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Image by Alvin Engler

Nonfiction

Tortoise and the Snare

          In my suburban neighborhood birds sing happily, squirrels chirp busily, and bunnies leap from one tended yard to another. With early summer ahead, and a blazing heat sure to follow, it’s an idyllic setting for planting, pruning, and watering each of our individual square patches of tranquility. On a typical July afternoon, as blue skies begin to give way to the cloudy prospect of a late afternoon shower, I’m disturbed by a call from across the street as my elderly neighbor. Ron calls out with a raspy voice: “Troy. Come over here.”

          Uh oh. Although our neighborhood is cordial, we pretty much mind our own business, seldom interacting beyond a polite wave from our street-side mailboxes. So it’s with some trepidation that I crossed the street to Ron’s driveway where he stands, hovering over a dark lump. I approach cautiously. The strange lump slowly transforms. It's clad in heavy armor, partly obscuring clawed feet and an ominous beak. I'm confronted with a huge turtle, at least a foot and a half in length, now tracking me with its steely black eyes. During the thirty-odd years in the area, I’ve never seen anything like it.

         “How did he get here?”

          “Don’t know,” Ron said. “He’s just here.”

          “Looks a little frightening.”

          “He’s a snapper. You can tell by that beak on him.”

          I stood and gaped while a young woman named Cassie came out of Ron’s place turning our gathering into a small crowd.

          “Oh golly. Where did he come from?”

           Apparently, we’d decided that our friend was a he.

           “Is he a snapping turtle,” she queried.

           “He’s a snapper all right,” Ron said again. “You can tell by the beak on him. Go in and call Animal Control,” he instructed her.

            Off Cassie went with a final “Golly.”

            A cleaning lady exited Ron’s house with a vacuum attachment in hand, taking Cassie’s spot. She also approached cautiously. “Goodness gracious. He is huge! Where did he come from?”

           It was my turn to offer something. “Maybe the open space behind the elementary school.”

          “No water there,” Ron said sagely. “He’d have to be around water.” I’ll have to check the internet on that point, I silently noted.

          As we gawked, Cassie returned to tell us Animal Control was on its way. At least someone had taken action. None of us wanted any harm to come to our neighborhood’s visitors. Another neighbor soon appeared. She busily began taking pictures of the intruder on an iPhone to preserve the moment for posterity.

          In the meantime, my next-door neighbor, old lady Bosworth must have tired of staring out the window at this growing gathering. I don’t recall ever seeing her go further on foot than her mailbox, but the event unfolding was apparently too enticing. With cane in hand, she crossed the street and joined our menagerie.

           I could have predicted her inquiry. “Where did he come from?”

          “Not too close,” Ron knowingly advised. “He’s a snapper.”

           The turtle seemed to peer at us as if to say, “I know how I got here. What are you guys staring at? Don’t you have something better to do?”

          Then a new line of conversation. “How old you think he is?” asked the cleaning lady.

           “Maybe Animal Control can tell us,” I mused.

           “I seen ’em before” Mrs. Bosworth interjected, “but not since my Charlie died.”

           Fortunately, no one asked how long ago that was, as Bob, another neighbor from farther down the street was heading our way. He walks his yappy little dog, Fitzy, twice a day and is the guy who knows everything about everyone, at least everything we willingly share. You could almost see Bob’s eyes light up at the prospect of what might’ve attracted a half-dozen neighbors to congregate in Ron’s drive. When he arrived, I said, “Glad you didn’t miss this, Bullet Bob. First-hand information.”

            He looked at the turtle. Fitzy had already started her irrepressible yapping. “It’s huge,” Bob said. “Where’d he come from?”

           “He’s a snapper,” Ron replied.

          Funny how a group of what I consider otherwise intelligent people, including myself, can turn into something approximating a group of yokels observing an outer space alien from an old “Twilight Zone” episode when presented with the unexpected. While we waited for animal control to appear, yardwork forgotten, the open space was again discussed. A pond two blocks away was considered. How could he have made it safely across busy streets? Personally, I think he was simply dropped off nearby, a captive pet that became too much to handle.

           Eventually, two Animal Control vehicles slowly pulled up. One looked like a paddy wagon and the other, a sedan with impressive flashing lights. I expected this development to beckon the block’s remaining residents at a trot. As Fitzy continued to yap, I imagined that our armor-plated friend might sense a nearby meal.

           A male and a female officer exited their vehicles. It was the male officer who said it. “How did it get here?”

          The process of theorizing began once again. The woman officer had some ideas about age and voracity, but only guesses. “Go get a carrier and a snare,” she told her male counterpart. “And make it snappy.”

           Our circle looked at one another and broke into laughter. The lady officer looked at us curiously but didn’t ask what the inside joke might be. Deputy dog returned from the paddy wagon with a plastic carrier more suited to a small dog or a cat. The line from the movie, “Jaws” crossed my mind: “You need a bigger boat.”

           We all backed up a step. I don’t know why, but by this time, I had named the turtle Herman. The woman officer attempted to grasp the edge of the turtle’s shell from behind. Contact caused a reaction that caught us off guard and produced a little squeak or two amongst the assemblage. Herman sprang up on his reptilian hind legs and lunged forward about a foot, his neck stretching forward and his dangerous beak opening and snapping at the disturbance.

          Fitzy was frightened into silence. The woman regained a hold onto the turtle’s shell while the male officer fashioned the snare to hold the beak closed until the creature could be snuggly placed into the carrier. Suffice it to say Herman was not a happy camper, but the officers assured us he would be deposited into his natural habitat.

          All’s well that ends well I suppose. Nothing like a little neighborhood drama before returning to our routines. It even began some talk about a block party later in the summer. Whether that comes to pass or not, we all have our shared moment with the turtle and the snare, and the weight of the eternal questions: How did he get here? Where did he come from? Is he a reptile or amphibian?

          He’s a reptile. I looked it up. And one other thing is for sure. He was a snapper.

J. T. stands on the side of the literary highway and thumbs down whatever genre comes roaring by. His storytelling runs the gamut from Horror Novel Review’s Best Short Fiction to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. His memoirs and essays report fact while his fiction incorporates fantasy, suspense, or humor featuring the quirkiest of characters.

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