I had a friend named Earl. He was older than me—in his fifties while I was in my mid-twenties. Earl was Native American, a Vietnam veteran, a lot of PTSD and slightly unhinged - and always medicated - prescription and self. He wasn't the kind of guy who asked permission for much of anything. His place backed up against a military reservation, and we'd spend nights down there with his ham radio, talking overseas to different parts of the world. Earl was good company, even if his judgment was questionable.
One night while we were down there, he said, "I'm hungry. Let's go fishing."
So we headed off at dark onto the military reservation without a permit. As we're walking down to the lake, I asked, "Where's the fishing pole?"
He had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He looked at me like I was an idiot.
"You can't catch no alligator on no goddamn fishing pole, Prowler," he said. (Prowler was what he called me—short for Night Prowler, my CB handle, based on the AC/DC song.)
We got to the lake and set off in a small jon boat. After about twenty minutes with the flashlight cutting through the dark water, Earl pointed at a pair of amber eyes.
"That's what we want," he said. "That little gator. About three feet long."
I was skeptical. "What? You're crazy."
He opened the duffel bag and pulled out duct tape and a lead pipe. Then he laid out the plan like it was the simplest thing in the world.
"This is easy," he said. "You hit it between the eyes as hard as you can with the lead pipe, jump on its back, and wrap its mouth in duct tape. Then you roll onto your back and drag it to shore. Easy. Right?"
What was I thinking? I have no idea. But I said, "Sure. That sounds easy enough."
I smacked that alligator as hard as I could between the eyes and jumped on its back. I wrapped its mouth in duct tape in a dark lake, on a military reservation, in the middle of nowhere. But there was a problem.
That night, I learned several things:
- Earl's vision wasn't very good—or he couldn't judge distance. That wasn't a three-foot gator. It was five and a half to six feet.
- Three feet versus five and a half to six feet is a very big difference.
- If you smack a gator with a lead pipe and it doesn't die, you didn't hit it hard enough.
- If you don't kill it and you're on its back in the water, you're now hugging a living washing machine caught on its spin cycle.
I was getting spun around and around in that lake, yelling for help. Earl was in the boat, laughing his ever-loving ass off. This was the best thing he'd ever seen in his life.
"Help me!" I screamed.
"Drag him to the shore," Earl yelled back, still laughing and wheezing to the point I thought he was going to need an inhaler.
I spread my legs out and dug my feet into the muck on the bottom of the lake. I managed to work my way out of the water with this gator now upside down on my chest. I tried rubbing its belly—maybe that would calm it down. It did not seem happy about this predicament, and neither did I. I distinctly remember apologizing to the alligator.
"I'm sorry," I said, "but I'm really hungry."
I got up onto the shore and pulled the gator up onto my body. I was holding its front claws with my legs wrapped around its back claws so it couldn't tear into me. Earl came off the boat with a boomstick and proceeded to pop it right in the head. Eight inches from my head. Blood went everywhere as he shot through the jaw, splattering onto me. My ears were ringing. He was still laughing. I was apparently screaming because I couldn't hear myself. And I had a dead alligator laying on my chest.
I got out from under it and told Earl, "I'm never fucking doing that again."
He just laughed and said, "It's fine. We've got dinner for the next week."
We carried that gator back to his house off the reservation and prepped it for dinner. All in all, it was really good gator. It tasted an awful lot like chicken. It was the first time I'd ever had alligator.
Not the last time Earl and I did something stupid together. But definitely one I won't forget.