When gators, and Mommas, attack

Is it a fish story? A sordid tale of adultery? Or a bloody, violent crime? You decide.

What, you ain’t never picked up a wild woman in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot? I bet you’ve never fallen in love with a Waffle House waitress coming off the night shift, either, have you? Look here, Mister Holy Britches, don’t judge us, we are just a different kind of fisherman down here in the South.

Excuse me, gents. Jimmy Shakes here, nice to meet ya. I couldn’t help but overhear your debate about the most dangerous sharks. Yeah, I know, its Shark Week, blah, blah, blah. But if you ask me, pound for pound, the little old bluegill bream is the most lethal fish in the water. If it wasn’t for the bluegill, my baby brother Corky would still be alive today.

What’s so funny? You don’t believe me? Buy me a beer and I’ll tell you all about it. Aw, thanks, man that’s good and cold! You’re alright in my book.

Anyhow, it wasn’t really just one bream. It was more like a whole mess of ‘em. And they had a little help from Momma. And that gator. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Do you know Momma? Oh, sure you do. Or at least you know a Momma like her. Hardworking. Tough. Wears an apron everywhere, garden or grocery store. Can hug you to death or spank you half to death, depending on what would do you the most good. Momma don’t tolerate no foolishness, like laziness, drunkenness and adulterizing… You know, running around on your wife and all that.

And if the Good Lord made a better Southern cook He kept her upstairs for Himself. She will cook anything you can catch and or shoot. Cooked an armadillo one time. I ate the whole thing and drank the gravy out the shell, I ain’t gon’ lie!

Only mistake Momma ever made was having kids. Sure, I turned out alright. I ain’t in the Fortune 400, but I get by. The baby brother, Corky? Well, even Momma says he come up from the bottom of the gene pool and she should have flushed him back down. And he came floating up cigar and beer first. Corky ain’t but about five-foot nothing in his cowboy boots, lost all his teeth, somehow married to a real sweet woman. But Corky ain’t done right by her since day one, if you know what I mean.

About the only thing Corky and I have in common is fishing. We can’t get enough. And it was bluegill fishing that got Corky kilt. See, we were fishing at Uncle Earl’s Pond and me, Corky and two of our cousins were all fishing and having a grand time. Man, the bream were on fire, and the ice cold beers were going down smooth.

You ever just lay back on a dock, pants rolled up, feet in the water, cold one in hand and just let the sun warm your skin and the fish take the bait? That’s the greatest feeling in the world, ain’t it? Mr. Hemingway should have written about that instead of chasing after them swordfish!

Then all of a sudden we ran out of smokes. That’s when the trouble started.

Sure, I’ll take another cold beer. You’re a good man. Anyway, I tried to talk them out of it.

“Boys, you have been drinking,” I said. “You ain’t got no business in town!” But they wouldn’t listen. Corky decided that since his license was already suspended he had the least to lose, and he was going to the truck-stop Piggly Wiggly in Swampton. You know, the only one in town that sells fish bait, fried chicken and diesel fuel. So I figured the safest thing to do was ride with him, try to keep him out of trouble. We took up a collection – ten bucks was all the cousins and I had on us – and me and Corky took off.

We almost made it back without trouble, too. Got some cigars, both nightcrawlers and crickets, and two more cases of Buds. Forgot the cooler, so I asked the gal in the meat market for an empty chicken box and some ice, and we dumped them in there. Grabbed some Slim Jims and Lotto scratch-offs at the checkout, and was loading up in the truck when here they came. The Lot Lizards.

What, you don’t know about lizards? Momma calls them “trollops” and “floozies,” among other things. Here they came, wearing sundresses and too much makeup to be walking around with no shoes. I try not to judge people, though, and there is something to be said about a lady in a sundress and dirty feet, but I digress.

“Hey, where y’all going with all that beer?” they hollered at us from a Ford pickup. A whole truck full of them. No license plate on the truck and not a bra’s first cousin inside the truck. I smelled trouble.

“Don’t answer that, Corky!” I warned. I knew what my wife, Momma Shakes, would do if she caught me talking to some Lot Lizards.

“Oh, we going fishing!” Corky said cheerfully, with his toothless grin that certain women somehow found cute and charming.

“We love to fish! Can we come?”

“Why, heck, yeah!”

What, you ain’t never picked up a wild woman in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot? I bet you’ve never fallen in love with a Waffle House waitress coming off the night shift, either, have you? Look here, Mister Holy Britches, don’t judge us, we are just a different kind of fisherman down here in the South, but you ain’t no better than us!

Okay, apology accepted. Yeah, another beer would smooth things over. Anyway, Corky was about to get us in trouble.

“Corky, I got a bad feeling,” I told him. “Maybe you better send those ladies on somewhere else. Our wives are going to kill us!”

“Nah, it’ll be fine,” Corky grinned. “What are you, chicken?”

Well that did it. Ain’t nobody gonna accuse me of fowl play. Get it? Whatever, I thought it was funny.

So there we were, cruising down the dirt road back toward Uncle Earl’s pond. I’ve got a bad feeling, Corky’s got a cold Bud between his knees, a cigar in his mouth, scratching off a Lotto ticket as he’s driving and there’s a truckload of women trailing behind us and kicking up dust, a country caravan of trouble.

“It’s gonna be my lucky day!” he hooped at me. Corky, it turned out, was no prophet.

We rounded the corner at the fish pond there, saw the cousins steady catching all the fish, and then we saw something else, something that almost made my heart slam to a stop and made my blood run cold as those Buds in that chicken box!