Snake Girl VS the KKK

by Peter Joseph Swanson

  Annie Bea said, “There’s nobody alive to tell.”

  “I don’t think I’ll even find out how it could have happened. I can go to the morgue to see them if I want to. Why would I want to see my own Mom and Dad? I know what they look like. And now they’re dead. Why would I want to see them knowing that just under the sheet they’re all ripped open like that? Who knows how ripped open they are. Who knows what the bull was really thinking. Just a little poke and then he’s thinking an ooops… or did he go all savage on them and leave them in all sorts of little pieces everywhere on purpose and it thrilled him to do that to them. What the hell was the bull thinking?”

  “Yuck. You can cry on my shoulder if you want. It still has plenty of padding on it. I bet it has to be such a shock to the system to have something like this happen all at once to family—to lose your mom and dad all at once.”

  He put his head on her shoulder. “You have such a nice shoulder.”

  Annie Bea said, “Because it’s a big fat pillow. I still have so much more weight to lose.”

  “Shut up.” Michael glanced up to regard her perm, and lied, “I love your hair… so much. Remember the haircut Alex gave you at your trailer—the bob? It seems like a thousand years ago, now.” He fell silent. Alex was dead a whole year now. “Wow.”

  “Yeah. Wow.”

  Michael made himself get cheerful. He stopped slouching. “And you’re a news reporter, to boot! Usually being a news reporter only happens to other people. Joanie said you were hot on the trail of the KKK. She said you better be careful or you’ll be found dead in the river.”

  “They’d toss me in and I’d just float. Fat floats.”

  “Shut up!” Michael chuckled. “Everybody knows they hang you first.”

  “I’d break the branch.”

  “Seriously. They aren’t getting any awards for being nice.”

  “They don’t bother to scare white fat ladies like me. And besides, bullies are usually just stupid idiots who like to think they have a lot more power than they really do. And from what I’ve heard they’re always so drunk in their white sheets they can’t even see straight… three sheets to the wind… or however it goes. If you see the lot of them coming at you I bet all you have to do is push a bit against the first one and then they’ll all go down like bowling pins. That’s my guess. Or, just loudly crack open a can of beer. That sound should be a distraction.”

  Michael gasped. “They really still wear white sheets out there?”

  She nodded and told him that’s what she heard.

  “When is this big KKK story of yours coming out in the paper? Who are you going to expose?”

  “They may not want a story like that out of me no matter how good it is. It’s all being investigated on speculation on my part.” Annie Bea laughed. “Yeah right. I was so fat when they hired me that I still get all the stupid stories. I get the dumb fat woman’s stories as if I’m not a real person. So… no real stories.”

  “What’s a fat story?”

  “Well it ain’t writing about why the police chief always looks hung over and drunk at the very same time. It ain’t writing about why the rich neighborhoods have no potholes and you need an Army jeep to get through most every place else. When I mentioned my KKK thing and some leads I was just told that I was setting myself up to be sued. What crap. A paper isn’t supposed to talk like that. So I get the fucking fluff stuff. I just finished an article about little girl sleepover parties. There were more pictures than words and most the words were snack recipes… because fat people write about food no matter what they’re writing about. That’s what they think. I just got an idea. Maybe if the fat woman wrote about KKK barbecues it would get printed. My next assignment is summer camp food. How many ways can you spell ‘hotdogs sizzling over the campfire good enough for a fat woman to want to eat?’ Huh? Fuck them all to fat food hell!”

  Michael nodded a lot. “That’s cool.”

  “No it is not!”

  “No, I mean summer camp is cool. I went the Baptist summer camp once. The one on Lake Shoshoni. So it was called Camp Shoshoni!” Michael started to sing like an Indian, “Camp Shoshini, land of bed so stony, let me ride my pony, to the macaroni!” He spoke again. “It was just for boys the week I was there. I mean young men. Yay! All us young men were so horny and didn’t know what to do about it. I don’t remember the food but I’m thinking about the hotdogs.” He chuckled.

  Annie Bea opened her large bag and got out a pad of paper and a pen. “And what did you do about it? This could be a daring article unfitting of a fat woman. Horny little boys at church camp. What really goes on? Go on.”

  “I can’t tell you. You’re a girl!”

  “Tell me like you would have told Alex. I’m a journalist. Not just a girl. Take me seriously and tell me. I’m not a church lady just because I go to church. I’m not a prude. That’s why I need to write it. What do horny boys do at summer camp?”

  “Well… um… I don’t know about everybody else but I did love the times we were getting into our swimsuits. The time we were in our swimsuits on the beach. And the time we got out of our swimsuits. Then we took a group shower. Sweet.”

  “And then what did you all do?”

  “Dry off. And then get into our underwear. I liked that part, a lot, too. And then we got into our jeans and it all went downhill from there until the next time we all went swimming.”

  “That’s all?”

  “I was just a kid! One night we snuck down and went skinny-dipping and that felt so sexy even though it was so cold and dark and nobody even got close to anybody else.”

  Annie Bea put her pen and paper away. “Damn you. That’s a bore.”

  “Sure. Horny boys are stupid.”

  Annie Bea asked, “Is there any cure for horniness in boys?”

  “Hmmm. Fear. Fear always trumps horniness. Which reminds me. That also worked at summer camp. Nothing got us to forget about our silly wee-wees faster than a good ghost story. Oh we scared ourselves delirious on the dumbest crap. But at night in the woods most anything will scare you.”

  Annie Bea got her pen and paper out again. “Hmmm. Summer camp ghost stories. I love ghost stories… the real gross ones. I could write an article about that that could actually scare some people. You know any really creepy ones? Of course you do. I bet you’re the king of ghost stories. I wonder if they’d let me write a summer camp article about kids just getting ripped to shit by a vengeful ghost in the woods.” She laughed naughtily. “Just before they eat their broiled marshmallows!”

  “I always told stories about evil scarecrows running amuck.”

  “Tell me it!”

  “I thought you had to write nice stories.”

  “I do. Damn. I’ll have to be careful about how I do that one. But it has a better chance of being published over church camp horniness. I’ll have to make sure the ghost stories are cute. That’ll get by. Fat ladies have to stay cute.” Annie Bea chuckled sardonically.

  Michael remembered going to one kid after they came back from skinny-dipping and lying next to him in his sleeping bag and they played with each other’s boners for a few minutes before Michael feared they’d be caught and he slipped back into his own bunk. His name was James. A nice Baptist name. James. Michael assumed James now had a wife and kids and beer belly as big as Montana. In the silence of Michael remembering, Annie Bea wrote furiously on her pad. A squirrel came up to them and looked at them as if they should feed it. Annie Bea finally looked up at the squirrel and said. “I already ate it! The fat lady ate it all!”

  “Stop it. Stop saying fat like that. It sounds mean.”

  Annie Bea nodded sadly. “Maybe I am a mean old tiger, now. I hate the old me that was fat. I can’t believe I lived like that and my asshole fucking slut-of-a-dog husband was so mean to me! And I just took it! If he wasn’t my ex he’d be my late. I’d have sat on his head and just let the crushing sounds begin. I don’t want anybody to remember me as fat Annie Bea. You met me when I w
as that goddamn fat. Goddamn you. I’ll have to kill you. I’ll only let people live who only know me the way I am now.”

  Michael said, “And I’ll have to kill you for seeing me how I am now. Old and tired and waiting for an awful funeral. I used to be so fabulous. I used to be a teenager.”

  “That was a long while ago.”

  “Look at me. Do I have bags starting to pop out under my eyes?”

  “Fuck you. Fuck your eyes. You look great. Shut up. You’ll always look great. You’ll be fifty and look great. I think I’ll kill you first.” Annie Bea pretended her pen was a knife and she did some stabbing towards him. Then she yelled at the squirrel who was still begging, “Scram! No potato chip crumbs are falling from this fat lady’s bench today, you cheeky bastard! Scram!” The squirrel just looked at her. Then she looked hard at Michael.

  Michael asked, “What? Do I have a booger?”

  “Have you ever modeled?”

  He gave a confused smile. “For money? I wish. I was supposed to get money for some nudes I posed for about seven or ten years ago. But I didn’t see a dime. I thought it would make me rich.”

  She grabbed his face. “What a profile. Has anybody ever told you you’ve got a great nose?”

  “No, they don’t think to mention the nose.” He looked down at himself and then pulled up his shirt.

  “Stop that Michael!” She looked about in alarm. “If somebody from across the park saw you do that, like that, they’d think you’d just discovered that you had crabs.”

  “Why did you ask me if I’ve modeled?”

  Annie Bea looked hard at his face again. “Maybe you can make some money while you’re here. I could use a photo for the Pioneer Days article. I could have you as a pioneer. Your profile might look heroic if we blast it from behind with enough light.”

  He stood up. “And look at these long legs. I want them wrapped in buckskins and Indian beads and lumberjack lips.”

  She laughed. “We could have you holding a hoe or pitchfork.”

  “Or a succulent corncob.”

  “What?”

  “Oh. Never mind.”

  Annie Bea stood and took his arm. “Come on. Let’s go to the office now and see if my boss will let me have a model.”

  “You’ve paid people before?”

  Annie Bea smiled greedily. “Once I got access to the accounts. Ten bucks. Usually I just expect everybody to be free and so they are. But you could use the ten bucks. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Do I look hungry?”

  “Does that squirrel look hungry? You look like you want to skewer it and twirl it over a fire. Oh. Maybe I’m projecting. I’m so hungry. I wonder what roasted squirrel tastes like. Is it nutty? Is it like Southern fried chicken when buried in golden crispy batter just glistening with little dancing bubbles of grease? Does it come with potato salad and coleslaw? Yep. I’m projecting. Again. Let’s go before I eat the damn squirrel raw.”

  Michael reminded her, “Hunger pangs pass.”

  “Yeah, and I’m so fucking long-suffering.” They got up, walked out of the park and headed east down a street of old brick buildings. Just when it looked like the city became too overgrown with vines, they came to a broad parking lot. That led to the newspaper office. Inside the glass door were tall rolls of newsprint paper. Annie Bea said, “Oh, these haven’t been picked up yet.”

  Michael was expecting loud machine noises from nearby rooms. All was quiet. “What hasn’t been picked up?”

  “These rolls. They’re almost empty so the high school art class uses up what’s left on the core. We don’t care as long as they bring it back when it’s all empty. They haven’t picked these ones up yet.”

  Michael made a face at the thin rolls. “Who wants to draw on ugly newsprint?”

  “It’s better than nothing. Paper is expense. You’d be surprised how fast it adds up. Come this way first. I have to show you my desk.”

  “Oh cool!”

  They went down a hall and stepped into a room with four desks. “That one’s mine. I’m so proud. I have my very own desk. I have my very own typewriter.”

  “I’d say. You are so cool!”

  Annie Bea smiled. “I’m a real person now.”

  Michael slid his fingertips across the gray metal of the desktop. “Maybe that’s what I need to have to feel like I have a real personality. Maybe I need to have a desk someplace that’s mine and then I’ll feel real, too.”

  Annie Bea wagged her finger at him. “I’m sure Alex would have told you that having a desk is not a personality.”

  He agreed and pouted.

  Annie Bea opened a drawer. “You’re real, believe me. A real piece of work. Look. They left me lots of old files of photos. What the hell am I going to do with all that? This envelope is just last year’s Halloween party somewhere. It’s funny. It’s a whole roll of some guy in an ape suit. But three of these shots also catch a guy in a pink dress. Do you want to see?”

  Michael put his nose up. “You seen one guy in a pink dress you seen them all. And at Halloween it don’t count.”

  “It still counts when I want to blackmail somebody.” She chuckled at it as she put it back in the drawer. “He’s on the city payroll so I feel so naughty having it, anyway, regardless. He’s an important man on city payroll!” She chuckled louder. “Let’s see the boss.” They went to the end of the hall and Annie Bea let Michael into a large office. She grandly pushed her perm back as she asked her boss, “Hi. Can I have a model for Pioneer Days? I hear you want to expand your color. A nice big color photo of him with a bright yellow cob of corn. Wouldn’t that print out nice. Look at his profile.”

  The boss asked, “Why a corn cob?”

  Annie Bea looked earnest. “It’s yellow. I was just thinking about what lays down nice on color newsprint.”

  Michael shrugged innocently. “America! It’s all about America. Corn!”

  The boss frowned at Michael. “What happened to your jeans? Did you break any bones?”

  “No. It’s just fashion.”

  He frowned again at Michael then turned to Annie Bea. “I want you to go through your desk and look for something we took at the county fair. Or go to the library and go through their picture files. Find something that’s already around that’ll work. I know they have pictures of pioneers. For free. Oh! And look through last year’s pictures we took at the park when there was that art fair. Find one of a cute kid and put that one in, too. Face painting always looks good in color. I know we have a whole file of shit like that in your desk. Cute kids sell.”

  Annie Bea gasped. “That makes two pictures, then?”

  “Sure. I want two pictures.”

  Annie Bea grew angry. “But then there’s no room for my text!”

  He nodded. “Nobody wants to read about Pioneer Days. They want to experience it! Just give them some pictures. Don’t worry, the photos won’t go in anyplace where they’ll compete with an ad and get us into trouble. The ads will fill the entire backside of that page. Goodbye, I’m late for a meeting. And thanks for helping to make me late. Let them wait. It makes me look more important when I walk in and they’re all waiting and waiting and waiting.”

  Michael blurted, “I’m a famous poet! Publish one of my poems in your paper! I’ll let you publish one for only ten bucks!”

  The boss looked sour. “Have you been published?”

  Michael grinned. “If you publish me then I can finally say I was.”

  The boss explained, “It doesn’t work that way. You have to be published first to get published. Then you have to be on a New York Times list for us to mention it in a newspaper. Nobody cares about you otherwise if there’s nothing to mention.”

  “But that’s impossible.”

  “For you maybe but not for them—others do it all the time. Good day.” He left the office.

  They walked out after him. Outside, Annie Bea took Michael’s arm. “Sorry to have gotten your hopes up.”

  “I’ll live.” He
dabbed a tear. He looked at his fingertip to see if it was stained with makeup. Then he remembered he wasn’t wearing any. He put one hand against the building for balance and struck a grand Theda Bara pose as he silently mouthed the words, “I am so upset!”

  Annie Bea didn’t laugh. “Why are you always trying too hard to be clever? Why is everything for a stupid laugh?”

  Michael ceased the Theda pose. “I don’t know. A good laugh is like a spoonful of sugar that helps the poison go down. Society just wants to kill at the idea of a homo in its midst that’s still alive and kicking. And then people like me show up and they get proof that we aren’t just urban legend. So we homos try to break the ice with a little silliness… I guess. I don’t know. So you tell me.”

  “So is this big spoonful of sugar to help society? Or is it really just to help you?”

  Michael looked about in confusion. “I don’t know. What’s the difference?”

  Annie Bea looked at herself in the window reflection. She fluffed her perm. “I know what self loathing is all about. I think I understand. I’m always the first one with the fat lady jokes though I hate them like anything. I hate them because they’re damn mean but I laugh the loudest at them. Well anyway, foxy or not, I got to get back to work. I got to go beat my boss’ fucking head to shit until I feel some semblance of happiness. It’s either that or a binge at Chippy’s. God, they need a drive-through so we can sneak up on them. I have a better one; what do fat ladies and mopeds have in common? They’re both great rides until somebody sees you on one.” She frowned. “Or did I already tell you that one.”

  Michael asked, “How can you be a church lady and talk like such a trucker?”

  “Michael, Michael, Michael. You think you have the world all figured out, don’t you? You think that we fit into neat little boxes.”

  He looked down. “No… not really... not much. Not anymore. I think I’ve finally gotten to where I’m old enough now to not know anything.”

  Annie Bea glowered at him. “Then don’t say such stupid fucking things to me.” She gave him a spank. “Oh god, now your pants are going to fall off.”

  Michael pushed at his hair, made his most dignified pose, and walked away.