The Cuckoo Colloquium

32 - Moonch

Life had teeth, all right-Marilyn Moonch could feel them in her scalp at that very moment.

A python was trying to eat her, to digest her whole, and she could feel the deepening gashes on her scalp from the serpent's gripping teeth. The blood in her eyes told her that whatever was happening up on her head, the snake was winning...

It was a worthy opponent. They were of equal weight, and the reptile had her on height, stealth, speed; pretty much every category except one-a determination to stay alive.

Its tactics were also pissing her off-the snake had the nerve to try immobilizing Moonch by wrapping her up into some kind of Indian death lock. It was clear her opponent lacked experience in genuine wrestling maneuvers.

Zip! - That was the sound of Moonch using a quick leg to block the python's attempt to scissor her.

Then, while fighting the pressing weight of the creature, she managed to get to her knees. That was an important step, because then she could commence a rolling fireman's carry slam (also known as the Green Bay plunge)-if she could get to her feet...

More than anything, it was the insult that fueled her rage-No jungle beast was going to out-maneuver Moonch on the wrestling mat, so she became a one-hundred-and-seventy pound machine with serious attitude.

"Ugh!" - That was the sound of Moonch springing to her feet, more on instinct than on any real thought process. And as the snake adjusted to the situation, and then went for some jungle version of the double chicken wing, Moonch took a few steps and then...

Oomph! - She slammed her opponent's body to the jungle floor, landing on top of the python with all her weight.

"Uuuuu!" - She heard the beast grunt, or moan, as its mouth receded on her skull.

This was just what Moonch waited for-As the python's head withdrew from her own head, she grabbed it with her free arms and commenced a Tongan death grip on the stunned reptile.

Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam! - All the while she jumped on the thing with solid knee springs.

The python flicked its besieged body, then scrambled into some weak version of a guillotine choke hold. But it was too little, too late-the bell had tolled for this snake. It had never tangoed with a Tustin Tiller before.

As the serpent pounded the mat in its submission, Moonch felt kind of sorry for it. She released it, watching the python slither back into the night, no doubt to lick its wounds, and maybe, if it could learn, to reconsider attack maneuvers.

"Whatev," she called after it. Moonch would be ready.

She washed the lacerations on her head in the little river. They were deep and would no doubt scar. But that was pretty cool-Seriously, who else in school, who else in America, would be able to boast of python puncture wounds on their scalp?

***

She didn't sleep that night, and by mid-morning of December 30th Moonch felt like a gory agent of the undead, staggering along a ridge that would not stop. Uphill, then downhill, then up another accursed hill again. Her arms and legs were bloodied and bloated, and now she had a reddish ring of matching lesions on her head.

She thought back to how the jungle looked the previous week from the airplane- a flat, green blanket. It was green all right, greener than the greenest tones of green she had ever known. But the rises were treacherous-not what anyone would call flat terrain.

"I'd rather be blindfolded in the Badlands!" she hollered. (Her Dad had taken her to the Dakota Badlands one summer to see the Crazy Horse memorial.)