5

Suburb of Birmingham, Alabama—spring of 1992

Miss Hattie Godsey was eighty-nine-years-old and an avid gardener.  Her large, well-constructed ante-bellum home on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama, had been in the family for five generations.  The seven-bedroom house stood on a three-acre parcel in upscale Vestavia Hills, along I-65, just southwest of Birmingham.  As the matriarch of the Godsey family (and present guardian of the estate) she prided herself in the decorative gardens she had planted over the last half-century.  Crape myrtles, rhododendrons, camellias, and diverse species of roses, all planted with care in eye-pleasing designs, adorned the grounds.  Different ferns, interspersed among the flowers, gave a soft, feathered look that added to the natural feel of the garden.  A walkway featuring a herringbone design of pinkish paver stones set in special, dark green sand, led from the house to the formal gardens.  On either side of the path were several rows of various-colored hostas.  A white-painted, wooden wishing-well stood sentinel midway along the walk, with matching wrought-iron benches on either side that visitors could sit on as they contemplated the imaginary requests they might make.  Not to be outdone by its surroundings, the structure itself wore a blanket of dark green ivy that gave off a warm, comforting aroma that welcomed relatives and friends. 

* * * *

The snake glided effortlessly through the grass.  It was a copperhead, about average in size for its species—just less than three feet long.  Its “intelligently designed” pattern of tan and brown markings allowed it to blend in almost seamlessly with its surroundings.  Although its species accounted for nearly thirty-seven percent of all human bites in North America, its venom is rarely fatal, mostly causing great swelling and discomfort.  Rattlesnakes were far more deadly, possessing a potent strain of neurotoxin delivered through an efficient pair of hypodermic-like fangs.  But rattlesnakes had a built-in warning system that alerted most people who encountered them in their natural habitat.  One almost had to go looking for trouble to be bitten by a rattlesnake.  Not so with the copperhead.

* * * *

Today, before the June sun warmed the air to an uncomfortable level, Miss Hattie planned to plant some Jemison lilies in a special location near a limestone birdbath situated in the far corner of the garden.  She wore powder-blue coveralls over a pink, paisley blouse, and a matching blue sun hat given to her the previous Mother’s Day by her only daughter, Julia, who always seemed to know just what her momma wanted.  Bless that child, thought Miss Hattie, who still thought of her offspring as a young girl, despite her actual age of nearly sixty.  In one hand she carried a trowel, and in the other a basket containing the delicate bulbs of the lilies.  Mustn’t waste these precious days, she thought.  Like most folks her age, not a day went by without her being aware of the strident ticking of her biological clock.  And while she welcomed that inevitable meeting with Jesus, she surely wasn’t in any particular rush—especially on a day like today.

Miss Hattie wiped away a bead of perspiration from her age-spotted forehead, and reminded herself to “not overdo it,” as her daughter so often admonished her over their weekly lunches together.  Holding the basket of bulbs off to the side, she gently knelt down on a bare patch of topsoil that she recently prepared for planting, digging the trowel into the soft, loamy ground to maintain her balance.  She never wore gloves, preferring instead to feel the rich, dark soil between her slender fingers.  It made her feel one with the earth, a relationship that was not too far in the future—inevitable even—but, as far as she was concerned, was not necessarily welcomed.  One by one, she carefully inserted the bulbs into the soil in neatly arranged circles, each one larger than the succeeding one.  It would be a pretty arrangement, she thought.

She never saw the snake—until it was too late.  The initial strike wasn’t even very painful; it felt more like the sting of a large hornet or wasp on the back of her hand—almost as if someone had slapped her.  The copperhead, or Agkistron contortrix, as it is known by herpetologists, has solenoglyphous fangs (long, hollow, articulated fangs which fold against the roof of its mouth when the jaws are closed) that transmit venom to its prey.  They are proportional to the snake’s body size (in this case they were probably less than a third of an inch in length).  Copperheads tend not to be aggressive, but will often make a half-hearted strike containing a low level of venom as a warning when cornered or threatened.  Unfortunately, Miss Hattie had probably startled the snake in reaching for the final bulb in the basket, and it reacted thusly.

In most cases, the copperhead’s bite is not serious and requires only minor medical treatment; that is because its venom is not nearly as toxic as that of other poisonous snakes and because copperheads generally do not inject very much.  An individual might experience pain and swelling, perhaps accompanied by minimal bleeding and a change in pulse rate.  If untreated, the bite can cause nausea, vomiting, and intestinal discomfort—perhaps even loss of consciousness—but, rarely death, much less permanent injury.  Rapid treatment with antivenin usually stems the effects of the neurotoxin, and recovery is generally full, with little or no permanent damage other than some scarring.

Initially, Miss Hattie felt a bit light-headed, almost giddy (fairly typical in the case of a venomous bite).  Her first thoughts were of Julia, and she wished her daughter were there.  Next came the pain—not from the snakebite itself, but rather from the massive heart attack she was suffering as a result of the shock to an organ that was already weakened by congestive heart disease—and then finally, there was the merciful loss of consciousness and subsequent cessation of breathing that ended her worldly existence.  In all, the entire episode took less than three minutes, bringing to an end a life filled with dreams and aspirations (both realized and unfulfilled), and leaving behind a void in the wellspring of humanity.  The snake slid silently away unaware of the consequences of its actions.

* * * *

Miss Hattie’s body was found the following day after she failed to answer the door when her daughter came to pick her up for their weekly lunch date.  Fortunately, owing to Miss Hattie’s relatively sudden demise, the snake’s neurotoxin hadn’t done much damage, and therefore Julia was spared the site of the bloated, blackened flesh that might have otherwise been visible had her mother died from the snakebite alone.  What she found instead was what appeared (at first glance) to be an old woman who apparently fell asleep on the ground amidst the gardens that she loved so very much.  Only a small, half-dollar sized circle of bruised skin on the back of her right hand, surrounding two small puncture wounds, gave evidence of the secondary cause of her demise.  The coroner, recognizing the wound for what it was, still listed heart attack as the primary cause of death, but also documented the snakebite as a contributing factor.

As executrix of Miss Hattie’s estate, Julia was charged with submitting copies of the death certificate to the appropriate agencies, including several to the various life-insurance companies that indemnified her mother’s life.  Owing to her mother’s characteristic generosity, Julia was not surprised to find that the beneficiary of one of the policies was a church that Miss Hattie frequented over the past two years called The First Pentecostal Church of Signs Following; ironically, its members routinely handled poisonous snakes as part of the service.  The practice was dictated by an obscure passage in the King James Version of the Bible to which the worshippers subscribed, and one that Julia frowned upon, having made her feelings know to her mother on more than one occasion.  However, true to her somewhat stubborn nature, Miss Hattie dismissed her daughter’s concerns, and resolutely embraced the church further by naming it beneficiary of the relatively small policy.  The remainder of the estate went to charity, except for the house, which as expected was bequeathed to Julia.

* * * *

The following week, a thoughtful and well-written obituary appeared in the local newspaper, summarizing Miss Hattie’s life accomplishments and listing heart attack as the cause of death; there was no mention of the snake.

Evil smiled at the omission.