Chapter 3: Piece of Pie

It seems to me, what I’m actually writing, is less a speculation about what became of Tiger, and more, or less, a story about the writing of a fictional story about Tiger. Like a news reporter who makes himself the focus of the news report, my story is center stage in the story. My apologies. I’m working with sparse data to create the story.

In 1991, when we made the voyage to Abidjian, the Internet did not exist yet. Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee only invented the World Wide Web in 1990. CompuServe and The Source were early phone modem accessed private subscription networks. America Online began 1988-1989. AOL became the largest online service by 1995, with about three million subscribers, squeezing out the others. Online content was nearly inclusively a hundred percent on AOL sites. The web was accessible through AOL but there wasn’t yet a lot out there on the WWW. Many university campuses had faculty and student intranets. Slowly, these became interconnected with the web.

What’s my point? Today it’s much easier to trace people. People who disappeared or went dark before 1995 are not easily traced even with todays powerful Internet research tools. If they aren’t in the data bases, searching data bases is understandably fruitless.

I knew Tiger well, his likes, dislikes, interests and opinions. He wasn’t bashful when it came to talking about himself. Tiger grew up in rural Texas, hunting and fishing. At age fifteen, he ran away from home and hitch-hiked around seeing much of the USA.

Age seventeen, he returned home and got a GED (high school equivalence certificate acquired by passing a written examination). Tiger tried to enlist in the Marines, but was rejected and had to settle for the Army. His parents signed permission for his enlistment, because he was still many months shy of his eighteenth birthday. He excelled in the military. He was already an expert marksman and woodsman when he enlisted. All that youthful experience hunting equipped him with valuable skills desirable in a soldier. The Army recognized, appreciated and honed his skills. Taught him new skills. Tiger became a special forces Green Beret, and excelling, was trained and inducted into the elite Ranger’s corps. The Army’s best.

Hunting is, and was when I knew him, still a great interest for him. Rabbits and deer bored him. This is Africa. Big game territory. Tiger talked incessantly about his big game hunting plans, when he was eventuality allowed a break, time off from working. He wanted to hunt really big game! The Mokele-Mbembe!

Tiger possessed several books, numerous xeroxed articles, and a National Geographic issue with photos about the Mokele-Mbembe being sighted in the Congo or in nearby Cameroon. Mokele-Mbembe is a cryptid. A cryptid is a member of a group of mythological monsters, like Yeti, which may exist but aren’t found. Yet. Specifically, the Mokele-Mbembe is supposed to be a surviving long necked dinosaur, resembling the brontosaurus, located in the most remote African swamps. Tiger wants to hunt for it. Intends to go on expedition to hunt the dinosaur. Don’t laugh. Between 1995 and 2010, more than twenty scientific cryptozoology (study of cryptids) expeditions sought the Mokele-Mbembe in the area of the Congo. I like to think, Tiger may well have enlisted in one or more of these expeditions. Research hasn’t turned up his name, but I did find possible references to fates of some of Mr. Tynsalls boats.

Speedy was renamed and reduced to a non-self propelled barge and pushed by a large coast-wise notch tug, according to one source. The only source found.

The small push-boat Skeeter is not mentioned. Nor is the little crewboat, nor the spud barge Never Again V. Similar craft abound and they probably just melted into the crowd I suspect. Failure to discover the whereabouts of the lift-boat Appeal to Heaven is an astounding failure. Common craft in the Gulf of Mexico, and despite being ideally suited to swampy terrain such as the Congo, lift-boats were exceedingly rare in Africa, remain not common even today.

Researching the Congo, some interesting and horrifying facts emerged. King Leopold II of Belgium owned the Belgium Congo beginning 1885, as a private fief and he held absolute personal power over the Congo Free State, as it was named. The nation and government of Belgium had nothing to do with, wanted nothing to do with the Congo until 1908 when it became a colony.

When the Congo Free State was transferred to Belgium in 1908, as a result of International pressure on the Belgian government. The Belgium colonial officials went to extreme lengths to cover up information about the Congo gulag under Leopold, and prevent word of the atrocities committed there from getting out. The population of the Congo declined from an estimated thirty million to eight and a half million under Leopold’s rule. People were simply worked to death under the lash. The Congo was Leopold’s slave labor concentration camp, according to research on the Internet. The Congo hosts an estimated population of 105 millions today. Gained independence in 1960.

Today, an exploitation of Congolese women is Pygmy porn. Maybe because their diminutive size resembles the size of children is the appeal. There saggy breasts must spoil the similarity I would think.

Did Tiger make it to the Congo to hunt dinosaurs? He would have tried, I’m certain. It was his stated plan. Western or European style buildings in the Congo are quickly swallowed by the rapid growing encroaching jungle. Crab grass infestation in your lawn frustrates you? Imagine waking in the morning to discover over night, grass is suddenly growing between your floor boards in your bedroom!

Would Tiger take Appeal to Heaven to the Congo with him? He wouldn’t steal the boat, but if somehow he was able to ethically bring the lift boat with him, I feel certain I can fairly say, it would definitely appeal to and tempt him. Tiger liked looking down on others from on high. Lift-boats do that.