Not long after 8 p.m., Hannah came out of her bungalow and announced she was feeling ill. Sue, Shelly, Simone, Molly, and I all suggested that she stay behind and skip our last dinner at camp.
Our attempt failed, and Hannah insisted on coming anyway.
On our way to dinner, some sort of branch we had all managed to avoid somehow hit her in the face. Hannah clearly lacked any natural instinct to duck when objects were flying at her face, which coincided with her terrible driving ability and her accusation that my driveway hit her car.
The dinner was held outside in the boma, which was basically a pile of sand with a fire at the center. We were grouped with all the other guests staying at the myriad lodges in our camp, including the triplets. Rex was in the worst shape we had seen him in and insisted on us all taking shots of Jägermeister.
Not long after dinner commenced, he got up and made a toast, declaring to the other safarigoers that he had never met women like us. Simone gave me a half-scrambler eye roll—meaning this was, in fact, not a compliment.
During dinner Sue was talking about how incredible Londolozi had been when Hannah interrupted her with a completely unrelated topic about Rod Stewart’s new autobiography and his current concert ticket sales. I turned to Molly and asked her what she thought Hannah was on. Somehow in the midst of two different conversations being interrupted, Hannah was able to overhear my comment and turned to me. “You’re not being very nice, Chelsea. I heard that.”
“Hannah, you’re not being very nice, either. You have bitched and moaned all day about one thing or another, interrupted more than ten conversations, and have gotten upset with Life for not wanting to bring you on as his sixth wife.”
“Chelsea,” Hannah rebutted, “I told you that you looked less bloated today than yesterday. How is that not a compliment?”
“That’s true, Hannah, but you also wouldn’t walk alone with one of the camp guides because you were convinced he was going to rape you.”
“That’s not what I said!” she bellowed. “I said if he did rape me, I would get on top.”
“I didn’t hear that part,” I admitted.
“I was simply surprised that Life thought I wasn’t marriage material. As if I’m too old to procreate, or I’m not good-looking enough.”
“That’s amazing insight, Hannah. It also may have to do with the fact that you are borderline anorexic and only choose to scream or yell when interrupting a conversation.”
“Fuck you, Chelsea,” she replied. “We’re on safari. Why don’t you just calm down and relax?”
Simone had been privy to many of my outbursts, and knowing one was coming, kicked me under the table.
“Hannah! We’ve gone over this before. The two major components necessary for storytelling is for it to be either (A) funny or (B) compelling. Please pick one.”
After dinner twenty or so African women danced and sang for us. Sue got the triplets to dance, since it was their birthday. Soon Shelly, Hannah, and Simone were dancing, too. I used my knee as reason not to dance. Molly sat by my side and insisted she was too sober and white to dance among such accomplished performers.
Rex fell down repeatedly but managed to meander over to Molly to ask if she had cigarettes. “No,” she replied. “We don’t smoke.”
“I can’t believe girls who drink like you don’t smoke.”
“Sorry,” Simone responded. Then she looked down and asked me why I was wearing one motorcycle boot and one sneaker. I had no answer to this line of questioning due to the fact that I had no recollection whatsoever of losing a shoe.
It was at this point in the evening that I realized Lilly and Rex made no contact with each other. I determined that not only did they not belong together, but that Lilly was trying to make Rex jealous by allowing other male camp workers to put their arms around her and flirt. It was clear to me what was going on. Lilly didn’t feel safe with Rex because Rex never really liked Lilly, and Rex was looking for someone more worldly, like me, to share his life with.
I tried to discuss this with Molly, then Simone, then a stranger: the insincerity and unlikeliness of a long-term relationship between Lilly and Rex. Simone advised me to take a Xanax and go to bed.
After four days of monkey rape, drinking like sailors, and embarrassing the United States of America, it was time to go destroy another country. We were off to Camp Dumbo and then Botswana.
On the morning of our departure, I announced the following: “I would like to go on the proverbial record before we get to Botswana and say that I do not believe a gorilla would ever attack me.”
“I don’t mean to sound like a paleontologist, but there are no gorillas where you are going, Chelsea. They are in the Congo,” Rex replied, then paused. “I would also like to announce I have another furlough coming up in four days, and if you need a seventh addition to even out your group, I would be willing to join you girls when you get to Botswana.”
This was the best news I had received since winning my second-grade spelling bee, where I had come in third, but I managed to play it cool, with my one boot and one sneaker firmly planted in the sand.
“Either way, I don’t believe one would attack me.”
I kissed Rex on both cheeks as if we were in Europe and bid him adieu, even though, secretly, I knew this was not good-bye.
CHAPTER 3
CAMP DUMBO
June 27, Wednesday
It wasn’t easy leaving Rex after spending four days bonding with him and watching him get shit-faced every night, but it was time to move on. The six of us were very quiet on the flight to Camp Dumbo; no one had the guts to admit it was because we were in mourning for our new boyfriend. We knew we had to be big girls, and we all felt like we had matured beyond our years (except Hannah) just by traversing to this unknown continent. We were international, we had all turned into plus-sized models, and now we were ready to mount elephants.
Camp Dumbo was pitched to us as the perfect interim safari sandwiched in between South Africa and Botswana. Here, we would be able to ride elephants, play with lions, and feed hyenas; basically, it was a zoo for slow adults.
I sensed there was an issue as soon as we were picked up from our forty-minute plane ride by another white South African named Corbin, whose accent wasn’t nearly as charming as Rex’s and whose mouth and lips looked like a cross between a seven-layer dip and a vagina. He was fat, in his fifties, and not fun. He sounded like Crocodile Dundee with a horrifying lisp, and his hair was a thinning, desiccated mullet. He wore a gold necklace with the Star of David on it, and told us he was a “Jew for Jesus.” He had the worst breath I’d ever smelled in my entire thirties. The fact that we were in an open-air vehicle and I was sitting behind him and could still smell his breath made me want to capture a bumblebee and trap it in his mouth. I pulled the bandana that was wrapped around my head down around my mouth and turned it into a surgical mask.
Within minutes of meeting him, he told us that he and his wife had been unable to conceive, and that was why they had decided to start an elephant camp—an obvious alternative for a couple trying unsuccessfully to make a baby.
Corbin was like a human calzone, the type of man who would walk around his house in front of his wife wearing nothing but a Hawaiian button-down shirt. I imagined the phone in his house ringing and him running from the kitchen to answer it in nothing but that Hawaiian shirt and a pair of tube socks with his dick swinging around like a ceiling fan, and in one hand holding a tube of Velveeta.
The six of us exchanged looks of consternation as we set out on a long, flat dirt road with nothing in sight. It was clear from the abominable landscape that we were in a different kind of camp. There were hardly any trees, almost no wildlife, and miles of dirt. When Corbin pointed out a single impala to the right and slowed his jeep down, we told him to keep going. “We’re over impalas,” I explained. “They’ve turned into deer for us. You don’t need to slow down.”
“Aha! I was warned from Camp Londolozi that you girls don?
??t mess around,” he guffawed, as spit shot out of one of the crevices in his lip onto the steering wheel.
“Ugh,” Hannah groaned. “GROSS!”
“Speaking of deer, Chelsea, why don’t you tell Corbin about the time you hit a deer?” Molly suggested, trying to lighten things up.
“Ugh, I hate talking about that, but I will.” I tapped Corbin on the shoulder. “Do you guys have Rollerblades in South Africa?” Before he had time to answer, I told him, “It was a foggy Tuesday night in May, and I was into my own rhythm and feeling the beat of the drum, and before I knew it, a deer popped right out of the woods and struck me down.”
“Did you not see it coming?” Corbin asked, whipping his lips into profile.
“I did not. On blades, I can get up to sixty-five miles an hour. I ended up with just a couple of scratches, and I was lucky enough to be wearing a helmet. The deer, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. He passed later that night.”
“When she Rollerblades, it’s like she’s in another world,” Sue told him. “By the way, Corbin, we met triplets at Camp Londolozi who said they just came from here. Did you pick them up as well?”
“Ahhh! Yes. Yes, I did. Those girls were a riot—I really loved them.”
“A riot?” I asked. “How so?”
“They were just so funny, they had me laughing and laughing!”
“We didn’t find them funny at all,” Sue interrupted.
“Well,” he said, ignoring her comment and changing the subject, “I’m going to drop you off at your villa so you can freshen up and relax, and we’ll be by at half past four to pick you up for the elephants.”
“What makes you think we need to freshen up?” I inquired, well aware that I was on my sixth day of not-showering.
He ignored my question, too, and informed us he’d be dropping us off with Norman, our “escort” at Camp Dumbo.
He pulled up to our villa where we met Norman, a shorter, grosser version of Corbin, if that was possible. Norman had beyond-seven-layer-dip lips. He looked like a warthog, and in what was becoming typical South African style, he also had one dead tooth. Perhaps he and Rex were distant cousins. He wore safari shorts that stopped a foot and a half above his knee, and he had the handshake of a warthog after being assaulted by a water balloon.
“Do those shorts hurt?” Hannah asked as she picked her ear and walked inside. I felt sorry for Norman, and I felt bad for him having to meet us. I also felt bad for myself, realizing I had completely forgotten to pack my clothes when we left Londolozi. I remember seeing my clothes, deciding I’d rather not deal with them, and secretly hoping Molly or Shelly would mistake them for their own and pack them. This is my usual operating procedure, and I’ve had over a 90 percent success rate.
Our villa was covered in mounted elephant heads, antelope tusks, and stuffed hyenas, with elephant dung on the walls doubling as wallpaper. It was spacious, with a wraparound balcony and two bedrooms connected by a living and dining area. This allowed the six of us to sleep in the same quarters for the first time on this trip. We were supposed to stay there for four days, but after meeting Corbin and Norman, I knew four days would be a long shot.
Norman gave us walking directions to the main lodge if we wanted to grab a bite to eat before our elephant ride. We were to make a hard right out of our villa and follow a stone path that would lead to signs to the main lodge. In doing so, we crossed a gangplank that was suspended over ten feet of dirt and led to a lodge shaped like a pirate ship. It felt like we were on a ropes course, and I decided to be the first one to acknowledge it.
“This camp is like the Best Western version of Arabian Nights. All we’re missing are some gorilla rings and a balance beam.”
“I feel like we’re going to need 3-D glasses,” Molly added.
Norman was waiting for us in the dining room when we entered the main lodge. Why he made us walk a quarter of a mile in ninety-degree heat when he was going to the same place made no sense at all. It dawned on me that Norman was under the impression that the gangplank/drawbridge was one of their main attractions. If that was the case, we were in big trouble.
Once we were seated, Norman explained to us that later we would all be riding the elephants with a trainer. “The trainers are very careful not to develop any relationship with the elephants,” he told us enthusiastically. “They use rods to get them to move.”
We thought Norman was joking, but Norman being Norman was too naive to realize how horrible that sounded.
Our chef, Frederic, sauntered over to our table and I decided to rename him Siegfried, based on the fact that he was a white European with a bizarre dye job and, in my professional opinion, a raging queen. I understand that a chef takes pride in his cuisine, but I had more sympathy for the fact that none of us had been able to digest anything we had eaten in five days and needed to take the food down a notch. It was obvious Frederic had been warned about us when he asked us in a slightly irritated tone if we had any specific requests for dinner that night, and then rolled one colored contact. Feeling ashamed, we told him no in unison. He went over menu items, which were kudu, squirrel, and roasted cauliflower soup. After hearing this, we decided that we did indeed have specific requests; specifically, that he not make anything he originally planned and just bring us a couple of salads.
“You can throw in the soup,” I added, thinking of cauliflower being an accomplice to a bowel movement.
Hannah used this opportunity to piss off Frederic even more by asking for some plain penne pasta with butter, like a five-year-old. We all agreed and asked for the same. Frederic blanched at this request, and later Sue suspected he actually urinated in our pasta, or at least the butter.
A black man named Hunam presented himself, dressed absurdly in clothes from the late 1800s that made him look like he belonged on the set of Django Unchained. He started taking drink orders and giggled with a little glint in his eye when Shelly gave him instructions on how to make the perfect margarita. He had a sweet disposition, and I imagined he also hated Frederic, Corbin, and Norman as much as we did. Perhaps we would kidnap Hunam and take him back to the States, where he would take up work as a camera operator on my show.
“Do you think we’re being kept away from the other campers… again?” Sue asked the group, looking around at the empty dining deck. “We just got here.”
After Frederic was out of hearing range and Shelly had finished the margarita instructions, she uncorked her napkin from the chandelier-sized elephant tusk it had been stuffed in and told Hunam, “If you could just get us some weed, that would be great.” Then she turned to us and posited, “Should we only drink and skip the food? I feel pretty backed up.”
“I should go home,” Simone said, looking at the sky. Simone was preoccupied with her impending house move and was starting to feel guilty about being away from the kids during such a time. She had planned on coming only on the first leg of the trip, but after the success of Londolozi, she agreed to continue on. None of us wanted her to leave, and we were in top-secret discussions at all times figuring out how to extend her trip to match ours. I had told her it would be fine to leave after the second camp, but never intended to actually let that happen. I had been in contact with her ex-husband and was facilitating the move with him, but these were iotas of information I didn’t feel were necessary to share with her until plans were solidified. I want my sister with me at all times, and it’s of no concern to me whether she feels the same way.
The soup, pasta, and margaritas came. I placed my margarita on my knee and grimaced in pain in order to garner some sympathy from Simone and get her mind off leaving and back onto me. Then I took a bite of pasta and spit out what tasted like a pinecone.
“Rosemary,” I moaned. “I hate rosemary. If I wanted to eat a Christmas tree, I have the resources to do that.”
“Why did no one mention that the food in Africa is so horrible?” Shelly asked. “And that there are no single women anywhere.”
“That’s pretty in
sulting, Shelly,” I told her. “Simone is sitting right there.”
“It is surprising,” Sue chimed in. “Safaris are known for their orgies.”
“You’re very sexual, Shelly,” Molly told her. “There should be an iPhone app for when you’re on the move, like an Amber Alert. ‘Shelly’s in South Africa, she’s been drinking for eight days straight, and she’s on the move. Anyone can be a victim! Men, women, dogs.’ There should be a flashing red dot on maps like Google maps that warn people where Shelly is and to get inside their homes and lock their doors. ‘There’s a sexual twister headed in your direction. She could hit ground at any time. Anyone can be a victim! Men, women, dogs.’ ”
“And giraffes,” Sue added.
Shelly’s response to our harassment always involves a sssttt sound and no other defense, because she knows that she is a sick, sick woman who happens to have an incredibly high IQ, practice law, and be physically able to do anything I’ve ever seen any man do. I wouldn’t describe her as butch, but she does own a Harley and a boxer dog, and she walks the way real lesbians walk—with her vagina thrust forward, allowing it to always enter a room before she does. I call it the “pussy out” walk.
“Do you guys think I may have tripolar disorder?” I asked, staring at the fake rocks that enclosed our outdoor dining area. “I lost my luggage, this soup tastes like cocaine, and I left my Invisalign at Camp Londolozi.”
“You and your Invisalign,” Sue said, exhausted. “How many of those have you lost?”
“On this trip or in life?” Shelly asked.
“Why do you even take it out?” Sue asked. “Aren’t you supposed to wear it all the time?”
“No, I just wear it when I sleep. Otherwise, you have to take it out when you eat, and then I have to try to discreetly place it on the dining table or in my bra. “
“Don’t you have to clean it?” Molly asked.
“Yes, and that’s why I use Polident,” I told her. “People think they’re just for dentures and those people are wrong—and quite honestly, they’re the ones who need to get a grip.”