Over the phone, the mechanic said something about the serpentine belt

I jotted that down (it might as well have been Japanese) 

I wish he could have seen how I felt 

I thought of snakes under the hood of my SUV

Worse than a creepy birthday clown

They could surely sliver their way into the vehicle 

Maybe that was why it’d been sputtering 

I envisioned a nest of copperheads and even black snakes 

I shuddered 

It was unbelievable 

Worse than I could think 

And I wondered if clowns wear serpentine belts

The mechanic’s lingo got all my safeguards to melt 

Well before Halloween

I trembled as I thought of the scene 

He went on to speak of valve caps 

Hopefully he didn’t hear me gasp 

I didn’t know but he’d later be my patient 

He was scared of medical professionals 

But the flip side of this story was that he just couldn’t take it 

The tingling, burning in his hands 

Every turn of a tool was more than he could stand 

And the weakness was progressive 

In that near-sterile exam room, I tapped his wrist like a detective

I could see it made him wince

And he made a sound like a hiss

I thought of snakes 

I told him about the median nerve 

And ligaments 

I didn’t know it then, but he imagined a broken fence  

It was where his fear rested: when he was a kid, he got tetanus 

We developed a treatment plan 

So he could hopefully be cured 

A few weeks later, a minor surgery 

He said he couldn’t wait to once again get his hands dirty 

As I walked back to the mechanic shop 

I heard a hood pop

I parked next to some bushes 

That mechanic was in the garage, wearing gloves that were like cushions 

He ran my way as he saw me walking forward 

It was a hot day, the scene a bit untoward 

We both saw a different situation 

I opened the rusty fence 

He rushed forward 

As I barely caught a glimpse 

Of something slivering 

It nearly blended right in 

A brown-green serpent 

The mechanic reached down where I was about to step

And grabbed that snake by its neck 

–with his right hand!

The post-operative man!

He hurled the snake into the river 

And that’s something I remember: 

Be skilled in your work 

I thanked that mechanic for my new serpentine belt 

And he thanked me for how his hand now felt 

I thanked him for grabbing the snake 

He thanked me for opening that beleaguered gate 

No bites, no tetanus 

Smooth rides and big catches 

Conquered fears and new vocabularies 

The world needs your skill 

To avert the next tragedy