Excerpt: The Life and Times of Alligator Girl: The True Story and History of a Nearly-Popular Comic Book Hero

Two weeks into college, I attended a meeting for the English Society. We were all carefully pressed and my fellow freshmen were slightly nervous. I’d participated in no extra curricular activities in high school and was only at the English Society because one of the other women on my floor had looked at me with wide green eyes and asked me to attend like we’d be going on a date.

Two weeks into college, and I was getting the feeling that Dad paying my tuition so I would meet a husband was an empty hope. It hadn’t solidified into a full awareness of myself, but Katherine touched my hand to get my attention, and I got the shivers.

“I heard they have some radical people here,” she whispered in my ear. “My mom’s terrified I’m going to end up a beatnik.”

“You’d look good in black,” I whispered back, and we giggled, heads close together.

“Attention, please!” The president of the English Society clapped her hands and straightened her sweater. She wore cat’s eye glasses and a fraternity pin above her left breast. “I have three sophomores here who want to talk to you about a writing opportunity.” She gestured to the side of the room.

“I’m Sammy Larocca,” said a tall blonde. She pointed to the other two women. “This is Billie Fraction and Wendy Ellis.” Billie had strawberry blonde hair and freckles. Wendy had black hair and dark brown eyes. “We’re trying to start a paper. There’s a campus paper, but we want to do something a little different. Something a little more colorful, maybe, you know.”

I squinted at her phrasing. Something about the second half of her sentence tickled at my brain. “Colorful maybe you know,” I muttered to myself. Lauren looked at me. I shook my head at her.

“If anyone’s interested,” Sammy continued, “we’ll leave our contact information with your president.”

I don’t remember the rest of the meeting; I only remember mulling over those four words.

Colorful
Maybe
You
Know

I wrote them in my notebook, traced over them with my pencil while the president of the English Society talked about the quarterly publication and tried to get a tally of poets, short story writers, and essayists.

Colorful
Maybe
You
Know

Very late that night, half-asleep while my roommate snored lightly, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

C
M
Y
K

I couldn’t breathe for a moment. I sat up straight in bed, felt my heart hammering in my throat, and I blinked hard, waiting for the room to melt away, waiting to wake up from the dream.

It was them. It was the underground. They were here.

I’d heard about them. Everyone had. Even Hugoton, the quintessential smallish farm town, had heard about the comic underground. The stories had started saturating the news during my senior year of high school. Mom spent her nights in front of our 12-inch television watching Edward R. Murrow report in an even, confident tone.

“I do not believe,” he would say, cigarette smoke trailing around his head, “that it is nearly as bad as Senator McCarthy makes it out to be.”

McCarthy was convinced underground comic books were an attempt to overthrow the government, that the people involved would dismantle America one panel at a time. Dad had called Murrow a sympathizer and refused to watch. Mom had kept watching without him, so trusting of Edward R. Murrow that even though she disagreed with him, she believed the information he read about raids and arrests.

“To think you read those awful things,” she said, clutching my hand as the Murrow bid us goodnight and good luck. “I’m so glad you got rid of them.”

I said nothing, just squeezed her hand and kissed her goodnight. I detoured into my father’s study before going to bed and took the newspaper from his desk. Under the covers, flashlight in one hand, I read the cover story on the underground. They had a code, it said. They used the letters C, M, Y, and K to pass along their message, weaving it into every day conversation. Anyone could be a commie. Anyone at all.

On my twin bed, heart pounding, sweat dampening the thin skin between my fingers, I decided to be one, too. “Colorful maybe you know,” I said out loud. My roommate shifted, rolled onto her back, and settled again. I stepped out of bed slowly, trying to keep the springs from squeaking, and I lifted the window curtain next to my desk so I could shuffle through the papers stacked on my blotter. Syllabus. Syllabus. Assignment sheet for an English paper. English Society contact information, and attached to it, the contact information for Sammy Larocca, Billie Fraction, and Wendy Ellis. I’d see them tomorrow, I decided. I checked the room addresses; Billie Fraction lived in Francis Hall; Sammy in Britton, Wendy in Taylor. I lived in Christopher; Billie was closest. I’d see her first.

“Jules?” my roommate answered.

“Julie,” I corrected quietly. “Thought I forgot an assignment,” I explained as I crawled back into bed.

“I had that nightmare last night.” She yawned, adjusted her pillow, and fell asleep again.

I didn’t think I would sleep. What to say to Billie, I wondered. I needed to use the code. The CMYK. But it needed to sound natural, like Sammy’s version had. What could I use?

Could my yodel kill?
Can Mallory yell kindly?
Cats might yowl kinda.

I fell asleep trying to decide. When I woke up, my roommate was gone, and the clock told me I was going to be late for my first class. I dressed as fast as I could, brushed my teeth, pinned my hair, and had to stop myself from running across campus. English, then History, then Philosophy. I got back to my room at one-thirty and changed into a fresh sweater and nicer shoes. I wanted to make a good impression, let Billie see that I was serious.

“Back later!” I called to my roommate.

Billie lived on the sixth floor of Francis Hall. 624. I repeated the number in my head and tried to come up with a code phrase. The elevator opened on her floor, and I stepped into the common area. There was an abandoned crossword on the coffee table, and suddenly, I knew what to do. I picked it up, dug in my purse for a pencil, and knocked on Billie Fraction’s door.

She opened it, the afternoon sun lighting up her hair from behind, and making her skin glow. “Can I help you?” she asked politely. If she recognized me from the English Society meeting, she didn’t give it away.

“I’m Julie Schwartz,” I said. “You were at the English Society meeting last night.”

Billie smiled. “I was.” She said nothing else, but she leaned against the frame of the door and looked me over. I wondered what she saw, if she was measuring me for a position. “What can I do for you, Julie?”

“I wanted to say hi, and I was wondering if you could help me with something.” I held up the half-finished crossword. “I’ve been working on this all day, and I can not figure out a seven-letter word for red.”

Billie stepped away from the door and gestured me in. “Crimson,” she said, the smile on her face widening. “Scarlet.” The door clicked shut behind her. “Magenta.”

“Magenta,” I said, and tossed the crossword in her waste bin. “That sounds about right.”

“Billie Fraction,” she held out her hand. “What can I do for you?”

“Julie Schwartz,” I replied, gripping her hand, “and it’s what I can do for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Write and look innocent.”

She held onto my hand a few seconds longer than necessary. “We’ll certainly find out about the first. I believe you on the second.”