SCENE: Woodland. Two Big Game Hunters: middle-aged, heavy-bellied Caucasian Americans, wearing khakis and pith helmets, sit on camp stools, rifles at the ready. They’re smoking large cigars.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: See anything yet?
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: Not a thing. Does this really look like a jungle to you? I always thought there were more vines in the jungle. Not all these oak trees.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Oaks? I don’t see any oaks. Chestnuts, perhaps, and lots of pines. But not any oaks.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: Those are oaks. Over there. I don’t think there are any chestnuts. Didn’t they all die from some sort of blight?
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: In America, yes. But this is Africa. No blight.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: Oh. But it’s still an awfully funny jungle. Doesn’t look at all like the jungle in the Tarzan movies. No vines. How could Tarzan swing on vines in this jungle? But come to think of it, I don’t think Tarzan was in South Africa. Wasn’t he farther north? In Darkest Africa? Where is Darkest Africa, anyway?
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: For starters, we’re not in South Africa. We’re in Uganda. We landed in South Africa, then took that puddlejumper here. And they filmed all those Tarzan pictures in Southern California, so it’s not surprising that the real, authentic, Ugandan jungle wouldn’t look like the Tarzan movies.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: South Africa, Uganda, Darkest Africa—who gives a shit? As long as I’m in Africa, I don’t care what country it is. I’m here to shoot some serious African big game.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Me too. But I don’t see any. What kind of safari is this, anyway? It’s not like any of those safaris you read about.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: Yeah. The brochure said jungle safari, trophies. All those guys on the plane had scrapbooks full of photos of dead rhinos, giraffes, lions, tigers.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Who was that one guy who specialized in endangered species? That was cool. I’d like to get me some real rare trophies like that. That’d show my asshole brother in law, who thinks he’s so hot with that mangy stuffed elk he shot thirty years ago. Blind luck the stupid elk got caught in that bush long enough for dumb Max to figure out how to fire his fucking gun.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: At least Max hunts. My fucking brother in law belongs to Mercy for Animals. You’d think I was going to club helpless baby seals to death the way he carried on when I said I was going on safari. In Africa. Soft minded wimp. Told him real men have always hunted. Bringing home food for their womenfolk.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Yeah? Bet that shut him up.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: Nothing shuts Norman up. He said he’d never heard of anybody eating lions or tigers, and he wanted to know if I planned to freeze the meat and ship it home to my starving family, or if my wife should just pick up an extra pound of tofu at the market.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Tofu! Well, when you bring those trophies home, that’ll silence him.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: How can I bring trophies home if we don’t see any game? Where is it all? I haven’t even seen one of those gazelle thingies, let alone anything really impressive.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: All I’ve seen are monkeys. And look (Pointing off left) Isn’t that monkey wearing a diaper? Isn’t that a Huggie?
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: Looks more like a Depends. But why’s a monkey wearing a disposable diaper in the jungle in the first place?
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: A jungle with no vines. Or wild game.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Not to mention the pine trees.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: (Looks at cigar ash) You got an ashtray?
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: Ashtray! We’re in the fucking jungle, roughing it. You want an ashtray?
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Roughing it? The hotel is 200 yards behind us, there are at least five kids with their grandmothers in the pool, and there’s a snack stand with hamburgers, cokes, and French fries. Give me a break.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: There may be a hotel behind us, but this is a jungle! We’re on a safari, dude. With native guides.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: You sure they’re Africans? Nkrume sounds like he’s from Ohio—those flat A’s.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: You know, I thought I heard Tsoki call Nkrume “Herb” this morning. Then he looked at me to see if I heard him.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: And what was Tsoki’s explanation for setting us up here behind the hotel? Something about the native bearers being on strike?
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: I think he said the bearers were demanding better medical benefits. He did say there was lots of wild game close to the hotel. Said that was why they had a fence—to keep the game away from the field where they play that cricket thing.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Is that what that field is for? I thought it was for soccer.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: What’s it matter? They don’t play real sports here anyway. Wearing all that padding just to swat at a ball, or running around like sissies in short shorts kicking a ball. Not games for real men.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: So what’s your sport?
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: I like all sports. Nothing better than turning on the plasma screen, settling back with a brewski, and watching real men battle it out on NASCAR. You?
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Football’s it for me. During the college season, that’s my activity. Watching the Gators tear it up.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: Yeah. Speaking of gators, though, are there alligators in the jungle?
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Sure. And crocs too. That’s why this safari hunting is the real sport, for real men. Not for those wimps who play poker.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: I don’t mind poker. Or slots. Las Vegas is pretty exciting—free drinks and all those hostesses in short skirts. But you can’t beat a safari. But what kind of safari is this, anyway?
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: All I know is this doesn’t look anything like the brochures they showed me. No bearers, no real jungle, no big game. Where are the elephants? This is a ripoff, if you ask me. We might as well be sitting behind the Holiday Inn in Cedar Rapids.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: At least they have elephants in Cedar Rapids. Good zoo there. Gorillas too. And the monkeys don’t wear diapers.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: And it doesn’t take twenty-one hours on a plane from Atlanta to get to Cedar Rapids. After six hours to get to Atlanta in the first place.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: All that travel’d be worth it for a real safari. Not this kiddy version.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: You ever been on a safari before?
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: No. Used to go on camping trips when I was a Boy Scout, but that’s about it. You?
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: My wife and I go camping in the summers. Got a forty foot Craftsman, with a shower and air conditioning. You never have to worry about bugs. But this is a real rip-off. Cost me an arm and a leg. Not to mention buying all this safari gear.
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: Yeah. I bought just about everything they had in stock at the Sears.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Wish I’d gone to Sears. My wife made me buy from LL Bean. Expensive stuff. Sears would have been better. Wait a minute! Do you hear something?
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: Where?
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Behind those bushes (Points). Something’s moving. Can you tell what it is?
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: I don’t know, but it sounds big! (They pull up their guns and fire offstage. A bloodcurdling scream is heard.)
BIG GAME HUNTER 2: Shit! We shot Nkrume.
BIG GAME HUNTER 1: Or Herb.
End
