Alligator Park (12 page)

“Welcome
to Florida”

I just have to stop and get a
picture to record my first trip to the sunshine state so I ask Will to pull
into the parking lot. Will accommodates me, and then, I hand him my camera. I
run over and pose next to the sign. He takes a couple of shots from different angles,
“in case one doesn’t come out,” he says. Will hands me back the camera which I
place into the Cruiser.

“I’d suggest using the rest
room,” he says. “Once we get into Jacksonville, there won’t be anywhere to
stop, unless we leave the interstate. And that would be a real hassle.”

I do what he says and Will
does the same. We get back into the Cruiser and Will eases into traffic.

The next four and a half
hours are uneventful except for the palm trees along the side of the road and
the necessity of auto air conditioning, both of which remind me we are now in a
tropical climate. The excitement builds as we approach our turnoff. I think
back over our two-day ordeal and how Will’s travel experience has kept us out
of trouble. He’s been a great companion and I’m so glad he agreed to come. The
PT Cruiser has performed flawlessly and that has been a real blessing. In just
over an hour we will be at our destination and both of us will be embarking on
the adventure of a lifetime. We’ve successfully come this far. Nothing can stop
us now.

Will pulls off the interstate and onto a
local four-lane highway lined with gas stations and restaurants. As we get
further from the interstate, we enter cattle country with grazing land on both
sides, as far as the eye can see. The area reminds me of Texas, or at least
what I imagined Texas would look like. The road turns into a two lane highway
with no sign of human activity anywhere, just miles and miles of open land with
an occasional tree to break up the monotony. Will speeds up to seventy. The sun
has now become a huge yellow ball on the horizon, but still not quite ready to
set yet.

“Where is your brother’s
place?” I ask.

“It’s on the St. John’s
River, near Lake George.”

“Do you know how to get
there?”

“Sure, we just follow this
road for about an hour.”

“Will he be expecting us?”

“Mmm,” he says. “I guess I
should have told him which day we would be arriving.”

“What if he’s not home?”

“That could be a problem. We’ll
just play it by ear when we arrive.”

Suddenly I’m anxious again. It’s
Monday night and I have the most important meeting of my life with Dr. Jessica
Parker on Wednesday. I desperately need this job so I have access to the lab. If
I blow this, my chances of getting another shot at a PhD go instantly to zero.

I try to relax; I still have
Tuesday to prepare. I gaze out the window to a world I have never seen before.
The grazing land is now broken up with small lakes and canals. There are pools
of water along both sides of the road. I scan for alligators, but either
they’re not around or doing a good job of hiding. But I do see a lot of birds.
This must be feeding time because they’re everywhere. I check out a small nature
book I brought with me, “Guide to Florida Birds”. I see Herons, Egrets, Ospreys,
Hawks, Sandhill Cranes, and a few more I am not able to identify.

Will slows the car to about
fifty.

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“We should be coming up to
the turnoff soon,” he says.

Straight ahead, we come upon
a billboard that looks like it hasn’t been painted in a decade. On it are faded
pictures of alligators and the words, “Alligator Park” in red letters. Right
below it says, “Nature Tours” and under that, “Fun for All Ages”.

“That’s my brother’s place,”
he says.

Will eases the PT Cruiser
onto a small road on the right about a quarter mile after the sign. The road is
poorly kept with potholes and gravel in places and only wide enough for one car.
And there’s not a sole around.

“Sure this is the right road?”
I ask.

“Oh yes. I remember it well.”

“Shouldn’t there be cars
leaving about now?”

“I think he’s closed Monday. That’s
why there’s no one around.”

Will’s gotten us this far so
I have no reason to doubt his skills now. I watch the sun’s fiery ball drop to
the horizon as Will drives deeper into the swampland. I roll down the window
and can hear the chatter of a thousand birds roosting for the night. It will be
dark soon, and I’m getting a little worried. What if this isn’t the right road
and we break down or run out of gas. The gas gauge is getting low and for all I
know the nearest gas station could be sixty miles from here. I check my
cellphone in case we need to call for help and realize there’s no service. It’s
too far to the nearest cell tower. If we got stranded out here what would we
do? No one would even know we were here.

I catch glimpses of the swamp
as Will drives by groups of Palm trees and Cypress on the side of the road. My
imagination wanders recklessly. I start to imagine hundreds of alligators
waiting patiently just below the waterline, waiting for us to break down and
become their prey. In the darkness they would stalk us, setting us up for the
kill. There’s no way I could sleep out here all night, even in the car. There are
spiders and snakes and who knows what else in the swamp and it wouldn’t take
much for them to crawl through the smallest openings in the car body.

“This road appears to be
going nowhere,” I say. “Maybe we should turn around.”

“It’s okay. Just a little further.”

Will continues to push deeper
into the swamp. It’s dark now and all I can see is the road in front
illuminated by the headlights.

We pass a sign: “Entering
Seminole Reservation”.

“This is Indian land?” I ask.

“Yep,” he says.

“Is it safe?”

“Safe from what?”.

“I mean, are we allowed to be
here?”

“Not really.”

“What about tourists?”

“They have to leave before
dark. Tribal rules. Only Indians on the rez after sundown.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I
ask.

“Don’t you remember? I told
you we needed to be on the road by eight.”

“You didn’t say it was
because of this.”

“It was already too late. And
I didn’t want to worry you.”

“So what happens if they see
us?”

“You mean the Indians?”

“Yes.”

“They’ll probably put up a
barricade. Then they’ll take us to the tribal elders and decide whether to fine
us or put us in jail,” he says. “They have their own laws.”

I suddenly panic.

“Maybe we should come back
during the day,” I say, trying to hide my anxiety.

“It’s too late,” he says, with
a somber look on his face. “I saw a lookout back there with a police radio.”

“I didn’t see anything.”

“You’ve got to know where to
look.”

 Will backs off the
accelerator allowing the car to slow down. My heart starts pounding.

“When they pull us over, let
me do all the talking. I might be able to talk our way out of it.”

“You think so?” I say.

“Sure. The worst that would
happen is you’d have to spend a night in jail. I’ll get you out somehow,” he
says. “How much you got?”

“A couple of thousand.”

“Yeah, that should do it.”

“What about you?”

“I’m Indian, remember?” he
says, and then looks at me with this really serious look on his face.

Then he bursts out laughing.

“You jerk,” I say, realizing
it was all an act. Will looks at me and is laughing so hard he has tears in his
eyes. I notice the car veering off the road and towards the swamp.

“Watch out,” I
say, as the vehicle bounces over potholes in the sandy shoulder. Will snaps his
attention to the emerging danger then wrestles the car back onto the road.

“You almost got
us killed.”

“It was nothing. I
had it under control the whole time.”

I maintain the
“mad” look on my face just to make a point, but secretly I’m glad to see Will
happy. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen him laugh and he appears to be
excited to see his brother. He’s suffered too long; he deserves better. Will
continues the pace for another twenty
minutes, getting us deeper and deeper into the swamp.

Then a light in the distance.
I can’t quite make it out, but as we get closer I can see it’s another sign for
Alligator Park, faded and barely readable. Will pulls into a parking area and then
stops the Cruiser next to a building. From what I can see, it’s entirely of wood
planks, unpainted and in poor repair. The light on the porch gives a small
amount of illumination, but the surrounding forest is dark. Will shuts off the
engine.

“Is he home?” I ask.

“Don’t know. Let’s take a
look.”

Will and I climb up some
stairs leading to the porch.

“Thump-thump-thump,” I hear,
as Will pounds on the front door. I peek in the window, but everything is dark
inside.

“Thump-thump-thump,” I hear
again.

Will puts his ear to the door
and listens carefully, but there is no sound from anywhere inside the house.

“I guess we missed him,” he
says.

“Do you know where he hangs
out?” I ask.

“That’s hard to say. He could
be in a number of places. I think we should just wait here.”

I’m not crazy about the idea
because we don’t know if he even stays here at night. I’m about to raise my
objections when Will settles into one of two white wooden Cape Cod style
recliners arranged on the porch to take full advantage of the  spectacular
view. There’s not much I can do at this point so I plop into the chair next to
him.

The porch overlooks a vast
expanse of water, so large the far side is not visible. The sun is now well
below the horizon, but the afterglow provides enough light to make out the silhouettes
of some islands in the distance. The sounds of frogs, crickets, birds, and some
sounds I’ve never heard before penetrate the night air, but noticeably absent
are the sounds of cars or trucks or anything that would remotely remind you of
civilization. Occasionally we see the red and green flashing lights of an
airliner at very high altitude, heading south, probably on its way to Miami,
but still no sound.

“How long do you want to
wait?” I ask.

“A bit,” he says.

I’m not sure how long “a bit”
is, but it’s probably longer than fifteen minutes. I get up and walk past Will.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“To the car, to get some
snacks.”

“Bring me something.”

I guess that’s Will’s way of
letting me know we’re not going out to dinner tonight. Back at the car I
discover our inventory of snacks is getting low, but I manage to find some
yogurt cups and breakfast bars. I grab a couple of sodas to round out the meal and
bring it all back to the porch. I share what I have with Will then settle back in
the chair scanning the sky for meteors.

“Interesting how there’s no
mosquitoes tonight,” I say.

“The insects down here aren’t
used to this weather,” he says.

“It’s not cold.”

“Not to us. But whenever the
temperature drops below the mid-sixties, the bugs go dormant. It stays like
this until June.”

I’m fine with that. I was
thinking I’d have to fight off those Gallinippers, mega-sized mosquitoes that
sting like a wasp. Now I don’t have to worry about it until June.

I hear what sounds like a
motorcycle way off in the distance. As the sound gets louder it begins to sound
more like an airplane flying low. Occasionally the motor would sputter,
hesitate, then come back to life, as if it was having engine trouble. As it
gets louder I realize it isn’t coming from the sky, it’s coming from the lake. Out
of the blackness I see headlights coming right for us. The engine is sputtering
frequently now, threatening to stop at any moment.

“That’s him now,” Will says.

“Who?”

“My brother.”

“Does he have a seaplane?” I ask.

“That’s not a seaplane. That’s
a... well you’ll find out.”

The light from the porch
reflects off the shiny metallic hull of what appears to be a flat-bottomed
boat. It approaches the dock, and the engine drops to an idle, imitating the
low-pitched rumble of a custom street rod. As the boat contacts the pier, I can
see it’s an airboat. I’ve seen airboats on TV and in the movies, but never up
close, and I’ve always wanted to ride in one.

A man jumps onto the pier and
ties up the boat, leaving the engine running. He reaches into a box on the dock,
takes out some tools, and then hops back onto the airboat, unaware we are
watching him from the porch. I see him making adjustments to the engine. It speeds
up, slows down, then stops abruptly.

“Damn it,” he shouts out.

He reaches over to the dock,
stretching to retrieve a tool, but it slips out of his hand and drops into the
water.

“Son of a bitch,” he says,
and jumps into the waist-deep water. He removes his shirt and feels around the
bottom until he locates the missing tool. He climbs back into the airboat and
resumes his work. I get up to go down to the dock, but Will grabs my arm.

“Stay here until I talk to him.”

“He knows we’re coming,
doesn’t he?” I ask.

“He knows ‘I’m’ coming,
didn’t tell him about you.”

“Is that a problem?”

Will hesitates, stares out at
the lake for a moment, then turns to face me.

“No, of course not. Just let
me break it to him slow, that’s all.”

I stand there wounded, like a
dog left at a kennel while the owner goes on vacation.

“Oh what the heck, come on,”
he says.

We descend the stairs and
then stroll down a path to the dock. Will’s brother spots us, puts down the
tool, wipes the grease off his hands, and then stares as we approach him. He’s
exactly as Will described him; about six-three, well built, with long shiny black
hair to the middle of his back. He’s got that squared-off jaw, protruding ever
so slightly, and those glistening white teeth, that air of masculinity which induces
women to impropriety. Wrapped around his forehead, like a sweatband, is a
rolled up scarf, decorated with Native American designs. He hops out of the
airboat and onto the dock. His khakis are dripping wet held up by a snake-skin
belt and his deeply tanned chest is magnificent in its well-defined proportions.