Alligator Man

When Paul peeked in, I was folding a warm wash cloth over the thermostat in my room at the Brattleboro Retreat to staunch the air conditioning which, even in July, caused frost formations on the windows.

This had embarrassing repercussions, when one's bra had been sequestered for reasons of safety, along with one's belt. I had taken to walking around my arms crossed over my chest.

We were encouraged to keep our doors slightly ajar and to occasionally venture out into the day room to engage in social activity with the other patients. There were jigsaw puzzles, lumpy furniture, board games like Monopoly, Yahtzee. The previous evening I had apparently absconded with a bag of someone's M&Ms after having been dosed with a medication that had caused me to fall face first onto the middle of the Parchesi board. I came to giggling in my bed, a telltale empty one pound packet of peanut M&Ms in the wastebasket.


"You owe me candy," Wendy told me at breakfast.


And now here was stocky, white-bearded Paul in a maroon polo shirt. Paul carried a suitcase.


"What are you in for?" I asked him.


Paul explained that he was having body image issues of the negative kind. A recent abdominal surgery had left him with a badly distended belly and subsequent feelings of inadequacy.


"What about you?" he inquired.


"Unresolved grief," I told him. The tears had finally begun after an initial sleepless night battling shadowy behemoths. Turning myself over to the care of others had felt like cowardice.


Paul nodded. It was how we patients said "hello" on Two South. Before we trusted each other enough to relate as suffering human beings in varying states of pain, we presented our diagnoses like name tags: Anorexic, bi-polar, manic, multiple personality disorder, borderline personality, obsessive compulsive. The chemically addicted resided on the floor above.


"So, what's in the suitcase?" I knew it wasn't a bomb, because after check-in, the nurses took away everything that might be considered dangerous. I needed permission to use my hair dryer.

Paul smiled and placed his bag on the floor. He deftly sprung the latches, lifted the lid and revealed a tangle of countless green plastic alligators, vacant-eyed, jaws agape.


"Wow," I said. 

"Here," he said, and handed me one. "My Grandma told me a story once about a swamp. 'Down in the swamp, there be alligators' was the punch line."


I nodded. Here, we were all down in the swamp. Alligators lurked beneath the surface. It was a choice, I realized: swim towards them, fearlessly, or sink down into the reed-choked depths.


"Thanks, Paul," I said. I held the tiny plastic toy in my hand and made a decision. I would swim for the surface.