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Back Jungle Up Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
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  63. Author’s Note

So Andy spent the next thirty minutes with the filmmaker and cameraman, reenacting putting up his hammock and getting lost and having a panic attack.

“You were crying, right?” Roth asked at one point. “Can you cry?”

In a way, Andy enjoyed it. He was back in LA, and he’d just landed his second gig. Only this time he was playing himself.

Jungle Weenie #1.

After one take which had Andy spinning around in a circle, then falling to the ground and crying out, “I’m going to die in the jungle!”—which hadn’t actually happened, but Roth had instructed Andy to say—Roth clapped his hands together and said, “I wasn’t sure about you when Heliant recommended you, but I think you’re going to end up being a pivotal part of this film.”

A soft beeping broke Andy from his reverie. He glanced down at his watch. It had been eight minutes since he’d added the boiling water to his pouch. The mac and cheese should be ready.

He dipped his spoon into the pouch and took a bite. It wasn’t nearly as good as his Kraft Deluxe, but it was better than he expected.

“What flavor ya got?”

Andy turned.

It was Darnell. Like Andy, he had a headlamp on his head, the adjustable light pointing upward at a forty-five-degree angle so as not to blind anyone. Andy glanced around. It appeared Roth was no longer holding court and the expedition team had fanned out.

“Macaroni and Cheese,” Andy told him.

“You mind?” Darnell asked, tilting his spoon toward Andy’s pouch.

Andy didn’t like sharing food with family members or even his girlfriends, the few he’d had, but Darnell must have already thought he was a wimp—his fellow cameraman had surely given him a play-by-play of Andy’s “reenactments”—and there was no way Andy was going to add germaphobe to that list.

Andy forced a small grin and said, “Go for it.”

Darnell stuck his spoon into Andy’s meal and took a bite. He nodded his approval, then tilted his pouch toward Andy and said, “Give this a whirl. Spaghetti with Meat Sauce.”

Before he could overthink it, Andy slid his spoon into Darnell’s pouch and took a bite. Andy tried not to think about all of Darnell’s microorganisms comingling with his and said, “Tastes like SpaghettiOs.” Sadly, these were another staple of Andy’s diet.

“Totally!” Darnell replied with a nod of his head.

They stood there in silence for a few moments, and Andy surveyed the small groups which had formed in the past couple of minutes. The academics—Buxton, Cala, and Capobianco—were huddled together and talking animatedly. Then you had the TAFLS duo circled up. And then there were Roth, Libby, and Farah, though Libby appeared to be hovering on the outer edge.