The Tank

by Rick Chesler

  Kane recapped the story yet again. Beers were cracked open, and the four of them moved to a set of rusty patio furniture where they took seats and got to drinking beers. Talked turned to the usual—highlights of work, what was happening this weekend, women, upcoming fishing trips. After a while, Matt’s phone beeped with an incoming text and he glanced at it.

  “Shit, got to go.” He stood from the table and scooped up his keys. “Told this guy at work I’d loan him one of my tools so he could do this side job. He’s gonna give me twenty bucks.”

  “Screw that,” Cody said. “Twenty bucks,” he sneered as he guzzled the last of his beer and set the empty on the table. “I’ll give you twenty bucks if you stay in that pool for five minutes.” He cocked his head toward the temporary alligator enclosure.

  Matt eyeballed his text messages for a spell and then said, “Three minutes and you got a deal.”

  Cody looked at Kane, who said, “Just make sure the gator doesn’t get hurt.”

  Matt agreed. “I’m not gonna wrestle it, I’m just gonna stay in there with it, right? Three minutes and I win.”

  “That’s all you have to do,” Cody confirmed.

  Kane nodded his approval. “Okay. Be careful. If you’re not a trained professional like me…”

  They laughed while Matt got up and walked over to the pool, looking in on the alligator. “Get the stopwatch app on your phone ready. I’m going in.”

  THREE

  Matt’s feet landed in the pool’s foot of water with a splash.

  “Time starts now!” Cody held up a smartphone with a stopwatch app counting down from three minutes.

  In the pool, Matt stood stock still, arms out a little from his sides, tense. He stared at the beefy reptile, which remained unmoving.

  Matt stayed motionless also. “Hey, uh, if I need to get out of here in a hurry, help me out, will ya? We need a ladder in here or something.”

  Kane moved to the edge of the pool. “Not feeling so confident all of a sudden?”

  “I’ll be fine. Just pull me out if I jump for the side, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “No problem.” Kane stared in at the alligator, which so far seemed to ignore the human in its pool.

  The seconds ticked by in tense silence, until Cody broke it when he said, “One minute down, two to go.”

  In the pool, Matt took a deep breath without taking his eyes off the alligator. “Keep your voice down. Trying to spook it?”

  Kane shook his head. “He’s not yelling right at it. Shouldn’t matter. You said you’d stay in there, and that was under normal yard conditions. These are normal conditions so far.”

  “The ref has spoken,” Cody said from behind his smartphone, from which he began taking video. “I’m taking a little clip in case this thing bites your head off, Matt.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Cody shrugged. “Might as well go viral if you’re gonna die, am I right?”

  “Maybe you should go next, Cody?” Felix said from his position sitting atop the table, where he could see easily into the pool.

  Saved by the bell, Cody stared at the smartphone for a few seconds with a finger held in the air until he said. “One minute left.”

  “Maybe we should toss that old chicken that’s been in the fridge for a month in there.” Felix grinned.

  Kane turned around to look at him. “You go three minutes in here after we feed some chicken, I’ll give you fifty bucks.”

  “Ooooh!” Cody exclaimed from behind the phone.

  “It moved!” Matt called from the pool. Indeed, the gator had extended its right front leg forward. But that appeared to be the extent of its motion, for it lay there as before.

  Still, Matt was taking no chances. He didn’t move, but pulled a folding multi-tool from his pocket and extended the knife blade.

  “No weapons!” Kane called.

  Matt looked over and glared at him. “Says who?”

  “It’s my ‘gator. I told you, I have to turn it over to the Wildlife Relocation Center tomorrow—it can’t be cut up.”

  “What are you going to do with that little toothpick, anyhow?” Felix wanted to know.

  Reluctantly, Matt folded the knife away and put it back in his pocket.

  “Thirty seconds!” Cody intoned.

  The gator took another half-step, this time moving its other front leg forward, but not actually transporting its body forward.

  Matt backed up a step toward the edge of the pool, ready to spring out should the gator lunge.

  “Ten seconds…”

  The reptile remained still.

  “Five…four…three…”

  Matt now had a hand on the edge of the pool but also remained still.

  “Time!” They heard the chirping of the phone as it signaled the end of its countdown.

  Matt jumped from his standing position over the edge of the pool, landing on a heap in the grass. He sprung quickly to his feet, smiling ear to ear while looking in on the alligator, which still wasn’t moving.

  “Pay up!”

  Cody swapped a twenty-dollar bill into Cody’s hand. “You earned it.”

  Then he looked around. “Who’s up next? Fifty bucks for ten minutes. Or fifty for three minutes after we toss some chicken in there.”

  Kane held up a hand. “I’ll go ten for fifty.”

  His roommates looked at one another. “Not really fair,” Cody said. “Professional advantage.”

  Matt looked back at the gator and shrugged. “An alligator is an alligator, man. If the rules are the same for everybody…”

  “No way, it wouldn’t be fair. He knows how to train them,” Cody insisted.

  Kane laughed. “Look, you can’t train alligators, okay? Their brain is like a little bundle of nerves, they only act on instinct. You train yourself to interact with them—they do what they do and you do what you do so that you don’t get hurt.”

  But part of what Matt said stuck with him. If the rules are the same for everybody…What was he getting himself into? But it was an easy fifty bucks, so he climbed into the pool while Cody started the timer. He waited to see if Cody would strenuously object based on his experience, but he said nothing further, content to watch him in the pool with the reptile.

  This time, however, the gator didn’t sit still like it had for Matt. It started to move as soon as Kane’s feet hit the bottom of the pool. Circled toward Kane, but he easily sidestepped it and the animal continued circling the tank, starting a whirlpool current in the direction it moved.

  “Damn, alligator pro right there!” Cody commentated.

  “Don’t try this at home, kids.” Matt was on his cellphone, calling a friend. “You got to check this out, Come out to my place right now. Just do it.”

  Similar calls were made by Matt and Cody, and by the time Kane emerged from the pool ten minutes later, another vehicle was pulling into the driveway.

  Kane jumped out of the pool with the gator nipping at his heels, but as exciting as the end of the “match” was, he had had an easy time of it.

  “That was way easier than catching the thing in the first place,” he quipped as Cody handed him his fifty.

  “Fresh blood here,” Cody said, eyeing the newcomers. Three young men emerged from the car and walked toward them by the pool.

  “You guys bringing more people?” Kane asked, concerned about overtaxing the animal in his charge.

  “They just want to check it out. I know Bobby will get a kick out of this.”

  “Let’s not have anybody else in there with it, okay?”

  Cody’s expression looked as though he’d been personally insulted. “Why not?”

  “I told you, I’m responsible for that thing, I need to take it tomorrow—”

  “You set the rules, then, so that it can’t get hurt. What do you want the rules to be?”

  Kane thought about it for a second while he registered the fact that the three guys from the car had walked up and were listening to him while eyeing the
pool.

  “Like I said before, no weapons. It’s man versus beast, pure and simple.”

  Somebody said, “I like it,” and Kane continued.

  “If you want out, just say ‘Get me out!’ Or, if you can’t talk, you can tap out on the sides or bottom of the pool. We’ll get you out. But there’s no changing your mind. Once you signal out, you’re out.”

  FOUR

  The alligator swam laps in the in-ground swimming pool as though it had every right to be there. And in a way, it did, Kane reflected. Before this neighborhood was carved out of the wetlands it used to be, it was the habitat of this particular reptile’s ancestors. Or, given its large size, possibly even this very alligator, Kane thought. It was a good eight feet long, indicating an age of at least ten years. To the gator, this pool was just another freshwater pond, one that happened to have a concrete bottom that must seem oddly smooth for such a hard surface.

  Kane looked around the yard, taking in the environment. Known as a “Florida room,” the entire outdoor area including the pool was screened in, walls and ceiling. Potted trees lined much of the sides with a screen door permitting entrance on the side facing the house. In this case, Kane had received a call from the owner this morning, right after he’d dropped the gator from the previous day’s festivities off at the wildlife center. Typical call, alligator in my pool, can you get it out today while I’m at work and take it far enough away that it won’t come back.

  Not a problem, and so here Kane was, wishing the guy was a better estimator of length. ‘Looks like about five feet,” he’d said. But now, looking at this behemoth doing laps in the swimming pool, Kane had no doubt it was eight feet, easy. Glancing around the space, it was easy to see how it had gained entry, too. A huge rip in one of the lower screen panels betrayed the alligator’s access point.

  If he had known it was an eight-footer, though, he’d have called in some help. His budding business didn’t yet put him in a position to hire anyone full-time, but he could have asked one of his roommates to help him wrangle had he known. It was an active sucker, too, Kane thought, watching the beast ply the waters of the pool.

  Still, Kane had some tricks up his sleeve. He went to his truck and removed from it a snare pole, a cooler full of rotting meat, plus his trusty duct tape and bag. He hoped he wouldn’t need the bait because it riled the animals up every time, but if the gator refused to come his way, he would have to.

  He took it all onto the pool deck and watched the creature swim back and forth. He dropped his supplies at the base of the diving board on the deep end of the pool and walked out to the end of it with his snare pole in hand.

  The big gator reached the shallow end of the pool and, as it had been doing, turned in an arc and swam back the other way toward the deep end. Kane readied himself with the pole, positioning it so that the end with the loop of wire was poised a foot over the water. He kept the muscles in his leading leg tensed, ready to push back if the gator lunged up out of the water at him. As it neared the board, the animal arced into a turn. When its head faced away from Kane, he angled the pole until he could drop the noose around the gator’s snout.

  He pulled back on the pole, working the loop further back on his quarry’s head. Then he pulled the wire tight, ensnaring the beast. It dove upon feeling the contact of the wire, nearly yanking Kane off the board. But he backed up enough to plant his back foot on the pool deck and then dug in. He got his tape ready and finagled the gator to the side of the pool, leading it by its snared head. He had to try several times, with the gator attempting to shove its head deeper underwater each time until Kane pulled it up with the snare pole. But eventually, he got the tape around its jaws. Once this happened, it was easier to lead it to the shallow end of the pool and the steps.

  Kane shook his head as he walked in up to his knees. He knew it was foolish to handle such a large animal by himself, and made a mental note to enlist help the next time he encountered a gator of this size or larger. Fortunately for him, the tape held and he was able to get the bag around it. But even immobilized, the gator was too heavy for him to drag by himself. He needed to get it across the pool deck and into his truck. He ran to his truck and repositioned it so that was just outside the gate. Then from the truck he pulled a flat dolly, nothing more than a square board with four caster wheels.

  He was able to drag the bulk of the animal up onto it, and then push it by its back to the truck. Even with the tailgate already down, he was beginning to wonder how he was going to lift it the couple of remaining feet into the truck bed, when a vehicle came up the drive. Not the homeowner, but some sort of work van. When it got closer, Kane could see two guys inside and the logo for a window screen company emblazoned on the side.

  Kane looked up at the men, about his age, as they paused at the pool deck gate to watch what Kane was doing. The alligator thrashed a little in its black bag on the truck bed.

  “That’s not Mr. Thompkins, is it?” one of them, the shorter of the two who’d been at the wheel, said with a laugh.

  Kane pointed into the pool area. “Nope, it’s your culprit who busted the screen, big-ass alligator.”

  The other man nodded. “Guess we should thank him for getting us the work, then. Say, you look familiar…”

  “Yeah, you live over with Matt and Felix, right?” the other guy said.

  Kane nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Hey I heard you guys had a gator over there last night, and Matt won some money by staying in a pool with it for a few minutes?”

  Kane hesitated. He wasn’t sure if this was the kind of thing he wanted getting around town. But there it was. Before he could say anything, the other guy said, “That was sick! But imagine facing off against this thing!” He pointed at the trussed-up gator in the back of Kane’s truck.

  Kane started to laugh, but it caught in his throat. “You’d hang out in our little pool with this eight-footer for five minutes?” He made eye contact with both of them.

  The short one looked at the writhing and hissing black bag and shrugged. The other guy said, “For enough cash.”

  “How much?” Kane pushed the gator farther up into the truck bed so that its tail end wasn’t sticking out and then shut the tailgate.

  The tall guy said, “I’d go five minutes with it for a hundred bucks. But I don’t have to do anything to it, right, just survive?”

  Kane nodded. “It’s not a fight against the animal—I have to turn them over to the wildlife center, they can’t get hurt—you just have to stay in with it for the required time. With no weapons or anything. If you get scared, you get out.”

  Both young men facing Kane digested this for a moment, saying nothing for a beat while they listened to the rasp of the alligator’s bag sliding across Kane’s metal truck bed.

  “I’ll call Matt to see when the next match is—hopefully tonight! I’ll give it a go. C’mon, Johnny, we gotta get this screen up.”

  Kane nodded. “Later.” As he got into his truck, he thought about it. Unless there was money in it for him, there was no reason to keep doing this. But if he could somehow monetize the activity… He certainly wasn’t going to pay anyone money to stay in the pool, but apparently others would, especially if a bunch of them pooled their money together. Kane got into his truck and put it into gear along with his thought process. As he neared the Wildlife Relocation Center, he eyed the alligator in the back of his truck.

  “You don’t mind hanging out at my place tonight, do you, buddy?”

  #

  Kane was relieved to see that Matt was already home when he pulled into the driveway. He was going to need help getting this alligator into the pool. He needed to set a few things straight, too, as far as guidelines. He found Matt doing maintenance on a chainsaw in the garage.

  “Hey, Matt, what’s up?”

  He didn’t look up from his work. “Just seeing if I can get this thing going. How’s the gator wrangling?”

  “Got one here in the truck.”

  Matt
stopped what he was doing and looked up, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “Let me check it out!”

  Kane undid his tailgate and Matt let out a low whistle. “Damn, this one’s way bigger than the one last night! What are you doing with it—bringing to the center?”

  Kane nodded. “Well yeah, but I thought maybe we could keep it here tonight if we want to, uh…”

  “Have another match?”

  There it was again, that term. Match. What was he getting into? Kane watched Matt subtly nodding his head while raising his eyebrows. He wanted this to happen, that’s for sure.

  “Thinking about it, but there needs to be something in it for me.”

  “I get it, like a percentage of the take, right? Of all the bets?”

  Kane nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  Matt appeared to think about this while eyeing the gator. “Fair enough, you’re the one wrangling these things over here.” He laughed while Kane jumped into his truck.

  “Help me get him into the pool; he’s too heavy for one person.”

  When the truck was positioned next to the pool, Kane unzipped the bag and carefully cut away the gator’s mouth tape. Then the two of them pushed the large lizard into the pool until it slid into the foot-deep water. Kane turned to look at Matt when they were done.

  “I saw your buddies from the screen place today—Johnny and what’s his friend’s name?”

  “Boyd.”

  “Yeah. They say they want in on this action.” He nodded to the gator.

  Matt nodded. “I’ll give them a call.” He pulled out his smartphone and dialed while Kane watched the gator in the pool. Like the first one, it also remained still, eyes unblinking as it took in its new surroundings.

  “There’s one more thing,” Kane said as he eyed Matt unwaveringly. “We need to start charging anybody who comes into the yard during a match. Have a gate guy, everything. And the house take at the gate—I get fifty percent—for myself—the other fifty is for you three to split.”