Genesis

I .

There are two kinds of darkness on the bayou. The first is seen, the second is felt. The first darkness is confined to the edges where the cypress trees grow. It hangs in pieces among the trees and in the dense groundcover along the bank. Unlike nightfall, which is atmospheric, this darkness is particular: a branch bows into its reflection and the water puckers where they meet; the trembling rim of the bayou rubs the bank muddy raw; a gray, dead catfish floats bloated, one eye missing.

When I was a boy, this darkness was my cathedral art. I let the motorboats roar in the pews while I paddled quietly along the shaded periphery and studied the icons. What they pointed to I could not see. What stories they told I could not hear. What truths they symbolized I did not know. But these dark pieces signified the presence of something bigger than me, something before which I was utterly vulnerable. This something was not evil, just dark and alive and real.

I was nine years old the first time I raised a gun in self-defense. I had been fishing on the boat dock when my grandmother called me up for dinner. But when I turned to go up the stairs, I noticed that a cottonmouth had emerged from the bayou and onto the dock, blocking my path—separating me from the protection of my family like a lioness working the weakest calf. I was young and oddly thin, with neither the build nor the spirit of a fighter.

At school, people called me names like "chicken legs" and "scarecrow," and once when I wore a shirt with red, white, and blue horizontal stripes, the kids spun me around and chanted, "Barber pole! Barber pole!" until I was too dizzy to stand. So I was not surprised when my scrawny arms quivered under the weight of my plastic BB gun.

Shooting at Coke bottles was different because they were dead already. There was no chase and there was no fight. They just stood there and took it. Shooting at turtles was different because they couldn't kill me. They wouldn't even know I was there until their little walnut heads poked out of the water for a breath, and I would shoot, and they would fly back down into their world of dark, snapping spirits.

This was my first time aiming at anything dangerous—at anything conscious of my existence. This thing noticed me, and this thing oozed venom, and this thing was coiled on the steps that I needed to get from the boat dock to the house where, at that very moment, roast beef and corn bread and squash casserole were being set on the table and my grandmother was wondering why "in God's name" I hadn't come when she called. But she didn't know that I was involved in a battle—that I was steadying my gun and imagining what would happen when I put a BB into one of the glowering eyes of this three-foot cottonmouth.

What was steady aim when shooting two-liter Coke bottles was actually a perpetual swaying when my target was the brassy little eye of a snake. Recalling the advice of my grandfather from our first shooting lesson, I relaxed—using only those muscles absolutely necessary to hold the gun. That accomplished, the sight came to rest calmly and precisely on the snake's eye. My finger tightened in anticipation. I imagined something like fame swirling around me as the news of my bravery spread. The keepsake photograph was already developing in my mind: I had my arm around my grandfather who, beaming with pride, kneeled so that we were the same height. He used both hands to hold the shovel across which this three-foot snake drooped nearly headless. Behind us the cypress trees shredded the sunlight, casting a web of shadows over us. Filled with hope, and imagining the new life that would begin with this kill, I prepared to shoot.

But my finger would not move. Some fear began to bubble in my gut...