Unlike most ideas of genius, which tend to strike their inspired targets in the form of oft sought-after lightning bolts, the insurmountably brilliant idea which swept over Earl Hulbert like a tsunami engulfed his life in a kind of passion such as he had never known before. Earl had been sitting, mouth agape, in front of the television watching the Discovery Channel. It was not a channel that Earl would normally watch. His mainstays included shows like “Renal,” in which contestants win an epically proportioned drinking contest by obliterating their kidneys, and the comical and ever-clever “5-O,” which consists mainly of intoxicated hillbillies running from overweight police officers. Once a criminal was even apprehended. But fortunately for Earl’s intellectually starved gray matter, that week had been “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel. Images of sharks thrashing themselves against the steel bars of cage divers’ cages caused blood to flow into parts of his brain that had dried out years ago. Earl felt he might actually learn something. As Earl sat in front of that TV, a tiny window opened in his brain so that when that tidal wave of salty, salty genius hit him, some of that brilliant wave was able to slosh into his mind and illuminate the cavity that had been Earl’s skull. Earl was going to build a shark tank.
After receiving his high school diploma, Earl had made it a point in his life to avoid learning anything that wasn’t necessary for his job or that didn’t have to do with basic cobblery (Earl was a whiz with shoes). Earl had been fairly successful in his endeavor to exclude all superfluous learning from his life. Outside of learning basic computer skills, a must for a budding Home Depot associate, and the latest advances in cobblery, which luckily for Earl hadn’t been many, Earl’s life had been devoid of any new knowledge in an ever-changing world. Although he would never admit to it, Earl’s lack of knowledge was not due to stupidity. His willful ignorance was due to a lack of motivation in his life. Earl had long been aware that his pig-headed rejection of all new forms of knowledge and cultural advancement irked his wife, Carol, to no end. Upon Earl’s abandonment of all forms of intellectual curiosity, Carol had usurped the proverbial pants of the relationship from around Earl’s bony ankles very early into their marriage. In the end, Earl thought it was a small price to pay for his ignorance. To be free from the pains of thought and decision-making was well worth his wife’s condescension, in Earl’s opinion. So when Earl announced to Carol that evening at dinner that he would be building a shark tank in the basement, her surprise was no surprise to Earl.
“Why the heck would you want to do such a dumb thing? ” Carol asked as she dumped another helping of steaming peas and carrots into Earl’s plate.
“I don’t know, Baby, it just seems like something that I need to do,” Earl said, his mouth full of mashed potatoes. He looked down at the pile of peas and carrots that Carol had just deposited in his plate; his mind was swimming with dread and resentment. How he hated those awful things. “I just need to have something in my life that I can care about, you know? Like a hobby.”
“There are plenty of hobbies that don’t require the keeping of dangerous creatures in our basement. What about your shoes? You used to make such beautiful, utilitarian shoes.” Carol said.
“I just feel like I need something more out of life than shoes,” Earl pleaded. He hoped that, with just the right amount of desperation in his voice, he might get what he wanted.
“We can get a tropical fish tank. If you do well with that, then maybe we can move up to saltwater. I’m sorry, but that’s as much as I can do for you,” Carol said, and then she turned back to her meal. Earl knew that she would hear no more on the subject.
Earl was consumed that next week with the purchase and assembly of all the components of his new tropical fish tank. Earl decided to keep it simple and bought a kit that included everything he would need, save the fish and the water. He set the kit up and ran the tank with just water for three days to let the good bacteria grow in the filter, just like the care guide said. Over those few days as Earl would walk by the tank in his daily routine, he often found himself staring into the tank and imagining fish swimming through the water, cutting through the currents, sleek and elegant as tiny sharks. He began to believe that these few fish might be enough to quell his driving needs.
When the time came, Earl went out to the local pet store to stock his tank for the first time. According to the care guide, Earl was supposed to start the tank off with a few starter fish of a heartier variety. The guide suggested zebra danios or neon tetras. Earl had thought that he would start with neon tetras, but when he got to the tropical fish tanks in the pet store, he couldn’t even bring himself to look at them. They were so puny and dainty, nothing like the sharks with which he had fallen in love. Earl looked through all labels on the fish tanks. His eyes were drawn to certain names: bala shark, redtail shark, black shark, Columbian shark, rainbow shark. Without even examining the fish, Earl told the clerk he needed one of each.
Earl floated each bag with each confused-looking fish in the tank for fifteen minutes in accordance with the aquarium care guide. As Earl cut the tops of the bags and released the fish into the water, he frowned at the whole set up. Nothing was as it should have been. The bubbling treasure chest, the brightly colored pebbles of the ocean floor, the plastic seaweed, everything was too artificial. Even the sharks weren’t sharks. They weren’t skimming across the ocean floor with unmitigated grace and power, they just slogged around like bikes with deflated tires. The whole thing reminded Earl too much of his marriage. They didn’t even move like sharks. Where did the pet store get off, calling these things sharks? Earl felt underwhelmed, and, worst of all, gypped.
Earl spent the rest of that night online, looking up do-it-yourself websites for building your own aquarium. Carol had kicked him out of their bedroom over a fight he could hardly remember. Earl wasn’t about to give up on his project, whether Carol approved of it or not. He needed to see sharks, real sharks, every day. When he finally found a good set of instructions, Earl printed out a list of supplies, turned on the Discovery Channel, curled up on the couch, and dreamt beautiful dreams full of sharky wonder.
The next morning Earl pretended to remain asleep on the couch until he was sure that Carol had left for work. She thought she was so important with her business suit and her cup of coffee. It made him sick. It was time Earl got a hold of his marriage and took control. For too long, Carol had been making the rules and keeping him from the things that he loved. It had gotten to the point that she had begun listing acceptable outlets for “sexual overflow,” as she put it. Things like reading romance novels, or watching a love story on the Women’s Network were alright, but looking at pornography was unacceptable. Carol had even added parental settings to their computer so that he “wouldn’t be tempted.” Earl had to do something.
Being a Home Depot associate gave Earl a leg up in the construction of his aquarium. He already had the jigsaw needed for cutting the sheets of acrylic. As for the 4ftx8ft sheet of 1/2" acrylic, electrical tape, and Weld-on #4 Solvent Cement, he could pick those up at work for cheap with his twenty percent employee discount, (twice the discount Wal-Mart employees got). The shark, on the other hand, would be another matter. Earl decided not to worry about that until he had a tank that he was sure would hold water.
Luckily for Earl, the basement was his space. All they kept down there were holiday decorations and an unused, uncared-for plethora of junk. Carol seldom went into the basement. When she needed something from down there, (e.g. the Christmas tree once a year) she had Earl get it for her. She claimed that she was afraid of the place, but Earl suspected that she was just lazy, and that it was just another chance for her to be bossy. Because of this love of hers to lord it over him, Earl was, ironically, left free to hide all his shark-tank-related activity from her. Earl had exactly one hour a day during which he was free from Carol: the time between when he got home from work, about five o’clock in the afternoon, and when she did.
For several weeks, Earl snuck down to the basement to work on his beloved shark tank during this precious hour, and was successful in hiding it from his wife. By the time Carol got home, Earl was always sure to have his butt on the couch and his eyes plastered to the TV screen. Carol would go about her business as usual. She didn’t suspect a thing. The time he spent alone, sawing sheets of acrylic, sanding down edges, cementing corners together, and taping corners in place to allow the cement to set, were the most joyous hours of Earl’s days. This new, industrious version of himself made him feel important, and the secrecy of his project made Earl feel clever and mysterious.
Every two weeks during this period Earl was sure to set aside a small portion of his paycheck for the purchase of his shark and other shark-keeping paraphernalia. Earl had wisely decided after visiting many do-it-yourself sites that building a saltwater filtration system for a shark tank was beyond his capabilities, so it would need to be purchased. Earl’s income was negligible compared to what Carol made, but being limited to only an hour of Carol-less time each day slowed the project to a crawl. The reduced pace of his building allowed for plenty of paychecks from which Earl could save. Carol had always been the actual breadwinner for the household.
Lately, Earl had begun to wonder why it was that she had ever married him. He knew that it wasn’t his brains, charm, or personality, chiefly because he knew his wife well, and those were not the qualities that she generally admired in human beings. He figured it had to be a combination of his chiseled features and his preternaturally white teeth. Those were the qualities for which she had chosen all her interns, after all. Mostly he guessed that she had married him because they had been so young and in love, and he was everything that she wasn’t. She was always so brilliant and motivated (she had attended the esteemed Penultimate Pinnacle University School of Business and Philosophy); whereas, Earl hadn’t had any initiative to do anything with his life. He was the perfect way to rebel against Mommy and Daddy.
In any case, the money Earl set aside would not be missed.
After the last piece of acrylic was set and the saltwater filtration system had been purchased, it was time for Earl to procure his shark. Much to Earl’s despair, the internet didn’t seem to have the selection of sharks for which he had been hoping. Most of the sharks he had found for sale online were innocent-looking Nurse Sharks, or cute little Eppaulette Sharks with their Dalmatian spots and their long, eel-like bodies. They were nothing like the ferocious beasts that had captured Earl’s imagination on the Discovery Channel. No, these smaller varieties would never do. Instead, Earl decided to try his luck at the docks.
Early one Sunday morning, as Carol always slept in on Sundays, Earl snuck out of bed, got dressed, and headed down to the docks to talk to some of the fishermen as they unloaded their catch. According to one of the programs Earl had watched during “Shark Week,” some pretty vicious-looking sharks often got caught in fishing nets. Those might be the kind of sharks Earl was looking to keep – the kind that looked like they would eat their own mother as soon as look at her. The kind that could tear a person limb-from-limb without remorse. The kind with “the sort of elegant brutality that only comes with millions of years of Darwinian evolution.” That was the kind of shark Earl needed for his tank. Earl figured that if he brought the rest of his savings with him to the docks, he could probably get one of those fishermen to hold onto at least a couple of sharks like that for him.
“Well, guy, I can catch ya a real shark, no doubt about that, but it’s gonna cost ya,” the short, burly fisherman said as he looked up at Earl. The man had a perpetual look of hungry nonchalance.
“How much are we talking about?” Earl asked.
“The risk here is high, guy. These conservationist types have been bearing down on the Fish and Game guys pretty hard these past few years. The fines for this sort of thing are astronomical. Plus, I could lose my license and my business… How much you got?” the fisherman asked with one eyebrow raised. Earl worried that he was being taken, but he had no choice.
It would be another two weeks before Earl could afford even one shark for his tank. In the meantime Earl decided to fill his tank and begin running the filter. According to all the websites, it was important to run the tank empty for a week or two in order to build up the necessary bacteria to break down ammonia into nitrites or nitrates or something. Earl didn’t understand all the chemistry jargon, but he figured it was best, considering the amount of money he had put into this shark, that he do everything he could to make the environment comfortable for her. Earl also used this time to construct a small holding tank, about the size of a casket, to transport the shark from the dock to his basement.
The last days before Earl’s shark was scheduled to be picked up were impossible to endure, dripping by like the last days before Christmas. Carol, in all her splendor, wasn’t making things any easier for Earl. She had taken to coming home an hour early every day. She claimed that it was because she missed his company in the evenings, noting that their relationship had been slipping away in the past few months. Carol claimed that she feared that they were growing apart, but Earl knew the truth. Her latest affair with the intern flavor of the month had probably died away, and she was feeling lonely. Earl wasn’t about to play into that game.
What galled him the most was that she was getting in the way of his quality time with the shark tank. Even without the shark, Earl enjoyed sitting in front of it every day. He liked to imagine his shark elegantly cutting through the waves somewhere, on her way home. Perhaps she would be pregnant with a baby shark. Earl had always wanted children, but Carol wouldn’t even consider it. She couldn’t bear to wreck her body and career for something as unnecessary in this overpopulated world as another child, Carol argued. None of that mattered now, because in just a few days Earl would have a new family. He would have a beautiful, striking, and elegant shark with which to spend the rest of his life. Earl would finally be his own master, lord of his own fiefdom, captain of his own vessel. In just a few short days Earl would be swimming in an ocean of his own creation, with someone who could truly love and understand him, the master of his own destiny.
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