My Personal Vendetta Against Snakes

I awoke this morning with a large knot in my stomach and a dream fresh in my mind…

…walking through dense woods, the leaf covered ground and dull orange-brown scenery is reminiscent of late autumn in New England. The identities of the two hikers leading the trek are unclear, but I carefully follow along, aligning my steps with those of the ones in front of me. I duck under a branch and stumble forward, bumping into the person in front of me. “What’s the…” He lets out a soft “Shhh” and draws his finger from his mouth out towards the trail before us. I follow his gaze and spot the giant bobcat up ahead in the distance. The creature stands still, its eyes fixated on a cat perched on a branch above. My heart pumps in anticipation of the epic event we are about to witness; a rare, national geographic type of moment that few view firsthand. We inch closer trying to get a better view of the massacre that is about to ensue. Oblivious to everything except the animals ahead, I step forward and my leg crashes through a pile of branches and twigs. I quickly pull out my leg and feel the sharp pain of pointy branches scrape my shin. I roll up my pant leg to find two symmetrical, neatly spaced puncture wounds slowly spouting blood. The other hiker turns around, looks down at the injury and with a worried look on his face asks, “Did you see what kind of snake bit you?”

That is the last thing I remember. The knot in my stomach is due to the fact that snakes are one of my greatest fears.

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I was not always terrified of snakes. In fact, there was a time in my life when I was somewhat tolerant of them. When I was growing up there was a Gartner snake that would often sun itself on the green bush in front of our house. We saw him so frequently that we nicknamed him – Jake the Snake (after pro wrestler Jake “The Snake” Roberts). At age seven I had no problem strolling by the sunning serpent, throwing up a wave and saying, “Hey Jake!” to which he would respond with his usual flickering of the tongue. Neither of us fled at the sight of one another. Neither of us tried to harm one another. We coexisted on a level of mutual respect. I even remember having feelings of remorse when the little guy met his unfortunate fate under the tire of my dad’s Jeep. Unfortunately, these feelings of pacifism soon transform into bellicosity and trepidation.

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A few years later I am walking in the woods with my two cousins, in a situation similar to my dream, and with one careless step my foot ignites a pile of leaves into fury of foliage. Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of a snake’s body, which is enough to send me sprinting back to the house. My grandpa immediately grabs a shovel, approaches the snake and with a quick downward thrust he decapitates it. I watch from the house as he scoops up its lifeless body and flings it into the surrounding woods. With the severing of that snake came the severance of my tolerance for the creatures.

Ever since that encounter I can’t stand to be within twenty feet of snakes. Thankfully I rarely come across them; that is until I returned home from college for summer break and my parents asked me to mow the lawn.

I remember pushing the mower up my front yard for the first time. A few steps into the job I see a long black snake slithering under a bush. It severely catches me off guard and sends me running away shouting obscenities from the top of my lungs. Next time I start with the backyard with hopes that the noisy mower would give any snakes residing in the front ample time to hide. Instead, I spot a five-foot-long rat snake slowly retreating into the brush at the back edge of my property. I freak out in a similar manner, completely emasculated and cursing.

Each and every subsequent time I mowed the lawn I ran into a new snake. Hearing the roar of the mower starting up was enough to get my adrenaline going. I could have been a poster boy for Pavlovian conditioning. After a few months my senses were heightened so much while cutting the grass that my eyes became irritated from not blinking.

There is one time that finally pushed me over the edge. I am finishing up the last patch of grass and starting to relax. Out of nowhere a snake slithers towards me and like a car playing chicken it stays its course. Adrenaline racing, heart pumping, I close my eyes and push the mower in the direction of the snake. My mower is a push one, the kind with a lever that you have to hold down to keep running. The advancing mower quickly turns off and to this day I don’t know if it made it to the snake. Defeated, I accept losing the turf battle and, like a Crip in a Blood’s neighborhood, I have no business being there. That was the last time I ever mowed my lawn.

A few evenings later I pull into the driveway on my motorcycle. The motion activated spot light illuminates a motionless snake coiled up directly under the access keypad to the garage. Sure, I could slink by in fear again, but I have had enough. These snakes have tormented me all summer and I was not about to let them invade my garage – my safe haven. This was my goddamn Braveheart moment. I enter the garage via a side door, walk directly to the wall of tools and grab the square tip shovel. With my hands strangling the shovel’s grip, I take a few deep breathes, march toward the snake and bring down the shovel just behind its neck with a force so strong that it leaves a mark in the driveway. Then, just like my grandpa, I scrape up its limp body, turn the shovel around and I hurl it into the neighboring woods like a lacrosse player in a championship game.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still terrified of snakes and will run like a little bitch if I see one, but at least for one night I faced one of my biggest fears.