Serpentes: Bus Stop Bargains

Every morning I waited in a driveway six away from my own. I waited with two boys, Erik and Rich, five days a week, for nine years straight.

Technically, our bus stop was supposed to be at the stop sign on the corner of Birch and Hawthorne, but the driver didn’t want us crossing in front of the vehicle. We stood, in inclement weather and sunshine, on a grey, concrete, semi-circle, in front of a squat, white house.

In nine years we never met the owner of that asphalt. It was rumored that she was old and mean; the sign on her fence read “Beware of Dog”, but we never even witnessed a bark. Still the snow remained shoveled, the grass kept, and the flowers watered, by the invisible, supposedly cruel, entity, who resided just beyond our waiting place.

The boys and I owe a bit of our childhood to that cracked black-top. After cooties, and before we were too cool to speak before 10:00AM, we’d meet up and play before the bus came. Rousing games of “Mother May I?” and “Red Light, Green Light 1,2,3” got us through the daily ten minutes of torture. Originally our parents came to the stop too, but over time we outgrew the supervision. That plot of land holds our history, our youth.

– – –

The first time I saw a snake in person I allowed it to be wrapped around my neck like a scarf. It was an albino Boa Constrictor, and I was the only one of my peers brave enough to try on the reptile.

Back in the days when kids consulted class lists for phone numbers and invited everyone on said piece of paper to celebrate their birthday,  back when it mattered what adult inside a giant stuffed costume emerged when the cake was brought out, back when you were shunned for putting tiny, “lame” notebooks in goodie bags as opposed to candy and bouncy balls, children in my hometown chose to have their birthday parties at  The Pet Den’s Party Jungle.

For two hundred and fifty dollars parents and children alike gathered in a rectangular, kelly green room. On one side were tables for food-serving purposes, but the real show happened directly across the space. Pushed up against the opposite wall was a small set of wooden bleachers, painted the same shade as the walls, with five benches for maximum children capacity. Here anxious kids waited, clawing at each others’ shoulders in feigned attempts to see past the maturing head of the child in front of them… they wanted to view the animal. A trained animal handler, donned in safari garb, brought out “exotic” animals one by one, dolling out facts that were vehemently ignored by the anticipation of getting to pet the creature.

The tarantula didn’t impress me. I did not swoon over the small spider monkey wearing a diaper during the show. But the Boa Constrictor held my gaze, and eventually my heart. The handler placed it gently around my neck, the weight of its legless being sinking into my shoulder blades; I held out my arm and it began to coil around it, bringing its head towards mine, where it stopped and smiled at me.

I needed to own a serpent.

With a face like this, how can you possibly suffer from ophidiophobia Indiana Jones!?

– – –

My mother, like the majority of people, does not approve of reptiles or amphibians; the very idea of them makes her squirm. Snakes specifically, rank in the top five most-common phobias year after year.

A long scream is followed by my full name shouted in italics.

“MARIAN CLAIRE!”

Slunking toward the stairs, my mind rushes to the litany of tasks I’d half-assed, or all together avoided that week. I look up tentatively toward my mother’s glower.

“Yes?” I ask, feigning innocence; I’m still not sure what I’ve done.

“What is under your bed?”

– – –

The bus is late today; Rich had band this morning, so it’s just Erik and I waiting in the driveway. Somehow, our conversation turns to the subject of my serpentine adoration. I want a snake, and I have grown past the point of caring in terms of my mother’s fear.

“My cousin’s selling his snake ya know.” Erik adds with an air of nonchalance.

Two days and five dollars later I leave the bus stop and walk home, a shoebox tucked snuggly under my arm.

– – –

Trudging up the stairs my heart continues to sink. She’ll never let me keep it.

“Marian. What is under your bed?”

My mind flashes to the shoebox tucked snuggly underneath my mattress, it’s top riddled with tiny air-holes poked in with a pen. I sigh; there’s truly no use lying at this point.

I go to retrieve the box, my mother walking barely a step behind me the entire length of the hallway.

“It’s my pet snake,” I admit, lifting the top slightly so she can get a glimpse.

“A SNAKE!” WHERE DID YOU GET A SNAKE?”

We sit down in my room and I explain the deal I’d struck for my bus stop friend’s cousin’s snake; I realize quickly how sketchy and DARE-esque the situation truly was:

“Hey kid, ya wanna buy a snake?”

I somehow manage to avoid punishment, but my mother makes it clear that my wriggly friend is not welcome to slither here. I’m forced to return him the next day, with a no-refund policy strictly enforced.

Continuing the “snake scarf” tradition years later at SUNY Oswego. One day I’ll have one of my own.