Whiski Rae

So I met my wife when she came into the emergency room with a snapping turtle clamped down onto her right thumb. I was an intern at Charity Hospital in New Orleans back in the eighties doing a rotation through the casualty ward, as the Brits call it, and I'd been up for three straight days and nights and only God knows how I made it through that month without cracking up from the sleep deps, as we medicoes referred to them, those hazy, hallucinatory times when your sensorium is all jangled and smeared and fractured and twisted, when black is white and right, left, and nothing is so goddamned interesting or hilarious as your big meaty hand hovering in front of your own face like some little dirigible setting sail from your body until poof! It's gone but you're still here, minus part of your limb, minus the most useful part of your limb at that.

I'm Dusty, I said to a pretty young brunette who was wearing shorts and a tank top, with the snapper snapped onto her hitchin' digit, as the Cajuns call a thumb. Where'd you run into that turkle that's biting you? I asked.

Lake Poncho, she replied. I'm the coxswain of the Tulane women's crew team. I dropped my megaphone in the lake and the snapper intercepted me when I reached for it.

I poked at the reptile's head with a forceps and got no more response than if it were a pork fritter. Seems he's dead, I observed smartly. You kill him?

Sleeper hold, she replied. He's out cold. I can't prise his jaws apart, so I came here. Plus I reckoned I'd need a tetanus shot.

You're right about that, I agreed. As for this snapper, you're lucky he's just a baby.

Its bite still hurts, she said. You don't think I'll lose my thumb, do you?

No, no, it's still pinkish, I said, pointing to her nail bed. I've taken these fellers off before.

Hurry, would you? And can I have some morphine?

Sure, I answered. I didn't catch your name, though.

It's printed right there in the chart, she replied. I'm Whiski, she said. Whiski Rae Shamrock.

Nice name, I said, and I meant it, too. By now I was already in love.

Thanks, she said. Please, please get rid of this. I've got an econ test in an hour.

Roger, I replied. Whiski Rae wrinkled her pretty little nose and narrowed her eyes as I dug around in an instrument pack and extracted an orthopedic mallet. Brace yourself, I instructed as I whacked that turkle hard right where the neck pokes into the shell, as my Uncle Leon showed me once when we were poling skiffs through a swamp looking for duck eggs for the gimlets Unc Leon favored. We'd come upon a mama mallard a snapper had grabbed and was about to drown for his supper. Unc Leon swung a ball peen down quicker than a ninja and caught that snapper where it counts and the bird was freed, off she flew to lay more eggs for Unc's gimlets, that boy could drink them by the pitcher, but not me, buddy, I thought they tasted like piss in pickle juice. Anyway, I at least inherited his accuracy in knocking snappers, the turkle let go of Whiski Rae's thumb and tumbled down into me and I lost my purchase on the floor and fell hard, the snapper on top of me, and the sleeper hold didn't hold any more, quicker than you can say Jesus loves his mama! that cold blooded critter swung his naked primeval head around and bit me, not just anywhere, but right onto Private Harry Richard Johnson's helmet. Yow! I yowled. Yow! Yow!

Twenty-two years of marriage have passed since then and I still haven't met anybody who learns faster than Whiski Rae. Bum thumb and all, she picked up the mallet and clobbered that snapper, and the shot wasn't easy, I was writhing about screaming with the turkle hanging on, his jaws weren't big but it felt like I'd just doinked a rat trap, and the fear element was considerable as well, me being about twenty-seven years old and considering what life might be like if I came up short, so to speak, but Whiski lashed out with the mallet and caught the snapper where it counted and did him in, his short life of people chomping over. Private Johnson swelled to the size of a baguette for about a week, necessitating icing him down every hour or so. It took a few days for me to realize he'd lost his helmet, too: I was circumcised as neatly as if the turkle had been a mohel. As for Whiski and me, we got married a little over three months later. If you'll forgive the old pun, you could say it was love at first bite.