Snake Farm

Another excerpt -- more soon!

“Don’t be afraid, Shelley,” Mother said, using her affectionate nickname for me. Nobody except her ever called me Shelley, and she never used it except when she was trying to be sweet. I’d offered to accompany her in hopes of buying some unusual Christmas gifts for my friends in Michigan. But once there, I didn’t think it was a great idea.

Harlon had worked at the farm for a couple of years and none of the people Mother knew when she was young and selling snakes still worked there. Harlon told us a lot of them had died from the acetone used to make the paperweights. “They think it gave them cancer,” Harlon reported.

I wondered if this had affected Mother. She looked so frail among all the snake merchandise, her weight plummeting post-surgery, her face drawn and tired. Now she relied on a steady stream of Vicodin to get her through the day. Much of her time was spent in her darkened bedroom watching television, the set surrounded by tiny stuffed animals that Beth had bought to make her feel better. Mother enjoyed The Sopranos and documentaries about people who had undergone violent transformations.

She looked happy in the snake farm, but I could tell she wanted to get home. “I think I’ve seen it all,” she said as I paid for a dandelion encapsulated in a paperweight.

“I don’t know how the guy does it so that the dandelion looks like you’re just about to make a wish,” Harlon said. “Seems like it would get all fucked up in the goop surrounding it.”

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