The Smiling Snake
The clamor of excited children got my attention as I
walked along the edge of the park by the school. Cries of “Snake, Snake!” made me break into
a run as much for fear of what the children would do to the reptile as anything
else.
A small group of elementary age kids came into sight as I
rounded the corner of the fence protecting the swimming pool. That they were
running away from me at a good clip didn’t do anything to help my building
anxiety.
One of bigger boys started yelling “It’s a COBRA!” which
made me run faster. The chance that this was anything but a local species was
infinitesimally small. If this were many years later there “might” be a chance,
given the number of deadly snakes which escaped during hurricane Andrew in 1992.
Prior to that year I would expect to see a Tyrannosaurus Rex before a cobra.
As I caught up with the screaming mob I could see a
slender black snake about four to five feet in length coming to bay as the
children surrounded it. The stressed out reptile rose up in a defiant posture
and turned to face the closest threat.
For a fleeting moment my mind asked, “Are you sure? It
behaves like a cobra,” but that thought passed quickly.
I was finally close enough to confirm that this poor
harassed beast was a Black Racer, which is a non-venomous slender snake with a
tough guy attitude. They do like to rear up and hiss at you and will definitely
bite if given the chance. The injury from such a bite is probably the least
damaging of any animal bite.
Asking one of the calmer boys to help me, I had him get
in front of the snake and at a cue from me, step towards it, staying just out
of strike range. While he was distracting the ornery critter I zipped in from
behind and grabbed the snake by the tail, lifting it into the air.
As I gently spun the snake this way and that as it tried
to climb up its own body, a little girl dressed like Alice (of Wonderland fame)
pointed and said, “It’s smiling!” Then another child echoed the claim, and
another and another. Snake teeth are far too small to show up in such a way so
I was really puzzled as to what they were talking about.
The snake was tired enough that it allowed me to slide my
hand forward until I could grip it just behind the head. Nothing could prepare
me for what I saw when I turned the slender creature around to face me. It WAS
smiling!
Trapped in its stretched open mouth was a very small set
of what I could only guess were upper dentures. Even more bizarre was that
these miniature false teeth appeared to have orthodontic braces on them. I
didn’t even entertain a thought that this was intentional, only that I couldn’t
explain it.
When I tried to remove the foreign object from this
unhappy creature it resulted in renewed flailing and the release of a very
smelly fluid from its rear end which would make a skunk gag. Luckily I found a paper
bag up against a fence that was large enough to hold my captive and after a lot of trying, I finally got all
of it inside.
There was a veterinarian not too far away that might help
me, but it would have to be for free, because I didn’t have any money. I hoped
that the weirdness of the problem would catch his interest, if not I would have
to come up with a plan “B.”
It was just before quitting time when I walked in the
clinic door, but as fate would have it, the car that sped out of the back alley was the doctor racing
for his golf date. The lady working at the reception desk wasn’t at all
interested in helping a kid. As soon as she got “The doctor has gone for the
day” out of her mouth, she turned her back on me.
The mean streak in me flared up and without thinking I
opened the bag, pulled out the snake, and plopped it down on her desk where it
knocked all of her papers to the floor. I said, “This snake has a problem and I
can’t help it.” It was a wasted speech as the woman had jumped up and ran
through the door to the back areas of the clinic.
I guess she didn’t like snakes as much as I did. It was a
good thing that this particular Black Racer had a mouthful already, because it
really wanted to bite someone at that point. The creature vented its
frustration by once again releasing foul smelling fluid which got all over the
counter top; I didn’t mean for that to happen.
As I was looking around for something to wipe up the
stinky mess the door to the back burst open and a lady in her twenties wearing
an apron hurried into the room. I expected her to start yelling at me for
scaring the receptionist, but she was cool. “What’s up with the Black Racer?”
she said while pulling a cloth from the pocket of her apron and tossing it to
me and nodding at the mess on the counter.
I stood there for a while with my mouth hanging open,
holding onto the writhing serpent and processing not being yelled at. A wisp of
golden hair had escaped from the tightly pulled back hairdo and she blew it out
of her face as she waited for me to respond. The unhappy snake brought me back
to the moment at hand by bashing me with its flailing head.
“Oh, I see” she said as she noticed the odd obstruction
in the snake’s mouth and moved forward to also take hold of the creature.
Between the two of us we held it still as she looked at what needed to be done.
“Come with me to the back and we’ll see if we can fix this problem.”
As we went
through the door to the back she knocked at the bathroom door and said,
“Dolores, you can go home now, I’ll close up.” From within the bathroom came a
weak and shaky voice asking, “Is that horrible boy with the snake gone?” My new
friend waved me on into an exam room with the reptile and closed the door
before replying, “Yes Dolores, he’s gone.”
While I waited I tried to calm the nervous snake down by
grabbing a white towel off of a stack on a table and covering its head. That
seemed to help and I sat down on the rolling stool that the doctor always uses
and put my arm (and the snake) on the examination table.
It didn’t take long for me to get bored; doctor’s exam
rooms were my least favorite place to be. Even though it was a veterinarian’s
habitat, there was nothing special beyond the same dog breeds chart which
decorates every one of them. Just once I’d like to see a chart of snake species
or even bird species on the wall.
The door opened and the young lady burst into the room
with her hands full of instruments and a roll of tape in her teeth. She
gestured to me to take the tape and then said, “I am Pat by the way.” I mumbled
something that closely resembled my name as I watched her remove the towel
which covered the snake.
Pat instructed me to move the racer to the metal
equipment tray which she had just cleared off. While I did that she was ripping
off strips of tape and sticking them to the edge of the tray. Once she had a
bunch of those hanging around the tray she started cutting strips of gauze.
When there was a dozen pieces of gauze she said, “Now, we
are going to tape our friend to this tray, putting a piece of gauze between its
skin and the tape.” I didn’t say it, but I thought it, “This won’t work the
snake will slip out of the tape.”
I did what I was told and put a piece of gauze and then a
strip of tape over the serpent six times, sticking the tape to the metal tray.
Pat said, “OK, let’s see what we’ve got” and released her grip. Fortunately I
grabbed the speedy creature before it made it off the tray and hung on as it
thrashed all over the place.
For whatever reason, instinct I guess, I grabbed another
towel with my free hand and whipped it over the snake’s head and wrapped it up.
“Give me a minute to get him calm again” I said to the now flustered Pat. She
didn’t say a word as she stood there balling up the tape strips.
I slowly wrapped the towel around the snake’s body and
pulled it down enough to see the head. By tucking the towel wrapped body under
my arm I was able to present the uncovered head to Pat and control the movement
enough for her to be able to work.
She got an underhand grip on the head and held it to
where she could see the poor creature face on. “What the Hell!” was the first
thing out of her mouth but the shock passed quickly and she got a hemostat off
of the table next to her and tried to grip the false teeth.
The denture material proved difficult to grip so she
tried grabbing a wire. That worked briefly but pulled loose before any real
progress was made. As she sorted through the instruments she had available I
took a closer look at the snake’s mouth. It appeared to me that the denture was
hooked behind the curved teeth. If we pushed it backwards it would just hook
behind the teeth it now sat upon.
Pat picked up a scary looking tool that made my eyes bug
out when I saw it. Seeing my expression she said, “It is a spreader which is
used during surgery to separate ribs.” Her intentions were good but I was
afraid that the tool would break the snake’s teeth off and told her so. Her
answer was to toss the tool back onto the table.
It was then that I spotted the jar of tongue depressors
that you normally see it human doctor’s examination rooms. The idea just jumped
into my head and I spluttered as I tried to get the entire thought out at the
same time.
If we put one tongue depressor above and another below
the offending denture we should be able to lift it free of the snake’s real
teeth. Pat was good with the idea and she grabbed the flat sticks and we worked
together to get them in.
Once she had the depressors in place and put pressure on
them, I used the only tool that I had handy; my finger. I got cut a bit by the
teeth as I pushed but was able to work the denture free of the jaws. The snake
then did a maneuver that only someone who feeds snakes would recognize; it
dislocated and reset its jaws.
Pat said, “I don’t have a cage that could hold a snake in
the entire building.” I told her that I didn’t see any other problems or
injuries on our little buddy and thought that it would be fine to let it go
back where I found it. She was completely cool with that.
The merciful woman left the room for a moment and
returned with a laundry bag with a drawstring which she helped me stuff the
once again vigorous snake into. I said, “I can’t pay you for the bag or the
help you gave me, I don’t have any money.”
She just laughed, put her hand on my head, and said
“Don’t worry amigo, I haven’t had this much fun since the doc stuck himself
with Novocain.”
We both turned at the same time like the idea struck us
both out of the blue, and looked at the false teeth on the tray. Pat picked it
up and turned it around and around in her hand examining it. Finally she said,
“The teeth are small child size, but they are perfect. Why the braces and why
false teeth for a child who would only have baby teeth anyway?”
I said, “The top of the whole thing is flat; the roof of
your mouth is not. It doesn’t go into a mouth at all.” We both said “Display!”
at the same time and high-fived each other.
A glance up at the clock sent me running for the exit
saying goodbye and thank you as I contemplated how to talk my way out of
trouble for being an hour late getting home. Fortunately for me my route home
took me past the same field where the snake chase began.
I took the bag to the far side of the field where some
bushes were planted and opened it and turned it upside down. At first the beast
braced itself inside the bag and stayed there, but a little vigorous shaking
solved that problem. Once it hit the ground it kicked into high gear and left
the area without a kiss, a thank you, or even a look back at me!
This event took place on a Friday; the coming home late
thing got me restricted to the house for the entire weekend which was miserable.
Kids didn’t talk on the telephone in our house and there was no such thing as a
personal computer or video game machines then.
Television was also off limits unless someone else wanted
to watch it (read, my father) so reading was all that was left. Normally
reading was my favorite past time but I had already read everything in the
house at least once.
A city map caught my eye and an idea to see how many
addresses around my neighborhood that I could identify and picture in my mind
took hold of me; it was something to do!
It was while playing this mind game that I realized that
there was a dentist office one block over from the school where I caught the
black racer. The area was a little overgrown with weeds and had broken
sidewalks, but was nice enough for an old neighborhood. The dentist office was
in what used to be a private residence.
Monday after school I hurried home and got permission to
go to the paddleball courts at the high school. I did go there (just so I
didn’t tell a lie) but only stayed long enough to hit one ball against the
wall. Honesty upheld, I took off at a trot for the dentist office to see if
they knew what the false teeth in my pocket were all about.
When I got within sight of the place I slowed to a walk
and watched a field mouse come out of the side door which was propped open with
a brick. On a hanging sign over the front steps the board said “Doctor S. Miles
Allott, D.D.S.” (Of course that isn’t his real name, I couldn’t use that.)
I walked up the steps and entered the front door which
had a sign on it saying “We make your teeth happy” and an annoying bell went
off.
The woman at the desk looked older than anyone I knew
that was still working and she didn’t hear me come in. I stood in front of her
desk for a little while, clearing my throat occasionally (which she didn’t
hear) waiting for her to see me. It was a shy southern boy’s politeness
nightmare.
I was still standing there not knowing what to do when a
pretty Cubano dental tech came out and asked if I had an appointment. It was
such a relief to have someone speak to me that I just went with the pretty girl
automatically.
Once inside the treatment room the tech asked where my
records were and what I was having done. I woke up to reality at that point and
started talking. Pulling the denture from my pocket I presented it to the young
lady and recounted where and how I had obtained it.
I half expected her to toss me out but instead she showed
a lot of interest and examined the denture all over. Opening a cabinet she
pulled out a headset with a light and several magnifying lenses that flipped
out of the way. “Aha!” she said while looking at the back of the top edge, “I
thought so!”
“This is an old display model used to show parents what
braces could do for their children’s teeth. These haven’t been used for as long
as I have been here. The doctor and his wife have been practicing for
forty-five years and they used to do orthodontic work, I am sure they would know.”
We went back out to ask the old woman at the desk, who
was also the doctor’s wife, but she was not there. The young lady, Isabella
according to her name tag, looked at her watch and said, “Oh no, it’s too late,
they have both gone home.” To be fair, there were no scheduled appointments and
I don’t think that the old woman ever saw me.
I was pretty disappointed and started mumbling stuff like
“It’s no big deal, thanks anyway…” etc. Isabella said, “Hey, hermano, no hay problema!” and laughed,
which was a really sweet sound. “C’mon my friend, I want to look in the store
room” she said and took off.
It took me a couple of seconds to process what had
transpired and then I ran after her. She hadn’t gone far, just through two
doors and into the side room with the open outer door. The room was very dusty
and full of shelves and storage cabinets bulging with stuff apparently no
longer in use.
Isabella was poking around on a shelf mumbling about
“where would they keep them” when she screamed and jumped backwards. Running
down the shelf in the opposite direction were three brown mice doing their best
to get away from the screaming human. My
new friend was standing in the doorway, but behind the door, peeking around it
like the mice were going to mount a counter-attack any time now.
I said, “You could use a good snake or two in here.”
Isabella rolled her eyes at that statement and said, “Madre de Dios.” She said, “Make sure there are no more ratitas before I look again.”
Trying to be nice and yet still slightly the “hero,” I
made a show of banging cabinets and shaking shelves and declared the evil
creatures vanquished. Of course I knew that mice could hide anywhere and there
were probably dozens of them in the room, but Isabella was satisfied.
She cautiously returned to the shelf and soon found what
she had been looking for; the bottom half of the tiny denture set! We had proof
that what I found in the snake’s mouth had come from that very room. Isabella
and I both jumped up and down laughing.
I moved a short step-stool over to the shelf the dentures
resided upon so I could look down on it. As I suspected there were rodent
dropping everywhere, but what I had hoped to see was there as well; the
tell-tale curving line of a snake track.
There were marks in the dust which told me that the snake
had struck at a mouse which was in all likelihood either on or in front of the
dentures and the impact pushed everything. Isabella was muttering about hiring
a cleaning team or exterminators as she went back into the main part of the
building.
I was satisfied that we had the answer as to how the
black racer got fitted for dentures. The next afternoon I went by the vet
clinic and told Pat what I had found. She seemed more impressed that I came
back to tell her, than by what I had learned.
When I tried to tell my parents and siblings what had
transpired I was met with disbelief and skepticism. I had witnesses to back up
my story but I just gave up and let it drop; it wasn’t worth the effort. That
smiling snake lived quietly in my memory... until now.
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