Frozen Assets

by Scott Robert Ladd

I’m waitin’.

I don’t deserve this.

I’m not a bad person. I’m just takin’ advantage of what’s available, if you follow me. See, Florida is chock-full of every critter you can imagine. Find a gator nest that’s hatchin’, bag the babies, and I know a guy in New York who’ll buy’em for twenty bucks a pop. Wonder where those gators in the sewers come from? I don’t.

Iguanas aren’t worth much, ‘cause they’re breedin’ all over Miami, eatin’ people’s gardens and poopin’ in their swimmin’ pools. Still, I’ve sold buckets of babies to county fairs, who use’em as door prizes. Turtles, too.

It’s not just lizards, mind you. Hell, I trapped an ocelot in a state park, some abandoned pet, and sold it for a cool grand to some snotty rich bitch in Tampa.

Still waitin’.

Yup, you can’t beat Florida for easy cash. Why work nine-to-five baggin’ groceries when there’re animals just waitin’ for the takin’ and sellin’?

Nothin’ wrong with easy money.

Really, I don’t deserve this.

But here I am, waitin’.

Drinkin’. Yup, that’s where I met my downfall. Not gettin’ drunk. Nope. Just social drinkin’. I stopped for a beer at this run-down bar in some town – hell, I can’t remember the berg’s name, and it don’t matter no how. I was on my way to Punta Gorda, plannin’ to snag a few of those wild monitor lizards they complain about.

Shoulda gone for the monitors. Good money in monitors, even for one or two. Drug dealers use’em to guard their met labs, like pit bulls.

But now I’m waitin’. Just waitin...

See, I heard some guy in that bar talkin’ about how he’d seen this weird lizard in the swamp. He and his buddies were arguin’ about whether it was a mutant alligator. Didn’t sound like a gator to me, though. He said it had a blue head, and I ain’t never seen no blue gator.

I figured someone got bored with their "exotic" lizard and dumped it. Happens all the time. Anythin’ exotic is worth money. A damned lot of money.

So I bought the guy more beer. Hell, blowin’ a twenty is chicken feed if I can snare a critter people think is cool. They pay good for cool.

‘Bout closin’ time, he finally told me where he’d seen it. It wasn’t an exact location, but enough for me to go on. Not too far, either.

I slept in my truck ‘cause I’d spent my motel money on beer. God, I miss that truck right now. It’s still sittin’ by the road, I bet, that muddy, rutty old road leadin’ from the highway into a bunch of swampy lakes. There was a gate across it, rusty red one. I used my bolt cutters on the chains.

When I got far enough, I parked, put on my hip waders, and took my snare pole and a burlap bag. Sloggin’ through the muck wasn’t fun. Seemed like hours; maybe it was.

Then I saw it. Looked like a big iguana, six, seven foot long, but wrong colored. Bright green and yellow, with the brightest blue head you can imagine. Blue is good; folk like lizards with some color. Big eyes, and closed.

Perfect. Caught the critter sleepin’.

I didn’t want to scare it, so I moved real slow, gettin’ behind it. Dumb lizard just sat there, on the roots of a big ol’ tree. Got within about five feet of it, and started to stretch out my stick, noose hangin’, ready for the catch.

That lizard turned its head and looked at me. It didn’t run or climb the tree. Those eyes just stared at me, all big and yellow. I was still as a rock, hopin’ its dumb reptile brain wouldn’t see me.

The lizard yawned. I saw lots of sharp, pointy teeth. Iguanas don’t have big teeth.

I decided to back away.

I couldn’t.

What the fuck?

Then I couldn’t blink, or move my eyes. I stared at that lizard, and it stared right back.

I kept breathin’, but that’s about it. Legs don’t move, arms are stuck holdin’ the snare stick. Can’t turn my head, can’t even take a pee even though my bladder is full.

Sonuva-bitch!

So now I’m waitin’. Maybe it’s one of those weird diseases you get from a bug bite. I’ve got mosquitoes bitin’ me all over, and can’t scratch or nothin’.

I’ll get over it.

Somebody will find my truck, and look for me. Doctors will fix me right up, when they find me.

Where’d that damned lizard go? It was walkin’ toward me, then it disappeared in the weeds. I can’t see it anymore. Maybe it ran off.

Damn. Wish to hell I could look down.

I think it’s chewin’ on my foot.