Apex

I’ve never longed for most companionship, people annoyed me. Was it intentional? More than likely. When I say intentional, I don’t mean those that have tried to befriend me or women that have found me attractive enough to date. I am particularly speaking of myself. Navigating the world was quite difficult for me, in 2019 the whole nuance of friendships, social media was a headache.

 I could personally go on and on rolling into a monologue of how detrimental social media has been to human existence and how society has also benefited from it. But I don’t care. To each their own as they say. Richard, Mac, Sam, and Tanya were a very select few I decided to hold a long-lasting meaningful relationship. All of the outgoing, well versed in pop-culture, intelligent, each holding their own expertise aside from my own. What’s the point in surrounding yourself within an echo chamber just to continuously agree on the same ideologies, beliefs, and morals?

Well, obviously we didn’t differ much, murder is bad, rape is bad, kidnapping, dealing drugs, fighting without cause of self-defense, and of course, we don’t discuss politics. Everything else is fair game. Richard is white, I personally call him Dick with an emphasis on the “ick”. Richard went to the University of Texas, he graduated with a degree in African Studies. His long-term girlfriend, now his wife, is black. Richard is cultured.

   Mac is cool. That’s s about it, Mac is laid back nonchalant about the world but will quickly put you in your place in all thing’s life-related. Mac had a rough childhood, but Mac was still cool. Mac was Mac. Hard to explain but easy to get.

Sam, she was a Doctor. A Brilliant Doctor at that, gorgeous, sophisticated and talked more shit than most people can fathom. Tanya was the artist, graphic designer, painter, web designer, self-taught computer programmer, and always wore clothes that made you want to get in bed with a bowl of cereal and watch “The Office” all day long. Darryl was her favorite.

  Myself, I am the weird one. When I mean by weird one, is I say random shit at times with no context, I just assume everyone is on the same page and wavelength as myself. I can sit there in the middle of a conversation between us five and interject randomly “you ever wonder what would happen if ants grew to be the size of a dog? They would definitely kill everyone.” That was me. Not to mention the fact that I owned ten acres of land outside of Houston, Texas, and on that land, I owned and a crocodile. Yes, a crocodile.

 Spending most of my youth growing up watching the “Crocodile Hunter” traverse the waters of Australia, Africa, Asia, and many other places, to raise conservation efforts around the world. The best part of it all, he used manpower. and womanpower of course. To wrangle and relocate these prehistoric beasts to places outside of the range of humans, and especially children. His accent and enthusiasm sparked a tremendous interest in these creatures and at times romanticized them for me, these were the ultimate predator, they were misunderstood dinosaurs.

I was sold, one day when I get older (I constantly told myself) I am going to own a crocodile, and it will be in my backyard. I mean who wants a “Beware of Dog” sign when you can have a white sign with a crocodilian on it “Beware of Croc” crocodile of course would not fit, so “Croc” would have to do, or maybe it would fit?.

“Please tell me again why you bought a crocodile,” Richard asked.

“Because it's Texas.” I continued on.

“crocodiles are fascinating creatures, they also make better, stealthier guard animals. They may be ambush predators, but can you imagine the surprise on someone’s face when they trespass and see that I own a crocodile or that I have a sign that says ‘Beware of Croc.’ I feel like the Lake Placid lady.” I laughed in my reply.

This was a frequent question that was often asked whenever one of the five came over. It’s what we called ourselves, a group of five unwanted friends. An odd pairing of course.

 Crocodiles didn’t need much. A place to swim, hide, shelter from the heat and warmth from the cold; they did not need affection like dogs, or maintenance like cats, or constant stimulus like a hamster. Essentially a crocodile was me and I a crocodile. food, shelter, occasional mating (sex guys), and a place to lay my head. Outside of the immense need to protect its territory with aggression, I and Rufus got along.

“How do you feed that thing?” asked Sam, with immense interest.

“yo, for real man. Is it dangerous, how close can you get to it? added Mac, in his chill laid back tone.

“Well, luckily I know a few trainers down at the zoo that work closely with their alligators and crocodiles, and when I decide to acquire one myself, I was able to work out a plan with one of them. His name was Jessie. Jessie comes about every 6-7 weeks. It’s not as dangerous as it is in the wild, but crocodiles strike superfast, so having Jessie show me the ropes is pretty dope.” I replied, appealing to their inquiry.

Tanya never went over towards the manmade lake I had on the property. But Mac, Richard, and Sam made sure to always go out and walk the deck leading up to it, to see if they could catch a glimpse of Rufus sunbathing, swimming, or just waiting just below the surface of the water for one of the birds to get closer to feed himself. When walking the property, I would notice feathers, scattered across the edge of the water, I always assumed he was feeding himself, but I personally never saw it.

P.S. when I write about how weird and random, I am, I am pretty sure you noticed. The first half of this Journal entry essentially had nothing to do with where I eventually ended up. I need help, I digress.

The ten acres I own were always in the plan. As a kid, I would constantly go to my friend’s house, where his parents owned a vast amount of land. All the land was acquired little by little, by his dad from being in the military for so long. A retired Colonel. Colonel always confused me; we say “Kernal” but spell it “Colonel. America is weird.

Picture the deck as its own little docking station, it was high enough out of the water and sturdy enough to hold the heaviest person you can think of. This was a perfect feeding station, crocodiles have the ability to launch themselves out of the water with great speed and velocity, propelling them to be fully exposed as they snatch the piece of meat out of the keeper’s hand and occasionally when comfortable, my own.

The scenery was beautiful, the deck overlooked the lake, with beautiful fully-grown Nuttall Oak trees in the background accentuating the green grass resembling a golf course. It was beautiful, it was my home and my friends were my family and Rufus is my pet. Well not my pet, but he lived here with me. The four of us (minus Tanya) were standing on the deck leaning back against the frame of it. We laughed, cracked jokes on each one another, and at times, I would say something random getting a weird look from them all that read “you always on something else.” But it was all in jest.

Everyone started to walk back inside the house so we all could be with each other, basically so Tanya wasn’t alone. I stayed back for few minutes, trying to see if I could catch a glimpse of Rufus swimming around his territory, patrolling, waiting for someone or something to make a mistake. We don’t necessarily understand animals; I don’t think we will ever be able to. And that is the best feeling in the world, we can watch them, pick up on their “tells” but we can never truly understand. Maybe that is why I bought Rufus. No one understands why I did it, no one understands Rufus himself, no one understands me; and here we are both watching, trying to figure each other out.

Just as I started to turn around to head inside, I saw Rufus’ tail trailing just above the water towards the bank. I looked intently as he fully submerged himself under, the water was calm, still. A bird was drinking from his lake, in a blink of an eye the surface of the water thrashed, no longer calm and silent, but resembling deadly rapids as Rufus broke the surface snatching his prey from the edge and submerging back once more beneath the surface.

 “Apex Predator.” I mouthed to myself with pure enjoyment.