The King Of The Jungle

As a rule, I do not take naps. I couldn't resist today, however, and I just woke up on the couch after a deep sleep of three hours. I had one long dream that could have been based on a calypso song. Amazing. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end, with a punchline, no less.

It all happened out in the jungle.

It was time to elect a new king, so all of the animals got together at a big clearing. They couldn't expect anybody to keep the job too long, because it was too hard. Breaking up all of the fights; bossing the other animals around; enforcing the rules; you could only take it for so long.

Nobody had any good ideas about who to elect, and the monkey, as usual, was going around starting trouble. He went over to the hippo, and whispered in the hippo's ear, “that elephant, I heard him, he said hippos ain't all that. Said he could stomp you flat, if he felt like it.”

The hippo got angry. “Maybe he never met a hippo,” he said. “Maybe he never met an ANGRY hippo.” The hippo ran around in a tight circle to blow off a little energy. “Maybe he NEEDS to meet an angry hippo!”

Satisfied with his work, the monkey snuck around to talk to the elephant. “Hippo says you're big alright,” said the monkey. “Hippo says you're a BIG PUNK!” Elephant turned a huge eye and looked down at the monkey. “Hippo's a comedian, 'eh? Maybe he didn't see what I did to that big lion last week.” Elephant looked satisfied with himself. “They put that shit on TV.”

“Yeah,” said the monkey, “I saw it. Lion landed like a sack of flour dropped from a plane.” Monkey's eyes got wide with the memory. “I sure ain't fighting no hippo, but if I was, I'd wish that I was an elephant.”

Elephant harumphed at that. “You stick with the bugs and the berries,” said the elephant to the monkey. “I'll let this hippo know who's boss.”

So the elephant made his ears stick way out and ran over to give the hippo a lesson. Hippo didn't need to be told twice. That's a hippo's reputation around these parts. If there's going to be a muss, they want in.

It was some muss too. It was the kind of muss that reminds you why they call a big muss a dust-up. Monkey had gotten both the hippo and the elephant up to full boil. It looked like two locomotives on legs, crashing time after time. They hit each other so hard, it hurt the spectators. One shock-wave hit the tiger so hard his nose started to bleed. Every time the hippo charged into the elephant, elephant rolled over and made a face like one of his ribs was cracked. Elephant got up every time though, and he threw that hippo around like a toy. Hippo would look down and you could tell that he'd never seen the ground fly past underneath him like that.

It didn't take them long to get tired at the pace they were going. Elephant narrowed his eyes and said, “hey, you ugly hippo, what do you say we take a break.”

Hippo says, “you mean, like call this round one?”

“Yeah,” says elephant. “We can rest up and come back for round two on Thursday.”

Hippo says, “that's fair. I'll finish you off on Thursday.”

At that point, elephant and hippo wandered off to find their families. The rest of the animals had been mightily impressed by the struggle, but now they got restless. They didn't like it when there was no king. Those two were so strong, the fight could go on for a month!

Lion got an idea, and he called over the tiger. They put their huge heads together. “I know who we can stick with the job,” said the lion. “We'll get the monkey to do it!”

“The monkey? That little wise ass?” said the tiger. “You think he's up to it?”

“Shit, no,” said the lion. “But he might be the only one who's too proud to say no, and just stupid enough to take the job.”

Tiger said, “that's what makes you the real boss around here. Pure brain power! Let's go find the monkey.”

And the monkey said yes too, just like the lion said he would. “Well boys,” said the monkey, “you know that I am the most modest of animals, but if you say it should be me, who am I to disagree?”

The monkey went back to calm down the crowd and give them the good news. They all thought that it was a strange choice, but strange things happen in the jungle. Let's give him a chance!

Happy to be off the hook again, the lion and the tiger got away as fast at possible without breaking into a run. Tiger complimented the lion on his fine solution to the problem. He said, “you know, lion, I've got an idea myself.”

“Do tell,” said the lion.

“We should start looking right away for another sap to stick with the job.” The tiger was really cooking with gas now. “We better have somebody ready to step up, after the monkey fucks up the whole jungle.” The lion would have smiled, if lions could smile.

“Otherwise,” said the lion, “they'll corner one of us and we'll be the sap, again. Tiger, you're smarter than you look.”

“Give me a break,” said the tiger, “but I'm not kidding. Honestly, we should start recruiting the next king tomorrow.”

“What'd 'ya say, I'll tell the elephant and you tell the hippo?”

“Fine. Then they'll both owe us a favor. This is really working out!”

And then I woke up.