Melissa Haynes - Learning to Play with a Lion's Testicles

“ Huk, huk, huk, huk ”

The final clucking sounds are almost too much for my stomach, as strays are snatched from the nasal passage and drawn down deep into the throat. Vile and putrid as it is, Gerrit ignores the sound, no doubt use to it.

A few minutes later, it comes again, like the horrific aftershocks of an earthquake, a virtual anarchism in my ears. “That is disgusting,” I finally declare. Does no one else hear it?

“What is?” asks Gerrit.

“That hideous racket those elephants are making, it’s making me ill.”

“That’s not the ellies,” he says, laughing, “that’s Harrison.”

“Harrison?”

“Yes, Harrison the elephant groom, the one we named the truck after.”

Now it makes sense. Harrison the truck’s faulty transmission sounds just like Harrison the elephant groom’s disgusting habit.

“Where is he?”

“He’s in his room, over there.” Gerrit points to the rear corner. Behind tall stacks of bundled Lucerne is a poorly made structure of thin walls.

“He lives in there?” ’How could any person actually live amongst this stink?

“Yes, he has a bathroom, bed, and satellite TV. He’s on holidays now, but isn’t going anywhere. He took two weeks off to watch the World Cup. You won’t see him, nothing will drag him away from the telly, but you’ll definitely hear him.” He roars with laughter this time.

Gerrit shouldn’t be laughing. He isn’t much better than Harrison himself. He has the annoying habit of placing a small ‘huuckk’ in the middle of all his sentences. I’m about to mention this to him when something catches my eye. It’s Kittibon. She stretches her trunk towards us and, like a vacuum hose, inhales our scent. I freeze, not even allowing my breath to stir. She withdraws her trunk. It appears we are safe. I slowly and carefully lean forward to get a better look at this magnificent creature before us.

KABAM.

My scream fills the tiny stable.

The cow whipped a trunk full of sawdust in my face. It hurts like hell. It’s in my eyes, my mouth, which is still gaping open in shock, even up my nose—filthy elephant! All I can taste is the salty essence of what can only be elephant piss and dung.

Before I can retreat, she hits me with yet another missile of dung-encrusted sawdust. I spit it out and wipe it out of my eyes, I can’t believe it. I just cannot believe it.

“Hahahahahahahahaha! That is ayoba!” Gerrit is in hysterics. Even Melanie is barely able to contain her laughter.

“It’s not funny, that hurt. That cow just assaulted me!” I shriek.

“I told you she doesn’t like people,” Gerrit howls. “Now she has shown you her boundaries… and who’s boss around here.”

“Horrible elephant!”

Kittibon raises her trunk again, and I quickly hide behind Melanie, who is no longer trying to contain her laughter; she is all but rolling on the ground.

“Maybe you should go to Cape Town tomorrow with Melanie,” Gerrit says.

“Why?”

“Don’t you feel like you’ve experienced a Big Five Reserve enough already? You’ve seen all the Big Five today, and you’ve slept in a tent. From here on in it’s nothing but long days of hard work and even longer nights alone in your tent camp.”

This Neanderthal won’t quit. I should follow Kittibon’s cue and slap him in the face with some dung. Does he actually think he can scare me away? ’“I’m not afraid to work hard.”

“You’ve never worked on a game reserve. It’s tough physical labor.”

“Let me guess, too tough for a city woman?”

“I didn’t say that, but it is hard work, and we can’t slow down our operations for a volunteer.”

“I don’t expect you to.” This guy really is clueless. Did I show up here in heels and a mini skirt? Hell no. I came here with one intention only; to work, and I’m a damn hard worker. Give me some credit, you moron.

“And once Melanie leaves, you will be all alone in the tent camp. There’s nothing to entertain you at night.”

“I don’t need to be entertained. I’m self-sufficient. I have books to read, and I’m not afraid.”

Liar. I am a liar. I am terrified to sleep in that tent camp alone, in the dark, without a weapon, or German-speaking decoy.

“Well, it’s not too late; you have until the morning to decide,” Gerrit says. “Now, watch this…” His voice is stern when he shouts at the ellies. “Shake!”

At the same time, both ellies shake their heads from side to side. Kittibon barely shakes hers but Selati is shaking his eagerly, like a dog trying to please his master. Gerrit throws them each an apple. Showoff.

When we exit the stable, I notice two animals in the distance, inside the elephant camp. “What kind of animals are those?”

“Those are inmates,” Gerrit says.

“Inmates?”

“Yes, inmates. The one on the left is a bontebok, and the other is a wildebeest. They kept killing off members of their herds, so they’ve been sentenced to the ellie camp.”

“How come they don’t try to kill each other?” Melanie asks.

“Beats me,” he says with a shrug.

Both of these lost souls have rap sheets speckled with violence, aggression, and murder. The bontebok killed at least three other bonteboks, and the wildebeest killed two members of his clan. They haven’t yet come up with a suitable hormone therapy for bonteboks and wildebeests. Only rhinoceroses are so fortunate.

Back inside the fence line of our tiny tent camp, I observe the two inmates for nearly an hour. They don’t do much. Occasionally, they kick around, but soon stop when they realize there’s no point. No one’s watching, heck, no one even knows or cares that they’re here. There is no one to talk to, no one to play with, no females to impress, and no one to frolic with. There’s not even anyone to battle with because a battle with an ellie would be tantamount to suicide. They are all alone.

They stand and wait, searching, but nothing changes, no one is coming to see them. They seem lost, resigned to insignificance in solitary confinement. They don’t look like killers. Do they wonder if they’ll ever be reunited with their herds? After all, what are they if they don’t have a herd?

“Hello! I am over here! Do you see me? I see you. I am your neighbor. Come over here!” The bontebok tilts his head, but doesn’t come any closer.

The first thing to do is give them names. The bontebok is easy to name, he will be Bonty from now on. Not just for the obvious reason, but because he just looks like a Bonty. He’s mostly brown, but has knee-high white socks (think roller-skating disco retro look), a cute white bottom that looks like he’s wearing matching short shorts, and a broad white stripe down the center of his face, all rounded out by little satellite dishes for ears and black horns that curve outwards just at the top. Come to think of it, he could even pass for a Monty, but Bonty fits better.

The wildebeest, on the other hand, cannot be described with such ease. They say that after God created all the other animals, he took whatever parts were left over and created the wildebeest. He’s an awkward looking animal with large humped shoulders, similar to a camel’s back, the thick neck of a moose, skinny legs like an antelope and a beard like a Billy goat. He has a long unkempt black fringe misplaced on his throat instead of his neck, where instead dark bands of fur look like the deep wrinkles of an elephant. He has a long horse’s tail, and the rounded horns of a bull. I try desperately to come up with a name for him. Willy? Bruce? Beastie? None of them fit, just like none of his body parts fit together. His name will have to wait. For now he will just be Wildebeest.