Distortions

Snake’s Shoes

The little girl sat between her Uncle Sam’s legs. Alice and Richard, her parents, sat next to them. They were divorced, and Alice had remarried. She was holding a ten-month-old baby. It had been Sam’s idea that they all get together again, and now they were sitting on a big flat rock not far out into the pond.

“Look,” the little girl said.

They turned and saw a very small snake coming out of a crack between two rocks on the shore.

“It’s nothing,” Richard said.

“It’s a snake,” Alice said. “You have to be careful of them. Never touch them.”

“Excuse me,” Richard said. “Always be careful of everything.”

That was what the little girl wanted to hear, because she didn’t like the way the snake looked.

“You know what snakes do?” Sam asked her.

“What?” she said.

“They can tuck their tail into their mouth and turn into a hoop.”

“Why do they do that?” she asked.

“So they can roll down hills easily.”

“Why don’t they just walk?”

“They don’t have feet. See?” Sam said.

The snake was still; it must have sensed their presence.

“Tell her the truth now,” Alice said to Sam.

The little girl looked at her uncle.

“They have feet, but they shed them in the summer,” Sam said. “If you ever see tiny shoes in the woods, they belong to the snakes.”

“Tell her the truth,” Alice said again.

“Imagination is better than reality,” Sam said to the little girl.

The little girl patted the baby. She loved all the people who were sitting on the rock. Everybody was happy, except that in the back of their minds the grownups thought that their being together again was bizarre. Alice’s husband had gone to Germany to look after his father, who was ill. When Sam learned about this, he called Richard, who was his brother. Richard did not think that it was a good idea for the three of them to get together again. Sam called the next day, and Richard told him to stop asking about it. But when Sam called again that night, Richard said sure, what the hell.

They sat on the rock looking at the pond. Earlier in the afternoon a game warden had come by and he let the little girl look at the crows in the trees through his binoculars. She was impressed. Now she said that she wanted a crow.

“I’ve got a good story about crows,” Sam said to her. “I know how they got their name. You see, they all used to be sparrows, and they annoyed the king, so he ordered one of his servants to kill them. The servant didn’t want to kill all the sparrows, so he went outside and looked at them and prayed, ‘Grow. Grow.’ And miraculously they did. The king could never kill anything as big and as grand as a crow, so the king and the birds and the servant were all happy.”

“But why are they called crows?” the little girl said.

“Well,” Sam said, “long, long ago, a historical linguist heard the story, but he misunderstood what he was told and thought that the servant had said ‘crow,’ instead of ‘grow.’”

“Tell her the truth,” Alice said.

“That’s the truth,” Sam said. “A lot of our vocabulary is twisted around.”

“Is that true?” the little girl asked her father.

“Don’t ask me,” he said.

Back when Richard and Alice were engaged, Sam had tried to talk Richard out of it. He told him that he would be tied down; he said that if Richard hadn’t got used to regimentation in the Air Force he wouldn’t even consider marriage at twenty-four. He was so convinced that it was a bad idea that he cornered Alice at the engagement party (there were heart-shaped boxes of heart-shaped mints wrapped in paper printed with hearts for everybody to take home) and asked her to back down. At first Alice thought this was amusing. “You make me sound like a vicious dog,” she said to Sam. “It’s not going to work out,” Sam said. “Don’t do it.” He showed her the little heart he was holding. “Look at these God-damned things,” he said.

“They weren’t my idea. They were your mother’s,” Alice said. She walked away. Sam watched her go. She had on a lacy beige dress. Her shoes sparkled. She was very pretty. He wished she would not marry his brother, who had been kicked around all his life — first by their mother, then by the Air Force (“Think of me as you fly into the blue,” their mother had written Richard once. Christ!) — and now would be watched over by a wife.

The summer Richard and Alice married, they invited Sam to spend his vacation with them. It was nice that Alice didn’t hold grudges. She also didn’t hold a grudge against her husband, who burned a hole in an armchair and who tore the mainsail on their sailboat beyond repair by going out on the lake in a storm. She was a very patient woman. Sam found that he liked her. He liked the way she worried about Richard out in a boat in the middle of the storm. After that, Sam spent part of every summer vacation with them, and went to their house every Thanksgiving. Two years ago, just when Sam was convinced that everything was perfect, Richard told him that they were getting divorced. The next day, when Sam was alone with Alice after breakfast, he asked why.

“He burns up all the furniture,” she said. “He acts like a madman with that boat. He’s swamped her three times this year. I’ve been seeing someone else.”

“Who have you been seeing?”

“No one you know.”

“I’m curious, Alice. I just want to know his name.”

“Hans.”

“Hans. Is he a German?”

“Yes.”

“Are you in love with this German?”

“I’m not going to talk about it. Why are you talking to me? Why don’t you go sympathize with your brother?”

“He knows about this German?”

“His name is Hans.”

“That’s a German name,” Sam said, and he went outside to find Richard and sympathize with him.

Richard was crouching beside his daughter’s flower garden. His daughter was sitting on the grass across from him, talking to her flowers.

“You haven’t been bothering Alice, have you?” Richard said.

“Richard, she’s seeing a God-damned German,” Sam said.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“What are you talking about?” the little girl asked.

That silenced both of them. They stared at the bright-orange flowers.

“Do you still love her?” Sam asked after his second drink.

They were in a bar, off a boardwalk. After their conversation about the German, Richard had asked Sam to go for a drive. They had driven thirty or forty miles to this bar, which neither of them had seen before and neither of them liked, although Sam was fascinated by a conversation now taking place between two blond transvestites on the bar stools to his right. He wondered if Richard knew that they weren’t really women, but he hadn’t been able to think of a way to work it into the conversation, and he started talking about Alice instead.

“I don’t know,” Richard said. “I think you were right. The Air Force, Mother, marriage—”

“They’re not real women,” Sam said.

“What?”

Sam thought that Richard had been staring at the two people he had been watching. A mistake on his part; Richard had just been glancing around the bar.

“Those two blondes on the bar stools. They’re men.”

Richard studied them. “Are you sure?” he said.

“Of course I’m sure. I live in N.Y.C., you know.”

“Maybe I’ll come live with you. Can I do that?”

“You always said you’d rather die than live in New York.”

“Well, are you telling me to kill myself, or is it O.K. if I move in with you?”

“If you want to,” Sam said. He shrugged. “There’s only one bedroom, you know.”

“I’ve been to your apartment, Sam.”

“I just wanted to remind you. You don’t seem to be thinking too clearly.”

“You’re right,” Richard said. “A God-damned German.”

The barmaid picked up their empty glasses and looked at them.

“This gentleman’s wife is in love with another man,” Sam said to her.

“I overheard,” she said.

“What do you think of that?” Sam asked her.

“Maybe German men aren’t as creepy as American men,” she said. “Do you want refills?”

After Richard moved in with Sam he began bringing animals into the apartment. He brought back a dog, a cat that stayed through the winter, and a blue parakeet that had been in a very small cage that Richard could not persuade the pet-store owner to replace. The bird flew around the apartment. The cat was wild for it, and Sam was relieved when the cat eventually disappeared. Once, Sam saw a mouse in the kitchen and assumed that it was another of Richard’s pets, until he realized that there was no cage for it in the apartment. When Richard came home he said that the mouse was not his. Sam called the exterminator, who refused to come in and spray the apartment because the dog had growled at him. Sam told this to his brother, to make him feel guilty for his irresponsibility. Instead, Richard brought another cat in. He said that it would get the mouse, but not for a while yet — it was only a kitten. Richard fed it cat food off the tip of a spoon.

Richard’s daughter came to visit. She loved all the animals — the big mutt that let her brush him, the cat that slept in her lap, the bird that she followed from room to room, talking to it, trying to get it to land on the back of her hand. For Christmas, she gave her father a rabbit. It was a fat white rabbit with one brown ear, and it was kept in a cage on the night table when neither Sam nor Richard was in the apartment to watch it and keep it away from the cat and the dog. Sam said that the only vicious thing Alice ever did was giving her daughter the rabbit to give Richard for Christmas. Eventually the rabbit died of a fever. It cost Sam one hundred and sixty dollars to treat the rabbit’s illness; Richard did not have a job, and could not pay anything. Sam kept a book of I.O.U.S. In it he wrote, “Death of rabbit—$160 to vet.” When Richard did get a job, he looked over the debt book. “Why couldn’t you just have written down the sum?” he asked Sam. “Why did you want to remind me about the rabbit?” He was so upset that he missed the second morning of his new job. “That was inhuman,” he said to Sam. “ ‘Death of rabbit—$160’ ”—that was horrible. The poor rabbit. God damn you.” He couldn’t get control of himself.

A few weeks later, Sam and Richard’s mother died. Alice wrote to Sam, saying that she was sorry. Alice had never liked their mother, but she was fascinated by the woman. She never got over her spending a hundred and twenty-five dollars on paper lanterns for the engagement party. After all these years, she was still thinking about it. “What do you think became of the lanterns after the party?” she wrote in her letter of condolence. It was an odd letter, and it didn’t seem that Alice was very happy. Sam even forgave her for the rabbit. He wrote her a long letter, saying that they should all get together. He knew a motel out in the country where they could stay, perhaps for a whole weekend. She wrote back, saying that it sounded like a good idea. The only thing that upset her about it was that his secretary had typed his letter. In her letter to Sam, she pointed out several times that he could have written in longhand. Sam noticed that both Alice and Richard seemed to be raving. Maybe they would get back together.

Now they were all staying at the same motel, in different rooms. Alice and her daughter and the baby were in one room, and Richard and Sam had rooms down the hall. The little girl spent the nights with different people. When Sam bought two pounds of fudge, she said she was going to spend the night with him. The next night, Alice’s son had colic, and when Sam looked out his window he saw Richard holding the baby, walking around and around the swimming pool. Alice was asleep. Sam knew this because the little girl left her mother’s room when she fell asleep and came looking for him.

“Do you want to take me to the carnival?” she asked.

She was wearing a nightgown with blue bears upside down on it, headed for a crash at the hem.

“The carnival’s closed,” Sam said. “It’s late, you know.”

“Isn’t anything open?”

“Maybe the doughnut shop. That’s open all night I suppose you want to go there?”

“I love doughnuts,” she said.

She rode to the doughnut shop on Sam’s shoulders, wrapped in his raincoat. He kept thinking, Ten years ago I would never have believed this. But he believed it now; there was a definite weight on his shoulders, and there were two legs hanging down his chest.

The next afternoon, they sat on the rock again, wrapped in towels after a swim. In the distance, two hippies and an Irish setter, all in bandannas, rowed toward shore from an island.

“I wish I had a dog,” the little girl said.

“It just makes you sad when you have to go away from them,” her father said.

“I wouldn’t leave it.”

“You’re just a kid. You get dragged all over,” her father said. “Did you ever think you’d be here today?”

“It’s strange,” Alice said.

“It was a good idea,” Sam said. “I’m always right.”

“You’re not always right,” the little girl said.

“When have I ever been wrong?”

“You tell stories,” she said.

“Your uncle is imaginative,” Sam corrected.

“Tell me another one,” she said to him.

“I can’t think of one right now.”

“Tell the one about the snakes’ shoes.”

“Your uncle was kidding about the snakes, you know,” Alice said.

“I know,” she said. Then she said to Sam, “Are you going to tell another one?”

“I’m not telling stories to people who don’t believe them,” Sam said.

“Come on,” she said.

Sam looked at her. She had bony knees, and her hair was brownish-blond. It didn’t lighten in the sunshine like her mother’s. She was not going to be as pretty as her mother. He rested his hand on the top of her head.

The clouds were rolling quickly across the sky, and when they moved a certain way it was possible for them to see the moon, full and faint in the sky. The crows were still in the treetops. A fish jumped near the rock, and someone said, “Look,” and everyone did — late, but in time to see the circles widening where it had landed.

“What did you marry Hans for?” Richard asked.

“I don’t know why I married either of you,” Alice said.

“Where did you tell him you were going while he was away?” Richard asked.

“To see my sister.”

“How is your sister?” he asked.

She laughed. “Fine, I guess.”

“What’s funny?” Richard asked.

“Our conversation,” she said.

Sam was helping his niece off the rock. “We’ll take a walk,” he said to her. “I have a long story for you, but it will bore the rest of them.”

The little girl’s knees stuck out. Sam felt sorry for her. He lifted her on his shoulders and cupped his hands over her knees so he wouldn’t have to look at them.

“What’s the story?” she said.

“One time,” Sam said, “I wrote a book about your mother.”

“What was it about?” the little girl asked.

“It was about a little girl who met all sorts of interesting animals — a rabbit who kept showing her his pocket watch, who was very upset because he was late—”

“I know that book,” she said. “You didn’t write that.”

“I did write it. But at the time I was very shy, and I didn’t want to admit that I’d written it, so I signed another name to it.”

“You’re not shy,” the little girl said.

Sam continued walking, ducking whenever a branch hung low.

“Do you think there are more snakes?” she asked.

“If there are, they’re harmless. They won’t hurt you.”

“Do they ever hide in trees?”

“No snakes are going to get you,” Sam said. “Where was I?”

“You were talking about Alice in Wonderland.”

“Don’t you think I did a good job with that book?” Sam asked.

“You’re silly,” she said.

It was evening — cool enough for them to wish they had more than two towels to wrap around themselves. The little girl was sitting between her father’s legs. A minute before, he had said that she was cold and they should go, but she said that she wasn’t and even managed to stop shivering. Alice’s son was asleep, squinting. Small black insects clustered on the water in front of the rock. It was their last night there.

“Where will we go?” Richard said.

“How about a seafood restaurant? The motel owner said he could get a babysitter.”

Richard shook his head.

“No?” Alice said, disappointed.

“Yes, that would be fine,” Richard said. “I was thinking more existentially.”

“What does that mean?” the little girl asked.

“It’s a word your father made up,” Sam said.

“Don’t tease her,” Alice said.

“I wish I could look through that man’s glasses again,” the little girl said.

“Here,” Sam said, making two circles with the thumb and first finger of each hand. “Look through these.”

She leaned over and looked up at the trees through Sam’s fingers.

“Much clearer, huh?” Sam said.

“Yes,” she said. She liked this game.

“Let me see,” Richard said, leaning to look through his brother’s fingers.

“Don’t forget me,” Alice said, and she leaned across Richard to peer through the circles. As she leaned across him, Richard kissed the back of her neck.