He wasn't much to look at. He was homely, sorry sight. As the old saying goes, he was a sight for sore eyes. He was such a fright that when people looked at him, they normally winced and turned away.
There wasn't anything between his ears. Talking to him was like talking to a brick wall. No matter what anyone said to him, he could only blankly stare into outer space. There was no one home, and he couldn't hear you. He wasn't considered dangerous by anyone on the island, but he was known to be too dumb to be trusted. It's how he got his name Spacey Tracey in the first place, and the name suited him perfectly.
Spacey Tracey wasn't always dumb. He did it to himself over many decades of drinking, using cocaine, and taking Quaaludes by the hand full. Now though, he was much older and the glory days of his good looks and what little friendly personality he once had was gone. He was a loner, a hermit, and freakishly quiet. He often had bandages on his arms because even his own dog bit him frequently.
He lived alone his whole life on the island and spent most of his days on his commercial fishing boat pulling his lobster traps out on the reef in the Florida Keys. Every season, he put out one thousand lobster traps and he caught a lot of lobster every year. Making money was not a problem for him. He was a very skilled lobsterman and boat captain, but he was often sidetracked as a part time drug runner too.
He frequently found bales of weed and coke floating out on the reef for free, out in the shipping lanes about 10 miles offshore in the Florida Straits. He'd fill his big forty-foot commercial boat full of soaking wet bales of weed or coke, or square groupers as they're called. He'd quickly haul ass back to his house and load the bales into his van. Then, he'd run them up to Miami and cash out the same day. No one really knew if he was making a better living as a lobsterman or as a drug runner because he always did both.
Over the years the salt water and the hot tropical sun took a toll on him. He looked more like an old turtle than a man. His arms, legs, and face were crispy dark brown and his skin was always peeling. Saggy deep wrinkles appeared to be growing from his skinny bones. He was short and skinny and always looked like he was starving to death even though he ate like a horse. He wore an old tattered baseball cap to hide the fact that he was almost completely bald in his mid-thirties.
He had a deep diagonal scar that ran the full length of his face from the top of his forehead, diagonal across his nose, and down past his chin to his ear. It was a constant reminder for him and everyone on the island of a night of partying in Key West in 1980.
He and another guy from the island drove home drunk from Key West around 4 am after the bars closed. Headed back to the middle Florida Keys, Spacey Tracey was asleep in the back of his van and his friend Daniel was driving. Daniel fell asleep at the wheel coming off Seven Mile Bridge. The cops said he was travelling at around ninety mph when he crashed the van and rolled over several times down a steep rocky embankment at the end of the bridge in Marathon. Daniel wasn't injured, but the van was totaled. Spacey Tracey barely survived the crash with many lacerations and broken bones.
He never healed from the wreck and walked sort of crooked and with a limp. The large scar across his face was a constant reminder he was lucky to be alive.
Strangely, even years after the crash, the two remained friends and still ran Spacey Tracey's lobster boat together. Spacey Tracey never outwardly blamed Daniel for wrecking the van and almost killing him because the two of them were always partners in crime. But deep down, Spacey Tracey harbored resentment towards Daniel and secretly wanted payback any way he could get it.
When Irena first moved to the island, she was afraid of Spacey Tracey. He was the weirdest person she'd ever seen in her life. She could see and feel the black cloud that was always around him. He was always stumbling around drunk and drugged up lurking somewhere on the island. Irena began dating his friend Daniel who, on the surface, appeared to be nothing like Spacey Tracey.
When she came around to see Daniel, Spacey Tracey would latch on to her. Kissing her, bear hugging her, and putting his slimy little turtle paws all over her. Sometimes Daniel had to pull him off of her when she couldn't cut loose from his animalistic grip. He was a savage and would pop up out of no here and attack her. After several covert attacks, she always went out of her way to avoid him, and would not go near his house anymore.
Spacey Tracey lived in a 1950's Conch house on the Florida Bay side of the island. The tiny wooden shack was hidden by thick clusters of scrubby, sickly palm trees and overgrown scraggy Oleander shrubs.
His front yard was so small there was barely enough room to park one vehicle. Behind his dilapidated wooden shack, there was no back yard. His big commercial fishing boat was tied to the dock and the dock was attached directly to the back of the house.
It was hard to get to the side door of his house without risking strangulation. There were heavy duty ropes at neck height zigzagging the yard tied to skinny palm trees. It was a hair brain solution of his. His house was anchored to the trees to keep his boat and dock from taking his house out to sea in storms. Some of the ropes weren't tied to palm trees at all. Some were tied to big boat anchors shoved down in the dirt under the palm trees.
During bad storms, when the wind caught the cabin on his 40-foot boat, the dock yanked his house around, twisted all the boards and planks, and would almost take flight. He used his house as a boat anchor, and anchored the house to palm trees and old boat anchors in the yard.
Around 1950s when the house was built, it was built over the water. To get to the house he had to walk the plank. The plank was a rickety fifty-foot-long narrow, wooden, raised walkway from the street to the house. Over the years, the planks fell apart and the shallow water that used to be the front yard, he filled in with dirt and crushed coral gravel.
This was the reason nothing grew very well in his yard. Less than a foot underground, the yard was still saltwater. All the trees and shrubs were sick and half dead as their roots were in salt water. The vegetation barely managed to stay alive and could never grow right.
Spacey Tracey often threw loud parties with weekend warriors he invited from Miami. The loud drunken parties went on all night long, sometimes all weekend long. Everyone on the island was somewhat irritated by the loud heavy metal music, people yelling, and loud noises no one could describe what they'd heard. It was like hearing a pack of wild animals in the dark and not being able to see what the animals were doing, but no one wanted to know either.
Spacey Tracey always invited Irena to his parties, but she flat-out ignored him. She acted like he was invisible when she ran into him around the island. Irena knew he was nothing but trouble, always up to no good, and it was best to always steer clear of his grubby little turtle paws.
She didn't want to have to hurt him. He would never stop chasing her like a dog in heat. He would grab her, pull her tight against his chest, and hold her with all his might against his body. He'd try to make her dance with him, and he'd start licking and kissing her neck. He'd hold on to her so tight she had to kick him in the kneecap or bite him to make him let go. It only happened a few times before she wouldn't go near him, or let him sneak up on her.
In his postage stamp size front yard was an old, beat up, 1974 black Norton motorcycle rusted out from years of being left out in the salt air. He would sometimes leave the island for days at a time on the motorcycle. No one knew where he went, and no one paid attention or cared. One day, he left the island on the motorcycle and didn't come back. The rumor around the island was he got into some big trouble and was in jail.
He'd been gone almost a week. One morning, Irena walked from her house to the marina on the island to buy a bag of ice. In the newspaper box, the local newspaper had just been delivered. On the front page was the headline story that read: Florida Keys Man Arrested for Alligator on Motorcycle.
Irena put a quarter in the slot, got a newspaper, and read the breaking news article. It was Spacey Tracey. Apparently, the way the story went, he was on the motorcycle and was way over on the other side of Alligator Alley in the Florida Everglades. He saw a four-foot-long alligator in a culvert and caught it. He wrapped the gator in a brown paper bag and strapped it to the back of his motorcycle with bungee cords.
People saw him in the act and called the police. He evaded capture and made it all the way across Alligator Alley and down through Homestead and Florida City on the back roads. He then made it all the way across the Eighteen Mile Stretch and half way across Key Largo before the cops spotted him. All officers in the county were on the lookout for him. When they finally pulled him over in Key Largo right across the street from the Holiday Inn, five patrol cars surrounded him on his motorcycle with the alligator thrashing wildly about on the back of the bike.
When the police stopped him, he was drunk and high on Quaaludes and couldn't get off the motorcycle or stand up. They approached him with guns drawn and extreme caution as the alligator was fighting like crazy to get free. Only a few pieces of the paper bag were left, and the alligator was clearly visible. Spacey Tracey thought the alligator was still hidden in the bag, but the head and tail ripped through and was in plain sight for all to see.
The cops approached with guns drawn fearing they might have to shoot the alligator if it got loose. Tourists in cars on US 1 swerved and slammed on their brakes. Soon, one car rear-ended another car, and the traffic was backed up because of the accident. Some tourists jumped out of their cars and ran from the scene. No one knew why a whole squad of police cars and cops with guns drawn were pointed at a motorcyclist on the side of the road.
Chaos and pandemonium broke out and the police didn't know what to do. People were out of their cars and running amuck. Scared tourists were running down the highway, across the median into oncoming traffic, and down into the mangroves on the side of the road. Several more cars were rear ended and the car accidents piled up. The cops couldn't pay attention to all the confused tourists and car accidents. They were too occupied by the wild alligator in their sights, and the dazed man on the motorcycle.
The cops screamed at Spacey Tracey ordering him to get off the motorcycle. In his bare feet, he made several attempts to put the kickstand down. The gravel shoulder on the side of the road wasn't flat, and he couldn't get the motorcycle to stand up on the kickstand. Eventually, he slumped down over the gas tank and passed out. A few seconds later, he fell over and the motorcycle and the alligator fell on top of him. The cops rushed towards him, pulled him out from under the motorcycle, and handcuffed him. They drug him through the gravel, tossed him into the back seat of a patrol car, and locked him in.
The cops stood around the motorcycle trying to figure out what to do. The alligator was strapped to the motorcycle and going crazy thrashing around. The alligator was severely agitated and no one could approach. The gator was upside down on his back with the motorcycle on top its' belly. They tried to cut the bungee cords with a knife, but every time they got close, the gator viciously snapped at them. One officer took off running for cover, yelling it was a danger and a menace and needed to be shot, but no one shot at it.
The officers stood around the gator in the sweltering Florida Keys summer heat, sweating in full police uniforms. Out of breath from the heat and all the yelling, they were running out of options. They were concerned that if they managed to free the alligator from the motorcycle, it would attack them, or take off and attack tourists on the highway.
Finally, one officer had enough of all the charades. He was the biggest and the craziest cop. He threw his belt and holster onto the ground and yelled, "I'm going to flat out tackle his ass! The rest of you get some rope and were going to hog tie this sucker!"
No one argued with him, but they all laughed at him. With a declaration of war, all of the cops were ready to jump into action and tackle the gator.
Tourists at the scene on US 1 told reporters they didn't believe what they saw next. In a high-flying dive like a professional wrestler or a linebacker, and screaming like a maniac, the biggest cop ran straight at the alligator and threw his whole body on top of the motorcycle and the gator.
Pinned to the ground under the motorcycle, the gator bit his arms and tried to take the cop's head off. The cop grabbed the gator by the head, wrestled him away from the motorcycle in a life and death struggle, and both were rolling around in the gravel in a fight that lasted several minutes.
The cop tried to hold his jaws shut, but the cop was twisted up with the motorcycle. The alligator was briefly on top of the cop and he was suddenly screaming for help. The other four cops jumped in. It took all five of them to finally pin the gator to the ground while they hog tied him with rope.
Just when they thought they had tied up, the gator broke loose and took off like a rocket across the highway. All five cops ran after the gator dodging cars and tourists. In the middle of US 1, in front of hundreds of tourists and guests at the Holiday Inn, all five of the cops again tackled the gator in the middle of US 1.
Eventually, the alligator was hog tied in so much rope the gator couldn't move. Tourists on both sides of the highway cheered and clapped. The cops picked the alligator up and carried him like a trophy back across the highway and shoved the monster into the back seat of a squad car.
The cops were dirty, sweating, and trying to catch their breath. No one was laughing now. They had no idea how hard the "take down" was going to be when they started.
The cop who had an alligator in the back seat of his squad car didn't want to drive down the road with it. He knew it took all five of them to hog tie the gator. He was afraid if the alligator got loose in the car, he could end up in a wreck. One of the officers agreed to leave his squad car on the side of the road and ride with him.
All of the officers forgot all about Spacey Tracey. He was passed out in the back seat of one of the squad cars. Two of the officers tried to wake him up and interrogate him. They were furious and yelling at him, but he was passed out dead to the world.
The next morning at his arraignment at the courthouse in Marathon, Spacey Tracey had a friend named Jeff who was an attorney who was going to represent him. Jeff was late, but the court allowed some time for his attorney to show up. Everyone in the courtroom waited quietly in the air conditioning and all five of the arresting cops were present.
Jeff burst through the courtroom doors like a hurricane coming in. As he ran to the front of the court room, large puddles of water spilled across the floor. He was soaking wet head to toe. He had no shoes, no shirt, and was only wearing a ripped-up pair of soaking wet blue jean shorts.
He approached the judge and stood at the podium and begged the court for forgiveness. He said he was out fishing when his boat started taking on water, the engine wouldn't start, and he had to swim to shore in order to get to court. Seeing he'd made a valiant effort, the judge allowed him to proceed, even though everyone present was laughing at the half naked sight of him.
Jeff pushed the soggy, long, hair from his face. His hair, beard, and jean shorts dripped puddles onto the floor where he stood barefoot at the podium.
"Your honor! My client is innocent! He did not have an alligator strapped to the back of his motorcycle!"
The courtroom burst out in roaring laughter. The judge smiled, folded his arms, and begged Jeff to go proceed.
"My client was visiting a friend in Fort Lauderdale who owned a large pet iguana and his friend didn't want to keep it anymore. He gave it to my client and he brought it home with him on his motorcycle. It's all been a big mistake your honor!"
All at once, the police officers in the courtroom who wrestled the alligator to the ground in an Olympic hog-tying event began breathing hard and were irritated. They looked at each other in total surprise and disbelief. They were eager to take the stand to testify that what they wrestled and captured was in fact an alligator, and not an overgrown iguana.
One by one they all took the stand and recounted the incident. They recounted a horrifying scene of car accidents, tourists fleeing, and a wild alligator trying to bite and kill them. No one in the courtroom could believe their ears. With every account, each witness told a tale of disbelief and they said their job descriptions never included wrestling alligators. The biggest cop of all had alligator bite marks on his arm to prove his testimony.
As Jeff interrogated each one, he asked for undeniable proof. The police had no photographs and no witnesses. Jeff suggested the bite marks could have been from a dog and not an alligator. The police offered to have Florida Fish and Wildlife come to court to give proof that they had turned the alligator over to them, but the judge refused to give them a continuance.
Without delay and to everyone's surprise, the judge ruled that as the police had no eyewitnesses and no real evidence, the defendant was innocent.
The judge didn't let Spacey Tracey off the hook completely. He issued a warning and a $500 fine plus court costs. He was scorned by the judge to never strap any live animal to his motorcycle ever again. He was never charged with reckless endangerment or DUI as the cops had plain forgotten to charge him with anything but the alligator charge.
As Spacey Tracey stood up and staggered out of the court room, the judge called out for him to stop.
"Sir, I want to ask you just one thing." The judge eyed Spacey Tracey looking down at him.
"If you had an iguana or an alligator on your motorcycle, what were you going to do with it when you got home?" The judge asked curiously, trying not to laugh.
Standing in the middle of the court room looking like a drunken bum, Spacey Tracey raised his arms and waved them around as if to blow off the question.
"My dog is old and lazy. I was going to chain it to my house to alert me when people come into my yard for my own protection." He slurred, still drunk and high on Quaaludes.
The judge's face turned pale white then went blank. He motioned with his hand for everyone to leave his courtroom. He didn't smirk or laugh. He was disgusted by the whole three ring circus he'd just witnessed of five cops who couldn't prove it was an alligator, Spacey Tracy looking dead to the world, his attorney half-naked and dripping water all over the courtroom, and a news reporter outside the door snapping photos.
As Jeff, Spacey Tracey, and all the police officers left the courtroom, people seated in the courtroom were left dazed and confused. No one had any idea what just happened. No one knew the truth to the story if it was really an alligator or not. The bailiff fetched a mop and soaked up the puddles of water around the podium and down the aisle after the three-ring circus left the courtroom.
Outside in the parking lot, Jeff asked one of the police officers to call a marine towing service and to tell them where his boat sank. Jeff then casually walked barefoot across the parking lot, walked across the beach, and swam out into the water to try and save his boat that was almost a mile offshore.
The cops watched in utter confusion as to why he didn't just wait for the towing service to take him to his boat. After that day in court, it was common belief that Jeff didn't work as an attorney for money and was probably paid for his services in Quaaludes.
Everyone on the island knew for certain Spacey Tracey tried to bring an alligator home with him because everyone knew he was that crazy. Everyone knew he didn't have a friend who gave him an overgrown pet iguana.
In the evenings Irena often rode her bicycle around the circle road on the island that passed Spacey Tracey's old conch house. For many months, the house seemed deserted and quiet.
One evening on the edge of dark she was riding by and thought she heard a rustling noise in the shrubs around his house. She didn't stop to check it out and just ignored it. Over the next six months or so, every time she passed by his house, she thought she heard a rustling noise. She told herself it was just her imagination running wild about the idea of an alligator tied to his house.
As winter came, howling wind and heavy rain blew in daily off the Florida Bay and Irena didn't ride her bicycle much. When summer approached, she started riding her bicycle around the circle road again. She rode during the day when all of the fisherman were out pulling lobster straps and the island was mostly quiet.
One day as she passed Spacey Tracey's house she heard the rustling noise again, and then heard what sounded like a clanking chain noise. She stopped and looked at the shrubs around his house, but she didn't see anything. She was irritated that her imagination was hearing things that weren't there.
A few days later she passed by his house on her bicycle and again, she heard the rustling noise and the clanking chain noise. Once again, she stopped and still didn't see anything.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a giant, hairy, dirty, three-hundred-pound pig came running out from under his house straight at her. The pig trampled across the tiny front yard and charged her, dragging a large chain around his neck.
Irena jumped back on her bike and swerved to get out of the way of the charging pig's reach. Snorting and hoofing the ground, he was trying to break free of the chain. He charged at her in full wild beast attack mode, lunging with all his might to break free of the chain.
Everyone one the island was soon aware there was a large pig living under Spacey Tracey's house. The pig was now charging at everyone who passed by. No one had seen it before as it was living under his house and hiding in the Oleander shrubs and the palm tree debris. It lived under the house until it got so big it couldn't get under the house anymore.
Everyone stopped riding their bicycles around the island and walking near his house for fear of being attacked by a wild, crazy, chained-up pig. Everyone complained to him about the pig but Spacey Tracey didn't care what people said. For months, everyone complained, and many were about to call the police.
But then, one evening, Spacey Tracey walked door to door and invited everyone to a party at his house and said he was having a cookout with free food and free beer. Everyone thought he was trying to make amends and apologize for the threatening pig and wanted to make peace.
One Sunday afternoon, the smell of sweet BBQ fanned by the swaying palm trees mixed into the ocean breeze across the island. The enticing aroma led everyone on the island directly to Spacey Tracey's Conch house.
Hidden from the street behind the scrubby palm trees, he built a big open fire pit out of coral rock in his tiny side yard. He constructed a spit from an old metal swing set and over the pit he roasted the whole three-hundred-pound pig Hawaiian style with the head still on.
As people on the island randomly arrived one by one, everyone on the island got a fair share of the roasted pig until the whole pig was eaten by all, and the pig was gone for good.
About a year passed and one day a rumor went around the island that Spacey Tracey had a large Burmese python that got loose and was nowhere to be found. Everyone searched their homes, attics, yards, trucks, and boats but no Burmese python was ever found.
About another year passed when some men came to pour a concrete seawall not far from Spacey Tracey's house. One of the men was seen running to his truck and left the island in a big hurry screaming something about a big snake, but no one else saw it. People searched everywhere, but no snake was ever found.
Somewhere on the island, the snake was hiding. No one knew what it was eating, but everyone kept a close eye on their pets. No one dared to go near Spacey Tracey's house or even think about what might be hiding under his house.
Several years passed after the alligator was arrested, the pig was roasted, and the snake was sighted, when one day in late September, a hurricane hit the island hard.
The storm ripped Spacey Tracey's boat and dock away from his house. The boat and the dock were wrecked and swept out to the sand flat about two hundred yards away from the island. His big commercial fishing boat was leaning hard to port on top of the sand flat. Water flooded over the gunnel and sank the boat. Splinters of what used to be his boat dock were on top of the boat, entombing the boat in pyramids of old lumber.
His house was ripped away from the foundation having been attached to the dock by ropes. He'd tried to tie the house down to prevent it from being swept out to sea in the storm. The house was now on a forty-five-degree angle tilted sideways. There were ropes still tied to the palm trees. He was living in the house even though the floor was now a wall and one of the walls was now the floor. It didn't appear to bother him at all.
After months of negotiations with his insurance company, they agreed the best solution was to set the house upright, jack it up 12 feet in the air, and place the house on concrete pilings. When the construction crew arrived, they found a fifteen-foot long snakeskin under the house, but the snake was never found.
Four decades later and to this day, hidden in the scrubby Oleander bushes and the palm tree debris in Spacey Tracey's front yard, lies the old wrecked and rusted out 1974 black Norton motorcycle that once carried an angry alligator out of the Everglades in a brown paper bag. It is a constant reminder to everyone on the island of wild creatures that could still be lurking in his yard, including Spacey Tracey himself.
