Some twenty years ago, more now, I was touring Florida and visited the State Fair. Life can be a bitch and now surprisingly I find myself living here. Turns out – more surprisingly perhaps – Kachunga is still alive and performing. – JDW
Two brothers. Younger Dave, a.k.a. Kachunga, does the wrestling, Gil does the talking. Both men wear tan safari shirts over body-builder torsos. They work out at Gold’s Gym.
Big teeth decorate Crocodile Dundee hats. Gil is wearing a pistol and Dave, umm, Kachunga, has a very large bone-handled knife stuck – so to speak – in the back of his pants. Kachunga’s right hand, which he nearly misplaced in the recent past, is wrapped protectively.
There were thirteen attacks of man by gators last year.
Here’s a good rule. It’s against the law to feed alligators. Sunshine State citizens have lost too many dogs to count.
In the 1960′s, the American Alligator was an endangered species, its numbers decimated by poachers and its habitat developed into housing and malls. The government shut down the poaching.
There are now over one million (1,000,000) alligators in the wild in Florida. “Wild” could mean the water hazard on the 15th hole at the country club. According to Gil, gators can be found in “every lake, every pond, every body of fresh water in the state.”
Dave doesn’t say a word. He’s in the water, circling an actual live gator, poking the air around the large reptile. Gil does the commentary. “The pole Kachunga is carrying is very important to our show. It measures the speed of the gator.”
On a cold day, he’s – the alligator, I mean – as sluggish as the economy. On a warm day, he’s quicker. It’s hot today. Gil tells us an alligator can swim up to twenty-five miles per hour. You know his brother can’t. A gator can run thirteen mph on land. That’s as fast as Alberto Salazar on his best day.
Kachunga is still circling the gator. Every move is countered by the black creature of the lagoon. Every time the gator’s jaws slam shut on empty air, quicker than you can clap your hands, it sounds like a Nolan Ryan fastball hitting the catcher’s mitt.
Alligators can grow to fifteen feet and weigh as much as one ton. This one is about eight feet long and weighs nearly three hundred pounds.
“Actually, this gator knows very little about wrestling.” That’s the good news. “He’s not trained. He’s not tamed.” That’s the bad news.
Eighty (80) teeth. Forty (40) on top, forty (40) on the bottom. In jaws which can exert 2000 pounds of pressure. That’s a ton.
“An alligator can crack turtle shells,” Gil says, “like we eat popcorn.”
An alligator’s sense of hearing is excellent, much like a human’s.
SPLASH! Kachunga jumps right on top of the darn thing.
I avert my eyes and pray.