I was grateful that it hadn’t come up before. I think Wilbur was afraid to broach the subject for fear that I would find a way to flee again, lions or not. But it couldn’t be avoided forever.
“It’s all right,” I said, nodding. “Go ahead and ask me.”
“Are you feeling
alright? Because you actually look really good. I’m mean, not that you didn’t before. And, you know, I just keep thinking that maybe your doctors are wrong. Or maybe you’re getting better? It happens, right?” Wilbur rambled all in one breath, like beautiful word vomit.
I had been wondering the same thing. But, I could still feel the mass; it wasn’t like it was shrinking. Just the opposite, if anything. And I still got the sharp pains in my abdomen when I stood up too fast, but I’d learned to mask them. The nausea was still
present, and then there was the occasional taste of battery acid in my mouth. However, I had gained back some of the weight that I had initially lost. I no longer resembled the emaciated wretch my mother had become. That had to be a good sign. And at that moment, I felt incredible.
“Maybe it’s mind over
body, like Misty said. I was so miserable before, that my body reacted by turning on itself. And now that my life is so much better, my body’s better. Maybe if I start eating healthier and exercising—hey! Can we go for a run? Running sounds great! Not now, of course, since it’s dark and everything.”
Wilbur’s enthusiastic rambling had clearly rubbed off on me.
“The problem with running around here is that things chase you, and will most likely catch you.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
We laughed in unison. Our collective positive energy made me feel so uplifted and hopeful. Maybe I was deluding myself, but I needed that positive energy so much. I was just starting to truly live. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do: I had to detox my body and my mind. I had to be a better person—a good person. There had to be some higher power that would allow me to go on living if I changed the way I was doing so.
Being a good person in the religious sense could not include having an extramarital affair. I was convinced of that. Wilbur and I had yet to cross that line, and I knew I had to keep it that way. I turned away from Wilbur, and he did nothing but snuggle up behind me. He gently squeezed his way into all the nooks of my body. I hadn’t been held like that except on a handful of occasions with Michael, and that had been nearly twenty years prior. It was a very sensual feeling, having his body totally molded onto mine. It was all I could do to resist temptation. As he fell asleep, breathing softly, his hand fell onto my abdomen, onto the monster that was keeping us from delving
head first into a love affair.
Once again, we were awakened at an ungodly hour. We said our groggy goodbyes to our hosts, and set off
in the dark for the Okavango Delta. The very pregnant Raashida tagged along with us to the next camp, while the other staff stayed behind to prepare for the following group of obnoxious Americans to tread on their soil. A tiny wind-up flying contraption was waiting for us after our short drive. It was a plane, or rather the runty, evil stepchild of a plane with motion sickness written all over it.
When Edison announced that someone could sit next to the captain, Clifford and Carol simultaneously yelled “Shotgun!”
The pair quarreled it out for a moment, while Wilbur squirmed. Edison appeared visibly uncomfortable as well. After all, his job was to please the crowd, not to break up fights.
My
new job, I had decided, was to be a good person. That included being nice to people like Carol and Clifford. I thought to myself, if I could befriend
these
people to whom I never would have given a second glance four weeks ago, people I would have avoided like a colonoscopy, if I could be a better person than I’ve been, then just maybe, Sister Constance’s God, or perhaps some other god, would see fit to let me live.
“Carol, do you think you could sit with me?” I whispered, cringing inside at the prospect. “Planes scare me, and I don’t want Wilbur to know. It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“Sure,” she replied with a smile. “I’ll ride shotgun on the next flight.”
Crisis averted.
It wasn’t entirely a lie. I did hate flying, though Wilbur had already had full exposure to my neurosis. And while the last person I wanted comfort from was Carol, she seemed tickled that I had asked her.
“You just sit by me, and I’ll make sure nothing happens to you,” Carol cooed as she sat down and patted the seat adjacent to her.
Wilbur followed my cue, and took a seat next to Edison.
About five minutes into the flight, my fear was overtaken by nausea and I covered my mouth with one hand while flapping the other wildly.
“What’s the matter?” Carol asked, clearly oblivious to the universal sign for
get me a goddamn barf bag before I puke on you!
Edison had obviously witnessed this maneuver before, and was thankfully in close enough proximity to foist a bag in front of my face before I showered Carol with vomit. Next to Wilbur, Edison was the coolest man on the planet, while Carol was a moronic ninny.
I needed to focus. Somehow, I felt that being nice to Carol was monumental to my survival. I wasn’t off to a good start. So I decided to let her do the one thing I knew would make her happy: I let her gush endlessly about herself.
I wanted to sink into oblivion in the aftermath of my
Exorcist
moment, but instead, I listened as Carol told me all about how she’d spent thirty years working for the federal government and how she was asked to retire early for unknown reasons. She went on to tell me how she wasn’t on speaking terms with any of her children, and the various reasons for this—none of which was her doing, of course. All three of her husbands had died in an assortment of tragic ways. I tried to push the words “black widow” from my consciousness, but they kept creeping right back in. Carol also explained, in graphic detail, everything there was to know about her “boyfriend.” I found that term so bizarre when used in reference to someone over seventy. She explained how handsome and wealthy he was, and that he was far too busy and important to make the trip to Africa with her. The rest of the conversation morphed into a one-sided diatribe resembling an even shriller version of Charlie Brown’s teacher:
“Whaa-wa-whaa-wa-wa.”
Did I actually have to
be
a nice person, I wondered, or could I just fake it really well? Bible-bearing folks will tell you that you shouldn’t even think impure thoughts. If that’s the case, I was screwed for sure—as was most of humanity, I suspected. Heaven must be a lonely place. As much as I liked Sister Constance and was fascinated by her Catholic precepts, I knew they weren’t for me. Even Sister Constance had evaluated the smorgasbord of Church teachings and then selected only the items she found palatable enough to consume.
I believed in being nice to people. I believed that there are certain rules in society that have to be followed to maintain order. I didn’t necessarily believe in a solitary higher power, but instead, left open the possibility of many. Maybe it’s like the pagans’
school of thought: There is an individual god for everything—the sun, war, love, et cetera. All I knew is that there had to be some spiritual power stronger than me out there, and if I could somehow find it (or them), maybe I could beg my way into a second chance.
Carol was still talking when we mercifully landed. I had dozed off at some point, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“
Whaa-wa-wa-whaa-wa.”
“That woman is some special kin
da stupid,” Clifford whispered to me as he exited the plane.
I tried not to smile. I knew it was wrong, but he was
all kinds of right.
The Okavango Delta is a vast swampland created by seasonal flooding, and shaped into an area resembling a giant hand. The waters in this part of Botswana often change direction because of small earthquakes and shifts in the Kalahari sand. One fault line in particular created Chief Island, the largest landmass within the Delta that formed what would be the palm. The Moremi Game Reserve expanded from the eastern side of the Delta and we passed directly through it while making our way from the plane to our new temporary abode.
I was still far too ill to fully appreciate the view. I spent the drive slumped in my seat, eyes at half-mast, head resting on Wilbur’s shoulder. When we arrived at the camp, various staffers led members of our group to their new accommodations, but Wilbur grabbed my hand and guided me separately to ours. I supposed it was a foregone conclusion at that point that we would be shacking up again. It made me nervous that I was already faltering on my own resolution for survival.
We had time for a brief rest before
boarding a boat—yet another vehicle of misery. I had no idea how long I was for this earth, and once again, I was nothing but a helpless follower. Part of me wanted to throw my bags down and run naked through the Delta, risking the forces of nature, ending it all on my terms. The other only slightly more rational part tried to focus on my mission: to become a better me so that I might live.
I gently laid my bags down in our new digs, and rummaged through my belongings for a toothbrush. “Not so fresh” didn’t even come close to describing the cesspool that was my mouth at that moment. I brushed my teeth four times, convinced that each scrubbing could possibly erase the memory of my
Exorcist
moment from Wilbur’s mind and mine. I didn’t even want to think of the visual. I couldn’t imagine what could be more unattractive than my perpetual vomiting.
“Are you all right?” Wilbur asked.
“I’ll be fine—until I get on that boat.”
“We don’t have to go, you know. We could just stay here. Take a nap or something,” Wilbur said with a sly smile, or maybe I just perceived it that way. Simply standing there, he
oozed sexuality. When he spoke of “napping,” actual sleep was the furthest thing from my depraved mind. Maybe, when this is all in the past, I thought, I will renew my life, divorce Evan, and be free to be with Wilbur. It was the first time I considered what I might do if given that second chance. I wanted it desperately, but I knew I had to earn it.
“I’m in no position to miss anything,” I uttered with a smile, but as I straightened up from bending over the sink, I got one of those sharp pains, which doubled me right back over.
Wilbur rushed over to grab me.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “It happens sometimes.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I said, forcing the smile. Let’s go get on that boat. I’ll just stay close to the edge.”
As always, Wilbur didn’t argue with me.
“You really can’t avoid being near the edge in these boats,” Wilbur chuckled, and within an hour I would understand why.
After we rejoined the others, Edison picked us up in an off-road vehicle similar to the one in Chobe, and took us to the edge of the Delta’s waters. He showed us to the low-lying canoe-like boats called
makoros.
It was just as Wilbur had said; there was absolutely no way to avoid the edge of the boat. They looked like split pea pods carved from ebony trees.
Edison explained in the most gracious of terms that the lighter person needed to sit in the front of the two-man makoro. Naturally, I paired up with Wilbur and, of course, Mary and Sally stood and waited to embark with their respective spouses. That left Clifford and Carol with the inevitable fate of being stuck alone together in a tiny makoro.
Into the boat stepped Carol, clad in a pair of skin-tight jeans, proving it is possible to simultaneously have muffin top and camel toe. She completely ignored the African safari’s neutral-colored-clothing rule with her tight, low-cut, neon-pink shirt that accentuated her overly sun-exposed, wrinkled chest.
And yet, despite all of that, Carol thought she was hot stuff, announcing, “I’ll go in the front since I’m only
one hundred twenty-five pounds.”
“Maybe in your ass,” Clifford shot back, his opening salvo to a renewed battle.
As Clifford and Carol engaged in conflict once again, I turned to Wilbur, my eyes pleading for him to intervene. He nodded his acknowledgement. Unlike me, Wilbur was a good person with zero effort.
“Why don’t I go with you, Carol,” Wilbur
suggested matter-of-factly as he climbed in and sat down behind her.
Clifford glanced at me and winked.
“I guess it’s you and me, kid,” he chortled in a feeble attempt at a Humphrey Bogart impression.
Then he rocked and slammed his way behind me into the makoro, with no regard for the unspoken rules of personal space.
Each makoro was then manned with a
poler
, who pushed his way, with great effort, through the swampy Delta. I had the luck of the draw, and our poler was Edison. As he poled, he pointed out small frogs and birds. The water was sprinkled in every direction with white, pink, and lavender lilies. Each poler, in assembly-line fashion, made a necklace out of the water lilies, and draped it around the neck of his lady passenger while bestowing her with the title “Queen of the Delta.” I tried to squelch my disgust with being put on the same level with Carol, who was sitting in what should have been
my
throne. As I shot mental bullets in her direction, Wilbur blew me a kiss from his seat directly behind Carol’s behind.
After Edison had navigated us too far away from land’s edge for an easy escape, he explained to us that we had to be very careful and quiet because more people are killed in the Okavango Delta by hippos than by any other means. He related a story in which he once saw a hippo bite a makoro, traveling down the main river, clean in half. I silently hoped that in such a circumstance, the hippo would have more of a hankering for Clifford’s half. By that point I had given up the prospect of ridding myself of impure thoughts. I even shamefully wondered if Carol could be coaxed into suicide by hippo. I was mindfully embracing my evil inner being rather than adhering to my mission.
We continued up one of the fingers of the Delta, toward the main river, until we came face to face with a pod of hippopotamus. According to Edison, one never really knows how many hippos are around at any given time. For every one you see, there is at one at least one under water that you can’t see, and possibly many more. The six hippopotami we could see formed a perfect line, like military soldiers in formation, then stared us down. The hippos took turns going under water for up to five minutes at a time, but when they were above the water, they held our gaze. Seeing the hippos at eye level was an unnerving experience. I had an unpleasant vision of Edison’s hippo-versus-makoro massacre story. Instead of watching the death dealers with Clifford breathing down my neck, I wanted to wade through the water lilies with Wilbur, lounging together on the water; gleefully starring in our own romance story—minus all of the extraneous tourists.
Edison received a radio call that a leopard was spotted on the savanna and if we headed back fast enough, we might be able to see him.
The elusive leopard
. Everyone was in agreement that we would take a shot at seeing the leopard and I, personally, was ready to abandon my fantasy and reclaim my personal space.
They poled us back with more haste than with which we had arrived, retracing the path already carved through the field of water lilies, to the water’s edge. As we exited the flimsy makoro, Edison mentioned as an afterthought that the water was also crocodile infested.
The vehicle was waiting to take us to the leopard. This time, I was happy to allow the Reilys to attend to the Carol-and-Clifford situation, and I took command of the seat next to Wilbur. Edison drove at an emergent pace over the bumpy road, causing my head to collide with Wilbur’s as we tried to converse. This area was significantly more arid than where we had come from—much more like what I’d imagined to be the African plain.
When we arrived at our destination, one of the leaders from a neighboring group rattled on in Swahili to Edison, flailing and growling, but otherwise incomprehensible to the rest of us. No, leopard in sight. Finally, Edison finally turned to us and translated.
“The leopard was stalking a baby giraffe. When the giraffe’s mother saw the leopard trying to hunt her baby, she chased him and cornered him up in this tree. She wouldn’t let him leave. She was slamming her hooves on the ground to show who is boss. But, the giraffe was distracted by the approach of our vehicle, and just a moment ago, the leopard saw his chance to escape and took it. We can try to follow the tracks, but it is unlikely we will find him.”
The leopard and the giraffes were gone and only the tree remained. We had missed what sounded like a brilliant show. This would prove to be only one of many close encounters we would have with the elusive leopard. The leopard became our nemesis, our archrival—always present, but never v
isible, just like my sad truth.