The Black Snake

Everyone had gone swimming as was the family custom, especially Fridays, as that was the day Grandma took over the kitchen- she preferred working alone.

“Mom”, her daughters who lived with their families on the 1st and 2nd floors would ask, “maybe we’ll just drop the kids off and come back here and cut up the vegetables a little bit?”

“Neyn…geyn. Vayln zikh at da pool”.

It usually took all day for Bubee to prepare the traditional Friday Shabot dinner of fresh chicken soup, schulgala and lukshin, brust and flonkin. My Uncle Nat or my Father would pick her up from her apartment building on Keene St. crosstown and drop her off before they headed to work. This was Arbus tradition, she living for this occasion, cooking for the “kinder”.

Bubby was somewhere in her 70’s at the time, short in stature yet enormous in size, and when provoked, she could yank up a chair and send it humming across the room at any wise ass head!

Also as was the custom, the kids on my block would spend most of their summer day, no matter how hot, shooting baskets or playing stickball. Like most city kids, sports was an excuse to hang out, pretend you’re Mickey Mantle, and of course get the gang together.

On this particular Friday, my cousin Freddy and I decided we’d stage a rematch of the World Series Game 7 between my Yankees and Freddy’s Dodgers. Two other guys, Louie Lazoritz and Harry Kochman, joined in.

My driveway, dubbed Yankee Stadium, consisted of a large space some 50 or so feet wide (including my neighbor’s side) and more than 100 feet long stretching into the street, then continued across the street into Harry’s driveway. Thus, a homer would be any ball hit on a fly into Harry’s yard- quite a shot.

Freddy’s driveway was without a doubt the premier “stadium” on 19th Avenue because of its even more impressive dimensions, but since this was a home game for the Yanks, my driveway would serve as the venue.

There were, however, a few obstacles we had to deal with besides an occasional busted window. Mrs. Gordon, our neighbor, became infamous over the years for breaking up entire pennant drives by abducting a stray tennis ball hit into her yard.

“Now you won’t ruin my tulips or break another window here” she angrily lectured us after halting another exciting competition. I used to beg my older sister to bring her along to the pool on days when we had planned a stickball game, but I don’t think she ever went. She probably listened in to our phone conversations when we planned our fun! And it was rumored Mr. Gordon had a larger collection of tennis and pink rubber balls than the Paramount Spa, the local candy and kid-supply store on Vreeland Ave.

But on this particular afternoon Mrs. Gordon and her husband Phil had actually left town for the Catskills to spend the weekend there, and so we boys anticipated a terrific day without any adult interference. Just my Grandma, the only remaining grown up around, had to be considered, but since she was a little hard of hearing and obviously absorbed in her dinner preparations and clothes washing, I had merely to be ready to run to the grocery store or do some other small errand for her. All in all- a perfect day for the final game of the 1956 World Series!

“Since this game’s at Yankee Stadium and I’m the home team, you lead off”.

And so the game got underway.

I, or rather Bob Turley, had a real live fastball and an exceptional slider and curve that day (my brother-in-law Marv had taught me), and except for some wildness which resulted in a few walks, the Dodgers and Freddy were retired quickly in the top of the first.

The Yanks took advantage of Freddy’s, or rather Carl Erskin’s slower pitches and lack of control and quickly loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the first. The next batter, number 32, Elston Howard, was up, and on a 1 ball 2 strike count, it happened.

Now Freddy had been experimenting with a knuckleball, and since he was ahead in the count, this seemed like the perfect time to get out of this mess. But the opposite occurred: when he threw the pitch, unfortunately it didn’t break. I immediately pounced on the ball, lining it deep across the street, well beyond the homerun area into Kochman’s yard.

A grand slam home run: 4-0, Yankees!

We tossed our gloves and bats aside and trotted across the street to retrieve the ball, and after 10 or so minutes of surveying, crawling, scanning, “bright eyes” as we often called Louie, at last came up with the souvenir.

“Glad you found the ball”, Harry said to Louie, “otherwise we’d have to go ask Lubliner for one, and he’s probably still mad at us for frying his pet ants with that magnifying glass Sammy Gitkin found”.

Then Freddy remarked as we trudged back across the street, “I’d better practice that knuckleball before I use it again! Damn, and in the World Series”, shaking his head.

We all laughed, without knowing that this moment of humor would be the last one for hours!

For by the time Freddy had reached the pitcher’s mound, I was turning the corner of my house to pick up the bat I had discarded. And just like that my face became shot white with horror.

I must have let out a scream.

Freddy: “What’s wrong? What’s the matter with you?”

Me: “Guys, God, come here quick!”

Freddy followed the other two over to where I stood, a small area off “home plate” directly under the back stairway windows under the clotheslines.

“Stop!”

Freddy: “Wow! Look at the size of it! Where’d it come from. Somebody put it here?! Is it a copperhead?! Let’s get outta here!!!

I was as terrified as my cousin and the others, but after we had moved a safe distance away from the monster, I mustered up:

“Guys, we gotta get this thing outta here because when my grandmother starts hanging out clothes (pointing to the clothesline just above the snake), she’ll see it and die of a heart attack! The entire Abe Arbus Family Circle, all 100 of them, will never speak to me again!”

The snake was huge and black-all black; it was coiled threateningly in a spiral, it’s head poised to strike anyone who dared to come too close.

We “city kids” had obviously never seen or heard of anything like this in our lives; in short, we were out of our terrified minds!

Good ‘ol tough guy Louie Lazoritz, my neighbor, finally broke the freeze: “We gotta kill it, and bury it so your Grandma don’t see it”, and picking up a handful of rocks began heaving them at the snake.

Naturally, the rest of us joined in with the siege!

Now this snake obviously didn’t know how it wound up sitting in the hot sun in the middle of somebody’s cement backyard, miles away from South America or the Bronx Zoo or wherever the creature came from. It was as if it had been transported in time and space, and as our first barrage of rocks landed on its slimy mean body, it too grew as frightened of us as we obviously were of it.

It had no choice but to run, or rather slither off, quickly!

“Head for cover!” somebody yelled, as we caught sight of the demon sliding under the fence that separated our backyard from our neighbor’s.

“There it goes into Louie’s yard! Quick, we got him on the run!”

“Don’t get too close, that thing’s fast!”

I chimed in with: “If Bubby comes out now she’ll die! We gotta get this thing out of here. Should we call the cops?”

“Let’s get more rocks!” Harry yelled.

The snake: “Should I try and defend myself? They look pretty young and definitely scared. If I move toward them, they’d probably take off, and then I maybe could get away”.

“Bobby- look! The thing’s eyeing us. You think it’s ready to defend itself! Snakes attack if they’re threatened, man!”

My three brothers-in-arms backed off a few feet leaving me standing there, rockless and vulnerable.

“No, I’d better try and get away- who knows what would happen if I stick around and fight this out? I’ll take off for that alleyway over there between those garages. Then maybe they’ll leave me alone, and tonight I could rest up and lick my wounds”.

“Hey, there it goes, Bobby! Looks like it’s heading for the squeeze way between your house and your other neighbor’s.

“Yeah…wow, look at that thing go!” Louie hollered. It must be over 10 ft long! And this ain’t no skinny garter snake- it’s thick”.

“Think it’s poisonous?” chimed in Harry?

Freddy: “Guys, it must be behind the garage now- at least we got it out of Bobby’s backyard! Should we just leave it or try and finish it off?”

“Well, killing something that enormous gives me the creeps. But my Grandma…”

“Wait!” again Louie the Brains. “I have an idea. Two of us’ll hop ontop Bobby’s garage and the other two pass us up the biggest boulders you can find!”

Everyone: “Okay!”

Meanwhile, breathing hard: “Well, I’ve made it to safety- at least I’ll stay here till I can rest in this shade and collect my thoughts. (suddenly agitated) If only there were more trees and grass- all this asphalt and concrete! (more agitated) I can’t believe it! Why am I here?  (after a few tense moments, calmer) Well, at least it’s darker and cooler here, and I’m safer away from those kids. With my black skin I blend right in. (again getting agitated) I only hope those kids finally leave me alone…I’m not here to hurt anyone! This is all such a terrible dream!”

So the boys got to work quickly. Freddy and Louie climbed ontop the garage and Harry and I passed large heavy rocks up to them. When the boys on the garage thought they had accumulated a formidable arsenal, we joined them on the roof.

Together, the four of us gazed down into the natural passageway that connected between and around the four garages. 

Hunters studying their prey…

“Wow”, said Harry while still breathing hard from the climb up, “look how long that is! You couldn’t tell before when it was coiled up and moved so fast! Louie’s right- it must be at least 15-20 feet!”

Freddy: “I hate snakes! Anybody know if snakes can jump or slither straight up a wall? God, what if it decides to attack us after it realizes we’re trying to kill it?”

“I don’t know”.

Bobby (resignedly) “Well, maybe we should just do it”.

All: “Okay…”

The snake: “I got a funny feeling…why I’m here now in this space is obvious. There’s nowhere, anywhere else, to hide.”

The boys immediately began their onslaught, making an assembly line, pounding rocks onto the defenseless reptile, and after several minutes of violence and dust, it was over- the creature lay motionless and alone between the garages.

Satisfied and relieved it was over, the four hunters quietly dismounted from the roof, walked over to the hose, and washed themselves off.

The quartet was waiting for him when Uncle Nat came home from work few hours later.

And after a cigarette and equal amounts of laughter mixed with amazement, my uncle instructed us to remove the snake’s body from the squeeze way, bag it, and put it in one of the garbage cans.

“This thing must be disposed of- or it’ll rot back there, smell up the neighborhood, bring insects or worse”.

“They pick up the garbage tomorrow”, he added.

When Uncle Nat and the boys laid out the snake it measured a little over 11 feet.

And I remembered my Mom once telling me Grandma was maybe 4’10"…