SNAKE OIL SALESMAN

I met a snake oil salesman at my local saloon. He tipped his fedora at me when I walked in, which made me nervous, so I sat at the opposite end of the bar, ordered my drink of raw milk to nourish my tapeworm, and sipped silently. In the time it took me to finish my glass, the snake oil salesman downed three Jägerbombs before he shambled over and pressed a meaty hand onto my shoulder. “It’s all over, son. World’s ending,” he said, looking totally convinced by himself.

My tapeworm squirmed at the rasp of his voice. I needed this interaction to end, so I replied, looking past him, “Yeah, sure seems like it.”

Instead, he took my pity as an invitation to seat himself next to me as we watched the television behind the bar flicker through various broadcasts: a live update of the tragedy, a highlight reel of the sport. He ordered another Jägerbomb. Then, generously, another glass of raw milk, which he slid over to me. “Business has been bad. World’s ending, so nobody’s buying snake oil.”

The second glass of raw milk started to loosen me up, so I indulged him, asking “Was anybody ever buying snake oil?”

The snake oil salesman removed his fedora, revealing a perfectly shiny bald patch and a forlorn look in his eye. “In the heyday, I couldn’t go a block without a stockout. I’d have to run back home and fill my mobile kiosk with snake oil again,” he sighed, dropping the shot glass into his drink and watching the dark liquid fizzle. “Folks lined up, lined up past the city gates for it.”

He described the dust-filled, choleric streets, vacant of all movement but the roll of tumbleweeds, and how snake oil restored these dusky villages to prosperity. He described communities plucked from poverty, how people fashioned holidays bearing his name for his hand in their revival. He described wars ending with a single drop of snake oil, rubbed into a joint or slipped beneath the tongue. He described his relief efforts in the wake of devastation: snake oil saving civilians after a tsunami, after an earthquake, after the towers fell. This magical panacea, a product of a decade-long scientific endeavor at immense personal loss, all for the betterment of an ungrateful society that was ready to relegate this brilliant man, this hero, to a grifter, a scammer, a con-artist.

I was touched by the tales, which I had absorbed with rapt fascination and many glasses of raw milk, my tapeworm swollen with lactose. The snake oil salesman wasn’t in much better shape. He was walleyed with drunkenness. When the bartender announced last call, the snake oil salesman pulled out a lean leather wallet without a scrap inside. “I got it,” I told him, handing off my credit card.

The snake oil salesman sniffled, slurring praises. “You’re a good kid. You’ve given me hope for humanity, for your generation,” he said, dropping his fedora over my forehead and pressing a small vial into my lap. “Use it wisely. Use it while we’ve still got the world left.”

With that, he staggered out of the bar and into the gathered sheet of the night, the dancing Pleiades glinting off his magnificent baldness. I had visions of following him across the world, nursing the poor, eating hot dogs at the big game, learning the craft of snake oil salesmanship, until the mushroom cloud which was surely coming soon consumed us. I turned over the vial he had left me, overcome with filial piety. The paper label was complete with a portrait of his ruddy face, surrounded by blotchy India ink, which read “Snake Oil Liniment, magical cure-all for aches of the heart and body.”

Unscrewing the cap, I took a whiff of the oil, which was slightly spiced, but still had a sterile scent to it. I held the dropper over my tongue and squeezed, swallowing the tangy liquid and waiting.

For a moment, nothing changed, but then I suddenly felt a helminthic writhing inside me, heard a distant gunshot shuddering within: my tapeworm had exploded. I wept with bitter disappointment, felt scorned and cheated, gripped by the unfamiliar stillness of my stomach. I vowed to kill him, that grifter, that scammer, that con-artist. I banged my fist against the bartop until I was dragged out by my arms, screaming as the gated doors swung shut behind me. In the silent street, I snatched off the fedora and kicked it down the road, where a tumbleweed donned it and kept roving by. Through the grimy window of the saloon, I looked in at the blurry light of the flickering television. I was struck then by how much had been stolen from me in a single night; how much of life is the tragedy, how much of life is the sport.