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By Root 483 0

soon to be dubbed “New South,” Let me tell you a story about a man and a snake. They put down their notepads and melting-in-their-hands pens, the heat was so intense, and hiked up their jeans, took a seat on a stump in her yard, and listened. She was so old she smelled like greens. And so real a number of them swooned. There was this man walking down the road, you see. And she pointed to the long dirt road down which they had trudged, looking for her house. And it was a very, very cold day. They looked into one another’s profusely perspiring faces and couldn’t begin to imagine it. And what do you think he saw just ahead of him on the road? Well, she carried on, without waiting for them to guess, there right in his path was a snake. Kinda a cute snake. You know, probably had hair like most people want and long eyelashes. Her audience smiled. It was frozen solid though, it was. But still, some part of it could talk to the man. You know how that is. They chuckled. And it said: Please, Mr. Man. I’m just a poor little ole snake nearly ’bout froze to death out here in this weather! Please take pity on me and warm me by putting me in your bosom. Now, the man wasn’t usually no fool. But you know how it sometimes be. That one day, well. He thought about it. And he was after all a Christian kind of a man. He stood there thinking how amazing it was that such a cute snake could talk. And then he stood there a good five or ten minutes thinking about what Christ would do. If I was to pick you up, he said, leaning over the snake so that his own shadow became a part of it, and he, being a sensitive soul, started to feel a connection, If I was to pick you up, how do I know you wouldn’t bite me? Oh, no, Mr. Man, if you would be so kind as to warm me up and let me live, why, it would be a horrible thing for me to repay your kindness by biting you! I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.

So after a while, the snake looking at him so pitiful, he picked the little ole thing up, and he put it in his bosom, in the pocket of his overalls. Just behind his package of Brown Mule chewing tobacca and right next to his chest, close to his heart, which was beating warming blood all through his sympathetic body. And they walked on. The man thinking real good things about himself and the little snake beginning to feel like him or her self again. Pretty soon the snake was warmed clear through. The man could feel it slowly uncoiling, slithering behind his hansker pocket just a tiny bit. It make him smile, to tell you the truth. It tickled him to think that something as humble as himself could bring something frozen almost dead practically back to life. He reached up to pat the snake. And the snake bit him.

He bit him on the jaw. And the man knew he was in the middle of Alabama or Mississippi or Georgia or north Florida or somewhere there wasn’t likely to be no speedy help. He fell down in the middle of the road, just a cussin’. Why you do me like that? he asked the snake, who was now sliding nimbly across his pants leg. And the snake looked up at him and said, kind of shrugging his shoulders like those folks in France do: You knowed I was a snake when you picked me up. And the man started to die.

The old woman looked at the young people who had disturbed her peace to ask her to join their crusade. She had learned to live without picking up any snakes. She killed every one she saw, no hesitation and no questions asked. She did have a different ending for the story though, that she felt might do them good; for she could see they were understanding her to say what they were attempting was an exercise in futility.

She cleared her throat, which had as many wrinkles as the ocean has waves. Now listen, though, she said, most people stop that story right there. They act like the man was just a total fool, outsmarted one more time, like ole Adam. But when you think more about the story, about the man and the weather and the snake, you understand it differently.

How’s that? someone from the group asked dejectedly. They had walked all morning in the broiling sun just