The Snake
.
Sun and fog were playing games, keeping each
other company. I had to sit alone in our garden. For fun I stared down at the thick scabs on my knee. I'd been warned by Daddy not to pick them off or they'd leave scars--but who cared about scars? I began to carefully lift the edges of the crust just to see what was underneath. I didn't see a darn thing but red, tender- looking flesh, ready to bleed again.
Sun won the game in the sky and shone hot on my head. Almost heard my brains frying. Didn't want fried brains. I moved to the shade.
Now my head was aching. I bit down on my lower lip hard enough to draw blood. Didn't hurt but later it would swell up so big Momma would have to feel worried. That would be good. She should be worried about what was happening to me.
Used to be Momma's little boy who got lots of attention until that dratted little girl came to take my place. Soon Momma and Jory would return from ballet class. That's all they cared about--dancing and Cindy. I knew about the important things in life, what really counted most--money. Having lots of it, then you didn't have to think about needing it or how to get it. John Amos and Malcolm's book had taught me that.
"Bart," said Emma, who'd stolen up behind me. "I'm so sorry you missed your birthday trip to Disneyland. To make up for that I've made you a little birthday cake of your very own." She held in her hands a tiny cake with one candle in the middle of the chocolate. Was not just one year old! I struck that cake from her hands so it fell to the ground. She cried out, looking hurt enough to cry as she backed off. "That wasn't very grateful, or very kind," she said in a choked way. "Bart, why do you have to act so ugly? We all try to do our best."
I stuck out my tongue. She sighed and left me alone.
Later Emma came out again with that bratty girl in her arms. Wasn't my sister. Didn't want any sister. I hid behind a tree and peeked around. Emma put Cindy in the plastic swimming pool. She began to kick and splash the shallow water. Dumb, dumb, dumb . . . couldn't even swim. See how Emma laughed and enjoyed all her baby-doings when I could stand on my head. If I sat in that pool and splashed with my hands and feet she wouldn't think it was cute.
I waited for Emma to go away, but she pulled up a chair, sat down and began to shell peas. Plop, plop, plop went the green peas into the blue bowl. "That's it, dearie," Emma encouraged Cindy. "Splash the water, kick your pretty legs, flap your sweet arms and make your limbs strong so soon you'll be swimming."
I watched and waited, each pea she shelled telling me that soon Emma would have to get up and go into the kitchen. Cindy would be left alone. All alone. And she couldn't swim. Cats crouched down low like me when they wanted to catch a bird. Wish I had a tail to swish.
The last green pea fell. Emma rose to leave. I tensed my muscles. Just then Momma drove up in her bright red car and pulled to a stop by the garage. Emma waited to say hello. First it was Jory bounding over the lawn. "Hi, Emma!" he called. "What's for dinner?"
"You'll
like my dinner no matter what," answered Emma, all grins for him, her handsome darling.
Not like she treated me--the brat!
"As for Bart," she went on, "I know he'll hate the peas, the vegetable casserole, the lamb chops and the dessert. Lord knows that boy is hard to please."
Momma stopped to talk to Emma like she wasn't a servant, then she ran to play with Cindy, kissing and hugging her as if she hadn't seen the dummy in ten years. "Mom," sang out Jory, "why don't we both put on swim suits and join Cindy in her pool?"
"I'll race you to the house, Jory!" agreed Momma, and off they ran like little kids.
"Now you be a good little girl and keep on playing with your rubber ducky and boat," said Emma to Cindy. "Emma will be right back."
My head lifted before I began to wiggle on my belly on the ground. The brat in the pool stood up and took off her bathing suit. Stark naked and bold she hurled her wet suit at me, then teased and laughed and tormented me with her bare flesh. Then, as if bored with my reaction, she sat again in the shallow water and stared down at herself with a secret little smile. Wicked! Shameless! Imagine her showing her private parts to me.
Mothers should treat their daughters how to act decent, proper, modest. My mother was just like Corrine, whom John Amos had said was weak and never punished her children enough. "Yes, Bart, your grandmother ruined her children, and now they live in sin and flaunt God and his moral rules!"
I guess it was up to me to teach Cindy a lesson about modesty and shame. Forward I wiggled.
Now
I had her attention. Her blue eyes opened wide. Her rosy full lips parted. At first she seemed happy that finally I was gonna play kiddy games with her. Then, something wise put fright in her eyes. She froze and made me think of a timid rabbit scared by a vicious snake. Snake. Much better to be a snake than a cat Snake in The Garden of Eden doing unto Eve what should have been done in the beginning.
Lo, said the Lord when he spied Eve in her nakedness, go forth from Eden and let the world hurl their stones.
Hissing and flicking my tongue in and out, I edged closer. Was the Lord who spoke and I who obeyed. Wicked mother who refused to punish had made me what I was, an evil snake willing to do the Lord's bidding, even if it wasn't my own way.
I tried to flatten my head with willpower and make it small, flat and reptilelike. Tears came to Cindy's huge, scared eyes, and she began to bawl as she tried to wiggle over the rounded rim of the wading pool. The water wasn't deep enough for a little girl to drown in, or else Emma wouldn't have left her alone.
But . . . if a boa constrictor from Brazil was on the loose--what chance did a two-year-old have?
I wiggled over the side and squirmed in the water. She screamed, "Barr-tie! Go'way, Barr-tie!"
"Hsss . . . ssss," I went. My S's longer than John Amos's. I coiled my body around her small naked one and hooked my legs under her neck, dragging her down into the water. Couldn't really drown, but the Lord above had to warn those who sinned. I'd seen jungle snakes unhinge their jaws on TV. I tried to unhinge mine. Then I could swallow Cindy whole.
All of a sudden another snake had me! I yelped and released my grip on Cindy to keep from drowning . . . or being eaten alive!
Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?
"What the Devil do you think you're doing?" yelled Jory, red with rage as he shook me until my head rolled. "I watched you wiggle your way along to see what you had in mind. Bart--did you try to drown Cindy?"
"No!" I gasped. "Just punishing her a little, not much."
"Yeah," he sneered, "like you punished Clover a little."
"Never did nothing to Clover. I take good care of Apple. I am not a bad boy . . . I'm not, not, not."
"Why are you crying if you are so innocent? You killed him! I see it in your eyes!"
I glared hard at Jory, fury washing over me. "You hate me! I know you do!" I lunged forward and tried to hit him Couldn't. I lowered my head, backed up and ran forward to butt him squarely in the stomach. Down he went, all doubled over, crying out from the pain. Before he could kill me, I kicked him but didn't know it would end up where it did. My aim was never good. Gee . . . that must hurt a lot.
"Unfair to kick in the groin," he groaned, his face so pale he seemed on the edge of a faint. "That's dirty fighting, Bart. Gross, too."
Meanwhile Cindy had recovered enough to scramble from the pool, and she tottered off naked toward the house, howling at the top of her lungs.
"Wicked sinful girl!" I screamed. "All this is her fault! Her fault!"
From the back door Emma came on the run, her white apron fluttering, her hands covered with flour. She was closely followed by Momma, who had put on a skimpy blue bikini. "Bart, what have you done?" screamed Momma. She swept Cindy up in her arms, then swooped to pick up a towel Emma had dropped.
"Mommy," sobbed Cindy. "Big snake came . . . big snake!"
Why, imagine that. She'd known what I was. Not so dumb after all. Momma wrapped the towel about Cindy and stood her on the ground. She glared at me just as I had my foot raised to kick Jory, who was panting with pain. "Bart . . . if you dare to kick Jory again, you will regret it!"
Emma glared at me with hatred. I looked from one to the other. Everybody hated me, would be glad to see me in my grave.
Sore and full of pain, Jory tried to rise, not so graceful now. Just as awkward as me. He wasn't so handsome now. Still he could shout: "You're crazy, Bart! Crazy as a loon!"
"Bart, don't you dare throw that stone at your brother!" cried Momma when she saw me swoop to pick up one.
"You dreadful boy! Don't you throw that!" screamed Emma.
I whipped around and ran to pound on Emma with my fists. "You stop calling me names!" I yelled. "I'm not dreadful! I'm not bad!"
Momma raced toward me and grabbed me and threw me down. "Don't you ever throw another stone as long as you live, or use your fists on another woman!" Momma shouted as she pinned my shoulders to the ground.
Red rage entered my mind, making me see her as all women with "beguiling" curves and wiles. Malcolm knew about them all, told everything about how he'd wanted to pound all their breasts flat. I filled my eyes with Malcolm's malicious hatred, and it worked. Momma trembled as she held me down. "Bart, what's wrong with you? You don't know what you're saying or doing. You don't even look like yourself."
I bared my teeth as if to bite her--then I tried to. She slapped me, hard, repeatedly, until I began to cry.
"You go up into the attic and stay there, Bart Sheffield, until I come up and see what has to be done to set you straight!"
Scary in the attic. I sat on the edge of, one of those little beds and waited for her to come in. She'd never spanked me. A few slaps besides the ones on my face today were all the punishment I'd had up until now . . and now she was doing to me just what had been done to Malcolm. I was just like Malcolm.
The door into the attic opened and I heard her climbing the steep, narrow stairs. Her mouth was set in a grim line as she towered above me, staring downward, as if forcing herself to look at me. I never thought she could look so mean.
"Pull down your pants, Bart."
"No!"
"Do as I say or your punishment will be much worse."
"No! You can't hurt me. You lay one hand on me and I'll wait until you're in your ole ballet class and then I'll get Cindy--and Emma won't be able to stop me! I can be in a thousand places before she can move to one--and the police won't put me in jail because I'm a minor!"
"Bart, I'm losing patience with you."
"That won't be all you'll lose if you hit me!" I bellowed.
She paused three feet from where I sat on the bed. Her small pale hands rose to her throat and she said quietly, "Oh, God . ." and it was just a hoarse whisper. "I should have known a child conceived under such circumstances would turn out like this. Bart, I'm so sorry your son is a monster."
A monster? Was I a monster?
No--she was the monster! She was doing to me just what Malcolm's mother had done, the cause of him being put in the attic and punished. I hated her then, just as much as I'd loved her before.
I screamed it out: "I hate you, Momma! I hope you drop dead!"
That's when she backed away, tears in her eyes. Then she turned and ran. But before she went down the stairs she locked the door to keep me up in that miserable dry attic that I hated and feared. She was gonna make me strong like Malcolm, and mean too. Someday she'd pay. I'd make her pay for doing this to me, when I wanted to be good, and wanted her to love me just a little more than Cindy or Jory. I began to cry. Nothing ever worked out the way I wanted it to.
It was Daddy who spanked my bare bottom after he came home and heard all they had to tell him about me. I admired him for ignoring the way I pleaded and apologized.
"Did you feel any of that?" he asked when he was finished, and I pulled up my pants.
I smiled. "No. To hurt me you gotta break my bones, and then the police would throw you in jail for child abuse." He studied me with those stern blue eyes. "You think you have the best of us, don't you?" he asked in his calm, rational way. "You think because you are a minor there is no law that can touch you, but you are wrong, Bart. We live in a civilized society where people are expected to conform to the rules. No one is ever beyond the control of the law, even the President. And one of the worst punishments for a child to endure is being locked away so he cannot come and go at his own free will." He looked sad then. "That can be a very traumatic experience."
I didn't say anything. He spoke again. "Your mother and I have decided we can no longer tolerate your behavior. So as soon as I can arrange it, you will go once a day to a psychiatrist. If we have to, if you persist in defying us, we will leave you in the care of doctors who can help you to learn how to behave normally."
"You can't make me," I gasped, terrified some shrink would have me locked away behind bars forever. "If you try and force me, I'll kill myself!"
He looked at me sternly. "Bart, you won't kill yourself. So don't you sit there and think you can outwit your mother or me. Your mother and I have faced up to bigger and better than a ten-year-old boy--remember that."
Later that evening when I was in my bed, I heard Momma and Daddy really yelling at each other, yelling like I'd never heard them before.
"Why did you send Bart into the attic, Catherine? Did you have to do that? Couldn't you just have ordered him to stay in his room and wait until I came home?"
"No! He likes being in his room. He has everything in there to make it a pleasant place to be-- and as you know well, the attic is not pleasant. I did what I had to."
"What you had to? Cathy--do you realize who you sound like?"
"Well," she said with ice in her voice, "haven't I been telling you all along that's what I am--a bitch who cares only about herself?"
They took me to a shrink the very next day, shoved me down in a chair and told me to stay there. They sat beside me until a door opened and we were called inside. A woman doctor was behind a big desk. At least they could have chosen a man. I hated her because her hair was slick and black like Madame Marisha's hair when she was young and posing for pictures. Her white blouse bulged in front so I had to turn my eyes away.
"Dr. Sheffield, you and your wife can wait outside, we will talk later." I watched my parents go out the door. Never had I felt so all alone as when that woman turned to me and looked me over with her kind eyes that were hiding mean thoughts. "You don't want to be here, do you?" she asked. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of letting her know I heard. "My name is Dr. Mary Oberman."
So what?
"There are toys over on that table . . . help yourself."
Toys . . . I wasn't a baby. I glared at her. She turned her head and I knew she was uncomfortable, though trying not to let it show. "Your parents have told me you like to play pretend games. Is that because you don't have enough playmates?"
Didn't have any. But darn if that idiot woman was gonna know. I'd be a fool to tell her John Amos was the best friend I had. Once it had been my grandmother, but she had betrayed me.
"Bart, you can sit there and be silent, but you only succeed in hurting those who love you most, and
you
are hurt more than anyone else. Your parents want to help you. That's why they brought you here. You have to cooperate and try. Tell me if you're happy. Tell me if you feel frustrated, and if you like the way your life is going."
Wouldn't say yes, wouldn't say no. Wouldn't say anything and she couldn't make me. Then she talked about people who kept themselves locked up, and how that could ruin them emotionally. All her words were like rain on the windowpane I made myself into.
"Do you hate your mother and father?"
Wouldn't answer.
"Your brother Jory, do you like him?"
Jory was okay. He'd be better if he was more clumsy than me, and ugly too.
"Your adopted sister Cindy . . . what do you think of her?"
Maybe my eyes told her something, for she scribbled away on her notepad. "Bart," she began when she put her pen aside, her face trying to look motherly and kind, "if you refuse to cooperate, we will have no choice but to put you in a hospital where many doctors can try to help you regain control of your emotions. You won't be mistreated, but it won't be as nice as being at home. You won't have your own room, your own things, your own parents except once a week for an hour. So don't you think it would be much nicer to try and help yourself before this goes any further? What is it that changed you from the boy you were last summer?"