ST PETERSBURG TIMES (Florida) 21 September 06 Look, gator, we had a deal ...Visiting gator gets taken for a ride - A 9-footer made a late, unwanted house call. It paid with its life. (Thomas Lake)
Holiday: Florida juts into the sea like a dislocated thumb. People come here to live by the water, and when the beaches fill up the people move inland, near lakes and ponds and bubbling swamps.
These bodies of water harbor alligators, which have jaws, which can close with the force of a truck. This is a problem for frogs and birds and small deer, but it has little bearing on most humans.
Because most humans have an unspoken agreement with most alligators: We'll stay out of your ponds and swamps if you keep off our lawns.
The armor-plated carnivores in the murky waters near Beacon Square Drive know not to go door-to-door, especially after midnight.
One forgot.
Around 4 a.m. Wednesday, a 46-year-old plumber named Kevin Jessup was trying to sleep. Lights flashed. Voices rose. He got up and looked out his bedroom window to see sheriff's cars. His phone rang.
"Good morning, sir," said the deputy on the other end of the line, as Jessup remembers it. "I advise you not to step out your front door. There's an alligator right there. A large one."
Jessup is from Staten Island, N.Y. He had no intention of disobeying the deputy. He looked out to his front porch and saw a long dark form.
"That was a sight to see," he would say later. "Like a big lizard."
Jessup went back to bed. One of his neighbors had called for the deputies, who in turn called for a trapper. The state says trappers must come when called.
Jack Rhoden got out of bed and drove from Dade City. He found the alligator in someone's back yard. It was nearly 9 feet long. He put a noose around its neck, which sounds difficult, but Rhoden does this all the time. He sat on its back, held its jaws closed and taped its snout shut.
A little boy watched with delight. Rhoden reminded the boy of the Crocodile Hunter, and the boy gave Rhoden a rock.
"He said it was his alligator rock," Rhoden remembered, "and he wanted me to have it."
Rhoden dumped the alligator into a cage behind his truck and took off, leaving the humans of Beacon Square Drive to speculate about its fate.
There was a general understanding that it would be relocated. This is what people like to think. This is what Kevin Jessup wanted. He imagined himself finding a wayward alligator and gently guiding it back into the woods.
But that's not what happens. Relocation doesn't work, because new alligators tend to disrupt whatever ecosystem they find, and the trappers need some financial incentive.
Rhoden works with another trapper named Mickey Fagan, who has a slaughterhouse in Lacoochee.
The captured alligators go there. They come out in pieces. They become handbags and belts. They appear in restaurants and sports bars, deep-fried with a side of tangy dipping sauce.
These are the consequences of breaking the agreement.
Violators will be executed.
Look, gator, we had a deal