Gator Bait

The first time they tried to haul it up they thought it was dead. But that ornery gator was just playing possum. Poor Teddy Thompson lost his hand when that leathery flesh tornado took hold and started spinning. The other men threw everything they had at it, emptying their rifles, and revolvers. One even chucked a boot they’d dredged up while looking for the body.

Their second attempt went a little better. No one lost an appendage to the dinosaur. But Teddy Ray (no relation to Teddy Thompson) lost his boat to the stagnant, murky waters when it capsized as they tried to hoist that modern dinosaur onboard. That thing took on water and went down like the Titanic. You’ve never seen a grown man scramble and panic like old Jimbo. To hear him tell it, he walked on water like Jesus of Nazareth. The other men would describe it as more of a panicked dog paddle.

Finally, on their third attempt, with the help of the reluctant Sheriff’s Department dive team and a salvage barge with “Bertha” tattooed on its stern, they managed to pull that gator from the water and get it to shore.

Before they cut it open to inspect the contents of its belly, they strung it up and took turns snapping Polaroids with it. They even had the local paper come out and take a picture for the front page. The headline wrote itself–not that anyone could read it–because even in death that old reptile wasn’t done fighting. The crossbeam they strung it up from collapsed under the weight of the gator (and the contents of its belly) and landed on Captain Joe Ray Thompson (no relation to Teddy Thompson or Teddy Ray). He’d need a whole tool shed of hardware just to walk again. But years later he sure did cut an imposing silhouette with that thump-slide-thump gait straight out of a campfire story or slasher flick. The ornate cane was the cherry on top of his villain arc.

Once they were done snapping pictures with it and gloating like some Bayou paparazzi, they got busy with the dirty work. Wouldn’t you know, when it came time to cut that old gator open they were all too shy to play doctor. It was Sheriff Teddy Thompkins who finally got to fileting after it was agreed unanimously that it was his job seeing as the gator was potential evidence.

Stab. Rip. Stab. Rip.

That old leather belly protected its contents in death just as proudly as it had in life. The sun was a fallen peach rotting on the horizon before they finally got a good look at the contents of its guts.

“Well I’ll be damned,” exclaimed Teddy, nose pinched between his thumb and pointer finger fighting back his gag reflex. “That’s Elroy Lamont!”

My father.