Snake Handlin' Man Read Online Free Page B

mini-mart and then a long low building with a boardwalk and a sign that read FEED AND SEED . Further beyond that, past a quarter mile of weeds, Eddie saw some bulkier building, like a smallish big box store. Finally, there were other buildings scattered here and there whose uses Eddie couldn’t immediately identify—houses or municipal buildings or signless businesses. They all looked like prefabricated sheds, square and ugly.
    And that was the whole town.
    It was easy to find Sami’s vehicle. Other than the band’s hammered brown Dodge van, the dusty little Camry was the only car in the parking lot.
    “Start the van,” Eddie told Mike. The big Mexican piled into the driver’s seat and got the engine growling; Jim and Twitch followed Eddie to look at the waitress’s car. “Crank the AC up as high as you can!” Eddie yelled over his shoulder as Mike ground his window open with the old-fashioned crank-style handle.
    But there was nothing in the Camry. A bent pine tree freshener, a purse with a few dog-eared bucks in it, a credit card and a driver’s license, and a book so creased in the spine it almost fell apart as Eddie picked it up: Chicken Soup for the Waitress’s Soul .
    “Nuts,” Eddie muttered. “Check the trunk,” he called to Twitch and pushed the button that opened it.
    He sat in the driver’s seat and leafed through the Chicken Soup book. It was full of stories about cute animals, and people helping each other, and good folks ground down by life who had faith and therefore things eventually went their way. Optimistic bullshit, all of it. Buy my book, because I will tell you what you want to believe, that you can change your life with the pure and holy power of your hope. Eddie snorted, but not too hard. He didn’t really disdain the book, any more than he disdained its readers. He almost admired them—they were trying to put a good face on existence, trying to live happy lives.
    Really, it was better that they didn’t know the truth.
    Eddie rummaged through the glove compartment. A compact mirror, a stub of lipstick, a ballpoint pen without a cap.
    Nothing else.
    “Hell.” He got out of the car.
    Bam, bam, bam! Mike pounded on the outside of the van’s door with his fist. “Come on, man!” he shouted. “Adrian’s dying! ”
    “I remember,” Eddie muttered.
    “Nothing in the trunk,” Twitch reported. “Unless you think antifreeze will help our boy.” The fairy held up a sloshing blue jug and grinned.
    “Nothing in the car, either,” Eddie reported. “We may be out of luck.” Then he found the bookmark in the middle of Chicken Soup —it was a pamphlet, printed cheap on a photocopy machine on a single sheet of paper. “Hold on.”
    Jim loomed over him, leaning in close.
    “What is it?” Mike called.
    “That doesn’t look Christian,” Twitch observed. “Not that I’m an expert, but don’t you people usually put Jesus on your pamphlets?”
    Twitch was right, it didn’t look Christian. First Church of the Redeemer Nehushtan was the title printed on the front of the pamphlet, over an image that looked like a caduceus, a snake twisted around a tall cross. Under the serpent-cross was the name Phineas Irving, Preacher . “Yeah,” Eddie agreed. “We do.”
    He flipped open the pamphlet to look at the inside. There was an address and a short quotation that Eddie knew immediately: “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
    “Mark sixteen,” he said. “The pamphlet’s Christian. I think.”
    “Bible?” Twitch asked.
    “They shall take up serpents,” Eddie read out loud. “They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
    “That sounds fitting,” Twitch looked at the pamphlet, nodding as if he could read.
    “It’s Bible,” Eddie