I don’t like to talk ‘bout this one too much. No’ne really believes me. E’rone says “Oh, Micky, you just made that up, there’s no way you’d survive all them monsters” or, back when it happened, they’d go out back with me ‘n’ show me ‘round the creek. They’d say “C’mon Mick, y’see? There ain’t no scary monsters out here. Yer just imaginin’ things, that’s all,” ‘n’ chalked it up to my over-active imagination ‘n’ my fear of the wood.

They ne’er got it, though. They ne’er understood that he wudn’t scary, not to me no-how. Not at all. He was the best friend I ever had at the time. I think I rem’ber when I first met him. This was back in, what, ‘59? Me ‘n’ my parents, we lived in Hattiesburg, but my gr‘n’parents lived way out in rural Mi’ssippi. I think it was one a’them census areas. Not really an official city or nuttin, just had enough people out there to count as its own little thing, y’know? I think they called it Justinville.

Sometimes I’d go out there with my grandparents, ‘n’ I’d spend the weekend with ‘em when my momma ‘n’ daddy went out on a date or sumn’ or other. I loved spendin’ the weekends with Meemaw ‘n’ Pawpaw. They had all sorts of fun stories, ‘n’ Pawpaw’d bring me out to a lake some odd miles from the house ‘n’ we’d shoot ducks. We had all sorts a’ fun.

Sometimes they’d not have much to say or do, ‘n’ they’d be tired for one reason or another, so I’d go outside ‘n’ play by myself, cuz that’s what we did back then, y’know? They had a big ole forest behind their house, ‘n’ I’d go out there ‘n’ I’d play all day until I heard Pawpaw holler for me to either come eat dinner or that my momma was there to pick me up. I’d climb trees, carry around big sticks, ‘n’ when I tell you I’d find the biggest frogs—man, they was bigger than my hands could hold!

One day, I stumbled onto a little creek deep out in them woods ‘n’ just… Sat there. It was so purdy. I’d looked up at the way the sun looked through the trees, then I’d follow the sunbeams down ‘n’ watch ‘em sparkle on the water. Looked like someone’d opened up the heavenly gates above, y’hear? It sounded real nice out there too, I ain’t never heard a creek sound nothin’ like that one. You ever heard a creek? Oh, man, it’s the most calmin’ sound in the world. I oughtta take you out to one some day.

Anywho, after I found that creek I didn’t do nothin’ else in the woods anymore. Soon as I got outside I made the straightest line you’d ever seen to that creek just to sit out there ‘til dinner time. First couple a times nothin’ much happened, but at some point, I don’t remember when, I saw a feller peakin’ out from behind the trees. I only saw him for moments, but it was long enough fer me to know I wasn’t imaginin’ him. I’d go to look, but there’d be no’ne there.

It scared the piss outta me some the first time it happened. Man, I bolted back to Pawpaw’s house so fast. I didn’t come to the woods the next weekend I spent at their house. Eventually Pawpaw managed to convince me it musta just been a raccoon or sumn’. Y’see none a' the white folks in Mi’ssippi really believed in monsters back then, they all thought it was just a buncha Indjun legend.

Next day, I went out to the creek again ‘n’ started sittin’ out with it when he sorta just popped out from behind a tree ‘n’ sat with me. I wasn’t scared, though. At that time, I thought I was imaginin’ him, like Pawpaw said, so I just let him sit with me. I think he enjoyed it, cuz each time I sat at the creek from then on he’d show up ‘n’ sit with me. He sorta smelled like strawberry ‘n’ vanilla, but at the same time. It was real soothin’.

He was a real big snake—‘n’ I mean big. Def'nitely bigger than any anaconda or whatever. He was real massive, and he had horns all over his head. He also had a lot of real sharp, needle-like teeth. He was super freaky, but he never really bothered me. Like I said, I thought he was imaginary at first, and by the time I knew he wasn't he was already my best friend.

At some point, round the time I figured out her was real, we started talkin’ to each other. He loved this forest s’much as I did. We both loved the smell’a the pines. We loved the ways the birds sounded. We loved climbing the trees. We loved the creek. More than anything else though, we loved each others’ company, but we never said that to each other. I’m sure he knew it anyhow. I sure did.

‘Ventually he ended up tellin’ me that they keep sendin’ out people to survey the land, ‘n’ he was eating ‘em. I didn’t know what serveyin’ meant at the time, ‘n’ he told me people was tryin’ to take our forest. I asked

“Why?”

An’ he said he didn’t know. That night, I asked Pawpaw why people wanted the forest, ‘n’ he said sumn’ about there being natural gasses, fuel, under our feet. I didn’t know what that was, so I asked him, ‘n’ he told me not to worry about it.

At some point, I had to stop going to Justinville. Meemaw ‘n’ Pawpaw went ‘n’ sold their house to an energy company or sumn’ or other ‘n’ were movin’ to the mountains up in Tennessee. They always talked about livin’ in the mountains. I was super bummed about it, ‘n’ I still am. I’ve never been back to Justinville cuz I’m scared that, if I go back, they’ll have destroyed that forest ‘n’ that my creek, ‘n’ my friend’d both be gone. If I never see ‘em destroyed with my own eyes, then they’re still alive in my mind. That’s what my cousin Jessie told me when I was cryin’ about the creek back in ‘61, ‘n’ I’ve held onto his words ever since.