The Alligator Walks

In the beginning, almost everyone on the island knew about Old Rex. In the present day however, the age of the ancient alligator and the stories about the old dinosaur remain as a mystery and a legend not found on social media.  

Reports about roaming alligators are not for the faint of heart. During the steaming summers almost every alligator is out of sight and easy to forget. The reptiles find refuge from the heat beneath the still water of lakes or backwater ponds. When the weather is stifling, young alligators with limited potential might become restless and prowl beyond the cooling water. This is a condition driven by a fast-growing and skull-trapped reptilian brain. The alligators who develop cranial pressure and prowl are in the majority of most modern reptiles and prehistoric creatures. The young and restless gators with the impatient behaviors, and headaches, will often find trouble or even oblivion when crossing the paths where the humans tread and The Alligator Walks. The one-in-ten-thousandth alligator, however, is different. 

Well before the island came into fruition and the developers were digging and changing the landscape into something much different from the centuries before, the surveyor crews in the mangroves were the first to find Old Rex. In the beginning of island development, the surveyors were the spearhead of change. These brave and tenacious men of the swamp always came before the earthmovers and the other heavy equipment. 

During a late afternoon when September was claiming the calendar, a surveyor stumbled upon the surprise of a sandy hammock rising above the mangroves. Standing above the swamp and the sandy rise, the surveyor found an oasis of cabbage palm and a forest of gumbo-limbos surrounding a pond and a spillway the color of black tea. After shouts of encouragement brought more surveyors and even the surly boss and dreaded job-site superintendent, the shady hammock with the deep-water spring brought forth another surprise. 

When the excited crew began to gather under the shade of the gumbo-limbos and were standing next to the pond, an ancient and ever-growing reptile brain was studying the unexpected opportunity with an intellect the surveyors could scarcely imagine. Although the cold-blooded body was battered with age, the scars of accidents and experiments, and was missing some claws and a few of the grasping snaggleteeth, the one-in-ten-thousand alligator brain that was not predetermined to limited intelligence and cranial pressure knew it was time to seize the day. 

When the hiding submarine that was the alligator of a hundred seasons broke through the black water, which was very dark in the shade, the survey crew was in too much in shock to move. 

Before any of the surveyors could react, the ancient alligator was out of the black water and on the edge of the pond like a lightning strike. The boss, who was a ruthless taskmaster and a bully of the younger men, was down in a flash and a muzzle in the reptile snout. Old Rex became the name of the man-eater when every witness claimed the huge alligator rose out of the water like a man and took steps like a T-Rex in a dinosaur movie. 

The late September day when the surly superintendent fell victim to the calculated attack was the beginning of the legend, but not the end of the tale, and certainly not the end of Old Rex. 

When the massive mangrove development was near completion, but the island was still an empty shell of what it would become, many believe Old Rex came again when an island golf course was new, and the black-water spring and the circle of gumbo-limbos became the main water feature for the golfers from the Midwest. 

Shortly before the golf course was open, a night watchman was patrolling the fairways, the greens, and the water features that ran serpentine along the backyards of many of the new island homes. 

On the same September morning when the night watchman’s golf cart was found near the main water feature, and the groundskeepers were wondering how the turf grass near the pond and big trees was wrecked, the watchman’s wife began to privately celebrate after her abusive and violent husband went missing. 

Many years after the despicable swamp supervisor, the wicked night watchman, and his celebrating wife became the stuff of urban legends, unexplained disappearances remain unanswered even to the present day. 

Many Florida residents go missing during hurricane season. For some, the trauma of the storm is enough to make anyone vanish from the shores of paradise, but for others, forces more nefarious than storms might be at work in the form of an original island resident. 

The grandparents were at their wits end. The grandson was trouble and was always in trouble. Thievery or bullying in the workplace was the same problem with every job, but the jobs never lasted long. The kid would only come out of his room when he wanted something and would only eat the junk food he demanded his grandparents buy. The kid was a grandparent’s nightmare. 

Because of the heat and bright sunshine, the kid would venture outside only at night. When the full harvest moon became too irresistible to stay in the air-conditioning, the bullish bully with the glowing phone stopped beside the water feature on the golf course to listen to something that was interrupting his earbuds. For only a moment, he became confused. 

Old Rex, however, was not confused at all. The kid vanished in a second but not before he saw in the moonlight: Old Rex and the place where The Alligator Walks. 

Happy October Eve, Marco Island, Goodland, and the Isles of Capri 

Tom Williams is a Marco Islander and the author of two books: “Lost and Found” and “Surrounded by Thunder - The Story of Darrell Loan and the Rocket Men.” Both books are available on Kindle and Nook.