Okie dokie - chapter 4 - “The croc awaits!”
Quick reminder to set the scene but of course works best if you read my three prior related posts in this thread. At one point later in the day there were four of us together in this abandoned zoo, but at this point there are only two of us. I was a 14 year old skeletal kid and my friend was 19 and 50 to 60 pounds heavier than me.
So like my last post indicated, we stepped out of the temple/castle’s overgrown jungly structures and almost immediately into this abandoned zoo. Though the zoo was also seriously overgrown, many of the concrete walkways where still passable without needing to push bushes aside.
On one extreme end of the zoo there was a wood and metal bridge - not a bridge that spanned a void but one that was like an inverted “U”. It was essentially two sets of stairs climbing up bout 8-10’ and a very narrow platform between them to allow you to climb up then walk over something and then climb down the other side. There were certainly dilapidated signs posted but neither of us could read kanji so we had no clue what the signs said. We didn’t then and still don’t now...but in retrospect I could make some guesses.
So he and I do the inevitable which is follow the path to this little bridge and climb up it. We stopped midway to look across to see that the bridge allowed you to move up and over a fenced area. Inside that fenced area was a really dirty, scummy pond with a shallow edge. At the far end of the pond was...sticking partially out of the water...a “dead” crocodile. My friend suggested repeatedly that we should climb over the fence so we could get a photo with the “dead” crocodile.
Being five years younger apparently gave me greater clarity of mind because my repeating thought was, “Inside of a long time abandoned zoo, there wouldn’t be any fleshy animals. Not even a leathery croc.” My friend’s suggestion persisted.
So to try to test my concern, I pulled a hand full of low denomination yen coins from my pocket and tossed them one at a time at the croc. They just bounced off with no events further convincing my friend that the croc was dead. I wasn’t going to literally throw all of my allowance away. So I stopped after tossing probably no more than seven or eight coins. At this point, I looked down - instead of out across the pond - to see my friend was already off the bridge and on the other side of the fence. But he hadn’t moved away from me...just down off the bridge.
I of course was convinced we were screwed and him more than me. My friend was already taking his first step away from me and towards the far end of the small pond for his photo op. I looked down on the floor of the bridge and saw a piece of cardboard about 10” square. I picked it up and threw it underhand just like a frisbee across the pond. It sailed about two feet above the water right towards the croc. And as my cardboard skimmed over the croc’s snout, the croc jumped up and snapped at the cardboard and then slowly slid back into the water.
At that point skinny me reached down, slid my hands under my friend’s arm pits, and lifted him right back up to the height of the bridge’s handrail and sat his sorry butt down on it. This was a second point in my day where I had to work really hard not to wet my short shorts.
Every time I think of this day, I think about how short my shorts were and just how absorbent they were not. So if I had let loose, I would have been walking around with stinky wet tennis shoes and glistening hairy legs.