Everglades National Park, 1993, winter. My new husband and I are on an adventure of sorts.
The adventure began that September when he was discharged from the Air Force, we threw our stuff in storage, grabbed our WalMart tent and polyester sleeping bags, and embarked on a nine month car trip around the country. The only real planning we made was to join AAA in case our old Subaru needed professional rescuing, and to find the best campsites.
Note: AAA does not necessarily have the secret to the best campsites.
We started from Colorado to Washington state, sightseeing along the way, and landing in his hometown. After three solid months of living right next to each other 24 hours a day, with no more space between us than a Big Gulp and the emergency brake, we followed natural course and got married at a courthouse near his hometown.
Three months later, there we are, camping in December in the Everglades. It's a particularly warm year; the mosquitos are horrendous. There's a dance we do, when we park the car, and it goes like this:
"Okay, I'll run ahead to the tent, get inside, and kill all the mosquitos that came in with me. Then I will squeeze my hand through a tiny hole in the zipper and wave, which is your signal to run. As I hear your footsteps get closer, I will, with accurate timing and one smooth action, open the zipper door to halfway and close it again, with no pause at the top."
"Right. And when I see the zipper beginning to make the arc upward, I will, at the same time, duck my head and dive headfirst into the hole, following with a knee tuck and roll, to allow the zipper to complete back to the bottom. Please have the sleeping bags positioned to break my fall."
"Of course, honey."
"Thanks. And then, we will kill the mosquitos that came in with me."
While living this dream was certainly amazing, I would have liked to be one of the richer folks in an RV for just one night, so I could see how we looked.
We were camped on a flat, open area near some brackish water where the freshwater river meets the salty bay. Nice site. Too far from the parking lot, though, really.
We are settling in for the night, after our ice cold showers (per camp rules, to discourage mosquitos from nesting in the bathrooms) and fire-less dinner (per our own lack of fortitude, due to the mosquitos). We have books, cards, and flashlights to keep us happy. In this supreme state of bliss, we fall into slumber.
Sometime in the night I awaken to a strong wind blowing the tent. Strange. The weather was calm when we fell asleep. But as I sit up, the wind abruptly stops.
I listen.
No sound.
I lie back down and close my eyes. A few moments later, the tent rustles again. I realize there is no wind, and the only possibility I can imagine is some complete bastard shaking our tent for a joke. I sit up, and the sound stops.
I can outwait this, I think.
I wait.
Sure enough, after a longer pause, probably right when the bastard thinks I have gone back to sleep, he shakes the tent again.
Well that is freaking IT, I think. Rick is completely asleep. Not much gets through his defenses at night.
I grab the flashlight and, displaying my finely honed zipper skills, open the door in a superfast motion and stick my head outside. I can't see anything, though.
He must be on the side of the tent. Mosquitos are descending upon my face by the thousands per second. But sacrifices must be made. Pretty soon I'm going to attack someone with our 4 D-cell battery steel Maglite, and I can't risk wasting the half second it would take me to unzip again.
Rustle, rustle....
I emerge in one fluid motion, like suddenly being born from a Coleman womb. I turn to face the Bastard. There is nothing, no one, there. I shine the light in all four directions over the roof of the tent. All I can see is the black cloud of mosquitos who have been trying to get in through the top air vent all night.
Well, hell.
Now I'm feeling a bit spookified.
"What are you doing?" I hear. Rick has finally reached his threshold of sound blocking ability.
"Something is moving the tent."
Zip the door shut, kill some mosquitos, and lie down.
Within an instant, we hear it. A rhythmic low grunting which we identify immediately as an alligator. Right next to our tent, along the side, closest to the door zipper.
I am proud to state that neither one of us wet ourselves, most especially me, as the realization dawned that I had almost stepped on him.
But we weren't feeling too confident. Not at all. In a flurry of ghostly whispers I recount the event and we conclude that he was moving along the side of the tent for some reason, head closing in on the front, stopping in alarm every time I made noise. He's freaked out and paralyzed. We are freaked out and paralyzed.
I lie my head closer to Rick's. Will the alligator lose it, and come crashing through the microthin nylon wall? Does he feel threatened by what he thought was a bush, and is too afraid to move? Or does he comprehend that there are people, i.e. animals, i.e. enemies and/or food, inside the big blue "bush"?
There was no way to know.
The tension had to break. Something had to give. And it did.
Rick's stomach starts growling. Growling with hunger in our world, but in the Everglades at night on a lawn with an alligator in alligator mating season, it was a direct challenge and a blatant declaration of dominance.
I throw my body on top of his stomach to muffle the sounds, but it is too late. The alligator has satisfyingly surmised that only his pride and personal space is in danger this time.
The grunting continues and gets louder, longer, and angrier. There is more tent shaking. There is more stomach growling. Alligators have incredibly keen hearing for being dense crusty ground beasts.
Suddenly, it stops. The belly and the beast.
We wait. We wait a long time. We wait some more. We wait for probably 45 minutes, sitting absolutely motionless, my head very uncomfortably perched on Rick's stomach, my neck twisted crookedly, Rick splayed on his back on the hard ground. We barely breathe, and only through our mouths, shallowly. It's getting hot in the tent. Fear becomes permeable.
But after a time, we think the alligator has left. Surely he has. It's been at least an hour since the last grunt. Fear is trumped by discomfort and curiosity. I sit up, grip the Maglite tightly, and sloooowwwwwly unzip the door just ever so much, ever so quietly.
Click! On goes the flashlight, out into the black ink of space and swamp. I expect to see nothing. My beam of yellow, thin light hits a wall of scaly mass, with glowing eyes and a mouth wide open and full of flashing teeth, no more than six feet in front of our door. The alligator has spent the last hour silently moving forward enough off the side of the tent to turn 180 degrees to face his opponent.
Click! Off goes the flashlight.
zzzzzziiiiiiiiiiiipppppppppp goes the door, ever so gently.
Well now.
I try to see the positive, and point out that the flashlight beam did not, in fact, send the alligator into a wild frenzy of attack. Which means, consequently, that I should pull out the camera and take a picture because NOBODY IS GOING TO BELIEVE THIS.
Rick, the more level headed of us, makes clear with large eyes that he will not allow such foolishness as to subject a harassed alligator to a camera flash in pitch black dark.
Fear takes over again, and we settle into supine positions, staring at the cloud of hungry mosquitos, waiting for dawn or death, whichever comes first.
In the morning we woke up confused, not remembering falling asleep, much like children who determine to stay awake to catch Santa. And with the same pure joy of the promise of presents and warm breakfast, we reveled in our being decidedly unmauled.
Later, we corner a ranger, to tell him of our experience. He asks a lot of questions of us about the animal, about his nose, his eyes, his teeth, his location originating from the salty brackish water. The conclusion is that it was not an alligator, but a young rare American Crocodile. The season was warmer than normal, and food was scarcer. Everyone, the ranger said, was out in droves, eating and mating.
Eating and mating, and battling for dominance.
We totally beat that crocodile's sorry ass.
Yeah.
