If snakes were people this one would be a combination of Leon Redbone and Tom Waits. Cool, but in a mean, slick kind of way. Somebody you’d like to watch do his thing, but from way across the bar. And the waitresses, the ones that will serve him anyway, they all call him Tongue. Just because. This guy exudes menace like a cheap cologne.

If snakes wore shirts he’d have a straight razor hanging down inside his collar, and you’d want to watch close if he put his hand up to the back of his neck. He isn’t scratching, he’s reaching. Somebody’s going to get cut.

Here in New Orleans, just outside the 9th ward, there’s a bar, the one just off St Claude Ave. The one with the sign that hasn’t had working neon since 1946. The one with the broken juke box they don’t need to fix because there’s a kid there that will sing every blues tune you know for a quarter a throw. The one where if anyone got bit or squeezed real bad no one would say a word, because no one saw a thing. It has a spot at the end of the mahogany that no one will sit at whether he’s there or not. Even the most foolhardy tourist instinctively knows that’s no man’s land. That’s his bar and everybody is ok with that. They don’t go there if they aren’t, it’s bad joss and he can smell that on you.

Lots of snakes have chosen garish multi-colored skins, neon colored, they’d flash Vegas style if they could. But Big Billy Coils, that’s his given name, William Coils, but everyone who knew him by that is pretty much gone now. Victims of fights, booze, unpaid debts, horse, neglect and poor judgment. He’s found the colors that work for him. He’s leaving all the rainbow stuff to the wannabees, this look gets done whatever he wants done. He just stopped in tonight to check out the crowd. He hasn’t eaten in about 3½ weeks and he’s hungry. He’s off towards Algiers to see what might be hanging around the docks so he’s considerin’ slitherin’. I’d put off any late night strolls along the river tonight. Best you stick to the brightly lit streets.