Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [23]
In this instance, the “bed” Tom has set up for me is a dirty strip of coconut matting on the ground in the corner of a hut. A dark hut at that. A dark hut filled with spiders, and crawling with licorice-colored beetles and ticks and fleas and God knows what else.
“It'll be okay, I'm sure,” Eric says, not sounding sure at all. At the same time he scans the hut with his flashlight and finds, clinging to a beam right above where I'd be sleeping, a large six-legged green something with huge red bulging eyes.
“What the hell is that?”
Nobody's able to say. Some kind of land-based lobster, possibly?
Even Tom draws a blank. Whatever it is, it's yet one more reason why I won't be sleeping here for any length of time. And also why we must stop nuclear testing in the Pacific. That thing was probably a squirrel once.
Aside from the irradiated-wildlife issue, the pillow Tom has given me has been improvised out of half a log sawn from a tree.
Half a log!!
Well, I'm sorry. I don't do logs. I don't do bugs. I don't do mutated squirrels. And I don't do coconut matting covered in spiders. If the crew thinks they're leaving me here for twelve hours while they return to a five-star beach resort and sleep under mosquito netting between freshly starched cotton sheets tonight, they have another thing coming. And for once Eric agrees. So the decision is made that, since staying the night here might endanger my life, and since not killing the host is a priority on this show—otherwise there won't be any future ones—we'll just grab a few shots of me snoozing on the ground in my spiffy shirt and casual trousers, and that will be it.
The final scene we need before we leave Yakel is the kava ceremony …
“Where you'll get to drink kava, Cash.”
“Oh no I won't.”
I'm adamant about that. No drugs for Sir. If necessary I'll pretend.
… which we've been told takes place at sundown. That gives us an hour to kill. Rather than waste it, Todd and both Marks take off on a circuit of the village to shoot B-roll, leaving me and Tasha to tidy away the lunch things.
B-roll is an important part of making a travel program. You see it a lot on TV. It's filler, basically—pretty, scenic shots of mountains, rivers, banyans, skeletal dogs, pigs, children, flowers, plus, whenever possible, a few shots of the host looking hunky (this is the bit I like!) as he strides purposefully across a beach, or scales precipitous cliffs, or marches with confidence down hillsides without falling (after several attempts), waving to total strangers who have no idea why he's waving, peering into people's homes uninvited, or just picking stuff up off the ground and staring at it intently in a way that suggests he's interested, when really he's not at all.
Once the boys have gone and we're alone, Tom bums a cigarette off Tasha, then he and I sit together quietly on a log, watching wild pigs chase dogs through shafts of sunlight, and dogs chase squealing children back the other way.
“You smoke, Cash?” Tom asks, taking a long drag of his cigarette.
“No. I don't.”
And that, one would think, would be the end of that conversation. We can move on to more interesting topics: “How about iPods? Wouldn't you want an iPod?”
But my response apparently has hit him like a crossbow dart between the eyes. “You don't smoke? Really?”
You should see the guy's face. The incredulity.
“No, Tom, I don't smoke.”
“But why you not?” he asks, audibly expelling a long blue plume into the air as a tempting example of how manly he looks and how majestic a true warrior can seem when immersed in a toxic cloud of gas. It seems that, here in Yakel, smoking goes hand in hand with “living the life,” even as it's steadily shortening it.
“Oh, I dunno … because it's bad for you, maybe?”
“Bad??” His howling laugh pinballs around the canopy above our heads. “No, Cash,” he says earnestly.