Maurice & Friends

He stood in her office door in the State House. We had worked late over some very important last minute business. I had just left for the night. He walked the hall to find Betty still working over some plans for another trip to upper Kenya. She was alone.

“Fifi, come home now. I want us to have a drink together. It’s been a long day.”

She looked at him, her dark eyes iridescent with unshed tears. She had gotten a look at the new issue of ANIMAL ENQUIRER. The pictures of him with Dina Myers were damning.

“I have more work to do, Shane. You go home.”

“Not without you.”

She stood up and took a cigarette from her pack, lighting it.

“I have no idea why you need for me to go and join you for a drink where we will talk around the truth and no mention will be made of these goddamn pictures in the Enquirer. We’ll play our little bogus affable couple game and completely disregard the fact that you have destroyed something precious in our relationship. We won’t discuss the fact that we are on the brink of, if not divorce, something even more horrible – the annihilation of a potentially wonderful marriage where we shared our children and ourselves as well as the future of our country. You have made a horror show of the dream I held forever dear and couldn’t believe I attained. Now I have attained it and you made a travesty of it. I suppose I deserved this but Kenya doesn’t. You are fucking over your country that you swore to uphold a very short time ago. How I long to hate you and end the pain but I can’t manage to do that yet. But the day will come, Shane, that I will never want to hear your name again – only those of your dear children that I love with all my heart.”

He placed his paws against his face and leaned against the door frame. After a few minutes, she realized he was crying, his shoulders heaving with the silent sobs.

“If you want a divorce to marry Dina, I will give you one. I want no husband that doesn’t want me back – not even you.”

“Dear God, Betty, I don’t want to marry Dina. I never want our marriage to end. I love you with all my heart. I know it’s hard to believe but it’s the goddamn truth,” he sobbed.

“Pardon me for being mind boggled but if you love me with all your heart what are these photographs about, Shane?” she shouted, sticking the page from the Enquirer in his face and pulling one paw away from his eyes.

He slapped the page away. It floated to the floor in a crumpled heap.

“Sex, Betty, pure unadulterated sex.”

“Oh my, sex, did you say? I thought I was pretty good in bed. Well preserved body with all the trimmings. So what’s she got that I lack? Never mind, Shane, don’t answer that. I’m sorry I lowered myself to even ask.”

She pushed her way past him and fled to the drive way where she got a Masai driver to take her to her sister, Gloria’s home on Leoparde Drive.

Shane and Dina nailed by ANIMAL ENQUIRER

Ashley Lyon was applying a spit polish to his favorite plane in the hangar of the safari club. Luke Leoparde was running about inspecting his own aircraft darling.

“I thought you were on the verge of getting married, Luke. Leah and I were planning a reception,” teased his good friend, Ashley.

“Nope, Jane won’t do it. Therefore, I’m giving up. Only if I can find a wife like Leah, Ash,” he razzed back.

“Shit, Luke, you should have grabbed Stella before Daniel got her. She’s so much like Leely it’s not even funny.”

“Not to change the subject but did you get a gander at those pictures of Shane Simba in this week’s Enquirer?”

“Oh boy did I ever. Those suckers are raunchy. It makes Dad’s peccadilloes look like a book of children’s stories. Poor Betts, she wanted that son of a gun and she got him warts and all.”

And then Ashley remembered Jade Jaglion.

“Luke, there’s a great chick in town working for Simba Brothers. She’s a jaglion and cute as the devil. Leely and I will give a barbecue for you two to get acquainted.”

“What’s a Jaglion, Ash?”

“She has a jaguar dad and a lioness mom. She’s really a cutie.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Line me up.”

Ashley promises to introduce Luke to Jade Jaglion.....

Sarah Lee Simba lay stretched on her flower printed couch. Her sister, Leander, was applying cold compresses to her face. Every once in a while the lioness would emit another loud moan. The current issue of ANIMAL ENQUIRER lay on the floor by the sofa. Both sisters had seen the pictures of Shane and Dina.

“The Simbas are disgraced, ruined,” groaned Sarah Lee. “We’ll be forced to leave Kenya.”

“Nonsense, Sarah. He’s the president. They can’t make us leave Kenya.”

“He’s ruined us with another human slut,” cried Sarah Lee, picking up the page with the most explicit photograph.

Leander leaned in close to get another look.

“I believe he’s got a bigger willy than even our dear departed Sean, don’t you think, Sarah Lee?”

Sarah Lee fell back on the sofa again.

“Oooooh shut up, Leander,” she snarled.

Bertram Baboon was waiting at a table in OKAPI’S when I arrived for lunch. I had been held up by another press conference. Bertram already had his tray of munchies before him and had been considerate enough to preorder a martini for me. I was most grateful. It had already been a long day and it wasn’t even half over.

“Have you seen those photographs in the ENQUIRER, Maurice?” he asked before I had successfully lowered my rump in the chair.

“Have I seen them? I’m his bloody press secretary. I’m up to my ears in them,” I screeched.

The reflection off of Ossie Okapi’s pink spectacles flared at me when he swung his head in our direction hearing the hysteria in my voice.

“How is Betts taking this, Maurice, she must be humiliated?”

“She is almost deadly calm, Bertram. It’s remarkable.”

“I can’t believe he’s pulled this stunt so soon after taking office.”

“I could tar and feather him, quite frankly. I will say that he has not left me the mess. He has gone out there and handled the media himself.”

Across town, a distressed lion held his head in his paws and reviewed the ENQUIRER. It was Sloane Simba. He lit a cigarette and punched the buzzer for his secretary.

“Get Dina Myers in here,” he roared.

She came looking like the ghost of Christmas past. On shaking legs she made her way to the chair in front of his desk not wishing to look at his fierce golden eyes.

“I don’t know what to say, Sloane,” she said with trembling voice and lips.

“I don’t imagine you do. You’ve have made a disgrace out of this firm. I’m ashamed that you work here.”

“Am I fired?”

“Oh no, I can’t fire you. Not with the head honcho being your lover boy. I wish to hell I could. Just as I got this firm back on track again, you had to open your legs to the biggest swordsman in East Africa.”

“I’m so sorry,” she cried.

“Get the hell out of here, Dina. I don’t want to see your face right now... and those briefs for tomorrow had better be on my desk and flawless,” he bellowed.

Caroline Cheetah was home when he got to her apartment. He made a beeline for her liquor cabinet and poured a full tumbler of Scotch.

“Wow, babe, you are in some kind of drinking mood, aren’t you?” purred Caroline, rubbing his back with crimson clawed paws.

“Marry me, Caroline, will you?”

“No.”

“Why not?” he asked, aghast.

“You Simbas are nice to visit but I’ve thought better of wanting to live there,” she chuckled.

“I’m not like Shane, Caroline.”

“Are you sure of that, Sloane? Do I have permission to call Caitlin and check that out?”

“Fuck you, Caroline.”

“Now you’re talking, big boy,” she purred, wrapping her long legs around his waist and kissing him deeply.

I went with Shane to address the parliament in Nairobi. He had asked me especially to do that. He seemed to need me more than ever these unsteady days of his iniquity. He seemed drawn and in pain. He kept a paw on his stomach a great deal of the time as he went over the draft of his speech on the plane. When we were in the parliament building, I saw him wince and asked him if he was okay. He said he was. He took the podium and was half way through a very stirring and eloquent speech when he slumped. His head hit the podium before his Masai reached him. The area was cleared and within minutes an ambulance arrived. Pandemonium reigned. . He was put in the ambulance. There was no room for me with two doctors inside. One of the ministers gave me a ride to the hospital. It seemed forever before a human doctor arrived to tell me of things. When he introduced himself, I recognized him to be a very prominent physician in Kenya.

“Mr. Monkee, I think you had better alert the State House. I don’t think our young president is long for this world. He has suffered a massive hemorrhage from two bleeding ulcers.”

I felt the blood rush to my head, such was the shock of his words.

“Where is he now?” I managed to ask.

“He is in surgery being prepped. His chances are very slim for survival.”

“Oh my God,” I gasped.

He left to attend Shane and I lost a few minutes, not knowing who to call first. Finally, I dialed Ralph Lyon’s home phone and was most grateful when he answered. I then called Vice President Daniel Lyon and told him the news. He assured me that he would break the news to Betty in the best way possible under the circumstances. Word got out and the hospital was mobbed by reporters and those concerned. I looked up to see Drs. Frank and Ted Tigeres rush past on the way to the operating room. They had been flown here, post haste. Then, I saw Betty come in. She looked like death warmed over. Behind her were his children, Sean and Staci. Staci was crying so hard, she seemed almost unable to breathe. Betty clutched my hands but was totally silent. They had gotten word of his condition before they left the Mara. Daniel Lyon stayed at the State House, waiting for word of whether he would soon be our president. The Masai, gathered around waiting, began their mournful chants. The industrial clock on the wall seemed hardly to move. I lost track of time. After what seemed like an eternity a somber group of doctors assembled to tell us of Shane’s condition. Frank spoke first.

“Betty, he’s on life support. He lost so much blood, he suffered cardiac arrest twice. His prognosis is very grim.”

I hope to never see again the look that came over Betty’s face. Such pure anguish I have not been witness to before. I went with Betty and the children to see him. He was comatose with an oxygen tube in his nose, the rise and fall of his chest produced by the life support machine that whirred in a dreadful way beside him. Betty placed a hand on his arm and leaned close.

“My darling, just live and we will begin again,” she wept.

Staci began to say something but was too choked up to manage. Young Sean seemed in shock.

The people and animals of Kenya came to Nairobi by the droves. They held candle light vigils each night in front of the hospital. Shane Simba had a code blue called on him twice when he failed to breathe. Betty and I, against our wills and strictly because he was a president, had to plan a state funeral in case the worst occurred. No one really held out any hope. Nevertheless, he held on. .The life force in him was strong and he clung to this world and refused the comfort of death. Betty was sitting by his bed when she felt a paw on her arm. She looked up to see his eyes open. They seemed frightened and wary.

“Oh my darling, Shane,” she cried, bringing nurses and doctors to the room.

The doctors gathered around reading his vitals and taking some of their own. One gave Betty a wink and said,” I believe your boy is out of the woods.”

Two days later they took the tracheotomy tube from his throat and turned off the humming machine that had kept him alive. He was hoarse but could speak for the first time. The doctor turned to Betty.

“You must have things to talk about,” he said and left the room.

Shane turned his head toward his wife and reached for her hand, although his arm was still full of needles and lines of fluid.

“Fifi, can we start over again?” he asked, his voice rasping from two weeks of the tube being in his throat.

“Oh yes, Shane. I can never love another or be without you,” she wept.

He came home on a clear and beautiful morning. He was to spend another few days in the Exotic Animal Clinic while the doctors ran more tests and established what he could and could not do. His condition demanded rules. He could only eat bland foods and the cigarette consumption had to be curbed. Shane was not, normally a heavy drinker, but for the moment any alcoholic drink at all was taboo. Those things were small in face of the fact that he had cheated death once again. Betty sat with him most of the day as he didn’t want her to leave his side much of the time.

At last he was home with his wife and children around him. The doctors had stressed bed rest. He walked with Betty on the lawn, sitting in his favorite chair and listening to the songs of the Masai warriors and their families living in their quarters on the grounds. Staci spent her spare time with her father now. She had been hurt and angry but upon his near death, had realized how much she loved him, remembering the days when he had held the family together after the death of Catherine. Staci remembered his devotion and total dedication to his children. His pregnant sister, Tookie, came to stay awhile and help her brother along the path to good health. Betty neglected the duties of her office to spend time with him. It was a sobered but grateful family that clung together, strengthening and mending the fibers of a damaged tapestry.

Shane began to share a certain amount of sleeplessness with his wife. He would lie awake in the dark, straining to hear the chants of the Masai. Betty began to leave the windows open so he could hear the voices that seemed to be his life line. Then he would sleep. The music of the Masai seemed to burn all frivolity from his mind. He requested detailed books on the different tribes of Kenya and read them voraciously. However, from that time, it would always be the Masai that were part of his heart and being. From the terror of near death by hemorrhage, emerged a new young president, burned bare of his fripperies and conceits; ready to resume a presidency that would bring Kenya to an even greater time in her history. Shane Simba vowed to himself to raise Kenya to stand tall and proud among other great nations of the world. . ...