photo by CloverPhoto

Rosa’s Rattlesnake Resort
Janelle Meraz Hooper

This is a true story. Not all of my “adventures” with my dad happened in Oklahoma. Some of them were in Texas and other places. This story was supposed to be in As Brown As I Want, The Indianhead Diaries, but I thought three murder attempts in the book were enough to make my point, so I cut it out. As Brown As I Want was a finalist in the 2004 Oklahoma Book Awards.

I was the perfect kid to grow up in Oklahoma. From childhood, I’d entertained myself by watching the bugs, spiders, and other interesting insects in my dad’s backyard. I was never bored.

Dad never noticed the critters in his grass and trees. All he cared about was his chickens, ducks, and rabbits. He kept the chickens in the hen house, everything else he kept in wire cages. Those were for us to eat, so I couldn’t play with them. I hated the chickens, especially the rooster. At seven years old, it was my job to collect the eggs every morning and the rooster would fly at my face with his claws aimed right for my face and screech like some Japanese warrior. The hens were on my bad side too, because, every night, they flew over the wire fence and slept on the branches of our peach trees. Well, I liked peaches, but even I wouldn’t eat a poopy peach.

His backyard sat over an underground water reservoir that we drew our garden water from. He told me that the fish down there didn’t have eyes. Didn’t need them, he said, because it was dark all the time underground. I wanted to fish in that well and try to catch one of them but Dad wouldn’t let me. I think he was a little bit afraid I might catch one and who knows? Maybe they had teeth! Or, maybe, he was afraid I’d fall in and pollute his garden water. I’ll never know.

Luckily, we had relatives in Benavides, Texas. I had a big surprise when we visited my stepmother’s mother there. Her backyard was all sand and cacti! How great was that? That’s where the fun was. The last time we visited there, Sarah’s mother was sick and confined to bed. Dad and Sarah were having a big argument about what to do with her, so they threw me out in the backyard to play. I didn’t mind a bit that it was really hot outside because it was hotter inside. My dad was yelling a lot and the little one-room house’s walls were shaking from his anger.

At first, I thought there was nothing to do out there because there wasn’t even a place to sit. No chairs or nothing and the sand was almost hot enough to burn my feet through my sandals. The whole backyard was fence-to-fence cacti. Big ones. To pass the time, I picked up some small rocks and tossed them into the cacti that were so crowded  I couldn’t see in between the plants.

From the first rock I threw, I thought I was the luckiest girl I knew. Every time I threw a rock, I’d hear the rattle of rattlesnakes. It was like they had their own little resort in that backyard. I picked up handfuls of small rocks and moved all around the edge of the yard and every time I tossed one of them into the cactus, I heard rattles! I wanted to see one so bad and I figured that if I made them mad enough, eventually one of them would come out.

But no luck. After a while, I turned my attention to the house, which was propped up on cinder blocks. All kinds of garbage were stuffed under there that they didn’t want anymore. Things like rusty barbed wire, old buckets with holes in them, and old wooden fence posts that were too rotten to use.

And then I found a real treasure: there among all of that junk was a perfect skeleton of a frog. All bones, and no skin at all. He was sitting on the sand like nothing was wrong—he was just enjoying the landscape. I figured maybe one of those snakes bit him and he died on the spot. I was just getting ready to find something to put him in so I could take him home when the yelling and crying inside the house got worse. It sounded like Dad was on one side of the hospital bed and Sarah was on the other. In the middle was Sarah’s mother, Rosa.

Dad was yelling that no way he was going to take that old Mexican home to live with them. “She don’t even speak English,” he scoffed. Sarah was yelling that she was her mother and she wanted to take her home to live with them…forever!

I decided I’d better get away from there quick and come back to pick up the frog before we left. I wandered around and found a little grocery store down the street where the man who owned it didn’t speak English but I didn’t even have enough money to buy a pop to drink so it didn’t matter. I hadn’t eaten all day but it was too hot to eat anyway. What I really wanted was one of those tall, frosted glass candles with a picture of the Virgin Mary on the front. I thought it would look nice in the rattlesnake resort. One was lit up and it looked real pretty. The grocer had boxes of them. Maybe his customers lost their power a lot?

After a while, I decided I’d better get back before they missed me and I’d be in as much trouble as Sarah’s mom. I was just in time. They had just started to look for me. I guess the argument was settled. Sarah was crying and Dad was opening the car doors to let some cool air into the car. It was obvious Rosa was not going back to Oklahoma with us. He was still mad as heck even though he’d won the argument.

I knew better than to keep Dad waiting. I dove into the backseat so fast I forgot my frog skeleton. I didn’t remember it until we were out of town. I didn’t dare ask Dad to take me back so I could get it. I told myself that maybe it would still be there if we ever went back. ‘Course we never did. I guess Dad had worn out his welcome there for good.
After we got back to Lawton, I never heard another word about Sarah’s mother. Not a word. It was just like Benavides, Texas—and Rosa—never existed.

The end

                                    Please share this post. My thanks, Janelle  

Photo: At the beach, no makeup, no hair dryer, no sunscreen.

HEAVEN!