I was once at a dinner with a group of friends, when one of the newer acquaintances in the group asked why I wasn’t having any wine “I don’t drink” I replied. He pressed further, inquiring as to why I didn’t imbibe, asking if it was for religious reasons, health issues, or because of medication. Dreading the chore of having to try to explain to him that I was a recovering alcoholic, and why that meant I couldn’t drink, I decided to simply tell him about one of my last drinking adventures.
One Saturday night in the fall of 1989, I got a call from my friend Leslie Hebert. ” ay mon, why don’t ‘cha meet me at the pup” he growled into the phone in his thick Cajun accent. “It’s already 11:30” I reminded him, “das right, and if’n you hurry, we can be down dere before all ‘de clubs in town close an’ all dem kids head down dere, once dey show up, we’ll already have de pool tables and can take dem fer dere money”. Logic like this simply couldn’t be argued with, or at least not by me, I welcomed anything that sounded like a reasonable excuse to get my drink on.
I dragged myself to my closet and pulled on the first shirt I came across, dragged a wet comb across my head ( still had hair at the time) and stumbled out the door almost killing myself going down the 4 steps that marked the entrance to my house. I was already well on my way to being drunk having spent the evening drinking can after can of Coors while watching wrestling. After fumbling with the keys, I slid behind the wheel of my old Corolla, cranked her up and spun out of the gravel driveway.
The Speckled Pup, wasn’t my neighborhood bar, the pup was run down dance hall with pool tables in Hackberry Louisiana, about 16 mile south of Sulphur. The pup was on the west side of Hwy 27 immediately south of the pontoon bridge over Kelso Bayou. The bar was set to the back of a small gravel parking lot and sat on short concrete piers requiring you to ascend 5 or 6 steps to get into the door. When ordering drinks at the bar one had to be careful not trip, or in the case of ladies, get a heel caught in one of several holes in the floor through which the bare earth was visible.
Getting drunk at the pup was a risky venture on several accounts. The typical clientele at the pup were people who worked as hands on shrimp boats, or offshore crew-boats, or who worked in seafood processing facilities which is why most of the women encountered in the pup smelled like fish and looked like shit. This was a rough crowd that lived by the credo of work hard and play harder, and for many of them bar room brawls were preferred form of play. The other major risk of a night out at the pup was the drive back. A few short miles south of Sulphur hwy 27 becomes surrounded by marsh, and is flanked by deep brackish water canals on either side. Highway 27 is a narrow, 2 lane roadway, and a drunken weave can quickly land you and your vehicle in deep water.
I made the drive down to the pup and arrived at about 12:15, Leslie’s truck was already in the parking lot. I loped up the steps and into the bar and Leslie already had a pool table, he was wearing faded jeans with a plaid shirt and Saints cap screwed down tightly on his shaggy hair. As odd as it may sound, in South Louisiana Leslie is a perfectly acceptable name for a man or boy having long standing in the tradition of names for male Cajun children. Appropriateness not withstanding few people would want to make an issue out of Leslie’s name anyway. Leslie is not an exceptionally large or imposing figure of a man, but rarely was he ever in a scrap where he couldn’t easily hold his own, and on the rare occasion that he would find himself outmatched, he was quick to produce a razor, ice pick, handgun, or other implement that quickly leveled the playing field and his opponent.
” ‘Sup Begnaud” Leslie said as I came through the door, “Well you called, so here I am”, “Grab a stick and let’s play” he instructed. Leslie and I shot pool and drank until about 2:45am when the crowd began to change a bit. Bars within the city limits of Lake Charles were required to close at 2:am, once they closed, a substantial percentage of their patrons hit the road looking for a place to continue the party, a number of them often landed at the Speckled Pup. College kids in baggy pants and frat boys in chino’s started showing up, Leslie and I had calculated that they would make easy marks for his skills with a pool cue, and the line of bullshit that I could talk. What Leslie and I had forgotten to take into consideration that night was the degree to which our respective skills were diminished by the mind numbing quantity of alcohol we had consumed. After becoming frustrated at actually losing money to some collage prick we became unruly and through the fault of no one but ourselves managed to get ourselves thrown out of the pup, which is not an easy feat.
Leslie told me he was going to make his way to Layne and Wayne’s, another fine establishment only slightly less refined than the speckled put. I was tired and beginning to feel sick, so I decided to head home. As I was driving north on Hwy 27, about a mile south of where the Ellender bridge crosses the Intracoastal waterway, a long dark shape came into view in my headlights on the shoulder of the road between the blacktop and the canal that flanked the roadside. “Fucking Gator” I slurred to myself, then I had a brilliant idea. “I’m going to catch myself that gator” I mumbled to myself. I’m not sure of what purpose I thought catching that alligator would serve, or even what I thought I would eventually do with it, but at the time it seemed like a damn good idea.
I’ve grown up in South Louisiana, and have been around alligators my entire life. As such, I’ve always considered myself pretty sensible in that I never had any unreasonable fear of gators when I saw them while fishing, crabbing, or otherwise engaged in the outdoors, but always maintained a respect of what they were capable of. Essentially I maintained a policy of “I won’t fuck with them, and they won’t fuck with me”. That night however reason had left me and as quickly as the big reptile appeared in my headlights the determination to make it my captive was born.
I slowed the car and drove just past where the beast lay on the side of the road, I pulled the car to the shoulder of the road, threw it in reverse and stopped when there was only about 10 feet between my rear bumper the alligator. Before opening my door I quickly reached for and pulled the lever that released the latch on my trunk, I threw open the door and bolted out of the car wanting to get to the gator before he slid into the canal. Much to my surprise the alligator didn’t react at all to my presence, generally they are fairly wary creatures and make as much effort to keep distance between themselves and people, as most people make to avoid them. I was running toward the gator, formulating my plan on the fly. I would jump on his back and pin his snout to the ground. It’s common knowledge that while alligators can exert an enormous amount of force in bite strength closing their jaws, they have very little strength for opening their jaws.
When I was about 3 feet to the side of the alligator I leaped landing on it’s back with a knee on the ground on either side of it’s body and my hands firmly planted together at the very front of the snout. I quickly curled my hands around the front of it’s snout holding the deadly jaws closed and began to stand, lifting the animal by it’s nose. The gator was thrashing wildly as I lifted and carried it toward the open trunk. I was aware of the more commonly noted dangers of an alligator, it’s teeth, and it’s tail with which it can whip fiercely causing pain and injury, but I discovered one other dangerous element of an alligator that isn’t often discussed, sharp claws. As I carried the alligator toward the car I was continually being raked by sharp wiry claws that came to fine needle – like points. Finally adjacent to the open trunk, I thrust my hands forward and down, throwing the front half of the gator deep into the trunk, then quickly got a hand under the rear portion of the animal pushing it in behind. I reached up with my right hand, grabbing the trunk lid and slammed it down hard. I had done it, the gator was in the trunk, and I was still alive with all of my appendages.
I slid back behind the wheel of the still running car, looking at my arms and hands it looked like someone had taken a wire brush to them. I could also feel the burn of scratches along the right side of my neck all the way to just below my ear. “Fucking gator with fucking claws” I slurred, then I began to laugh at the absurdity of having caught an alligator alone on the side of the road. Surprisingly the remainder of the drive home was uneventful. Apparently the gator had a sense that there was no escape from the confines of the trunk and didn’t bother trying, as I didn’t hear any thrashing or scratching coming from the rear of the car. By the time I arrived home I had all but forgotten the gator in the trunk, parked the car, stumbled in the house and dropped face first onto the couch. I was asleep by the time I hit the cushions.
The following morning I came to at about 11:30. As I peeled my face of of the sofa cushion I felt a sharp sting along the side of my neck. I looked at my hands and arms and saw beads of dry crusted blood in trails up and down them. “What the fuck did I do to myself” I thought as I rubbed my face with the palms of my hands. Then vague images began to appear in my head “Oh fuck” I muttered “there’s an alligator in my trunk” I remembered out loud. Suddenly the idea of catching an alligator didn’t seem quite so brilliant, in a somewhat more sober state the realities of just how difficult the disposition of a live alligator can be struck me. I sat on the edge of the couch, hands clasped in my lap wondering what my next step should be. Still having no clue on what a sensible course of action would be, I decided I at least wanted to get a look at it, after all it isn’t every day that you catch an alligator.
I stumbled outside, still wearing the same clothes as the night before, and still reeking of beer, smoke and roadside grime. I walked up to the rear of my car and started to insert the key into the trunk then stopped “Wait I need something first”, I backed away from the car and looked around the front yard and saw what I needed leaning against the side of the house, a 4 foot section of two by four. I grabbed the board and resumed my position at the back of the car.
My plan was to spring the trunk open and use the two by four to contain the sure to be pissed off alligator in the car, get a good accounting of it’s size then shut the trunk again all without letting it escape. My hands were shaking as I turned the key, when I heard the pop of the latch releasing I flung the lid open with my right hand and quickly brought the hand down on the back end of the two by four, containing a gator with a stick would no doubt require both hands. As the lid of the trunk banged open I started thrusting the board forward, looked down into the trunk and saw it. It wasn’t moving. It’s scales were actually deep treads made for channeling away water, it’s claws were exposed wires from it’s steel belting. The gator I had risked life and limb to wrestle the night before was actually an 18 wheeler tire left on the side of the road after a blowout. “Shit, I’ve got to stop drinking” I muttered as I closed the trunk.
The table was quiet for a moment when the new acquaintance finally broke the silence “Wow, I guess it is good that you don’t drink anymore”. It’s now been a few decades since I’ve had a drink, and I have no issue being around others who are enjoying a drink, and in fact keep wine, beer and a small selection of other booze at home for cooking or serving to guest when entertaining. Now when someone ask why I don’t drink, I simply tell them “I’m allergic to alcohol, whenever I drink, I break out in handcuffs”.