Aliens

This world is so hot, sticky, and alien. The air breaths on my neck causing my hair damp and limp  to form a small knot resting on my nape. It’s never quiet, something howls or sings in the night. Last night I caught a tiny lizard in the house with a cup and paper, the same motion of arachnid catching as the Midwest but for a completely different creature. There is no equivalent to a lizard in the Midwest, they inhabit more space here than mice, but mice might be the closest example. They are reptilian mice. Every time I go outside they skitter from the porch by the handful. I am fascinated by these alien creatures, these little dinosaurs. Keeping lizards is exotic where I’m from, requiring special heat lamps and a mister to simulate humidity. I’ve never owned one but it seemed complex visiting the lizard keepers of the Midwest. It’s weird to think of them outside. Breathing this air. Thriving.

                My cat shares this sentiment. The other night he let out a cross between a moan and a howl. Awwwwoooo. Awwwooooo. This was similar enough to his car song for us to look at each other, concerned. It is his call to the unfamiliar. We found the cat in the hall with something rubbery and limp dangling from his mouth. Awwoooo. Awwooo. Look at what I’ve hunted, my strange alien prize. Before we could grab it he swallowed the lizard in his mouth.

                I bend to look at a moth, at least maybe it was a moth, with long green and black wings covered in skin with gyrating furry antennae.

                “Don’t put your head so close to any bush in Florida. They have snakes.”

Alien. Hostile. Strange. Exotic.

Signs everywhere: Do Not Feed or Molest the Alligators. They Cannot Be Tamed And May Mistake A Hand For a Handout.

Rule of thumb: in every freshwater body of water; a gator. In every bush; a snake. 

Today is my girlfriend’s birthday and I wish I were more prepared. It’s not that it comes as a surprise exactly. But as much as the physical landscape is different, so too is the human one. She makes a simple request for a cookie sandwich from the mall. I cannot oblige. I’m hardly comfortable with my drive to and from work. I don’t drive on the weekends. Here, avoiding the highway is simply not an option; they run like veins pumping people and in and out of the heart--the Midwest--to their hotels and resorts in Florida. Cars flyby on too many lanes, the best path never the one of least resistance. At one point in the commute to work I turn right on to the furthest lane of the highway and make my way to the left turn lane. This right turn, of course, in lieu of a light has a simple yield sign. Lanes frequently disappear. Merge. Merge. Merge, or get out of the way and let the veins do their work without you.

I don’t like to drive. I am the proverbial little old lady who only drives to and from church on Sunday. I park my car on my day off and there it stays until the following work day. There are plenty of things walking distance from my house, or perhaps a short hike from my house. I am a lover of cycling, of trains, of buses. I meander. I wander. Our buses here are infinitely slow. I used buses to pull myself out of poverty, planning an extra hour to always be on time. These buses are slower than an extra hour. It seems to me that every passing year they close another road to sustainability, to middle income, they make the sides of the pit a little steeper to trip those clawing at sides back down. A little less EBT next year, a little more in bus fare, a little tuition hike. We’re just staying competitive, we’re still the cheapest in the area.

It’s this hardness of life that caters to lizards and veiny mega highways that leads to the hazards I am not yet accustomed.

“You need to never do that again. If I am looking around it’s because you may be putting us at risk.” She says sternly.

A man on a bicycle accosts us in a darkened park.

“Hey, what are you, like lesbians?”

My girlfriend sizes up our options to stay with the man or push out into traffic. We cross the street, even though it isn’t clear, to take our chances with the flow of cars. There is always something lurking in the dark. Drugged out, strung out, street prophets following us singing word salad. I’ll never get used to it. They point out our otherness or force us to accept a compliment.

At a street corner in daylight. He follows us.

“You look good together.” He says “aw come on, that’s a compliment don’t get all bent out of shape.”

These hazards I will never get used to. The religious protesters outside the gay bar in Ybor, a year shy of the Pulse shooting. 

“It’s everywhere.” She shrugs.

“Not where I was in Iowa.” I say.

I don’t miss Iowa exactly but I miss my town the size of a postage stamp filled with academics and their families. A one room theater where I saw Hidden Figures with my town. Three bars, a post office, handful of churches, a grocery store, a one room theater, and a liberal arts college. Everything walking distance. It wasn’t tolerant so much as libertarian meets Germanic Lutheran. Mind your own business. Government has no place in anyone’s bedroom.

“I liked your short hair.” She says.

“I like not being identifiable as gay when I'm alone. I like blending in.” I say on the way home from the gym.

“Must be a nice privilege.”

“I’m checking, or checking out my privilege.”

“You’re wallowing in it.”

I am. Its one thing I’ve got, hair like an armor against the alien world.