Snake Eyes

by Gary Clifton

“C’mon, Beto, I gotta be at the market sackin’ them damned groceries at eight. Them snakes jes’ waitin’.”

Beto stepped off his grandmother’s rickety stoop. A four-foot plastic tubing hung around his neck. Tall, gangly and sixteen, he’d waited until his abuela was asleep before he borrowed her flashlight and dug his siphon hose from under her back porch. The smell of stale upholstery filled the interior of the old Chevrolet. “Yo mama know you got her car, Ese?”

Jaime, short and pudgy, slumped behind the wheel. “Well, hell no. An’ we gotta put a couple gallons in before I take it back. I see you brought the credit card.”

Both boys laughed.

Beto said, “Man, them dozers carry diesel. We find one uses gas, we fill ’er up. You got the snake jailhouse?”

“Yeah, in the trunk. Man, we stealin’ gas, we gotta be special careful of ol’ Deputy Fat Butt.”

“Lots of space, Ese. Batman couldn’t find us out there, let alone that cabron.”

In the rocky desert north of Laredo, Texas, rattlesnakes were as common as cacti. Jaime and Beto had worked up a steady business of snaring rattlers and dropping them through the small hole in the top of a wooden box they’d made from a citrus case. The snare was an electrical wire threaded through a length of metal pipe with a flexible loop of the wire extending from the business end.

A bootleg middleman from across the border in Neuvo Laredo would pay cash for the reptiles for resale to a U.S. lab for use in antivenom. The boys knew a license was needed, but poverty dictated need. The natural fear of snakes kept competition to a minimum.

After fifteen minutes northbound, Beto said, “Lookit, dude, dirt tracks where them trucks come out. They gonna lead straight to Beto’s Super Service.”

In a dusty mile of groping along rough ground without headlights, paydirt: a gasoline-fed, trailer-mounted generator well hidden behind a row of semi-trailers. Mama’s tank was soon in the unfamiliar position of “full.”

“Jaime, they diggin’ most up north there. Lotsa rattlers on the ground.”

In less than an hour, aided by grandma’s flashlight, they had gathered about twenty angry rattlers, many the small but deadly sidewinders and some larger, with one middle-aged specimen at over five feet

Back on the road, Jaime hit the headlights. Instantly, from two hundred yards behind, the ominous terror of flashing red lights.

“Toss that hose, man.” Jaime drove a hundred feet farther to provide some cover for dumping the evidence, then pulled to the shoulder.

Jaime looked behind in terror. “Ese, it’s deputy Fat Butt.”

“Outa the car, both of y’all’s. Hands on the trunk,” ordered the squad car’s exterior speaker.

Both assumed the position against the Chevrolet trunk.

“Well, by God,” the officer growled. “Alvarez and Rodriguez. You two punks been up in the construction area stealing stuff. Tools bring good cash in them pawnshops over in Nuevo Laredo. Open the trunk now!” He brandished his nightstick.

Jaime said, “Officer, I gotta reach back in to get the key. Please don’t shoot us, man.”

“Man? Punk, my name is Deputy Smith and shootin’ you two ain’t a bad idea. Dark road and all.”

Jaime retrieved the keys and, with trembling hands, opened the trunk.

The officer flashed his light inside. “What’s in the box?”

“Rattlesnakes,” both boys answered in unison.

“Yeah, damn right, snakes. Mexicans all scared o’ snakes.” He reached down and fumbled for the lid.

“Please don’t open that box,” Beto implored.

“Yeah, damned straight. Gonna recover me a load of stolen tools. Construction boss might pay a nice ree-ward.”

He slammed back the lid. The boys could have told him that the snakes would initially be stunned but would soon try slithering out. Both boys involuntarily slid further away.

The larger rattler was atop the pile of squirming horror and must have made some movement toward freedom. Deputy Smith shrieked in soprano terror, slammed the lid, grasped his chest, and keeled over against the rear bumper of mama’s Chevrolet like a wounded hippopotamus.

“Dio mio,” spat Beto. “He’s dead.”

“Naw, hell, surely he ain’t dead, but we’re in deep, buddy.”

Beto knelt and felt around on Smith’s chest and throat, imitating moves he’d seen on TV. The body emitted a gaseous belch but did not seem to be breathing.

“This dude dead, Jaime. We gotta use his radio to call for help.”

“You touch anything, Vato, and you in jail forever. We need to get the hell outa here.”

“No way, man. We ain’t killers, but our snakes scared the guy to death. I’m callin’ for help.”

“Big mistake, Beto.”

Beto found the microphone. “Uhhh, gotta cop down on Mines Road, ”We ain’t did nothin’, man.”

Squad cars arrived in force. Beto and Jaime were handcuffed and held in separate cars. Both were dumbfounded when the glut of cops released them, their trunk cargo intact. They drove away in Mom’s old Chevrolet.

* * *

Beto was waiting for the school bus in front of his grandmother’s house. Jamie whizzed up on a bicycle en route to his grocery job.

“Get any sleep?” Jaimie asked.

“Nope.”

“Supplier gonna pick up our snakes tonight. A hundred bucks, man.”

“Outstanding.”

“Hey, TV says Fat Butt ain’t died.”

“No foolin’?”

“We goin’ to jail?”

“No clue. Tough ol’ sheriff won’t back down from nuttin’.”

* * *

“Sergeant, run that by again.”

“Sheriff Gonzales, when I responded, Smith was down, unconscious. He revived, there’s no law against trapping rattlesnakes, so we hadda cut ’em loose.”

“Rattlesnakes?”

“Yessir, exposure to a box of the devils caused Smith to have a cardio event.”

“Cardio! Try cowardice. What else? “

“Well, sir, several thousand dollars of stolen construction equipment in his squad car—”

“Smith is a misfit bully with multiple complaints for pushin’ young men around. Arrest him... and hope them boys don’t sue.”

“Yessir.”