2.

I was in Africa when some guy pushed that knife through her ribs. Africa. I'm not a traveler though, in fact this was the first trip out of the states in my life, or since the war anyway, and I have been around a long time. Africa, on safari, in the bush, as they say. Or is that australia? I was there though, the place was a shack and racket, cots, single sheets, dirt on it all. They said we would each get a deer, there were four of us, me and three other john-toots I had never met before, but from around here they said. Strange they said to ship deer here for us to shoot, but a ticket was a small price for that kind nostalgic fix, deer hunting, like growing up when our fathers slapped our backs, laughed and passed the rifle, gave us a cigarette, a sip of whiskey, and pushed our nose towards the buck with a thick stiff finger.
There.
Quiet.
Aim.
Now.
And the giant buck, molting, gray, towering pillar of stiffened muscles, spat his brains out behind him and liquefied, twisting into a settled pile on the leaves. The other guys were great, I like them a lot though we never got a deer from that sunburned heap. A short white man drove us gunning it on dusty road pausing only to check for tracker blips on his console. "Somewhere around here." He said a couple times pointing at a dry prickly bushes, from which we would roll out a leathery carcass or a foot of dung, tracker in tact.

They weren't build to survive the desert, no water-humps, no spines or teeth, just cute eyes and longs legs that don't work overheated and dry. The dripping hyenas cackled in the night circling the beached fish gasping terrified "oh's," eyes bulging.