Wiggins Pass Gator

“Get ready,” said Ronnie, as he ran around maniacally, rigging something that he had seemingly given a lot of thought to. Inside the house, the garage, to the dock, and back – a couple of times while I stood in the dark catching hard head catfish. Why was I catching hardhead catfish, a creature I have professed to abhor? I had just arrived from Louisiana and wanted to feel something pulling on the end of my line. Why else? Which is the same thought Ronnie had, only different. This was no catfish he was targeting.

“We’re bout to have a rodeo,” he said, twirling a length of one-hundred-pound leader that had a number seven marlin hook tied to it, threaded with a whole chicken. On the other end of the leader was twenty feet of thick chain attached to a dock cleat. He made a couple of looping rounds and released the apparatus into the night. Keep in mind, this whole time I’m in the dark as to his plans.

I was seventeen years old and in Naples for “punishment.” Instructions from Daph to Ronnie were, “He wants to drink and party… Let him. Get him so hungover and sick that he won’t even think about driving his CRX into Norm Clausen’s parked Cutlass and pretending he didn’t.” Which is what I did to earn my trip to Naples, not to Fort Walton Beach with everyone else.

It wasn’t my fault that the city of Monroe put that big curve in Deborah Drive at Hog Bayou by Ned’s house. How was I supposed to know it didn’t keep going straight when I reached in the back of my red Honda CRX to get another Schaefer Light? After the collision, my accomplice, Kevin Adams (RIP), suggested, while rubbing his neck, “Back dis sumgun up, Babe…,” which seemed smart to me.

The next thing I know, I’m in my stepdad’s car, shards of glass pumping through my head, the windows are up, the car is off, I’m sweating profusely, and totally confused. Bob, my stepdad, opens the car door, releasing a foul stench. “Jesus, why didn’t you get out?” He asked, done with his court appearance in Columbia.

“What the heck?” I tried to say, but it felt like I had a sock wadded up in my mouth.

“Shut up,” Bob said. “You might be sober enough now.”

“Sober enough now for what?”

“To turn yourself in, dumbass,” he said, started the Mercedes S-500, and drove to the Monroe Police Department, where none other than Norm Clausen was at the counter filing a hit-and-run complaint.

That earned me some community service, Bob’s efforts kept me from getting a DWI, and my punishment was a week in Naples, where Ronnie, my dad, had recently relocated and was renting a small house on a canal on Wiggins Pass Road. The year was 1990.

Dad had an 18-foot Gator Bass Boat, ran from the front with a stick like an airboat, and a Jeep CJ-5 Golden Eagle. There was a boat ramp next to the house, and every morning after dad went to work, I’d run to the store and buy a 12-pack of Coors High Life with my fake ID (Paul Andrew’s), drop the boat in, and spend the day fishing or beaching or whatever. At the end of the day, Dad would come home to find a trash can full of dead soldiers, and we would commence activities: fishing and drinking.

At the end of the week, when Daph asked for a report on how the “experiment” went, Ronnie told her, “I don’t know what to tell you; he buys his own beer and drinks a damn twelve-pack before I get home and then keeps going.” That was a long time ago. Thinking about it gives me a headache.

Back on the dock… The night was still; you could hear a pin drop, and when the chicken hit water, the splash was so loud it startled me. What happened next was so surreal that I don’t know if I trust my memory of it. A very large alligator surfaced, took the chicken in its jaws, tossed it in the air as if to get a better angle, and commenced to chomping bones, Crunch Crunch Crunch. Ronnie, standing on the dock, chain in hand, ever alert, let the beast chomp. “Oh man,” he said, “That’s not the one I’ve been seeing. That’s a monster.” Apparently, Ronnie had been eyeing a smaller gator that had been hanging around and had devised a plan to “harvest” the creature – highly illegal.

I saw the look in Ronnie’s eyes and knew he was going to do it. Don’t do it… Don’t do it… I pleaded in my mind. He took the length of chain in his hands and reached out so that it was taught and yanked it as hard as he could. The chain snapped to and pinged off the cleat – slinging Ronnie back on the dock, as the reptile surged on the other end.

The battle ensued, and Ronnie and I took turns fighting the gator, pulling him in little by little. I assumed he had a plan on what to do with it when or if the battle was “won.” He didn’t. We got the beast to the dock, but then what? In the middle of town? Only a pair of rednecks from North Louisiana could be in this position.

That would be a Saltwater Cowboy Origin Story – as events such as these shaped and molded me into what I am. Thanks, Ronnie, for providing many of these settings and opportunities that paved the way for my journeys.

Jon Edward Edwards is a local author and avid sportsman.