Tommy

raised snakes, nothing legit; did it for fun in his mother’s laundry room. The newborns were the yellow kind and hung from his hands like heavy rings. The kids in the neighborhood, bored of riding bikes, would knock on his door and ask to touch them. “Don’t be scared,” he’d say when they hesitated, “They’re babies. And when something’s a baby, it can’t hurt you.” He gave me one to keep he said was a girl. I left it in an aquarium, on top of a nightstand, in the corner of my room, where it sat coiled on rocks beneath a heat lamp. Most days it didn’t move. Then, one afternoon, while I was napping, it found a way out and curled itself around my bedpost to get a better look at me.