Carl Hiaasen: Chomp

“Get the bleeping bourbon,” Mickey said, “and make it fast.” He was already gulping for air.

Wahoo ran back to the house and grabbed a bottle of liquor that his dad kept around for such emergencies. Pythons are equipped with rows of long, curved teeth that cannot be easily pried from their prey. The fastest way to make them let go is to pour something hot or obnoxious into their mouths.

Snakes don’t have taste buds on their tongues like people do, so it wasn’t the flavor of bourbon that Beulah hated. It was the sting. Wahoo got on his knees and sorted through the muscular coils until he located the toothy end of the creature, which had already swallowed half of his father’s foot.

“You didn’t even wear your boots?” Wahoo said.

Mickey grunted. “Get on with it already.”

Wahoo uncapped the liquor bottle and dribbled the brown liquid directly down Beulah’s throat. Within seconds the python began to twitch. Then she hissed loudly, unhooked her chompers and spit. Mickey purposely remained limp while Wahoo began unwinding the massive reptile.

Beulah didn’t put up a struggle; she’d lost all interest in making a meal of Wahoo’s father. The alcohol in the bourbon was highly irritating, and she kept opening and closing her mouth in distaste.

It took a few minutes for Mickey to catch his breath and for the circulation to return to his legs. He was able to hop along beside Wahoo as they lugged the big snake back to her tank. Then they went inside to take care of Mickey’s foot, which looked like a purple pincushion.

“Promise you fed her? Tell the truth, son.”

Wahoo felt awful. “I must have forgot.”

“Springtime is when they get active and really start chowing down. I’ve only told you about a hundred times.” With a groan, Mickey sprawled on the couch.

“Dad, I’m really sorry.”

“Soon as we’re done here, you go fetch her a couple of big fat chickens from the freezer. And nuke ’em good in the microwave, okay? Pythons don’t like Popsicles.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wahoo emptied a tube of antiseptic ointment on his father’s foot, and with a butter knife he spread the goop over all the puncture holes. There were too many to count. Pythons weren’t poisonous, but a bite could cause a nasty infection.

“I’m sorry,” Wahoo said again. “I really messed up.”

“Enough already. Everybody makes mistakes,” his dad told him. “Heck, I shouldn’t have been playin’ with a snake that size, like she was a fuzzy little poodle.”

“Hold still, Pop.”

Mickey stared up at the ceiling. “Look, I know this ain’t exactly a normal life for a kid your age.”

“Don’t start again,” Wahoo said.

“No, I mean it,” Mickey went on. “What would I do without you and your mom? I’m lucky she stuck around all these years.”

“Yes, you are. Where’s the gauze?”

Wahoo waited until his dad’s wounds were bandaged before telling him what Julie had said about the Expedition Survival! contract.

“I knew the guy was trouble,” Mickey muttered.

“So what do we do now?”

“Our job, son. We do our job.” Mickey levered himself up, swinging his puffy, snake-bitten foot up on the coffee table. “I don’t care what their stupid paperwork says-I’m the only one in charge of my animals. Mr. Dork Badger can go fly a kite.”

“It’s Derek Badger.”

“Ha! You think it matters to these critters what his stupid name is?”

“No, Pop.”

“Know what Beulah would say? ‘All you stupid humans taste the same!’ ”

Wahoo found himself wondering if that was really true.

When his mother called from China, Wahoo was brushing his teeth.

He heard his dad say, “Susan, your boys are miserable! Please fly home!”

Wahoo spit out the toothpaste froth and ran to the living room. Mickey cupped a hand over the phone and whispered: “It’s eight in the morning in Shanghai-she’s finishing breakfast.”

“Can I talk with her?”

“Egg noodles again-she’s gonna overdose on carbs.”

“Please?” Wahoo said.

Mickey handed over the phone.

“So much drama,” Wahoo’s mom said to him. “For heaven’s sake, doesn’t your father ever give it a rest? You think I want to be here?”

“We took a big TV job. Actually he’s doing better.”

“But what about the headaches?”

“Gone, he says.”

“Keep a close watch on him,” Wahoo’s mother advised.

She asked about school. Wahoo said he thought he did okay on his finals.

“Even Spanish?”

“That was a killer,” he admitted.

“As long as you tried your best.”

“Miss you, Mom.”

“I miss you, too, big guy. This really sucks.”

Wahoo swallowed hard to keep his voice from cracking. He didn’t want her to know how bummed he felt because she was so far away. “I found your hotel on Google Earth,” he said. “Looks pretty sweet from the satellite.”

“Tell me about the TV thing,” she said.

“It’s real good money.”

“But is it a good job?”

“Yeah, awesome,” Wahoo said, thinking: When you’re broke, any job is a good job.

Mickey Cray piped up: “Hey, my turn. Give it here.”

Wahoo told his mother goodbye and went outside with a five-gallon bucket of cat food for the raccoons. He was the only kid in school whose father was a professional animal wrangler, and life in the Cray household definitely wasn’t routine. Still, despite his missing thumb, Wahoo was able to do most normal things. He’d taught himself to write, shoot baskets and throw a baseball with his left hand. He could even turn a clean three-sixty on his wakeboard, when his dad had time to take him out on the boat.

One normal thing that the Crays couldn’t do together was go on summer vacations. Mickey didn’t trust anybody else to take care of the animals. One time, when Wahoo’s aunt Rose had passed away, the whole family flew up to West Virginia for the funeral. Mickey had asked Donny Dander to look after the critters, which turned out to be an expensive mistake. The Crays were gone only three days, but during that short time two rare parrots escaped, a lemur caught the flu and Alice bit the tail off of a crocodile.

“Where’s the darned aspirin?” Mickey hollered from the house.

“On the kitchen counter next to the coffee machine,” Wahoo called back.

The raccoons were always excited to see him because Wahoo’s arrival meant it was mealtime. When he entered the enclosure, they clustered around him, chittering noisily and tugging with their hand-like paws at his pockets. He poured the cat chow equally into four separate dishes, one for each corner, so that the hungry animals would split up. Whenever they stayed in one group, vicious fighting would erupt over the food. So loud was the screeching and snarling that one time a neighbor had phoned the police because she feared a gruesome murder was taking place behind the Cray house.

Wahoo slipped out of the raccoon pen, padlocked the gate and began washing his hands with a garden hose.

“Don’t forget the soap, mate,” said a voice behind him.

Wahoo spun around and there stood Derek Badger. At his side was Raven Stark.

“Take me to your alligator,” Derek commanded.

“I’d better go get my dad.”

“Hurry, then. Chop-chop.”

Raven Stark spoke up. “Derek’s totally exhausted. He traveled all night from Paris.”

“A wretched flight,” said Derek. “Didn’t sleep a wink.”

Wahoo had no trouble believing it. The man’s eyelids were puffy, his pale cheeks were blotched and his hair-more orange than blond-was matted and oily. He wore black loafers with no socks, wrinkled white linen trousers and an untucked safari-style shirt that failed to hide his roundish belly. To Wahoo, Derek Badger looked more like a groggy tourist than a sturdy survivalist.