I found myself this past Friday night standing around a wood and mesh cage, about the size of a standard four person dining table. The lights were off and I was unable to see what was inside, but from the darkness came a hiss.
"We haven't had him that long," someone said. "He's still pretty young. His name is Boots."
Boots sounded angry.
"He's a friendly guy."
Another hiss. "Clearly," I thought.
Someone turned on a heat lamp, illuminating the contents of the cage. Boots, a two-and-a-half foot alligator, sat idle in a pool of water that comprised about half the enclosure. His eyes were dark and suspicious of the crowd staring in at him. The other half of the cage was a sandy area, accessible to Boots by a four- or five-rung ladder. A girl tapped on the mesh and Boots shifted his body, gliding as easily in the water as a hawk does between clouds.
"What does he eat?" I asked.
"Rodents," someone else responded, and a few moments later, three frozen mice were clipped to the top of the cage. Boots, disinterested and not hungry, paid no attention.
"We usually feed him live mice, but we're out right now."
"Where'd you get him?"
"From a guy we met at a reptile convention," he said. "Want us to take him out?"
A few moments later, I was petting Boots' underbelly, surprised by how soft it was. I'd expected his entire body to be scaly and tough.
Prior to seeing Boots, a few friends and I had been sitting on my front porch, just shooting the breeze after a night of being out and about. I went inside for a drink and when I came back, a few of the neighbors I hadn't met yet had wandered over to the porch and were hanging out. After talking for awhile, they asked to see the house and sometime between showing them the second and third floors, one of them commented on how quiet the house was.
"It's not usually. A couple of my roommates have dogs, but they're gone for the weekend," I said. "You guys have any pets?"
"No dogs or cats or anything like that. We have a gator, though."
"An alligator?" I asked stupidly. What else could a gator be?
"Yeah, wanna come see it?"
How could anyone say no to that? Alligators seem like one of those exotic animals someone would need a license to own, and I'd never heard of one being domesticated. I imagined how unusual and funny it would be to see someone leading an alligator on a leash. Or dressing one up in a sweater when it gets cold outside, like some people do with their dogs. Boots, though, once I saw him, did not seem like he had the temperament for leisurely strolls or seasonal wear.
The guys showed me around the rest of their house. My attention fell on the fireplace mantle where an assortment of whiskey bottles was prominently displayed: Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam, Red Stag and more. I thought of the conflicts between drinking that much whiskey and owning an alligator. The combination sounded less than precautionary, but everyone who lived in the house looked like they still had all their fingers.
In another corner of the room, someone sat playing a slot machine. The plums and cherries spun around while he tried to stop them in a line. When the pictures matched, tokens fell out of the machine and he would push them through the coin slot to earn more credits. One of the guys said his grandpa gave him the machine and I imagined a gray-haired octogenarian sitting there as the sun rose, determined to get triple sevens before going to bed.
Not too much later, my friends and I returned to my house, where we climbed through a second story window and sat smoking on the roof, watching the drunks below stumble home. I considered how, from the outside, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary about their house. Not until stepping inside and looking around do you get the impression it's been modeled after Las Vegas, what with the foreign attraction Boots provides, their affinity for whiskey and the gambling. Sitting in the dark and listening to the crickets, I got the impression that the stories that originate there are peculiar and unique enough to rival those that come from Sin City itself.
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