Laughing Matters: The Stink of Success

By Ryan Van Cleave | Illustrations by Darcy Kelly-Laviolette

Good news/bad news. skunk-ape

First, the bad news. I had not-so-covertly hoped to make $11.3 zillion off my online comedy program outlined in excruciating detail last month. To everyone’s surprise, I fell a bit short of that goal, largely because I never got the domain name www.TheGreatBigHaHa.com, since all of my GoDaddy coupons were expired. As someone wise once said, “Hope is tomorrow’s veneer over today’s disappointment.” 

Note to self: look up the definition of the word “veneer.” 

Note to self: It rhymes with “beer.” 

Note to self: Promising!

The good news. Now that I’m not lounging poolside by my new mega-mansion in St. Croix, I’m able to contribute to the pages of Sarasota Scene Magazine for another month, which—and let’s be truthful here—means I have yet another chance to win a Pulitzer. skunk-ape

Note to self: Send anonymous note alerting the Pulitzer committee!

To that end, I did what any good enterprising humor column writer would do. I joined my pal “Steve” on a mission to locate and (possibly) subdue the Florida Skunk-Ape. 

Now the Skunk-Ape—A.K.A. “Florida Bigfoot,” “swamp cabbage man,” and “swampsquatch”—is an elusive figure that allegedly haunts the Florida Everglades and has just been named the FBI’s official #1 cryptozoological menace to the state of Florida, according to my friend, who knows things like this. 

So right about now, you might be thinking that hey, the Everglades are way over yonder. What danger do skunk apes pose to us right here in sunny, skunk-ape-less Sarasota? 

The shocking answer? Oodles.

Back in 2000, an anonymous woman mailed two photographs to the Sheriff’s Department of Sarasota County that depicted what looks to be a large, foul-smelling, hairy, ape-like creature RIGHT HERE IN OUR BACKYARD, the city of “We Live Where You Vacation” fame.

I can’t speak for anyone but as far as I was concerned? I felt super violated and endangered from the moment I heard about this two weeks ago. With such a threat lurking in the suburban shadows right here, how could anyone even think of going to work or school instead of dealing with this crisis-level skunk ape situation? skunk-ape

For what it’s worth, the Internet claims that someone was able to figure out who this skunk-ape-photographing woman was but that she preferred to remain anonymous because she didn’t “want any fuss or people with guns traipsing around her house.” That’s understandable. I’m suspicious of people who “traipse” as well.

Note to self: look up the definition of the word “traipse.” Is it perhaps related to “trapeze”?

I was determined to sleuth out the truth. And who better to embark on such a mission with me than “Ralph” (I will continue to use false names so you won’t be able to tell that it’s my crazy friend “Mike”). “Harry” has a digital camera with a 3x optical zoom, for one thing, and he owns a cooler big enough for a 12-pack. Plus, he found a fishing net in his garage that he was 84% sure might be strong enough to “catch us one of them ape folk” and allow us the chance to find out what terrible secrets it was hiding – through enhanced interrogation methods, if need be. skunk-ape

Seriously, what more do a pair of amateur monster hunters need?

It’s quite sensible at this point to wonder: “What type of research does a writer do before going on an adventure such as this that he plans to write about?” Amateur writers might commit to days of research about the cryptid in question and perhaps reach out to an expert, such as Dave Shealy, who first saw a skunk ape in 1974 while deer hunting in the swamp behind his house in what’s now Big Cypress National Preserve. “Why is Shealy considered to be the Jane Goodall of skunk-apes?” you might quite reasonably ask. It’s because he said so in an interview on a Bigfoot website about five years ago. “I am the expert,” he explained, “the state and county expert on the Florida skunk ape and have been for years.” Case closed. skunk-ape

But this over-the-top commitment to research and planning wasn’t the route I took. Not me. I was content to let my own firsthand facts about the skunk ape tell me all I needed to know. 

To that end, I showed up at “Roger’s” house with a box of Slim Jims, a Tampa Bay Rays cap, and a broken yo-yo I found under the seat of my car. “Game time,” “Bobby” said, grinning from ear to ear.

It was somewhere around this point that “Luke” and I both realized that we had no idea where to look for the skunk ape. So we went to Denny’s.

I’m pleased to report that there were no skunk apes at Denny’s (threat averted!), though a beefy FedEx guy kept giving us the eye as we photo-documented all the subjects in our field of vision. “Just in case,” “Zeke” kept saying. He’s cautious that way.

The non-cryptid highlight of the Denny’s trip was that the waitress overcharged me for the reduced-fat chocolate milk. Blargh!

And honestly, as “Will” and I stood in the parking lot in front of his 1977 AMC Gremlin, we confessed that we weren’t all that interested in chasing strange figures through the cypress hummocks in the marsh. That seemed like a lot of work, even for us enterprising potential eyewitnesses. And if Denny’s was skunk-ape-free, then what type of danger were we really in after all?

Plus, I was out of Slim Jims. skunk-ape

That’s the exact moment that the skunk came after us. Like it was right out of a Wes Craven horror flick, this 6.5 lb. monster zeroed in and attacked. As the thing waddled up to the rust-bottomed door of “Paul’s” puke-green Gremlin and opened fire, unloading its awful scent glands right at us, I couldn’t help but wonder—was this the skunk-ape’s revenge? Would we be plagued by odiferous creatures of the forest forevermore like some kind of mythological stink curse for having the hubris to go after a legendary figure like the infamous skunk-ape?

Note to self: Use more smart-sounding words like “odiferous” and “hubris.”

As we lathered the Gremlin down at the nearest suds-and-wash place, we realized the stink had magically disappeared. That’s when “Clark,” the fool, suggested that maybe it’d been a stray cat versus a skunk.

This is exactly why I don’t hang out with “Pete” very often. He’s plum crazy.

Note to self: Stop hanging out with “Clarence.” Unless he’s buying the chocolate milk. Or bringing Slim Jims.

Want to chase down the mystery of the giant octopus of St. Augustine? Got a hankering to find out if love bugs were really invented in an Orlando lab as a means to stem the mosquito population? Think you’ve got the nobody-knows-but-me 411 on the plague of butt spiders (look it up!) in central Florida? Send all of these beauties to ryan@scenesarasota.com ASAP!

Ryan G. Van Cleave is the author of 20 books, and he runs the creative writing program at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida.
Web: ryangvancleave.com