Rex shook his head sideways, then said, “What?”
“A pine gator,” I said. “It’s kind of like a regular alligator, but it has a monkey’s tail. Pine gators are shy, reclusive animals that mostly live in the Appalachian Mountains. They hang down from tree limbs, you know, and wait for people to walk by. Or deer. Pine gators have been known to eat the heads off bears that aren’t paying attention, or that are spending too much time by a pine gator’s personal tree sniffing around for honeybee hives. You can hardly even see them, they’re so camouflaged. A pine gator’s hide looks just like pine tree bark.”
I felt sure that Rex wasn’t from here, or even the state of South Carolina. It’s not difficult to make out a stranger — the men have haircuts performed by professionals, the women pluck their eyebrows consistently, and the children don’t squint, stammer, and wear long sleeves in summer to hide their scars and bruises. Strangers ask for directions back to I-26, I-20, I-85, or I-95; they try too hard to use double negatives when talking to us; they leave tips at the Calloustown Diner.
Rex said, “I used to have a pine gator for a pet. I had one.”
“You did?” I said. “I never had one. I’ve seen a couple, but I got scared and ran. I didn’t want my fingers bitten off, seeing as I already work as a die-cutter.”
“Mine’s was named Gypsy,” Rex said. The corn snake in front of him lifted up toward its cage’s roof then dropped down.
“That’s a pretty good name for a pine gator,” I said, though I didn’t mean it, seeing as we didn’t live far from Irish Travelers, and I knew that the term “gypsy” wasn’t all that right a thing to say. “I believe that if I ever had the good fortune of owning a pine gator, though, you know what I’d name him? Gypsy! I’d name him Gypsy, that’s what I’d do, no doubt.”
“Hey, that was my pine gator!” Rex said. He laughed and stomped his feet. “I just said that!”
He walked toward me, and then, without my having to take his hand or shoulder, followed me to the cash register where, I assumed, we’d find his parent. “I came across this little snake aficionado over in your snake section,” I said to Spence.
“You did?” Spence looked over his drugstore-purchased reading glasses. “Nothing I like more than to have a herpe-tologist in the room.”
The kid said nothing. Spence and I stood there looking at each other for too long, then we looked around to find no other adult in the pet store. I said, “Rex, was your father or mother in here with you earlier?”
He said, of course, “Why do you keep calling me Rex?”
_______
We ran outside and yelled for help. We looked down aisles, behind aquariums, in the storage room, in the restroom. We did everything three times. In between I said, “What’s your name?” and “How did you get here?” Looking back, maybe I didn’t give the kid enough time to answer. When he started crying — wailing, really, just like any kid in a movie about divorced parents or not getting a toy — I didn’t know what else to do outside of calling Carol and interrupting her sullen rendezvous with Dottie.
“We got this kid down here at the pet shop don’t know his real name his father or mother seems to have abandoned him!” I yelled over the phone.
My wife said, “Try ‘Jacob.’ Try ‘Jacob,’ ‘Jason,’ ‘Joshua,’ or ‘Jeremy.’ Those are the most popular names right now.”
I looked at him and asked if those were his names. He said, “I’m not supposed to say my name to strangers.” He’d quit crying, but Spence needed to hold a Kleenex to the boy’s nose. I wasn’t going to do it.
“Just bring him home,” Carol said. “We’ll figure this out.” She turned her head from the mouthpiece and said to Dottie, “You see any ‘Lost Child’ posters on your way over here?” To me she said, “Dottie says check his pockets and tags of his shirt and underwear.”
“Good idea,” I said, and hung up.
The three of us stood there at the register. Someone next door beat on the wall, either excited or upset with the football game being aired. I told Spence what Carol said. “I ain’t doing that,” Spence said. “Ten years from now Little John Doe here will have some questionable memories and the next thing you know you and me’ll be sharing a prison cell with Father Fudgepacker.”
The kid said, “I want the corn snake.”
I pulled the back of his T-shirt and looked at the tag. His parents hadn’t printed a name there. I said, “Is your daddy’s name Rex? Did you get that sticker from your daddy?” I thought I’d come up with a good idea, logic-wise. My father always let me wear the paper bracelets they wrapped around his wrist at the hospital, back before drinking and driving was a sin and my father wrecked his car.
Spence said, “Who wants a corn snake?” and smiled.
“I do,” the kid said.
“I don’t know anyone named ‘I.’ You’re going to have to be a little more specific, or Duane here’s going to take you out on the sidewalk and pull your pants down.”
I said, “Damn, Spence, shut up. You’ve already gone too far with the Father Fudgepacker thing.” I said to the kid, “I’m not going to pull your pants down. Do you want a Tootsie Pop or something? Spence, you got any Tootsie Pops back there?”
“Who is it that wants a corn snake?” Spence said again.
“George Washington never told a lie,” the boy said. To me, he no longer looked like a child actor who starred in cereal commercials. I kind of didn’t like him — or his parents — and maybe thought about how lucky I was not to have to deal with a kid daily.
I wanted a drink something bad. I felt it necessary to go to the Side Pocket and pull for colleges I’d never heard about. It wouldn’t’ve taken a gun to my head to drive home, shoo Dottie, and get to work impregnating Carol until she kept a baby to term.
Spence said, “No, you idiot, I don’t have any Tootsie Pops. Does this look like a candy store? Why would you even get the boy’s hopes up in such a way?”
The boy started bawling again. “I want a Tootsie Pop,” he blurted out. Something flew out of his nose, then returned. It looked like a moray eel, I swear to God.
Spence said, “Who wants a Tootsie Pop? I don’t know anyone named ‘I.’ Again, you have to be more specific.”
I thought about how a five-year-old child wouldn’t understand “specific.” The child, though, said, “Wyatt Speight Jr. wants a Tootsie Pop.”
“See?” Spence said. “That ‘junior’ part sure makes it easier.”
I said, “I know that you can’t leave the register, so keep an eye on him and I’ll canvas the block looking for his parents.” To the kid I said, “Did Wyatt Speight Sr. bring you here, or your momma? Or Wyatt Speight’s parents? Do you know what your mother’s maiden name is, in case I need to look for those grandparents?”
Little Wyatt shrugged his shoulders. Spence told me to shut up, go ask around, and look for a sucker for the kid while I was at it.
Because I’ve seen the news, City Confidential, Cops, America’s Most Wanted, 20/20, Dateline, and those other television programs that delve into the uncompromising side of evil human beings, I knew better than to walk into the Side Pocket, stand on the bar, and yell out, “Is anybody in here looking for a little five-year-old boy?” I don’t want to say anything about my Calloustown citizens during rough economic times, but there was the chance that some of them might want an extra kid around for cheap labor, and the others for possible ransom demands. No, I walked into the bar, ordered a beer from Pony Robbins, the owner, and looked around for unfamiliar faces. I seemed to know everyone, and if not by name I knew them enough not to be named Wyatt or Speight or Senior. I said to Pony, “You seen any strangers in here today?”