Pinky

ALL CHARACTERS ARE ADULTS.

"Wake up, Eugene!" Eugene 'Pinky' Pinkham opened his eyes and looked around the dark bedroom. The female voice was familiar. A brisk night breeze fluttered and stirred the window curtains against the wall and glass panes.

Pinky's eyes adjusted to the dark quickly because the room was bathed in moonlight and laid strange white silhouettes around the room. He listened patiently for the voice but only heard a dog barking far away.

"I must have been dreaming," he thought.

"You weren't dreaming, Eugene," the voice spoke again.

"You're back!" Pinky seemed surprised.

"I'm never far away; I told you before that I always watch over you," the soft voice reminded him.

"What do you want?" Pinky whispered.

"I believe you know," the voice said.

"No, I don't. What do you want?"

"You know why I'm here," the voice insisted.

"How do you know?" Pinky cocked his head, trying to locate the voice in the dark.

"I know everything you do, and I know what you did before you fell asleep," the voice chided him.

"So?"

"So, you know what I told you would happen if you did it again," the voice reminded him.

"I didn't think you meant it; I thought you wanted to tease me."

"We had an agreement," the voice reminded him.

"I can't do it," Pinky plead.

"Get up, Eugene, and dress," the voice insisted.

Pinky pulled back the covers, rose from his bed, pulled on his overalls, and walked outside to the barn through the moonlight, head hung low and shoulders hunched.

"What now?" Pinky played dumb.

"Do what you agreed to do," the voice replied without emotion.

Pinky walked about the barn in the darkness, found the double-bladed axe, and carried it over to the chunk of log they used as a chopping block. He found a chair, pulled it over to the log, and sat down.

"You're all set!" The voice said. Pinky's idea of an Angel materialized out of the moonlight. "You promised, and I need to know that I can trust you, Eugene."

Pinky hesitated.

"Go ahead, Eugene, you must do it now. You agreed to stop what you were doing, and swore you'd cut your hand off if you ever did it again," the angel said.

Pinky picked up the heavy axe with his right hand, raised it high, and laid his left hand, the hand that offended the angel, atop the oak log. His arm was strong, and the blade was heavy and sharp, adequate for the work.

"Do it now!" the angel demanded.

Pinky sat, frozen.

"Do it, Eugene, I can't trust you if you don't do it."

Pinky closed his eyes.

"How insane!" Sheriff White winced.

I drew a puff from my pipe and said, "I don't know, Oscar, he seemed lucid enough when I spoke to him."

"But he cut his arm off!" The sheriff winced again and laughed nervously.

"In six pieces, to be exact," I corrected him.

"And he told you an angel made him to do it?" The sheriff added.

"That's what he said," I confirmed.

Judge Rollo Sanders spoke up, "But do you believe it? Do you believe God or the Devil makes people amputate their arms?"

"What about ghosts? Anybody believe in ghosts?" Sheriff White asked.

"My last encounter with a ghost was about fifty years ago, out there in the City Cemetery," I said. "I was late getting home and used the cemetery for a short-cut. Well, I was walking along and suddenly saw an angel from Hell materialize right before my eyes!"

"What'd you do, Doc?" The judge's curiosity was piqued.

"Why, I kicked her as hard as I could," I said.

"And then?" Sheriff White prodded me.

"She changed back into granite and I broke my big toe!" I chuckled and rapped the bowl of my pipe on the sole of my boot, to empty the ashes.

"But the ghosts and haunts got nothing on the characters and varmints here in this town! I swear it!" The Judge exclaimed.

I pointed to the sheriff. "Like the time you hung Billy Watkins. I watched him hang, examined him myself, and signed his death certificate confident he was safely on the other side. Then two days later he walks into my office wanting help for his neck pain! I sent him to the apothecary for some paregoric and I never saw him again. He looked real enough, and I'm certain he was dead before then."

"My idea of the supernatural is maybe different from what most folks think. It's said that the line between good and evil goes through every human heart. Good and evil is inside each of us. And we make choices." I said.

"How so?" Fred Vining asked. Fred was the rector of St. Pia Zadora Church.

"Well, Fred, sometimes the Golden Rule and 10 Commandments don't cover everything. The road to Hell is paved with noble intentions, you know. Sometimes good and evil come out of the same tap. You can't always know what the consequences are. I wrestle with this constantly," I said.

"But, Doc, none of that explains what the supernatural is," Judge Sanders said.

"The boy said he was doing what the angel wanted. I wondered if maybe he isn't insane, but maybe God did want him to go to the barn, get an axe, and amputate an offending limb. Rollo all I'm saying is, it's not that simple to sort out, mostly because the supernatural can assume any form it wants, to disguise itself or make a stronger impression."

The sheriff, judge, and rector all shook their heads, contemplating the possibilities of this assertion.

"Gentlemen. Do you recall February 1899, when so much misfortune occurred in this town? All I'm saying is, maybe those events were providential or supernatural or evil or just dumb luck. Maybe providence and such are the same vehicle that God, Satan, Mother Nature, and who-knows-what-else uses to do their work. My task is to identify and sort out what comes along, and cull the bad from the good. Sometimes I don't get a lot of time to make up my mind. Sometimes you just have to go with what you got."

Later, on this particular morning I spied a tipcart rolling along the street toward me; the driver of the cart was a stout matron wearing an old felt hat, overalls, and brogans, steering a one-horned ox with a pair of clothes-line reins. Beside her on the cart's seat sat the old man called 'Rattlesnake Charles.'

Even if Charles was a stranger to me, I'd have known him anywhere because of his queer accoutrements: the old man traveled everywhere with a rattlesnake draped across his shoulders. If you asked Charles why he toted a rattlesnake around, he'd tell you that the snake was too big to fit in his pockets. His way of saying, 'mind your own business.'

An entourage of children always followed Charles whenever he came to town, fascinated by the uncommon spectacle of man partnered with snake. Plenty of boys carried grass snakes and ring snakes in their pockets; that was just part of growing up male in these parts, but toting a viper that could kill you, that was something special. Charles excited the children as much as a circus parade, and they followed him and the snake everywhere, not wanting to forfeit an opportunity to see the rattler bite Charles. People love suspense and vicarious danger.

Though they seemed docile most of the time, the snakes did bite Charles occasionally: I never treated Charles for snakebite, though, and I'd never known Charles to be sober, either; he looked drunk that day, and I suspected that whatever snakebites Charles got were pretty nearly always a tie in every contest between himself and snake, as to who got the worst of the exchange.

On this occasion the woman stopped her cart near me and I tipped my hat.

"Good morning,' Doctor," she smiled, but didn't look happy. Charles and the snake climbed off the tipcart. His snake looked new.

"Charles? What happened to your other snake?" I asked.

"Same as deh ress uff um, I eat em. You needs tuh let me bring you a jar uff pickled young 'uns. Jes open yo mauff an let 'em slide on down your gullet." He pantomimed lifting a juvenile snake by the tail and dropping it down his throat.

"Thank you, no. What brings you to town?" I asked.

"I needs tuh see yuh," he replied.

"Not with your snake, you won't," I answered.

"Whut am I gonna do wiff duh snake?" He asked.

"I don't care. Pen the snake somewhere and come back."

"But I'm sick."

"Get rid of the snake and come back."

Charles turned and looked at the woman.

"Whachu lookin' my way fo? I ain't watchin' yo snake!" She said.

Charles looked down at the boy lying in the back of the cart.

"Don't be lookin at me, old man. I ain't touchin no snake."

Charles frowned and turned back to face me."Lemme go take deh snake home an I be back."

"Good idea," I said, touching my hat to the woman and left for the livery stable.