Black Snake Pete

Novel Excerpt

Chapter 1

Pete and the Preacher

 

“Peter, did you finish your chores, son?”

“Yes, Pa. I’m just changing for the service now.” Pete shoved the Superman comic under the straw mattress and jumped from his bed. Pete Skinner knew not to test his father when he was summoned.

“Don’t take long. Got to get those cages loaded onto the sled and brought up to the house. Now, mind your Pa and get out here so I can see your attire.”

Pete hadn’t changed yet, so he nervously stripped out of his long johns and grabbed for the first things his eyes settled on. In haste, he threw on a raggedy pair of jeans and a blue tee shirt, which was not his expected Sunday attire.

The house, a two-room structure held together with a few nails and a lot of prayer, had a single bedroom for him and his father and a main room that served as both kitchen and living room. A dilapidated outhouse with a seat that pinched his ass every time he sat on it lay at the rear of the property.

Pete opened the flimsy bedroom door, then looked up into his father’s waiting eyes. “Here I am…” A backhand to his mouth took the rest of the words from it.

“Don’t you sass me, boy. What do you think you’re doing with that shirt on? You know you can’t wear nothin’ but white. Now get changed, or you’ll be sorry the day you were born!”

“Yes, Pa.” Pete retreated into the room and changed into the white shirt. He hated the shirt. It always ended with blood on it, and then he’d have to spend an hour by the creek scrubbing it clean for the next revival. It wasn’t even white anymore, just shades of rust and silt.

It wouldn’t do any good to tell his father how he hated the first Sunday of every month. Or how he wanted to burn his white shirt. Or that he did regret the day he was born to a father like him. So, he kept his mouth shut and met his father’s gaze with the appropriate clothing.

“That’s better. Now go get the cages to the tent, and line them up nice and proper. Then take your place next to them. Mind you don’t drag them feet, or you’ll get another hand upside your head. Now git!”

Pete padded down to the barn barefoot, dragging the sled behind him. It held four of their cages, which Pete stacked and then trudged to the nave. It wasn’t a tent as much as it was a couple of pieces of paneling with a ratty blue tarp for a ceiling.

When everything was set up for the service, Pete took a milk crate, placed it on the floor next to the cages, and sat down to wait.

Hedley’s Holler was named after old man Hedley, who built the first house on the land. His Pa moved in when Hedley died, and then Pete came along. He never knew his Ma and his Pa wouldn’t talk about her. Anytime he asked, a backhand was his reward.

The shitty house was his father’s kingdom, and he’d brag that he didn’t pay a penny for it because he was the Holler’s Pastor, and he was owed it. Pete couldn’t argue with that logic and had no desire to.

The Holler’s parishioners, old and young, began arriving in dribs and drabs. Always early, eager not to miss one second of the service. The same unkempt faces appeared every first Sunday, the Holler’s men, dressed in their best rags, and their wives, sitting alongside, also in their shabby Sunday best. They marched in and sat on the random assortment of folding chairs, milk crates, and boxes. However, the prime seating was a bench that had once been the backseat of his father’s beat-up Chevy and now served as the front-row pew. The seat’s ticking was ripped, and springs popped through in places, forcing the churchgoers to mind their privates when they sat. It was all arranged to resemble pews, but from Pete’s perspective, it looked like a carnival ride at a dump.

The pulpit was made from mismatched corrugated panel pieces left over from the addition of the ‘church room.’ Painted a hideous shade of army green, the empty lectern stood, awaiting its Pastor. The only dressing was a thick tome that his father referred to as a bible. Pete couldn’t read all the words on it, but the leather cover it was wrapped in was the skin of a black snake. If he looked too long at it, it began to draw him to it, begging for his hand. He placed his hand on it only once and jerked back, repulsed, when he felt it squirm as though excited by his touch. From then on, he’d avert his eyes when in its presence. This morning, it was propped on the uneven platform, open to the middle. A thick, red bookmark lolled over the edge like an engorged forked tongue. Pete’s eyes darted away as he heard his father approach.

“Good morning, disciples,” Pete’s father said to his flock as he entered. He walked through the crowd and nodded to them as he stepped up to the pulpit. He placed his calloused hands on the Bible and gazed solemnly at the assembly. “We welcome you into our humble church and ask that you bow your heads and pray.” The crowd of twelve bowed their heads in silent prayer.

To his parishioners, his father was a giant of a man. Tall and broad, at the shoulders, the dirty gunny sacks he’d fashioned together as a frock, narrowed to a rope tied loosely around his waist. The lines on his weathered face dripped with sweat. His jaw had a perpetual three-day-old scruff, and his uneven buzz cut was streaked with silver.

“Wonderful. I hope you’ve all traveled in the Lord’s steps this week. And because the Lord walked amongst serpents, so shall we.” Pete fidgeted and bit his nails. He glanced up nervously to find his father’s disapproving glare fixed on him.

“The Lord spoke to me and told me we need to prove our devotion more strongly, he did. So, I’ve conferred with my boy here, and we have a special announcement to make. Peter is going to handle two serpents at once.” Pete’s eyes turned to saucers as his knees knocked together. Did Pa just say two serpents?

“God said he didn’t feel Peter was using his full potential as a serpent handler. Said he wanted him to prove his obedience with more snakes. God said he might-could overlook his past sins if he’s willing to handle more. And Peter here, always walkin’ in the Lord’s footsteps and doing his bidding, whenever asked. Well, Peter done put his hand to his chest and said if the Lord asked it of him, he knew it must mean a right lot to him, so he would do it.”

Pete jerked his head toward his father, unable to believe the words that had just come out of his mouth. He had not conferred with him, had not mentioned anything of the kind. His instinct was to shout ‘No!’ To get up and run out. To take his Bowie knife and slice his father’s…The thought dangled before him. But he did none of those things; it would only end worse for him if he did.

“In the Lord’s name, we pray Peter shows God his obedience and willingness to be his spiritual tool. Amen.”

“Amen!” The parishioners rose and said in unison.

Pete just sat there, looking down at his hands, taking quick breaths, and hoping his father wouldn’t notice his outright terror.

“Get up, boy! Did you not hear me speaking to the Lord? It’s not Godly to keep him waiting; now get up and dance!”

“Amen!” The crowd chanted.

Pete stood and went to the first cage. It held a diamondback snake that had already bitten him multiple times, but at the last revival, he received a respite. He reached into the cage and grabbed it closer to the head than his father liked, drawing a stern look from him. He was about to go to the next cage when his father pointed at the snake and gave him a look that said, “Put it down and pick it up right, boy.”

He gently put it down and picked it up halfway down the snake’s body, where he knew his father would approve. Then he moved to the next cage, picking up the cottonmouth similarly. His body shook as he held the snakes in the air. He tilted his head to them and chanted the words that always seemed to please his father and incite the crowd.

Once they’d bitten, most snakes’ fangs withdrew and folded back against the roof of their mouths. But these two were the meanest sons of bitches his father had ever brought home. They wouldn’t detach themselves from the skin until they were physically removed. He never knew where they came from and didn’t ask because he didn’t want to join him in snake-hunting, too.

“I disavow you, serpent of Hades. I avow my obedience only to you, Lord,” Pete said through quivering lips.

“Amen!”

“Lord, I’m a sinful sheep in your flock. I’ve sinned, and now I must prove my obedience to you; I beg you, cover me with your protection against these serpents. Amen.”

“Amen!”

The crowd raised their hands and edged their way to the boy. He swayed, moving to an internal rhythm that only he could hear. He never knew where the sound came from, but it enveloped him like a hazy cloud of opium. But always aware enough to know the closer they pinned him, the more nervous the snakes became; it would only be a matter of time before they protested with their fangs. Dancing kept the crowd at bay; no one wanted to feel the snake’s sting.

The snakes coiled themselves around his arms, forming a bond that Pete wanted no part of. He danced in circles, holding the snakes above his head, sometimes holding them out toward the crowd.

With their tongues flicking at them, the parishioners were pushed back for a short reprieve. But, like waves, they swept back in when his arms rose into the air, encroaching on his safety zone. This brought his father and the congregation’s voices to a crescendo of frenzied chants that Pete couldn’t understand. Fully enraptured, they danced and encircled the boy with chants of faith and madness.

“Lord, hear the cries of devotion from me as I…OWW! Pa, it bit me, git it off!”

Pete screamed as the diamondback sank its teeth into the soft flesh of Pete’s left shoulder, releasing its venom into the shaken boy.

“Only the Lord can remove his fangs from your skin when ready, son.” His father had taken several snakes from the cages and began dancing with them. He held them high in the air, almost touching the canvas ceiling, and saying words that, to Pete, made no sense. “Hail the Lord of the Darkness, we beseech thee, bless us with your presence. Drink the blood of your sheep, flowing only for you!”

His father turned his back on the chanting crowd, blocking their view of the cages. When he turned back, the crowd gasped at the sight of his hands filled with snakes. He danced with them, waving them dangerously close to his face as if taunting them to bite. Through the pain, Pete felt unable to take his eyes from the grisly sight.

When his father placed a snake on his shoulder, Pete thought he’d ‘gone under,’ the phrase they used when they were in the throes of the Lord’s work. The slender green snake slid around his father’s head, and Pete looked away, not wanting to see it that close to his face. He knew what they were capable of. When he dared a glance back at his father, Pete swore he saw its tail slip into his ear and was gone. The man’s eyes closed to slits, drool formed at the corners of his mouth, and he moaned as if excited by the intrusion. He didn’t try to remove it, and Pete looked away again, disgusted.

He didn’t see that, he told himself. This wasn’t what God would want them to do. Did anyone see what just happened? And why isn’t anyone helping me? In pain, he looked up into the crowd’s eyes and saw a throng of delirious parishioners looking down at him, lusting after the blood dripping from him, and then they began disrobing, groping their way into the fray. Pete tried to back up but could go no further. His father stood with feet planted firmly, and his body an unmoving wall in his way.

“But Pa…Owww, please, it hurts!” And then the cottonmouth, as if taking a cue from its brethren, sank its fangs into the scarred tissue of Pete’s right forearm.

The white-hot fire in his arm was now all he could focus on. He grabbed at the snakes, but they wouldn’t unlatch their jaws. “Pa, PLEASE!” he screeched, but to no avail. The crowd accosted him, their hands untroubled by the snakes.

His blood, infused with snake venom, trickled from his wounds. The crowd, now in an orgy of madness, vied to touch it. They smeared it over their mouths and bodies and licked the remnants of the viscous fluid from their fingers. He felt their hands sliding over him, his blood slicking his body. They were all on him, chanting, even his father, the gunny sack forgotten.

The reaction to the venom was severe; he spewed bile, his heart raced, and dizziness set in. Pete’s eyes rolled up in his head, the pain unbearable. He fell to his knees, under the mass of bodies, both human and beast-like, writhing over him.

The bites were deep, and somewhere between the last morbid cries of ecstasy and the sweet release of death, his father pulled the snakes off.

But before the blessed veil of unconsciousness drifted over him, he swore he saw that green snake that had nested in his father’s ear, poking its head out again, as if watching the show. It looked at him and flicked out its tongue, then unhinged its jaws and opened its mouth. As his vision wavered, a mottled mouse carcass slid out and rolled down his father’s chest, landing on a bare back. Hands shot out, fighting over it as its body was ripped apart. Pete saw the lucky winner raise the mouse head victoriously, then stuff it into their mouth and gleefully savor the morsel.

The darkness beckoned, but the crowd’s delirium wouldn’t allow him that mercy. Colors burst forth in a hazy vision as the parishioners’ faces distorted into the serpents they worshipped. Pete couldn’t take it anymore; he closed his eyes to the sight and forced himself into the darkness.

#

When he awoke two days later, he was sick with snakebite poisoning and couldn’t remember much of what happened after the first bite. But he felt deep in his gut that it was bad.

His father approached his cot, and Pete glanced up into his eyes, looking for solace. But instead, received a heavy hand on his chest. He gulped a breath of air and held it, anticipating the worst. The large hand pressed down until Pete’s breath no longer flowed.

“Son, you have got to learn to take more of these beasts. You are a child of mine, a child of our dark Lord, and this is what he expects of us.”

Did he hear right? The pressure was affecting his mind, but still…

“How do you think it looks to our parishioners that the son of a Pastor, a vessel of the dark Lord, can’t hold his snakes?” His hand continued to press down on the boy’s chest as he spoke, and Pete’s eyes grew wide as the breath left him.

He heard it that time, he was certain.

“I’m sorry, Pa,” his words barely forming as he struggled to speak. “I’ll do better, just, let me breathe, Pa,” he begged.

“See that you do, son. We will increase the serpents by two; that will prove your devotion. For now, the punishment has to fit the sin, I think.” He released Pete’s chest and walked out.

Pete gulped in lungfuls of air and cried out to the empty room, “No, please, not that again.”