STACI AND JUMA WED
If you love somebody, let them go. If they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were."
Anonymous
The invited held their breath as a lovely Staci Simba walked down the aisle of the First Church of the Ascending Predator on the arm of her father, President Shane Simba of Kenya. The music was Trumpet Voluntary, that beautiful piece that sent Princess Diana down the aisle on a progression toward her ill-fated marriage to Charles Windsor. Now Staci was making her slow and graceful way toward her union with the AIDS doctor, Juma Mnyama. He stood tall and proud next to three brothers and a medical colleague serving as his groomsmen. The sanctuary was beautiful, banked with candles and ginger lilies which lent their divine scent to the heady occasion. All showed the fine and elegant touch of the maternal grandmother, Cynthia Cheetah. The Reverend Saul Serval waited at the altar with his assistant minister. Shane, upon reaching the altar where he left his daughter at the side of her soon-to-be husband, then sat down next to Johanna Delacroix wearing, among other things, her dazzling bling.
Noticeably missing were Betty Chimpo Simba, Luke and Jane Leoparde and the paternal grandmother of the bride, Sarah Lee Simba.
As one of the stirring hymns was sung, Lachlan whispered in my ear, “I can’t wait for Shane Simba to become a grandfather. That should cut back on some of the pistons firing his engine.”
A most awe-inspiring reception was held in the State Mansion. Liveried servants padded about with drink filled trays. There was an absolute groaning board in the official dining room. I don’t know how many people and animals were stuffed in that place but there was hardly room to breathe. Lachlan and I greeted and chatted up those that were necessary before making our way out of the crowded mansion and home.
Dr. and Mrs. Juma Mnyama on the front steps of the State Mansion after their wedding.....
Shane and Johanna at the wedding reception...
Leah Simba, who was the matron of honor for her cousin, got smashed at the reception. She ended up in Trevor Tau’s bedroom on the Mara River, weeping over her divorce from Ashley Lyon. Ashley had been at the reception with his date, Lucy Cougar. He and Lucy had danced like mad things to the groovy band music. Ashley, always affable and hail fellow well met, had pinched the bottom of his estranged wife in a flirtatious and semi-drunken way setting off an emotional fire bomb. Ashley, who was caring less and less about losing Leah, mounted the willing flesh of Lucy at her home on the river. Her children were with their father, Alexander Simba for the weekend. A drunken Ashley and Lucy horsed around in her hot tub until the wee hours.
Further repercussions occurred. Simone Serval, not having received an invitation for the wedding and reception of the year was greatly miffed. She approached Roy Lee Simba about the matter.
“It’s Shane’s daughter’s wedding, Simone. I had nothing to do with the invitations,” he attempted to explain to the irate feline starlet.
“But Shane and I dated at one time before he married Catherine, Roy Lee,” she snarled.
“Well then, you are now a defunct sticker on his back bumper. I doubt if he even remembers your name. There have been many white water events under his bridge since you passed by.”
Betty, who was well aware that this was the wedding day of Staci Simba, took an early morning bath and sang to herself in order to exorcise the unwanted memories. She heard a creak on the deck outside the bathroom. Tarzan stood there buck naked.
“I have to mend nets today so I’m not going out,” he explained, slipping in the tub with her. .
“I’m sooo glad,” she told him, putting her arms around his neck.
They spent the day on the beach where she helped him repair his nets. In the evening they cooked hot dogs over a fire outdoors, drinking the local beer and wine.
“Jack, I’ve been married four times,” she announced out of the blue.
He was lying with his head on one of the mended nets. “I see that as more your problem than mine, Betty,” he shot back, giving a low chuckle.
“I guess I just want you to know is all.”
“Any apes in that group?”
“No. There was another lion – Shane’s litter mate. My first husband was Montecore a white tiger from Las Vegas.”
At the mention of Montecore, he sat up.
“That tiger that clamped down on his trainer in front of God and everybody in some show in Vegas?”
“Yes, that one.”
“Damn, I’ve always admired the shit out of that dude. Tell me about him and where you two met.”
Sam Simba had been summarily dismissed.
Betty and Tarzan picnic on the beach...
In the home of flower girl, Georgy Simba, there was such an aftermath to Staci’s wedding that Caitlin Cougar Leo had to summon Sloane again. Georgy was on the floor of her new bedroom in Homer Leo’s bungalow. She was kicking and screaming so that Homer and young Carly Simba stood in abject horror in the door. Sloane arrived to take her to his bush home. This caused such consternation in his pregnant wife, Caroline Cheetah Simba that she went into premature labor. A single female cub was taken by caesarian section. She was put in the nursery for premature young. There she thrived. Sloane and Caroline were delighted - Caroline, because it was a single birth, Sloane because he loved daughters. Now the petulant Georgy was in real trouble. Daddy had an additional little female cub....some really tough competition.
In another quarter, Imani Lyon was in a terrific sulk. Her dad, Ashley, couldn’t be pinned down to one spot long enough for her to tend him. Now school had started which was a real bitch. She was stuck with her mother, Leah, who irritated the living crap out of her. Imani bought an electric razor at the pharmacy in the mall and shaved her head. She was promptly enrolled in group therapy at the mental health center led by the very pregnant Dr. Cate Ocelot Leoparde. When she visited her grandmother Mildred Lyon, she removed her hat baring the bald pate.
“You remind me of Telly Savalas,” stated her grandfather, Ralph Lyon. “I always watch the reruns of Kojak…..my favorite show.”
Betty had written on her book all morning and was now in the kitchen making bouillabaisse from some choice selections of Tarzan’s catch. She smelled the Dolce & Gabbana cologne even before she heard his footfall. She spun around dropping the large stirring spoon on the floor.
“What the hell are you doing here? Do you stay up nights devising tortuous situations for your victims?” she screamed. “Oh, I forgot…..you fuck all night.”
“Calm down, Betty,” said Shane. “I’m here with the divorce papers for you to sign. I didn’t think you’d want to have to come to the Mara again.”
“I came when you were shot. I never really saw you though. You were too busy groping Johanna bedside - probably between gasps for air,” she shouted at the top of her lungs.
She picked the spoon from the floor and slung it at him covering his shirt front with the red sauce from the bouillabaisse.
“Great!” he snarled, “I needed something that looks like blood. Why are you being so dramatic about this, Betty? Do you remember leaving me initially and refusing to return?”
She slumped against a cabinet and covered her face with her hands.
“I’m not myself when I’m with you, Shane” he mimicked. “Isn’t that what you told me, Betty?”
“How did we get from where we were to here in this moment, Shane? It has been such a short trip even though we have three kids. I didn’t get my fill of you,” she said, beginning to cry.
“That’s true….our marriage seemed over in fifteen minutes.”
“Do you love her?” she wept, her shoulders heaving with the effort.
“I have to make do, Betty. I grow fonder of her each day.”
This made her boiling mad, setting off her inner fire works once more.
“Fonder of her? You are the archetypical prick, Shane. You are fond of her? God help you AND THAT MENTALLY CHALLENGED BITCH. Give me those god damn papers. I’ll be happy to sign them.”
He extracted them from his brief case and handed them to her. She signed her name several times on various papers she didn’t bother to read. She handed them back.
“Now you get the hell out of my house. I never want to see your face again.”
“We have children together, Betty.”
“DO NOT REMIND ME OF OUR CHILDREN. LEAVE NOW, YOU BLOODY BASTARD!!!”
She sat on a kitchen chair and screamed loudly. She didn’t know how much time had lapsed as she gave forth her primal wails. She finally quieted and took a cigarette and drink to the deck. The sun had begun its descent over the lake which was now very choppy with waves slapping at the shore. She stood at the railing looking for Tarzan’s boat. She felt drained but somehow peaceful. It was over now. She had loved him more than anything on earth. She still did but they had run their course. She had heard a line in a Hollywood movie once - Our love came to its conclusion. She had found it beautiful. She still felt stunned. She saw Tarzan pull his boat ashore and head her way.
“Shane brought the divorce papers today. I signed them,” she told him.
He put the catch in her sink.
“No wonder you’re a novelist—a drama every minute,” he said.
Shane Simba had returned to the Mara after getting Betty to sign the divorce papers. I left shortly after, leaving him in his office with a strong Scotch in front of him.
Shane sat in the gathering shadows of the dying day. He pulled the signed papers from his briefcase and looked at them. He lit a cigarette. Placing the papers over his brass trash container, he held the cigarette’s glowing end to them. They took the ember and began to burn. He dropped them in the trash basket. He sat watching them blaze briefly before becoming ashes After two more Scotches, he summoned the driver and was taken to his bush house which was empty except for the skeleton staff. He started drinking the minute he hit his study. There he got drunk as a lord and cried like a baby.
Betty went with Tarzan in his new boat to Uvira on the northern shore of Lake Tanganyika. Uvira is in the Republic of the Congo. There they snorkeled and camped on the beach, with Tarzan building fires each night to cook fresh fish he caught on the trip. They slept outside in a tent that Tarzan had packed in the boat and struck nightly. Betty had never had a time like this, having lived in the lap of luxury for so long. She found it wonderful, freeing and very exhilarating. Some cloud free and clear nights, they slept under the stars, making love in Tarzan’s sleeping bag.
When she and Tarzan arrived back in Gombe, she received a phone call from Bo Bonobo.
“Betty, did you refuse to sign the divorce papers?” he asked, after inquiring about her health.
“No, Bo, I signed every one of them very willingly,” she informed her attorney.
“I haven’t heard a thing from Sam Simba’s office,” he countered.
“So be it, Bo. All I know is that I signed those papers.”
Staci Simba Mnyama, after a ten day honeymoon in the Maldives, returned with her new husband to the Mara and resumed nursing school classes. She and Juma planned to buy a house on the Mara River near Trevor Tau’s home. The couple returned to work as husband and wife, rather than valued assistant and doctor.
Shane returned to his pregnant mistress in the mansion. She welcomed him with open arms and much sex.
Johanna and Shane......