The walls were covered with the heads of various types of animals. There was a puma from South America that he had tracked deep in the Amazon Jungle, relying only on the paw prints it had left deep in the mud. He had caught malaria that time, and to this day it still flares up.
He had gone to Alaska and shot and killed a timber wolf from a helicopter as it flew over the stormy Tundra. That trip he had lost part of his nose from frostbite trying to retrieve its carcass.
He had also gone to the Everglades where he had rented an airboat to begin his hunt for alligators. After exhausting hours of setting traps and searching through swamps he finally caught it. But while posing for a picture with the alligator, holding its jaws open only with his hand and foot, his fingers slipped causing the gators mouth to snap shut. He lost a few toes that day. Today he hides the missing digits with a pair of alligator skin boots. He attributed these accidents to bad luck, but others blamed it on his stupidity.
Bruce fist became interested in hunting because of his line of work, or rather because of his boredom at work. He spent long hours in an office doing paperwork for his slaughterhouse, a business passed down from his father. But the only problem was a slaughterhouse isn’t very exciting. It just kills cows. Bruce needed something more alive and masculine. He would have liked to be one of those men who climbed Mount Everest, but sadly he didn’t have the right physique for it. Hunting suited him quite well because he was already comfortable with death. He liked to compare himself with President Teddy Roosevelt, who was a big game hunter, too.
Bruce had had many girlfriends, but they always ended the same with him being dumped. He always put his needs before anyone else’s and was unable to relate to them (he was always better relating with animals).
On Bruce’s 40th birthday he looked around at all of his friends who were married and had children and found himself having a midlife crisis. It wasn’t the fact that he was not married that bothered him, but that for the first time he felt old. Turning 40 might have made others feel discouraged about visions that they had not completed, but for Bruce it only intensified his reason to travel to Africa. One of Bruce’s goals was to hunt the “ King of the Jungle“. He had read in “Big Gaming Wyoming” hunting magazine that the lion is considered by many to be one of the most respected of the animals because it is so terrifying. After reading that article he became obsessed with killing the large cat. He arrived two full hours before his flight departure Bruce felt relived not having to worry that he would not make his flight on time. He boarded the plane his ticket in hand as he was guided to business class. Bruce had a lot of money he could always afford first class but he liked to think of himself as one of the “guys”. He sat down next to a man and began to make small talk. The air in the cabin was very dry. He got up every few hours to stretch and walked up and down the isles. He put on his sleeping mask and earplugs he had bought in the airport and went to sleep. After awaking he took off his sleeping mask and removed his earplugs he looked down the isle, and saw that breakfast was being served. He got up and hasty rushed to use the bathroom to wash up. He used a wet cloth and ran it over his face and arms. He looked into the mirror examined his dehydrated face and the dark circles around his eyes.
He transferred to the next plane and another until he was looking down through the small twin-engine plane window at the golden African plains below him.