Lizard King

Every house in my neighborhood had roving bands of the quickest little lizards you've ever seen. They'd stay nestled in the shrubbery and unkempt grass around the front of the house, venturing out just long enough to do whatever it is that lizards do when people aren't around to watch. We didn't know, or care, what species they were. To us kids they were just neighborhood lizards; small, dull, brown-skinned, descendants of a bygone age.

You could measure the babies in millimeters. The bigger males could stretch up to seven inches from tip to tail. During mating season, which seemed to never end, the larger males would find a perch on a windowsill or a bicycle tire to display the bright orange flap of skin they otherwise kept tucked under their chins. They were unabashed showoffs. For the record, I never once saw a lady lizard swoon over this particular act of bravado. Frankly, it seemed somewhat desperate. I did, however, see plenty of lizard rapes immediately after the failed mating display. Which makes me wonder why the brutes ever bothered with the charade in first place—or the ladies didn't bolt at the sight of a flared out orange croaker.

Lizards were everywhere in Central Florida.

Every time you'd open the front door you'd see leaves shudder, blades of grass twitch, and pebbles shoot across the ground as the guardians of the front porch would scramble for cover. If you knew where to look you might spot one tucked inside the spout of a rain gutter or behind a soggy tennis shoe.

These tiny dinosaurs were the first thing we'd point out to our out-of-state relatives when they'd visit. A display of our novel wildlife—it was a cheap trick but it always impressed. We made sure to quickly usher them and their luggage into the house lest they witness an assault and assume something about the rest of us natives.

If you wanted to catch one—which every boy under the age of twelve did—there was really only one technique. Once you had chosen a target you would slowly move your hand as close as you could without spooking them. Once in range, you'd shoot your arm as fast as humanly possible and snap your hand closed. Most times you'd be left gripping a fistful of dirt and maybe a few blades of grass. Sometimes you'd get lucky and trap one by the leg between the knuckles of your pinky and ring finger. A lot of times you'd be left holding a twitching little tail that had been strategically detached for the sake of escape. But once you got good enough, you wouldn't even need to look. The squirming inside of your closed fist meant you had one.

They were pretty durable, as far as lizards go, but you still had to be gentle. For the most part, we practiced catch and release. Only the weirdos ever hurt them. And we used such violent behavior for profiling purposes. I've seen more kids beaten to a pulp and ostracized for abusing lizards than anything else I can remember. As self-appointed reptile guardians we choose to overlook the fact that most of the male lizards were outright rapists. I like to think we were enlightened like that, but truthfully—being kids ourselves—it’s just as likely that we related to them being small and vulnerable creatures. Plus, no one likes a bully.

Summer vacations were the best. We'd spend our days catching the long distant relatives of dinosaurs and dropping them into buckets—for what purpose we hardly ever knew. We did know that if you gently tapped the sides of their jaw their mouths would reflexively shoot open. We also discovered that they would clamp down on anything placed near their bite's radius. The cool thing to do—to show you really knew your way around a Florida hood lizard—was to have one clamp down on an earlobe and wear it around like an earring. They'd stay there until they figured out that making an escape to a nearby bush was far likelier than us succumbing to their toothless assault. Sometimes you'd get an exceptionally determined earring and you'd have to have a friend slowly pry them off.

Lizards were as plentiful as blades of grass back then.

And they weren't just earlobe accessories.

Sometimes we'd drop the two biggest males we could find in a shoebox for a forced fight to the death. They never, ever, engaged in combat. Instead, they'd scramble around in circles looking for an escape. We'd quickly lose interest, deem them pussies, and release them back into their suburban jungle. Other times we'd catch ants and offer them up as snacks—as any gracious host/kidnapper should do. Why our panicked little guests were never in the mood to eat was both baffling and, honestly, slightly offensive. We would then coax their mouths open and force-feed them fire ants one at a time. The thought never occurred to us that they might not like eating fire ants.

We would also catch them in secret and wait until someone was distracted and gently place the biggest lizard we could find on their shoulder. We'd slip them in pockets, drop them on heads, and set them atop remote-controlled cars and drive them around at breakneck speeds. We never subjected them to anything we weren't willing to do to each other. Which isn't really saying much. We could be ruthless little bastards to one another. Now that I think about it, the neighborhood lizards were as much a part of our childhood as anyone else on the block.

And then, one day, summer vacation is over and it's time to go back to school. You assume the next summer break will be the same as the last three summer breaks. But by the time the summer of eight grade comes around thins have changed. You've all but forgotten about those little lightning-fast guardians on your front porch. You discover girls, and social cliques, and a few wayward hairs under your armpit—and like everything in life, unless you're really really careful, the little neighborhood dinosaurs of your childhood lose their magic. It's not long after that you forget about them altogether.

I was watching a show on NatGeo today and I spotted a Florida hood lizard—I knew it immediately—only they were calling it a Brown Anole. It was perched on a rock with its sunset-orange croaker flared, bobbing its head to staccato beats, doing it's best to lure a mate. Once-dead synapses flickered to life within the floods of my grey matter. All at once, the lost years came flooding back. I became profoundly homesick—not so much for that physical place, but a time in my life when things made more sense.

I don't know if it's age or prison that stirs up these feelings. When you're growing old while you're in prison it gets hard to separate the two.

Maybe it's both.

Maybe it's neither.

Maybe I'm just a softy who loves wallowing in the beautiful pain of nostalgia. The segment ended with the sun setting on a Brown Anole retracting its croaker.

They never did show the inevitable rape that followed.

The producers must've realized the same thing we did all those years ago: Life is both beautiful and tragic, and, given the choice, its best to show your guests the beauty—let them discover the tragedy on their own.

All-in-all, feeling eternally homesick is a small price to pay to reclaim the summer.