The Summer of Snakes

University of Northern Iowa

The Summer of SnakesAuthor(s): Jonathan HoldenSource: The North American Review, Vol. 257, No. 3 (Fall, 1972), pp. 76-77Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25117377 .

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JONATHAN HOLDEN

THE SUMMER OF SNAKES

76 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW/FALL 1972



The summer I turned ten was the summer of snakes.

Fearless, I stalked the Walters' field

where blacksnakes sunbathed on the hot, stone

foundation of the burned-down barn.

All summer in the grass I found them dead.

I wrapped their dry, flaked lengths around my neck,

whipped them through the air like blacksnake whips. Once I coiled a dead one, propped its head upon a forked

stick for Mrs. Emory to see when she came to give us

corn. She didn't scream. She turned white and made

gagging noises. Later, my mother lectured me.

"Mrs. Emory," she said, "is scared of snakes."

All summer long the snakes stretched out to dry.

One snake made his last mistake by

stretching out on the road in front of Mrs.

Cissel's house. Mrs. Cissel had a baby. She lived

alone because Mr. Cissel had re-enlisted to fight in the Korean War. He'd left her with a loaded thirty-eight.

Her hair was honey streaked with heavy

cream.

Seeing the snake, I made my bike's brakes squeak,

then heard a clink?the milkman on Mrs. Cissel's

steps clinking bottles as he climbed into his truck.

Worriedly, Mrs. Cissel smiled. They, too,

had seen the snake. Carefully, roaring his engine,

blossoming blue smoke, the milkman backed his truck, aimed it at the sleeping snake, then lurched, bumped over it hurriedly as if afraid it would bite, screech-braked.

Panting, the milkman chewed his gum importantly, his face

set like St. George. The snake was squished! In awed

approval, Mrs. Cissel gawked. Again the milkman backed,

lurched, again screech-braked, then revved. Grim,

without a backward glance or thanks he roared away.

I hated him.

I found fewer and fewer snakes after that. Two

weeks before school opened, the workmen came to fix

the road. I watched the smoking tar-truck creep along;

it sounded like a shower. Then the dump-trucks blundered

by with sizzling gravel. And last the men, red

faced and shiny, working rakes. I envied them

until they found the snakes?a whole nest

in the pipe by MacKenzies'. All that day, bolstered

by cold beer, and with a savage, messianic zeal

they dragged floundering blacksnake after floundering blacksnake from that pipe with the handles of their

rakes, slung the frightened snakes down and crushed

them with rocks until there were no more. Then,

tired but satisfied, they finished up the road.

Since that summer, there have been no more blacksnakes

in Walters' field.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW/FALL 1972 77



The Summer of Snakes

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