Tiger Shrimp Tango by Tim Dorsey

Author:Tim Dorsey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-01-28T05:00:00+00:00

ORANGE BLOSSOM TRAIL

A black ’78 Firebird peeled away from another budget motel and raced south. The trailing remnants of a metropolis gave way to open pastures, which in turn became bulldozed acres of upstart suburbia. Then more fields and an expressway overpass.

Serge hit a blinker for the left lane. “You know the difference between Floridians and everyone else in the world?”

“We drive around all day and get totally baked?”

“Alligators,” said Serge. “We’re so used to them we don’t even notice anymore. And TV drops our guard even further. Local news can’t grasp economic stories any more complex than the price of gas, and an ‘in-depth’ investigative report means chasing the owner of a pet-grooming salon across a strip-mall parking lot, demanding to know why all the poodles went bald. So in Florida we’re left with perpetual loops of the same cheap video: aerial footage of anything on fire, legs of surfers with shark-teeth marks, ground-level footage of anything on fire, anything weird that beaches itself, a retiree with a jumbo American flag fighting the homeowners’ association . . .”

“And alligators?” asked Coleman.

“Any alligator not in a swamp, because all of this was their swamp, and now they’re living alongside us, using our swimming pools and golf courses and shopping-mall fountains until both sides have grown accustomed to the arrangement.”

“You mentioned the rest of the world?”

“At the mere sight of these modern dinosaurs, foreign tourists spaz out with disposable cameras. Especially the British. I love watching the British go gaga over gators. Last year, I was driving across the glades on the Tamiami Trail and saw all these cars pulled over and people gaping at the roadside canal, and I thought that maybe another sightseeing van had rolled into the water. So I stopped and noticed a single gator had crawled up on the opposite bank, and dozens of people in shorts and dark socks were snapping a million pictures. Their reaction was priceless, like a small boy finding his penis for the first time.”

“Ahhhhhhhh!”

“Did I bring back a bad memory?”

“No!” Coleman pointed. “I’m getting a second rush wave! Those gigantic alligator jaws coming toward us. Please tell me it’s a hallucination!”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s definitely real, like ten or twelve feet high.” Serge pulled into the parking lot. “But luckily it’s historic Gatorland, with the huge landmark fake jaws at the entrance to lure tourists off Orange Blossom Trail and into the venerable 1949 roadside attraction. The fantastic part is they dropped anchor just south of Orlando long before Disney ever saw the possibilities. But Gatorland did!”

“The jaws are snapping,” said Coleman. “Concrete can snap, right?”

“No, that’s a hallucination.”

“Mescaline.”

“What?”

“I finally remembered what I took . . . Or was that another time, or another person?” Coleman leaned toward the windshield and the snapping jaws. “Whew! Definitely mescaline!”

“How can you tell?”

Coleman urgently opened the passenger door and doubled over on the ground. Serge heard the ever-familiar sound of his pal sending a high-pressure spray of stomach contents onto pavement. Coleman climbed back into the car.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.