The Tribulations of Sticky Stinsky

Susan P. Stinsky, or Stick Stinsky as she was better known, sat in her regular spot on the gym floor for which she was named, gawking lustfully up at the decadent cheerleaders flying overhead. How beautiful they looked in their brightly colored uniforms and ribbon-adorned pigtails bobbing elegantly from side-to-side. Surely they were as gods who lead the fawning crowd with such verve and cheer. Susan wondered if Caesar himself could have boasted such excited loyalty, even at the height of his glory. How could it be that she had not been asked to join the ranks of this exquisite sorority?

No one could deny that Susan looked that part. She had the iconic long glossy hair, which she deep conditioned every Sunday, precisely at 3:33 am, in a formula of her own devising comprised principally of mayonnaise and Aloe Vera. Hair which could be worn high enough to bounce arabesquely, but not so high as to look neurotic. Combined with her nymphish physique and above average smile, Susie P. was cheerleading personified.

In terms of capability, again, Susan was more than qualified. She was more than competent in both front and side splits, which she practiced nightly after a hot bath when she knew her muscles would be the most limber. Also Susan had more that met the minimum for cheers memorized, having committed to memory over 150 separate cheers including the fabled “Oswego Chug.”

Of all the pep rallies, football games, and bonfires that had occurred this year (or any given year for that matter), Susie P. hadn’t missed a single one. Even when Susie was nearly killed last October by a drunken motorcyclist, she showed up for the following Friday’s big game against the Orange town Orangutans, body cast and all. Susie thought for sure that the girls would have noticed her spunk, her effort, and her love of pep by now. But they hadn’t.

“Who need’s them?” Lil’ Sally with the lazy eye would snort. “You’ve got all you need right here with your best friend, this half-full carton of booze, “Reba” on DVD, and this old Chinese food.”

“That’s easy for you to say Lil’ Sally, you’re a dead ringer for that Lazy-Eyed Narwhal mascot!” Susan hissed, then turned away and muttered to herself. “You get your panties stuck to the gym floor one time and you’re Sticky Stinsky for life.”

“There’s no need to be jealous, we can’t all be popular.” It was true; despite her lazy eye, unkempt hair, and the fact that one of her legs was slightly longer than the other, Lil’ Sally had to be the most popular girl at Westmoreland High. Susan figured that it had to be either Lil’ Sally’s confidence or impecably pristine bridgework that keep her in vogue with all the kids.

“Forget “Reba” on DVD, Lil’ Sally, just go get your best spare set of dentures and meet me in the garage, I’ve got a plan.” Susan said with a glimmer in her eye, then grabbed the half-full carton of booze and strutted confidently out of the room.

Although this request seemed mighty odd, Lil’ Sally didn’t hesitate for one second. Susan and she had been best friends for almost four and a half days now and she had never steered Lil’ Sally wrong. In fact it had been Susan’s idea in the first place to try out to be the Westmoreland Lazy-Eyed Narwhal, a move that put Lil’ Sally on the map. Whatever Susan’s plan was, it was going to be good.

Ten minutes later Lil’ Sally walked into the garage, dentures in hand, to find Susie P.  lying in the center of the floor hugging an almost-empty carton of booze in one arm and eagerly waving a crimson-handled Craftsman wrench toward Lil’ Sally with the other. 

“What is it, Lil’ Sally, that makes you so popular among the kids at school?’ Susan mused as she handed the wrench to her best friend.

Lil’ Sally shrugged. “Uhh… Probably either my incredible, narwhal-themed dance moves or my sparkling dentures.”

“Well which of is more popular than the others?” Susan asked then took a long swig from her carton of booze.

Lil’ Sally could tell where this was going. “Ah, you want me to teach you some of my dance moves.” Lil’ Sally grinned. Susan had always been the brains of the relationship.

“No, Lil’ Sally, I need you to remove my old, unpopular teeth with that wrench there so that I can have some nice dentures like you.” Susan stated then downed the last of her booze, laid down flat, and smiled wide.

“Oh, Susie, you’re so smart.” Lil’ Sally retorted as she wound the wrench up, high above her head. “I can’t think of a better way to get on the cheerleading squad.”

The Handicapped Stall

Howard stared blankly at the sweaty glass in front of him, filled only with cola-tinged ice cubes. In the background he could hear the faint and monotonous whine that was his sister, Amy, complaining about the latest wrong perpetrated by her latest boyfriend, but his concentration was enveloped by the sharp, yet familiar pain growing in his lower abdomen. He had to pee.

“So… what do you think I should do, Howie?” His sister said in a tone, which he knew meant that she really wasn’t going to take into consideration whatever he said next; only that her throat was dry from all that talking and she needed to pause for a sip of soda.

Howard opened his mouth as if to say something. He didn’t know why as he had no idea where the conversation was at this point, nor what an appropriate response would be to his sister’s question. Luckily, at just that moment their over-enthusiastic waitress joined Howard and Amy.

 “Is there anything else I could get for you folks? A refill on sodas maybe!” The waitress almost cheered. Howard could feel his bladder flip at the mention of soda.

            “I think I’m fine,” Howard said, “Amy get a dessert or something if you want, I’ve got to use the restroom.” Howard tried to get up from his chair and head off nonchalantly, yet with some haste as he could feel that embarrassment was immanent.

            Howard dodged his way past waiters balancing trays of drinks and entrees, children strapped in high-chairs at the ends of tables, flailing their arms and shaking their tear-stained faces, patrons shoving arms into outstretched sleeves, as if they were about to exit the restaurant into some kind of arctic tundra. Howard was relieved to find the wooden door with the little blue sign with the little white stick figure, which read “MEN.”

            Howard walked inside the restroom and surveyed the damage. It wasn’t a particularly dirty bathroom, but it did give off the sense that the employees hosed the room down at the end of the day, rather than clean it. Howard looked into one of the stalls. The seat of the toilet was covered in soaking wet pieces of toilet paper that looked as if they had once been some kind of makeshift toilet seat cover. Howard wasn’t about to tackle that disaster. He approached the bank of the urinals. They were all wet as well, but this didn’t bother Howard as much, as he would not be making skin to porcelain contact with them.

            Howard stood in front of the urinal for some time, trying to relax, trying to concentrate on the task at hand, but he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t get comfortable. Ever since he was a child, Howard had never been able to pee standing up. He suspected that it was because his mother raised he and his sister alone. Without a father around, Howard had never learned how to do it.

            Looking around the bathroom one last time, Howard noticed an option he hadn’t considered before: the handicapped stall. Whenever he would use a public bathroom, Howard would always avoid the handicapped stall. Although he had never seen an actual handicapped person use the handicapped stall, he figured they had exclusive rights to it. But these were desperate times, and he could feel the cola from his latest meal lapping up against the backs of his tonsils.

When he entered the stall, he could see that the place was pristine. The toilet seat shimmered, and the linoleum was immaculate. Howard couldn’t have asked for anything more from a public restroom. For a moment he felt a pang of guilt, then quickly squelched that guilt with the rationalization that every other time he had entered a bathroom and the handicapped stall had been occupied, it had not been occupied by a handicapped man. With a sense of true contentedness, he pulled down his pants, sat down on the toilet, and experienced a sensation Howard imagined was much like the one a bathtub might get when the plug is pulled from its drain. As Howard continued to relieve himself, he heard the sound of the door to the bathroom swing open followed by a familiar sound which he couldn’t put his finger on. There were no footsteps, he realized, only this sound. The sound was like rubber rolling over a sticky floor. A look of horror began to stretch itself across Howard’s face as he realized that it was the sound of a wheelchair.

Howard quickly realized that he was trapped. He couldn’t leave now because then this handicapped man would see that he was in no way handicapped. And he couldn’t stay in the stall because it was the only handicapped accessible stall in the restroom, the handicapped man would certainly wait for him to vacate this stall rather than attempt any of the other means of bodily waste deposit available in the bathroom. Howard could hear the tacky sound of the wheelchair approaching his stall door.

The stall door shook slightly as the handicapped man knocked.

“Occupied!” Howard instinctively responded, then clasped his hand over his mouth, amazed at his own actions. Now the handicapped man knew he was in there. Howard looked around the stall for some hints at a possibility of escape. He looked around to find an air duct that he could escape through, but there were none to be found. He thought about shimmying under the side of the stall into a neighboring stall, but he was wearing his favorite sweater and those floors were wet and probably covered in millions of species of bacteria. Perhaps he could just take off his sweater and shirt and just slide, bareback, under the side of the stall. However, Howard had just used up the last of his sick days last month and this would be a bad time to contract bubonic plague. He decided that the only thing to do was to wait it out.

Years passed by, which were probably only minutes, and Howard could still see the handicapped man’s wheels from under the stall door. He also figured that his sister had probably left by now, and that he would be getting an earful from his mother about abandoning his little sister in her time of need, and leaving her with the check no less. Another knock came from the stall door.

“Hey buddy,” the handicapped man said, “you alright in there… you need me to call somebody?”

“Nope, doing just fine.” Howard responded, not knowing what else to do. He realized that if he had said nothing the handicapped man might have attempted to get him help. He wouldn’t be able to handle that embarrassment.

“Well, hurry up, guy. I really gotta take a leak here,” the handicapped man whined.

Another hundred years passed on like an eternity for Howard, and brought with them another knock on the door. This time the knock was much more forceful. He began to wring his hands nervously. The only other time he had been this close to confrontation was in the third grade when Amy tried to pet a strange dog on their way home from the bus stop. The dog growled at his sister, and Howard punched it in the head. Then they both ran home, Howard grinning overconfidently. He couldn’t remember if the dog chased them or not.

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re trying to play here,” said the handicapped man, “I bet you’re not even handicapped. I am so sick of you people using our stalls. There’s a handicapped sign on the door for a reason!”

The handicapped man was shouting now. His banging on the door was growing more and more intense. “If I find out that you’re not handicapped when you come out of that stall, I’m gonna sue your ass and then make you handicapped myself!” Howard watched, motionless with fear, as the door rattled with violent banging. He could feel the screws twisting slowly out of their hinges with every rap on that stall door. He knew that in just a few minutes that stall door would come crashing down on him. He wondered what it would be like to be handicapped.

Jeffery’s Toast

The dingy white tile that surrounded Jeffrey in the subway station made him feel somehow nostalgic. Not a feeling of reminiscence about his own childhood. Jeffrey had grown up in an almost rural suburb and had never been in a subway until he had gotten his current job and moved to the city at the age of twenty-four. But the tile seemed to Jeffery to be something that could be nostalgic to someone else, if only just to a character in a sitcom, and that made him feel somehow nostalgic. Jeffery seemed to feel nostalgic about everything sometimes, which bothered him immensely as he had hated his childhood and had always resented having been raised in the suburbs. So what did he have to be nostalgic about?

Perhaps it was a lack of real nostalgic items in his life that caused him to reminisce over objects that had nothing to do with his past. Maybe he had some kind of tumor pressing on some part of his brain. He was no phrenologist, but Jeffery felt this nostalgia problem coupled with his uncanny inability to properly execute the toasting of bread suggested something more sinister than quirky. It was on this morning as Jeffery sat on the subway bench with a piece of buttered white bread in one hand and his Starbucks in the other, struggling with nostalgia and a curiously strong stress headache, that he met Julya.

She was a stunningly beautiful young woman, so much so that Jeffery took her for a figment of his possibly tumor-driven headache before even considering the seemingly remote chance that she actually existed. After all, she had looked directly at him as she exited the train, and attractive women rarely did that to Jeffery. She had long brown hair and bright brown eyes, not an uncommon combination for a Caucasian female, yet Jeffery found these features combined with the busty curvature of her red vinyl jacket to be very attractive.

“That’s an interesting breakfast for a businessman.” She said, with a flaccid finger pointed at his bread and butter.

Jeffery managed to curl his thick, almost feminine lips into an awkward smile, nodded, and added, “I was in a hurry this morning.” It was an excuse he had become accustomed to giving since many people had trouble appreciating, or even comprehending the problems he had with toast. He seemed to be the only person on the planet that couldn’t toast a piece of bread, which he considered further evidence of a brain tumor. He imagined a blackish-gray mass at the center of his brain, soft to the touch, but with a dense core, pressing against different areas of gray matter and interrupting synaptic pathways.  

 Jeffery had tried for many years to explain to friends and strangers alike that it was impossible for him to make a piece of toast. He would regale his listener with stories of bread coming out of his toaster just as it had gone in, whether set to light, medium, or dark. He would spin long-winded yarns about scraping burnt pieces of toast over his sink until they crumbled apart in his hand. He would list the seemingly endless brands and models of toasters he had owned, which had lead him to the conclusion that the problem was simply him. No one was able to sympathize, and so he had thought up a handful of feasible excuses, written them down, studied them, practiced them in his bathroom mirror, and then tucked them away in the back of his mind for occasions such as this.

“That makes sense, I guess… my name is Julya.” She said with her right arm extended.

“I’m Jeffery.” He said taking her hand in his. She had a strong grip for such a lithe woman. Jeffery thought that she must play tennis, or the guitar.

Julya sat down on the subway bench, almost uncomfortably close to Jeffery, crossed her shapely stockinged legs, and stared at Jeffery with her impossibly large, mascara fringed, eyes. Jeffery took another bite of his buttered bread. 

“I guess you must be a big fan of Starbucks then.” Julya said.

Jeffery shrugged, “No more so than the next guy, why do you say that?”

“Well, I was just thinking that if you had time to stand in a long line at Starbucks during the morning rush, then you certainly had time to toast a piece of bread. Therefore, you must have sacrificed your toast for time in a Starbucks line. Am I right?”

“Makes perfect sense to me.” Jeffery said. His mind raced around the inside of his skull, collecting lies with which he could plug the holes Julya had gouged in his logic.

“Yeah, except you don’t seem like the kind of guy that would sacrifice his morning toast for a Starbucks fix. Not with that tie and those glasses.” Julya was referencing his green paisley tie and his safely rebellious horn-rim frames with the keyhole bridge. “So what’s the real story here?”

Jeffery was not sure what to say here. Nobody had ever pressed him beyond his feeble, previously prepared answers. Most people didn’t seem to really care. He had thought that he could live a toastless life built on white bread lies, but this woman wasn’t going to let it go. Wasn’t it bad enough to not be able to make toast, be plagued with inexplicable nostalgia, and struggle with the possibility of a brain tumor? Now the lies he had to tell to keep his life simpler were under attack.

Julya stared at him with lips pursed in expectation. Jeff had nothing. His feeling of stress over the question of toast was almost nostalgic. His head was throbbing with tumorous pangs.

Julya looked at her watch with a frown. Then pulled a card out of the breast pocket of her red vinyl jacket.

“There’s something strange about you, Mr. Jeffery.  Why don’t you think about telling me all about it tonight,” she said as she handed Jeffery the card, which read Julya M. Richards: Amateur Phrenologist followed by an address, “Pick me up around eight o’clock?”

“Sure.” Jeffery said with eyebrows raised in suspicion.

*  *  *

At five o’clock Jeffery logged off of his computer, went home, spent about an hour and a half agonizing over what to wear to dinner (after several outfits he finally came to settle on his original concept: khaki slacks, a brown belt, and a blue collared shirt with the top two buttons undone), and finally, holding a red carnation in his right hand, rang Julya’s doorbell at exactly five minutes to eight.

Although dressed in exactly what she had been wearing that morning, Julya looked somehow even more attractive smiling in the doorway of her brownstone. Jeffery thought that it was either due to some strange effect from the evening twilight on her face backlit by the incandescent light from inside, or just the change of setting.

“Isn’t that sweet,” Julya said, as she took the carnation Jeffery had nervously and unceremoniously thrust at her with an awkward smile, “why don’t you come in while I put this in some water?”

Jeffery wove the fingers of his left hand in and out of the fingers of his right hand anxiously as he waited on the red vinyl loveseat in Julya’s living room. The room was modestly decorated with a few Georgia O’Keefe prints on the wall and a tall oak bookshelf filled with various titles he had never heard of, Phrenology texts no doubt. A matching oak coffee table was home to a large ceramic Phrenology head and a smooth stone paperweight with the word “Discovery” imprinted on it.  She had no television.

“Did you find the place okay?” Julya voice lilted from a room somewhere down the hallway. It occurred to Jeffery that he had no idea. He remembered leaving his apartment, hearing the deadbolt clank, and walking up the steps to her brownstone. Surely there were other steps on his trip there, but he couldn’t remember a single one. Perhaps he was having a psychotic episode.

“Just fine,” Jeffery lied as he ran his hands down the crease in his slacks. He wanted to believe that if he stared at his pants long enough things would begin to make sense.

“Good,” Julya’s voice almost whispered in his ear. Jeffery looked up from his slacks to find Julya standing on the other side of the coffee table, completely naked. He couldn’t tell if he was more surprised by this, or the shocking similarity between her genitalia and the flower in Georgia O’Keefe print hanging from the wall behind her. He wondered if that is what had caused her to buy the print in the first place.

Julya gave a sympathetic smile as she walked around the coffee table towards Jeffery. Before he could get up, Julya had rested her hands on his shoulders and was now resting a well-manicured, equilateral triangle of pubic hair on his lap. A struggle between his mind and his member had rendered him paralytic. The sweet mixture of body and perfume wafted from the nape of Julya’s neck as her mouth drew closer to his ear.

“Just close your eyes and try not to think, I’m going to fix your toasting problem,” Julya whispered into his flushed ear. Jeffery stared wide-eyed at the Georgia O’Keefe print, imagining the flower nestling on his crotch. He couldn’t close his eyes if he had wanted to. With her middle and index fingers drew Jeffery’s eyes closed like blinds pulled down over windows and all was dark. He couldn’t move, he could barely breathe, but he knew somewhere in the center of his brain tumor that he had to trust this strange, naked woman.

Slowly the whole room seemed to rock back and forth as Jeffery felt Julya rub her warmth on his upper thigh. Fingers resting in his bangs, he could feel her soft palm pressing gently on his forehead. As the creaking and groaning of knees against vinyl increased in intensity, so did the pressure Jeffery felt on his forehead. It seemed as though Julya was putting all of her weight onto the front of his skull.

“Relax,” Julya cooed, and Jeffery found himself complying. He felt the muscles in his neck go limp and his head sink into the back of the loveseat. He felt his forehead go soft and Julya’s hand sink into his head like a knife into a pumpkin.

Julya’s hand slipped deep into his head, into the center of his brain. Jeffery could feel her hand come alive in his skull. She must have been elbow-deep. His hair stood on end as fingers wriggled their way through the folds in his grey matter. He could feel his mind squish between her fingers like Play-Doh.

Jeffery’s arms went limp and his legs shot up, knocking the coffee table over and shattering Julya’s Phrenology head on the hardwood floor. He realized that she had wrapped her fingers around something inside him, squeezing tightly as she pulled it from his skull. Jeffery could hear the slurping squish as Julya’s hand exited his skull like a mixer from a bowl of cookie dough.

Jeffery’s hands shot up to his forehead, searching for the hole, but aside from a smearing of pinkish goop, his head was normal. Julya still sat in his lap, her right arm covered with the same substance as was on his forehead. She was inspecting a black, ashen lump in the palm of her hand. Jeffery’s mouth was dry from being agape for so long.

“Thanks,” Jeffery said after a long silence, “how did you know?’

            “Oh, I could tell immediately by the shape of your head,” Julya grinned as she handed him the lump from his brain. It almost looked like a burnt piece of toast.

In the Passenger Seat on the Way to the Hospital

            Perhaps what bothered Tony most about the situation, aside from the mind-bendingly agonizing pain, was the stickiness and acrid metallic smell of the blood that now covered his left hand and his new suede jacket. The jacket, which he had just received the week before for Christmas, would be ruined. He was sure of it. The  pain he understood. Expected even. But it was really the stickiness that was troublesome. He could never stand to have his hands sticky, it was torture. And the inching that he felt as the blood dried on the hair on his arm was just ridiculous. How was he expected to experience his terror properly with all of these distractions. The way he saw it; when a man severs his pinky, that should be the only thing on his mind.

            “Hang in there, Tony, we‘ll be there soon!” His wife Martha shouted as they hung a hard left turn. Tony wondered why she was shouting. Was it due to panic? Or perhaps he was still screaming and she was shouting over him. He couldn’t be sure. He felt about as attached to reality as to his left pinky.

            This pinky itself was gone. He was sure of it. He had seen it go flying over the fence as the split halves of log tumbled onto the ground next to the chopping block. What a sickening sight to see a piece of his body hurdling through the air. The neighbors cat was probably gnawing on it at that moment. How would he get along at work with only nine fingers? Would he have to learn to type with a prosthetic pinky, or would he just learn to type with only nine fingers? He couldn’t take time off of work for this, he had just spent the last of his sick days to get New Years Eve off.

            Suddenly Tony noticed that the stickiness didn’t bother him so much any more. The pain felt duller and his hand felt cold and numb. As he turned his head to see the streaming colors of the cars outside the window, he wondered if he was close to death or just in shock. Judging by the redness of his pants and shoes, Tony had lost a lot of blood. He couldn’t think about it anymore, it was too much to handle and he was getting so sleepy.

            “Try to stay awake, Baby, just a few more minutes.” Martha said, this time much quieter.  Her tone was more calm and soothing, but there was a hint of panic underneath. Tony wondered how far away this hospital was. It felt like they had been driving for hours, though it had probably only been fifteen minutes. By this point it became hard to care.  He was starting to feel very comfortable with his head resting on the dashboard. So comfortable, in fact, that it became hard to keep his eyes open and he had almost completely forgotten why his hands were so sticky and red.

Not Mud in Your Eye

           Richard Gilligan laid sprawled out on the hardwood floor, semi-conscious and blinking. Just blinking away his sore, sore eyes. His mind was blank. It didn’t seem to want to function correctly. Richard was beginning to regain control over his faculties. He brought his hand up to palpate his left eye, tender to the touch. He could feel an acute pressure in the back of his skull as he did so. It felt as though he was pushing a needle into the center of his brain. How had he ended up on the floor last night? Why were his eyes so tender?

            Richard sat up and looked around the room. Something was off. His purple and chartreuse ottoman seemed duller than usual, along with the colors in the rest of the living room. Maybe it was an overcast day. Richard looked toward the window, which looked much further away than it ought to be, but it seemed pretty bright. He was more concerned that his window was so far away. What had once been his tiny living room now seemed more like a corridor. The angles of Richard’s couch along the corridor wall seemed incorrect, lopsided even. He had to get out of there and clear his mind. As he attempted to stand up he was struck with a pain not unlike the one he experienced when he touched his left eye, but much more severe. His head jerked back at this and he collapsed onto the hardwood floor.

            When Richard came to he was staring up into the worried eyes of his dread-headed roommate, D’wayn. It had never occurred to Richard until this moment that at 42 and a half years old, he might just be too old to have a roommate like D’wayn. It was true that most of Richard’s friends had long since graduated from SUNY Albany with their various degrees but, as a 22^nd year sophomore, Richard had still hadn’t found the right major. And with $972,000 worth of debt on which no payment would be due until six months after graduation, and no great prospects elsewhere, Richard could find no reason to move on with his life.

            Richard had met D’wayne the summer before last at the latest of his many part-time jobs. Over the years as his debt piled up, Richard would periodically attain a part-time job in an attemtp to pay some of it off, or just for some spare cast to fund his many parties. These jobs never lasted more than a few weeks. D’wayne was the bus boy to Richard’s watering at a little mexican resturant called Los Encheladas. Through this symbiotic relationship of serving, cleaning, pot smoking by the resturant dumpster, and tip sharing, Richard and D’wayne grew to be friends. So when Richard’s lease ened that september, he suggested that he and D’wayne move in together.

            “Dude, that looks so harsh,” D’wayne said, still hovering over Richard. “What’d you do to deserve that set of shiners?”

            Richard thought back on the night before. All he could remember were Chelsea’s face and a pair of pink Reeboks. Chelsea was kind of like Richard’s girlfriend, though he didn’t like to limit himself with labels like that. Richard had met Chelsea in his Anthropology seminar two years ago when he was working toward one of his many attempted majors. He had decided then that it would be cool to be an Archeologist. That is, until the expectations that he had cultivated by watching Jurassic Park were shattered by the actual content of the course. In any case Chelsea had been his professor for both that course and his Intro to Tae Bo that semester and they really hit it off. Normally the university would frown upon this situation, but seeing that Richard was Chelsea’s senior by eight years, and since Richard had taken courses with nearly every professor on campus and was so well liked, it was more or less accepted.

            “I don’t know, man… all I remember is… I don’t know, was Chelsea here last night?” Richard’s mind was still swimming from the pain in his skull.

            “Shit dude, I think she was. And I think Cindy was here last night too,” D’wayne recalled, now gawking at Richard’s left eye.

            “Oh, Jeez. I’d better get over there and do some damage control,” Richard responded.

            “Well you might want to swing by the emergency room first, that left eye’s starting to look a little wonky.”

            “Wonky? What the hell does that mean?” Richard snapped in a nervous tone.

            “I mean you left eye isn’t synced up with the right one. It’s just floating around the socket like a dead fish.”

             “Oh, I probably shouldn’t drive then… can you take me?”

An hour and forty minutes later Richard and D’wayne were in a blindingly white examination room. Richard was sitting on an examination table with doctor peering carefully into his left eye. The doctor was standing very close to Richard’s face. Richard could smell the Minestrone the doctor had had for lunch a little too well for his liking. D’wayne was staring incredulously at a poster describing the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome and advertising Terraquant laser treatment.

            “Well, Mr. Gilligan. It seems like you may have detached your retina in at least the left eye, if not right as well. What were you doing, if you don’t mind my asking?”  the doctor asked, nearly cheek-to-cheek with Richard now.

            “I… actually can’t remember.”

            “Man, they think they can cure everything with lasers these days!” D’wayne blurted out.

            “As a matter of fact, one of your treatment options for this injury is laser surgery.”

            “Don’t do it man, it makes no sense. How can lasers fix an eye? I don’t buy it, they just want to hike up the bill,” D’wayne argued. Richard was beginning to get confused. His mind still hadn’t settled from whatever had damaged his eyes and he could barely follow what was going on.

“Actually it’s less expensive, less invasive, and less time consuming than the alternative: Cryotherapy, in which we use liquid nitrogen to seal the retina to the back wall of the eye again.”

            “That doesn’t sound too bad,” D’wayne suggested.

            “I’ll take the laser thing,” Richard replied. He still hardly knew what it meant to choose either one, but he knew that it was always a good bet to ignore D’wayne’s input entirely. Last time Richard had listened to D’wayne it ended with two broken fingers, a bad tatttoo that looked more like a baked potato than a sea turtle, and irreprable damage to his liver. Why a sea turtle Richard would never know.

Within two hours Richard was lasered, paid for, and on his way to Chelsea’s apartment. Richard had no insurance. He hadn’t been covered by his father’s insurance for nearly twenty years now, but he figured another $2,500 was just another drop in the water tower that was his debt. And besides, he got these cool new shades out of the deal so it was all kosher.

            “Alright, D’wayne, when we get to Chelsea’s apartment I want you to wait in the car,” Richard said as D’wayne pulled out of the St. Peter’s Hospital parking deck.

            “That’s cool, man. But you should stop and get some flowers on the way. Chicks love the flowers, man.”

            “That’s such a puerile gesture. You don’t give a woman Chelsea’s age flowers.”

            “Why not, dude? I give my mom flowers.”

            “Chelsea is twenty years younger than your mother, so don’t even go there. In fact, don’t go anywhere. Just stay in the car and let me handle it.”

            Chelsea sat on a crimson leather sofa across from Richard trying her hardest to look distracted by cleaning her nails. She was wearing a pair of pink Reeboks.

            “So what happened to your eyes?” Chelsea spoke with an impeccable British accent; no one could figure out how she had acquired this accent as she was born and raised in Schoharie County, New York and had never in her life been to England. She claimed it was a speech impediment and would become very terse whenever Richard mentioned it.

            “I should think you’d have a better answer for that than I,” Richard answered as Chelsea ran her thumbnail along the bottom of a front tooth to clean it. “You did a good bit of damage too… detached the retina in this one here.” Richard pointed to his still lazy left eye.

            “Huh… I thought I dreamt that part,” Chelsea grinned as she ran a pinky along her bottom left incisor. “Good.”

            Richard jumped to his feet at this. “You could have fucking blinded me!”

            “You had you arms around that Cindy woman!”

            Richard rolled his good eye at this. “She’s just a friend, I was teaching her to waltz.”

            “You don’t teach girls half you age how to waltz with you hands up their blouse! That is sick on so many levels, Richard.”

            “So you punched me in the eyes?”

“You’re forty-two years old, you’re still in school, and you’re partying with people who were born when you were twenty-four.” Chelsea’s voice began to waiver with the onset of tears. “Anyhow it was a double roundhouse kick to the eyes.”

            “I’m so sorry, baby, I was drunk. Or high. Or both. I can’t remember. I can’t even remember who she was.” It was true that Richard didn’t live the most average life style, but he was happy for the most part. He had a nice apartment. He had a nice car, well not a nice car, but a running car. Anyhow they weren’t really dating. Chelsea was too much like her mother. What a bitch.

“You know who she was.” Just as Chelsea said this there was a knock at the front door. “Go away please, now’s not a good time” Chelsea sniffled.

            “Special delivery!” D’wayne’s voice came from the other side of the door.

            “God dammit, D’Wayne, what did I tell you about staying in the car?” Richard said as D’wayne entered the room carrying a pitiably small and ragged bouquet of flowers.

            “Here are those flowers you wanted me to get for you, Richard.” D’wayne gave Richard an exaggerated wink, as if Chelsea was the one who was partially blind.

            “I think that’s a very kind gesture D’wayne, but I’m afraid that it’s too little too late.” Chelsea said. D’wayne shoulder’s slumped in disappointment at this.

            “Too little too late? What are you saying, baby?” Richard asked in a worried tone of voice. D’wayne began to cry.

            “I… I think I’m saying that it’s over, Richard. I can’t take your ‘I was drunk’ or ‘She didn’t mean anything’ anymore. And then to send poor D’wayne off to fetch some flowers to make it all better, that’s just poor form.” Chelsea wiped her tears on her sleeve and then pointed to the door, “I would appreciate it if you would go now.”

            “Awe, quit your bawling D’wayne. She’ll come back to me.” With that Richard and D’wayne exited Chelsea’s apartment and headed down the stairwell. D’wayne rubbed his eyes dry with one of his dreads.

            “So… did she tell you what she did to you last night?’ D’wayne asked in an apologetic tone and Richard shook his head.

            “She fuckin’ kicked me in the eyes.”

            

Ol’Charlie’s Super Deadly Tiger Fight

            I was sitting on the back of a produce truck in the alleyway behind the Shoprite, taking a break from my duties (those duties being the unloading of a shipment of mouth-watering Grapricots). “Genetically redesigned for your pleasure, Grapricots blend the scrumptious flavors of grapes and apricots into one spectacular little fruit. Try one, they’re grape!” read the side of every crate I’d unloaded that day. Personally I preferred Grapples. It was as I sat there eating my fourth Grapricot that I noticed him standing in the shadows, trying, I think, to look mysterious. It was Ol’Charlie. Folks in Little Canada all knew about Ol’Charlie for all sorts of dubious activities – everything from his underground sword-fighting ring to his underground illegal alien railroad. In fact, most of what Ol’Charlie did took place underground, so I didn’t figure he would be above ground, least of all in this dingy alleyway, if it wasn’t real important.

            “That’s one impressive body you got there, eh?” Ol’Charlie said with a slight Canadian accent. I wondered if he had picked it up from all his years in Little Canada selling tukes, maple syrup, and poutine underground, or if he was an Escaped Canadian, like so many others in this part of our crazy little city.

            “I’m afraid my tire swings the other way, Ol’Charlie,” I said with a small chuckle. It’s not wise to upset a man like Ol’Charlie. You never know what could happen.

            “Isn’t that nice. You took the time to learn my name, and here I am, like an ass, not knowing yours… What’s your name, son?” Ol’Charlie said earnestly.

            “It’s Allan,” I said as I sank, teeth first, into my fifth Grapricot.

            “Alright, Allen” I heard him say my name wrong, but I didn’t think it wise to correct a shadowy, possibly Escaped Canadian while alone in the alleyway. Even if I was certain that I could beat him in a fair fight. These muscles can’t stop bullets, after all. “I’m no queer, by most meanings of the word, and in any case I have a completely different interest in your body. I’m putting something together that can make me a lot of money, and I’ll need a man of your… physical prowess… in order to pull it off.”

            “What kind of thing are we talking about here?” I asked, still not sure what he meant by “most meanings of the word.”

            “I’m talking, of course, about the age-old and illegal sport of underground tiger wrestling. It requires a lot of skill and a lot of upper body strength in order to survive, but I’m confident that you are the man I’ve been looking for.”

            “I’m sorry, Charlie, but no way. I have a perfectly decent job and a life that I very much would like to continue.”

            “That’s fine. I can understand why you might have some reservations about a job of this caliber, but let me just say this… the fight will have quite a handsome purse.”

            “How handsome could this purse be, Ol’Charlie?” I asked, surprised by my own curiosity.

“I can’t guarantee an exact amount due to the nature of this kind of thing, you understand. However, I’m confident that a fight of this magnitude can pull in at least enough for a purse of, say, two million.”

            “Dollars?”

            “Yes, Allen. It pays two million dollars, at least.”

            “How can something like that gross two million dollars?”

            “Well, Allen, deeply rooted within our own human nature is the type of bloodlust that creates a market for these fights. Every man wants to see carnage. Unfortunalty, due to the high demand and illegality of these events, not every man can afford to place a bet, or even attend. This leaves the richest of the rich. People who have everything that money can legally buy them, and so much still that they turn to people of our persuasion to fill the blood-lust that cannot be filled by legal means. But if you don’t think you can handle a pussycat for two million dollars, then I’ll just have to find someone who thinks he can.” And with that, Ol’Charlie turned around to leave.

            I can’t say exactly why I did what I did next. Youth has a way of making a person feel that he’s indestructible. And at the age of twenty-three with no more wife, no career, and working at a job with no future, I guess I felt I had nothing left to lose.

            “Wait… wait, I’ll do it!” I shouted as I leapt from the back of my produce truck and bounded after Ol’Charlie.

* * *

            From that moment forward I was in training. Sheba, the Sumatran tiger I was to fight, weighed two hundred and thirty five pounds, the average weight of a Sumatran tiger, and looked as though she could probably slice me in two with one of her razor-sharp claws. At the time I weighed just under two hundred pounds, and although I had very little body fat due to the physical demands of my previous employment at Shoprite, I calculated that I would need at least another fifty pounds of muscle in order to have a chance.

            For the next two months I spent my days alone in Ol’Charlie’s personal gym drinking protein shakes and building my upper body strength day in and day out. I became Ol’Charlie’s personal project and he insisted that I live with him while I trained. I made no wage during this period of training, but Ol’Charlie made sure that my every need was taken care of. He supplied me with a healthy, protein rich diet and gave me a bed to sleep in his sub-terrainian home. He even paid the rent on my empty efficiency apartment, not a large expense for a man of Ol’Charlie’s means, but a kind gesture as it gave me confidence that at least one person expected me to live through this ungodly match between man and beast.

Meanwhile Ol’Charlie worked on building the hype for the main event, during which time I hardly saw him, even in his own home. He spent the weeks touring the seedy underbelly of Little Canada to spread the word. He visited cock fights, sword fights, break-dance fights, and even the oft-scoffed-at turtle fights in order to inform people of all walks of life in Little Canada of the upcoming fight of the century.

            “Not since the times of the great gladiatorial games has there been a match-up with such raw power and bloodlust. On July the 18^th at exactly 8:45pm, I, Ol’Charlie, will be hosting here in Little Canada, a fight to the death between one man and one two hundred and thirty five pound Sumatran tiger. Our hero will utilize no tool or weapon in this feral battle other than mental strength and his own two hands. Tickets to the show can be purchased now or at my website: www.olcharliessuperdeadlytigerfight.com for five thousand dollars, or at the door for ten thousand. Wagers can be made at the time of the event only.” Ol’Charlie would announce at each event he visited, and at each event he would sell a good many tickets to the fat-cat gamblers that frequented them.

            As the date of the event grew closer, it seemed the days grew shorter. Each day I would continue my routine, but I had seemed to hit a plateau in my muscle gain. At two hundred and thirty five pounds I hadn’t put on a single pound of muscle mass in over a week, and although this had put Sheba and I at the exact same weight, I still felt I was at a disadvantage. I began to question whether I had made the right decision. Sure, I was happy to escape my cruddy apartment and my dead-end job, but was it worth the price of being maimed or killed? I wasn’t ready to die. I had never even gotten the chance to leave Little Canada and see the rest of the city, maybe even the real Canada, or the world. But I would never have been able to do those things with my old life, anyhow. At least this way, I told myself, I might have a shot at freedom, however slim that shot might be.

            One day in late June while I was on my seven-hundredth rep of squats, Ol’Charlie came in to the gym and began to spot me. It was the first time I had ever seen Ol’Charlie in the light, and I have to say it did not suit him. In the shadows he looked tough and mysterious, but in full fluorescent light he just looked ridiculous. First of all, he dressed in a zoot suit and a fedora, like it was the 1920’s or something. In terms of physical features he was a scrawny man beneath all that suit. He had orange hair, the color of cat vomit, and cloudy hazel eyes that do not compliment his pale, freckled complexion. Not to mention the fact that he was almost completely crazy. In all, the man was a train wreck.

            “Allen, my boy?” Ol’Charlie said, with a cigarette hanging from his lips. The cigarette had more pigmentation than his long, over-exposed, Jacob Marley face.

            “What’s up, Ol’Charlie?” I huffed between reps.

            “The most important thing a man can do before he dies is to reproduce. Have you had a chance to reproduce, Allen?”

            “I’m afraid not, Ol’Charlie.”

            “No? Not even by mistake with an ex-girlfriend or a hooker, eh?” Ol’Charlie asked, looking at me with surprise and intrigue.

            “Nope, not even a hooker,” I replied. I didn’t know where this line of questioning was headed, but I was already sure that I didn’t like it.

            “Oh! Reproduction is the best. It’s the closest thing we mortals have to immortality. Even when you’re dead and buried and serving as a breakfast buffet for a colony of earthworms, a part of you always lives on in your children and your children’s children. It’s the circle of life, eh?” Ol’Charlie said.

            “If you say so, Ol’Charlie.”

            “You’re damn right I say so. Well, don’t you worry, Allen. If you don’t make it through this tiger fight, I’ll take the two million that would have been your cut, have you a nice funeral, and then clone you up proper. We can’t have these gorgeous genetics going to waste, eh?” Ol’Charlie said, looking me up and down in an awkwardly seductive manner.

* * *

            In an attempt to tip the scales in my favor, as it were, Ol’Charlie had decided that he would stop feeding young Sheba three days before the fight. Ol’Charlie wanted a great fight, but he also wanted it fair. At least as fair as an illegal fight between a man and a tiger could be. Whether this lack of food would weaken Sheba or just increase her lust for man flesh, neither of us could say. Because of the possible variability in Sheba’s reaction to her hunger, Ol’Charlie felt confident in that he was not necessarily fixing the fight in my favor, but making the fight more even, and much more interesting for the lusty spectators.

            On the evening of the fight Ol’Charlie’s underground compound was alive with the buzz of spectators. All the best of the best of the underground fighting circle were at Ol’Charlie’s side. Louie “The Fist” McMillan, Archie “Dog Snot” Jones, and even “The Turtlenator,” and I was sure they all had hundreds of thousands bet against me. Ol’Charlie had an arena attached to his attached garage where he had hosted his numerous fights over the years. He had told me that the arena was one of the first things that he had built when he first began to amass his fortune. Between the hassle of finding abandoned warehouses in an ever-expanding metropolis and the amount of money he had lost due to fights broken up by the cops, he had decided that he needed a place that he could readily have access to and hide more easily. The underground arena had been the answer.  Tonight that underground arena was jam-packed with people who had all paid and bet thousands of dollars to see me fight a tiger to the death. I couldn’t have imagined that there were so many rich folks in Little Canada. Ol’Charlie told me that he had expanded his advertising in the last few weeks, and that we were looking at the richest 1,000 people in the world. I wondered how many of them had bet their savings on me and how many on the tiger. The idea that I could be a safe bet was farfetched, and this gave me no comfort. I realized that I was probably going to die.

             I had no life outside of this fight anymore. And even when I did, it wasn’t much. Unloading produce from the backs of trucks, running from my past, drinking my nights away, and thinking about the wife who had left me for a Russian trapeze artist. Maybe Ol’Charlie was right. Maybe I should have had kids. They might have given Linda a reason to stay. They might have been my legacy. All that didn’t matter now. I realized that I didn’t much care what the outcome of the fight would be.  I would either kill a tiger, or die trying.

            At exactly 8:40pm I was standing in one corner of a concrete square staring into the eyes of a very hungry, and very angry, Sumatran tiger. She was tied to an iron support beam, waiting to be set free. As Sheba paced back and forth, eyeing me hungrily, Ol’Charlie stepped into the center of the ring with a microphone in one hand.

            “In the blue corner we have Mr. Allen Cradock weighing in at two-hundred and forty five pounds and raring to get his fight on!” As Ol’Charlie said this, a portion of the crowd burst into fervent cheering. It was the first time in my life that I had ever felt such confidence and power. I actually believed that I could do this. “In the red corner we have Sheba, a female Sumatran tiger, weighing in at two-hundred and thirty five pounds and thirsty for blood!” As Ol’Charlie finished, a tsunami of applause and cheering swelled up and drowned me in an ocean of fear. It was safe to say that the majority of the bets had been in favor of Sheba. For the first time I was afraid that even if I did survive the tiger, I might not be so lucky with the crowd.

            When the bell rang, Sheba leapt towards my face, jaws first. To my surprise I caught the great beast by the mandibles and held them from snapping down on my hands as I flipped her on the ground. The crowd let out a mix of cheers and moans of disappointment. Sheba shook it off and lunged at me again, this time for my jugular. I responded with a smart punch to her temple followed by a swift uppercut to her jaw. In a few seconds Sheba recovered again and this time connected with a lightning fast swipe of the paw. A nice gash opened across my chest, right through my left nipple.

Our fight continued in this fashion for some time before fatigue began to slow down the beast. I had been training all day every day for months and had developed, among other things, an extraordinary amount of stamina. Sheba, on the other hand, had been confined to her cage for the better part of six months. That’s not to say that I hadn’t been dealt some devastating blows, the most personal of which was a swat to the crotch, which left me bloodied and doubled over. If that had happened earlier in the fight, then the beast would have certainly finished me. Luckily, she was so tired that after the adrenaline kicked in, I was able to hop back up and knock her out with one final blow to the dome.

            As it turns out, a fight to the death really only meant a fight to my death or until the tiger was knocked out, because as soon as she fell over, Ol’Charlie was in the ring to declare me the champ. Tigers are very expensive and hard to come by, so Ol’Charlie was glad that I didn’t kill her. I made a few people extremely rich and a lot of people very angry that night. Ol’Charlie had my back, though. We were escorted to the hospital by his personal guards, where I was sewn and bandaged up. Ol’Charlie played it smooth and told the doctors that I was an animal trainer and that my wounds were the result of a freak tiger mauling.

            “You done good, old boy.” Ol’Charlie said and then smirked as he looked down at was once my crotch. “With the millions I made off you this evening, I should have more than enough to get you a proper clone. Maybe even have him ‘genetically redesigned for your pleasure.’ After all, the most important thing a man can do is to reproduce.”

            “Thanks, Ol’Charlie, you’ve been too good to me.” As I said this and looked up into ghoulishly white face, I knew everything was going to be all right.

Earl's Shark Tank

            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.