The stories behind the stories...
A Texas Story
It was the spring that a rattlesnake came in through the torn screen at the bottom of the screen door. It made its way up into baby Charlotte’s crib, curled up right against her head. When Momma went to get her the next morning there it was rattling all to be damned. She screamed for Daddy to come. He did but he didn’t know what to do. He told Momma if he tried to get it out with a stick it could strike at baby Charlotte. Momma fainted straight away.
Pearl, our maid, heard the ruckus and came running. She made Daddy take Momma to her bed. Then she got me to run out to the hen house and get one of the chickens. Daddy came back and asked her what she thought she was doing. She told him to hush up and get on out of the room. When I got back with the chicken she took it, made me take off my blue jeans and wrapped it up. It was squawking and trying to fly off. Then she set the poor hen in the far end of the crib. It commenced to tumble around.
It was a miracle that baby Charlotte never did wake up. Pearl called to Daddy to bring the hedge clippers. Sure enough that snake unraveled and slid right over the top of baby Charlotte and wrapped itself around that hysterical chicken. Pearl grabbed the clippers from Daddy and snapped that snake’s head clean off. She had me take the still moving body out to the yard. She made Daddy get the head. Its tongue was still flicking out and its mouth was moving. He grabbed it with the clippers and followed me out to the yard. I was celebrating, running around with the snake body and the chicken, it was still rattling and the chicken had gotten real calm, like they do when they go to roost. Daddy threw the head in the bramble tangle out along the fence and walked fast out to the lean-to where he kept his bourbon.
When I got back inside Momma was holding baby Charlotte, sobbing and rocking back and forth. I asked Pearl how come baby Charlotte never did wake up. She said that she was singing a be-still song to her like her momma would sing to her when things wasn’t right. I never heard any song, but Pearl was special. Momma never forgave Daddy for not fixing that screen door. That hen never did lay another egg... – from “Texas Stories” by Franklin Cincinnatus
Kevin Tully is an artist, gallerist, woodworker, and writer. He has been a golf columnist and an all-around agitator. Kevin has a figment of his imagination, Franklin Cincinnatus, who dictates short stories ostensibly representing larger bodies of work. Kevin writes them down. kevin@ asmithgallery.com
