duck eggs and corn
The summer of my fourteenth year my best friend Eric and I explored the nooks and crannies of the Pennsylvania countryside. We followed the winding creeks through the rolling hills of farmlands, scavenging wildlife and waterfowl. We caught snakes and frogs and ducks and rats; bats and butterflies. Things of color, breathing. Things of movement. Other forms of life. Toward the end of summer we spent several weeks stalking a large black snake that curled itself in the crook of a tree branch alongside our favorite creek. Later, as an adult, I would learn that the snake was a northern black racer. This particular specimen was as big as they grew. Grandaddy of all northern black racers. The sun reflected off the nearby rocks and warmed its nesting place above the creek with openness on all surrounding sides. The slightest movement and it dropped from the branch to the creek below to swim away unscathed. It was a king among the snakes we sought. Five feet long and thick as our wrist. Black and shining, cool and silky. As we were prone to say back then,“Un-Xucking-believable” It was wary and elusive in its kingdom. Our first five tries at capture had failed and we had waited several days to return. Each failure diminished future chances as it took longer and longer periods for the King to return to its favorite roost when spooked. If we failed again it might migrate to a safer unknown den and be forever lost. We took our time approaching from opposite directions. We started almost a quarter mile out. We stalked with baited breath one step and still. One step and still.
We could not even see the den but knew that our vibrations carried changes to the air and ground that might be heard or felt. Step and still. Step and still.
It took about forty-five minutes until we could see each other clearly enough for hand signals. Step and still. Step and still. Eric approached with fishnet in hand from the creek’s opposite side downstream. I approached from the opposite way on land, downwind of the King, breath suspended. Step and still. Listening, watching. Keenly alert to the movement of water, clouds, even sunlight and shade. Suddenly, I see him. The King. Still. We moved slower than the cows grazing in the pasture around us. They stood idly by, chewing their cud and watching us with curiosity. These strange new cows that walked upright on hind legs and never stooped to graze.
Eric entered the water downstream wading slowly upstream toward me. We pause. Me within arms reach of the King. Eric twenty feet away in the shallows waiting. My intention was to grab the King suddenly and flick him into the open pasture where he would be without defense or escape route. Once in the open we could pin his head with a tree branch and capture him easily. I reach for the branch. The movement of my arm across the open air sets off his alarm. Before I reach the branch, he drops, floating folded in his coil down the vertical three feet to the water. Before he can uncoil. Before I draw a breath. It seems before the next second ticks. He’s gone. I think we failed until my disappointment is shattered with Eric’s cries; “we got him!” “we got him!” He’s running to the bank of the creek holding the net high shaking it from side to side in a frantic attempt to keep the King somehow pinned into the net by sheer force of gravity. The top of the net is open and the King is poking his head high, tongue flicking trying to glide his coils over the edge of the net. Eric is bouncing the net not giving him the leverage he needs to escape. He’s almost up and out and, bounce, Eric nets him again, he’s almost up and out and bounce Eric nets him again. He slams the net upside down on the hard mud bank and the King is trapped inside the fishnet poking the net in all directions at once. An explosion of net bounding in all directions, collapsing and rising like bullets being shot into it. “Get something” Eric shouts “Get something, quick!” My mind is racing. In our haste to capture the King we never thought to bring along a container to store him in. All we had to trap him was the flimsy net that was now taking a beating as he writhed his coils against the frame and poked his nose into every hole at once. Impossible to calm. Eric frightened to get hands too close, standing with foot on fishnet frame frantically calling to me, “get something” “Anything”. My eyes were screaming over the landscape for anything, but being in a farmer’s cow field what could I possibly get? “There’s nothing!” I shout and instantly run toward Eric, seeing rocks on the shore behind him. I grabbed at them and built a wall surrounding the net and covering it with flat stones. We had him temporarily trapped, but for how long? I ran upstream while Eric stood guard. Up and down the banks of the creek in panic I ran and found nothing. In desperation I returned and began stripping my clothes off. “What the hell are you doing?” said Eric. “I got an idea”, I said. I took off my pants and tied a big knot in the bottom of each leg then pulled the rocks off the top of the pile and placed the waistband of the trousers over the net. “Pull the net out”. I said to Eric. He wasn’t sure but he slid it out and the King instantly tried to escape by crawling down one leg of the trousers. I quickly lifted the trousers and rolled the waistband to make a handle. We had him! He was securely trapped in our trouser handbag. I stood before Eric triumphantly holding the bag aloft. “We got him!” I shouted, “We got him!”
We both sat down exhausted and put a large flat rock on the waistband of the trousers, stepped away and sat down on the bank of the creek, Eric fully dressed and me in my tidy-whitey underwear. “Whew!” we both sighed, “Yeah, Wow!”
After resting for awhile we decided the best course of action would be to walk upstream about a half mile to where the old swimming hole was. We knew, dressed as I was, we couldn’t stray to far from the creek. We had to find something to put the King into so I could retrieve my pants. The main farm for the land we were on was up that way and near the mouth of the creek above the old swimming hole was a junkyard of old broken farm equipment and trash where we might find something that we could transfer him into. When we got there we found an old stove and inside was a rusty bucket and an old coffee pot. We emptied the King out of my pants and into the bucket and covered the bucket with the wire shelves from the old oven. We laid them criss-cross so they made a diamond shaped pattern with the holes to small for his body to pass through. We set a large rock on top to weigh it down. He could poke his head through the holes about six inches before his body was too big to fit the rest of the way through. He would poke through and withdraw and try another and another. It was like watching a real life version of Wack-a-mole, the gopher game where they pop up and you smack them down and they pop up again somewhere else, only we didn’t smack him down, we just let him keep on trying to get free. He pretty much ignored us. He had gotten used to us and didn’t see us as predators but just bystanders. He only hissed or snapped if we reached directly for him. We moved the bucket down the creek to the old swimming hole. We sat by the old tree where the rope swing was. In the water some of the trees roots were exposed above the water. That was the footing where we would grab the rope that hung over the middle of the creek. There was a large branch by the base of the tree that we always used to reach out and start the rope swinging until it reached the footing of the roots. Then we could hold the rope and climb up onto the bank. From up top of the bank we could swing out past the middle and drop on the way back into the deepest part of the creek which was at this point about five and a half feet deep, about a half-foot over our heads. We placed rocks around the bucket to keep it from tipping over and made sure the King was trapped. We swam in the creek and swung on the rope. Afterward, drying in the sun we were hungry starved and thought about going home or going to the farm to ask for food or water. We stood up and looked around and saw that the corn in the field next to the creek was fully ripe. We went into the field walking between the cornstalks which were two feet over our heads. We looked at some of the fattest ears close to the bottom and pulled one off the stalk. Grabbing it by the brown tassels on the end we tore it open and saw the ripe white sweet corn. We decided to pull two each of the fattest we could find. We would fill the old coffee pot we had found with water, build a fire and boil the corn. While looking for the ripest fattest ears of corn I spotted something nestled on the ground near the stalk. “Eric, look!” I said. Eric stopped and we both knelt down to examine it. It was a bird’s nest nearly covered with dried, matted corn stalks. Inside the nest were four brown eggs, pale in color with dark brown spots on them. “Wow!” we both said at the same time. “Must be duck eggs, or geese.” Eric said. “Something must’ve scared off the ducks.” I said. Eric said “We can eat them with our corn.” “But what if they’re ready to hatch”, I said. “we’ll test one.” said Eric. We took them out of the nest and got everything together. Eric had a cigarette lighter cause sometimes he would steal cigarettes from his parents and smoke them. We lit a fire and put the pot on with the corn in it. We found an old Crisco cooking oil can and washed it out, wiping it with my t-shirt until it was "clean". Eric tapped one of the eggs and poured the contents into the can. It looked just like a regular egg. It wasn’t even close to being developed and except for the shell was just like any other egg. We broke the other three and set the can on a rock near the fire. The corn boiled and the eggs cooked. In less than 10 minutes we had sweet corn and duck eggs to eat. We ate it all. It was so good. The corn was so sweet you didn’t need butter or anything. We stripped the corn with our teeth and spat it into our eggs so we had a corn omelet. It was the best ever. After we ate we lay in the sun and marveled at our good fortune. To catch the King and swim and have a feast was about as good as it could get. We were quiet for a long time just laying in the sun with our bellies full and our minds at rest. We felt like kings. Like we had conquered our domain, masters of our universe. After awhile, Eric said, “We have to let him go.” “What do you mean” I said with complete surprise. This was the greatest catch ever and I wanted to show it off to everybody, all our friends, neighbors, parents, heck I even thought of taking it to school.
“We have to let him go back to where his home is.” Eric said. I knew he was right. It would be wrong for us to take him away from what he knew and have people poking at him. He would be scared and besides, we hadn’t caught him for anyone else, we had done it for the challenge. I was reluctant at first because of my ego, but the more I thought about it the more I knew that Eric was right. In the end we walked downstream to just above where his lair was and let him out of our make-shift jail onto the path that crossed the creek. He was surprised at first and just sat there with his head standing straight up about a foot above his coiled body with his tongue flicking and doing quarter turns. When he saw no immediate threats he lowered his head and slithered toward the creek. In a moment he was in the water and swimming downstream past his lair. I doubted he would ever return there after this experience and as he continued to swim downstream and out of sight I knew it would be the last we would see of him. We didn’t speak much at all on the long walk home. It was late afternoon and in the peak of the heat. We didn’t even try to hitchhike like we usually did. We just trudged home the five miles in the heat without saying much. We parted when we got near our homes and said we’d see each other later, but we never did. That weekend Eric went with his older cousin Ronnie and some other older teens. They drove out by the golf course, what we called seven hills because there were seven large hills all within about two miles. There were intermittent gaps in the two lane road where it was considered to be safe for passing. Ronnie was letting a friend drive his car and his friend had a .23 blood alcohol level. He tried to overtake 3 cars. There were five in the car and two were killed. One was the driver. The other was Eric. I often think of Eric and the day we captured the King. We dined like rich barons that day on duck eggs and corn. To this day it remains one of the best meals I’ve ever had.
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