Satisfied he had our attention he sat down on a milk crate...got 'im a dip of snuff and settled in for story time.
"Man ever' cop in Washington Parish swarmed on that park."
Given where we live and the time of year...there's only one reason that you'd fire a gun in a public park and it become a humorous anecdote.
That's right...it's our arch-enemy, Satan's lei...
The Cotton Mouth.
"I was down there fishin...standin' on that old fountain. You know they took that fence down from around it. So, I was standin' on it castin' in the creek. When I got ready to go...that's when I saw 'im there on the concrete. Ghad D...and ever'time I'd move he'd strike out toward me."
These snakes are mean y'all...they have no flight response.
"There was a fella across the creek...I hollered but he couldn't hear me. After about 20 minutes I said damn this ...pulled out my pistol my pistol and put an end to it."
"Then all hell broke loose...WOOO WOOOO WOOO. It was John Shelly got to me first."
"David. Did you fire a gun in the park?"
"Yes I did."
"Why?"
"I reached down and pick up that snake by the tail and held it up."
"Don't do that again."
"Well keep the damn snakes outta the park."
I don't know if he caught any fish.
Right on que...lollygaggin in at the Abita Springs park, on a bridge, over a creek starin at the nastiest lookin cotton mouth. He's layin with his head on top of the water. What I can see is big and fat.
ReplyDeleteIt's only a fair fight if the snake draws first - the least you could have done is placed the pistol at an equidistant point between you and hissing Sid and found a third party - may be a passing raccoon - to count down from ten and then, on zero, drop a silk hankie and let firing commence at will.
ReplyDeleteA pistol, especially a little ol 22 like was carrying, still favors the snake. A shotgun or a flamethrower might even things out.
ReplyDeleteYep only good snake is a dead one. 410 shotgun makes light work of them. Have had plenty of run ins with the buggers over the years. Most the top ten deadly snakes reside here and i have killed most of them lol. Mankind 1 devil snake 0
ReplyDeleteEF I'd rather freeze in the wilds of Wales than live in the warmth with those creatures as neighbours!
ReplyDeleteYou just want to be the first one through the bushes...first one through never gets bit. :)
DeleteIt still gets me how innocuous-sounding the name 'Cotton Mouth' is. When there are evocative names like Black Widow spider and Boa Constrictor and so on, when I see a name like 'Cotton Mouth' I just think of a fluffy kitten-type creature, ahh! I'd struggle terribly with my conscience over there, as I am of the 'not hurting/killing any other living being' persuasion and have a fondness for unpopular creatures. But at the same time I wouldn't want to die at the forked tongue of a limbless reptile. Hmm!
ReplyDeleteThe inside of their mouths are white. When they open em it looks like a cotton Bol. Just makes em that much creepier.
DeleteI think they'd be a moral delimma for you. They're just too aggressive. The creek bank opposite of the one I saw yesterday was littered with little footprints.
Snake-lover!
ReplyDelete... as long as it doesn't belong to a trouser.
ReplyDeletehahahah
DeleteI was enjoying a pint of Guinness in the garden: one of those hot, sunny days when the background noise is a vague droning, as if the heat has somehow put mufflers on any energetic activity and the day is still too young for the red-eyed dope-fiends to rise from their stupor and turn their boom boxes on full blast to drown out the nagging thought that they have no nagging thoughts; they have achieved some sort of nirvana and yet they can't quite hide the stench of douche-baggery leaking from their empty souls … so where was I? In the garden. With my pint of the black stuff. Enjoying the single life: single, with the exception of a one-cat-dependent - if you can even call a cat “dependent” - when one of those very-same, aforementioned, douche-bags decided to share their shitty lack of musical taste at decibels that would have otherwise drowned out a passing, roof-top scraping low, jumbo … and then I recalled the words (not exactly word-for-word, I had to look them up later) of Walt Whitman:
ReplyDelete“Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, Cheerful—for freest action form’d, under the laws divine, The Modern Man I sing.”
How he would have wept if he were alive today.
... and Theroux would have thrown up.
ReplyDeleteI'm for anything that would put the bloomers of them two Yankees in a bunch...even a cavity rattling, atonal, thump.
DeleteYou can really turn your hand to the painting of some shit hot defining images Natetin.
DeleteOne of them douche-bags just passed me. I wanted to stop him and recite your comment. You made me laugh out loud.
... and Rousseau would have given himself the bum's rush.
ReplyDelete... and the Frenchman gets a pass?
ReplyDeleteThough even Frenchmem are held in higher esteem...I tried to come up with something good but couldn't. I fell asleep with the pad in my lap. Ha
DeleteWell, that doesn't surprise me, Jefferson used to hang out with those revolting, cheese-eating surrender monkeys: “liberté, égalité, fraternité” and a side-order of commie fries with red source to go!
ReplyDeleteOne of the joys of in living in a mixed neighbourhood, is the various nationalities and their imported cultural quirks and, sometimes, moronic mores. It saves the bothersome airport queuing, checkpoint delays and random visa regulations usually required to realise the virtues of the tired old travel-expands-your-mind cliché – and all from the safety of your doorstep; not to mention avoiding the inconveniences of incurable flesh-eating bugs, rape-frenzied locals and dingos stealing your babies. Today I sat on front doorstep with my cigarettes and a bottle of Putinoff – I shit you not – vodka, straight from the freezer compartment, and watched the world go by. No Frenchmen though.
Who could forget the rehabilitated Banditos in attendance.
DeleteBonfires around here usually involve the kind of pyromaniacs who wouldn't recognise the dictionary definition of their profession – or, more generally, written inscriptions that weren't spray-painted – and that electricity substations are not traditional kindling materials for informal BBQs. As for red-necks, I spotted one of those crack-lab, rickets-thin, pale-skin, last-of-the-mochains hair-styling, salted peanut brains attempting to mow a lawn, pausing every so often to crush a beer can on their central hedgerow cranial crown. Okay, I'm a little bitter, I tried rocking that look when I was younger.
ReplyDeleteI shouldn't be too surprised you got a few...we come by it honest.
Delete