Animal
- May 19, 2023
- 4 min read
by Allison Field Bell
As a child, I did not fear spiders. I was fascinated by them — their leggy movement, their dark presence on a wall or in a corner. My mother once caught me reaching for a black widow in a woodpile, a lady spider with her fat shiny abdomen painted in that lipstick red hourglass. I wanted to feel her in my palm. I thought I could commune with animals. A secret language. An understanding. A stray dog in the road, for example: I shooed him away from the highway. I told him which direction to go. He heard. He listened. But once, at seven, I pet a horse through a fence, and I felt a snap of pain shoot through me. Convinced the horse had bitten me, I withdrew, heartbroken. The horse looked docile, her easy closed lips. I wondered how fast she was able to do such a thing. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned of electric fences and understood the real reason for that pain. Still, the whole incident made me doubt: was I able to communicate with animals or not? I moved away from larger beasts after that, focusing my energy on reptiles and insects and arachnids. In California, there weren’t many creatures of actual danger, and I kept my distance from rattlesnakes. They seemed to tell me to stay away and I knew enough to listen.
For my tenth birthday, my mother relented and allowed me to pick a tarantula from the pet store. I had grand ideas about how I would select the perfect one — how she would call to me from behind her glass and we would be soulmates from the start. But, as it turned out, there was only one tarantula at the pet store. She was female of course, because the females live longer. And I was too excited to be very disappointed. We gathered everything for her: the glass five gallon terrarium, the lights, the bark substrate, the water dish, and even a chunk of log for her to crawl around and hide beneath. I named her Tess.
That night, when my parents thought I was sleeping, I was really holding Tess. I crept near to the kitchen where they spoke in low voices. It took me a moment to realize they were speaking of me. “Not normal,” my mother was saying. “Is it one of those goth things?” And my father soothed her. “A phase,” he said. “She’ll grow out of it. Every kid loves animals.” My mother again: “But spiders!” And my father: “Maybe she’ll be a scientist.”
Tess was getting anxious so I crept back to my room and released her into her cage. I heard footsteps then, and dove into my bed, pretending sleep. It was my mother, silhouetted in the doorway. She stood there a long time, the light around her making her body a shadow. I wondered what she was looking at: me or Tess. Tess grew weary of her, wanting her to leave. We couldn’t make her leave though. And I began to think of a time when my mother smashed a spider in front of me. A daddy long legs. Harmless even by her standards. She used a heavy cookbook and did it without thinking of me or the spider. The poor thing was a mess of limbs afterward: unsalvageable. Not even spider-like. I cried out in pain, like I had been the one struck. She dropped the book in shock. I wouldn’t speak to her for a week after. And when my father came home, he helped me bury the remaining smashed legs in a small jewelry box coffin. She never killed even an ant after that.
Eventually, my mother left the doorway or I fell asleep. But in the morning, Tess was gone. Her cage empty. I blamed my mother, but my father pointed to the lid, its latch unlocked, the screen slightly open. My mother panicked. “A tarantula in our house!” I protested. Tess wouldn’t leave me. We understood each other. We had an agreement. My father: “Tess is a wild animal, sweetheart.” We turned the house inside out looking for her, but we never found her. She was gone. My mother decided that perhaps I was too young for the responsibility of a pet. My father reluctantly agreed. It didn’t matter. Tess had betrayed me. Like the horse, but worse. I was not the person I thought I was.
I still don’t smash spiders. But I don’t touch them either. I don’t trust them. I get the piece of paper, the cup. I trap them in the cup and slide the paper beneath, careful not to damage a leg. Then I release them to the outside, watch as they crawl away from me. Or sometimes not. Sometimes, they just sit there on the leaf of my catalpa tree, watching me, waiting for whatever happens next.
Allison Field Bell is originally from northern California but has spent most of her adult life in the desert. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Prose at the University of Utah, and she has an MFA in Fiction from New Mexico State University. Her work appears in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Gettysburg Review, Shenandoah, New Orleans Review, West Branch, Epiphany, The Cincinnati Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Pinch, and elsewhere. Find her at allisonfieldbell.com.
