Post
by piscator » Wed Mar 16, 2016 8:19 pm
Here is a story of an epic trip I did not take.
We were drinking in a bar in Loanda one Saturday evening. Africans by rule do not pour sufficient quantities of alcohol in their drinks so we were fairly sober. We met up with an old sailor who had recently spent 27 years in a Portuguese prison for murdering his captain. He told us about a mythical beast called the "pongo" he had encountered before being imprisoned. The captain of his ship thought it might be a fine idea to snatch a female, or perhaps a lesser male, and sell them to some museum or circus. But even the female creature could not be restrained by ten strong men, and supposedly could break a man in half with one swing of its paw. This old parolee swore he saw a pongo take a musket from a man's hands and crush the barrel in his jaws. The raiding sailors succeeded only in getting several of their party killed and mangled. No white man had ever seen a pongo since, and most sailors avoided that particular stretch of coast entirely, terrified by the tales of murderous dark creatures lurking in the jungle.
Half of us thought he was a madman and half of us believed his story, but ALL of us decided it would be a good idea to go search for this pongo. The sailor drew us a crude spidery map from faded memory and we sent runners through the city to begin gathering supplies. We had no idea what sort of caliber was suitable for pongo but 220 grain .30-06 seemed well-suited for the task.
An hour later I tore some knee ligaments in a fistfight with 5 ivory traders who tried to swindle me. Unable to stand for any length of time, we decided that I would be a liability in the deep bush searching for these powerful beasts. Reluctantly, I made plans to go to Kenya and shoot lions, where I ended up with amoebic dysentery.
The expedition left Loanda 3 days later, in fine spirits and heavily provisioned with London dry gin and weapons. They were never seen again. About 3 years later someone discovered a massive pile of human bones and empty gin bottles. I like to think that had I been there I would've evened the odds with those goddamned pongo. On the other hand, some of the disappeared men were my friends and I never took the time or opportunity to go avenge them.
There are only truly 2 miracles in life - orgasm and the occasional display of male bravery. Sadly, I admit that when the news came of the disappearance of my friends, I was much more interested in performing the former than the latter.