Came Just This Close

There was the time my sister, Liz, and her best friend, Chris visited me while I was working with the Lake City Reporter in Florida.

Chris wanted to see alligators.

Now, as a University of Florida Gator, (class of 1977) I’d seen plenty of them. I’d spent most of my three years at the college living at Hume Hall, which was at the far edge of the campus. It also had a nice swath of grassyness between it and a pond, which was more like a lake, but not big enough. It was a pondish lake.

And it was fed by a spillway from Lake Alice, an alligator preserve. So alligators would spill over as well into the pondish lake.

Now, those of us in Hume Hall knew not to swim in the pondish lake. We’d lie in the sun or play flag football on the grassy area between.

But then there were those two instances. A man had brought his mid-sized dog to use the grassy area and play Frizbee. It was a warm day, even for Florida. So the man apparently decided to cool off his dog by having him fetch the Frisbee from the pondish lake.

Games stopped. Those of us sunning stood and watched as there was a thrashing and churning in the water of the pondish lake. Thankfully, whatever happened happened under water. But neither the dog nor the Frisbee returned.

Not more than a few weeks later, another man, with a Labrador, was showing how his dog could catch a Frisbee. And then he turned to throw the disc into the pondish lake. Games stopped. Those of us sunning stood and we all screamed a universal “NO.”

It was too late.

So when Chris said she wanted to see alligators, I dismissed those sad alligator farms. She wants to see alligators? Dog eating alligators in the wild?

We went to Lake Alice.

Now, having seen what alligators can do, I stayed back by the car. Liz and Chris joined a couple with their young son on the tip of a spit of land that stuck out into Lake Alice. The little boy was armed with marshmallows and, tossing them in the water, was attracting quite a few gators.

I was tempted to tell them that these were not pigeons in the park, but dog eating carnivores.

And then this bull alligator slopped out of the lake. With the head the size of a Buick, he was crawling up behind them, blocking my sister’s and the others way back to safety.

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I discovered myself on the hood of the car, pounding on it, waving madly and shouting … instructions.

Chris turned and waved back.

It’s strange the stuff that goes through your mind at a time like this. I’m on the hood of a car. It’s not mine. “Holy crap! They’ve got the keys, and I’m not going after them.”

You see, alligators can run 30 miles an hour in spurts. He didn’t need to run, spurt or otherwise. He just needed to turn his head.

Which led to the next thought: “What am I going to tell Mom?”

Ring: “Mom? Yeah, Liz was eaten by a gator. No, a real alligator. Do you have Chris' mom's, uh, Unice’s phone number?”

Thankfully, marshmallow boy seemed to pick up on my signals and grabbed a handful of his marshmallows and tossed them into the water behind the living Buick, who slowly turned and slopped back in the water to get the floating treats.

The adults caught a clue, since by now I was on the hood of the car and making dents. And I never had to call Unice.