Carl Hiaasen (8 page)

Which brings us back to the story of Nala, the lioness that escaped from the JungleLand zoo. For three glorious days she eluded searchers who tracked her by foot, 4-by-4, and helicopter. Satellite trucks lined State Road 192 and concerned-looking news correspondents beamed updates to points around the globe. Was the lion heading toward Disney World? How long before she got there? Was it safe for tourists to stay? What should they do if they encountered the animal? The drama escalated hour by hour, experts warning that the cat soon would be growing hungry.…

Now, in my lifetime I’ve seen many tourists so poorly behaved they deserved to be eaten alive by
something
. Tourons, they’re called down here. They come to Florida, they trash the place, then they go. So out of reflex I began fantasizing what might happen if, by providence, a Disney touron crossed paths with the half-starved lion—a rustle in the vinyl topiary, a tawny flash, a muffled outcry … and somewhere the ghost of Charles Darwin exclaiming, “Right you are! This is what it’s come to!” Or if not a loutish snowbird, then perhaps Ms. Kathie Lee Gifford, although for her the cat probably would need its claws. Another tasty possibility: Insane Clown Eisner himself, dragged down from behind as he hotfooted it across the phony savannah. Yo, Mikey, here’s your frigging “animal kingdom.”

But nothing so brutally ironic unfolded. Nala the lost lioness never made it to Walt Disney World; as a matter of fact, she headed in the other direction. Game wardens found her sulking beneath a palmetto bush, barely 150 yards from JungleLand. They zapped her with a tranquilizer dart and hauled her back to the cage, where she awoke and promptly began to chow down. The international press corps packed up and departed, as did the police, wildlife officers, and highway patrol.

And life goes on as before at the plastic
fantastic Reedy Creek Improvement District. All is safe. All is secure.

A new project, Disney’s Wide World of Sports, has opened on what once was a two-hundred-acre wetland. Now there’s a double-decker baseball stadium, an athletic field house, championship clay tennis courts, beach volleyball (sixty miles from the nearest natural beach), and a parking lot for thirty-five hundred automobiles. Next to the ballfield an All-Star Cafe franchise is being completed, its investor-celebrities including Andre Agassi, Shaquille O’Neal, and Tiger Woods.

Touring the new sports complex with an Orlando reporter, Disney vice president Reggie Williams marveled, “I remember walking out here three years ago, months before we even began planning. There were snakes, spiders and all kinds of animals out here.”

Reading that remark, I couldn’t help but wonder about the water moccasins living in the marsh that Team Rodent had drained and bulldozed. And—God forgive me, it’s nothing personal—I had a fleeting vision of young Agassi himself thrashing about on the red clay, a plump five-foot cottonmouth attached to his serving arm.
Reptiles are fond of cool, dark places, you see, and a Nike gym bag would do fine in a pinch.

“There were snakes, spiders and all kinds of animals out here.”

But did Disney get them all? Did the bastards really get them all?

I don’t think so.

C
ARL
H
IAASEN
was born and raised in Florida, and his dream is to be banned forever from Disney World. He has worked for the
Miami Herald
since 1976 as an award-winning investigative reporter, magazine writer, and, for the last thirteen years, a metropolitan columnist. His novels, including
Tourist Season, Native Tongue
, and
Lucky You
, have been translated into twenty-one languages. He has also contributed lyrics to two songs by Warren Zevon, “Rottweiler Blues” and “Seminole Bingo.”

A Note on The Library of Contemporary Thought

This exciting new monthly series tackles today’s most provocative, fascinating, and relevant issues, giving top opinion makers a forum to explore topics that matter urgently to themselves and their readers. Some will be think pieces. Some will be research oriented. Some will be journalistic in nature. The form is wide open, but the aim is the same: to say things that need saying.

Available from
THE LIBRARY OF
CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT

VINCENT BUGLIOSI
NO ISLAND OF SANITY
Paula Jones v. Bill Clinton
The Supreme Court on Trial

JOHN FEINSTEIN
THE FIRST COMING
Tiger Woods: Master or Martyr?

PETE HAMILL
NEWS IS A VERB
Journalism at the End of the Twentieth Century

EDWIN SCHLOSSBERG
INTERACTIVE EXCELLENCE
Defining and Developing New Standards for the Twenty–first Century

ANNA QUINDLEN
HOW READING CHANGED MY LIFE

Look for these wonderful novels
by Carl Hiaasen

NATIVE TONGUE
“RIPS, ZIPS, HURTLES, KEEPING US TURNING PAGES AT BREAKFINGER PACE.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“RUTHLESSLY WICKED.”
—Atlanta Journal & Constitution

SKIN TIGHT
“GOOD, MEAN FUN … A TWISTING, HIGHSPEED RIDE ON A ROLLER COASTER WITHOUT BRAKES.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“A HIGH-SPEED TALE OF MURDER COVER-UPS AND GONZO REVENGE … HIAASEN DELIVERS EVERY TIME.”
—The Seattle Times

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