Garage Snake

My mother, bless her heart, hates snakes. More accurately, she HATES snakes. She does not care if they are venomous or not. One of her chief sayings to us as we were growing up was that it didn't matter if the snake in question was a non-poisonous one because a poisonous snake was chasing it. No amount of arguing or showing her entries in the encyclopedia would sway her position. There were two kinds of snakes. Poisonous ones who will bite you and kill you and non-poisonous ones who are being chased by the poisonous ones who will bite you and kill you.

At a very young age she showed us the snake bite kit. This consisted of a green oblong soft plastic device that split into two pieces. Once taken apart, each half of the device could be squeezed and then placed over the skin to form a suction.  Inside the empty halves was a sheet of instructions and a small razor blade. The instructions spelled out in great detail how to deal with a snake bite. You were to use the razor blade to make two incisions over each puncture wound and then place the green halves over the area to suck out the poison.

My mother took a great deal of time showing us the kit and explaining exactly how it was used. I think she fully expected that sometime soon one of us would be bitten and this snake bite kit would save our lives. So she showed it to us and asked us to repeat how it was used. I noticed that the instructions showed that the cuts over the bite marks could be made either as an X mark or as a plus mark. To me it seemed the plus mark cuts looked less painful so I asked if it had to be done to me could I have the plus mark cut. She said no, you didn't get to choose how you were cut. I was pretty disappointed about that.

So we were, in her mind, prepared for the snake disaster she was sure would happen. Strangely there was no talk about calling for an ambulance or going to a doctor, there was just the snake bite kit drill. I think she was hoping that the horror of it would somehow instill us with greater caution. All it instilled in me was an absolute obsession on hoping I would get the plus mark cut.

I can remember very clearly being in the car alone with her one day in April or May. I am about five years old and we have just come back from the store. It isn't yet summer but the weather is already rather warm. We pull up to the garage and she gets out of the car to open the garage door. I am about to get out myself but she rushes over to my door and tells me to stay in the car and not get out. She says lock the door and that I am not to roll down the window. She is wild eyed and her tone of voice has taken on a note of hysteria. I ask her why and she tells me again, "Stay in the car and keep the windows rolled up!"

I watch her race into the garage, with her eyes locked on a spot to the left of the garage. She runs in keeping close to the right side of the doorway and disappears into the house. I try to see over the car hood what she had been looking at, but I cannot see anything. A minute passes and the car starts to get very warm. I want to roll down the window, I want to get out of the car, but I don't want to get in trouble. More minutes pass and the car becomes hot. I begin to worry that she is not coming back.

At last she finally emerges from the house and she is carrying a pistol. This is very shocking because I have never seen her touch a gun before. The pistol is big and black and looms large in her hands. Somehow, while holding the pistol she grabs a broom and strikes at something on the floor of the garage. I scoot over from the passenger seat to the driver's seat to see what was happening. At first all I can see is my mother's back but then she walks further out and turns partway. I then see a large black snake slithering away from the garage into the front yard.

My mother is a petite, dark haired woman who normally moves with grace and fluidity but now she is rigid with fear. The gun she holds seems much too large for her hands yet she holds it firmly with a double grip, pointing the barrel toward the ground. To get the best aim she stands over the snake but because she hates and fears the snake so much she straddles it with her feet as wide as possible. She pulls the trigger. BOOM! The sound of the gun makes me jump and I see her hands forced upward from the shot. She misses. The snake, seemingly unconcerned, slithers slowly onward so my mother is forced to waddled another couple of steps to keep the snake between her feet. She points the gun at the ground and again fires. BOOM! Another miss, so she staggers forward another step and fires a third time. BOOM! I am transfixed by the spectacle of it all. Here is my normally mild mannered mother blasting away with a handgun and it seems with her poor aim and the snakes slow progress she is going to waddle her way across our yard until she either has to reload or she perforates that snake.

At this point my aunt who lives across our street comes flying out of her house and runs to my mother shouting, "What are you doing?!?" My mother points with the pistol to the snake and says, "I've got to kill this snake."

My aunt begins to laugh and says, "That's not a poisonous snake, that's just a rat snake," which is a pretty brave thing to do considering that my mother is holding a gun and is about as unhinged as a person can get. Upon hearing my aunt laugh I get out of the car which earns me a nasty look from my mother but she hardly spares me a glance because she is keeping her eyes on the snake. It is still slithering forward across our front lawn. Eventually my uncle comes out and dispatches the snake with a stick even though he agrees it is non-poisonous. He probably figures this is the best way to get my mother to put down the gun.

She eventually does put the gun away, but then she tells me to go to my room. "You got out of the car when I told you not to!" she says. I point out that I would have died from the heat if I had stayed in the car. She then says, "Well you should have rolled down the window!"  I say, "You told me not to!" and she says, "I also told you to stay in the car. That snake could have bitten you." No amount of my pleading that the snake wasn't poisonous or that my aunt and uncle were there to protect me sways her. She has been frightened by a snake, traumatized by having to fire a handgun and then humiliated by her sister and brother in law. Someone is going to pay and that someone is her daughter that got out of the car. End of discussion.

Later that evening she again shows my sister and me the snakebite kit and goes over the instructions in slow and patient detail. I just know if it is up to her, I will be getting the X marks.