Suzy, Sissie and the “Country Alligator”
By: Anne Gaillard
Bubba came into the back porch, slamming the screen door behind him. He had something grasped in his left hand. Suzy came out of the kitchen to see who had entered. She took one look at the wiggling creature in his hand and said: “Mr. Ford, that gator don’t belong anywhere but the country. This here’s a Beach House!”
“Naw, Suzy, he’ll be OK. I just need a shoebox to put him in.
Can you find me one?”
“You find yo’ own shoebox! That thing ain’t comin’ near my kitchen, no siree.”
“Suzy, he’ll be OK.”
“So you jest said.”
Bubba left the back porch to search for the box he needed. He placed the gator on the bed in each bedroom as he looked in a closet. No
shoebox. He went under the house and found a box in the shower dressing room. He then went back upstairs to the back porch. The doors to the kitchen were both shut tight with dish-towels in the cracks under the doors and by the door-handles. Bubba couldn’t resist teasing Suzy. He said: “Suzy, what should I name the gator?” He was greeted with silence. “Suzy.” Nothing----
“Where’d ya find a box?
“In your bedroom. I put him on the bed while I looked for one.”
“You lie.”
“No, when you go to bed tonight you might find him waiting, he liked your room.”
“You lie again.”
Bubba was laughing to himself when Sissie, his grandmother, came to see what was going on. By then Bubba had put the gator in the shoebox and was putting on the lid.
Sissie said: “What’s that?”
“Oh, just a country alligator.”
“A WHAT?”
“A country alligator.”
“Not in my house you don’t.”
“He’ll be OK.”
“If so, why don’t you sleep out here on the porch with him. You can hold on to his tail; so he won’t get away.”
“Now Sissie, he is not going to escape.”
“How much will you bet that he finds his way into your bedroom?”
“I’ll bet five dollars.”
“Better get the money ready.”
And so the banter went until bedtime.
***
At midnight, Sissie got up to check on everyone. She put her foot into her slipper and was greeted with a hissssssssss. That foot never made it into the slipper. She pulled the light cord, the light came on and Sissie got down on her knees to look for the escaped gator. She was not afraid of the reptile, she had always been around country creatures. She found him in her bathroom under the tub that had its own feet. She gently picked him up and went running into Bubba’s bedroom. She shouted: “Get up, get up, you owe me five dollars, NOW.”
Bubba was in a daze. She put the gator under his covers and said: “Search for the country alligator, it’s a new game.”
By then the whole house was awake. Suzy even came up from her bedroom. Everyone was in Bubba’s room, but where was the gator? The bed was pulled apart and it was found inside the pillowcase.
“Where’s my five dollars?”
Suzy could be heard saying: “Told you it should of stayed in the country!”
***
The next morning there was a car that just happened to be going to the “country.” Bubba was a passenger. The gator was a passenger.
Suzy went to the kitchen and took the dish-towels out of the cracks. She smiled all day long (which was the only time I ever saw her smile) and Sissie was five dollars richer.
Sissie had made her point. The shoebox was put in the trash.
