“Alligators serenely paddling around in his sewers. The beam of his own flashlight had spotlighted alligators whose length, on the average, was about two feet. Some may have been longer. The colony appeared to have settled contentedly under the very streets of the busiest city in the world.” – Robert Daley, “The World Beneath the City”
My grandma grew up in New York City, so I guess it was inevitable that at some point the classic sewer alligator legend would come up in stories of her childhood. However, I wasn’t expecting her alligator story to be quite so… unique. And almost completely unrelated to the New York sewer system.
My grandma’s father (Francis Xavier Reilly, from here on out referred to as FXR Sr.)’s sister Marion, called Mickey, married a man named Eugene Clancy, who owned an alligator refining factory. When I asked what the heck an alligator refining factory did, I was told that it handled the charming procedure of turning an alligator into a handbag. This is important because, being so involved with alligators, Eugene often became frustrated with New Yorkers who bought baby alligators from Florida (in the 30’s, this was a fairly common occurrence). Not only did alligators not make very good pets – particularly when you lived in a cramped NYC apartment – but when the family realized this, they had a tendency to flush the alligators down the toilet (this is according to the old urban legend, but I think it’s more likely that they tossed them down the storm drain… I just can’t imagine that an alligator, baby or not, could fit down a toilet).
As the legend goes, these alligators survived the trip to the sewer, and continued to grow, having adapted to life living off rats and trash. Where does my grandma fit into this, you might ask? Well, to find my grandma’s alligator story, you’d have to leave the big city and travel to my grandma’s family’s summer vacation cabin in Vermont.
One summer, my grandma’s dad, FXR Sr., managed to procure a baby alligator for his two children (my grandma and her brother, FXR Jr.). My grandma doesn’t remember whether he traveled to Florida himself, or if a colleague did and brought the alligator back for him. Anyway, my grandma and her brother named the small reptile “Swishy”, and kept him in a nice box next to the fireplace, where he’d remain warm.
Naturally curious about the alligator, my grandma and FXR Jr. spend a good deal of time inspecting and watching Swishy. Wanting to commemorate the occasion, they decided to take a picture of their new pet. In those days, they were still using the camera where the flash bulb would burst after each picture. So, when they leaned in close to snap a picture of Swishy, the flash was quite startling for the baby reptile. In a panic, he jumped into the air, and landed back in his box, dead. Literally scared to death.
R.I.P. , dear Swishy.
(A note about my grandma’s Uncle Eugene. Apart from being the father of one of my grandma’s favorite cousins, my grandma has many fond memories of Eugene, and therefore decided to honor him with one of her son’s middle names.)
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