The Tank

by Rick Chesler

  For some reason, they both looked to Kane, who shrugged. “The little ones can hurt you bad, too, and they can be faster. Basically, you should be careful around any gator. Don’t let your guard down.”

  Matt eyed the reptile with what looked like trepidation. “Like if it just mauled me, dragged me down…” He turned to make eye contact with Kane. “You really think you could get me out of there in time?”

  Kane shrugged and held his hands up. “I’ll try. And I’d say probably, especially if I keep the wrangling gear on hand, which I will.” He nodded to the snare pole, which leaned against the outside of the pool nearby. “But look—I don’t want you to misunderstand.” A couple of more people drifted over to them, and Kane went on, raising his voice a little to make sure they heard. “It’s not like you couldn’t get seriously hurt.”

  “What are you, trying to talk him out of it?” Felix asked, having just walked up with a young woman.

  “Don’t come crying to me that I brought a dangerous animal over here if you get hurt. That’s all I’m saying. You guys live in Florida, but maybe you’re so used to them being around that you’ve forgotten how dangerous they are.” He nodded to the beast in the pool. “This thing could kill somebody. Easily. All it would take is one slip at the wrong time.” He paused for effect while making eye contact with his audience.

  “But that’s what makes the match worth doing, right? If there was no risk, it would be pointless. So let’s get started.”

  No one said anything, only looked in at the alligator.

  “I’ll go five minutes with it for fifty bucks. Anybody going to pony up?” Felix took off his T-shirt and handed it to his female friend, who gave him a wide smile.

  “Felix!” Matt cheered, attracting the rest of the people in the yard to the pool.

  Dollar bills were produced as a Miami Dolphins ball cap was passed around to collect the purse. Within a couple of minutes, the fifty dollars was in the hat, and Kane held it up for all to see. “Fifty bucks. You still up for it, Felix?”

  Kane’s roommate looked into the pool, where the alligator had stopped pacing. The water rippled over its back, unable to cover the animal completely. Then Felix looked over to Kane and nodded. “I’m in.”

  This time, Kane used his cellphone to run a countdown for match time. “Five minutes is set…ready…” He watched as Felix climbed the stepladder that was set up next to the pool. When he reached the top, he turned and said, “Maybe there should be a ladder inside the pool, too. In case I have to bail out…”

  Kane looked around at everyone while he answered. “I vote for nothing in the pool except man and beast. You want out, say or signal so and we’ll pull you out. What do you guys think?”

  No one seemed to feel strongly about it one way or the other, so the ruling stood. A single stepladder would remain just outside the pool, and that was it.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Kane prompted. He stood next to the pool with his finger poised over the stopwatch app button that would start the countdown.

  “You got this Felix,” somebody called out, and Felix dropped into the pool.

  SEVEN

  “Five minutes, you got this!” Matt called out to Felix as he braced himself on landing in the water. The big alligator remained motionless, head facing toward the pool’s new arrival. After a few seconds, Felix slowly backed away from the animal, careful not to splash the water. He got as far away from the mouth as he could, then stood again in place.

  Then the alligator started to walk. Slowly, at first, in a clockwise circle around the pool like it had been doing. When it reached Felix, who pressed his body flat against the side of the pool, it moved past him as though it had not seen him. Then it started to move faster on its laps around the pool. With not enough water to fully swim, it walked and half-swam in circles, ignoring Felix again on its second pass around.

  “Four minutes,” Kane intoned.

  The water in the pool began to circulate with the gator’s motion, like a whirlpool. The level rose up to Felix’s chest as the gator passed them fell to his ankles when it reached the opposite side of the pool. When the water rose again, like a wave, it knocked Felix slightly off balance, causing him to stumble. He recovered before actually falling down, but the sudden movement attracted the gator’s attention as it swam past.

  It turned this time instead of continuing past, and the small crowd watching collectively gasped.

  “Out! I want out!” Felix banged on the side of the pool as if that would accent his request, but all it did was annoy the gator, which produced a loud hissing sound.

  Kane dropped his phone and grabbed the stepladder. He carried it to where Felix was in the pool and climbed on top of it. Matt followed close behind. Kane reached over and grabbed Felix’s outstretched arm, noting the wide eyes, the look of true terror on his face. He pulled him, hard, with Matt joining in as soon as his body fell over the edge of the pool.

  And then Felix yelled out in pain. At first, Kane thought it was from being yanked by him and Matt; maybe a shoulder got dislocated.

  “Ow, stop, it’s got me!” But when Felix said those words, Kane knew that they had a serious situation on their hands.

  He shouted to Matt as he jumped into the pool. “Keep hold of him, but don’t pull until I say!”

  “Got it.”

  Kane eyed the gator as he dropped into the pool. It did not have Felix by the leg, as he had feared, but it was clear that it had, at least for a little bit, and then let go. Blood poured from the man’s calf, coloring the pool water red. Kane splashed loudly in the opposite direction from the gator.

  “Over here! Here, gator!” When he rounded the pool and was in front of it, the animal made a move for him. But Kane was expecting it and easily avoided contact, jumping out of the pool.

  Meanwhile, Matt pulled Felix up and over from the stepladder, and he landed with him on the grass, where they were immediately surrounded by everyone watching. Felix’s leg was almost solid red from below the knee down, and his right hand was blood soaked merely from coming into contact with it.

  “How is it, is it bad? My leg!” Felix lay on his back, being told to lie still. Kane arrived with the hose and ran water over the wounded leg while Matt went for a first aid kit.

  “Not that bad, Matty, just chill while we clean it up. Somebody get him a shot of whiskey.”

  Kane tried not to display a reaction to viewing the wound, knowing Felix was looking at him, but he couldn’t help but wince on seeing the rinsed wound for the first time. One deep gash ran for about three inches on the calf. Surrounding that were multiple superficial scratches which added to the bloody appearance but which Kane knew were the least of Matt’s problems.

  Phrases like “needs stitches,” and “keep it from getting infected” were bandied about.

  “Hurts like a mother,” Felix said between gritted teeth. Someone brought him a flask of alcohol and he took a deep swig. “I guess that’s Alligator: 1, Felix: 0.”

  Matt arrived with the first aid kit, and a young woman who said she was a nurse’s assistant at the local hospital took over his care, donning a pair of latex gloves and then sterilizing the wound with rubbing alcohol. Felix tried not to yell, thrashing his head side to side as the alcohol was poured into the leg gash.

  “The pain’s worth it, buddy,” Kane said. “An alligator’s mouth is just about the dirtiest thing there is, no joke.”

  “Except for Felix’s maybe,” somebody said, and a round of laughs perked up the general mood.

  “All done,” the young woman declared, stripping off her gloves and tossing them aside. “He needs to go to the ER for stitches, though.”

  A different girl volunteered to drive him, and when the two of them had left, Kane peered into the pool again. The water was colored a faint pink which the alligator waded through, circling.

  A guy walked up to the pool and Kane saw it was the taller one who had fixed the screen earlier that day, Johnny. He took a look inside the p
ool and then said, “If we can drain the pool and refill it again, I’ll go next.”

  Kane didn’t immediately respond, just raised an eyebrow, but a couple of other guys who had overheard called out, “Yeah!”

  Kane shook his head and turned around so more people could hear him. “We just had an injury, maybe we should call it a night.”

  “We’ll double the pot,” Johnny said. “We can do that, right, people? This gator’s a wild one. Sent Felix to the emergency room. Double the pot?”

  The football cap went around again and again was filled shortly with bills. Cody pulled the plug that would drain the pool, and people watched as the alligator froze while its pink water sluiced past it on its way out of the pool. Then the hose was placed in the pool and it was filled anew.

  “What do you say we give it just a little more water this time,” Cody proposed. “So it can really swim.”

  Kane looked on at the proceedings with concern. “That’ll make it hard for the person to get around in there—they’ll have to wade.”

  “Yeah, wasn’t it hard enough last time?” somebody said.

  Cody looked to Johnny. “It’s your match.”

  The new contestant nodded to the hat full of cash. “Pass it around a little more, let’s see what people want.”

  A young woman spoke up. “Oh, come on! This is sick. What, you guys want someone to get killed?”

  Those gathered got a little quieter. Kane responded. “This alligator is only here for tonight. Tomorrow, I’m taking it to the wildlife center where it will be relocated back to the ‘glades. So, as long as the animal doesn’t get hurt—that’s the main thing for me. If you guys want to have a little fun with it while it’s here, as long as it doesn’t get hurt, then it’s at your own risk. Get in there with it, or don’t. Your call. But know this: that thing can kill you. So don’t mess around if you’re not committed.”

  Most eyes went to Johnny, who nodded firmly, eyes hardened into a gaze of steely resolve. “Hey look, Felix’s a great guy, but he zigged when he should have zagged, know what I’m saying? I’m still in for that pot.” He nodded to the hat, looked in at the alligator, now paddling around in its deeper water, and then clarified. “Five minutes.”

  The other guy from that day’s screen installation, Boyd, came up to Kane. “Hey, that was awesome, man. Really cool. But check this out: instead of this flimsy pool, it would be better to have something with harder sides, with a fixed ladder inside to be able to get out.”

  Kane looked at him while the new contestant stripped off his shoes and shirt. “Hard sides?”

  “Yeah, something more durable, you know. Like a tank.”

  “A tank…” Kane nodded slowly as he said it. “Could make it bigger, too.”

  The guy nodded. “Yeah, and with like an entrance platform up top, with a ladder leading up from the outside, too. And it would be cool if it was hexagon-shaped, sort of like an Ultimate Fighting ring.” He ended his suggestion with a laugh, but Kane was lost in thought.

  “I could help you build it,” the guy added when it seemed Kane had nothing further to add. “This buddy of mine’s a metal fabricator, and…”

  “Ready when you guys are,” the new player called out from the side of the pool. Kane broke off from Boyd, nodding at him to confirm that he was interested in his tank idea. Then he held up his cellphone.

  “Five minutes…set….time starts when both feet hit the bottom of the pool, hands off the sides.”

  A couple of more vehicles had arrived during the interim of the two matches, and now a decent crowd of nearly thirty people lined the periphery of the above-ground pool. The alligator was back to resting mode, its long tail laying on the bottom of the pool while its head floated on the surface, the eyes half above and half below the surface.

  The screen guy slipped into the pool with hardly a splash.

  “Five minutes—go!” Kane called out, and those in the yard cheered. The noise caused the alligator to move, something Kane, nor presumably the contestant, hadn’t counted on. The screen guy backpedaled toward the side of the pool, where the stepladder waited on the other side.

  “You got this, man, it’s chilling, it’s chilling!” someone called out.

  Indeed, after submerging briefly and moving a few feet away, the alligator resumed its former resting posture. Johnny stood there, water up to mid-thighs, swaying gently with his palms face down on the water as if feeling its flow.

  “Four minutes,” Kane called.

  “Check it out! This guy’s crazy!” one of the newly arrived said.

  “Nah, he’s got this,” someone else said. “They’re both just chilling in there, him and the alligator.”

  “Just taking a bath!”

  In the pool, the screen guy continued his relaxed stance, facing the alligator. For its part, the big lizard also maintained a lackadaisical posture, seeming not to care that it shared the pool with a human.

  Cody sidled up to Kane. “You think because it just attacked Matt, that it’s more docile now? Like it ate a little scrap off of Matt and so now it’s not so hungry?”

  Kane shook his head. “It didn’t get any real food from Matt. A little blood, maybe, but that usually excites them.” He shrugged before continuing. “Maybe draining the pool of the blood water and filling it back again, higher, is what did it. And I say ‘did it,’ but there’s still…” He eyed his countdown app before announcing, “Three minutes!” and then going on.

  “Alligators are very unpredictable. It could sit there like that until time’s up and then pounce when he turns to get out of the pool.”

  Cody raised his eyebrows. “We’ll see.” He sauntered over to the side of the pool where he saw an opening between the spectators.

  In the pool, the screen installer had relaxed even more to where he knelt on the bottom with only his head and shoulders above water.

  “That’s not the position to be in if you need to move fast,” Felix commented.

  The human in the pool answered. “Yeah, but it makes me super low profile. Like I’m just another animal in the watering hole. I really don’t think he cares I’m in here.”

  “Two minutes,” Kane said.

  “You guys are just regular bath buddies,” a girl said, eliciting laughter.

  “Maybe he can give you some grooming tips,” another added.

  Kane smiled, his gaze alternating between the gator and the contestant. He had to give the guy credit. For all his laid-back demeanor, he never took his eyes off of the beast, and, he had to admit, he was very still in the pool, posing no threat whatsoever to the animal. Maybe it was a good strategy after all. He looked down at his timer.

  “One minute remaining!”

  Everyone in attendance lined up at the pool, watching to see if the gator would make a move. It was tense, but ultimately anticlimactic, as Kane signaled the time expired without the alligator having moved.

  “Winner!” Kane said, jogging over to the stepladder. “Come one out when you’re ready.”

  Johnny rose slowly to a standing position. He took a last look at the lizard, then turned and took the three steps to the edge where Kane already had an arm over to give him a lift. The winner jumped up and over the edge, looking back at the gator as he did so, but it never made a move.

  Cody walked up to Johnny with the hat and handed it to him. “Congrats!”

  The screen guy smiled and grabbed the cash. “Good times! Who’s next?”

  Another young man had just raised his fist into the air when they heard the blip-blip of a police siren not in full-alarm mode. The red and blue flashers were on though, and Kane looked over in time to see a local police car pull into the yard. The car’s lights stayed on while two officers exited the vehicle.

  Kane’s blood froze as he watched the cops roll in. Had the long arm of the law finally caught up to him? Should he start to run? He actually eyed the irrigation ditch, the old airboat, imagining himself coasting over the sawgrass knowing the cops wouldn’t be
able to follow from here but would radio their marine units…

  “Noise complaint,” Matt said. “It’s old man Gomez again, no doubt. I’ll talk to the cops. Everybody clear away from the pool. It’s just a regular party, okay?”

  The two cops walked purposefully toward the crowd. Kane walked away from the pool but stayed mixed in with the onlookers. He was close enough to overhear Matt’s conversation with the police.

  “You live here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Got some ID? We got a noise complaint. Not the first one for this address, either.”

  Matt handed him his driver’s license. “Sorry, officer. I told everybody we’ve got to keep it down.”

  The cop shook his head. “Anyone who doesn’t live here is going to need to disperse, immediately.”

  “Yes, sir.” He turned around and yelled for everybody to leave. They all began straggling to their cars.

  “And who else lives here?” one of the cops asked.

  Matt pointed into the crowd. “There’s Cody, and Felix there, and—”

  The cops’ radio crackled with a dispatcher’s urgent voice. “…all units code 422, respond immediately…”

  The cop grabbed his radio and spoke into it. “Unit 7 responding, we’re only a few blocks from there. On our way, over.”

  He eyed Matt and said, “If we have to come back again tonight, somebody’s going to jail.” Then he and his partner jogged back to their car, got in, and reversed out of the driveway at high speed before whipping into a turn and speeding off.

  Kane ambled up to Matt once it was clear they weren’t coming back.

  “Nice going, you scared them off!”

  Matt shook his head. “They got a call for a robbery in progress. I heard the code.”

  “Lucky for us.” He nodded to the pool.

  “Yeah. Bummer. Maybe we should find somewhere else to hold these matches.”

  EIGHT

  The next morning, Kane loaded the gator into his truck and took it to the wildlife center. A woman about Kane’s same age walked out of a nearby building and waved to him. Even without the nameplate she wore on her uniform, which let the center’s guests ask her questions on a more personal level during the animal shows she put on, he knew her name was Alicia. She was usually the one who met him to receive the animals he had removed from client’s properties, and for that, he was glad. It didn’t hurt that she was good looking, he knew, but she was also extremely knowledgeable about local wildlife.