The Alligator That Wouldn’t Fight

I’ve wrestled alligators for twenty-three years. Been bitten twice, dragged into the water once, and had one particularly unpleasant fellow take a chunk out of my favorite boots. But in all those years, I’d never seen an alligator refuse to fight. Until that Saturday afternoon.

We had forty people gathered around the old demonstration pond, most of them tourists who’d come to the Everglades expecting mosquitoes, sunshine, and a good story to take home. I figured I could give them at least two out of three. The mosquitoes were free.

The place itself wasn’t much to look at: a weathered wooden grandstand, a few faded signs, and a pond the color of strong coffee. But folks came from everywhere to watch a man get close enough to an alligator to question his own good sense. I’d learned to talk while I worked. Keep the crowd laughing, keep an eye on the animal, and never mistake a quiet gator for a friendly one.

That last rule had kept me in one piece more times than I could count. My assistant, Tommy, was leaning against the fence, grinning like he already knew I was about to embarrass myself. I had a nine-foot alligator named Buck in the shallow end, and Buck was acting like he’d rather be anywhere else on earth.

Every time I moved, he turned his head toward the deeper water. I made a joke about him having a bad attitude. The crowd laughed. Buck didn’t. He just kept staring past me. I shifted to the left. His eyes followed something behind my shoulder. I shifted right. Same thing. A little girl in the front row pointed toward the pond and asked her daddy why Buck looked scared.

I almost laughed. Then I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him behave this way. Now, alligators aren’t exactly famous for cooperation, but this was different. The water behind him had gone strangely quiet. No birds fussing along the bank. No little ripples from the fish. Just a patch of dark water beside the old wooden barrier, smooth as a sheet of glass.

I noticed it, then made the mistake of looking away. There was a soft bump against the barrier. Barely a sound. I figured a branch had drifted into the boards. The afternoon sun was beating down, sweat was running into my eyes, and forty people were waiting for the show to continue. I wiped my face with my sleeve and turned back toward Buck. Tommy hollered my name.

Not the usual teasing kind of holler, either. The kind that makes your stomach drop before your brain catches up. I turned and saw a ridge of black scales sliding through the water. At first I thought it was a floating log. Then the log blinked. Lord have mercy. That wasn’t a log. It was an alligator, and a big one. That alligator had to be fourteen feet long, with a head like the front end of a truck and enough scars on its back to tell me it hadn’t spent its life minding its manners.

Somehow it had come through a damaged section of the old barrier from the adjoining lagoon. I didn’t have time to wonder how. The giant came out of the water like somebody had fired it from a cannon. One second I was standing in knee-deep mud. The next I was airborne, landing flat on my back with the wind knocked clean out of me.

A woman screamed. I heard the sharp crack of a wooden post and saw muddy water leap over the edge of the pond. For half a heartbeat I couldn’t make sense of what had happened. Then I saw the giant’s tail sweep through the shallows, knocking over a bucket I’d left by the bank. The crowd stopped laughing. Tommy started yelling for everybody to get behind the fence.

I scrambled for the bank, boots slipping in the muck, but the big gator surged again. I felt a tremendous hit against my leg, then the world turned brown. Water filled my ears. Mud filled my mouth. For one horrible second I couldn’t tell which way was up. I had spent twenty-three years telling people never to underestimate an alligator. Turns out I should’ve listened to myself.

The animal had caught the loose fabric of my pant leg and was pulling me toward deeper water. I grabbed a submerged root, felt it tear loose, and went sliding another foot. My chest was burning. My mind was racing. There wasn’t a clever trick in the world that was going to make fourteen feet of angry alligator disappear.

I heard Tommy shouting, but his voice sounded a hundred yards away. The big gator pulled again, and my fingers clawed at the muddy bottom. My other boot struck something solid. A root, maybe, or a buried board. I pushed against it and managed to get my face above the surface long enough for one desperate breath. The water smelled of wet leaves and old mud. Then I was pulled sideways, and that breath was gone. Then something slammed into the water beside us.

Buck. The nine-footer had bolted from the shallows, and the two animals collided in a thrashing mess of tails, teeth, and muddy spray. I don’t pretend Buck was trying to rescue me. He was probably just as furious about the intruder as I was terrified of it. But that sudden commotion was enough.

The grip on my pant leg gave way. I kicked free, found the bank with my hands, and crawled like a man who’d just remembered he had somewhere very important to be. Tommy caught the back of my shirt and hauled me over the edge. We rolled into the grass together, both gasping, while the water behind us boiled and slapped against the wooden posts. Somebody was crying. Somebody else was praying. Tommy was still gripping my shirt so tightly I thought he might tear that off, too.

He kept asking whether I could stand, but I was too busy counting my fingers and toes to answer. A little boy near the fence announced, with remarkable calm, that this was the best show he’d ever seen. I lay there staring at the sky, wondering whether I still had two legs. I did. One boot was missing, my pants were shredded, and I had bruises that were going to turn every color God ever invented, but I was alive.

Tommy crouched beside me. “You alright?” I sat up, coughed out a mouthful of swamp water, and looked toward the pond. Buck had retreated to the shallows. The giant floated near the far bank, only its eyes and the rough crown of its head showing above the surface. It looked entirely too pleased with itself.

“Well,” I said, “I reckon we’re gonna need a bigger wrestling ring.” Tommy laughed once, mostly from relief, then got serious. We cleared the area, shut down the attraction, and called the wildlife officers. Nobody was going back into that pond. Not me, not Tommy, and certainly not some poor fellow with a camera who wanted a closer look.

It took a while for my hands to stop shaking. I sat on the back steps with a towel over my shoulders while Tommy told the same story to three different people, each time using his arms to show just how enormous that gator had been. His arms got farther apart every time. I didn’t correct him.

By evening the damaged barrier had been secured and the professionals were making plans to handle our unexpected visitor. I went home with one boot, a sore back, and a story that was already getting bigger every time somebody told it. On Monday, Tommy asked whether I was ready to get back to work. I told him sure. I hadn’t spent twenty-three years in the Everglades just to let one bad afternoon chase me off. Then he asked if I wanted to wrestle Buck again.

I thought about the dark water, the giant head, and that moment when the whole world disappeared beneath me. “Tell you what,” I said. “Let’s start with the ticket booth.” I’ve always said there’s no shame in respecting an alligator. After that Saturday, I had a little more respect than I knew what to do with. And somewhere out in the Glades, I imagine there’s a fourteen-foot monster telling his own version of the story. Only difference is, he probably says he won. Come to think of it, he did.