The Trials and Tribulations of a Modern-Day Hrothgar
or A Cautionary Tale Against Carelessly Disposing of Pet Alligators
Looking the fifty-foot long alligator in the eye, I quickly reevaluated my firm belief that the urban legend about alligators and sewers wasn't true. I swallowed. It licked his lips. "Good boy," I ventured. It bared his teeth. I bolted inside.
Slamming the door shut behind me, I shouted, "Harris! You'd better come look at this!" I easily navigated the maze of corridors, finally coming to his office and bursting inside.
He looked at me with a faintly patronizing smile. "What is it, honey?"
I scowled. "Don't call me that. There's a fifty-foot alligator outside the front door." At his incredulous look, I grabbed his sleeve. "See for yourself."
Grumbling something about over-reactive women, he followed me to the front entrance and threw it open. Whatever he was saying died on his lips as he saw the alligator.
"Grrrrnnndlll," it growled at Harris.
Harris calmly shut and barred the door, then stared at it for a good minute- only time I've ever seen him speechless. "Sweet Jesus," he finally managed.
"GRRRNNNDLLL!" roared the alligator.
I pulled out my notebook and swiftly scribbled in it. "Grendel it is." I patted Harris on the shoulder. "I'll call the police." He nodded dazedly, still staring at the door.
*****
I'm fairly sure mutant alligators weren't part of my job description, but I'd learned to expect the unexpected- I was working in New York City, after all. For Mayor Raymond Harris, to be exact, who had a talent for attracting the unexpected. He was a decidedly strange man, a recently widowed former cop with a head of unruly gray hair and a boisterous, annoyingly charming personality. Don't ask me how I ended up working for him for his entire campaign, or how he ended up mayor- I haven't the slightest idea. Surprisingly enough, to me at least, he proved himself perfect for the job; he claimed he was meant to rule due to royal British ancestors. I never could tell whether or not he was joking.
But I digress, and I'm sure all of you want to read about our heroic stance against the evil, popcorn flick monster. Lack of one, to be precise. Oh, it wasn't for lack of trying- we had the NYPD and the National Guard outside City Hall with guns a-blazin' in record time, but it seemed our Grendel took after his fictional counterpart in his immunity to weapons. He would calmly shake off the bullets and then calmly eat whoever was shooting at him, much to Harris's horror. They finally gave up and set up a blockade and a guard, which Grendel ignored, just pacing in front of the front door. Some experimentation determined that as long as no one attacked him or came too close, he wasn't bothering anyone. Except, naturally, Harris.
We discovered that our problem was slightly worse than we thought when the army tried to escort Harris out the back door and to a safer place. The second he stepped out of the door- "GRRRRRRNNNNNNDDDDLLLLL!" The alligator ran towards him, moving faster than a fifty-foot reptile had any right to. The group ran back inside, directly into me.
One of the men cleared his throat worriedly. "Mayor Harris, that thing's not letting you go anywhere."
He shrugged flippantly. "Then I'll stay here until I think of something. Thank you for your help, but you can all leave now. It doesn't have any problem with anyone else coming or going." After some token protestations, they left. Turning to me, he continued, "You get out of here, too. No need to endanger anyone else but me." He was trying to be nonchalant, and failing miserably.
I gave a long-suffering sigh and closed my eyes. I wanted to take him up on his offer; I couldn't do anything to help him, it was the sensible thing to do. So what did I say? "Harris, you can't get rid of me that easily. I'll stick with you."
He gave me a brilliant grin and clasped my shoulder. "That's my girl!"
Sometimes I question my sanity.
*****
I slept at City Hall after going home to get my things; Grendel still wasn't touching anyone besides Harris. A few people were as foolish as I was and stayed as well, and the next morning we went out to get food and supplies for the mayor. Excepting a half-hearted growl from Grendel, the trip went without incident.
Harris brightened slightly at the McDonald's McFeast we brought back for him and quickly dived into his breakfast. He glanced at the pile of newspapers we brought and winced. "All right, what do they have to say?" he asked with a sigh.
Paging through the papers, I read some of the choice tidbits. "'New York Attacked by King Croc'...'Mayor Harris Cowers in Fear'...'See You Later, Alligator' from half the humor columnists in the country...'Anonymous Sources Say New York Alligator Government Conspiracy'- that one's from the Washington Post, of course..." I tossed them on his desk. "And what do you think the polls say, mister Mayor?"
He wearily looked at me. "What?"
"The polls say the rest of the country finds this amusing."
*****
And thus began the routine: sleep at City Hall, get food and the papers, spend the rest of the day with Harris trying for a solution. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat for twelve long days.
Harris mustered a smile, more like a grimace, when I brought the papers in for him on the morning of the twelfth day. "How's the outside world, sweetie?" He was exhausted- the stress of being barricaded in City Hall for almost two weeks coupled with the several idiots who provoked Grendel and got themselves eaten was finally taking its toll.
I returned the smile. "Still there..." I read him the polls from the papers. "28% say we keep on attacking with the army, 25% say we ask for foreign aid, 20% say we let it go in its natural habitat, and 12% say we ignore it and hope it goes away."
He raised an eyebrow. "Only 85%?"
I grimaced. "Other 15% says we nuke the hell out of it."
Harris matched my grimace. "If we live through this, New York City's seceding from the Union."
It was at that moment a tall, muscular man confidently burst through the door to Harris's office and stood posing heroically, waiting for out admiration. We stared. "Who are you?" I asked, my patience not exactly at its greatest. I looked him over: perfect body, lustrous blond hair tied into a ponytail, immaculate dress, gorgeous face, basically the hero of a romance novel come to life. I despised him already.
He gave a smile of a man utterly sure of himself and stuck out his hand. "Benton Nolan," he said. "I'm here to help."
I was still staring at him incredulously when Harris shook his hand with a smile. "Raymond Harris, and this is my lovely secretary Ursula Delancy." Nolan moved on to me, enthusiastically shaking my hand and crushing my fingers in the process. I quickly tore my hand away and folded my arms before he did any more damage. "And how can you help us, Mr. Nolan?" Harris asked, sounding more amused than annoyed. I rolled my eyes- well, at least the arrogant bastard cheered him up.
"Let me guess- you're going to arm-wrestle Grendel?" I muttered with more than a touch of sarcasm.
Nolan's eyes narrowed slightly. "I can understand him."
I groaned. "Oh, God. He thinks he's the Alligator Whisperer!"
Harris stifled a laugh. "You can understand him?"
Offended, Nolan crossed his arms. "Yes. I can tell you why he's only after you." He didn't even have the decency to look embarrassed.
To my chagrin, Harris actually looked as if he was considering it. Finally, he quirked a smile. "All right, give it a try."
"What?!" I stared at Harris. "He just comes strolling in here spouting some B.S. about being able to understand a giant alligator, and you-"
"And what have you done?" Nolan interrupted me heatedly. "I've done this before, many times. Have any of your brilliant plans worked?" At my silence, he smiled smugly. "No, of course not."
Seeing that I was about to smack Nolan, Harris stepped between us. "It can't hurt to try." He actually looked hopeful, an expression I hadn't seen for days.
"I don't trust him," I said bluntly.
Harris nodded. "In that case, you keep an eye on him." He smiled all-too-innocently at me, then turned to Nolan. "I trust you have no problem with that?"
Nolan looked as happy as I did. "If you have to," he grumbled petulantly.
"Great!" Harris beamed. "You can start as soon as you're ready."
Sometimes I question Harris's sanity.
*****
And that is how I ended up outside, back firmly pressed to the wall, while Grendel quietly snarled at Nolan and me. The madman coolly surveyed the scene. "Hmmm," he said.
"Hmmm? I think 'Oh my God, let's get out of the way of the giant, evil, mutant alligator' would be more appropriate!" I suggested.
Nolan gave me an amused glance. "O ye of little faith. Calm down, he won't hurt us." With that, he strolled directly up to the alligator and shouted, "Grendel!"
"GRRRRRRRNNNNNNDDLLLLL!" Grendel lowered his head and snapped at Nolan, who didn't even flinch. I couldn't watch anymore- just what we needed, yet another idiot getting himself killed. When I didn't hear bones crunching after a few seconds, I hazarded a glance and then stared in utter disbelief. Nolan was lazily pushing against Grendel's snout, one-handed, and the alligator was actually struggling to break free! Nolan glanced back to give me a wink, then began softly murmuring to Grendel. After a moment, the alligator stopped struggling. A moment after that, he began grumbling back.
They communicated for a few minutes, then Nolan walked back to me, chuckling over something. "Grendel will be gone within the hour."
Eloquently, I asked, "But...you....how...?"
He grinned. "C'mon, we have to go to Mayor Harris's house." Without another word, he hurried back inside to talk to him.
*****
Nolan exited from Harris's living room carrying a large cardboard box with holes in it; we went back out and jumped in the car.
I raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"
"Important. Now drive carefully." I rolled my eyes and did so.
Finally, curiosity got the best of me. "Ok, did you really talk to it? And how'd you hold it back?"
"Nolan's a Gaelic name, you know," he commented idly after ignoring me for a while.
"And...?"
"Some people say Beowulf wasn't a fictional character." He smiled mysteriously. "Some people say there were quite a lot of Gaelic names in his family tree." And he refused to say another word until we got back to City Hall.
He hurried outside the second I parked the car, carefully carrying the box; Grendel rushed towards him and I was surprised to find myself actually worried he'd eat Nolan. But he stopped, carefully nudging at the box with his snout. Grendel leaned forward as Nolan opened it up, then gently picked up the contents with his teeth- an alligator?
I walked over, puzzled. Nolan waved Harris, who was watching the scene from inside, out. Grendel didn't attack him, just growled softly from the back of his throat. "He's sorry," Nolan called to Grendel, who was still gently holding the smaller alligator. After an agonizing moment, he turned and ambled away with his newfound friend.
Harris laughed sheepishly. "It was a birthday present for my niece..." He suddenly whooped, startling me. "I'm free!" He enthusiastically shook Nolan's hand. "I can't thank you enough, Mr. Nolan."
Nolan smiled that smug little smile of his. "Glad to be of service." He turned to me and I shook his hand, resigning myself to nursing broken fingers again.
I couldn't suppress a wry smile. "I thought Beowulf was supposed to be a warrior?"
Nolan grinned. "Times change, Ursula. Don't complain- I vanquished the monsters, didn't I?" As he walked away, he couldn't resist turning back for one last parting shot. "By the way, you've got your monsters mixed up…I think she could be more aptly called Grendel's mother…"
*****
Harris retired after his term as mayor was finished, jokingly saying he had to go claim his place as rightful heir to the throne of England. Well, I think it was jokingly. And who else could follow the most charming mayor of New York City but the most arrogantly charismatic? Naturally, Benton Nolan, hero of New York, was elected mayor after Harris left. He's just as good a mayor as Harris was, although I'd never admit it out loud. And me? Somehow I found myself working for Nolan- I just have a knack for getting sucked into these things. And lately, he's been reminding me, "Beowulf did have a queen, you know…" Maybe I should run away while I still can…but I know I won't. I'll just stay and wait for the dragon…