(Box) Turtles all the Way Down

jackalopes had allegedly been seen, although I never met anyone who made the claim.

     We’d already been up to the rope swing which, hanging from the branch of a massive oak at the very edge of a granite ledge, transported one terrifyingly out in an arc above a road far, far below. We’d splashed around trying to teach ourselves how to hand-catch trout in the still pools (what can I say, we were 11; we failed), and before we’d struck out for up-mountain I’d nearly lost a shoe discovering that one broad mossy plain was actually deep sucking mud. We were debating the merits of going back to my place and grabbing our bikes and going out to the dam by way of the snack shop when we spotted a creek mouth we hadn’t seen before.

     Almost completely obscured by blackberry bushes, spindly willow shrubs, poison oak, and the huge twisting roots of the adjacent trees, exposed by the stream which was at this time dry, the bed was about 2 meters wide, tapering outward toward the top where the vegetation met overhead, and deepened to at least five as it dove into a cleft in the granite of the mountain.

there simply weren’t any turtles. The state did have a native kind, but it lived in bogs and wetlands far from where we were, not in the mountains. I thought it was a tortoise shell because of its shape, but it was a box turtle. Either way it shouldn’t have been there so I concluded (and still assume) that some clueless asshole dumped the family pet, thinking (I hope, at least) that it would survive. We carried the shell with us and I still have it now (pictured).

     Around 20 minutes of uphill, sweaty, thorny scramble later and we found a dead box turtle. Not just a cleaned, dry shell like I was holding – a meaty, semi-decomposed dead turtle. We poked it with sticks for a few minutes because we were kids, discussing that it had probably crawled on when the other one died, and succumbed, itself, here. We shrugged and, prudently letting this one lie, we went on our way.

     Pretty much exactly the same amount of time of the same kind of terrain later and we came upon another box turtle. This one was, however, in the pink of health. It was dragging itself resignedly along through deep creek-bottom sand and deposits of polished river quartz, glaring fixedly ahead. We scouted all around briefly at this point, somewhat jolted by the progression of it all and the obvious health of this animal which wouldn’t possibly be able to survive for long out here, not least because of the very cold nights. This time we picked the little guy up and booked it back for our houses. Predictably, I was not given permission to keep the turtle, but the boy’s mom said it was fine and drove both of them to the pet store a while later for supplies, which is when we learned it was a box turtle. He kept it for the rest of the years before we lost contact and might still have it now, for all I know; it was only 40 years ago.

     My life seemed in the first couple of decades to have an odd box-turtle-themed recurring gag bit going on or something, because it was only a few years later that our neighbors, where I then lived with my grandparents, found one walking straight down the middle of the suburban street. This was at least a place where a tortoise-like turtle wouldn’t freeze to death, but there wasn’t much it would be able to find to feed itself, nor was water readily available. This one we also assumed was dumped by a callous piece of shit; they’re not exactly escape artists. The kids who found it both wanted and were allowed to keep it, and my grandfather was a herpetologist so they were immediately well-advised.

     Again some years later, in my early 20’s, the last one happened: a friend of a friend who was moving away turned up suddenly at my door and said, “Here, you have animals.” Gesturing at a roomy glass tank with a box turtle in it, he spun on his heel and vanished from my life. I did keep this little guy for a while but, when he turned out in the long run to be both very expensive to keep right and rather boring, I passed him on to a friend with reptiles, experience, and interest. That was, however, only after I grew jaded on his mealtime routine.

     Feeding time for this little guy was hilarious. Most of the day, he would move perhaps a few centimeters now and then, settling down again to survey the room or inner space or something almost immobilely for hours on end, but when he saw me coming with the food plate he stood up on tiptoes and tried to slowly force his way through the glass until I plunked it down in his tank.

     He’d approach it. He would obviously never have seen any of these things in his life before. Mind you, it was exactly the same twice a day: chopped vegetables, a piece of seasonal fruit, cucumber slices, a slice of canned turtle chow, a hard boiled egg, and so on. And yet, twice a day, he would stalk each item until it didn’t attack him for long enough that his brain switched over to investigation mode, then sniff it all over, poke it, tentatively take a small bite, and methodically eat the entire item before moving on to the next. Except the hard boiled egg. Every time, he’d sneak up on it, poke and sniff it, and take that first tiniest bite – and his eyes would fly open wide, his pupils pinning and dilating excitedly, his body language quickening. Swiftly, boltingly, gleefully he would devour that egg, eyes now half closed, and then stare sorrowfully at the space where it had been -- until a few seconds later when the memory would apparently vanish because his eyes would go dull and he would look around, spot the next thing on the menu, and start stalking it. Every. Damn. Time. That turtle really liked eggs, but never remembered.

     So far it hasn’t happened again, although someone did abandon a red-eared slider turtle at my house once but there wasn’t anything mysterious about it. I never really stop expecting, though, that someday, somewhere, I’ll find myself face to face with another mystery box turtle.

     Here’s a picture of an animal that isn’t a box turtle, or even a turtle at all, but does make a good illustration for this story. This is actually a baby tortoise in a pet store near me, but it obviously likes its lettuce as much as that turtle liked eggs. Sorry it's blurry; there was smeary glass in the way.