It was the worst morning to wake up to
But I was on time
For once
That was it
Nothing else but the coffee coupons
Got me by
With a lady in the back seat sleeping
I had to open that door
It was Tuesday
The second day I was on-time
Ever
In America
Still no reason
To justify my occupancy
Behind that desk
Would they need me if I left
Or miss me
Too late to know
With trying to buy a house
In a town
Where my trouble started
Or did it end
Me that night
On a couch
My lady on the floor
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A Few Words on Africa (no more than a few).
Descending from the clouds on a Thursday, my first view of Africa wasn’t quite what I expected. It was just another city with paved streets, houses, pools, and highways. Flying further in, Africa was still covered in clouds, though on the last break through the clouds I found a different city waiting for me. It looked like Africa was supposed to be: set in the Kalahari with dirt roads spider-webbing the countryside and only one highway leaving the city to other cities four hours away.
Luke was waiting for me outside of customs by his Toyota that would take us the 3 hours to the tribal capital of Botswana. After the first shower in 2 days travel we were off to his family ranch where he told me we would be hunting problem leopards. One in particular had killed off all of the horses, donkeys, and was working on the cattle. It was too smart for traps and wouldn’t come to a bait, so it would test all of our limits, the dogs’ limits, and Jako’s driving skills as we scanned the cattle roads looking to get lucky and find a fresh track we could chase down. In all we accounted for at least 4 large males, but the one we were after took us all of 3 days to catch a lucky break, and find a fresh track that more resembled a lioness than a leopard. For 2 hours we tracked it that day, but by 10am we were close enough to set the dogs on it chasing it for 8 and ½ hours that day. By the end we realized that this leopard had tested us all and found us out, and we realized just how smart this thing was, smarter than us. The next day, my last day, we weren’t so lucky. It got away, and Jako left us to go back to his plot close to Maun where he overturned his truck on the way. Luke and I had nothing better to do than cook a beer chicken while I finished up another hunting story. It was a good meal, and I was ready to be back home where things worked out better. I told Luke I still hadn’t finished the story, and he said I needed to come back in October, work or not, and we would get this leopard. So in 8 months I will come back and finish this story. I could tell you of all the scratches I got, how my skin burned, and the names of all the trackers, and their dogs but, I will wait until I have an ending, and hopefully his leopard will not kill as many as last year. In all 100 were accounted for between these 4 leopards, and some people told me, we should just let these leopards be.
Luke was waiting for me outside of customs by his Toyota that would take us the 3 hours to the tribal capital of Botswana. After the first shower in 2 days travel we were off to his family ranch where he told me we would be hunting problem leopards. One in particular had killed off all of the horses, donkeys, and was working on the cattle. It was too smart for traps and wouldn’t come to a bait, so it would test all of our limits, the dogs’ limits, and Jako’s driving skills as we scanned the cattle roads looking to get lucky and find a fresh track we could chase down. In all we accounted for at least 4 large males, but the one we were after took us all of 3 days to catch a lucky break, and find a fresh track that more resembled a lioness than a leopard. For 2 hours we tracked it that day, but by 10am we were close enough to set the dogs on it chasing it for 8 and ½ hours that day. By the end we realized that this leopard had tested us all and found us out, and we realized just how smart this thing was, smarter than us. The next day, my last day, we weren’t so lucky. It got away, and Jako left us to go back to his plot close to Maun where he overturned his truck on the way. Luke and I had nothing better to do than cook a beer chicken while I finished up another hunting story. It was a good meal, and I was ready to be back home where things worked out better. I told Luke I still hadn’t finished the story, and he said I needed to come back in October, work or not, and we would get this leopard. So in 8 months I will come back and finish this story. I could tell you of all the scratches I got, how my skin burned, and the names of all the trackers, and their dogs but, I will wait until I have an ending, and hopefully his leopard will not kill as many as last year. In all 100 were accounted for between these 4 leopards, and some people told me, we should just let these leopards be.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Second One Today
In deleting the emails from an email that no longer exists, I felt like I was losing something, even though I couldn’t read the emails anymore. I couldn’t say for sure who they were from, but I had an idea. All of those messages gone. There must have been over 50 of them lost to a deleted email address. It made me wonder about all the other emails. Would those stories be lost too? I thought about how I was that many years ago so naïve, depressed, yet optimistic. Am I any better today? I’m not depressed, naïve, nor optimistic. Where does that leave me? Nostalgicly alone?
Blah. If I weren’t alone at this point, I’d be like so many of my friends- tied down. Every day it seems I love/hate my life more. The uncertainty grows around me like a bamboo forest, and I barely have 2 dollars to buy a cup of coffee, but I still buy the coffee not knowing where my next 2 will come from, and all my credit is taken up by my travels. 5 months ago I thought I would be about to move into a house with financial security to some extent, but I’m worse off than I was then, though someone wants to publish one of my stories, one that I haven’t even written yet. So what does all this mean? Nothing much, that it feels like I’m going nowhere, but everything around me is changing and moving. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up somewhere else, but I think not. Even today driving on the ice made me feel out of place. I wasn’t supposed to be here just yet. I haven’t driven on ice in 5 years. Today I feel like a fish on ice or a monkey out of the Amazon, and don’t ask me to explain because I don’t think I could.
Blah. If I weren’t alone at this point, I’d be like so many of my friends- tied down. Every day it seems I love/hate my life more. The uncertainty grows around me like a bamboo forest, and I barely have 2 dollars to buy a cup of coffee, but I still buy the coffee not knowing where my next 2 will come from, and all my credit is taken up by my travels. 5 months ago I thought I would be about to move into a house with financial security to some extent, but I’m worse off than I was then, though someone wants to publish one of my stories, one that I haven’t even written yet. So what does all this mean? Nothing much, that it feels like I’m going nowhere, but everything around me is changing and moving. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up somewhere else, but I think not. Even today driving on the ice made me feel out of place. I wasn’t supposed to be here just yet. I haven’t driven on ice in 5 years. Today I feel like a fish on ice or a monkey out of the Amazon, and don’t ask me to explain because I don’t think I could.
The Hunter
I have told several people about my upcoming trip to Africa, and I have gotten mixed reactions. Those who have a problem with it, don’t like the idea of me shooting a leopard. I grew up a hunter, but for several years I gave it all up. I was even a vegetarian for almost 2 years, but when that ended (which is another story), I gradually came back to hunting. In Brazil I have been asked to kill several caiman, and necessity has led me to kill others. Now I will not pretend to be completely altruistic in my hunting, I rarely do it, but I enjoy it. Not only to I enjoy it, but I am good at it. Certain people like to kill things to kill them, which is why they kill them at a distance without ever getting close. I do not enjoy that type of hunting. If I wanted to prove how great a shot I was, I could just shoot cans at a long distance. Rather I like to hunt problem animals, which mostly requires a close encounter. The last caiman I shot had straightened a ½” thick hook to get away, and someone else had shot one of his eyes out. He had set up his territory where my employee’s kids swam, and once a caiman has set up a territory, they will always return no matter how far you move them. So I shot him at close range with a shot gun after lifting his head up with a long pole. The waters were safer for the children to swim, but still I enjoyed the hunt.
While I was in Reno for SCI, a friend asked me to come to Botswana to shoot a problem leopard, not because I’m such a great shot, but because I could make a deal to have what we needed to kill the leopard. This leopard has to go because it has been killing calves, 5 in the 2 weeks he had been in the States. He would kill it himself, but he needs dogs to do it, and I know someone who has dogs, and wants to come fishing in the Amazon. A trade was made, and I used all of my miles to buy the ticket because this has to be done right about now. Will I enjoy it? Probably. Would I do it if I were going to shoot it from a stand with a rifle? Probably not. It doesn’t seem right to shoot something that can’t even see you. I respect such a beautifully dangerous and efficient killer. This hunt will put the leopard right in front of me requiring a shotgun. It seems better that way.
I don’t mind people who don’t like that I hunt. If everyone was keen on killing, we’d all be in trouble, but killing is part of life whether we like it or not. We kill to live whether animal or vegetable. We all need reminding that killing is necessary at times, but needs to have limits. Am I trying to justify myself? Not really. If I were, I wouldn’t tell you how I enjoy the hunt.
While I was in Reno for SCI, a friend asked me to come to Botswana to shoot a problem leopard, not because I’m such a great shot, but because I could make a deal to have what we needed to kill the leopard. This leopard has to go because it has been killing calves, 5 in the 2 weeks he had been in the States. He would kill it himself, but he needs dogs to do it, and I know someone who has dogs, and wants to come fishing in the Amazon. A trade was made, and I used all of my miles to buy the ticket because this has to be done right about now. Will I enjoy it? Probably. Would I do it if I were going to shoot it from a stand with a rifle? Probably not. It doesn’t seem right to shoot something that can’t even see you. I respect such a beautifully dangerous and efficient killer. This hunt will put the leopard right in front of me requiring a shotgun. It seems better that way.
I don’t mind people who don’t like that I hunt. If everyone was keen on killing, we’d all be in trouble, but killing is part of life whether we like it or not. We kill to live whether animal or vegetable. We all need reminding that killing is necessary at times, but needs to have limits. Am I trying to justify myself? Not really. If I were, I wouldn’t tell you how I enjoy the hunt.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
A week on the boat
The alarm was the sound-trac of my life going off 3 or 4 times a day never quite leaving me. It was 7 notes played on a xylophone then repeated, not the kind of jarring alarm that drags you out of dreamland, but a soft call that you follow not realizing you are waking, so that only sometime later you realize you are awake, though you are not certain of it because that call still plays in your mind. At times of concentration it resembles a child angrily banging away the notes somehow in rhythm, and other times a soft whisper like the wind intently blowing on the keys. This gave the impression of always waking from a dream whether it really was a dream or you were waking from life, and some many days become lost this way.
Monday, January 12, 2009
On my way back.
A year of planes and hotels hadn’t gotten me any further. Certain things were burned upon the memory, and no amount of alcohol, women, and drugs can rub out the mark. How was I to know she would be one of them?
On a plane again watching a romantic movie, that almost makes me sick, just to pass the hours drinking an Irish whiskey for the first time in months. I looked in the lavatory mirror seeing the red intersecting the whites of my eyes from the inability to sleep despite the months of lacking, and the dark semi-circles are an even clearer sign. I feel old, unimaginably old that my 27 years multiplies themselves by 10 or more until I was a petrified flesh still moving.
There was a place I had felt. Now? I didn’t. I wasn’t depressed or angry. I wasn’t… anything. I had opened the flood gates that had been clamped shut banded with iron for so long that everything rushed out, and there was nothing to catch it. Now I was an objective observer to my life and all the spheres intersecting. Life had become a scientific pursuit and all intrinsic interest had gone; only a noting of events, reactions, and causes. How long had I been watching? Not as long as it felt. Time was an hourglass turning circles, so that minutes and hours were lost to the sand never at rest.
whiskey reminded me. I had almost given it up, but what would have been left if I had?
I needed the placebo effect that told me I was numb, when it really wasn’t evne the whiskey. I hadn’t been drunk since that weekend, and I stared at my whiskey more often than drank it. I tried to think of another girl, but it was like trying to see inside a shadow with a flashlight; nothing lasted. Her smile was a memory I used to try and bring back a feeling, any feeling, but there wasn’t anything to bring back. My little emotional experiment failed, and I didn’t care either way. Just like the whiskey I drank, but never enough to feel… any different, just a habit like life lived objectively. The ink stains my white shirt as I write this down, but the inability to remove the stains doesn’t bother me. Just another shirt. I have others. Whiskey again, only this time they put ice in it. I’d drink it fast to not let the ice melt, but instead I watch the cubes sink into disappearing letting the flight attendant take it away. 1 hour left and my ipod had no charge, and my book has no interest. Instead I recline counting twitches of my eye lids…one…two…there.
On a plane again watching a romantic movie, that almost makes me sick, just to pass the hours drinking an Irish whiskey for the first time in months. I looked in the lavatory mirror seeing the red intersecting the whites of my eyes from the inability to sleep despite the months of lacking, and the dark semi-circles are an even clearer sign. I feel old, unimaginably old that my 27 years multiplies themselves by 10 or more until I was a petrified flesh still moving.
There was a place I had felt. Now? I didn’t. I wasn’t depressed or angry. I wasn’t… anything. I had opened the flood gates that had been clamped shut banded with iron for so long that everything rushed out, and there was nothing to catch it. Now I was an objective observer to my life and all the spheres intersecting. Life had become a scientific pursuit and all intrinsic interest had gone; only a noting of events, reactions, and causes. How long had I been watching? Not as long as it felt. Time was an hourglass turning circles, so that minutes and hours were lost to the sand never at rest.
whiskey reminded me. I had almost given it up, but what would have been left if I had?
I needed the placebo effect that told me I was numb, when it really wasn’t evne the whiskey. I hadn’t been drunk since that weekend, and I stared at my whiskey more often than drank it. I tried to think of another girl, but it was like trying to see inside a shadow with a flashlight; nothing lasted. Her smile was a memory I used to try and bring back a feeling, any feeling, but there wasn’t anything to bring back. My little emotional experiment failed, and I didn’t care either way. Just like the whiskey I drank, but never enough to feel… any different, just a habit like life lived objectively. The ink stains my white shirt as I write this down, but the inability to remove the stains doesn’t bother me. Just another shirt. I have others. Whiskey again, only this time they put ice in it. I’d drink it fast to not let the ice melt, but instead I watch the cubes sink into disappearing letting the flight attendant take it away. 1 hour left and my ipod had no charge, and my book has no interest. Instead I recline counting twitches of my eye lids…one…two…there.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
boats and such
The boat was my home as much as any other place; always moving, though here I was more at rest than any other. The work was demanding, but not lasting long, and a monkey comes along as I write this to steal my pen, drink my coffee, and arrest my hands. I can’t even smoke a cigarette without him trying to taste it. Where did he come from? He is a stow-away, and a skilled one at that. As the horn was sounding the boat’s departure, he showed himself, too far away from the dock to throw him back.
A customer thought I was cussing at him, until he saw the monkey sitting under his chair. The boat is his home more than mine, though he has been evicted many times. The engine room is his comfort, as he is my annoyance. I never wanted a child, and I’ll be no mother to this monkey, though I have taught him a few significant things: don’t drink my coffee, and don’t chew the tobacco from my cigarettes, and don’t try to eat my books. This was all taught with a slap, and is occasionally reinforced with one, to which he responds by howling at me indignantly, as if he would scold me.
And after I’ve had enough of teaching him life’s important lessons, I grab him by the tail, and throw him from the boat into the tree to which we are tied where he has his lunch of leaves, and I can be alone again.
Another day as I type this up, he decides to share my lunch, though I know he has just come up from eating with the crew on the bottom deck. An idea comes to me, and I go into the dining room returning with one of last night’s caught caiman taking the duct tape from around his mouth. I take some old fishing line making him a harness the other end of which is tied to my table on the top deck. This quite distresses Nicolau which can be told from his disconcerted grunting, though what it more powerful than his fear of caimans, is his curiosity. If curiosity killed the cat, then the monkey was long dead before they came up with that saying. After awhile he notices that I pull the fishing line to position the caiman between him and myself, and he begins to tug on the fishing line himself to which the caiman responds by running after him. Howling he scurries to the top of the nearest chair where he continues his disconcerted grunting. After 5 minutes he is on the seat of the chair reaching his hand towards the caiman. Retracting and re-extending his arm several times towards the caiman, he pokes the caiman in the eye with the caiman returning a snap and him returning a howl. Having enough, I throw the caiman on top of him and he runs away with his little monkey screeches.
Finally alone, I ponder the river wondering if it knows more of where it’s going than I do. The trees are all half under water, but they don’t drown. The water is oppressive this season, and soon I will be going away with less in my pocket than when I came; almost not worth it. Not quite sure where I’m going until I step on dry land again, and we’ll see if these boots know where they’re going.
A customer thought I was cussing at him, until he saw the monkey sitting under his chair. The boat is his home more than mine, though he has been evicted many times. The engine room is his comfort, as he is my annoyance. I never wanted a child, and I’ll be no mother to this monkey, though I have taught him a few significant things: don’t drink my coffee, and don’t chew the tobacco from my cigarettes, and don’t try to eat my books. This was all taught with a slap, and is occasionally reinforced with one, to which he responds by howling at me indignantly, as if he would scold me.
And after I’ve had enough of teaching him life’s important lessons, I grab him by the tail, and throw him from the boat into the tree to which we are tied where he has his lunch of leaves, and I can be alone again.
Another day as I type this up, he decides to share my lunch, though I know he has just come up from eating with the crew on the bottom deck. An idea comes to me, and I go into the dining room returning with one of last night’s caught caiman taking the duct tape from around his mouth. I take some old fishing line making him a harness the other end of which is tied to my table on the top deck. This quite distresses Nicolau which can be told from his disconcerted grunting, though what it more powerful than his fear of caimans, is his curiosity. If curiosity killed the cat, then the monkey was long dead before they came up with that saying. After awhile he notices that I pull the fishing line to position the caiman between him and myself, and he begins to tug on the fishing line himself to which the caiman responds by running after him. Howling he scurries to the top of the nearest chair where he continues his disconcerted grunting. After 5 minutes he is on the seat of the chair reaching his hand towards the caiman. Retracting and re-extending his arm several times towards the caiman, he pokes the caiman in the eye with the caiman returning a snap and him returning a howl. Having enough, I throw the caiman on top of him and he runs away with his little monkey screeches.
Finally alone, I ponder the river wondering if it knows more of where it’s going than I do. The trees are all half under water, but they don’t drown. The water is oppressive this season, and soon I will be going away with less in my pocket than when I came; almost not worth it. Not quite sure where I’m going until I step on dry land again, and we’ll see if these boots know where they’re going.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
