SWAMP STORY
by Dave Barry
Gold bars, pythons, and TikTok videos of swamp monsters add up to a hilarious Florida tale.
Jesse Braddock has a spectacularly handsome boyfriend and a darling baby girl, but she’s not feeling the happily-ever-after. Slater may look like “classic Tom Cruise,” but he’s a philanderer who’s spent most of Jesse’s trust fund, and now they’re living in a broken-down cabin in the Everglades with Slater’s videographer pal, Kark, “and ninety trillion mosquitoes. And no money.” Slater and Kark’s highest ambition is to sell a reality TV show called Glades Man, which would feature Slater taking his shirt off among the palmettos. After a close encounter with a python, Jesse is developing an ambition to take baby Willa and flee, but how? Nearby, Ken and Brad Bortle, proprietors of the failing Bortle Brothers Bait & Beer, are cooking up a get-rich scheme of their own (well, Ken’s). After seeing a viral video of Phil Teagler, an alcoholic former newspaper reporter, attempting to play a costumed character at a rich little girl’s birthday party, with dire but hilarious results, Ken has the idea of making a video of Phil playing a cryptid, which they dub the Everglades Melon Monster for its giant head (from a repurposed Dora the Explorer costume). Once that hits the sound and fury of TikTok, they’ll sell a ton of Melon Monster merch. When Ken, Kark, and Slater meet, they quickly realize they can join forces: Glades Man vs. Melon Monster. Meanwhile, Jesse has literally stumbled upon a legendary cache of Civil War–era gold bars buried in the Glades long ago. She has also run afoul of the Campbell brothers, Duck and Billy, a couple of ex-cons who, despite their childish nicknames, are mean as snakes but not as smart. In desperate need of help and a ride to Miami to consult a lawyer, she joins forces with Brad. All of those plot threads will get further entangled with Eastern European mobsters, the secretary of the interior, and a python hunter with an “emotional support boar,” among other things. Barry makes mirth of all this mayhem with his usual aplomb.
Florida’s humorist laureate finds chaos and comedy in the Everglades.