I’ve only known my new neighbor Gary for a little while, but he brings a smile to my face each time I see him, because he reminds me of my childhood.
Well, I guess you might say that Gary is not my neighbor, but my tenant, because Gary is a garter snake living in my garden. I call him Gary because… well, he looks like a Gary to me.
I first met him in early June when I skirted the edge of the lawn, yanking weeds, and I almost stepped on him. He didn’t seem too startled by my little dance, opting instead to stare at me with what might be called a bemused expression on his face. I get that look a lot when I dance, because my moves look less like dance and more like a cry for help.
I saw him the next day huddled close to the house foundation, and the day after that in a similar spot about twenty feet away. That made sense, because those mornings were cool, and the foundation probably offered him some warmth.
The day after that I almost stepped on him again as he lay on the warm brick pavers at the edge of the patio near my fading irises. I did my little dance again, and this time I think he smiled at me.
My neighbor Bev is an avid gardener, so I told her about my new tenant, thinking she might be as excited as I was. She wasn’t.
“Yeah, I saw a snake over on the west side of my house last week,” she said.
“Is he still there?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve avoided that side of the house ever since.”
I offered to relocate him if she ever sees him again, because I think Gary might like to have a co-tenant. Maybe even a girlfriend. Or boyfriend. I have no idea which pronouns Gary prefers.
Anyway, as I said at the outset, Gary always brings a smile to my face, because he reminds me of my childhood.
I grew up in Elmwood Park, in a small wood-frame house that would now be about a hundred years old. There was still one vacant lot at the end of the block, and we called it “the prairie.” I think it was a 1950s Illinois thing to call vacant lots “prairies,” because in a sense that’s exactly what they were — the last remnants of original Illinois prairie, gradually succumbing to house foundations.
That lot-sized prairie was our favorite playground, because it still held wonders for curious kids. And maybe the most wonderful wonder of them all was the abundance of garter snakes.
Whenever any of us kids could salvage a bit of plywood or planking from our dads’ home projects, we would carry it to the prairie and lay it flat on the ground. We would use it all summer as a launch pad for our adventures or a place to camp above the mud in the bare spot between the riot of weeds. In the winter it would serve as shelter for any critter small enough to scurry beneath it — crickets, toads, and the garter snakes who fed upon them.
Each spring the half-dozen or so boys on my block would stage a snake hunt in that prairie, and we never failed to find at least one snake each, claiming it as our pet for the summer and re-releasing it in the fall.
We had a horse trough in my back yard (don’t ask me why — we never had any beast big enough to require a trough), and since Mom and Dad had no use for it, we used it as a holding pen for every kid’s snake on the block.
My brother Bill, three years older than me, owned King, the biggest snake. King was a wonder — not least of which because he gave birth to several baby snakes late that summer. It turns out my brother never asked King what pronouns he (she? they?) preferred.
Much later, in college biology class, I learned that garter snakes are ovoviviparous, which means their babies are born live from eggs that hatch inside the mother’s body. You can learn a lot in college — or in a backyard snake trough.
One day, while Bill was away, I picked up King to play with it (a safer pronoun.) Unfamiliar with my handling, it bit me on the wrist.
I showed Mom the bite marks, and she panicked. She called Dr. Waters, described the snake, and asked him what to do.
“Quick,” he said, “do you have any wine in the house?”
“Yes!” Mom said.
“Then pour yourself a drink and relax,” he said. “It’s just a garter snake. Your son will be fine.”
They don’t make doctors like they used to, do they?
Anyway, I think of all those boyhood buddies (the kids and the snakes) every time I see Gary in my yard. I haven’t picked him up, but I have run my finger down his sleek back as he slithered slowly away, hunting crickets, toads, or other bounty in my back yard.
He’s a welcome tenant.
And if he’s big enough by Thanksgiving, he’s especially welcome to feast on a chipmunk or two.
TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com.
