Alligator Hole

I was out too late, and certainly my brother was too. He sat beside me in the backseat of the Oldsmobile, fighting the heavy lids of his eyes to capture the excitement. My teenage cousins had somehow managed to pry the car from the parents, most likely with talltales of seeing the beach at night from another end of the island. The real magic they wove to the parental units was the spell that allowed me and my kid brother to go with them on their joyride.
Upfront, behind the wheel, was my cousin Kevin, decidedly the most level-headed of the group. Riding shotgun was his brother Keith. Stuffed into the backseat was my cousin Jackie and her girlfriend, me, and my kid brother Gregg. Pink Floyd was loudly emitting from the radio and everyone but me and my brother were smoking cigarettes. The cool night breeze, salted by the ocean, slipped into the backseat from the door windows and slapped my hair onto my face while clouding me in the strange-smelling smoke from the teenagers' shared cigarette. Gregg, wedged between me and the girls, said nothing; normally we fought over our line of demarcation that divided his side of the backseat from mine, but tonight was something new and exciting and we suffered each other's closeness in silence.
The two-lane roadway that encircled the tiny 13-mile island was barren of cars or people, decorated only by eerie street lamps punctuating over-reaching shadows from the surrounding forestry. I remember wind, the words "Tear Down The Wall!", my cousins all laughing, and some soft background hum of crickets during the ride that June night. For some strange reason, I noticed green hills out of the windshield and felt the car lurch and dip under us. It took a minute or two, but we all realized soon enough that we had driven out onto the golf course. The car slowed near a small lake and we piled out into the night air and lumpy terrain of shadows.
My brother and I hung around the car while the others wondered off into the darkness, laughing and talking loudly. Soon they were out of reach of hearing and we were alone. I think my brother and I both placed where we were on the golf course, having been here many times with my father to go crabbing. We were next to the best crabbing spot on the course, known to all who have visited the spot, as the Alligator Hole. We slowly turned toward the water's edge and looked into the ink of liquid night. Two shiny spots reflected the light from the car's headlights. We were alone with the gator.
The lake had no fence or retaining wall, only a sloping bank and then the turf of the golf course. My brother and I were less than 50 feet from the water's edge and approximately 125 feet from the set of glowing eyes belonging to the bone crushing, death-rolling alligator. No words were spoken leaving sound to be filled by crickets, the lap of the water against the bank, and the resounding pulsations of our hearts' fear-induced rhythm.
Earlier that day our father and mother had taken us out for some crabbing. This process was as easy as weighting a line of utility rope, tying some raw chicken on the end, and attaching the rope to a roll for coiling. There are other ways to crab using metal traps, but we were doing it the old way. We dropped our chicken-baited ropes and let the crabs slowly make their way to the meal. Father pointed out the lazy alligator out in the shadows of the water's edge, languid and resting in the heat of the afternoon sun. Mom gave us Cokes and watched the golfers. My brother and I grew bored waiting for our catch and scouted around the area. The afternoon's visit was how I was certain of where we were on the golf course even now in the dark.
The time to pull up the ropes finally arrived and we were all rolling up the ropes around the tubular handle. Mom caught one, I pulled one up only to have him release his grip at the waters edge, my brother had his bait stolen, but my Father had something of an amazing catch. He was straining on his rope, the dry material pulling against his skin and cutting red lines into his taunt grip. His biceps flexed, he struggled, and we gawked in amazement of the imagined size of the crab that could give my Father such resistance.
My dad heaved, and nearly pitched forward into the water. My Mom braced him and me and my brother got close to the edge to help drag the rope ashore. With one final power surge my Father, the rope slicing deep into the skin of his hands, revealed the front nose, rough skin, and askew teeth of a sneaky, determined alligator, my brother and I being face to snout with the beast.
My Mother's scream disengaged my Father's frozen contest and the rope was tossed into the water. My brother and I had somehow moved 25 yards away as if we teleported, our hair standing on end and my Mother's blood-curdling scream still echoing in our ears and across our enlivened nerves. Our family silently packed up and headed back to the rental after that, quietly going to our room and sharing nothing of our bad luck, lost bait and rope, or our collective fearful episode.
Now, here my brother and I were again...back to face this fearful beast. Alone but for each other, our terror choking us into silence, our eyes unblinking and locked on the glowing orbs in the water, our nerves straining and our muscles so over-adrenalized that we were hoplessly inert. The blood drained from my brother's face and I moved us back into the car and closed the doors. I began honking the horn, bleating that alarm of fear into the drapery of night, ruining my cousins' fun, maybe even arousing the attention of the routinely bored authorities, but in my mind it was the cry for survival, for fortification of our young lives, for help.
The ride back to our rental was somber. My brother cried the entire time and had nightmares the next couple of nights, as did my Father, kicking the sheets and punctuating the calm of sleep with frightened, unintelligible exclamations. My Mother and I shared a bed, leaving them to suffer the lingering alligator's clutch together, but we had no rest.
I remember the look of discredit the older ones flashed to each other regarding us. "They were too young, we should have known.", they seemed to say. I didn't feel guilt for ruining their fun, though it surprises me today the feeling isn't in my recollection of the night, not even now that I could relate to what my cousins suffered through, both in the downer party interruption and, most likely, the sharp words they received from the older adults.
Instead I felt relief. I felt lucky. I now feel blessed that we didn't die to the droning tunes of Pink Floyd, amid open night air spiced by strange smoke and goofy, brazen teenagers, while alone on the edge of the darkened alligator hole, either by the beast's evil jaws or from the sheer horror created in our young imaginations.