“Screw them. I’ll just sell snakes out the back of my truck.”
I can’t believe he just said that, in the middle of the cafeteria, five minutes before fourth period starts. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’ll work,” he replies, popping another tater tot into his mouth and giving me that stupid shit-eating grin he gives when he thinks he knows something I don’t. “I found a place with a ton of snakes. I saw at least three, and I was only there five minutes. We sell ‘em for twenty bucks apiece, and even if it takes us a whole hour, that’s thirty bucks of pure profit.”
“What makes you think we can sell three snakes an hour?”
He just keeps smiling and looks at me like he’s thinking, how can this guy be so dense? “Everyone’s got a cat or a dog. Nobody’s got a snake. These things will sell themselves.”
“It’s stupid,” I say. “I’m not doing it.”
Erica sits down next to me. “Hey guys.”
I push my heart out of my throat and manage, “Hey.”
“Erica, I’m selling snakes tonight. I found a few. You want to come?”
She laughs. Not like any other girl laughs, but loud and honest, and her chest heaves a little bit under her green cardigan. “You’re ridiculous. But sure, I’m not busy.”
“I’ll pick you up,” I say, automatically. Jake keeps chewing his god damn tater tots as he leans back in his chair and puts his hands behind his head, like this was the plan the whole time.
Later that evening, I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Jake’s truck with Erica behind the wheel, parked on the side of a county road. The air is sweet and dense with the end of summer and a thousand locusts hum in the forest around us. Jake’s been gone for twenty minutes and I don’t care if he’s fallen and broken his leg, all I care about is that I haven’t said twenty words to Erica since picking her up and driving her to Jake’s place. She’s humming along to the Beach Boys song on the radio. I wish I knew something about the Beach Boys so I would have a solitary interesting thing to say to her.
There’s a rustling in the forest up ahead. I lean my head out the window and call out. “Jake?”
“Turtle!” he responds.
“What?” my eyes scan the treeline, trying to pick him out in the dull autumnal glow of the near-full moon. Jake suddenly comes crashing through the brush ten feet in front of us, holding something in front of him. A turtle, I realize.
“No snakes. Got this turtle, though. You reckon he ate ‘em?”
“Uh… it’s possible. Turtles are known to attack other reptiles. It’s their instinct.” I turn and look at Erica to see if she believes me. She’s smiling and watching the truck bed behind us as Jake gently lowers the turtle into one of the plastic bins we brought.
“Well, I figure we can get forty for the turtle. He’s got a pretty good shell.” Jake gets in the truck and starts the engine. “Damn good shell.”
I want to ask what constitutes a good shell but all I can think about is Erica, our arms pressed together in the cabin of that sputtering and ancient vehicle. I pretend I don’t notice but all I can smell is her, the smell of flowers and leather and our own bodies, sweating in the thick, humid heat of the summer night.
Jake says he sold the turtle for fifty but I didn’t see a red cent of it.
David Paine lives in Springfield, Illinois, where he writes and yells at his cat. You can find some more of his work at davidtpaine.wordpress.com.
–Art by Natalia Drepina