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Reptile Lust
(part 1 of the story)

James Bates

    My ex Freddie is and probably always will be the biggest idiot I’ve ever known. I mean the guy took our two-year-old son for a ride on a motorcycle for god’s sake. Sitting on his lap! But only once, I might add, because, man, did I gave him the shit when I found out. Big time.
    Oh sure, in the beginning when we were both juniors in high school and starting to date I’ll admit that I was drawn to his tall thin frame, dark brooding looks and long wavy hair - he really did remind me of what I imagined a poet from the Renaissance would look like. And the sex was good, too, I’ll cop to that right now. Great, even. So back then I cut him a lot of slack. But flash forward ten years and things have changed. We’ve been married for five years and have five-year-old Kenny and three-year-old Laura. We’ve just bought a house in the little town of Long Lake and Freddie is happily living on workmen’s comp due to falling off a ladder at the construction site where he was working and I see him for the lazy, self-centered, good for nothing slob he really is. Now all he’s capable of doing in lying around our tiny home playing on the Xbox or fooling around in the backyard with his crap Harley, smoking weed and drinking beer and having his friends over to party while I work as a teacher’s aide at the middle school in Orono and clerk at the Holiday gas station down the road from us for extra money. Well, if you’d seen me back then you’d have seen me grow from being sort of pissed off to major league pissed off in the course of those five long years of marriage not to mention all the time I spent putting up his worthlessness. Plus, you’d see me on the verge of booting him out.
    Flash forward another five years to now and you’ll find me happier than I’ve been in a long time because I’ve not only booted his worthless ass out but I’ve finally divorced the lazy SOB. Last month was the second-year anniversary of that red letter day. These days I’m focused on my kids and both my jobs and I’m trying to move on. I’m still pissed off at him, I’ll tell you that right up front, but now it’s just on general principles, like that thing having to do with Jake.
    Maybe you read about it in the newspaper: the time last August when that little girl, Sally Carthwight, went missing? Oh, I’ll tell you I was going nuts, freaking out and worried like most everyone else in our tiny, close-knit community about the fate of the little four-year-old. I even joined in one of the many search parties that were quickly organized to comb the woods and swamps around town to look for her. And, like thousands of others, I was wildly happy when little Sally was found curled up and scared but safe in a garden shed after only having been gone from 4:00 pm on Wednesday until 6:00 am on Thursday. But the true scare for me, and unbeknownst to everyone else, was that while she was missing so was Jake, who was under the care of my stupid ex, and who knew what Jake might do, especially if he came across cute little Sally.
    I got it from Kenny, my ten-year-old, who told me innocently, “Daddy’s snake got away.” He relayed this information to me on Tuesday morning, the day after Jake made its infamous escape from Freddie and the day before little Sally wandered off. Kenny and Laura had just been dropped off by Freddie’s new girlfriend after their one night every two weeks court ordered visit with their dad. Apparently, he couldn’t be bothered to bring his own kids home to me, busy as he was sleeping or getting stoned or something. I had just plopped down a bowl of cheerios on the kitchen table for their breakfasts, since they each told me right off coming in the back-door that they were ‘Starving, Mom.’ Feeding his children wasn’t high on my ex’s priority list I guess.
    “Yeah,” Kenny added, getting back to the snake discussion while digging in and shoveling a super-sized spoonful into his mouth, “Dad’s kind of worried,”
    I was still working on ‘the snake got away’ statement, and I have to say that I went crazy, absolutely bat shit bonkers. I started screaming and threw the box of cereal across the kitchen and then kicked it causing cheerios to explode all over the place. I picked up the newspaper from the counter and flung it in the air and punched the pages as they fell to the ground. Next, I slammed my hand against the back door frame and then punched it for good measure, which hurt. A lot. In fact, I’m surprised I didn’t break any fingers. But my actions did temper my anger somewhat and cause me to get control of myself. I stomped around the tiny kitchen for a few minutes before finally starting to calm down. When I felt I had myself under control I went to the back door and looked out into my small, shaded backyard, seeing only the red rage in my brain. What the hell was Freddie thinking? One, what’s the deal with him having a snake? And, two, what’s the deal with him having my kids over when there was a snake around, escaped or not?
    Eight-year-old Laura piped in, trying to calm me, “It’s Ok, Mommy. Daddy says Jake’s not really dangerous.”
    I was on the phone before I could get the phase, “I’ll kill that son-of-a bitch,” out of my mouth.
    Turns out that Jake was an eleven-foot-long python, if you could believe it. Yeah, a python and Freddie was, “Snake sitting for a friend,” as he called it, when I got him on the line and was able to finally control myself enough to talk coherently.
    “A snake? A python? Are you kidding me? You’re the biggest dumb-ass I’ve ever heard of, having something like that around the kids.” I paused to take a breath and then added, “I’m going to call the cops if you keep this up.”
    “Now, now, Bethie Button,” he said to me, chuckling and using a term of endearment from our past he had no right to invoke, “Don’t get so worked up.” I could see his confident grin spreading over the phone like oozing slime and man the vision of it just made me madder.
    Seems that Freddie had a friend who had the python and he was taking care of the big reptile while the friend was serving twenty-one days in the workhouse for being drunk and disorderly at a Memorial Day celebration in Minneapolis, the big city located twenty miles east of us. Nice friends, I thought to myself, listening in amazement while Freddie told me the story, wondering what I’d ever seen in him in the first place. Oh, yeah, the wavy hair and the brooding good looks. The great sex.
    “Well, the kids aren’t going back over there until that snake is gone,” I told him in no uncertain terms, forgetting for a minute that it already had escaped and technically was gone. “I mean, long gone, like back with your friend.”
    “I’m going outside again to look for him some more right now,” he told me, “Me and Ronnie.”
    Ronnie. What a stupid name for the bitch who was now Freddie’s new girlfriend for the last, what, month? If I had a nickel for every tattoo I’d seen on the slut I’d be able to buy a new car instead of the piece of crap twenty-five-year-old Honda I was driving. Add in the ones I couldn’t see and I’d probably be able to buy my kids each a new bicycle, too.
    “Well, you’d better hurry and find it then,” I told him, “I’ve heard those things are dangerous.” I shivered when I slammed the phone down.
    My grandmother grew up on a farm in northwestern Minnesota that was regularly inundated with six-foot-long bull snakes (harmless, but still, six feet of snake is a lot of snake.) She passed that fear on to my mom who tried to pass it on to me but failed. I don’t love snakes, but I don’t hate them either. Live and let live is my motto, but still, a python is not like the little garter snakes I’m used to seeing when I’m working in the yard, not by a long shot. Python’s ate things, even big things sometimes, so in my book Jake was something to worry about.
    When Freddie and I divorced, I kept the house we’d bought three years after Kenny was born. Freddie and I made it for a couple of long and unhappy years before I was finally done with his wasted ways and I kicked him out for good. He didn’t move far away. In a moment of benevolent parenting fervor, saying that he wanted to be close to the kids, he rented a dilapidated garage a half mile from me out on the edge of town. It was on the property of the guy who owned the construction company where Freddie was injured - a guy called Cameron, who was rich and who apparently felt sorry for my idiotic ex. But Freddie’s always been lucky that way, always seems to find a way to get people to feel sorry for him, always seems to have friends around to help him out. In short, always seems to get by. Me, I have to work two jobs to make ends meet (just barely.) But I’m not complaining (much) it just seems that Freddie’s not only a lazy good for nothing SOB, but he’s supremely lucky, too. Luckier than me, anyway.
    So strike that comment about complaining because I guess I am. But least I have the kids and that counts for a lot in my book no matter how difficult it is to pay the bills, keep my home and stay out of debt, which I pride myself on doing. Whatever the case, Freddie calls the junked out garage home, but I know better: peeling paint, rummy looking roof, crap laying around inside and out. You can’t fool me - it’s a piece of shit shack that’s a poor excuse for a place to live and I only let the kids go there because it’s close and they can run home to me anytime they want if they need to and, besides, he’s their father after all, and has a right to see his son and daughter. I’m not a complete jerk, just protective of my children.
    The point is: was a half a mile away close enough for a python to get to me and my kids? I looked it up on my iPad.
    Yeah, it was. Shit.
    I was off from my teacher’s aide job for the summer, but still worked at the Holiday station for extra cash. I didn’t have to go in until three that Tuesday afternoon, so I spent the rest of the day patrolling my yard with one of Kenny’s aluminum baseball bats, keeping on the lookout for the python. I had no idea what I’d do if I found it, but I couldn’t just sit and let the big reptile come to me, could I?
    When I left for work a little before three I told the kids to stay inside until I got home, hoping they’d mind me - they usually did. I tried to put the fear of god in them before I left.
    “Do you know that a python like that could swallow each of you whole, one after the other, and then spend a week or two slowly digesting you until you were nothing but a gooey glob of guck in its stomach? How’d you like that?”
    I’m not sure my statement was true or not, but the way their eyes went wide I could tell I made my point. “Just stay inside. I’ll be home by nine-fifteen.” I said over my shoulder as I left, “And don’t go out of the house for any reason whatsoever.” I turned and gave them my best evil-eye mom look, “I mean it,” I said pointing my finger at each of them, “Stay right here.”
    I’m pretty sure they followed my instructions because when I got home that evening their bikes were parked exactly where they’d been left out back alongside of the garage. It being August in Minnesota, there was still enough light for me to grab Kenny’s baseball bat and do a quick check around both the front and backyards, looking behind bushes and checking around the foundation of the little single story rambler I call home. No python. But let me tell you, by the time I got inside and curled up on the couch with the kids and a big bowl of popcorn to watch one of the Minions movies, my nerves were shot.
    Laura, my skinny, bookish, daughter lay her head on my shoulder and said, “Mommy, don’t worry about anything. Daddy told us Jake was really a nice snake.”
    Snake maybe, python no. I’d read up on them on my iPad at work. There’s no such thing as a nice python, a reptile that could suck down a baby fawn in the blink of an eye. But Laura was a sweet little freckled faced red head who reminded me of the main character in my favorite book when I was growing up, Anne of Green Gables, and I didn’t want to scare her (much) and lay my concern about her or Kenny being swallowed alive on her, so I told her, “I’m not worried, honey, just tired.” I shuddered as I said it, picturing a huge python wrapping itself around little Laura and shuddered some more. But in spite of all the shuddering I’m pretty sure I was able to convince my gentle daughter that everything was going to be alright. I even managed to convince myself. Boy was I a good liar.
    I spent the morning the next day, Wednesday, cleaning the house while the kids watched cartoons until I turned the television off and told them to figure out a different way to entertain themselves which they did, Laura by reading and Kenny by building a Lego model of some Star Wars thing. Then I fixed grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and when that was over, and since I was still not excited about any of us going outside, the kids and I commandeered the kitchen table and started playing board games. Even though we were stuck (trapped?) indoors with no air-conditioner on a hot ninety degree summer day, the three of us rose to the occasion and by the middle of the afternoon we were deep into a marathon game of monopoly and having a pretty fun time.
    Then I got a panicky call from my friend Sara, “Beth did you hear? Sally Carthwright’s gone missing.”
    Well, talk about the shit hitting the fan. My adrenaline kicked in big time, roaring through my body like a tidal wave and my mind went into overdrive with motherly concern as my heart went out to Sally and her parents. I could only imagine what they were going through because if it were me in their position, I’d be a blithering idiot and out of my mind with worry. Then I jumped to the fact that Jake the python was on the loose and an icy horror set in. What would happen to little four year old Sally if the big python came across her? Well, with that picture firmly implanted in my mind, I really did lose it. I started yelling a bunch of blathering non-sense, but I know at one point I must have screamed, “What?!” because Sara yelled back at me, “What?!” and we went back and forth screaming “What?!” until I realized I needed to get a grip.
    “Sorry,” I told my friend, “But it’s really freaking me out about Sally.” Which was only half the reason for my outburst, if that much. I was also major league freaking out about the python slithering around our town somewhere. I tried not to image it laying in wait in the bushes outside my backdoor but I couldn’t tell that to Sara. I know it sounds weird, but I still felt some weird allegiance to that stupid ex of mine, no matter how crazy it seems. I guess it’s because we do have a history, as they say, and after all these years I’ve just not been able to get him completely out of my mind nor, for that matter, my system. Believe me, it’s a statement I’m not proud to make, but there it is, the ugly truth rearing its ugly head for all its ugly worth.
    “No shit, Sherlock,” was what Sara told me, wrenching me away from my carnal thoughts of Freddie and back to the present and the reality of the situation as far as little Sally was concerned. “It’s freaking me out, too.”
    Sara filled me in on what she’d heard, “I guess Sally was being baby sat by her grandparents over near Watertown Road and Willow Way.” I knew the location well. It was an area of forests and meadows and ponds that eventually lead out to farmland further to the west and was country as rugged as you’d expect to find only twenty miles from a major metropolitan city like Minneapolis. Our little town was named after picturesque Long Lake and is built on its western shore. Our population is just under two thousand, mostly blue collar workers who like the peace and quiet small town living afforded them. But in the last ten years or so richer people have started moving in, buying up big two to five acre lots and building huge McMansions out where Sally went missing. Her grandparents fell into that category, having moved out there only about three years ago.
    “How long’s she been gone?” My heart was racing, imagining how I would feel if one of my own kids turned up missing.
    “Since around four this afternoon,” Sara told me. I looked at the clock on the wall over the sink. It read a few minutes after five. Missing for one hour.”I guess the grandfather had gone on an errand and the grandmother had fallen asleep. Sally just wandered off.”
    “Can we do anything?” I reached out to Laura who was standing nearby and pulled her to me, holding her close and needing to feel the warmth of her little body and smell the sweet strawberry shampoo aroma of her hair. It helped mitigate my fear for the lost child but only a little.
    “That’s why I’m calling. Betty Farnsworth from Our Savior sent out an email. We can meet at the police station at five-thirty to organize into search parties. I’m going. Are you in?”
    I didn’t have to think, “Yeah, I told her.” Then I thought about leaving Kenny and Laura home by themselves, something I didn’t want to do. “I’m bringing the kids.”
    “Sounds good,” Sara said, “I’m bringing mine, too.” Sara’s twins, Caleb and Emma, were just a few years older than Kenny and all four of our children got along well.
    I hung up the phone and got myself and my kids ready. The police station was down the hill and across the highway, only a minute or two drive from me. I grabbed the baseball bat and ran out the door into the backyard thinking I had time for one more check to see if Jake was around. A minute later I was back inside. He wasn’t anywhere that I could tell, a thought that was only partly comforting given that he could be lurking anywhere, perhaps digesting some poor unfortunate creature. I shivered for about the hundredth time in the last day at the thought.
    “Come on kids,” I yelled, “We’re going to look for a lost girl.” They both ran into the kitchen where I was fixing a small backpack of bottled water and snacks. I tossed some mosquito repellant in, too, as I quickly filled them in on what was going on. “I want you to be on your best behavior and do what I say while we’re out there, understand?”
    Laura looked at me wide eyed and said, “Ok.”
    Kenny said, “Ok,” thought for a moment, then asked, “What about Jake?”
    “Yeah, mommy, what about him?” Laura chimed in.
    I knelt down so I was looking them both eye to eye. “We say nothing about Jake to anyone, Ok? Not a word.” Then I added, “We don’t want your dad to get into trouble, right?” Kenny and Laura adored their father and playing my ‘We don’t want your dad to get into trouble’ card was one I used on occasion to get them to do something I really wanted them to do. This was one of those times.
    They both solemnly nodded their heads in agreement.
    “Ok, then, let’s go.”
    We trooped out the back door, my eyes scanning under the bushes for you know who, got in the car and raced down to the village hall where the police station was. All the while I was wondering why I was protecting Freddie. I should have just told the cops about the python being on the loose and be done with the whole mess. It was the certainly the right course of action but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Once again I was falling under the spell of my ex-husband, the father of my kids, the guy who still somehow fired up my former feelings for him no matter how harmful they might be.
    We couldn’t park in the parking lot, it was too full, so we stashed the car down the block and hurried back. It seemed most of the town had turned out to search for little Sally who now had been missing for an hour and a half. Jake the python had been missing for over a day. I attempted to wipe out a possible collision course between the two from my brain and was only moderately successful. Trying to quell my shaking body and the shivers running up and down my spine, I hustled the kids inside. We fought through the crowded foyer before making our way into the packed city council meeting room. I looked around and found Sara along with Caleb and Emma, her eleven year old twins, standing against the wall along one side. I made my way to her and we hugged a quick greeting while our kids all said hi to each other.
    We were assigned a group to search an old railroad bed outside of town. Sara was my best friend, someone I confided in if ever I needed to talk so on the ten minute drive to the trial I decided to tell her about the missing reptile. I spoke quickly and filled her in on the python and Freddie and how he had been taking care of it but the big snake had somehow got loose and now was slithering around free as you please in the general area. The thought of it possibly being nearby made me move closer to Sara even though we were still in her car, a newish Prius, which I assumed was python proof.
    Sara did not take a passive stance when I finished my story, “What the hell?” She screamed, slamming her hand on the steering wheel, “What the friggin’ hell?” She yelled again, just a notch below her previous volume and slammed her hand once more for good measure. She was obviously shocked, if not at the same time at a loss for words. I have to admit, now that I’d gotten the story out into the light of day for someone else to hear about, the whole thing sounded too weird to be true. But the fact of the matter was that, unfortunately, it wasn’t.
    I really had nothing to add in my defense so I just waited for her to calm down. I stared out the window, looking under every bush we drove past for the python. In a minute she’d simmered down a bit but was still mad enough at me to spit out an, “Are you nuts? You need to call the cops and report it,” just for good measure, but I could tell her anger was dissipating. She’s taught tenth grade biology at the local high school for fourteen years and is used to dealing with all kinds of issues, especially regarding unruly, hormone driven teenagers. Having me as a friend was probably pretty similar to what she had to deal with on a daily basis although she’s always been kind enough never to mention it.
    She did, however, mince no words when she by-passed the python issue and went straight to a different point, a point that was a sore spot between the two of us, “I know you still see Freddie occasionally. What’s going on there? Are you comfortable protecting him while that python’s on the loose?”
    I probably should say right now that I still sort of have a thing for my insane ex husband. We’ve even gotten together more than a few times in the two years since the divorce under the guise of quote un-quote talking, but it’s usually led to me spending the night at his ratty old garage slash shack. I’ve confided this to Sara before and, even though she thinks I’m nuts, her opinion is that my attraction to him has nothing to do with anything logical, which I can readily attest to, and more to do with something more rudimentary. Which sort of made sense, once she explained it to me.

 

(see the next issue of cc&d for part two of James Bates’ story “Reptile Lust”)

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