Aliens, BB Guns, and Snakes.

When I woke up, it was about six in the mornin’, and the sun hadn’t been up long. Me ‘n Mckee checked to be sure that Mama and Daddy was home by openin’ their door a crack. They was, so I guess they had made out alright the night before, and Mama must not’ve been as mad. Or else since they had been drinkin’, she hadn’t looked for her bottles. Lookin’ at ‘em, we figured they’d probably sleep til noon. Me ‘n Mckee had that new Red Ryder BB gun and we hadn’t had a chance to use it yet.

Here was now the perfect opportunity: Saturday mornin’; Indian Summer; no school; Mama and Daddy asleep. Me ‘n Mckee snuck out with the Red Ryder Daisy BB gun, takin’ along about a zillion BB’s. I had to be real careful with Mckee around, ‘cause he’s so dumb. He was forever doin’ somethin’ stupid. Like the time he singed off all our next-door neighbor’s hair. The kid’s name was Eugene. Mckee and Eugene had made mud pies the size of a weddin’ cake. They couldn’t find any candles, so they soaked ‘em with gasoline to light it. I guess they thought it’d be like one big candle or somethin’. They was right outside under the carport, and they didn’t have no matches, so Mckee went and got some. Eugene was squattin’ down close to the cake, and Mckee thought it might be funny to scare him, so when Mckee had got the matches, he snuck up real quiet on Eugene and threw a lighted match at the mud-pie cake. There was this almighty big “Whoomp!” but no fire, and Eugene fell over backwards. Somebody said later that the gas must’ve mostly evaporated by the time Mckee got back with the matches or there would sure enough had been a fire. They would’ve burned down the whole blamed house ‘n everything in it. As it was, when the cake flashed white, it singed off Eugene’s eyebrows, his short little summertime buzz-cut hair, and his eyelashes. Turned his face the color of ashes, too. Eugene looked like a alien for months after the cakes vaporized. I got a beatin’ ‘cause I was supposed to be watchin’ ‘em. Eugene’s Mama and Daddy said that our house was off-limits to Eugene after that. He kept comin’ over to play with Mckee anyway.

Anyway, me ‘n Mckee had decided we was goin’ to play “Great White Hunters” like those guys who went out shootin’ lions and elephants on the “Tarzan” movies. We was gonna be just like Ramar of the Jungle on TV. Only thing was, Ramar was some kind of doctor and never shot much of anything, but we always pretended he was a hunter ‘cause we liked the cool name. We took turns bein’ Ramar.

Mckee wanted to be Ramar first, so I said, “Sure, and I’m gonna be his gun-bearer!”

He didn’t like that, ‘cause the gun-bearer got to carry the gun first. So he complained until I gave him the gun to carry first. But that was okay, ‘cause I figured I could claim it was my turn when we got to the part where we was really supposed to be huntin’. We decided to go down towards the big drainage ditch, where it was all swampy and as close to a jungle as we had around there. Mama had told us it was full of germs and stuff, and not to go down there, but it was real neat to swim and play in it anyway. We had a long slope of grass goin’ down to it, and the closer you got to the ditch, the higher the grass was, mainly `cause I hadn’t mowed the grass on that side like Daddy had said to. That old push mower got all clogged up whenever I tried to do it, and it would take a whole day just to mow it, havin’ to stop every few minutes to clean it out. It was one of them old kinds that you had to push to make the blades turn. The wheels on the sides was directly attached to some kinda gear, and they would turn frontways or back, dependin’ on what direction you pushed. But it was almighty hard to push that thing in just regular grass. That heavy swamp grass that went down to the ditch on the side slopes on the yard was just about impossible to cut ‘cause it was almost as tall three days after you cut it as it was to start with. That thing would just wear me out. So the grass down there was up high. Big old Southern Pines hung out over the ditch, on either side of it, and we’d swing on ropes like Tarzan vines and splash into the middle of the deep part. The grass around the dirt path down from the house to the ditch was halfways up to my thighs, and got higher as you got closer to the ditch. We started to crouch down when we got to that part. We was sneakin’ through our pretend jungle, lookin’ for somethin’ to kill with our artillery.

Suddenly, we heard this loud hissin’ noise, like a big snake. Me ‘n Mckee stood stock still. We saw on “Ramar” that a snake won’t strike at somethin’ unless it moves. Mckee was about ten feet away. His face was the color of Eugene’s head after he had burnt it up. The hissin’ was so loud I thought maybe it was one of them diamond-back rattlers Mama was always warnin’ us lived here along our Southern Alabama coast. Here in Mobile, people were forever sayin’ they had seen one big around as your leg. Or if you was a skinny eleven-year-old like me, as big around as your waist, and eight or nine feet long. I couldn’t see nothin’, but I guessed Mckee could, ‘cause he kept standin’ there tryin’ to talk like in one of those nightmares where the monster is about to get you, but you’re so scared you can’t even yell. He reminded me of the movie “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,” where the little short fat guy is tryin’ to tell the tall skinny guy about the monster sneakin’ up on him. But all he can do is to squeak and point.

When I finally figured out he was pointin’ at my feet, I almost needed new britches. Because I looked down, and there was a big old cottonmouth moccasin, with its fangs stickin’ almost straight out of its open mouth, its head hangin’ about a half a foot high over the tip end of my worn-out old brogan play-shoes. Of course my dumb brother had the BB gun. And he couldn’t just figure out on his own that maybe right now I was the one needin’ it. So I had to ask him for it. I was so scared that when I went to ask him, it was my turn to sound like the squeaky little fat guy.

I only barely managed to squeak out for him to throw me the thing. All he could do was to kind of look at me with his eyes all glazed over. It seemed like all day before I could get it out loud enough for him to understand me. When he finally got it in his pea-brain that I wanted the gun, he was too scared to just take a couple of steps and give me the dang thing. He just sorta threw it at me.

You ever seen a scared seven-year old try to throw a BB gun as big as he is? They don’t do too good at it. He gathered himself up underneath of it and gave it a great big heave in my general direction. With all that, he almost didn’t get it all the way to me. He did come close enough for me to grab the end of the barrel and for the cottonmouth to strike at the stock as it came whzzin’ by the back of its head. I guess the thing thought my old green play pants was part of the grass, and I didn’t move my legs, so he didn’t strike at me. Even so, I almost fell over on it and nearly peed in my pants tryin’ not to. I did manage to hold on to the barrel of the BB gun, though, and get it up to where the snake wasn’t able to see it anymore. Anyways, I guess he couldn’t see it, ‘cause he stopped lookin’ for it and started to swayin’ back and forth again. But I had a gun now. And I was gonna fix that sucker.

I aimed, real slow and careful, just like Uncle Melvin had taught me to shoot the twenty-two rifle when I had been at Papau Wilson’s and they had all gone huntin’. I was aimin’ at the snake’s head, ‘cause I figured that would be the quickest way to kill it. I was sightin’ just like I’d been taught, and squeezed off that first round slowly. I heard the little “Pop!” sound the BB gun made. Then I was lookin’ at the snake, who was lookin’ at the BB, just sittin’ there on its back. It didn’t even look like it had made a dent, and it just rolled off its head onto its back, and I knew that old cottonmouth was mad, ‘cause it started dartin’ its head around like it was lookin’ for somethin’ to strike. I was so scared I couldn’t have moved to run away if you’d lit a fire under me or even poured more iodine on my butt.

I started cryin’ and crankin’ that BB gun lever and shootin’ that snake as fast as I could. I didn’t know anything else to do, and I figured that if I was gonna die anyway, I might as well go out in a blaze of gunfire, defendin’ myself.

The first five BB’s didn’t do any damage that I could see. But bless my soul if that old cottonmouth didn’t look up, and get a BB right squack inside the top of its old white cotton mouth. I saw blood for the first time. He dropped his head and started to squirm around a little bit. I kept shootin’ BB’s into its back, and the BB’s finally started to do some damage. Maybe it was ‘cause now I was holdin’ the muzzle of the gun about a inch from its back. I tried one more time to put a BB directly into the snake’s skull, but it just bounced off. That old snake was as hard-headed as Mckee. But that gun held fifty BB’s, and I put every last one in the same place on its back. And they kept goin’ in deeper and deeper.

When the snake finally stopped squirmin’ around, I looked at it for a long time before I dared to move. Since he still wasn’t movin’, I got up the nerve to step away. Then Mckee, who’d just stood there watchin’ the whole time, got all brave and got himself a big old forked stick and picked up the snake with it. I told him to go throw it on the burn pile while I went in the livin’ room to get some matches so we could burn it up and make for sure it was dead.

When I was comin’ out of the livin’ room, I happened to glance down towards Mama and Daddy’s room. Remember, I told you my brother was dumb. There he was, openin’ the door to Mama and Daddy’s room with the snake on the stick. I whispered real loud, tryin’ not to wake up Mama and Daddy, to tell him “No!” but it was too late.

I rushed down the hall to try and stop him, but I only got to the door of the bedroom. Mama and Daddy had drank enough yesterday evenin’ that they was still sleepin’, and when they were like that, they usually got up real slow, holdin’ their heads and complainin’ about hangovers. They didn’t get up slow this time.

Mckee came in with the snake on the stick and said, “Mama, Daddy, look at our dead snake!”

When he said that, their eyes opened up real wide from up under the pillows like they couldn’t believe what they just heard. It was just like somethin’ on the “Three Stooges” or the “Little Rascals.” They got even wider when they saw that old four-foot-long cottonmouth in their bedroom. Mckee told them again that it was dead, all proud—like he was the one that killed it. But then the snake’s head raised up a little on the stick, and they finished wakin’ all the way up real quick, and instead of holdin’ their heads they was holdin’ up the bed sheets with one hand, from the opposite side of the bed where Mckee and the snake was, and they was holdin’ out their other hands out towards Mckee, like they was some kind of traffic cops or somethin’, gonna stop that thing from comin’ any closer. And they was cussin’. At Mckee, and at me.

Mckee finally figured out that they wanted him to get the thing out of the bedroom, but he was so disappointed that they weren’t proud of us killin’ the snake that he let the end of the stick drop a little, and the snake slid off on the floor. It didn’t go anywhere, but it was kinda squirmy. It took him a little time to get it back on the stick without touchin’ it, just in case it still could bite. All this time, Mama and Daddy was backed up against the window, cussin’ about that snake bein’ in the bedroom.