Hot Laps (28 page)

“Snaaaaaake!” I yelled.

You would have thought the world had just exploded with the scream Casten let out.

Never. I mean never would I have thought a man could make a sound like that. Unless
his fingernails were being ripped off.

I’ll give him credit, he collected himself and looked at me. Not calmly, but concerned
nonetheless. “Fucking Tommy …” and then he said, “Don’t move.”

“It’s just a snake, Casten.” The snake seemed friendly trying to coil itself back
in the dashboard. I imagined Tommy had probably stolen it from a zoo or pet store.
“Animals like me.”

“Don’t move, Hayden. This isn’t a fucking pet. It’s a
snake
!” he replied, as if I didn’t know what was at my feet.

“I’m gonna kill Tommy. This is
not
funny.” Casten looked like he was going to have a mental breakdown. “It’s
not
funny at all.”

I tried to lift my legs away, just in case the snake wanted to play with my feet when
I kicked the dashboard in the process.

And then, the snake came back out, rearing its black head with a yellow band just
behind its eyes. Evidently I’d just pissed it off.

That bright bastard bit me on my big toe and then, for good measure, chewed on me.

For a brief moment I thought to myself, “What if he swallows me?”

Then I realized judging by the snake’s two-foot body there was no way that was happening.
Hoped at least.

I took control, because I had to, and ripped the snake off my toe tossing it in Casten’s
lap. Casten’s scream probably freaked it the fuck out.

I wasn’t sure what to do, I think it was about ready to latch onto me again when I
rolled down the window and threw it out.

Casten, well, he was still screaming and swerving all over the place when I smacked
him.

“It touched me! The ass touched me!”

I looked over at him and pressed the button to roll the window up. “Will you just
drive the goddamn truck, asshole?”

“I’m trying!” He had both hands on the wheel, white knuckled and sweating.

Casten was absolutely no fucking help.

He pulled over after that and we sat alongside the highway staring at my toe.

“It looks like he just scraped it,” I said, inspecting it closer. There were two dots
where his fangs had penetrated the skin for sure. Instantly, I was nauseous knowing
this wasn’t good.

We sat there on the side of the road when Casten looked over at me.

“I hate snakes,” he said. “I wish they would all die.”

Part of me thinks I was disoriented or something. We should have been concerned earlier
but neither of us had any idea we needed to get to a hospital.

Instead we stopped off to get food. However, when I was taking a drink of my Dr. Pepper
and my mouth wouldn’t close properly and Dr. Pepper went all over the front of me,
that’s when we took interest and realized there was a problem.

In fact, I had a panic attack. By that point, my foot was the size of a puffy marshmallow.

We were both in freak-out mode after that. For good reason. I also think because my
blood was pumping so fast, it made the venom spread throughout my body quicker.

Casten called Tommy as we hunted for a hospital.

“Tommy, where are you?”

“At the track, why?” he had him on speakerphone so I could hear everything he said.
I think it was by design. This was most definitely not something Casten wanted to
be blamed for.

“Did you put a goddamn snake in my truck?” Casten demanded, glaring at his phone,
and then my foot I had raised on the dash board, convinced I needed to keep it above
my head.

There was a pause. A long pause.

“Did you?” Casten pressed.

“About that,” Tommy paused himself, and then started speaking really fast. “I misunderstood
the guy completely. You should probably pull over and get that thing out. It crawled
up in the dash after I put it on the seat.”

Casten shivered at the thought. He really did hate snakes.

I grabbed the phone and screamed. “Too late, TOMMY!”

By the time we got to the hospital my foot suddenly felt like it was on fire. As we
walked through the doors of the ER at Northern Louisiana Medical Center, I mentally
prepared for having my foot amputated. I was convinced that was my fate now.

And if I didn’t die from having my foot amputated, I was one, going to kill Tommy
and then I’d be in prison, and two, going to die myself for letting Casten push me
in a wheel chair.

I swear he couldn’t keep my foot that I insisted on sticking straight out in front
of me from being rammed into wall.

“Just put your leg down,” he had said after the fourth time doing this over the span
of moving ten feet. “It’d make it easier.”

“You get bit by a snake and then put your foot down!” I was literally screaming at
the top of my lungs at that point. I was sure no one had been bitten by a snake before.
Only me. And no one had ever experienced this much pain.

Once we got to the registration desk I realized that I didn’t have my insurance card.
Luckily they were able to look up the information and soon had me back in a room where
the doctor assessed everything.

“Wow,” he had said, looking rather intently at my foot with another younger female
doctor beside him. “We don’t see many coral snake bites around here.”

“How do you know it was a coral snake?” Casten asked.

“Well,” he paused and pointed to the screen on his laptop next to him. “Did the snake
look like this?”

The picture was one of a snake with red and black bands down its body. Then he went
on to say. “Black and red, friend of Jack …”

Casten looked at me. “It had yellow on it …”

He switched the page to another snake like the one that bit me. I remember it because
of the yellow band behind its eyes. “Red and yellow, kill a fellow …”

Oh my God!

I think the doctor got a little nervous. Or maybe it was my screaming. “What time
did you get bitten?”

“It was at like eleven this morning.”

The doctor looked down at his watch and then up at us again. “Symptoms can be delayed
for twelve hours. After that the neurotoxins begin to spread to the brain and muscles.”

Casten raised his hand. “She couldn’t close her mouth.”

He considered that for a moment and then wheeled his way in front of me with his hands
on my neck. “Okay, Hayden, can you raise your tongue and move it left to right?”

I thought I did. Apparently I did not and it was time for the anti-venom.

“An eastern coral snake’s venom acts as a neurotoxin.”

Those were the last words I heard before I passed out. Not from the venom. From my
own personal panic attack.

I, Hayden Harris, had a full on freak out panic attack over a snake bite.

Turns out I got the anti-venom shot, in my ass, they bandaged my foot and sent me
on my way when my vital signs checked out late Saturday night.

“How could Tommy be so dumb?” I wondered.

Casten chuckled helping me into his truck. “He’s forty-five and still pees the bed.”

That actually made sense. I wasn’t surprised by that one bit.

Casten called his parents after that and we made plans to meet up with them at a campsite
they were staying at until the two-night show started tonight; luckily the campsite
was only an hour from the speedway.

After another three-hour drive, we got to the campsite at Lake Tawakoni and Tommy
was pacing.

“I’m really sorry, Hayden,” he immediately said.

Tommy did look sorry as he watched me limp over to a picnic table and throw my leg
up on the bench dramatically. It hurt and it was still swollen but I was medicated…besides
it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I was playing it up to be.

“You put a snake in there but you didn’t think it would bite anyone?” Casten snapped
at him shoving him against the side of his truck. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Duh, I’m an idiot,” Tommy shrugged taking a drink of his beer.

Casten, who was a little worked up, smacked the beer out of his hand and fisted his
hands in his white t-shirt. “Where did you even get it from?”

Some would think, oh, that’s sweet he’s defending you, Hayden. No. Don’t go and get
all sappy and shit. I understood completely that he was only acting this way because
he was so fearful of snakes. It had nothing to do with me.

“A friend.” Tommy replied self-consciously yanking at his shorts. Then he raised his
hands to shove Casten back a little. “You replaced my team shorts with smaller ones,
didn’t you?”

Casten laughed, his eyes suddenly bright. “No, I think you gained some weight.”

Casten and Tommy got into a little bit of a wrestling match after that and I lost
interest in them and a beer sitting on the picnic table caught my eye. I didn’t care
whose it was, I started drinking it.

That was until Jameson sat down next to me, all relaxed, wearing board shorts and
no shirt.

My mouth almost dropped open. He could have been my dad. Could have. But no dad in
my mind had a body like that and the smile to match.

Jesus.

“That was my beer,” he said, opening another
Coors Light.
After taking a drink, he smiled. “How’s your foot?”

I shrugged as if I was completely comfortable around him, when I wasn’t. “It hurts.”

Jameson looked at my foot propped up beside me and then at Tommy. “I thought they
were joking when they said Tommy put a snake in his truck.”

“They weren’t,” Tommy replied for me, sheepishly hanging his head as he took a seat
beside me. “I’m really sorry.”

Apparently, that friend Tommy got the snake from had been bitten before and nothing
happened. I would then say he was full of shit. But, and this is a big but, he was
bitten by a scarlet king snake. NOT the coral snake that bit me. Stupid fuck got the
rhyme mixed up.

Sway came up to us sitting at the table, all mother-like and smacked Tommy in the
ear. “How could you do that?”

“Hey,” Tommy gestured to Casten who was now smiling. “This asshole has done his fair
share of shit to me!” He tugged on his nut-huggers. “He replaced all my team shorts
with ones two sizes too small!”

Casten chuckled beside me.

“Has he ever put a poisonous snake in your truck?”

“I don’t have a truck.” Sway gave Tommy a murderous stare. “No, I suppose he’s never
done anything that serious. But I didn’t think it was venomous,” he defended holding
his palms up.

Sway smacked him in the ear again for good measure.

“You guys are a bunch of fucking weirdos,” I said, finishing off my beer.

They all laughed at me but I was serious.

Strangest fucking two days of my life.