Snake Doctor and Other Stories

By C. Jerry Hale

A collection of stories ranging in time from the 1940’s to present and taking place in locales such as Memphis, Tennessee; Sheffield, Alabama; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and various other rural locations in the South. The stories chronicle the lives, life events, and conflicts of southern characters including the poor and rural; high school and college students; the elderly; children; the educated and uneducated; businesspeople; teachers and the working class. A rich thread of southern heritage, culture, and the human condition runs throughout the collection and brings to life the character’s motivations, mannerisms, eccentricities, persistence and resilience. Characters such as Uncle Lum; Uncle Caleb and Aunt Martha; Mitchell Murphy and Marsha Butler; Pack Jordan and Granville Graves; Nancy and Jack; Walter and Edna; and Paul and Davey evoke the intimate expanse of history, legend, truth, desperation, and textures of place: Southern places, Southern people, Southern conflicts and Southern relationships.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Dec 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781977270894

C. Jerry Hale

Jerry Hale is a retired pharmacist who began writing stories and comedy sketches when he was fourteen. He is an Army veteran and has worked as a carpenter, teacher and musician and has designed costumes for local theatre and dance groups. He is the author of a previous novel “The Minor Proxy”. He lives in North Georgia with his wife, a nurse and artist. 

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Snake Doctor

and Other Stories

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2024 C. Jerry Hale

v2.0

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Outskirts Press, Inc.

http://www.outskirtspress.com

Cover Photo © 2024 Lynda Hale. All rights reserved - used with permission.

Outskirts Press and the OP logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

For my mentors:

Billy Jason Allen,

George August Hofer,

and Arthur Harry Parker.

Contents

Alphabetical Order

A Cat’s Tale

The Entailment

Lookout

Maybe April

One More Julep

Perfect Pitch

Sheffield

Snake Doctor

Solo Flight

Standard Equipment

The Third Commandment

The Trader

Vigil

Alphabetical Order

As soon as I got to school that day, they sent me to the principal’s office. Which was a pretty big deal, because I never got into any kind of trouble. At least not the kind of trouble they sent you to the principal’s office for.

Miss Webster was Mr. Talley’s secretary. She was real old and prim looking. I didn’t know her very well because, like I said before, I didn’t go there much. But she seemed to know who I was and told me to go right on in to Mr. Talley’s office.

When I got inside, Leslie Gordon and Francine Hancock were already there. I felt a little better then, because they never did anything wrong. Mr. Talley wasn’t mad either. You could always tell when he was mad, because his neck would swell and his head and face would turn red and he would stand there with his arms straight down by his sides, clenching and unclenching his fists. Mr. Talley was not a pretty sight when he was mad. But he wasn’t mad now. He was just sitting behind the desk with this strange look on his face, like maybe he didn’t know what to say.

I sat in the chair next to Francine and waited. I was beginning to think I wasn’t in trouble after all. Leslie was our homeroom president and Francine was secretary-treasurer. I was vice-president. I won’t tell you how that happened because it would bore you to death. But it was Eddie Grubbs’ fault. He was my best friend, and he was always nominating me for things. I mean, all anybody had to say was do I hear a nomination and old Eddie would jump up and yell my name. He always did that. And I usually got elected, too. Eddie thought it was funny as hell to get me obligated to do something I hated while he and the other guys were out having fun. So I figured Eddie was the reason I was in the principal’s office that morning.

Mr. Talley just sat there for a while, not looking at us, just glancing up at us occasionally. He acted like he was trying to do something he wasn’t very good at and didn’t know how to start. He kept thumping his knuckles on the desk, which really got on my nerves. He finally said he knew how we all must feel. I looked at Leslie and Francine, but they just sat there with their heads sort of bowed, staring at the floor and not saying anything or even looking up. I knew there had to be something I didn’t know about, but I figured the best thing for me to do was keep my mouth shut till somebody gave me a clue about what was going on.

Mr. Talley said that since the three of us were eighth grade homeroom officers it was only proper that we should go over to Bobby’s house to pay our respects. He said we should go home and change our clothes, then come right back and meet in his office. He and the homeroom teacher, Miss Waterson, would drive us over. He said he had called our parents and that they were expecting us.

When we were out in the hall, I grabbed Leslie.

Why are we going to Bobby’s? I asked.

Because he’s dead, dimwit!

Who’s dead?

Bobby Joiner. He drowned last night. It was on the front page of the paper this morning. Didn’t you hear about it?

Walking home I thought about Bobby Joiner. I didn’t even like him. He always looked dirty. His hair was dark and greasy, and he always wore dirty blue jeans and a tee shirt. And he nearly always wore this black leather jacket that looked like he found it in a dump. Which he probably did. He even wore it when it was hot, which didn’t make him any nicer to be around. He wasn’t really mean or anything. I think he was pretty poor. He cussed a lot and smoked cigarettes without filters, and I think everybody was a little bit afraid of him. But he wasn’t a bully or anything. He was just real different, so nobody liked him very much.

Actually, I was really dreading going to Bobby’s house. For one thing, I don’t like being around dead people. They give me the creeps. All the dead people I had ever seen had been about a hundred years old, and they didn’t look too much different dead than they did alive. But I had never seen a young dead person, and I wasn’t too thrilled about it now. I mean, you think about dead people being old. At least I always had, up till then.

So I sort of took my time walking home. It was only eight blocks from school, but it took me about thirty minutes to walk it. There was this little kid about four or five years old playing ball in his front yard, and I stopped and threw the ball with him awhile. He couldn’t catch very well and kept missing the ball and I would have to wait for him to run and get it. To tell the truth, it got pretty boring. I finally started just bouncing the ball off the side of the garage and catching it myself. But pretty soon the kid started crying so I gave him his ball back and walked on home.

My mom met me at the door, looking worried like moms do sometimes. I’m sorry about your little friend, she said.

I wanted to tell her Bobby wasn’t my friend, but I knew she wouldn’t understand, and I didn’t feel like trying to explain it. Parents think that just because you know somebody, and go to school with them every day, that you’re lifelong friends. Like everybody in the whole school is your bosom buddy.

The truth is I didn’t even know Bobby Joiner. I mean, I never even had a conversation with him except one time, and that was just because of a mistake. I was sitting in English class one day, and it was about 130 degrees in there. It was so hot that Betsy Halper’s lipstick was beginning to run. She always wore a lot of real red lipstick, and it was beginning to make these little streaks around her mouth. Anyway, I raised my hand to ask if I could open a window. But the teacher thought I wanted to go to the bathroom, so she said I could be excused. I didn’t feel like explaining what I really wanted, and anyway she probably wouldn’t have let me open the window. She probably liked having it that hot in there. I don’t think she had very much blood.

I figured it had to be cooler in the bathroom, so I got up and went down there. I splashed cold water on my face and was beginning to feel a lot better when I heard the door to one of the stalls open, and there stood Bobby, smoking a Lucky Strike. He asked me if I wanted one, which was pretty nice of him. I mean, I don’t think he was the most generous person in the world. I told him I didn’t smoke, and he asked me why not and I told him I was too young. Which was a stupid thing to say because I was the same age as he was. But he must have thought it was funny because he started to laugh. The thing was, he had just inhaled a big puff of smoke and when he laughed, he sort of got choked on it. He kept coughing and coughing and spitting in the urinal. Which was pretty disgusting. Every few seconds he would look over at me like I caused him to get choked and then start coughing again. His eyes were all red and watery and you could tell he was feeling kind of rotten. I think he was wishing I hadn’t come in there. I know I was.

He finally quit coughing and blew his nose on a paper towel. He chucked it at a waste basket, but it missed and landed on the floor. There were some black smudges on it from his hands. He looked at his cigarette, but you could tell he didn’t want the rest of it. He finally dropped it on the floor and stepped on it. Then he left without saying a word. I don’t even know if you could say we had a conversation.

The thing is, I wouldn’t even have known Bobby Joiner if it hadn’t been for alphabetical order. We were in the same homeroom because his last name started with J and mine started with H. That’s the way it is when you’re a kid. Everybody I knew had names that started with G through K. At least the ones I knew well. My friends and all. I just know that somewhere there’s a beautiful girl whose name is Susan Alexander or Becky Vaughn or something like that, and she’s just perfect for me, but I’ll never even know her because she’s in the wrong place in the alphabet. It just doesn’t seem fair to me.

My mom was acting kind of funny, like she wasn’t sure how to treat me. I guess she thought I was upset or something. Which I really was. I mean, Bobby wasn’t my favorite person in the whole world, but I didn’t want him to be dead. I think what bothered me the most was that he was dead and on the front page of the paper and I didn’t even know it. Not that Bobby would care if I knew he was dead. I wouldn’t care if he knew I was dead or not. But I would feel pretty bad if I was dead and in the paper and all and old Eddie didn’t know about it. There’s one thing about it. You want your best friend to know when you’re dead.

The paper was still lying on the kitchen table. In big bold letters the headline read YOUTH DROWNS IN RIVER. Under the headline was a picture of this kid who was about six or seven years old, sitting on a pony. It’s like every kid who is ever born has