Her Name Is Elaine

PHOTO TAKEN AND EDITED BY AZAM HOSTETLER

At the southernmost point of the continental United States sits Key West, a town reached by a 100-mile bridge over a chain of islands. The city is famous for Ernest Hemingway's house and competitive seafood spots. With names like Hog's Breath Saloon and Old Town Tavern, places that appear to be restaurants are, in reality, bars that are hardly inviting for a family of four.

This iguana lives in Mallory Square. She did not choose her name. Facing what should be the Gulf of Mexico and some dead coral reefs, this iguana couldn't care less about territory name changes or ocean acidification.

Unbeknownst to the troubles of the world, all she knows are the rocks and the routine. Her name is Elaine.

Every evening, she crawls out to bask under the sun, as cold-blooded creatures often do to regulate their body temperature. Other cold-blooded creatures include, but are not limited to, J.K. Rowling (regulating hate in her body) or, by no correlation, J.K. Simmons—wanting to throw a cymbal at Miles Teller's head. Just kidding. Yet Elaine doesn't know that she's named after Elaine Benes, a character from the TV sitcom "Seinfeld," and that part isn't a joke.

Cosmo Kramer the iguana lurks about as well, an older male that shuffles in around sunset. He unfortunately wasn't available for a picture and declined to comment. The ice cream cart vendor named those two after characters from "Seinfeld," and in a sort of way she gave these iguanas a life beyond Key West's Mallory Square by doing so.

Sure, this Elaine isn't Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the real actress from "Seinfeld." She's not dating Patrick Warburton in a '90s sitcom. Yeah, that's right. This Elaine is ready for the nightlife, yet we left Key West just as Mallory Square was about to get interesting. We couldn't help it. We had to drive two hours back to our overpriced condominium in some offshoot Florida Key with a name not even the Oxford dictionary could produce. It was a bit like going to see a play and leaving a third of the way in. I could say I've been to Key West, but spending five daylight hours there doesn't do it justice. I missed the street performers, jewelry and craft stands, live music and vendors.

Elaine the iguana was there to witness it before she crawled back into whatever hole she lived in. She was like some sort of troll under a bridge. Instead of asking for a riddle (I could be mixing up the nursery rhymes), Elaine would just stare silently, as iguanas don't make noise—for instance, barking lizards don't exist.

Lizards like these are silent, save for a cough or sneeze, and they certainly don't originate from fictional geneticists named Curt Connors written by Stan Lee.

Why the ice cream cart vendor named the iguana Elaine, I still don't know. I had already snapped a photo of the green fool. In fact, I had never seen an iguana outside a cage this big, save the one time I went on a failed date to SeaQuest before PETA shut them down. The point is, the name gave the photos life and a story where there otherwise would just be a scaly green reptile.

Even if I couldn't speak to Elaine, I could now imagine her personality. There even could've been a George Costanza or a Jerry Seinfeld if there were more lizards. Would their grandfather be Larry David, since he fathered "Seinfeld's" writing process? No use wondering.

Our paths may never cross again, Elaine. Your life is confined to a paved square that's the epitome of nightlife as far south as you can go in the United States. I only experienced a couple dehydrated-looking tourists roasting alive under the unrelenting sun, and a couple sad food vendors setting up shop. I arrived too early to see the festivities, but just in time to meet a one-of-a-kind lizard.

It's quite possible, upon further research, that these iguanas are invasive and I'm giving unfair attention to an animal species that's destroying Florida, but I'm sure Julia Louis-Dreyfus in "Seinfeld" would appreciate the shoutout.

Our lives are so different, Elaine. We eat different food, see different sights and hear different things. Maybe I'll wish to have a life as simple as yours, without car taxes, homework or, you guessed it, drama in the friend group. If I could just live somewhere and bask in the sun, absorbing the solar energy instead of skin cancer, I think things might be all right.

And she's probably envying me, and my bipedal walk and almost fully developed prefrontal cortex (five more years left by textbook, but I think I can make decisions well enough now). This is cliche, but perhaps we just think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. I know we'll never meet again, Elaine.

Ten years from now, I'll flip through my haphazard Florida vacation photos and find your portrait, Elaine. Odds are I'll smile, remembering a sun-soaked lizard and a brief, shared moment at the edge of the country—a reminder of how unlikely characters can linger in memory long after the journey ends.