Rising forty feet into the air, in cylindrical massiveness, they stood… my mountains. These steel clad tanks filled with the remnants of ancient dinosaurs my landscape. I clung to and climbed on their cold metal ladders-absolutely forbidden-reaching up into tanks of dark Texas tea. Mountains, whose inner inky juices, were just waiting to be shipped and combusted in mobile fury.
Each day, secretly, I would set out from the safety of Aunt Florie’s kitchen to explore this metallic and stark landscape--just a tiny anthropologist on a naturalistic mission to find the tribe of the Lizard King. Crossing the parking lot and under the roped off drive I would creep. Running across the storage yard to the first cylindrical mountain I would trace my hand along its circular surface. Grey paint the color of an old ship bottom would leave a chalky film on my hand. The small rock pellets crunched under my feet and I could hear myself breathing hard. Slowly I crept deeper past the steel mountains and deep into the innards of the industrial chaparral.
As any good ethnographer knows, when in the field, precise notes and good data collection are the secret to success and I instinctively realized this on my current journey--my little spiral notebook, always in my back pocket, was at the ready to register the glories of my quest.
10:10 am All is well on the surface…no sign yet of the elusive Lizard people.
Today, I hoped for first contact with the mysterious Lizard family that I had observed in the sunning place on the far side of the region out past the cylindrical mountains. On previous excursions into this dark fueled continent, I had curiously observed them for hours. Laying on my belly, in the hard gravel field obscured only by the oily shadow of the great cylindrical mountains… I watched them.
I noted their bizarre rituals and interactions in great detail. How they would move suddenly out of the shadows and stop abruptly, with their long languid bodies moving up and down, as if doing push-ups in the full sun. How the little ones would skirt around the edge of the big stone in the sunning place and only the King would be allowed on top. He sat so still, with the sun revealing his majestic head and long sinewy tail. Every so often his long pink tongue would emerge and lick his slanted yellow eye.
10:23 am coming close to the Lizard encampment…must remain focused.
Approaching the sunning place I tried to quiet the crunch of the gravel under my keds. Each step seemed to echo like thunder in my brain and I was sure it would scare the mysterious Lizard family.
I also had to be very careful to stay low so as to not to alert the sentries who would surely capture me and remove me from completing my mission.
I looked at the next steel mountain ahead of me, huge hieroglyphics were painted on the side—MOBIL Tank 23. I was almost to the sunning place. Rounding the last mountain I came to the clearing of the sunning place. Empty and rusty drums lay on their sides and large stones with grass climbing up and around them provided the perfect habitat for the little colony. Insects buzzed in the warm sun and I hoped the family group would arrive soon. I crept to the throne of the Lizard King. I perched right below, and got very still.
10:31 am the little ones are out…no sign yet of the King.
My patience was rewarded and he moved very fast to the top of his rocky throne. He sees me and I hold my breath afraid he will run. I just stay so still. His tongue flicks out, as if to sense me. I close my eyes and just wait. He does not run.
11:02 am still sitting with the King my hand now on the rock.
My excitement had gotten the best of my scientific training and I wanted to touch the King.
I thought to myself, I just want to pick him up and feel his dry scaly skin. I wanted to do this very badly. He seemed to trust me, or have at least decided that I was not a threat and was on with his business of sunning himself.
I moved my hand closer to him.
No movement from him, he just opened one yellow eye and looked at me. I left my hand there for long moments. Finally, I could wait no more and grabbed him up by his tail.
Endless seconds it seemed he was dangling in front of me as I examined him. I thought about taking him home, perhaps a fish tank and a new habitat for him, I could use the company.
Yet in an instant he was gone…dropping to the ground and running off into the bushes.
I was left with only the tip of the King’s tail. Devastated, as I was sure that I had hurt the very thing I had come to want. I dropped the ejected tail and ran off into the stark landscape with tears burning down my cheeks.
My mission dreadfully ruined. I had broken the main rule of anthropology in the field-do no harm to the natives.
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