The Snake Hunter

Contributed by brinablank on 13/04/10

Though we lived there for nearly three years, all my memories of the little paper house on the outskirts of Yokohama seem to be tinted in the greens and golds of summer. It was easily the best time of the year, even if typhoon season was maybe just a little more exciting. Everything was alive in the summer. There was a tree in the park behind our house teeming with brilliant blue butterflies, we’d tie strings to beetles and fly them like kites, and the praying mantis held temple in every bush. They were always my favorite–the praying mantis…

This story isn’t about insects, though, but rather snakes. Or, at least one snake in particular.

Well, actually, I suppose it’s more about a little girl, as the snake is dead for most of it.

At 9 years-old, my half-sister was the eldest and toughest of our crew, what would in later years prove to be the obvious earmarks of her psychosis at that time disguised ingeniously as leadership. I didn’t have the chops to be her second-in-command. That honor belonged to Esther, a biracial Army brat and ticking time bomb in her own right. Both exploded often, and to this day I still find myself picking shards of shrapnel from under my skin.

Saiko and Mariko, neighbor girls from the block, spoke little English. Though, to be fair, their poor English was a far sight better than any of our Japanese. Despite the language difference, they found us crazy American kids absolutely hilarious. It seemed as if everything I did made them laugh. In return for the giggles, they kindly provided me with Japanese vocabulary lessons. (“Chin chin bura bura sausage-ee!”)

Mariko’s little brother, Moon Chan, and my little brother, Steve, rounded out our crew, in the summer of ’85. The Summer of the Snake.

Yokohama summers can be incredibly wet, as in so wet you could stick a leather coat in the closet and by the time Fall rolled around it would be covered in mildew. This summer was no exception. In fact, it was the paragon of muggy, Yokohama summers. This summer contained the heavy humidity to which all other Yokohama summers could only aspire. Apparently, this would be the reason for all the snakes– I’m told the serpents love a bit of sultry weather. It makes ‘em frisky.

Little green garden snakes were slithering in the grass everywhere we turned. I hesitate to call it an invasion, however, given the negative connotations of the word. They weren’t the slightest bit dangerous. They weren’t even a nuisance. Of course, at the time, I didn’t think of their relative innocence, the larger concept of innocence and such not being a typical kid-like abstraction. As children, we all understand right and wrong, but how many of us truly dig the meaning of innocence?

It’s only later that we get it, and can tie the two together, and maybe feel a bit guilty about certain events we may have once been party to, when we sincerely knew no better…

Mariko, Saiko, and myself were drawing pictures in the dirt, our way of communicating when the charades broke down. The boys were on the swings next to us. Esther called out from the other side of the park. She was squealing and laughing, jumping up and down, while the half-sister swung a baseball bat repeatedly to the ground. Whatever they were doing over there had to be madness, and it looked like fun.

We ran straight over.

By the time we reached them, the pounding was finished and the half-sister, the Snake Slayer, was holding her prize above her head. The rest of us encircled her, staring at the lifeless carcass with big eyes and open mouths. Looking back, I half-imagine us genuflecting in idolatrous wonder.

Esther hopped the fence and retrieved a laundry basket from next to her mother’s wash line. Without direction, the rest of us began gathering clover, azaleas and any other flashy bits of flora we could find, tossing them into the basket. When the basket was full, the limp creature was laid on top.

Hooting and singing, we paraded the poor, dead bastard all around the park– a troupe of scruffy-kneed kids with the half-sister lead the way, twirling her baseball bat like a baton. We were ridiculously happy.

Later, after we were called up to the backyard for dinner (barbecued octopus hot off the hibachi), one could suppose she was expecting a similar reaction from our parents. One might even say she thought they would be proud. Hiding the basket under the picnic table, her eyes were bright throughout the meal. There were no temper tantrums or sullen seething looks, just the happy jittering of a child dying to reveal her big surprise. She was bursting with it.

Just as I was about to begin clearing away the plates, she pulled the basket from beneath and plopped it down right in front of Mom, huge grin plastered across her face.

The grin didn’t immediately disappear the moment Mom started screaming. For several moments, as the horrified faces of my parents fixated on the thing in the basket, her eyes grew just a little brighter, the grin a little bigger.

It was then, in a sort-of wispy fashion I couldn’t quite grasp, that I had my first inkling about such things as innocence and the opposite of….