Gatorland

A pair of alligators circle around an orange hot dog and chomp at the limp meat. I know they’re not crocodiles because of their wide, U-shaped snouts. The bait sinks to the swamp floor, and the reptiles look up for more, waiting; but that was the last wiener. I wasn’t expecting them to miss. I backtrack to the snack shack. The ribbon of path is raised above the man-made swamp, and the wooden walkway extends across the dark water. The planks creak and the gator pit reeks of decaying moss and Cypress trees. The counter girl has a huge hickey on her neck and a chin full of pimples. When she smiles, I expect one of them to burst. She says, “That’s four dollars,” and hands me a small, waxy dish.

I return to the same spot and now there’s only one alligator. He’s about ten feet long. He floats on the surface, the waterline tickling his nostrils, half-dunked like a submarine. This is Gatorland, a roadside attraction, and I’ve wandered to the tail end of the breeding marsh, past Parrot Playground and the Mold-a-Rama machine. If the raised path were to fall, I’d be swimming with hundreds of alligators. Even though they can go two years without eating, I know I’d be an instant meal. With brains the size of three olives, they wouldn’t stop to think.

Right now, though, it’s just this old bull and me, sweating in the Florida heat.

When staring down a swamp monster, you can’t help but think about its quirks and ancient oddities. Crocodilia are the last survivors of the great age of reptiles. That’s 200 million years ago, starting sometime in the Mesozoic era. Here I am, dangling my arm above an alligator that’s been around longer than any tourist. I can barely reach over the five-foot wall composed of knotty boards and woven steel. It’s the only barrier between the alligator and me. If I scale up the posts, I can reach over and take a closer look. I push against the chicken wire and the metal snaps back and pinches my breast. The pain reminds me of the rumor that an alligator bit off Lorne Greene’s nipple while he hosted his show Last of the Wild.

An alligator will attack if it feels its habitat is being threatened. I’m not worried. These hot dogs are made of chicken and turkey, not pig lips and ass. And I have no interest in destroying its nest. I just want to pet it, even though I know the beast would mangle my arm in an instant, but maybe that’s what’s supposed to be.

Last night I had a dream that I was sitting in a cavern with Junot Díaz. We were in white t-shirts, sitting on boulders around a cavemannish slab. My right sleeve was flat against my side because my arm was missing. Junot slammed his fist down on the crude rock table.

“You gotta look for it,” he said, shaking his head and sipping muddy water from a cobbled cup. “It’s right there,” he said and walked over to a fourteen-foot alligator lying, belly up, on a stone altar. He stood in front of the beast and pointed.

“There, man.”

“What?”

“There it is.”

He picked up a sharp knife and stabbed into the pretty yellow scales. The handle stood straight up like a candle on a cake.

“You gotta do it,” he said and motioned for me to come over. “Cut it.”

I dragged the knife through the pale belly, cutting through thick, slimy hide. Together, we spread open the pulpy flesh. Along with a few tin cans and a plastic bag from a loaf of Wonder Bread, there was my arm. Its fingers moved, squirming out of the sinewy mess, and reached for me.

“It’s your arm,” Junot said. He pushed it into my shoulder, twisting it around like a Barbie doll’s limb. “You just needed to find it.”

I touch my shoulders. I want to make sure that I’m not experiencing a lack of phantom pain and that my arms are still intact, ready to write stories about boys like Butch Davey who lost his dog, Brownie, to a hungry alligator; or worse yet, about men like Harrel Franklin Braddy who dropped a helpless five-year-old girl into the Florida Everglades. I look below and dump all of the hot dogs, rippling the water. Heavy jaws snap down and devour the dainty treats in one hulking swallow.