Mama and the Snake 
 
The day Mama left Daddy there was lots of screaming, lots of 
crying, a little bit of clothes burning and lots of drinking. And, as it 
turned out, Daddy did most of it.  
 
Mama always said "There's gonna be moments in your life when 
enough has to be enough. And if it isn't then you lose all your 
possibility of ever being happy." I guess that was one of my 
mama's moments. Looking back I think it could have been her 
biggest moment of all. 
 
At about 5 o'clock, Daddy came home from work. He walked in 
the back door and started yelling at Mama because the house 
wasn't clean and dinner wasn't even started.  
 
"What the hell have you been doing all day? I spend all day slaving 
away over in the garage so that you and our kids can have a good 
life and this is how you repay me. You don't have any 
responsibilities outside of this house. How is it that you still do a 
shitty job keeping it?" 
 
"I'm sorry," Mama replied, "I just got carried away with the kids. 
Dinner won't take but a minute. I'm making pork chops; your 
favorite." 
 
With that, she flipped on the TV for us kids and hurried into the 
kitchen. Mama put the pork chops onto fry while Daddy kept 
yelling. 
 
"What do you mean you got carried away with the kids? Just 
remember it was me that gave those kids to you. I remember what 
you were before me. You were a little stick of nothing. It was me 
who cleaned you up and bought you nice outfits to wear. I gave 
you a nice house and you let it get all cluttered up with kids toys. 
I've worked hard all my life to finally get to the point where people 
would think I'm respectable. And I've finally made it. You know 
how I know? I know because I got a gold card in my wallet that 
says I'm respectable. It says that I'm somebody who works hard 
and deserves the best. If they could have seen you and these 
scruffy kids they wouldn't have given me the time of day let alone 
their best credit card."  
 
For Daddy everything came back to his gold card. He was always 
trying to find ways to bring it into conversations and flash it 
around. He'd say things to me like "If you ever want to get 
anywhere, you need a gold card. People don't ask questions and 
they just do what you want if you have a gold card."  When I was 
young, I thought there was nothing in the world I wanted more 
than a gold card. I thought that little piece of plastic was magic and 
could make all my troubles go away. Before the end of the night, 
in my 9-year-old mind, my Mama would prove me right. But we 
have quite a way to go before then. 
 
As my dad was saying, "How do you think it makes man feel to 
come home after a hard day's worth of work only to find that his 
wife ain't done nothing all day. I deserve better then you and don't 
you forget it. I did you favor when I made you my wife. Had I 
known you were gonna turn out just like your mother, I wouldn't 
have bothered."
At that moment, my mama stopped her cooking. She looked at my 
daddy like she was scared and mad all at once. It was the same 
way she looked when she caught a snake in our garden sitting on 
one of her tomatoes. And maybe that's what she saw when she 
looked at Daddy right then. Maybe she saw a big snake curled up 
on one of her kitchen chairs. Maybe she saw him for what he was 
and always would be. Maybe she saw her whole life laid out in 
front of her and it was filled with pork chops and insults. Maybe in 
that moment she heard her mama in the back of her mind saying 
"There's gonna be moments in your life when enough has to be 
enough. If it isn't then you lose all your possibility of ever being 
happy." Whatever it was in that moment my mama made up her 
mind, she chose to be happy.
 
My daddy must have sensed when my mama turned to look at him 
that something big in his life was changing and that he had no 
control over it because he stopped talking. And when my mama 
turned off the heat under the pork chops and went over to the sink 
and started washing the grease off her hands, my daddy knew that 
he had crossed a line.  
 
"Now baby, I'm sorry. I don't know why I said all of those mean 
things. I know you've had a tough day just like me. Why don't we 
call out for pizza?" 
 
My mama dried her hands on a dishtowel and turned around and 
stared him right in the eye.  
 
"A little piece of plastic doesn't make you nothing if you're not 
something to begin with. And I don't care how many credit cards 
you get, Lonny, you're still gonna be nothing. And I'm not 
spending one more night laying next to a man who ain't something 
just like me." 
 
With that she turned and walked into the living room and told us 
kids to go upstairs and pick out two toys and three sets of clothes 
each. She said that we needed to bring them into her and Daddy's 
bedroom so she could put them in a bag. Now, us kids had spent 
everyday of our lives with Mama and we knew there were 
moments when you questioned and moments when you saved the 
questioning for later. So, upstairs we went trying to figure out what 
things we wanted to put in her bag.