Black Racer (excerpt from Growing Up Stories)

 

Black Racer

(from Growing Up Stories available at Amazon.com) 

by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 2012 Kenny A. Chaffin

You know how kids are; they get an idea in their head and won’t let it go. Well, maybe not just kids, I’ve known more than a few adults like that. I’ve never cared much for snakes, most people don’t and there are deep evolutionary and psychological reasons for that. When I was in about the first grade someone, some relative most likely a cousin or aunt or someone scared the bejeezus out of me talking about black racer snakes and how fast they were and that they would intentionally chase you down a road or trail just to bite you. I was just a kid so didn’t consider much about why a snake would want to do something like that rather than just stay away. I figured they were able to think and plan and chase and be mean like the bullies in school. I became a bit obsessed about the whole thing even though I’d never heard of anyone seeing a black racer and I’d never seen one myself. Every day I dreaded walking home from the school bus stop the mile or so on the gravel road that led to our farm. I just knew the black racers would be hiding in wait at the edge of the road for someone to walk by so they could chase them. In my fear I developed a plan which I saw as perfectly rational. I’d cross the culvert into the cattle field next to the road with its chest high weeds and Johnson grass and I’d run, run, run for my life all the way home rather than risk a black racer seeing me on the road, chasing me, and biting me!

Never mind that the field was more likely to have rattlesnakes, water moccasins or copperheads! It’s crazy how you can convince yourself to ignore real dangers in order to avoid imagined ones. We humans seem to do that a lot though, worrying about airplane crashes, lightning strikes, asteroids and sharks when the real killers are heart disease, stroke and car crashes.

Sometimes I think my life has been driven by snakes. Or maybe a snake is my ‘spirit animal’ rather than a Chinese dragon. I suspect though it’s just my innate fear of snakes, probably egged on by my mother. I don’t think she was very ‘snake-friendly’ in fact I’m pretty sure she was terrified of them. She certainly wasn’t very accommodating the day a six foot rattlesnake showed up in the flowerbed on the west end of the front porch. She managed to pin it against the concrete porch with the hoe she’d been using to work the flowers and was screaming for Daddy, “Kenneth! Kenneth! Help!” She was leaning into the hoe with all her weight and the snake was still managing to make some headway in escaping. I just tried to stay outta the way as the snake writhed and fought and tried to escape. Of course Daddy was nowhere to be found. He was off working. She told me I had to hold the snake there while she found something to kill it with. What else could I do? I took hold of the hoe-handle and leaned into it with all my weight but the damn thing still managed to wriggle a bit more free. By the time she got back it had slipped through another foot or so and was thrashing and hissing and trying to strike. I was thinking “nuclear bomb” might be the only way to kill it, but Mama returned with another hoe and a shovel. She chopped and hacked at it trying to sever the writhing head and it still kept slipping through despite my attempts to keep it pinned against the concrete. Finally she was able to pretty much chop its head off, but that mouth and fangs still dangled by a strap of skin. The rest of the body continued to writhe and struggle to get free. I let it fall to the dirt and it continued to knot and twist for a long while but it was no longer a threat. We both collapsed with sighs of relief. Certainly it wasn’t the first or the last rattler we’d see. I have no idea how many we encountered on the farm, but lots -- probably at least one a year. Nor do I remember how many rattles were on the tail of that particular snake, but something like six or seven comes to mind. Rattlesnakes were and are a fixture of the Oklahoma prairie. They were to be expected.

Fears are funny things. As a kid I was pretty much terrified of snakes. Spiders though didn’t scare me much. I’d dispatched a tarantula with my tricycle when I was only two or three years old.  And well before my teenage years I’d gotten past the fear of Hell-fire that was preached in the churches across the South. Snakes however were a different matter; I definitely projected into them minds of their own and gave them super ordinary physical abilities. My childhood bed sat under an east-facing window and I feared going to bed every night, bracing myself against the snakes. You see, there was a small gap between the windowsill and the wall. It couldn’t have been more than half-an-inch, but you could see light through it and feel the wind. I knew for certain that a snake could climb up the outside wall and through that hole into my bed. I knew it! I’d curl up into a ball as far away from the wall and the hole as possible. I knew there would be a snake climbing up the rough outside wall, I knew they could, I’d seen them climbing trees on National of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom! Despite my paralyzing fear I was still afraid to say anything to anyone. I knew they’d just laugh and ridicule me for my ‘silly fears.’       

It may be that my fear of snakes was set by one of the earliest experiences I ‘remember’ but I’m not really sure how much of it is actual memory and how much was fed to me by Mama. It was another flowerbed incident….hell it’s a wonder I didn’t develop a fear of flowers! As the story goes, I was probably about 18 months old – well before the killing of the tarantula. Mama was working in the yard or garden or maybe even in the same flowerbed in front of the house. I suppose she had put me in the dirt to play – when you’re poor you play with what ya got and we had lots of dirt. I remember reaching out to, or through the flowers which were growing at the back of the bed to pet the ‘pretty lizard.’ Then came the scream from Mama and my being jerked violently away. The pretty lizard turned out to be a four foot copperhead its scales glimmering like golden rainbows in the sunshine.

Despite many other such encounters during my fifteen years on the farm no one ever got bitten. There were snakes in the chicken house, hay barn, fields and sheds which either got away or got dispatched to the great beyond. Most of them we probably never saw as they really do try to avoid confrontation. We certainly didn’t live in peace with the snakes, but we did by necessity share the land.

My most recent snake encounter was actually in Colorado a few years ago -- quite far in both time and space from those childhood experiences. I was taking a lunch-time hike up South Table Mountain in West Denver when on the way back down what should appear in the middle of the narrow trail but a coiled and angry rattler. We have them here too in the Colorado eastern plains. This one was probably a good five footer, coiled and rattling to beat the band. I have no idea why he’d be there and it was a bit surreal in that there was a circle of large rocks around him as if they had been specifically placed or arranged that way. The trail was cut into a steep slope covered in scrub-oak so there wasn’t much of an easy way around the beast. You’d think I would have known better, but I picked up a few rocks and heaved them in the snake’s direction.  All that did was piss him off more and increase his threat behavior – hissing, rattling and striking at the rocks. Seeing as he didn’t see fit to move I thought maybe I was on Candid Camera or something, particularly with the ‘circle of rocks’ around him, but regardless I figured safety was the better part of valor and  took the cross-country route through the scrub-oak around him and back down to work. Thinking back on it now I guess it was not really that different than running through the field to avoid the black racers. His mate could easily have been in the brush that I bushwhacked through. Sometimes one wonders what it is they have learned in a lifetime, why one obsesses over certain memories, certain fears and why they are always there just below the surface ready to pop out, ready to guide you or return you to your childhood. The things you learn later can also put a different twist on those past events and one thing I recently learned is that black racer snakes are non-poisonous.

  

About the Author

Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and has published nonfiction in The Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections No Longer Dressed in Black, The Poet of Utah Park, The Joy of Science, A Fleeting Existence, a collection of science essays How do we Know, and a memoir of growing up on an Oklahoma farm - Growing Up Stories are all available at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8. He may be contacted through his website at http://www.kacweb.com. 

Spinning

 

Spinning

by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 1990 Kenny A. Chaffin
(from Prosthetic Amalgams)

            Have you ever spun around and around until you were so dizzy you fell down and when you did the world just kept on spinning? My brother does, and he sees things. He hears things too. I've spun and spun and haven't seen anything. I just get dizzy.

            Mom says he's just makin' it up. I don't think so. I've seen his eyes when it happens. It scares him to death. He did it last Sunday morning in the church yard. It was the worst yet. I had to hold his mouth to keep him from screaming. Well, I had to, he would've had all the church-people askin' all kinds of questions.

            He says it's a bad monster. He says the monster will eat his heart. But he keeps spinnin'. Sometimes I think he's just makin' it all up. He's three, I'm seven. Sometimes, though, I think it's true, those are the times I look in his eyes after he's been spinnin'.

            Sometimes he looks at me, eyes wide in terror, and says, "Help! Save Me! It's the penis monster, it’s tryin' to get my penis. Help me! Help me!" Then he stops and says, "You can help me, because the monster's already got yours." And he rolls on the floor laughing. What a stupid three-year-old. 

            We live in the city. Well, not a big city, Beaumont, Texas. But my cousins live in the county, on a farm. We're gonna' go visit them soon. I wish my brother wasn't goin' though. Him and his monsters, that's all they want to do--talk about monsters. Sometimes I wish the monsters were real and they really would come and eat his heart. Mom says I shouldn't say that, she's   probably right. Sometimes he makes me so mad, I just can't stand   it.

            We went to see our cousins last summer. I got to ride a horse, all by myself. They ride all the time. Jill's only five and she's got her own pony. I wish I had a pony. Be kinda hard in the apartment though. My stupid brother went and got lost down the road from their farm house. We had to look for him for two hours. He said the monster made him go to a special place. It was   a fun summer though, with our cousins.

            My stupid brother was a lot more fun when he was two. Before he could really talk. He'd spin around and get that look in his eyes and dad, that was before mom made dad leave, would throw him up in the air. And he'd laugh. That was fun, when he was two.

            Then he hit me with the hammer. He told mom the monster made him do it. He broke my head, so some of my brain leaked out. I don't remember that part so well. It hurt pretty bad, but not for long. Mom says it's okay. That I'll be okay. They'll take care of me in this place. Mom says they've been doin' it for twenty years now.

About the Author

Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and has published nonfiction in The Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections No Longer Dressed in Black, The Poet of Utah Park, The Joy of Science, A Fleeting Existence, a collection of science essays How do we Know, and a memoir of growing up on an Oklahoma farm - Growing Up Stories are all available at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8. He may be contacted through his website at http://www.kacweb.com. 

Chihuahua (poem)

Chihuahua

The blind man is walking

his chihuahua, swishing

his white stick from side-to-side

across the rough concrete.

I take care to noisily approach

so he is not surprised,

as I pass I say, “Howdy,”

and before I can blink

his white stick lashes out

like Daredevil on steroids

stinging my cheek and

blooding my lip.

“Damn!” I yell, “What the fuck?”

He looks at me with his

unseeing eyes and says, “Sorry,

I thought you were going to rape me.”

Kenny A. Chaffin – 3/27/2014
(from: A Fleeting Existence)

When We Are Gone

by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin
(from Prosthetic Amalgams)

           

            It starts with ants excavating the driveway, it will continue for years. They will bring their detritus up through the cracks. The winter snows will melt and seep into those cracks, freeze and force them open further. Water will gather, flow, settle, lift and shift sidewalk slabs. Tree roots will drill into foundations, vines into mortar and brick, climbing and covering. Wind-loosened shingles will lift and fall, lift and fall, ‘til they fall away for good. The sun will bake the asphalt shingles, the ice and rain will do their work, abrading and washing grit into the rain gutters and down onto that driveway.

            Manicured lawns will fade as native plants reclaim their territory. Manicured shrubberies will explode, twist and warp into their own shapes, their own selves. Flickers who have always drummed upon flues in search of mates will continue drumming on the rusting flues until those flues fall and can no longer be drummed upon. Woodpeckers will open the way; honeybees will follow taking purchase within walls protected from the elements. Rabbits and deer will return sheltering where we once were. In almost no time at all, life will return to normal.

About the Author

Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and has published nonfiction in The Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections No Longer Dressed in Black and The Poet of Utah Park  are available as ebooks at Amazon.com as well as How do we Know? a collection of science articles and essays. These and more are available at his Amazon.com author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8. 

What we did (poem)

What we did

Danielle died last night

we are all dying

dear God what do we do.

There is no food, no water

no water that is clean,

disease is rampant.

We ate grass yesterday

it only helped briefly to fill

our bellies and made us sick

There is only one way

if we are to survive

we thank you Danielle.

Kenny A. Chaffin – 1/29/2014

(This is from an in-progress project tentatively titled 'Fate')

The Fabric of our Lives (poem)

The Fabric of our Lives

What if reality were like a fabric

woven together by laws of physics?

What if we happened across a loose stitch

and happened to give it a tug?

Would we learn, or would we lose?

Would it be the Big Bang Redux?

Kenny A. Chaffin – 1/15/2014
(From - The Joy of Science - Poems of Science and Speculation )

Borrowed Bones

 

Borrowed Bones

by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 2013 Kenny A. Chaffin

A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket.

Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay

by the very act of borrowing…and trust more

to the imagination than the memory.

-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

You begin your existence as a single gelatinous cell deep in your mother’s body though you will have no understanding, no awareness of that existence for a number of years. That single cell from your mother along with a single strand of DNA from your father was assembled from proteins, nutrients and amino acids. Those things, like all things are made of atoms which have existed since their birth in the hearts of stars billions of years ago. Those atoms once brought into existence by those nuclear furnaces are extremely stable and extremely long-lived. Everything that we are and everything around us is made from those ancient atoms that are at billions of years old. The hydrogen in your body (mostly in molecular water) is as old as the universe itself having been formed shortly after the big bang. The other elements range from 7 – 12 billion years old and were created in first and second generation stars. First generation stars formed just after the birth of the universe 13.8 billion years ago. Second generation stars formed after many of the first generation exploded in supernovas spreading their atoms and remaining original gases into space. Our own sun is a third generation star made from the remains of those that have gone before as well as primordial hydrogen and helium. In something of a similar manner, when you die your proteins, amino acids and the atoms they are comprised of will return to the Earth from which they came to be reused by others or for other purposes such as trees, mountains, clouds or oceans. We are all borrowers. We borrow what we need while we are here. We live on borrowed bones that someday must be returned.

            That original single cell that was you did what all cells do, with no direction from you or from your mother; it conscripted atoms from its environment and incorporated them into itself. It grew, divided to become two cells, then four and eight, all using those atoms from long-dead stars. As an adult your body is constantly replacing itself. They say that all the cells in your body are replaced every decade or so. That being the case, how is it that ‘you’ continue to exist? Clearly it is not the physical cells that are you. Even brain cells which are the seat of awareness and consciousness are replaced over time despite the urban myth to the contrary. What is it then that is you or me? Is life an illusion? Are we nothing more than ambulatory repositories for selfish genes as Dawkins argued decades ago? Would life be any different if we were?

            Just as the features of your face, your skin color and texture does not change when its cells are replaced neither does your experience of self – your self-awareness -- when your brain cells are replaced. Certainly injuries to the brain can change this, just as a bodily injury can change your appearance. Brain injuries can of course cause you to become someone else or even become unaware of yourself, but under normal circumstances even though all your cells may be replaced, you are still you.

            Your facial features, the color of your eyes, those freckles on your skin as well as your brain cells and their connections are maintained by your bodily processes in a constant battle against entropy (the tendency of things to fall apart, lose energy, etc.).  New cells replace old cells and are copies of the cells they replace. Skin cells die and flake off. Internal cells such as those responsible for the color of your eyes, die and are carried off by the blood stream or are broken down into their constituent proteins and amino acids and carried off or reused in place. This is all done in a manner that maintains that physical arrangement that defines your features, your body. It’s that pattern, that arrangement, that relationship between cells and proteins that makes your body what it is and makes you who you are. Your consciousness, your self-awareness, your mind is an arrangement as well. It is a pattern of connected brain cells and their neuronal firings that begin long before you are aware. You are a pattern of information, a process of your brain that is maintained by your body’s homeostasis. All the cells, atoms, neurons and neurotransmitters in your brain can be replaced individually and as long as the replacement maintains the original pattern you will still be you. If on the other hand the replacement is faulty like with Alzheimer’s disease then we begin to change. We become someone else or we lose a part of ourselves.  

            Each of us is only on this Earth for a short time; we arise from the atoms around us, driven by unique information in our DNA. Our bodies are arrangements, patterns built from the information contained in our DNA. We learn, we become, and we are those dynamic arrangements built of borrowed bones, borrowed atoms, neurons and neuronal firings in our brains. We are borrowers. We borrow atoms to build and repair our bodies for the time we are here and when we are done we return them for others to use over and over and over again.

References/Resources/Links

DNA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA

Stellar Nucleosynthesis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_nucleosynthesis

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis

Brain/Mind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain

About the Author

Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and has published nonfiction in The Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections No Longer Dressed in Black and The Poet of Utah Park and his collection of science essays How do we Know are available at Amazon.com:

 http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8. He may be contacted through his website at http://www.kacweb.com.