Giant Iguana Amadeus When last we saw our Giant Street Lizards, Iguana II had made it to the street with Iguana I somewhere behind. Meanwhile, Michael and I were beginning to regain our composure as traffic slowed to a crawl, and ultimately a stop.
"What do we do? Who do we call?" I pulled out my cell phone and looked at it as if it would answer me by immediately calling someone. Less than a block away was the 254-bed Lovelace Medical Center. It had an ER, I knew. "No, dummy. There's no veterinarian there. They can't help, " I told myself. I looked at my phone again. "911? Is this a real emergency? I don't think so. Animal control? Hell if I know the number," I said aloud.
Michael got around in front of Iguana II and it stopped before crossing the street. Our three-legged Iguana, still struggling to catch up was trying to get over a fallen fence post.
Suddenly, a voice came from behind me. "There you are! Time to come home, boys."
I turned around and saw a young, respectable-looking fellow walking slowly towards us. "These are yours, I guess," Michael said. "Do you want to get this one before he gets run over?"
"Oh, he's alright. That's Amadeus. He likes to pretend to get away every now and then."
"These are really yours?" I asked. "Where do they live?"
"Over here under the stairs," he pointed to the house next door. "They usually don't get this far."
Michael and I looked at one another and then back at the newcomer as he leaned over and picked up the three-legged iguana. It immediately began to struggle. It's claws grasping at the air as he was lifted by his mid-section. At this point I named him "Lizard Dude." The man placed the giant lizard on his left shoulder and headed toward Amadeus, who was having none of being captured. With amazing agility, the four-legged creature was off down the sidewalk. Michael briefly lunged for it, but was too late.
Lizard Dude dropped Iguana I and ran after Amadeus. Within seconds, they were down the street and around the corner where screeching tires could be heard. We waited, along with Iguana I, while Dude slowly returned with an out-of-breath four-foot lizard clinging and scratching on his right shoulder. He said nothing, but leaned over and picked up Iguana I and started toward next door.
Again, Michael and I looked at one another. "What the . . ." was all that came out of our mouths. Slowly, uncomfortably, we went back inside and back to work. For the rest of the day all we could think or talk about was that we had just visited the Twilight Zone and somehow made it back. That night when we told our friends and family, they laughed. Some of them wondered if we weren't having some type of group hallucination. I even wondered a little.
Wondered, that is, until the next day when I saw Lizard Dude outside walking around our job site with a ladder. "Wonder what he's up to?" I said to Michael. "The lizard guy is out there with a ladder." Just as a I said it, we heard the ladder hit the side of our house. We made our way outside in time to find the neighbor halfway up the ladder.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Have you seen my boys?" he asked.
"You mean the lizards?" Michael responded.
"Yea."
"No, not since yesterday."
"Well, I think their up on your roof here. Mind if I check?"
"Guess not. How would they get up there? It's at least 20 feet straight up the walls."
"Oh, they've been up here before," he said as he disappeared over the roof line.
We waited a few minutes and Lizard Dude finally came back to the ladder and crawled down. "Not there. Oh, well. I guess I'll just leave some lettuce down here in case they show up."
"You mean they're loose again?" Michael asked.
"Yea, but they'll show up eventually," he said as he took himself and his ladder back to the house next door.
"Need any help?" I asked.
"Nope," he said as he disappeared around the corner.
That was it. He was gone. We never saw Lizard Dude or the lizards again. Although we hoped for the best and wanted to help, he didn't seem to want any. Besides, there are times you have to seriously ask yourself: does that person need the type of help that I can offer? For us, the answer was an emphatic, "No." We hoped Lizard Dude found Amadeus and Iguana I. But we knew that our time in this particular Twilight Zone was over. We hope they all found the help they needed that day.
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