vituperation

"I need to bring the cats in," I said to Robyn, pausing the DVR in the middle of an episode of Family Plots. Since Mr. Fancypants vanished never to return from the yard one night, and several frightening incidents where we thought we’d lost Mister Boogers the same way, we try to make sure all the cats are in and the cat door closed before dark.

Robyn picked up the magazine she reads when we’re watching something not-so-interesting. I walked to the library and put the plastic shield in place to block the cat door, then back to the den to look out the back door for Spot, who spends more time in the yard than anyone.

He sat in the grass by the patio, staring intently at the ground in front of him.

"C’mon, Spot, it’s time–" I caught sight of what lay in front of him: a coil of dusky brown and tan. "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!"

"What?" Robyn said, dropping the magazine at my tone.

"Spot killed a copperhead!"

In the part of Alabama where we live, there are four poisonous snakes: the timber rattlesnake, the pigmy (yes, that’s the spelling) rattlesnake, the water mocassin / cottonmouth, and the copperhead. Growing up here, you learn pretty quickly what the poisonous ones look like; they’re very distinctive, thus I recognized the snake from ten or so feet away even though all I could see was its colors. Those were enough.

"Come help me check Spot," I said, and went out to get the cat away from the snake.

The snake was not dead, nor injured. Apparently, Spot had merely been watching it work its way toward the house.

Spot remained perfectly calm (thank God for the Elavil we have him on to prevent excessive grooming, damn spaz cat) when I pulled him away from the snake, and I ran my hands down his flanks to make sure there was no obvious swelling from a bite. While copperhead bites rarely kill people, I’m pretty sure a bite would be fatal to something the size of a cat. I trotted back to the door, holding Spot in a manner most undignified, and held him up for Robyn. She checked him over, too, and found nothing.

"We need to shut him inside the house," I said.

Miz Poo and Mister Boogers shot through the open door and made a beeline for the snake, who hadn’t moved. Several seconds of cat wrangling ensued, wherein Robyn and I looked like two of the three stooges trying to get all the cats in the house. Finally they were in and we were out.

"You should get the camera," I said. She went inside. I watched the snake, who lay there calmly, flicking his tongue out from time to time. Copperheads, when faced with something they perceive as danger, tend to freeze until the danger is gone. They rarely bite unless you get right on them, something I had no intention of doing.

Robyn came back out with the camera and a can of compressed air to keep the cats at bay. Standing some fifteen feet from the snake, she pointed the camera at it and prepared to snap a picture.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Taking a picture."

"From back there? All anyone will be able to see is the weeds in our yard."

I took the camera and took some pictures of the snake from a couple of feet away. As I’ve mentioned, I’m not scared of snakes at all (spiders are another story). I respect them, and I keep my distance from the poisonous ones, but most snakes around here aren’t aggressive (the water moccasin / cottonmouth excluded) and will leave you alone unless you mess around with them.

Taking a picture isn’t messing around with it.

"Look here," I said, pointing at the snake’s head. "I’ll show you how to tell the poisonous ones. All the poisonous snakes here are pit vipers, so they have some similarities. See how his head is like a big triangle?"

Robyn nodded from the other side of the patio.

"You can’t see from back here, come look."

She took a couple of steps closer.

"See how his head is shaped?"

"Yeah."

"All the pit vipers here have heads like that. Look at his body. See how he’s stubby and really thick, instead of long and sleek like the rat snake from last week?"

She nodded again.

"Stubby fat snakes are the poisonous ones around here. Keep your distance from them."

"How about if I just keep my distance from all of them?"

Women.

"That’ll work, too. The poisonous ones here also tend to have similar markings." I pointed to the snake’s back. "And you’ll never go wrong if you stay away from the ones that are tan and brown."

We looked at the snake a moment longer.

"I have to kill it," I said, though I didn’t want to. A copperhead in the woods, on a hike, is one thing. You step around it and keep going. A copperhead in your yard, less than ten feet from the house, is another. We have cats to think about. Our neighbors have kids to think about. Most snakes are good to have around, because of all the things they eat. Poisonous snakes, not so good. Not that close to the home, anyway.

I went to the shed and got the hoe, the official tool for killing snakes in the south, and brought it back to where the snake lay. All four of our cats sat lined up at the window, watching the activity. Robyn moved back to the far side of the patio, putting the grill, the table, and all the chairs between herself and the snake. I stretched out the hoe, preparing to place it on–

"You’re standing too close," Robyn said. "It makes me nervous."

I cast an askew glance at my wife, and shuffled back a bit. I was already a hoe-length from the snake. Plenty far, given that the snake was maybe two feet long. I reached out with the hoe again and lowered it to–

"Be careful!" Robyn said.

"Jesus Christ, Bessie."

"What? I don’t want you to get bit!"

"If you don’t want me to get bit, let me focus all my attention on the snake and not you."

"Sorry."

I touched the snake with the hoe, and he struck. His head thudded off the metal blade and he fell back to the grass.

From her vantage point twenty feet away, my wife shrieked and ran around in circles.

"Jesus, Bessie!"

"YOU ALMOST GOT BITTEN!"

"I did not almost get bitten. I didn’t even come close to getting bitten."

I finished up with the snake, still sad over having to do it, and sealed its body in a box which is now in our trash. Having never killed a snake before, I’ll say this: it’s a whole lot harder than you’d think. In retrospect, I wish I’d gotten the shovel instead.

What is it with me and the snakes?

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