Read Online One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist by Dustin M. Hoffman - Free Book Online

will never know.” He lay still under my belly, acquiesced to my weight. I was finally in control, like Drew with the snakes. “Fuck Rizzo’s cut.”
    “Stop touching the snakes and we have a deal.”
    Drew didn’t say anything. I didn’t release him. Not yet. Not until I was sure he couldn’t steal any more of my customers.
    “I have to touch the snakes for the kids,” Drew said to the floor. “Just this one last time, and then I’ll never touch them again.”
    I leaned into Drew, felt his back tense, resisting my advantage, and then give in. I had him where I wanted him. This was better than catching Drew in the act, reporting him to Rizzo. His fingers would tremble when he passed the snakes in the weeks to come, but he couldn’t touch them. He made a promise.
    Work went smoothly the rest of the weekend. I raked in the sales, and Drew was helpless without his snakes. Every time a pretty girl or a group of kids walked in, he’d dig into his blazer pockets, then hang his head and slump back to the stockroom, where I hoped he was taking long, hard looks at Rizzo’s sign. No one went downstairs, and Rizzo’s was my domain once again, the showroom filled with shiny boxes, where expertise was king, instead of dark hallways cluttered with mystery, the touch of scaly skin and broken rules. That lasted until closing on Sunday, when Drew went to clean and feed the snakes downstairs.
    “Something’s wrong with Bertha.” Drew’s face had turned pale, his forehead creased.
    We both made our way down, and I tried to look surprised when I saw Bertha’s wound, the size of my footprint. It had blackened, and pus seeped from cracks in her skin, which had begun to prematurely shed. I didn’t feel guilt. It was Drew’s fault. He’d touched the snakes.
    “The kids are coming tomorrow, man.” Drew plucked at his leather elbow patches. “They can’t see her like this.”
    “Did you touch Bertha?”
    Drew’s head drooped. He took a deep breath, tried to say something, but only let out a few choked sighs. When he lifted his head, I saw tears. He was playing the scared kid again. I didn’t trust the tears. Last time, that scared kid pounced.
    “Shit, man. You gotta help me.” Drew put his hands on my shoulders. I could see, with his arms raised, the gaps in his fancy elbow patches. They were frayed, coming loose at the seams, like Bertha’s flaking skin. I could have torn them off with one quick pull.
    “Should we take her to the vet? You’re the expert, man. What do we do?”
    I was the expert, and Drew finally acknowledged that. But I didn’t know anything about reptile emergencies. I knew how to thump a dead snake in the dumpster, and I knew how to feed and care for a live snake, but I didn’t know the in-between, the near death. And I didn’t want to save Bertha or Drew. It was time for me to think about myself, focus on my own survival. So I made a choice. We wouldn’t touch Bertha. We’d wait until morning and see what happened.
    Before we left that night, I smashed and sprinkled some vitamin-enriched snake pellets over a mouse and dropped it in Bertha’s cage. I convinced Drew it would help. He looked hopeful when Bertha budged from her coil, her head following the mouse, tongue flicking. That was enough to get him through the night.
    The next morning, Bertha was dead.
    Drew came to work looking extra sophisticated, not just a blazer and jeans but a baby-blue button-up shirt, a striped satin tie, pleated slacks, and a new blazer. With how professional he looked, I thought he’d take Bertha’s death in stride, philosophize coolly—just another dead snake in a world where so many snakes have passed before, where many more will be born—but he broke down. Not just tears. He whimpered, ran up the stairs, locked himself in the bathroom.
    The teacher was coming in two hours, and she’d see what a fool Drew was, how he was all phony tricks, no expert of anything. That was the real reason he cried. It