I thought you believed in the right to choose,” he said, as tears streamed down his daughter’s face.

“And I thought you didn’t,” she shot back.

  Would someone tell Zelda about the night he showed up on Corey Kruse’s porch and took a swing at the guy? Carleen Kruse had stepped between them, nearly catching Art’s airborne fist in her face.

  “They’re both just babies,” she said defensively, sheltering her son behind the half-open screen door. Back in his car, he saw the sneer on Corey’s face as he pulled away. Carleen had tried to push her son into the house, but Corey shook her off, remaining on the porch with his feet propped defiantly on the unpainted rail. Art could never forgive a guy who thought a foot on a rail made him a man.

  He hadn’t forgiven him a few weeks later when he caught up with Kruse outside a bar and beat the crap out of him. He had discovered Kruse favored the pool table in the backroom at Hambone’s and waited him out. The run-in had the facade of a fair fight: he hadn’t sneaked up on him or attacked him in the dark lot behind the bar; he hadn’t used more than bare fists. But Corey was a runt and half-drunk; he dropped like a stone. It took all of Art’s resolve not to add a few kicks to his kidneys or his head; but the kid was completely unconscious so Art crept away, momentarily satisfied. Corey was too cocky to tell Shannon about it. Since that night, Art had kept his distance, afraid he might kill the little fucker next time.

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