The action occurs in a small West Texas town: the time is the present. Our hero Snakey Bender makes his living by catchingsnakes and selling them to Eastern Universities. This old eccentric recluse never comes to town on Saturday as other country folds do. Instead he chooses to come in on Wednesday, and everything that makes his life worthwile happens on this day. He buys live snake from the school children, gets his weekly supply of groceries, listens to recorded band music with a rancher friend, and services the schoolmistress who has a thing for snakes.

Then certain members of the community deliberately disrupt his Wednesday activities. Bd and Sis abuse him with practical jokes and force him to continue trading at their grocery store. Brother Joy makes the children stop selling their little animals to him. Cynthia, the schoolmistress, breaks off their "affair." And his rancher friend Burt Holden marries a young dingaling stripper from the city, thereby terminating thier Wednesday night band concerts.

Infuriated by all these monstrous injustices, Snakey proceeds to kill the five offenders one by one with his poisonous snakes. Then he gets rid of their bodies and their cars by pushing them over a cliff.

At the end of the story, his Wednesday activities seem normal again, and there is every reason to believe that the half-witted constable will never figure out why so many of the citizens have left town without even saying goodbye. Of course Snakey is having his band concerts again, but this time they are in the barn where he lives. His new companion is Burt's widow, who has survived Snakey's vengeance only so far as death is concerned. During the finale, as a deafening Sousa march blares out of the may speakers, we come to realize that Ivy will probably be replacing her husband as Snakey's Wednesday night companion for the rest of her life.