Snakes (Part Five)
Jesse steps closer and investigates the skin. Tom shows him how its both flexible and brittle at the same time, similar to wax paper that has begun to break down with age. Jesse traces his finger across the black racing stripe that runs vertically on the skin. Tom gestures it in my direction. “Want to touch?” he says. “There’s no snake in it. It’s just skin.”
I flinch and cringe against the wall shaking my head. Tom looks disappointed, and I feel compelled to comfort him. “I’m still in the room,” I say. “That’s a big deal.” He brightens. “I’m going to cure you,” he says. And I don’t really have the heart to tell him that’s unlikely. I nod.
Tom drapes the skin over a piece of plywood that’s leaning against the wall. “Are you leaving that there?” I ask. He sighs, and I think he’s going to lecture me, but instead he says, “I’ll take it out and put it in the van, OK?” He says this tenderly, and I am struck by his ability to maintain patience with me. He steps out onto the front porch and calls back to us, “The view.” He doesn’t have to say anything else. We both nod.
“Are you still going to keep looking?” I ask. I must sound anxious because he comes back to the screen door.
“I’m coming back and finishing up in the basement,” he says. “I won’t leave until I look everywhere in the house.”
Jesse pulls his gloves back on, signaling we need to get back to work. I pick up my contractor bag. Insulation weighs more than I expected. It still surprises me. The contractor bags, when full are nearly four feet tall, and they have all the maneuverability of a small dead child, which is to say none at all. Every so often Jesse says “Tamp it down.” I hate this part, especially now that we’ve seen the snake. It comprises folding the tops of the bag in and pushing the air out of the bag and insulation. My prodigious imagination has conjured up a vision of snakes wrapping around my arms and up onto my face. Tom comes back into the house and goes downstairs. Jesse hefts the shovel again. Our dogs, Pippa and Edgar Allan Poodle II, stand vigil in the other room. I have worried Edgar with my scream, and he can’t seem to settle into a comfortable spot on the floor.