It's been a while since I have posted in this fine page! So, I'll share a memory from the 70's... Funny as hell and still makes me grin to think of it.
The Gator
I was hitchhiking from Florida to the west coast in the early 70’s and was making good time. I was used to ‘camping rough’ and surviving in a semi-urban environment and I spent the night under an overpass. There’s a joke somewhere in there…
I was up at dawn and my last piece of beef jerky seemed the right choice to eat before my next unknown destination. I hoisted my pack onto my back, grabbed the cardboard sign with the word CAL on it and walked to the nearest onramp. Caught a couple of good rides and now I was on the border of Louisiana; gator country, NASCAR and televised sports… I felt a little unease and knew that if I was going to Cally, I had to stay the course or travel hundreds of miles to go around the state.
It was hot-as-hell and the humidity was 100%, and I shoved my sign out, hoping for a ‘bite’ and it wasn’t long before I got a nibble. It was a pair of ‘Good Ole Boys’ in a battered Ford pickup with mismatched fenders and a Rebel flag bumper sticker. I don’t remember their names, so I’ll just call them Spike and Bubba. Spike was driving and when Bubba opened the door to let me in, five or six empty beer cans rolled out. I tossed my backpack in the bed of the truck and climbed over a sea of empty beer cans. Bubba climbed in and reached under me and pulled out a ‘Custom Cooler’ drawer they had built into the bench seat! There was at least a 12 pack and covered with ice. Very cool custom addition to the old Ford!
“That ain’t all there is to this old truck! He cackled and shouted “Floor it Spike!”
“Nope, we’re still in town Bubba… I’ll show him what she can do when we get outta town.”
“Hey, you got any weed? Icky-Wicky? I know ya got some.” Bubba grinned like jack-o-lantern (he had 6 teeth showing) and I laughed and said “I got some Columbian Red bud and would trade you a good joint for a couple of those beers you got!” He laughed in a weird wheezy way, and I rolled up a fatty and gave it to Bubba. He snaked a Zippo out of his overalls and sparked the hooter, took a deep toke… and proceeded to have a coughing seizure that had Spike and me laughing our asses off!
It was late afternoon when we reached their turnoff and Spike said “Kid, come with us to our house and we’ll cook up a mess of crayfish and taters. We gots some ‘shine and plenty of beer. We’ll bring you back here tomorrow and drop you off. Whadda ya say?”
I really didn’t have anything to steal, other than my red-bud that I was going to smoke with them anyway, so I agreed. By the time we arrived at their humble abode, it was almost dark. The first time that I saw their house, it looked like something from a horror movie! The plant life that surrounded the home had almost completely engulfed the structure. The roofing was lifted in many places and I wondered what it was like inside when it rained…The windows were obscured by dirt and mud and stared back at me blankly.
The inside looked like a herd of hoarders had deposited their lifelong detritus before moving on to the other side. The smell of mold and death permeated the inside and I wondered if I had made the wrong choice. As me made our way through the insane amount of trash that was piled to the level of my head, we finally arrived at the kitchen. Compared to the rest of the house that I had just forged my way through, the kitchen was large, well-appointed and almost spotless!
The massive wood cooking stove was a beauty, and Spike stirred the fire that had been dampened before they left. Bubba went outside to the bayou and pulled a fish trap out of the water and headed for the house. I could tell that the trap was almost full of dark crawdads and he dumped them into the freestanding sink just outside the backdoor. He filled the sink with well water and looked at me and grinned. “I let ‘em sit in here for a spell, makes ‘em sweeter!”
New potatoes, cob corn, cat’s head biscuits with fresh butter and a mess-o-crawdads washed down with cold beer and moonshine… To someone like me, who had only a single strip of beef jerky all day, it was a Kingly dinner!
We were sitting outside in the early evening, having a smoke and a fat joint of Red Bud to top off the evening meal. The water’s edge was maybe 20 yards from where I was sitting and I noticed that there was a small alligator at the edge, I could see his eyes glow occasionally when they caught to porchlight.
“I’m gonna check out that gator…”
Spike shook his head and told me; “Oh, you don’t wanna mess with that gator, boy. He’ll hurt ya quick!”
By the time he was done talking, I was headed for ‘another lesson’. The gator was bigger than I thought, but I was going to check it out, so size didn’t matter. Its body was a little over four feet long and with its tail, it was over six feet long. It watched me as I approached but didn’t move at all.
From the porch, Spike called, “Don’t mess with that gator boy.”
I looked around and saw a three foot long, thick branch with a Y at the end. I used it to gently stroke the head of the gator and it startled me when it stood up, opened its mouth REALLY wide and made a sound like 20 tea kettles sounding off. HSSSsss and a POP when it closed that giant, tooth filled maw!
“Don’t mess with that gator, boy. It’ll hurt ya quick.”
I waved his warning away and moved closer (I was now in the Death Zone). Then I took that stick and poked the gator between its front leg and neck… What happened next is a blur, but looking back I think I know what happened.
When I poked that gator, it took offense! Its tail whipped around and caught me right at the knees, I fell down and when it came back around, that mouth full of teeth snapped shut an inch from my face! I’ll never forget that sound either, and I sported a bruise on the backs of my knees for over a month.
I remembered the smack of those jaws closing and then… I was on the back porch! I have no memory of leaving the gator. One second and I was an inch from death, then I was on the porch and Spike and Bubba were laughing so hard!
“I told ya not to mess with that gator, boy! Now ya know why!” Spike took obscene pleasure at my discomfort…
Yeah, we laughed about the Greenhorn and the Gator, and I imagine they still tell the story. Well, I earned it, so that’s fair.
True to their word, they dropped me off at the onramp and I shook their hands, they gave me a cold brew and I guzzled it while waving my sign. Doubt that I’ll ever forget that adventure!
