Now, that’s just the way it’s always been with me and alligators. I don’t never mess up with ’em on purpose. No, no; the one time I fooled with one deliberate don’t count. No use scarcely telling about it. ’Twasn’t nothing in the world but the banana brandy. If ’twasn’t for that, hell nor high water couldn’t of got me to ride no alligator. And even then, now mind you, even then I didn’t, so to speak, figure on doing it. It was old man Crocky aimed to do it. Old man Crocky had done set the Fourth of July to catch the alligator that had been bothering people swimming at Lochloosy Station.

He was a big old ’gator, and by bothering, I mean that when people was swimming he’d come in close enough that they’d come out. Fourth of July used to be a big time at Lochloosy. I’ve seen five hundred niggers come down for the frolicking and fighting. The first train that come in would unload right peaceable. Then, as t’other trains come in, there was fights all ready, waiting for ’em. I was deputy sheriff at Lochloosy, but ’twasn’t no use for one deputy to go in to ’em. It would of takened fifteen or twenty.

This partickler Fourth of July the word had done gone out that old man Crocky was fixing to ride the alligator out of Lake Lochloosy. What with the niggers swarming, and the white folks congregating, there was a crowd on shore like a Baptist baptizing. And you know, old man Crocky never did show up?

Now, I figured, long as there wasn’t nothing one deputy could do to stop a crowd from quarrelling, I had the same right as them to enjoy myself on the Fourth of July. And the way I was enjoying myself was drinking banana brandy. You ain’t never been high on banana brandy? There ain’t nothing more I can say about banana brandy than this: It put me to where I got the idea it was my duty, as deputy sheriff, to take the place of old man Crocky and ride the alligator.

The word went out I was fixing to substitute for old man Crocky. Folks goes to clustering along the shore. I pushes in amongst ’em and I hollers, “Get out of the way! I’m fixing to ride the alligator!”

I remember somebody yelling, “You fixing to ride the alligator or is he fixing to ride you?”

And I can just remember me saying, “You go eat your rations and drink your ’shine, and leave me ’tend to the alligator.”