The Myakka Spider
The cup shook as the spider pounded and pounded inside it
Christl and our toddler were already asleep when I quit writing up notes for my book on Florida Parks and, naked in the liquid summer heat, slid under the sheet beside them. Before I turned off the flashlight, I shined it on a huge spider on the inside wall of the tent — which was big, the size of a room, high enough to stand in. I had identified it earlier as a huntsman — a fast spider that grows to have powerful, skinny legs with a span wider than your hand.
We were down here. He was up there (a huntsman this fast I guessed to be a male). So I didn’t think much of it. I knew the spider to be unaggressive, interested in insects, not in us.
As I settled toward sleep in the pure darkness of a place with no lights for miles, I could hear the abrupt DRDRDRDRDRT of the spider as he ran across the tent wall in sudden charges, feet thudding the canvas like little drumsticks. DRDRDRDRDRT: You could hear each foot separately strike the fabric in a rapid tatoo. I marveled how strong, how fast these predators are.
I wondered if the spider’s drumbeat would keep me awake. But I drifted closer to sleep, trusting what I knew about spiders to keep us safe.
As I was sinking into sleep, I suddenly felt each thump of the spider’s feet as it ran, at high speed, directly across my face.
I knew, intellectually, that the spider considered me just an inert object to get past, and not the focus of his attention. But I kept turning over scenarios in which this large spider’s large fangs might sink into my son, my wife, or me. So after a lengthy deliberation of several seconds — with all the judicious calm that is possible in a moment of terror — I reached a verdict: He had to go.
I come from a long family tradition telling you not to kill spiders. So I flicked on the light and fumbled out a paper cup with a large enough opening that the spider could fit inside it. I took out a note card to cover the cup once the spider was inside. I had caught and released dozens, hundreds of spiders this way. It was easy.
In the flashlight’s beam, I scanned all around. — No spider. I scanned each wall from bottom to top, bottom to top. — No spider. I shined it through our clothing and supplies. — No spider. Then I spotted the enormous span of the spider’s legs directly overhead, near the peak of the tent, which rose almost seven feet high, each of the eight legs ending on its own black shadow.
With the flashlight and index card in one hand, the cup held upward in the other, I angled toward the unsuspecting spider, which stayed perfectly still. If I stood slightly on tiptoe, I could clamp the cup over the spider, slip the index card over the cup, toss the spider outside, and go to sleep.
I eased slowly up, mumbling my most soothing spider-whisperer tones, rose into position, then clamped the cup over the spider, which fell obligingly into the paper cup. Ah! Success!
But the spider began shaking the cup from side to side, with shocking speed and strength, hitting my fingertips where I held the cup only a paper-thin distance from a very large, very agitated spider. He exerted so much force he might push his way out the top and — then where? — down onto me? I pressed harder against the tent to keep the cup closed. He battered. I pushed. The cup shook. I pushed. He battered. The cup held. I breathed relief. I felt a flicker of triumph race across my face.
Just then, the flashlight went out.
Miles of uninterrupted darkness poured in like dark water and drowned the little ripple of light that had disturbed its night. And its spider.
The last thing I remember is standing on tiptoe in a tall tent in Myakka River State Park, one of Florida’s remotest, with a huge, furious spider inside the paper cup I pressed against the ceiling to keep him trapped, unable to lift the note card high enough with my other hand to cover the mouth of the cup, which shook as the spider pounded and pounded — in total darkness — stark naked.
I don’t remember how, but I must have found a way out of this without hurting me or the spider.
Otherwise, I’d be standing there still.
