It was --is-- a story needed to be told...
~~~
I arrived early and was escorted directly into makeup and greeted by an unforgiving wall of mirrors and blinding lights. A place whose entire purpose is to make you into someone you always wanted to be, or enhance who you were already pretending to be.
I preferred a more informal setting, hopefully at a local pub or in the back of a restaurant with a single camera—a place where the scars would be less visible.
“Please, come this way.”
The little brunette with the clipboard led me through a warren of TV monitors, mobile cameras, and batteries of electronic and computer consoles to a corner of their studio, an intimate and secluded niche with two fixed cameras and just enough indirect lighting to put my sensibilities at ease.
“Are you comfortable with this arrangement, Dr. McCall, because we can make any changes you like? We want you to relax and be comfortable. This corner setup gives us the least amount of lighting we needed.”
“This is fine. Thanks. Spending almost thirty years under the baking African sun has left me light sensitized.”
“Not to worry. You should hear some of the requests we get from guests,” she said, then turned. “Oh, and Jessica is caught in traffic and running about five minutes late.”
I sat in the center of a small antique English sofa, questioning why was I here, and would this interview make a difference. A lean fifty-three-year-old whose environment was usually a swamp choking with two-ton hippos ready to attack most anything that threatened their space.
That now seemed far safer, and this, more alien.
“I’m fine, and this arrangement is much like I asked for.”
“It’s an honor to have you here, so please relax,” she said, checking her cell phone. “Jessica is just coming into the building.”
“Good news,” was all I could muster.
# # #
I grazed my hands across the fabric of the sofa. It was soft and smooth and giving, and so different from the hide of a hippo that it made lifestyle comparison ludicrous.
I once read that, according to Wikipedia, the common hippopotamus or hippo, is a large, mostly herbivorous, semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It’s one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus.
I had that part memorized, but there was more.
Apparently, the name came from the ancient Greek for "river horse." After the elephant and rhinoceros, the common hippopotamus is the third-largest type of land mammal and the heaviest extant artiodactyl, and large-size adults average 1,500 kg.
“Dr. Lucas McCall, this is an honor and I apologize for being so late,” Jessica Warren said waving off her frantic makeup staff. “No, I’m not wasting another moment of Dr. McCall’s time with that crap. He looks great and I look like the witch of the north,” she said setting down her notes next to the gigantic cup of coffee you always see her with on television.
I nodded appreciatively.
“Are you comfortable, Lucas, if it’s okay to call you Lucas? I mean, for the last six months of emails I feel I am already connected to you.”
“It’s been a long road for both of us.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you look ten years younger in person,” she said already sipping away at the scalding brew. “Your photo in National Geographic doesn’t do you justice.”
“That’s very kind of you to say.”
There was a palpable silence as the small lighting and audio crew looked at each other, trying to make out what had just happened. I was anxious to get the interview over and get back to my hotel room and take my first deep breath of the day.
“Sorry if I am staring, Lucas. It’s just that I’ve been wanting to meet you for years.”
“But not as long as Oprah?”
“You have me there.” She laughed. “I’m still working my way up to Oprah.”
“What is it about her that’s so compelling that makes her an icon of trust and truth?”
Jessica Warren looked like she had frozen in place, along with the rest of her crew.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you’re supposed to ask me the questions. It’s just that my world of wrangling two-ton creatures who would just as soon sink their foot-long canine teeth into your guts as fart is so far from Oprah, I was just curious.”
“Wow,” she said, then turned to her crew. “I hope we got that on tape or I’ll kill myself right here.”
“We were rolling the minute you sat down,” her assistant assured.
“I must say, in spite of our emails, you are still so much more than I expected.”
“In what way?” I kept thinking, am I being used? A popular puppet so the network can fulfill its civic duty to protect the environment and the world of animals that so many have abandoned, as a cause.
Another scalding gulp. “So far, in every way.”
“If I were being the interviewer instead of you, I’d be all over a response like that.”
“More wow. Okay, let’s go with that,” she said setting down her notes. “Polly Lawson, John Connelly’s producer over at National Geographic warned me you would be a distraction. She was right. Are you are completely comfortable with this setting, in what must be a strange environment? And you talk like you’ve already given a hundred interviews.”
“This is my second after finishing the Geographic and it’s that red dress that’s making me the most comfortable. Compliments your green eyes.” Connelly told me to flirt. I told him that wasn’t why I was here. He repeated his advice.
“This feels more like The Dating Game than an interview with the world-famous and only hippo wrangler on the planet.”
“Not sure about the world famous, but pretty certain of the ‘only’ part.”
“Why are you the only one?”
“Probably because I’m the most crazy, and my circumstances were different from the beginning.”
“I don’t sense a crazy bone in your body, and from what we’ve discussed, you may be the most composed, focused person I’ve ever met.”
“When you’re moving about a sea of two-ton, easily angered or agitated animals with no possible escape if they turn on you, confidence is everything.”
“And have they ever turned on you?”
“I’ve had my share of near misses, and not-so-near misses,” I said, already trying to manage the pain in my right thigh where a baby hippo attacked several years back. The pain pills once worked. A lot in my life no longer worked as it should, and some not at all.
# # #
I was finally easing back into myself. This wasn’t going badly and I no longer felt out of place.
“You say that with a smile.”
“I say that because I’m glad to be alive. Hippos are the number one cause of human death in Africa.”
“And yet here you are, alive and looking quite well.”
“Where did I read that phrase, ‘looks can be deceiving’?”
“So, what am I missing?”
“The too many times I came too close to being killed by a hippo or taken down by a twenty foot Nile crocodile or camped too close to the hunting trail of a pack of wild dogs.”
“So how do you explain your job and your survival, which is the only word I can come up with that describes what you’ve achieved, and according to legend you fell, if you will, right into it.”
“Then you know the story about my girlfriend?”
“I know that all great stories begin with a woman, or a man pretending to be the hero his girlfriend really is.”
“I was finishing up my doctorate at Cambridge and my girlfriend’s family was planning a trip to Africa and asked me along.”
“You were twenty-two I recall from the Geographic spread?”
“I think most of your viewers by this time know that I was thrown from my canoe and Joseph, our Kenyan guide, managed to get the rest of the family ashore safely.”
“And you were attacked by a pair of hippos. I’m sorry, I still can’t imagine that.”
“They charged my canoe and ripped it apart.”
“And?”
“And I charged.”
“Excuse me?” she said fumbling through her files. “My notes say that the common hippopotamus inhabits rivers, lakes, and mangrove swamps, where territorial bulls preside over a stretch of river and groups of five to thirty females and young. During the day, they remain cool by staying in the water or mud. The hippopotamus is among the most dangerous animals in the world and are highly aggressive and unpredictable. There is nothing in my notes that says they fear charging, pre-doctoral anthropologists?”
“Nothing in my notes says that either, but life can be violent, and the nature of hippos doesn’t include stalking or deception. Their first and only instinct is to charge straight on, provoked or not.”
“As was yours?”
“Apparently, yes, and the closer they got, I had a few feet to maneuver and focused on the smaller hippo. I managed to dodge her bite and grabbed her snout.”
“Snout?”
“Her left nostril. I clamped down on her nostril and she stopped in her tracks, as if I had struck her with a club.”
“Still rolling?” she said to her assistant, who gave her a thumbs up.
“I stepped to her side and with my other hand grabbed her ear.”
“I think I’m going to need something stronger than coffee.”
“Hanging on to her nostril, I released her ear and started to stroke her forehead, moving close to her side and keeping her mother on her other side.”
“Have you ever told this story, the way you’re telling it now, to anyone else?”
“No. Actually, not like this.”
“This may be the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I released my grip on her nose and kept stroking the baby’s head with my other hand. The mother hesitated. I don’t know why. Maybe she no longer considered me a threat.”
“And your guide?”
“Joseph was with my girlfriend and family, who were in the first two of the three canoes. I was in the last and caught the brunt of the mother’s wrath probably because she felt we were too close to her calf.”
“And?”
“Joseph was frantically waving his arms to tell me to get ashore as a half-dozen other hippos were slowly making their way toward us.”
“And?”
“If I had turned, the mother would have taken that as a sign of weakness and attacked.”
“Of course,” she said, already sitting in the edge of her chair.
“So, as you can see, she didn’t attack.”
“What I can see is probably the bravest, smartest man I’ve ever met.”
“Not sure how to respond to that either.”
“Well, anytime you want to stroke my forehead just give me a call.”
“I started to slowly move backwards toward the shoreline and the calf followed and her mother moved along by her other side. Not sure how brave or smart that makes me.”
“Well, let’s let our audience decide when we air this interview.”
“Fair enough.”
“Let’s take a few minutes’ break here, if you don’t mind, before I pass out,” she said and wobbled herself erect. She was quickly surrounded by her staff, going over notes and making adjustments as to how she should continue with the interview.
# # #
A very pretty woman. I don’t get to see too many of those in my line of work. Thirty-five or maybe a few years older and a serious celebrity in her own right, which is why I accepted this, and only this, interview. John Connelly said if anyone’s audience would understand what I wanted to say, it would be Jessica Warren’s.
One of her PAs asked if I wanted to get up and stretch my legs or wanted coffee or something stronger. She looked at me very differently than when we met in the lobby of this television studio.
“I managed to get ashore,” I started when the interview continued, “but not before I let a big bull get close enough to stroke his forehead too. Except it was different. Something about male to male. It was more forceful. Confident?”
“Please, dear God, go on.”
“A dozen or so of the herd followed as I stepped from the water, Joseph practically trembling from how close they were to him and his instinct to come to my rescue with his new Winchester .458 caliber model 70 rifle. The irony here is that I didn’t get as much as a scratch and eventually broke up with my girlfriend and decided to return to that river as soon as I graduated.”
“Sounds like you got the better deal.”
“After that, Joseph, whose real first name is Amara, which is Kenyan for ‘Immortal Being, one who is blessed without end or death blessed with eternal life,’ told everyone he knew, much of it caught on his cell phone, which I wasn’t aware of at the time. A local newspaper picked it up and within a week it exploded over social media.”
“We read every reference. You were an instant hero,” Jessica encouraged, her chair now noticeably closer to mine.
“I didn’t know what to make of it more than I was very lucky to be alive.”
“And that’s really the beginning of the story.”
“It was. It absolutely was.”
# # #
“And what you’ve done these years—working with government agencies and helping farmers quiet herds of hippos, helping to contain their desperation and irascibility during the drought season, accompanying scientific expeditions into the African and South American jungles—is just remarkable. The papers you’ve written have received international acclaim.”
“I found a way to make a small difference, that’s all. But that’s not why I agreed to this interview.”
“I was going to ask you why, but knowing that in all these years you never once gave an interview despite how many times you’ve been published, and your work has found its way into mainstream media, I didn’t want to jinx what I already had.”
“Joseph was with me that day, and had been at my side for much of those years.”
“Had been?”
“We were in the Congo last summer. There was a terrible drought. Thousands of hippos were barely surviving along the length of major rivers and marginal tributaries, and mostly in shallow puddles. I was called in to help after one bull became so crazed he charged a family near their village. I waded into the muck, taking one small step, reaching out for each bull before taking the next step. The tension in the heard was alarming, as if they knew the rain would never come and they were all going to die. And they were right.”
“Please.”
“I stopped when I felt the surge of what I could only call anxiety, before there was a collective panic.”
“Collective...?”
“When a herd reaches an emotional stress point it can explode in a rage of mindless attacks on whichever animal is closest.”
“And that’s what you were sensing?”
“I knew I had gone too deep into the pack to make it back out alive.”
“Where was Joseph?”
“My trusted guide, a man whose advice and friendship I had had at my side from the beginning was calling out. He must have felt their anxiety too, and seen some of the bulls I couldn’t moving about in attack patterns.”
“But you didn’t see him?”
“I was too preoccupied to see him, and he was too preoccupied trying to warn me to notice a giant Nile croc stalking the shallows where he was standing with my rifle at the ready.”
Jessica Warren stopped taking notes. The two cameras continued on their journey.
“When I finally turned, it was too late. I tried to warn him, pointing at the croc which was by then only meters away. The second he turned, it was on him. It lurched up and caught him full in the thigh and flipped him over like a rag doll and dragged him back into the water.”
“Please.”
“He had my rifle and his .458, and my pistol, and still never had a chance.”
“Dear God, I am so sorry. I can’t imagine your loss.”
“He died because I went too far into the pack. Because for the last few years the traditional rivers which would dry up in the summer were drier than ever, and when the rains came they were less abundant and reliable, and because what had been building up along great stretches of the African midsection were signs that no one had pieced together.”
“This is happening now, across Africa?”
“And in other more typically rain-soaked equatorial regions, the rainfall is greatly diminished leaving the dry season to devastate many local animal populations.”
“Beyond hippos?”
“Beyond what you’re reading in the papers and online. And it’s speeding up, leaving animals, who can’t adapt almost overnight, to starve because their natural food chain is compromised.”
“That’s what you came to say?”
“That’s why I am here, and why I will be making myself available to any news organization who wants to save what is left of many species from the Antarctic to the Sahara.”
“Please, go on.”
“I’ve been watching it firsthand for these last few years, but not until Joseph was killed did I suddenly piece together the puzzle. I am not sure if we can do anything beyond recording the tipping point which may have passed, but I’ve already suffered a terrible loss, and if what Joseph and I have been witness to these last few years continues, there will be no end to a future whose losses will be absolute, consuming, irrevocable, and will reshape the world as we know it into a more hostile and unpredictable environment.”
“And that’s your message?”
“It took me nearly thirty years to finally have something to say. A warning. And time may have already run out.”
“A lot of experts think we haven’t reached the tipping point yet.”
“A recent article in The New York Times accurately detailed the crisis saying that ‘millions of acres of wetlands and rainforests are being cleared away and as many as a million plant and animal species are now threatened with extinction because of farming, poaching and pollution, the transport of invasive species and increasing global warming. Earth’s natural ecosystems are being destroyed at an unprecedented pace.’”
“I read that piece too,” Jessica Warren said, furiously making notes almost as fast as I talked.
“All I’m doing is adding my voice to those scientists who have acknowledged the devastation and have exposed many of the commercial interests that have made such devastation irreversible. Those who deny the crisis at hand have condemned their children and grandchildren to a more precarious, dangerous world.”
“Please, go on.”
“In Mozambique, coastal erosion due to rising sea levels has significantly altered the coastline. The population of African penguins has dropped dramatically over the last fifteen years—some estimates say by 90%. Another result of climate change is an increase in ocean acidification, which affects every aquatic life form. Climate change, and resulting increased temperatures, storms, droughts, and rising sea levels, will affect the incidence and distribution of infectious disease across the globe.”
# # #
The silence that followed my warning was as if the entire studio had lost its electronic voice.
“Well, Dr. McCall, this is both unexpected and warmly welcomed. This network, and most especially myself, have been championing this issue for the last decade. Your voice is not only welcomed but much needed, and I am sorry for the loss of your friend.”
“I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, considering who owns this network and a host of collateral communication enterprises like most of the newspapers and small radio stations in the Southeast.”
“Well, so far, the soul of my program remains untouched by political pressure.”
“I appreciate you gave me this opportunity.”
“Your story as a hippo wrangler, one who understands animals in a way that is both astonishing and simple in its beauty is rare, and I would invite you to return and update us as to your progress, considering the importance of your message.”
“Let’s first see how this interview is received. If not for my sake, than maybe for Joseph’s.”
“I was already thinking just that,” she said, “and please, for all our sakes, let me know how I can help spread your message.”
“You’ve already done quite a bit by giving me this airtime.”
“It’s been a personal and professional pleasure,” Jessica Warren said with a wink even the most discerning camera couldn’t pick up, and put her wedding ring back on as soon as the lights faded out.
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