So one day I got this urge to shoot an elephant. I thought it would be really cool having its gigantic head on the wall of my den -- what a conversation piece that would be! Everybody would admire me for my great courage and daring going toe-to-toe with the true King of the Jungle! And not some weenie circus-type elephant, no sir! What I wanted was a big African one, with those giant, floppy, Dumbo ears, and a good set of tusks that would provide me with enough ivory to make a custom set of billiard balls for my pool table.
From what I had heard, there were lots and lots of elephants in Africa, and in some areas they were supposed to be as numerous and pesky as Fire Ants. I figured that going there to "harvest" one of them would actually be doing a favor for the locals, who were probably good and sick of the elephants digging up their rutabagas and leaving nothing but destruction and droppings behind. So I packed up what clothes and gear I thought I might need into an old Army duffel bag, grabbed my cowboy hat, my well-worn LA Times Sunday Omnibus Crossword Puzzle Book (with attached astronaut pen), and a tube of fragrance-free Aveeno 50 SPF sunscreen and headed for the airport. Serengeti Plains, here I come!
I caught a red-eye to Nairobi, and before I knew it, I had secured a professional hunting guide
/ chewing gum salesman named Adongo Mwanaidi Munim Chumachienda, who preferred to be called Larry, and whom I fortuitously met next to the taxi cab stand at Jomo Kenatta International Airport. I was impressed with the fair price he quoted to take me on safari, though I thought it a bit irregular that we would be riding together on an antique motor scooter; and I thought his gun, a pistol he kept in his shoe, was a tad on the smallish side for elephant hunting. But he assured me that everything was cool, and that I would bag a big elephant in no time at all. He even said he would take a picture of me with my elephant for no extra charge! That sealed the deal, so I said, "Let's do it!" and we gave each other a high-five.
So off we went into the bush on our 2-man safari, bouncing down a fairly rustic red-dirt path into the Serengeti, with our first stop the little village Larry grew up in. He told me, as we were noisily puttering along on his motor scooter, that his father was a tribal chief, and that we would have to get his permission and blessing before we could take first-blood. That seemed reasonable to me, since I've watched a lot of African safari movies, and the white hunters always had to appease the natives in some way to avoid upsetting them and getting gruesomely massacred or something. I got a little nervous when I remembered I didn't really know too much about Larry's tribe, so I was hoping they weren't going to go all "Naked Prey" on me when we got there, if you know what I mean.
I sensed we were nearing the village when I heard the ominous drum beats that were most likely signaling our arrival. I immediately recognized the beats as an "old skool" rap song "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy, thus signifying that these people were primitives for sure. Soon, we rolled to a stop in front of a small, thatched-roof hut near the center of the village. While Larry went on in to inform the chief of our arrival, I busied myself by whacking the dust off my clothes with my hat and picking as many bugs out of my teeth as I could. I had swallowed enough of them during the trip that I really wasn't very hungry, even though it had been hours since my last square meal. Soon, Larry came back out and told me the chief was ready to see me.
I entered into a darkened room, lit only by the glow of an 80's vintage 19-inch Toshiba color television set that was showing the Oakland Raiders/ Denver Broncos game, and, to my surprise, Denver was only ahead by three points. The chief rose from his La-Z-Boy to greet me, a tall-boy can of Schlitz beer in one hand and what looked like a barbequed chicken wing in his other. He put the wing down, came over to me, gave me a welcoming hug, and motioned for me to sit down on the sofa. Larry whispered in my ear that it was not considered polite to discuss business until the game was over, so I forced myself to be patient for approximately two more hours. I partook of the traditional feast of wings and beer while watching the game, but after consuming my sixth can of Shlitz, I had to excuse myself to go outside and puke.
Finally, the football game came to an end. Larry and the chief spoke to each other in their native tongue for a couple of minutes, and then Larry turned to me and said, "The chief demands a token gift from you before he can give you his blessing." I had expected this, so I opened my duffel bag and started looking for the Maxim magazine I had bought in the gift shop of London's Heathrow Airport during a brief layover on my way to Africa. As I was doing so, my crossword puzzle book with attached astronaut pen fell out of the bag and onto the floor. The chief's eyes immediately went wide, and he started speaking excitedly and pointing at the book. I knew he wanted it, but it had over 200 Sunday-sized puzzles in it, and I had only completed about a hundred of them, so there was no way I was about to give it up. Besides, I had pegged him on sight as most likely being a New York Times crossword puzzle man, and my book was an LA Times Omnibus. Things got pretty tense there for a minute, and I thought we might have to come to blows. In a last-ditch effort to calm things down, Larry jumped between us and said, "The chief understands how precious that book is to you, so you will not have to give it to him. However, he will accept the astronaut pen in its place!"
Well, he might as well have kicked me in the teeth right then. To ask a man to give up his astronaut pen, which as everyone knows allows the crossword puzzle addict to get a steady flow of ink while writing upside down when laying on his back in bed, well, that was just too much. I started thinking that my dream of shooting an elephant was about to end badly. But then I thought some more, about what I had already gone through to get this close to my goal, and I realized that maybe, just maybe, I could give up the pen, even though it meant that when I got home I would have to dig around in the junk drawer just to find a cheap, 20-year-old, capless, blue-ink Bic pen that would quit working every time I pointed it up. So I gave up my resistance and handed the pen over to the chief. The chief grinned broadly and gave me a bear hug. I got my blessing, and Larry and I got the hell out of there.
We roared away on the scooter, straight into the dark heart of the Serengeti, resolved to find and shoot the biggest, baddest beast in the whole animal-infested region. After about an hour, Larry stopped and announced that from here on we would travel by foot (I didn't find out until much later that we had run out of gas). With no native porters to carry our gear, we left it all with the scooter and started our trek. Larry handed me the pistol and told me that he "had my back". That made me point man, and my "guide" was now behind me. We hoofed it through the tall grass and brush for upwards of an hour until Larry grabbed the back of my sweat-stained shirt and whispered frantically, "Get up a tree! Get up a tree!"
We swung ourselves quickly into a nearby baobab and climbed as high as we could. Less than one minute later, I saw in horror what had spooked Larry so badly. It was a pack of wild Dachshunds on the prowl, led by a mean-looking black and tan buck, hunting the same prey that we were. This was bad news. If the elephants find out that the wild Dachshunds are hunting them, they clear out for miles around. But there was nothing I could do. I watched as the black and tan sniffed around the base of the tree, lifted his leg to pee, and then moved on, followed closely by about 30 others, some short-haired, some wire-haired, and even a few long-haired, both standard and miniature. It took over an hour before each one of them had had the chance to sniff the tree, pee over the previous dog's pee, and go on.
About 30 minutes later, after making sure they were good and gone, Larry and I crawled back down out of the tree. We stood there for a minute in the soggy, pee-soaked grass, and then resumed our journey, making sure to go the other way. We wanted no part of meeting that pack of wild Dachshunds again. I noticed that my hands were shaking from the close encounter, and I started wondering if I would even be able to shoot straight when the time came. And just then, I saw him. I couldn't believe it. Right there, no more than a hundred yards away, the biggest elephant I have ever seen in my life! Luckily, we were down wind, so he hadn't noticed us. I could tell my palm was sweating around the pistol handle as I moved stealthily closer to the unwary beast. Closer and closer I moved, with Larry crouched right behind me. And then, SNAP! I accidentally stepped on a dry tree branch, and the sound echoed like a gunshot! The bull elephant's head turned, and he saw us! His trumpeting roar of anger almost knocked me flat on my back, and the pistol fell out of my hand. Larry shrieked and started running, and I was right behind him! The ground was literally shaking, and I could feel the hot breath of the furious monster on the back of my neck as I ran like a bat outta hell! I could hear Larry screaming, "I quit! I quit!" I couldn't blame him. But then I remembered what he had promised me. "What about my picture?" I shouted. I saw Larry's hands go above his head as he was running, and in them was a small, Kodak Easyshare M555 digital camera pointing at me. The flash went off, and then Larry threw the camera up into the air. It came down right in my own hands, and I quickly jammed it into my pocket.
We must have run for miles before the elephant finally gave up, and I think I ran for a few more miles before I realized it. I don't know what happened to Larry, but I think he went back for his scooter. I ended up hiking back to Nairobi and caught a plane back home. And on that plane ride back home, I got to thinking about that elephant, and how noble and majestic he was, and how it really would have been a shame to shoot such a magnificent creature. So I didn't want to shoot an elephant any more. A panda bear would be better.
A quick shout out to my baby sister Ladea for her amusing and kind comments. A big thank you to everyone for their thoughts and prayers for Teresa during her illness - she is starting to feel better now. And if anyone wants to "pick my brain" about a topic of interest, send me an email at blaineparadise@gmail.com. Thanks for reading!
