David Remnick: As the year comes to an end, we've been hearing, each week, from the writer Susan Orlean and selections from her obit column 'Afterward'. Now one thing about Susan, she's kind of an animal nut. In fact, her last book was a collection called simply On Animals. She has that in common with her subject today, a Texas man named Eugene DeLeon.
Susan Orlean: Rattlesnakes give most people the creeps, but there is a subset of people who find them inviting. Eugene DeLeon was frequently photographed cozying up with and even smooching rattlesnakes. He had no fear of them at all.
His interest started early. His father, a security guard in the Texas oil fields, used to while away his shift catching snakes that wriggled by his post and would bring them home for his children to admire.
The passion for snakes stuck with DeLeon. He was crazy for them, his daughter Blanca Trevino told me recently, very crazy. After studying at Coastal Bend College, DeLeon, who worked in the oil fields, like his father, founded Snake Busters Snake Handlers, an all-purpose snake enterprise. Snakes in your basement, no problem. Call Snake Busters. Needs snake blood for a folk remedy for cancer, Snake Busters can accommodate.
The brushy fields around DeLeon's home in Freer, Texas, are prime rattler territory. The snakes found their way onto playgrounds, and into shopping centers and living rooms all the time. DeLeon, who was also a volunteer firefighter and civic-minded in every way, liked that he was doing something helpful in town.
Trevino, his daughter, said that she would have been happy to kiss the snakes goodbye, but as soon as DeLeon's son Eugene Jr. was old enough, he joined Snake Busters, too, marking the start of a third generation of DeLeon snake fans.
De Leon's wife, Simona, however, was not an enthusiast of the whole venomous reptile thing. During the past few years, she had pressed him to hang it up, but he couldn't be budged. The capstone of every year for the Snake Busters was the Freer Rattlesnake Roundup, a three-day slithering creature festival held each spring.
The roundup includes exhibitions and a pageant and competition to be named the year's rattlesnake royalty. DeLeon was in his glory there, demonstrating his rattlers and selling snakeskin doodads and rattlesnake meat. "It really does taste like chicken," Trevino said. "If you cook it right, it's delicious."
It might surprise you to know that as terrifying as rattlesnakes are, only a small number of people are killed by them each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the United States, between 7,000 and 8,000 people are bitten annually by venomous snakes, but, on average, there are only five fatalities.
Among the unlucky ones when it comes to venomous snakes are researchers who must handle them frequently and get bitten more than once. Historically, quite a few rattlesnake victims have been members of Christian sects who believe that holding a snake in your bare hands is called for in the Bible, specifically Mark Chapter 16 Verse 18. It's considered a demonstration of religious faith and if they're bitten, they count on divine intervention rather than medical help. The practice has killed or injured so many people that it is now illegal in several states.
On occasion, someone will sit on a rattlesnake hidden in the brush or surprise one in a pumpkin patch and not get medical treatment quickly enough. Usually, though, rattlesnakes have a live-and-let-live attitude and are far more likely to wriggle away from humans than to hunt them down and kill them.
Being a snake buster required a lot of face time with rattlers, and the risk was consequently amplified. Four years ago at the rattlesnake roundup, Eugene Jr. was bitten and ended up having to have a thumb amputated. DeLeon himself had also been bitten in the past.
In recent years, DeLeon began to mull over whether he ought to retire or at least cut back a bit, but when his wife Simona died last year, he was crushed and according to Trevino, keeping busy with the snakes was what kept him alive.
According to his sister, Monica, though, DeLeon had decided that perhaps this year's rattlesnake roundup would be his last. It would be his 20th appearance, so maybe the fact that it was a round number made it seem fitting. Everything was going as planned until one of his demonstrations. No one is quite sure what happened, but the large rattler he was holding squirmed out of his hands and repeatedly bit him on the shoulder and back.
He was helicoptered to Corpus Christi for intensive care, but he succumbed to the bites. Trevino believes that he wouldn't hold a grudge against the snake and that if he had to do it again, even knowing the risks, he'd still be handling them. "Wherever he is now," she said, "he's doing the same thing."
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David Remnick: Susan Orlean. Her essay, A Man Who Loved Rattlesnakes comes from her column Afterward. You can find it at newyorker.com.
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