Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in a small Georgia town and spent much of my life waiting to get out of the South. Along the way, I spent time hiking in the Smokies, birdwatching in the Okefenokee, marveling at wild horses on Cumberland Island, and listening to the buzz of cicadas next to many a campfire. Now, I’m married to a Southern man, living in a Southern town, and writing Southern stories. I suppose I’ve finally stopped waiting to get out of the South and embraced all the beauty it has to offer.
The Taste of Turtle
Afternoon sun warms my body as I lie on the sandy bank. The little ones are swimming nearby, my watchful eyes monitoring them. With the sky reflected in the dark water, it looks as though they are splashing through clouds, the earth momentarily turned on its head.
My nose fills with the smell of food, rousing me from my resting state. I submerge myself in the water, senses alert, searching beneath the surface. Before I realize I have moved, my jaw is locked, crushing the shell of a turtle and tasting the delicate flesh beneath. It seems like so long since I have sunk my teeth into a turtle. Lately, I have been reduced to feeding mostly on snakes. While I do enjoy the sensation of food wriggling down my gullet, snakes lack a certain satisfying crunch. The ease with which their spines are broken makes me feel as though I am wasting my wide, powerful jaws. A few months back, I had a deer, which was at least somewhat interesting. Seizing it by the leg, I pulled it into the swamp. When I felt it had sufficiently suffocated, I shook it violently to convert its large, hairy form into bite-sized snacks.
Yet, I think, as I swallow the last bits of my treasured prey, nothing beats turtle.
My eyes emerge from the water, searching for the little ones. To my horror, I see a flash of blue-gray feathers, sharp beak, intent yellow eyes. I rush toward the intruder, snapping at her spindly legs, but I am too late. The heron clutches one of the babies in her claws, flying off to feed her own brood. I remember with bitterness the taste of turtle on my tongue.
I cannot blame the heron, though. We all must eat, and as the water slowly recedes, so does the supply of food for every creature inhabiting the swamp.
I am jolted from my reverie by the massive whirring beast. In the distance, I see its claws scooping dirt, its yellow head possessed by some fleshy human intent on sifting the soil for something it does not intend to eat. Its noise sets my teeth on edge, tightening my already locked jaw. Unable to return to my peaceful sunbathing, I swim back and forth, guarding my brood, watching them sleep in the sand, warming themselves in the last of the day’s light.
The babies rouse as night falls. I watch them snap at flies, wondering why there are so few frogs to catch. Perhaps it is due to the light from the humans and their never-sleeping beasts blocking the starry night sky. The lights, the noise, the drought, and the hunger bring a sense of desperation to the swamp, where each creature is clinging to survival.
But survival is what my species knows best. Perhaps it is our will to do so that has caused these two-legged humans to fear us, or perhaps their fear has helped us endure.
They have called us many names over the centuries. To the people of these waters, we were allapattah. They wrestled us, carrying our bodies alive back to their villages for sustenance, their fear of shame and hunger making them forget the danger of our jaws. These warriors were hemmed in by the ones that called us el lagarto, the lizard, and their pale successors, who butchered their words into alligator. I have heard the men in the yellow beasts refer to us colloquially as gators, the word rolling off their tongues with none of the reverence we were afforded in ages past.
They seem to hold no reverence for anything in the swamp as they turn the earth along its ridge, searching for white powder to adorn the walls of the massive shells built to house their unarmored bodies. They have so far removed themselves from the reality of survival that they can no longer perceive the danger of their actions.
Here comes one now, sauntering through the trees. One of his hands holds a bright light, and the other a metal can, which he continually brings to his lips, guzzling until his throat emits an acidic belch. He puts down the can, then unbuttons his coverings to urinate, whistling some wretched tune as he covers the forest floor with his scent. Staggering forward, his light shines on one of the little ones sitting on the bank.
“Hey Joe, come look at this!” the human calls, turning back toward the site of the whirring beasts. “Baby gator!”
This “Joe” emerges from the trees, taller than his companion, his top half covered in a yellow even more conspicuous than the brightest orb-weaving spiders that hover in the nearby brush.
“Better watch out, Greg,” he warns. “If there’s a baby, the mama’s not too far off.”
“Shoot, I don’t see any mama around here. Maybe we could take it home and make it a pet!”
He moves in closer, head so clouded by pride that he cannot make out the ridge of my spine as I swiftly swim under the surface, awaiting his next move. I will not allow another little one to be taken today, certainly not by a predator who has no need of its meat for food. I imagine how he would taste, this portly human who smells of sweat and the juice of fermented plants. I imagine how it would feel to bite into his thick ankles, to feel him drown, to thrash him to bits like that unsuspecting deer.
“Here, little gator!” He tries to poke the baby with a stick, and I ready my haunches to pounce.
But he is suddenly pulled back, another voice calling him to return to the yellow beasts. His companion encourages him, pushing him toward the trees as my baby slips into the black water.
I emerge, exhaling with relief. I am certain there is no way this two-legged creature would have compared to the taste of turtle.
