The Gator
The Gator Welcome to the first installment of Popping Collars and Busting Soles: My Life in Pieces. Full disclosure, the memory is not always a reliable witness, but sometymes that is all we have. So please keep that in mind as I am not trying to deceive you in any way; I am just trying to gift you my life as I know it.
This past weekend completed a bookend visit from our dear friends/family from Utah. Poet, author, and my Combat Brother Mudcat started and finished a Florida trip with us in Metairie with his darling wife Tonia and two awesome kids Chase and Zoe. During a round of golf where Chase had an encounter with an alligator, I was reminded of several incidents I myself have had with those majestic reptiles. Chase’s story is impressive in his own right, but it is not mine to tell. Besides, this is MY story; start your own website, Sunshine!
Enjoy.
In ’48, just a few years after what we called the Big War, I spent a fair amount of tyme in Florida, mainly in the Everglades. I would fish and trap by day and meditate and write by way of moonlight at night. I had walked into the swamp with a knife and a soul as tattered and beaten as the war-beguiled body that housed it. After a few short weeks, I rediscovered my true self.
I had planned on staying a couple more days before meeting up with a couple writer friends of mine in Key West and Cuba, but we all know that is the one thing that can make God chuckle. Plans and earned peace of mind were about to be tossed on their heads, quite literally I might add.
There was a clearing close to my camp where I enjoyed sunbathing in the early afternoons, as was my routine. I would lay naked on my makeshift raft and let Nature take me where she believed was best for me. If that faithful day is any indication of the true constitution of Nature, then I must conclude that Nature is a bitch.
I was in that wonderful place where neither consciousness nor sleep dominated when I met Cipactli’s distant cousin Chaigron. I was jarred into alertness when my raft came to an abrupt halt. I was encapsulated by darkness, and I am ashamed to say, dread as well. I stood on my raft and stared deep into what I determined to be two very large caves. The caves produced a powerful and offensive breeze. Unlyke most caves, which will mainly create a cool breeze, these side-by-side caves exuded a warm almost hot, and humid flurry of air.
It wasn’t until I looked around the caves, I became aware of my situation.
About a football field away from the "cave" entrance were boulder-sized eyes of an ancient green color. The mouth opened and my trepidation transmingled into a strange and frightening excitement. As the mouth opened water rushed inside as if it were the rapids of the Rogue River in Oregon.
I was able to thwart off being swallowed whole lyke Geppetto or Jonah by bracing myself to a very large and very stained tooth. As were most teeth in Chaigron’s mouth, this tooth was roughly twenty feet tall and ten wide. Just as my muscles began to twitch, the great gator closed his mouth and hissed. The hiss alone could have deafened a hundred men and drove another two hundred insane and yet I still stood there defiantly.
He then raised his head from the water and spoke.
“Who are you trespass on my swamp?” the ancient beast bellowed.
“I am Ray R..”
“I know who you are Ray Ray,” He interrupted with disdain, "What gives you the right to molest my slumber?”
“Apologies ancient Chaigron.” I spoke calmly and with at least a moniker of respect. He was after all one of the last remaining descendants of Cipactli. I started to explain that I meant no disrespect and blah blah blah. I even did so in the Aztek tongue, but he was having none of it.
“SILENCE” Then another ear-splitting hiss, “All who enters dies. No exception. Not even for the great Ray Ray” The last sentence came out a little condescending, and I have to admit that I took a little offense to it.
Before I had a chance to sound my displeasure he attacked. The attack was quick and almost decisive. Almost.
In a blur, his teeth-filled mouth destroyed my raft and came frighteningly close to my manhood as well. I was blown a hundred feet through the air to the other side of the clearing.
I stood up bloodied and muddy and filled with excitement. I was alive damnit. I stood there in complete defiance. Chaigron took notice of my resolve and his green-slitted eyes widened ever so slightly. Then as if to mock me, he too stood tall on his hind legs. He stood tall enough to smell the moon if it had been out that afternoon.
Without any pomp or ceremony, we fought. And boy did we fight. For three days we fought. Tossing and gauging. Punching and choking. Even as I lost most of my blood, the blood that remained pumped lyke a piston on a steam locomotive. I was not alone in aliments either. Four of his teeth were embedded in the swamp and two more ended up in the Gulf of Mexico. Yet he would not give up.
In the first and only pause in the action, I offered him a truce.
“Hey big gator” I yelled to him, “We have fought well. There will be songs and poems written about this battle. There is no need for one of us to die. Let us go our separate ways and find some whiskey to warm our souls and a woman to warm our beds.”
His hiss was weak, and voice was shallow, “no Ray Ray” there was no disrespect in his tone this tyme, “only one shall live past this day.”
With a deep sigh, I steeled my nerves and finally accepted the fact that I was going to have to kill that fricken gator.
Chaigron who had been curled up on the opposite bank, slowly and with great labor slithered into the bayou. I too slowly descended into the warm swamp, and it felt good on my bloodied and bruised naked body. There was a sting as the water caressed a small nick and the gator almost took off my head. That nick would later get infected and cause a whole new adventure, but that story is for another day.
We swam at each other at great speed. Considering I am the one telling the story, there would be no point in trying to create any unneeded suspense. Just as Tezcatlipoca did all those years ago in killing Cipactli I too killed a great beast. But thankfully it did not cost me a foot as it did Tezcatlipoca. I landed one carefully place left cross between Chaigron’s nostrils and moments later he was belly up.
After a four-day sleep, I walked to Miami, naked. I was not prepared for what I found. Mass destruction everywhere. Houses and buildings were reduced to rubble. Streets and bridges were washed away. Eighty percent of the families were displaced. But the one thing that hit me hardest was watching all those people walking around in a daze shoeless. And by all accounts, it was all my fault.
Apparently, the three-day Melee in the Everglades, as our fight would become known, created a severe weather event that could rival a Category 5 hurricane. I had two choices; a) I could cry over the milk I had spilled (which as it turned out was literal since a dairy farm was washed away) or b) take responsibility. So naturally, I spent the rest of that day and most of the next pondering my decision in the only standing bar in Miami guzzling down daiquiris.
Steadfast in my decision, I returned to the clearing in the swamp and looked over the remains of my defeated foe. Using one of Chaigron’s knocked-out teeth I skinned that sucker. We used the bones to rebuild the bridges and roads and I sold gator tail meat at just a shade below market price (turning a decent Lil profit I might add. A shame it was all lost just a few years, and again that is a story for another day). Finally, I made shoes for all the people of Miami and left with my head high and my heart full.