"In front of everyone I give you my word: one bowl of insect medley and you are not just a B-unit cameraman again, but you officially become an A-unit cameraman, with a hike in pay."

I had to admit, being an A-unit cameraman has always been a career dream of mine. How hard could it be to eat some bugs? What was the catch? I nodded.

Stuart called out, "Okay, fifteen-minute break for everyone while Raymond here eats a bowl of mixed insects. Gather close!"

Cast members and crew bustled in to form a circle around me. Moments later, Scott appeared with a writhing bowl of ... well, nature's medley: grubs, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, encyclopedias, mumps, cysts and whatever other unholy sp.a.w.n the crew had managed to find beneath the island's logs.

But here's the thing: the show's contestants were actually starving, whereas I had had a delightful meal of cheeses and cold cuts in Neal's palace. There was barely room for a Mars bar inside me.

If Sarah were there, she would have stopped Stuart from being such a t.w.a.t. What did she see in him?

"Okay, Herry, every single bug down the hatch and fully swallowed. Puke and you're out-unless you choose to ingest the puke, but I don't credit you with that level of commitment."

"Fine, Stuart, I understand."

Me, an A-unit cameraman!

"Good. Now let's get some cameras rolling-I want to doc.u.ment this train wreck."

Mother nuzzled in beside Stuart and began brown-nosing. "You should see his refrigerator back home, a cold and G.o.dless place it is. Ooh, look at that little b.u.g.g.e.r there-he's got to be a six-incher, and all those tiny legs-it makes you marvel at the universe."

Chili Cicadas with Rice

A beloved Mexican cla.s.sic-and a sure-fire

family-pleaser for those special occasions.

onion

3 tablespoons olive oil

cup cicadas

1 12-ounce can navy beans, drained

1 6-oz can tomato paste

3 teaspoons chili powder

1 clove garlic, minced

Dice the onion and saute in olive oil. After a minute or

so, add the cicadas and cook until both onions and

insects are translucent. Yes, that is correct: translucent.

Add the remaining ingredients and simmer on low heat

until flavours have melded together-at least one hour.

Ladle onto brown rice.

Be sure to serve it more than once every

seventeen years ... Ole!

The flavours came in waves: a pecan-like crunch, followed by an avocado smoothness, followed by a glob of something chowdery and phlegmy. Next? A clump of larvae, tasting something like chanterelle mushrooms.

Did all of the wriggling and writhing disturb me, you ask? f.u.c.k no. That's why G.o.d gave us jaws. Added bonus? Live bugs were better than anything you'd find in a Honolulu Airport vending machine. I ploughed through my bowl like it was so much bar mix, with supportive chanting from all around.

"Sh.e.l.ls for texture; guts for flavour!"

"The vitamins are in the legs, Ray, the legs!"

Scott offered, "If it tastes sour, it's probably an ant."

"All that formic acid," another PA added.

Halfway through my bowl, I spat out a thorax of some sort to ask for a gla.s.s of water, but Stuart scotched that idea. "You should have thought of that beforehand, Gunt! And pick up that thorax you just spat out and eat it, too."

f.u.c.k him.

Crunch.

I don't know if you've ever eaten a bowl of insects. Perhaps you enjoy them regularly-and good for you! So you know that bug eating is all about mind over matter. Something crickety tasted prawn-like, and I couldn't help but wonder what most things in the bowl might have tasted like with some peanut oil and a bouillon cube in a good hot wok.

By now Stuart was looking thoroughly p.i.s.sed. f.u.c.k him. He'd shortly have to rehire me on as an A-unit cameraman. Ha!

Within a very jumbled minute or so, everything from the bowl was gone, except a huge pink millipede. For the first time I couldn't use mind over matter. Its two rows of little pincers were fluttering in waves along its length, and I couldn't imagine eating anything so utterly disgusting.

Stuart could sense that I'd lost my momentum. "Just look at it, Gunt: if that thing crawled into your tent at night, it'd chew your d.i.c.k off. But you still have to eat it."

"No need for colour commentary, Stuart."

"No, I want you to know exactly what you're eating: it's the most vile insect ever known to man, repulsive and ready to explode with guts and stingers."

"Stuart, just f.u.c.k right off."

I steeled myself for the final mouthful. Raymond, you've probably eaten far worse things at a kebab take-away. So just do it. I threw the bug in my mouth and was just about to crunch down on its middle when my mother shouted, "Raymond, just think of that thing as a giant p.u.s.s.y with teeth!"

I promptly hurled out every single organism I'd just ingested in one glistening Niagara of mangled coffee-coloured protein.

46.

The next thing I knew, I was being lifted off the ground and onto a wheezing golf cart driven by Eli, and we were chugging back through the forest of vile Venus flytraps. I then fuzzed out of consciousness and came to with my head on a foam pad and a freezer's dull thrum in my ears: Neal's storeroom. A nice calm place, really. Private. Quiet.

Out of nowhere I needed to w.a.n.k. Seems simple enough, you'd think, but from some damaged corner of my brain came a slew of political thoughts-possible nuclear war and all-and suddenly my innocent desire to self-pleasure took on a charged new meaning. Before the nuclear war, my thinking had been along the lines of, "Sure, right now I'm w.a.n.king, though it's just a pale subst.i.tute for the genuine action I hope to have in the near future." But when your future no longer feels infinite, the sterility and pointlessness of w.a.n.king is hard to overcome. Instead of feeling s.e.xy and tingly, it felt useless, like recycling plastics or registering to vote. I called the whole thing off.

A person listening to this tale might be thinking, "Oh, woe is poor Raymond." But what happened next might well surprise that listener. I stood up and felt a little rumble in my tummy. I spotted a door beside the deep-freeze that opened on that most prized of luxuries in the tropics: a fully functional flush toilet, its cistern groaning from an abundant load of name-brand loo roll. I stepped inside and began to take what I honestly considered to be a dump of the G.o.ds.

After I was finished, I ambled over to Neal's. It was nearing sunset, and he was behind his bar in a smoking jacket, finishing a f.a.g and holding the gla.s.ses up to the sunset-drenched window to check for dishwasher spots.

"Where are the girls?"

"Oh h.e.l.lo, Ray! Gave me a start, you did. They're off getting pedicures. Fancy a c.o.c.ktail?"

"Please. Vodka martini, straight up, dirty with two olives."

Neal, being a good friend, really (and no longer my slave), prepared my martini without mentioning my disgrace at the purple picnic table.

I sat at the bar. "By the by, where's your bouncer chap who answered the front door the first time I was here?"

"Eamon? He's working in the herb garden I've started out back. I was inspired by the herb garden outside your flat in London. Nothing like fresh herbs to make the meal-they add a bit of love to the menu."

"Neal, you take back that last thought or I will justifiably vomit yet again, this time all over your bar."

"Sorry, Ray. Just trying to be gracious."