Storymania - Snakes by Mark A Stuart

Snakes
Mark A Stuart

Snakes and Alcohol; One Good Reason They Don’t Mix
Therefore Law is the distinction between things just and unjust, made in agreement with that primal and most ancient of all things, Nature, and in conformity to Nature’s standard are framed those human laws, which inflict punishment upon the wicked but defend and protect the good – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Snakes and myself have never really been on the best of terms. I don’t like them. From the limited conversations that I have had with them, they don’t especially like me either. I have no way of knowing exactly how this enmity was first established, but I do know that it was firmly entrenched by the time that I remember seeing my first live one at about age 5 or so. It could be that my mother waved rubber snakes over the crib or read scary snake books to me. I could just be a product of genetics. I know my mom is scared silly of them as well. I don’t know for sure. I do know that I don’t like them even a little.
The reptile with the honor of being the first scaly enemy of Eve to terrorize me to a near catatonic state was a white oak runner. I know this because once I had stopped running and had been retrieved about two and a half miles away from the house, my dad went to some length to explain that I was fine and in fact had never been in danger. “It was only a white oak runner. They won’t hurt you.” This was calmly explained by my dad and I suppose I could have accepted this and my future relations Vis a Vis snakes would have turned out differently. I just could not get over the fact that I still viewed heart attacks, massive coronary failure, and soiled pants as harmful. So there you are.
I spent the rest of my formative years avoiding these creatures to the extent possible. This was more difficult than you might imagine. Being as I was raised on a farm and spent a whole lot of time out doors, there was inevitably some contact with those legless lizards. They never failed to scare me, although I did at some point cease with the automatic destruction of underwear. I finally got to the point that fifty percent of the time I could recover to the point of turning my terror into a killing frenzy and relieve the offending critter of his/her life forces. I must say that I am not particularly proud of the fact that I adopted the motto “the only good snake is a dead snake, and they aren’t really good – just improved”. Still this is the way things were (and mostly still are) with me. I have – I am told – an unnatural fear of snakes. I am sure that PETA has wanted posters of me up in the post office still so I try to cover my face whenever I go to buy stamps.
I thought that I had learned to control my fear to the point of being able to lead a normal, perhaps later even, productive life. See one kill, kill one (if poisonous in particular). By the age of 15, when there are already a lot of confusing things going on biologically, I was to the point where I was clearly in charge of me, and somehow tragically (and yet in hindsight predictably) mistaken that my newfound manhood (comic pause here) extended to the besting of the reptilian domain. I was a snake master – provided of course there was a suitable weapon close by.
This is the part of the tale where a word on small towns and small town drunks in particular, comes into play.
I lived in a small town. A really small town. We probably had a population of about 1000 or so if you included domesticated house pets and such. There were 3 gas stations, a supermarket of dubious quality, 2 cotton gins, a peanut mill, a furniture store, a post office, and a restaurant that closed and re-opened about every 4 months under a new name and ownership. Of course we had a church of both denominations – Baptist and Methodist- so our spiritual needs were well tended to. When I was 16 we achieved the pinnacle of civic status when they put up the first and only red light. The most important civic ingredient however, was the barbershop. This is where all the elders of the community gathered on a regular basis to dispense wisdom and rumor. I would catch up on my education every 2 weeks. The thing that was the most surprising to me was to discover the same gentlemen in the shop every time. They had no hair so it took me a while to discern the reason for their presence each time I was there. They apparently did not work at anything that was noticeable. Only in my late teens did I reason that this was their job. And an important job it was. This is where I first discovered that our town had a drunk.
P.C. Sanders was his name. There were conflicting stories as to how he arrived at his condition. Most of the crowd was of the firm opinion that PC was suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. There were some great stories exchanged of his heroics during the big one. Feats worthy of at least a Medal of Honor were attributed to him although no one had ever actually seen this medal. A highly developed sense of personal modesty was cited as the most likely cause for this. Germans and Japanese alike had been dispatched with Sgt. Rock efficiency according to some tales. In my youthful naivety, I calculated that this would have made PC about 55 old at the time and there was solid evidence that he was in his mid 40’s, but it wasn’t my place to press the issue. Maybe it was Korea. At any rate, the inability to live with the horrors of the killing machine that he had been seemed to be the leading candidate for PC’s illness. I had trouble at that age reconciling the image of PC as a highly trained killing machine and thought that the minority opinion was probably more correct: he just liked to drink.
It was something that he was quite good at by all accounts. To my knowledge he had never been (and never was) sighted in a sober condition. This included the one time he set foot in the Baptist church on the occasion of a tent revival when the community was swept up in a whirlwind of repentance. As I recall there were many necks craned and heads turned as he entered, stumbled into a pew and burped loudly. He made it to the first round of songs at the invitation before stumbling out again and has not been spotted in church since. I think some people were expecting a miracle that wasn’t in the cards that day.
PC could normally be found in the cockpit of his ’64 Ford pickup. It had been two-toned blue at one time but the years had rendered it more of a faded blue/rust combo color. As far as could be determined it would not operate in speeds of excess of 15 mph, although it was clocked at one time going 20 down a hill. PC had established a routine that he followed with unwavering precision. Each morning he would patrol the town perimeter leaving the coffee shop at around 9:00 AM. First he would proceed out of town on highway 45 south, veering off towards Blakely. There he would round the big curve and proceed in a straight line until reaching the city limits. At this point he would hang a right and proceed northward to the other end of town, where upon he would hang another right and head back towards his trailer on the edge of town. At this point PC would take in the daily paper and his second stiff one of the day, maybe make a little lunch and look after any personal business that needed tending to. This part of the routine is pure conjecture as no one had ever seen the man eat anything and the personal business of a faded war hero might not have been as voluminous as I am imagining. This process would be repeated beginning from the coffee shop at about 2:15 PM and again later that evening at around 7:00 PM. The only difference on the evening run was that by this time he usually had a bottle with him. PC may have been a drunk but the man was a maniac for routine.
As far as I know he was never cited for a traffic violation or any other civil charge. He was not ever involved in any accident that I am aware of. The locals just mostly left him alone and generally looked the other way when he came plodding along. This in retrospect seems like it was a sound policy.

My good friend Robert and I were fairly bored that day. This was a normal state of events in my town and there was no ball game to be played that day so we were stretching our minds as to what might be a worthwhile endeavor. This is when we found the snake. Robert lived out near the curve headed towards Blakely and his dad was a doctor so they had a big house that was situated by a lake right at the curve. This lake was a favorite environ for the local snakes and on this fine day when we had been piddling around we found a dead moccasin that had not managed to make it in its attempt to cross the road. While a dead water moccasin could only be viewed as a good thing, the fact that this snake had already been terminated by some right- minded driver, did not leave us many opportunities to exert our mastery over the species. I mean, after all, what can you do with a dead snake?
The fact that there was nothing else to do, undoubtedly lead us down the slippery slope of unsound reasoning that ultimately lead us to ponder what can you do with a dead snake? In asking the question we set in to motion a chain of events that could only be described as bizarre and nearly tragic.
“Let’s skin it and make a belt.” This was Robert’s opinion. Since we were several generations removed from any ancestors that may have known how to go about this task, it seemed like a no-go. Still it was a manly suggestion so I didn’t want to come off as too harsh.
“I just got a new belt, besides this guy ain’t smellin’ so good.” That was my reply.
“Well let’s use it to scare my mom.” This was a definite no-go and a good sign of how bored we were, that we would even consider it.
“Your mom would beat us dead. Man she hates snakes worse than the Republicans. Besides, she’s in Albany.” No refuting that.
“Well let’s scare PC.” I still don’t know why this idea was not rejected out of hand immediately as it should have been, but it wasn’t. The more we thought about it the more sensible it seemed. In later years I became convinced that boredom was only a contributing factor. The heat must have partially melted our brains as well. That is the only reasonable explanation that I have been able to arrive at give the hare-brained scheme that we pursued. It was 1:45 PM on July 15, 1974, so we had a half hour to lay our plans.
Robert had a spool of old monofilament 8 pound test fishing line. This was good in that it was clear to the point of near invisibility and strong enough to hold our snake with out incident. The summer before he had landed a 5 pound largemouth with this same line, so we both felt pretty comfortable that a dead snake wouldn’t give us much trouble. We rigged up about 60 feet of line on either end of the snake and proceeded to our positions.
It was the same curve that headed out of town towards Blakely, so we knew as sure as the sun would come up that PC would be making his patrol that afternoon. The curve itself was slightly banked so this offered some protection from the view of passing motorist if you got down in the ditch. It worked out better because the low side of the curve was heading out of town. This was fortunate because it was just about a certainty that PC couldn’t even see that side of the road. Robert being the younger of the two of us opted for the better security of the high side of the curve with his end of the line. This left me the more exposed low side of the curve. To my advantage, the county prison squad had not mowed in about 6 weeks so there were a lot of weeds to hide in. That and the fact that I was counting on PC to be nearly blind drunk. This is what I told myself.
Our plan was simple. As PC rounded the bend we would pull the snake across the road in front of him and see what happened. My money was riding on the probability that he would miss the snake all together. Robert said he’d nail him.
PC’s approach was such that we had a good 75 yards before he reached the killing zone in which to see him. Right on time he came steaming toward the curve at his standard 15 mph. To his credit he was un-erring in his approach. He could have been a carrier pilot on final so sure was he in command of the Ford. At about 60 yards Robert began pulling on the line bringing the snake out towards the center line. I had nothing to do other than to witness the approaching appointment with destiny that PC’s right front tire had with Mr. Wiggly. Robert had it positioned so well that impact was virtually assured.
At the last moment (I am guessing at the same time when PC saw the snake) the squeal of breaks was heard and the Ford locked up, coming to rest about 10 feet short of the target. Before any move could be made on our part, PC slammed the pickup into reverse and backed her up about 20 yards. At this point he lined that snake up and roared toward it with evil intent in his bloodshot eyes. He nailed it.
Bringing the Ford to a halt a little ways past the remaining mush of Mr. Wiggly, PC leaned out of the cab to survey his handiwork. This was where we should have made a covert exit.
Instead Robert began pulling the line in and the squashed reptile seemingly continued his journey across the road to the high bank. Not standing for this PC reversed abruptly and backed up over that sucker again. And again he nailed it. Now I know the evils of drunk driving, but I am not to this day sure if any one alive outside of Cale Yarborough could have driven like that sober. PC executed a running stomp of a moving snake while accelerating in reverse using only his rear-view mirror for steering guidance. It was impressive.
One of the things that I have since discovered about life is that there are a lot of things you learn later on. A good example of this is when to leave well enough alone, and how too much of a good thing is not necessarily good. I wish I had been aware of those concepts that day. What occurred to me at the time was to put Mr. Wiggly in reverse. The sight of a snake traversing the road backwards was apparently a bit more than PC’s alcohol fogged mind could process that afternoon. He must have imagined a demon possessed reptile that had been let loose on South Georgia. His next move indicated his intent to remove this satanic creature from this corner of God’s world as he again propelled the trusty Ford forward and for a third time nailed the snake. Robert, not having learned all of the important lessons yet either, immediately put the snake in forward again dragging it toward the ditch. PC responded with more Andretti-like driving and backed up over the snake again.
At this time I did learn an important lesson concerning the mixing of snakes, alcohol, war heroes, and side arms. Before I could fully engage the snake in reverse for a second time (I had only gotten him reeled in a couple of feet) PC emerged from the cab like an avenging angel brandishing one of the biggest pistols that I had ever seen. It was a model 1912A Colt .45 and he appeared to mean business. He emptied a clip in the general direction of the snake sooner than I could blink, and before I could get a coherent thought together he had reloaded and was striding purposely toward what remained of our attempt to ease our boredom. It sounded like the Big One was being re-enacted with live ammo for my sole benefit; so that I would never forget the lessons of history. Sirens from the only police car in town were firing up in the distance and Mr. Wiggly wasn’t talking.
Well I ran like it was an Olympic moment and all I remember thinking was that the prison squad wouldn’t need to mow that area anytime soon as I had laid every weed flat in my hasty exit. Robert was long gone and it was a many weeks before I could get up the courage to go anywhere near that stretch of road.
Some weeks later we finally decided that we hadn’t been found out and almost got to the point by the end of the summer of laughing about it. Only when no one was around mind you.
In the barber shop there was some general consent that maybe it was time for PC to go up to the VA hospital in Columbus for a check-up. All agreed that his latest story was way beyond reality and no one could be found that had ever seen or heard of a snake crawling backwards.
To this day I still have an unnatural urge to relieve myself when I see a snake. Dead or alive.