It was in my sixth year with the company that they finally let me go. All but one of my accounts had been taken over by a new sales rep named Mandy. The only one I still held onto was the one with Lyla. Horace called me into his office and closed the door. “I hate doing it,” he said. “You were my top man for a long time, and I considered you a part of our little family here.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I appreciate you letting me stay as long as you did.”
“Well, what are you going to do?”
“Find something that doesn’t involve being in the same room with people.”
“Have you seen a doctor? I mean, you don’t strike me as an unsanitary person. It has to be something medical.”
“I’ve looked into it,” I said. “You know, the weird thing is I can’t smell myself at all, even though my sense of smell works for everything else.”
“That is odd,” he said. “If you can get rid of this thing, be sure and call me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Right now though,” he said before he coughed. “I’d appreciate it if you’d just get out of here.”
It took me about thirty minutes to walk home. It was getting dark so I didn’t notice her as I was walking up, but all of a sudden there was Lyla, face to face with me, sitting on my steps. “Oh, shit,” I said, “What are you doing here?”
She sprang to her feet so she was looking down at me.
“I’m tired of it,” she said, her voice shrill and determined, “I’m tired, Stan. You know I want to know you. I want to know you and be with you and I wanna meet your crazy sister—if there really is one.”
“I told you already. I need my privacy.”
“I’m here to help you, Stan.”
“I need my privacy.”
“But Stan—”
“You need to respect it. I need my privacy. I know it’s kind of strange, but that’s the way I am, and it’s just something I need.”
And having said that, I marched right past her. The saxophone player was sitting at the top of the steps in the shadow of the wall. I hadn’t noticed him at first, but I knew he’d heard everything. He glanced up at me and I could see the way he was smirking.
“Keep blowin’ that sad music, asshole,” I said as I pushed through the door.
If ever I had a fantasy, it was to take her out of here, I’d put her in a rented trailer and drive her to the Everglades, but that’s impossible now. She’s twelve and a half feet long, her belly must be four or five feet wide when it flattens out, and she’s hugely fat, and there’s no way she’d even fit through the door. In fact, she hasn’t been able to quite straighten out or turn around for more than a year now. Her tail’s in the bathroom, her body’s in the bedroom, and her head’s in the kitchen. And whenever I go to the kitchen, I walk barefoot along her nubby spine, like a craggy outcrop in a field of tattered throw rugs. And then, when I reach her head, I stand on top of it for a second before I leap down to the floor. And my primary purpose in life is to work, to make money to support my alligator and keep her happy and docile.
The day I refused to let Lyla come in, she called me after that, and I was still in a very bad mood, and when I picked up the phone I just said, “What?!”
She spoke very gently, like she was speaking to a child, “We need to break through this barrier,” she said. “And I won’t pressure you, Stan. We can meet outside somewhere. Or, you can come over here if you want to. Because there’s something, Stan. There’s something between us, and I’ve always felt it. And there’s something in you that’s really really important, and I’m just waiting for you to realize it.
“I’m really sorry, Lyla.”
“We could be so good for each other. Why can’t we give it a try?
I said no, of course. It was just impossible. And this led to an argument which was the only really nasty argument the two of us ever had, and I said some really filthy, really off-color stuff that I’d picked up from god knows where, and I swear on my parent’s grave, I’ll regret the things I said to Lyla forever, and finally she told me to go to hell, and that was seven years ago.
I’m a janitor now, a night janitor, so I don’t have to interact with anybody during work hours. I make less than half as much as I once did, and I quit going to Amber, who makes a face and pinches her nose whenever I pass her on the stairs. She won’t even look at me. And when I collect my pay, I go over to the discount supermarket to buy my chickens, and I pile them into the bright blue stroller I found abandoned by the cannabis club. I can’t afford taxis any more, so I just roll my poultry on home, about fourteen blocks while the ones on top are thawing, and nobody questions my unkempt appearance, my strange shopping habits, or my tendency to pause midstride to think about what might have been. If I’m on a crowded sidewalk, people step around me. I’m just a random guy pushing a baby stroller heaped with frozen hens. Nobody pays me any mind, and I don’t feel so unusual anymore.
If I die I know she’ll eat me and then she’ll starve. And she’ll stink up the place and they’ll break down the door. But if she dies first, what then? I don’t know how long an alligator’s life span is and I’m too afraid to research it. But whatever it is, I know I’m gonna have to dismember her. I’m gonna have to carry out her pieces one at a time, and I hate to think about any of that. I just can’t think about those sorts of things. Things like, should I get me a tree saw, or should I get me an axe? It sounds way too impossible for me, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it, but what choices do I have?
I guess I can come right out and admit what I’ve been up to, but who do I admit it to? My mom and dad are long gone, so I guess it’ll have to be Mr. Patel, assuming he still works at the housing office. And I can just imagine how pissed off he’s gonna be. They’ll come and arrest me then. I’ll lose my place, and I’m pretty sure my story will be on the news, and Lyla will see my booking picture, and she’ll see my ratty-looking beard, and the big headline will be, Giant Gator Found Dead in Janitor’s Apartment, and it hurts my head to think about these things, and right now I’m down to just one chicken, and this isn’t much of a life. I know it. And I often squeeze my fists and grit my teeth in anger and frustration when I think about that second cousin once removed, the one who thought it would be a funny joke to send an alligator in a cardboard box to an inexperienced young man he didn’t even know.
I'm still missing Stan and the alligator.
This was one of the most original and delightfully thoughtful works of short fiction that I've read on Substack for quite a while.
I look forward to more of this calibre, you've set yourself a high alligator bar. 👏🙏
This may be the most unique writing I've ever seen of yours, Ruben Bix. It's so detailed about the protagonist's feelings and actions, the alligator herself, the guy's context in the world and his struggles for devotion and the secret! I couldn't imagine how this could conclude, and I love what you did with that, It's also unexpected. Wonderful work.