Drying Out

Otis introduced himself to me indirectly. A woman with a New York laugh, all bedecked in black tropical shorts and wearing rhinestoned, many-angled glasses with gradient-shade lenses pulls up a chair two seats down from me at the breakfast bar at Durty Jake’s. She lets out a small whoop and stands, shaking her newspaper.

“A gecko,” she explains with a little laugh.

He stalks her some more, peeking above the back counter rim and advancing on her once again.

“He likes you!” I laugh.

He advances boldly, moving toward her condensation-coated drinking glass.

“Oh, he’s thirsty,” I realize aloud.

Sure enough, he begins licking the side of her glass. He continues even while she reaches in the glass for an ice cube. She tosses the cube to his side, and he runs the other way. She picks up the ice, tosses it near him again, he runs back to the first spot. She picks it up… sets it near the glass and it’s only a matter of seconds before he runs to the ice cube and begins licking. He looks up to her with grateful lizard eyes, cute. She regresses to baby talk and he resumes drinking. Once satisfied, he darts off and leaps up onto a nearby pillar. He watches while I write all about him, supervising with distant approval. I look again; he’s gone.

Otis returned another day for a refresher from a pool of condensation off of my water glass. It was my husband’s first visit to Durty Jake’s, and I had just told him the remarkable story of Otis’ boldness.

I watched the chartreuse lizard lapping from the ring of water. The electric rings of light blue around his black eyes matched his many-sized blue freckles. This time I watched his tongue, a dark maroon strip scooping into a soup-spoon as he touched the water.

Another day, as I was leaving from our breakfast at Durty Jake’s, I heard the background sound of a louder conversation.

“How you get dat ting ‘way from me?” A woman’s voice asked her dining companion. I didn’t quite hear the words as I walked toward the exit, choosing my zig-zag path from the restaurant (around the chairs, mind you, not due to the contents of my breakfast). Again, this time a little louder came the request, “How you get dat ting ‘way from me?” Again, I just didn’t really notice.

Until, that is, a hand clasped over my wrist and pulled me in the general direction of the voice, now a bit higher in pitch than the first two times. Pleading eyes looked at me, and I was embarrassed to realize that the requests one and two were made to me. Here came number three, in a mezzo-soprano vibrato, “How you get dat ting ‘way from me?” She glanced quickly at her tropical drink in a lovely margarita-style glass.

At its base lay Otis, lapping up the condensation like a tiny wet-vac. I smiled at my buddy, and assured her, “Oh, he’s harmless. That’s Otis. He gets thirsty. Besides, if we get him away, he’ll just come back. He’ll leave on his own in just a minute.”

My mothering tone drew out the little girl tone in the woman, and the voice went up to falsetto, “How you get dat ting ‘way from me?”

Clearly, I had missed the point. It didn’t matter that the lizard was okay. This woman was not okay, and she was in need of help. She looked at the gecko like she was seeing the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Which I suppose she was, as far as monsters in this paradise go. I feel much more concern about monstrous creatures here that sting, like scorpions or king-size centipedes. But for all intents and purposes, Otis had already bitten her, if not just threatening to do so. We shooed him away as best we could, and went on about our business. I hope he had the sense to do the same.