Life Expectancy
charming idea," my mother said.
"Just peculiar in my book," Grandma disagreed. "Little Ned was six feet tall by his eleventh birthday, wound up six feet four-a big lug like our Jimmy."
No matter what my grandmother thinks, I am inches shorter than Little Ned. I probably weigh a lot less than he did, too-except if the comparison is limited to hand weight, in which case I would have a considerable advantage over him.
Comparing my own two legs, my left weighs more than the right by virtue of the two steel plates and the numerous screws that now hold the femur together, plus the single steel plate in the tibia. The leg required considerable vascular surgery, as well, but that didn't add an ounce.
At dinner there in early November 1994, the wound drains were no longer in place, which improved the way I smelled, but I still wore a fiberglass cast. I sat at the end of the table, stiff leg thrust out to one side, as if I hoped to trip Grandma.
Weena finished her crab, smacked her lips in the flamboyant manner that she believes is a right of anyone her age, and said, "You mentioned your mama makes snake money three ways."
Lorrie patted her wonderfully full lips on her napkin. "She also milks rattlesnakes."
Appalled, my dad said, "What kind of supermarket from hell would sell such stuff?"
"We had a cute little milk snake lived with us for a while," Mom told Lorrie. "His name was Earl, but I always thought Bernard would suit him better."
"He looked like a Ralph to me," Grandma Rowena disagreed.
"Earl was a male," Mom said, "or at least we always assumed so. If he'd been a female, should we have milked him? After all, if you don't milk a cow, it can end up in terrible distress."
The evening was off to a splendid start. I hardly had to say anything.
I looked at Dad. He smiled at me. I could tell he was having a wonderful time.
"There's not actually milk in a milk snake," Lorrie said. "None in a rattler, either. What my mother milks out of them is venom. She gets a grip behind the head and massages the poison glands. The venom squirts out of the fangs, which are hypodermic in rattlers, and into a collection beaker."
Because he considers the dining room to be a temple, Dad rarely puts an elbow on the table. He put one on it now, and rested his chin in his hand, as though settling in for a long listen. "So your mother has a rattlesnake ranch."
"Ranch is too grand a word, Rudy. So is farm, for that matter. It's more of a garden with just the one crop."
My grandmother let out a satisfying belch and said, "Who does she sell this venom to-assassins, or maybe those pygmies with blowguns?"
"Drug companies need it to make antivenin. And it has a few other medical uses."
"You mentioned a third revenue stream," my father reminded her.
"My mother's a real ham," Lorrie said with affection. "So she takes party bookings. She has this fantastic act with the snakes."
"Who would book such an act?" my father wondered.
"Who wouldn't?" my mother asked, probably already thinking ahead to their anniversary party and Weena's birthday.
"Exactly," Lorrie said. "All kinds of corporate affairs like retirement parties, Christmas parties. Bar mitzvahs, the American Library Association, you name it."
Mom and Dad removed the appetizer plates. They served bowls of chicken corn soup with cheddar crisps on the side.
"I love corn," Grandma said, "but it gives me flatulence. I used to care, but I'm not obliged to anymore. The golden years rock."
Raising a toast not with wine but with his first spoonful of soup, Dad said, "Here's hoping that bugger won't weasel out of a trial. Here's hoping he fries."
The bugger, of course, was Punchinello Beezo. The following morning, he would attend a preliminary hearing to determine if he was mentally fit to stand trial.
He had gunned down Lionel Davis, Honker, Crinkles, and Byron Met-calf, a longtime leader of the town's preservation society, whom he had tortured to obtain information about access to the passageways under the town square.
In addition, the explosions had killed two members of a cleaning crew at work in the courthouse and a hobo assessing the treasures of a Dumpster behind the library. Martha Faye Jeeter, an elderly widow living in an apartment in the building next
Weitere Kostenlose Bücher