Chomp

“Mickey had insisted that eating the critter that had dented his skull would be a spiritual remedy.”

In keeping with the novel’s humorous tone, Mickey insists on eating the reptile that has so adversely affected his life. Although the iguana stew “tastes terrible,” Mickey imagines some kind of cosmic retribution or closure. There is also a hint of ancient spirituality to the notion. Greek warriors thought that eating a lion’s heart would give them courage, and Mickey’s unconventional solution to his injury suggests a link, however tenuous, to a time when humans had much closer ties to their natural environment.

“They weren’t meant to be living so far north but Miami pet dealers had been importing baby specimens from the tropics for decades.”

The iguana infestation—as with a similar python incursion—occurs as a result of animal dealers and their buyers, who purchase these exotic animals with no inkling of how to care for them or prevent them from harming the local ecosystems. As a result, the Everglades are now “crawling with hordes of big wild iguanas,” a species that is an unfamiliar predator and will upset the natural food chain. Hiaasen uses this aspect of the story to emphasize that tinkering with one small part of the food chain can have far-reaching effects.

“On Expedition Survival!, we’re all about making it real. Derek considers that his sacred mission, a bond of trust with our viewers.”

Raven Stark’s boilerplate sales pitch to Mickey and Wahoo is both false and condescending. There is, in fact, nothing “real” about Derek Badger or his reality TV show, and his “bond of trust” is based on an outright lie. The protagonists will soon learn that Badger doesn’t do his own stunts or navigate the wilderness alone; even his name and his Australian accent are fake. In his efforts to satirize the many flaws of the reality TV craze, Hiaasen gives his audience a pampered, flabby “survivalist” who pretends to emulate Steve Irwin but lacks any legitimate credentials.

“The state was paying decent money, but Mickey said no. He knew that every python he caught would be euthanized, and he couldn’t bring himself to take part in that.”

This quote highlights Hiaasen’s abiding interest in raising awareness about the environmental issues that plague the Florida wilderness even as it demonstrates Mickey’s moral code. After nonnative pythons are introduced into the Everglades, the government’s response is capture and kill them. Experts like Mickey are hired to do the job, but Mickey, a lover of animals, refuses the money on principle. When it comes to animals, Mickey’s ethics are beyond reproach, and money is no compensation for the betrayal of his moral code.

“He was the only kid in school whose father was a professional animal wrangler, and life in the Cray household definitely wasn’t routine.”

With this passage, Hiaasen uses understatement to provide a glimpse into Wahoo’s unconventional upbringing. Feeding alligators, handling giant pythons, dealing with angry howler monkeys is not the stuff of most childhoods, but it is soon clear that Wahoo thrives in this unconventional life. He has even adapted to his missing thumb by teaching himself to “write, shoot baskets and throw a baseball with his left hand” (30). Hiaasen implies that normality is relative, and the odd cast of characters with which he populates his narrative is no better or worse for their lack of conventionality.

“Wahoo cut in with a bluff: ‘Our lawyer looked at the contract. She said it won’t stick.’”

When Mickey fears that Badger will mistreat Alice, he threatens to ignore the contract he has signed. He is too upset to see the legalities involved, but Wahoo sees them clearly, and he knows they can’t afford to lose this job. As he does so often in the novel, Wahoo must assume the adult role whenever his father is incapable of doing so. The “bluff” he attempts doesn’t work, but it’s a far more mature tactic than threatening to use the contract as “toilet paper.”

“Whatever happens, I can’t let this jungle killer wrap her massive coils around my chest! She would literally crush the life out of me!”

The perfect visual metaphor for the staged drama of Expedition Survival! is Derek Badger’s histrionic monologue while “wrestling” Beulah, the python. Because she has been recently fed, Beulah is tame and apathetic, and the narrative wryly describes her “massive coils” as a “fourteen-foot noodle.” Even Badger’s acting skills, such as they are, cannot save the scene. For all her intimidating size, Beulah cannot provide enough “reality” for this reality TV show, and Badger feels compelled to stage an even more “real” scene with Alice.

“In his world, Alice was a much bigger star than Derek Badger.”

Mickey Cray may be stubborn, eccentric, and irresponsible with money, but his priorities and ethics are always clear; his family and his animals always come first. While others may find themselves star-struck in the presence of a Hollywood celebrity, Mickey sees Badger for who and what he is: a spoiled bully with no respect for Mother Nature. Having raised Alice from a hatchling, Mickey sees her as a member of his family, and she is therefore more deserving of Mickey’s care than Badger will ever be.

“The most serious threat to emerge was man, who in the twentieth century begin killing the reptiles for their hides, which were used to make expensive purses, belts and shoes.”

One of the trademarks of Hiaasen’s fiction is his attention to environmental issues. He often delivers direct exposition to augment the narrative, and in this case, he emphasizes the threat that human beings represent to alligators. He reports that these reptiles have survived “volcanic eruptions, raging floods, sizzling droughts, melting glaciers and crashing meteorites” (65), but a single predator—homo sapiens—has threatened to do what global cataclysms have failed to, and all for the luxury of an expensive purse. Hiaasen’s objective is to raise awareness and to preserve a species that has survived for 150 million years.

“No more faking it, mate. From now on, we are putting the ‘real’ back in ‘reality.’”

Badger’s near-death encounter with Alice, rather than making him cautious, has made him feel “invincible.” Consequently, he decides to shoot the rest of the Everglades episode out in the wild, with untamed animals. The irony is that the artifice is still there. Mickey will still be there to pull Badger out of danger, and Badger will still spend his nights in a hotel. The quote is therefore a testament to Badger’s—and Hollywood’s—skewed sense of reality, and it is ironic that he would consider this Everglades excursion, surrounded by a film crew and an animal wrangler, to be a “real” survival adventure.

“Slow and dumb doesn’t mix with wild and raw.”

With his trademark directness, Mickey cautions Raven Stark against letting Badger loose in the Everglades. Badger is so used to be protected and coddled that he has lost all sense of the risk he’s putting himself in. Mickey has no patience for such incompetence. His statement represents a sober moment of caution that anyone venturing into the wild without the proper respect and foreknowledge is putting their life at risk.

“And now we got them killer pythons from Asia. They grow thirty feet long and eat the tourists right off the boardwalk.”

Sickler, the owner of a tourist shop at the edge of the Everglades, is the quintessential salesman. He will exaggerate or downright lie in order to generate business. He takes a small sliver of truth—an infestation of nonnative pythons—and blows it out of proportion to satisfy the hopes of Badger and his crew. He knows an opportunity when he sees one, and a Hollywood production company with a big bank account is a prime target for his exaggerated reality. Sickler is simply engaging in the same kind of hucksterism as Expedition Survival!, just on a smaller, local scale.

“I wasn’t talkin’ about the tourists, son. I was talkin’ about nature—it’s an insult to nature, putting a stuffed specimen in the middle of the swamp.”

When Link points out a stuffed alligator bolted to a log and asserts that it’s just “sleeping,” Mickey objects on ethical grounds. Not only are Link and Sickler conning the tourists, but more importantly, the stuffed alligator represents a violation of the natural world and of Mickey’s strict code of ethics, for rather than respecting nature and treating animals with respect, Link and those like him are exploiting the natural world for their own profit. However, to maintain the novel’s relatively lighthearted tone, Mickey’s stubbornness on this count gets him tossed overboard by an annoyed Link.

“His reckless brush with death actually made him feel invincible.”

When Badger’s scene with Alice turns out, by happenstance and careful editing, to seem exciting and real, it only convinces the TV star that he can confront any wild animal and emerge unscathed. While any sensible person would thank their lucky stars and avoid alligators forever, Badger has the opposite reaction. He is so accustomed to processing reality through the lens of a TV camera that he begins to believe his own hype.

“Wahoo’s imagination simply couldn’t picture a man who would try to harm his daughter that way.”

Wahoo is utterly confounded by Tuna’s abusive father. Coming from a loving if unconventional home, he cannot imagine any circumstances under which a father would physically abuse his own daughter. That kind of violence is beyond his reckoning, and he turns to both of his parents for answers, but they can’t give a satisfactory explanation. His mother simply says, “There are some seriously messed-up people in this world” (145). This statement proves that even adults have no effective way to explain the concept of evil to a child except by falling back on perfunctory platitudes.

“Sure you could—if your old man was trashed out of his skull and acting like a maniac. Then you’d find a place of your own to hide.”

When Wahoo marvels at Tuna’s encyclopedic knowledge of taxonomy, she responds that it’s not such an incredible feat when it has been her only refuge from her father. Tuna is a testament to the human ability to cope with trauma by finding other outlets. The emotional energy she expends in fear of her father, when channeled, allows her to learn and retain a huge amount of information. Her confession is both a lesson in human psychology and a primary moment of bonding between the two characters.

“Let me tell you a secret: I use this phone to call my mom back home every day, no matter where I am.”

Raven Stark, thus far an emotionally detached professional, is given a moment of humanity when she sees a drenched Wahoo wandering in the rain. Some protective instinct kicks in, and she invites him under her canopy, dries him off, gives him a jacket, and allows him to use a satellite phone to call his mother. In that moment, they are no longer employer and employee. He is just a troubled boy who needs to speak to his mother, and she can relate to his distress. When she confesses that she talks to her own mother every day, Stark becomes a more vulnerable and sympathetic character.

“‘He won’t starve,’ Mickey Cray said to Raven, ‘but there’s other ways for a fool to die out here.’”

When Badger, in the grip of fever, flees on Link’s airboat, Stark pleads with Mickey to lead the search, and he immediately demonstrates his survival expertise by arguing that Badger, who has enough body fat to keep him alive for a week, won’t starve. He suggests, however, that Badger’s ineptitude, his panic, and his poor sense of direction could get him killed just as easily. In this moment, the grim reality of the Everglades collides with the artificial reality of Hollywood, and no amount of special effects or editing can save Badger’s life.

“Welcome to the reality of reality TV.”

When the shooting script calls for Badger to carve a dugout canoe out of a fallen tree with only a Swiss army knife, Tuna is incredulous and exclaims, “Nobody can chip out a whole canoe with a dinky pocketknife!” (187). Tuna’s youth and naiveté are shattered when she is confronted with the magic of a skilled editor. Tuna, a fan of Expedition Survival! and of Derek Badger, receives a harsh lesson in the manipulation of reality and the human frailty of idols.

“A fabulously clever idea entered his head: he would record a video of himself morphing into a vampire for Expedition Survival!”

Lost in the Everglades—and in his own delirium—Badger imagines himself turning into a vampire as night approaches. Even in his own feverish reality, he is still enough of a ratings-obsessed Hollywood star to capture his transformation on camera. His priorities are so skewed that he is still focused on his show rather than on getting to a hospital. The passage is therefore a wry comment on the cutthroat world of reality TV, a world where “getting the shot” trumps all else, even personal safety.

“I think he was aiming for the motor. That’s what I choose to believe.”

After Jared shoots Link, Tuna cannot contemplate the possibility that he might be shooting at her or anyone else. Her father is abusive, but her belief that he wouldn’t intentionally try to kill another person reflects her hope for his redemption, a hope that may be another part of her coping routine. Despite his many abuses over the years, Tuna clings to the hope that Jared is not beyond saving and that she is not the child of a monster but of a flawed man who is capable of correcting his mistakes.

“Once the young fellow heard how much money was involved, he said he’d be honored to take over as host and star of Expedition Survival!, in the tragic event that Derek Badger was unable to go on.”

Hiaasen pokes fun not only at Hollywood stars but at the euphemisms they use to mask their ruthlessness and ambition. When Gerry Germaine, executive producer of Expedition Survival!, reaches out to another less expensive reality TV star as a potential replacement for Badger, the star’s response hits all the right sympathetic notes, but in reality, it reads like a press release. Beneath the mock empathy is a career-driven actor who would quite happily walk across Badger’s grave for a shot at a big-time TV gig.

“‘She looked pretty scared to me.’

‘Ha!’ Jared Gordon took a swig of beer. ‘It’s called respect.’”

Held captive at gunpoint by Tuna’s father, Mickey attempts to engage him in conversation, to keep his captor’s temper at a low boil. He asks him why Tuna is running away, and Jared frames his relationship with Tuna as dominant/submissive rather than parent/child. Tuna is running away, he argues, because she has forgotten “who’s boss.” Jared makes the mistake of confusing fear with respect.