Strange lands are these…landscapes, sandscapes. The abundance of grandeur in this country is daunting. By nightfall, after all that’s been seen for the day, my eyelids gruesomely stretch head to chin. Inescapable winds blow everywhere, and like Hell. Yesterday, they dusted our ’77 VW Beetle across the 2 lanes of Chapman’s Peak Drive as the lawnmower engine in our car shudder and popped its very own roadie soundtrack, “Gruntstruggle.” The car – all white with a rough 16 dozen dents, scratches, and minor disappearances (left rear view mirror) – appropriately seems to me, recently named after a delicious brand of Irish whiskey. Though, don’t ask me to defend appropriateness.
Baboons are dangerous. Or, so they say. I say their asses are unsightly. If fed by humans, especially on a regular basis, they adopt unhealthy habits. In extreme cases, they have to be put down…something ballparking a forever injection of sleepy time to a blindsided skull strike with a rusted shovel. Apologies, but I find range of definition to be a fascinating and educationally progressive practice.
…
I was easing Jameson around a sharp bend where the traffic was stopped and confusion was breeding on the side of the road. I down shifted into 2nd, tried to ease Jam into passing with a mechanical grace that he had likely lost in the late 80’s. My navigator and I rumbled through the fray of ill-parked cars, caught stares of an extended baboon family re-union on the side of the road. We parked facing the wrong direction, grabbed cameras and got out for a closer look. Adults hung in the shade, ill-inspired by admiring visitors. Babies were jetting about with careless abandon - jumping rocks and eating plastic bags that would likely later get trapped in their baby esophagi. If concern filled my veins, it was soon silenced by Squadron WBC. My initial thought - how dare I ever judge babooning baboons, minding their business. It wasn’t until commotion found our African roadside scene that I began to think otherwise.
The largest of the group strolled casual across the street, likely beginning with Jameson…the first in the line of parked cars. Lucky for my navigator and I, our doors are old and difficult to open…and so he moved on. I didn’t see this, only imagined after later witnessing his methodical practice. I was focusing on a shot of two babies dangling over their parents when I heard the banging. An older man was slamming his fist on the trunk of his car, yelling. Though, I assure this was no scene of senility. Instead, there was an 80 pound baboon sitting…no, kickin' it in the back of his Ford. And he wasn’t going anywhere…
Later that day, I found myself taking sun in the under-run sands of Boulders Beach just outside Simon’s Town. Kids belted screams of chaos as they jumped from rocks into the icy ocean. Parents sat in the shade. Europeans wore Speedos. African penguins collected on the rocks, weaved through swimmers’ legs when the day called for a break in the monotony.
It was a second scene too bizarre to initially cope. Naturally, I opted for escape, couldn’t help but think back to the likely fate of the car invading baboon…
A tour bus came to a stop in the middle of the road. Through the tinted windows, I could see that everyone quickly stood, moved to the side owning optimum POV. Out of nowhere, a man darted across the road…likely the bus tour guide. He pulled the belt from his pants, rushed the car twirling it over his head like a cowboy madman. As a machine gun of flashes snapped through the windows of the bus, I knew in that moment that that moment was his…the reason he wakes, steps on that chariot far too often and says the same shit over and over and over again. I couldn’t deflect the rushing pity from invading my mind - never had I seen a “hero” willing to reach so far over the top…but why? I could only imagine the feeling of walking back onto the bus, met by a roaring wave of applause for “bravery” in the face of danger. I could only imagine what it felt like to be lusted after by a docile (though, willing to let it fly) pack of golden women. Upon reaching the car, Savior dragged the buckle of his belt against the paneling, launched into a tirade combo of territorial yelps. The baboon retreated…and quick. All was again right in the tourist kingdom.
In hindsight, I’m pretty sure the baboon was watching as Savior jumped back into his bus. He stood there, watching as we all did…the bus pull away. The moment Savior rounded the bend and vanished, the baboon opened the door, jumped back into the car. Now well advised, the Fordman quickly began rocking the car and yelling (unconvincing and quite amateur after the earlier display). It was obvious to me, he wasn’t going to accomplish much…not without much improved conviction. In the end, it was the rocking that did it. Nauseate the animal…FYI.
I don’t know when the moment struck, but it certainly did…realization, what the hell were we doing out of the car? A flash began to run across my periphery, another…another. 3 cars and a tour bus quickly became 7. One family of peace loving monkeys turned to a legion of crazed anarchists. They began jumping on cars, running across the road, pulling on car doors. When I came back around to face my navigator, the car loving baboon was now on top of the Ford…likely feeling sick, perhaps slightly emotionally ruptured. He was standing between us and Jameson and the only thing I knew for sure - I had no interest in crossing his step.
When he made for a shrub on the side of the road, we circled around a car of 4 crammed surfers. The scene had them giddy, beaming through their cheeks. We walked slowly…calculated and calm…
“Gents, be good…I swear, if you piss that thing off…”
We pulled Jameson’s doors and jumped inside, watched as the baboon filed down the row of parked cars. He stood on his feet at every one, pulled on a locked door, moved along. At the last car, he fell back on all 4’s, retreated into the bush.
Jameson purred like a leopard in stage 5 of throat cancer when I turned the ignition. As I drove the bending road, into 2nd gear, I saw the call go out on dispatch, “Renegade baboon, sector 4 outside Cape of Good Hope. Strike three, Norman again. We gotta put him down.” I threw it into 3rd, saw Norman on the run...aided in his fugitivity by the bat-eared foxes and rock dassies intent on keeping him alive in the African Wilderness. As I pulled Jam back into 4th, I saw it…Norman’s last stand, surrounded by men holding rusted shovels. They closed in as he pretended to cower, accept his payment of death. Though, what the men in uniform could not have known, what few men have ever known about the animal kingdom was that in those approaching critical moments, a great wild saving splendor was about to take place…
3 – The infinite, surrounding bush begins to crackle and shake.
2 – Masses of birds call out in unison, form stirring clouds that blanket the innocent blue sky.
1 – Silence grows deafening, a true calm before the storm. Just as a grin floats across Norman’s baboon lips…just as the executioners catch a fleeting glimpse of Norman’s blood stained teeth -
Beach…stretching and empty, miles of it. I looked down from the high and winding road and it was magnificent…so mysteriously abandoned. This continent, so overly untouched, still. Africa had me punch-drunk again. Again and again…
What were we even talking about?
