“The Alligator Play” by Andrew Boylan

“The Alligator Play” by Andrew Boylan

The divorce lawyer said it wouldn’t be cheap. Plus, I probably wouldn’t see the kids anyway. He said it would be easy for my wife to manipulate the shared custody thing no matter how the judge organized the dates. We were having coffee on the veranda. The sun leaked yellow and red through the Aspens. I wanted to know if attorney-client-privilege extended to my backyard. Shards of ice rattled at the bottom of his ice tea glass. He remarked, when he sat down at the rod-iron table, how I served him tea in the proper glass. That was something my mother impressed upon me, the proper glass for the proper occasion. The correct fork for the course set before you. I explained how my wife had several co-morbidities. People often spoke of co-morbidities these days the way they once discussed grape varietals. This was not a word I would have used in a sentence two years ago. He moved quickly in his chair and it was clear he had just noticed the alligator walking across the lawn. This time of day it usually slept under the veranda. Instead, it decided to amble out into the yard and take a lay of the land. I put a hand on my lawyer’s shoulder the way someone might in a movie about a loan shark with a heart of gold. It makes it a little hard to focus, he confessed. Who am I to argue with a man’s feelings about reptiles? But I had to get it off my chest the thing that weighed on my chest. I told him the thing everybody had been talking about for some time. I said how the virus didn’t go easy on people with co-morbidities. Every time I used the word I felt like I was putting on an act. As I though I were offering the high-hat. I’m no doctor. What did I have in mind, he wanted to know? There was a good chance I wouldn’t die from the virus. The virus probably wouldn’t get me because I was still in my forties. Although I could probably drop a Friday night pizza or two I wasn’t obese. The alligator made it to the edge of the wood-line. It was hard to figure what a creature like that came up with about when it considered the forest. It could be a solution to the judge problem? I told him. He shook a piece of ice from the bottom of the glass into his mouth and crunched it between his teeth. It hurt my cavities just listening. Did you buy that thing? A man drove it up from Florida in the trunk of his Mercedes. His breath smelled like microwave popcorn when he counted each bill then slid them back in the envelope. The odds go way up with each co-morbidity was how they put it on the news. What does it eat? The creature flipped its tail. The whole body spun around like it was set on a pivot. It takes some getting used to how quickly an alligator moves when it wants. I could hear the screws in my lawyer’s chair when he shifted his posture according to where the creature looked. It’d be tough to make a case for murder against you if that’s your angle? A few months ago, when I started to put two-and-two together, I increased my risk. I would run my hand along the railing in the subway station when I was in the city. Then I would rub my eyes. Most public spaces were off limits. Movie theaters, sports complexes, in-door dining were off limits. I heard about a synagogue that wasn’t going to let a pandemic disturb the Torah. I was not a Jew but I knew a man who sold yam akas. God protects his own. Catching the virus had proven much harder than the news made it out to be. My wife kept getting lucky. On the way to the

car, I showed my lawyer where we were raising the rabbits. I explained how the alligator ate two a day. It can be a little complicated because the creature likes to hunt. When he turned to look back at the yard the alligator was nowhere to be seen. The lawyer moved quickly to his car. He rolled down the window to offer one last piece of advice. No body. No case. I heard the engine start as I made my way back through the fence.