Whatever You Do, Don't Run
Page 15
BK invited me to a service he was leading for Rantaung under the baobab tree on the way to the airstrip, and I gratefully accepted. From a distance the scene would have looked pagan—a fire, a leafless tree, and the dancing forms of dark-skinned people with one hunched white figure among them—but it was the most sacred experience of my life.
The next day I took a long walk, away from the camp and its memories, into the calming bush. I found an old snare, set by some long-departed poacher and probably forgotten. The snare was still killing, though, for it contained the carcass of an impala whose head and foreleg had been trapped through the cruel wire loop. Hyenas had eaten it, maybe while still alive.
I cut the carcass free and cried for the first time since learning of Rantaung’s two deaths. I felt surrounded by senselessness. I twisted the wire angrily in my hands, trying to hurt it and drive the question I had from my mind.
For it is a terrible thing to wonder: Which of my friends is next?
A Night in the Madgkadigkadi
Shortly after I drowned two vehicles in the space of a month, my boss, Alan, asked me to do something for him. Even if I hadn’t felt grateful for continued employment, I probably would have said yes. No matter how many elephants I have stood up to, I am easily bullied by people.
He’d heard I was going to Johannesburg for a few days and wanted me to bring something with me when I flew back.
“Sure,” I said, imagining a spare part or a decoration for one of the camps that was too delicate to put in a truck.
Instead, it was a truck.
Sort of.
A mechanic with a touch of Frankenstein syndrome had taken one of our old Land Rovers and chopped into its already abused panels, cutting away everything but the cab section. On the bare chassis at the back, he had put a horseshoe-shaped attachment that you see on big rigs, and to this he attached a trailer, about the length of a city bus, making a mini-semitrailer. This is what my boss wanted me to bring back.
“Er, I don’t think that’s going to fit in my luggage. Air Botswana can be pretty strict about that.”
“I’ve cancelled your ticket,” he said. Since the company had booked it for me, I knew he was probably telling the truth. “Enjoy your drive,” he added, knowing I wouldn’t.
I’m sure this was his revenge for my expensive mistakes. He’d made me drive an open vehicle once before, for the same thousand-mile Kalahari-crossing trip, and I had loudly declared that I would never do it again—that I would only fly from Johannesburg to Maun from now on. The drive was infamous for its dangers, which came in unexpected ways. The first was monotony. The unvarying open landscape that was at first breathtaking eventually became skull-numbingly boring and could lull even the most nervous driver into a sense of security, even sleep. This left drivers likely to encounter, and in a bad way, one of Botswana’s most unexpectedly dangerous animals—the donkey. But I was in no position to refuse. Alan gave me his wolfish grin, then a set of keys.
“Keep the receipts for any fuel you need. And don’t forget to fill up in Nata.” And with that I was on my own, except for the contraption that was mine for the two days the drive should take if I drove at a sane speed.
I’d had a bit too much fun the night before and had gotten less than three hours’ sleep, and my head was telling me that the sun was way too bright and penetrating to begin the journey. It was also midday. The crossing over the Limpopo River between South Africa and Botswana closed at six o’clock, and I had no idea whether or not the odd-looking vehicle would be fast enough to make the journey before the border shut. Common sense and my hangover told me to wait a day. But if I had listened to those forces throughout my life, I’d be a lawyer in Sydney.
So I set off and noticed straight away that the fuel gauge didn’t work. I swung into the first service station I saw, and I almost rolled the truck. I’d never driven an articulated vehicle before, and I was not used to the way it handled. No swinging, I thought to myself. I gathered control—and my nerves—and looked to see on which side the filler hole was, but I quickly realised that I had no side mirrors. Johannesburg drivers have been known to open fire for the most minor of errors, so I nervously held up traffic as I ran around the vehicle and found the filler hole, which the mechanic had moved so it was down low and involved acrobatics to get the nozzle into. I hastily climbed back in, overshot the pump, almost knocked it over when I tried to back up and the trailer jackknifed, and then went in to pay. I was convinced everybody was staring at me thinking, “What an idiot. Let’s shoot him in case he breeds.”
As I took out my wallet, I realised I had very few rand on me. I’d blown a lot of cash the night before, and there was no way this place was going to accept Botswana pula. I had just enough to pay for the diesel I’d put in and to buy some snacks and six locally concocted energy drinks I figured would assist me through my hangover. They promised caffeine, guarana, bull-testicle extract, and a variety of complex chemicals at levels that I imagined would keep me hopping for a month.
Hanging above the indifferent man who served me (who managed the entire transaction with one hand while the other picked his nose) were a variety of tools such as jacks and wheel wrenches, which gave me pause. I went back to the rig and looked everywhere I could think of, turning up a wheel wrench but no jack. I tested the wrench on the front wheel, and it fit. I figured I could improvise on the jack if I needed to. Poor judgment was having a field day in my aching head.
I pulled out, the vehicle shuddering and groaning as it drove off. The fuel gauge still read zero, stuffing was missing from the passenger seat and a cruel-looking spring stuck out, a dark cavity took the place of the radio, and there was no air-conditioning, which was really of no importance because there were no windows. Instead the top of the door had a piece of wood screwed into it, which made a handy place to rest my elbow so I could start working on a sunburn.
I quickly whipped my arm in when I realised I needed both hands, as the power steering was a random thing and only worked when I was on a straight road. This vehicle wanted to punish whomever drove it for the strange things that had been done to its rear end. I tend to give human characteristics to inanimate objects—even name them—and ignore how ridiculous it is to believe that a vehicle doesn’t like you. As the rig crabbed around the first corner, terrifying me and the two drivers it almost wiped out, I named it Dick.
Dick had many strange habits. There was his reluctance to move forward, his disturbing willingness to go sideways, his negligible brakes, and his squeaks, rattles and groans that would shame a brothel’s bed. Despite all this, Dick and I made good time to the border, although I had no way of knowing that until I got there. I don’t wear a watch, and Dick’s speedometer, not surprisingly, didn’t work. Along the way, with nobody to talk to, repetitive landscape, and perhaps a touch of OCD, I drank three of the energy drinks. I’d bought only junk food at the store, as it was heavily packaged against the cashier’s snot-encrusted fingers. With this cocktail of sugar, salt and bull juice in my system, I crossed the border and drove into the open, flat lands of the Kalahari.
The only thing that seemed to work on Dick was the accelerator, although at high speed he developed a disconcerting wobble. I kept it pushed, glad that Botswana has no hills. We flew past wind-whipped thorn trees, startling weaver birds from their nests and spitting sand from our tires. I braked for chameleons as they made their wavering way across the road, but I would not touch the middle pedal for anything else, easing off the speed only when I passed through the occasional heat-baked village. Dust billowed across the landscape and through the place where Dick’s windows should have been, coating my teeth with a gritty paste I washed down with more energy drink.
The concoctions now made up a large percentage of my bloodstream. Buzzed, I started singing, probably scaring more birds and definitely making the chameleons abandon their usual cautious step in order to scurry from my offensive tonsils. I laughed at how my bad singing voice (which sounded “like a constipate
d seagull,” my father had once told me) was made even worse by the dust and a piece of corn chip stuck in my throat. I laughed, then guffawed, then shouted out something like, “Whooooooeeeee!” into the vast silence, and I knew that Dick was being driven by someone who was a bit nuts. Should probably ease off the energy drinks, I thought, glancing at the last can that was heating up on the torn seat beside me. I swigged it down anyway, thinking it would be no good later when the sugars were cooked. It would have cooled soon enough, though, as the sun had dipped, turning the dust storms bubblegum pink and putting a cool tinge on the air that whipped through the cab.
The combination of cold, sugar and whatever stimulants they allow in African energy drinks kept me shivering and clenching and releasing my jaw, chewing furiously at the last of my snacks. I wanted to make it to Nata by full dark, so I could spend the night there before crossing the world’s largest salt pans. I wasn’t going to make it.
I contemplated pulling over and snoozing beside the road, but the drinks had me wired and I had set a goal for Dick and myself, so we carried on, disregarding the dangers of night driving in Botswana. As it grew darker, I flicked Dick’s switches until lights dimly appeared at slightly crazy angles ahead of us. Only one high beam worked, and it seemed to be scanning for helicopters. This was a problem, because at night on this road, I needed to keep both eyes fully peeled and my wired senses alert for donkeys.
In the flat plains during the day, I had found it easy to see the donkeys that lingered on the outskirts of some of the villages I had passed. Many of them were hobbled by the villagers, their front legs tied together to keep them wandering too far. I knew this would make them slower to get off the road if they saw Dick coming. I also knew that night was when they came onto the road for the warmth it radiated, and they were near impossible to spot on the unilluminated tar. I doubted that wobbly old Dick could stop in time if one stepped out in front of us. After diseases like malaria and HIV, collisions with donkeys are one of the leading causes of death in Botswana, so I took their threat seriously, gnashing away with caffeine-fueled, donkey-defying intensity.
I powered on through the Kalahari night, the occasional yelp of a jackal coming on the wind. At one point an ostrich careened wildly in front of me before dashing into the darkness. I laughed long and hard at his pumping and enormous drumsticks. I knew all the stimulants were still in my system and that I wasn’t quite myself. I sang, chuckled, watched for donkeys, and acknowledged that despite my thumping pulse, I was skull-crushingly bored.
Dick gave a cough and we lurched, the steering wheel jiggling in my already shaking hands. I looked futilely at the fuel gauge. I’d filled up at the border and had figured I would make it to Nata easily. Dick gave yet another belch and jerked so violently that I was sure a donkey had just died beneath us. But we had not hit any equids, and we spluttered along, me patting Dick’s dash, giving encouragement, telling him he was a good mini-semitrailer. I prayed that it was only dirty fuel that was making him a bit sick and not an absence of fuel altogether, and my calls were answered. We rolled into Nata just after eleven o’clock at night, the Kalahari stretch of our trip having taken just over ten hours. I was exhausted but knew that I wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon. Instead of going straight to the campsite where I planned on staying (primarily because in the entire town, which was about fifty yards by fifty yards, it was the only option), I went straight to the diesel pump, which surprisingly was still open. Later I would wish that it hadn’t been.
Astonishingly the person serving me was also excavating his nostrils, and I asked if he had any family working in the industry across the border. I had asked just to hear another voice, but he only shook his head in the negative. So I paid up, looked again at the collection of jacks, wheel wrenches, and other paraphernalia that I was too mechanically ignorant to identify, and wandered back to Dick, who sat ticking in the night air. I washed off the crust of bugs that had formed on his windshield, then used some more water to clean them away from his radiator as well, because the temperature gauge didn’t work, and he may have been overheating.
Across the road, the campsite’s lit sign was attracting its own swarm of bugs. I knew there would be a tent that I could stay in and a bar where backpackers passing through would be sitting. Even though talking to strangers was what I did for a living, I’m still too shy to approach unfamiliar people without a good reason, and the thought of being among them made me feel more lonely than I would have been if I stuck with Dick. I was exhausted but knew that Maun, where I had friends and a place to stay, was only three or four hours across the Madgkadigkadi Pans. Dick ticked, I decided, and we went into the night, leaving Nata behind.
The Madgkadigkadi Pans would not seem unfamiliar to anyone from Bonneville, Utah, but they are even larger and flatter and have no human habitation within them. Donkeys were no longer a factor, as the land can sustain no villages. The whole huge area, many hundreds of miles across, is a national park with the one ribbon of road that cuts through it. In summer, when it rains, the shallow water fills with flamingoes. But it was still dry and all that would be around would be desert-dwelling antelope such as springbok and oryx and the predators they attracted. My friends, Richard and Rebecca, had seen a leopard the last time they had driven this road at night, and I knew others who had seen lions and cheetahs. Most people loathed the monotony of the dead straight road, unvarying landscape, and pervading dust after they had been through it only once, but the anticipation of what I might see always made me enjoy the drive.
I put my foot flat and we cruised at Dick’s top speed, the measure of which was still a mystery to me. The air had cooled some more and carried the scent of wild sage, one of the few plants that could grow here. The lights illuminated a span of nothingness unequalled in the world. There was just road, dust and cool night air. I hummed and felt my eyes grow heavy. We swayed to the middle of the road.
No.
I had to stay awake.
I had no idea how long I had been driving or how far I had to go.
I was out of drinks and had come to the conclusion that they only kept you from sleeping anyway; they didn’t make you any more alert. The road swished under the tires, an insidious lullaby. “Maybe I should pull off the road, and nap,” I said out loud, to see if speaking woke me up. But the road was built high, so it didn’t wash away on the few occasions that rain fell. I wasn’t sure that if I took Dick into the soft verge that I would ever be able to drag his sluggardly rear half back onto the tar.
Stay awake.
Stay awake.
Stay awake.
Boom.
Dick yawed, the wheel twisting hard enough to sprain my wrist. We whipped right, and I had time to think “blowout” before I saw the verge come rushing at us. At this speed, at this angle, if we went off the twelve-inch drop, I would die, and I doubted that Dick would make it either. There were no seatbelts, and the violence of the swerve had thrown me almost to the passenger seat. I used my weight to drag the wheel back, pumping at the brakes. The front half turned back, and I felt the drag of the trailer as it hit the verge. There was a sickening scrape as the blown tire went off the edge, and I was thrown forward as the drag slowed Dick down. Then the wheel ripped back onto the road, and there was a forward lurch. I pumped the brakes and knew we were now heading for the opposite verge, still going too fast.
I’d rarely been as scared—and never while driving. I hung onto the wheel again, this time pulling right. I was glad at that moment that almost no one drives that road at night, knowing we were slowing down and that if I could hold on for just a little longer, it might be okay. Why in hell hadn’t I just stayed in Nata?
We shuddered down the road, scraping the verge twice more before coming to a stop. I got out, shaking, and looked at the vehicle that had slewed across the two lanes, a wheel from each corner touching the fatal edge.
“Good boy, Dick,” I said, my voice disappearing into the clear night air. The engine still ran—the sound someho
w sacrilegious in such a place, after such an event. I turned the engine off and walked a bit, head down and shaking from adrenalin. I thanked Dick again, feeling grateful for his reluctance to part with the tar, and then heard something in the distance.
A real rig was coming, three or four times Dick’s size, and I had the lights off.
I ran back—fast—jumped in, turned everything on, and was sure without checking that Dick’s brake lights didn’t work and the rig wouldn’t see us. I put Dick into first and rumbled him off the road, over the edge, and into the sage just as the rig blasted by, its horn bellowing.
The blast of sound lasted what felt like a long time, then all went quiet again, except a quiet buzz that at first I blamed on stress-induced tinnitus. Then the fine hairs on my ears sent a message to my brain that let me know that I was about to be bitten, and I swatted at the mosquito that had landed. Soon the drone of mosquito buzzing filled the air, and it hurried me out of the cab to figure out how to change Dick’s blown wheel without a jack.
There was a shovel mounted behind the cab, and I knew that if I chocked up the axle I could dig under the burst wheel and change it. But there are no rocks in the Madgkadigkadi Pans, and the nearest trees that I could take a branch from were back in Nata. I pondered, swatted, swore and paced and then heard another jackal bark. There were no donkeys here I could commandeer, I thought, and ride to Maun for help.
However, there were brown hyenas in these parts, a rare animal that I had never seen. I considered playing dead to see if I could attract one—just to have a look at it. This ridiculous thought made me realise that the drinks still had me addled, even if they weren’t keeping me awake anymore. Now it was the mosquitoes that ensured I wouldn’t fall asleep. I paced around Dick, losing more blood to the most vicious attack any animal had launched on me since the dog when I was seven.