Don’t Mess Wit’ Melvin No Mo’!

Dad’s Mississippi Delta farm was so remote that walking in any direction brought one closer to civilization. Large drainage canals crisscrossed the area, providing ideal habitat for creatures that would have been at home in the Jurassic Era: bullfrogs, catfish, moccasins, beavers, loggerhead turtles, fish eels, and alligators.

My boyhood best friend and mentor, Jaybird, told terrifying tales about the canals, hoping to keep us away from them. He knew that if we got in trouble, we’d be too far out in the boondocks to get help in time. His stories about the canals’ alligators were the most frightening of all, especially the one about Melvin. Jaybird and Melvin were fishing in a canal’s sharp turn known as “No-Bottom Bend.” Melvin’s line got hung, and he waded out to untangle it. Suddenly the surface erupted, and ridged, spiked lines following a giant, gaping, tooth-filled jaw, torpedoed toward him. In a heartbeat he disappeared. “You reckon that gator is still alive?” I asked. The old black man assured me the monster male, whom he named Melvin in memory of his friend, was not only alive, but also bigger and meaner than ever. My pals and I set out to capture Melvin. According to Jaybird, No-Bottom Bend got its name because the canal’s sharp curve created a constant swirl of vortices that bored deep into the earth, making an ideal home for Melvin.

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We shade tree engineers came up with an idea. We’d steal a can of carbide from Dad’s shop and make a bomb. (Back then, calcium carbide, which reacts instantly with water and gives off a highly inflammable gas, was used in acetylene cutting torches.) We’d pour it into a glass jug, seal its neck with a cork, weight it with bricks, and lower it to the bottom with a strong cord. Then, we’d run the cord through a piece of iron with a hole drilled in it, let it zip down the cord and burst the glass, which would cause an instant explosion. Eagerly, we fabricated the bomb, fantasizing about dragging the blood brute of the deep to Jaybird’s doorstep. We set up operations on a large culvert that poked out over No-bottom Bend, lowered the jug into the water, ran the cord through the hole in the iron, and dropped it. Instantly, following an earth-shaking seismic doomsday rumble, a geyser the size of Old Faithful erupted skyward, throwing fish, snakes, turtles, and mud in every direction. Terrified, we fled for our lives. In his office at the farm headquarters a mile away, Dad heard the noise and came out to investigate. Unable to find its source, he assumed it was a sonic boom, and forgot about it. Later that day, we went back to the bend, but found no trace of Melvin. When we told Jaybird what we’d done, he said, “All y’all did wuz make dat ole man-killuh pow’ful mad. He’ll be layin’ fuh y’all fum now on. Heed dis warnin’: Don’t mess wit’ Melvin no mo’!”