Tomlinson had gone to the Everglades in search of what some Floridians call the Swamp Ape, or Skunk Ape, which is the tropical version of Big Foot or the Abominable Snowman. Because he’d cajoled and pressed, I’d agreed to join him.
I don’t believe such a creature exists, of course-no reality-based person could believe it-but Tomlinson is not a reality-based person, nor does he claim to be.
As the man once described himself: “I am a citizen of many universes, many dimensions, and-thankfully-wanted by the law in only a few.”
He often cloaks his personal, innermost beliefs in self-deprecating humor.
One thing I could not criticize, however, was the amount of research Tomlinson had done on the subject. When I told him that there was zero possibility of a primate, unknown to science, living in the wilds of Florida, or anywhere else in North America, he smiled his gentle, Buddha smile. Later, he handed me a thick folder of newspaper clippings and printouts from the Internet.
He’d pulled together some interesting data. Recorded sightings of the Everglades creature dated back to the time of Spanish contact. In the late 1500s, a Jesuit missionary, sent to live among the indigenous people of Florida’s west coast, described seeing a “… giant man, befouled by a body of hair, running away into the swamps.”
Occasional sightings by Europeans and Indians continued over the next four hundred years, but reached their peak of frequency in the early 1970s.
“The reason for that is obvious,” Tomlinson explained to me one night, sitting on the stern of his old Morgan sailboat. “That’s when construction was booming in Miami and Lauderdale, everything expanding west into what was then the Everglades. The bulldozers and draglines were draining the edge of the big swamp, scraping it bare, taking away all the cover. The River Prophet had to move around, maybe for survival… or maybe to investigate the damage being done to the biosphere.”
River Prophet-Tomlinson’s personal identifier for something that was more or less consistently described as a gorillalike creature, over eight feet tall, covered with hair, and that had a distinctive, sulfurlike odor. Thus the “Skunk Ape” reference.
Tomlinson decided to go to the Everglades in search of the Swamp Ape for reasons that were cryptic and multipur posed-like almost everything else in his life.
It had something to do with a pre-Columbian stone ceremonial circle, chiseled by indigenous people, recently discovered west of Miami. Back in 1998, a similar circle had been found in downtown Miami, near Brikell Pointe. It was a forty-foot archaeological treasure, carved into the limestone bedrock. The location was to have been a parking garage for a $126 million high-rise luxury condo complex, but public protests closed the project down.
This second circle included what Tomlinson said he believed to be small stone stela, not unlike certain Mayan formations found in Central America. He spent weeks at the site, and came away convinced it was both an astrolabe and an uncannily accurate map of the earth. Uncanny because-in his opinion-the map included North and South America, even though the circle of stones was constructed two thousand years before Columbus sailed.
“Extraterrestrials had to have been involved,” he told me. “It explains so much. The key, I am convinced, lies in the Everglades.”
Years ago, at Tomlinson’s urging, I’d read of claims for similar maps-the Turkish Piri Reis map of 1513, for instance, which supposedly shows all the Earth’s continents, plus the Arctic and Antarctic.
Misinterpretation of the map is an intentional hoax, of course-research has proven it, though some diehards, such as my friend, continue to believe. Similar hoaxes include Peru’s “alien landing strips” on the plains of Nazca, the Lost City of Atlantis, the Bermuda Triangle, the intentional government cover-up of information about UFOs and, of course, all the various legends of the Abominable Snowman or Swamp Ape.
Tomlinson and I no longer argue these things, although they do, occasionally, make for interesting late-night debate. As I’ve told him, I’d very much like to believe in the things in which he believes. I’d also like to believe in Heaven, visitors from outer space, divine creation, divine providence, divine revelation, predestination, telepathy, guardian angels, ghosts, soulmates, reincarnation, absolution and (most of all) I’d like to believe that order and virtue ultimately triumph over that which is evil, existential, random.
I don’t.
I don’t believe. I’d like to, so try to remain open, hopeful. I’ve known Tomlinson long enough to realize that one’s spiritual convictions have little to do with one’s intellect. His IQ exceeds my own by more than forty points (he’s not aware that I was once provided with his entire scholastic dossier). His gift for languages and interpreting nuance exceed my understanding or capability. The so-called intellectual types who assume that spirituality and religion are refuges of the ignorant simply provide testimony that condemns their own stunted intellects.
I’m often dumb, but not that dumb.
Sally was now another example-a gifted person who is also devoutly religious.
Yet, I don’t believe. Intellectually, I can find no rational, logical foundation for Tomlinson’s spiritual convictions. I am incapable of lying to myself, so I am incapable of embracing a spiritual view of the world. I’m hopeful, though. I remain hopeful.
So, I listened without comment as Tomlinson continued, “There’s only one Everglades. There’s no geographical equivalent to be found on this planet. The River Prophet could be down there doing research, inviting contact. Which is why there has been an unusual number of sightings lately.”
Tomlinson had shown me the newspaper stories. A Michigan couple in a Winnebago spotted a huge “apelike” creature near the post office in Ochopee. It supposedly jogged away when they tried to get a photograph. A Bud weiser delivery guy claimed to have almost hit a similar creature near Monroe Station. Both places are located on the Tamiami Trail, the asphalt conduit that crosses eighty miles of sawgrass, connecting Miami with the Gulf coast of Florida.
Tomlinson said, “So I propose we assemble an expeditionary team. Mack knows a man who’s got a hunting lease in the ’Glades-a couple of hundred acres, plus a cabin and a bunkhouse that sleeps eight. I’ll pack some food, make a list of people to invite. Scientists, trackers, psychics, para-normals: the most respected specialists in their fields. Oh yes, and don’t let me forget. Alcohol. We’re going to need whiskey, vodka, Everclear. All varieties of alcohol, and lots of it.”
I found the idea of going to the ’Glades in search of an imaginary primate comical, but also oddly heartening. To inspire tales of legendary monsters, wilderness must be sufficiently pristine to lend credibility to the possibility that there really could be monsters hiding out there somewhere.
I’ve never spent enough time in the Everglades to claim to know it well, but it was nice to believe that the region was still wild enough to create fear in outsiders.
So I went to the Everglades with Tomlinson. He planned on spending a couple of weeks. Four days turned out to be my emotional limit. For one thing, I have my business to take care of. Providing marine specimens to schools and research facilities around the country is not a booming industry, but it’s what I do, and I try to do it as professionally and expeditiously as I can.
The second reason I bailed out early was more subtle, more personal. I found out that my tolerance for paranormal, lunatic-fringe society is far lower than I expected. Tomlinson is an exception, and will always be an exception.
By virtue of his intellect and purity of intent, I find him an interesting character, an entertaining conversationalist, a dependable travel partner. As a friend, he is as loyal and as thoughtful as they come. Even at his weirdest-and that crosses almost all boundaries-he is, at least, out of the ordinary, and always good-hearted. That wasn’t true of the two women and three men he invited to join him in his quest to find the Swamp Ape. Four of the five were academics: college professors in a variety of fields. The fifth had her own cable television show: Connections with Karlita.
The alliteration was as impossible to forget as the tune of some inane song.
When the academics weren’t talking about applying for government grants or tenure, or discussing convention free bies, they were listening to Karlita ramble on and on about what roles they’d each played together in their past lives.
They seemed offended that I chose not to join them in meditation, or to sit, holding hands in a circle, sending out psychic messages to what they called the “Great Alien Being.”
“Doc isn’t much of a joiner,” Tomlinson explained to them one evening. “You know how the right side of the brain controls all nonlinear, intuitive and artistic thought? Doc doesn’t seem to have one. A right side to his brain, I mean. Which means he’s not exactly what you’d call aura-driven. The man’s no social butterfly.”
Possibly true, though it didn’t seem to mitigate their uneasiness with my behavior.
Not that it mattered to me. There are lots of interesting animals in the ’Glades, land, water and reptilian. I was content to wander off on my own, jotting careful descriptions in my field book, and drawing diagrams when necessary.
There was a canoe available. I used it to paddle sawgrass tributaries deep into the swamp, sometimes as far as the mangrove fringe that marks where Florida’s jungle meets the sea.
My nights in camp, though, were not as enjoyable. Their little group would sit around the fire, passing a joint or a pipe, and my consistent refusal was awkward for us all-a situation I’ve experienced too many times, and so try hard to avoid.
Because the stars in the ’Glades are remarkably bright, and because it’s what I preferred to do, I’d return to the canoe carrying a bottle of rum and ice in a little cooler, then paddle far enough away to ensure silence.
I would drift alone, staring upward at the old way points familiar since childhood: Cassiopeia, Ursa Minor with its Polaris handle, Orion, Jupiter and others, all ice-bright, solitary and set apart in the chill of deep space. After that, it was a race between the rum and the depression.
My feelings of guilt and failure are sometimes so power-charged that there seems to be a chemical source, as if some valve in my brain has ruptured, and is leaking acid.
Certain memories flashed so vividly, with such impact, that, floating in the canoe, isolated and insulated by wilderness, I’d groan aloud until the images passed.
The alcohol helped, even though I knew the folly of it.
Being in the ’Glades seemed to help as well.
Tomlinson’s correct. There’s no need to say Florida’s Everglades, because there is no other. Just as California cannot lay claim to the Pacific, the Everglades is beyond the claim of one state.
The Everglades region has its own feel, its own good odor. The odor is created by a fusion of freshwater flowing slowly over limestone, the wheat-stubble odor of sawgrass, the lichen scent of Spanish moss, tannin, wild citrus, and of tropic sun heating cypress shadow.
To fight the depression, I was also doing something else: I was using my brain, exercising the cells, learning something. I was making an effort to use all the senses so to patch together a neophyte’s understanding of a complicated ecological system.
My last night in the ’Glades, Karlita insisted on joining me on my evening paddle. Despite Tomlinson’s claims, I am not an antisocial person. I didn’t know her well enough to have a reason to say no, so I said yes.
Physically, she is an attractive woman by the standards of most: long legged, lean, with a glossy, healthy cowling of Irish-black hair, and the kind of face that looks good on a television screen, or when reproduced on the covers of magazines.
When it comes to the human female face, researchers have identified the five most important components that define our standards of beauty. The male brain, apparently, has been encoded to react both physically and emotionally.
Features include sexual maturity balanced with neonate, or childlike, qualities. Also important are facial expression, the shape of a woman’s mouth and lips, plus a measurable ratio between cheek and chin that is similar to the proportional difference in bust size and waist that keys sexual arousal in most men.
Karlita had all of the above. But I found her decidedly unattractive. I appreciate woman as people, so I tend to evaluate them by the same criteria I use to select male friends.
As we paddled into the darkness, she began a nonstop monologue (“I think it’s so valuable to invite oneness with nature…”).
It was the kind of introspective discourse that is the hall-mark of the self-obsessed. It forbids any attempt at conversation. Her insistence on telling me about my “former incarnations” was a subtle device. It was a way of establishing authority. Her passionate commitment to “spiritual open-mindedness” was a cloaked condemnation of anyone who thought differently than she.
What irritated me most, though, was that she claimed to be an expert canoeist, yet was a sloppy paddler.
I can tolerate pompous assholes in short doses. Fakes and pretenders are a different story.
Even so, I was on my best behavior. Tomlinson’s my friend. To confront her would have been to embarrass him.
When we got back to camp, though, I took him aside. I told him I’d had enough. I’d be leaving the next day. “That woman’s a phony, old buddy. Your instincts used to be better. I’m surprised you didn’t see through her act.”
He laughed, and said that he’d invited her along less because of her paranormal powers than for her paranormal body.
I said, “You’re trying to get the famous TV psychic in the sack? Just when I think it’s impossible for you to shock me, you find a way.”
“I know, I know, I’m terrible. But I comfort myself by believing that shallowness is a key part of being a complicated male. At least, that’s what I tell myself. There are times when my testicles are nothing more than ventriloquists suspended from one big dummy. Absolutely unconscionable. But it does seem to add a little spice to life.”
He added, “I take no pride in admitting that, with the exception of my Zen students, I’ve never been with a healthy, adult woman in my life when I didn’t secretly calculate the chances of getting her in the sack.” He shrugged, disgusted. “As long as she wasn’t damaged, wasn’t vulnerable, it never mattered. Not to me-and usually not to them.”
I had to ask. “Do you think Karlita would stop talking long enough to make love?”
“ No. Play-by-play, the whole time. That’s my guess. It’d be kind’a entertaining. Like playing baseball with earphones on, listening to someone describe how you’re doing.”
I thought that was the end of my days in the Everglades.
I was wrong.