← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · toddbrendanfahey
Thread ID: 17787 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2005-04-15
2005-04-15 03:36 | User Profile
"You guys have a good time. Maybe you'll get lucky and catch yourselves a grinner."
Don blows out a laugh, like his lungs have just exploded. "HOooooh. C'mon, man, I have to drive!"
Ed smiles in a way that Stan can't immediately understand. Both are concerned that Don is going to stain his denims.
"Okay," Stan laughs with them. "I'll bite. ...What's a grinner?"
Ed pushes his lips out, makes his eyes bulge. It is a hideous mask he is making.
"--don't..." Don has sat down by this point; actually, kind of crumpled over between the musty sofa and the very carved-on coffee table.
"It's something we don't talk about much," Ed continues.
"So, it's something we could catch today?"
"Not if you're lucky," Ed stares back.
"--I've got this Glock loaded, man. I swear to God--", but he is beyond repair. We have been up for 48 hours, and what with several returns to the vial of liquid and the flagons of Jim Beam that have been dry for several hours now, he is the worse for wear.
"So, how will I know it if I catch it?"
"Oh, you'll know." Ed excuses himself and, just to make sure, empties the magazine and clears the firing chamber of the .40 that is, indeed, lying within reach of Don. "You'll get this back later, pard'. You way too ****ed up to have things like this in a residential neighborhood."
Don farts loudly, amidst his jag, and we prepare for the worst...but it's just a fart.
"Wait a minute. I think I hear one now." Ed tilts his head down toward the sink; he is about 3 months in need of a haircut, and the goatee isn't working either. "Yup, that's him. " He grabs a nearly new bar of Ivory soap from the counter and plunges a #2 treble-hook through it. "'Don't take more than this. They'll bite on anything. Remember, D?"
Don is leveling out now. He has averted the coronary, and rises from off of all fours, staggering into the kitchen. "Whad'you got there?"
"Listen."
Don cranes his neck. There is a gurgling sound coming from out of the drain. "It sounds like a big one."
Suddenly, they both contort their faces into the same disturbed structure.
"Ha ha," Stan says. "There's nothing down there. It's backflow from somebody's ****ing toilet. I doubt there's any real sewage system on this whole island."
The guys get a good chuckle.
"Alright, we're wasting time. Don, are you able to drive?"
"Hang on," Ed says. "Let me just lower this...there it goes, down there. Shouldn't take long."
And again, Don is heaving.
"How will you know when you get one?" Ed remembers.
Stan nods.
Ed becomes serious. "There's not much action in it. They live down there at the bottom. Heavy ****ers, though. It'll be the thing on yer hook that when it comes up just sits there grinnin' at y'." And then an equally repugnant face--cheeks stretched back, exposing all 24, right back to the wisdom teeth.
Stan has to laugh, it's so ugly.
"So, what kind of thing is this? Is it a fish? An eel? Help me out, here; I've only been down here in de bayou four months."
Ed nods sympathetically. "Well, we call 'em 'grinners'; other folks know 'em as 'goo-fish.'"
Stan abandons his tackle box, pretty sure that the next move they will make will be down to the garage again, where is stored another crate of Jim Beam. Ed kicks the magazine away from Don's reach.
"Eh-eh. The first cap you load is going right in your ass. We've been over this before."
There's still another few hits left in the vial. Why not? Stan wonders. Pours the rest of it into his own mouth. **** them.
"So, ichtheologically, how might this species be classified?" he says, finally, and turns the Zappa on again.
"What is a 'grinner'?"
He nods fervently.
Ed purses his lips. Then he makes sincere and candid eye contact. "It's some kind of scaly remnant of the Pleistocene age. It's a monster carp--only bigger, and meaner. I guess it's some kind of gar. Been around for ages."
"And that's what we're going out there for?"
Don is back on his feet again. "You'll never find one."
"Huh? Wh'...why not?"
Ed looks Don's way; Don goes ahead and shrugs.
"Because," Ed says, solemnly. "...It's a nigger fish."
2005-04-15 03:55 | User Profile
Did you know that there is no longer a "Jew Fish"? those people said that it was anti-semitic so now they are called some kind of fancy long borish name.
2005-04-16 22:59 | User Profile
Behemoth machinery. Acrid smell. Step up to sit down. Something he would never own; it just wouldn't do. Anyway, driving is out of the question.
"Y' okay, there? ...[I]Watch[/I] your step, or you'll ****ing snap your neck."
Stan is cognizant of the challenge. He grips the door-frame and reels himself in. It is a baking early morning. No food in the stomach; the head both reels and is rewinding. Hungover and coming on to another 500 micrograms of LSD. It will be a weird afternoon.
"Buckle up. **** knows why they check, but they do."
Stan does as he is told. Makes good sense.
The rig peels out of the short drive of some thoroughfare of Cypress Island.
"Wait--" he is wondering. "--shouldn't we go back?"
"I can drive. ...****ing light-duty art fag," he whispers.
Stan casts a gaze. "[I]My tackle box[/I]--"
The rig sails down the road, with windows rolled, and the trees smell like something that should have been washed.
"[I]Ahh[/I]'don't think I'm ever going to get used to this."
Don nods. Black, hulking rig barrelling up some illicit stretch.
Stan stares out, a hot breeze slapping at his arm--wondering again how it is that humans would traipse 1,500 miles to this. Not a pimple of elevation in any direction. The landscape is a mass of clumsy razor-wire separating dirt getaways, and the occasional bog brimming with scum.
No trace of wrought iron here on Cypress Island; no gabled rooftops or bonnets or flowing skirts. New Orleans is more or less an aberration. Napolean was a wise man.
A fat nutria dashes across the road. Stan ponders the hairy rodent--escaped, legend has it, from a lab within University of Louisiana - Baton Rouge, where its forefathers had been hauled to undergo some viral experiment or other. They spawned. So populace are they now, that the State of Louisiana has declared them as being in the class of bullfrogs, with no seasonal restrictions and no limit. Local dining establishments are encouraged, with regional government offices preparing recipes and preparation tips to willing proprietors, to offer them as economy-priced foods. So far, it has been a hard sell.
Stan tries to lighten what should have been a conversation by now.
"My wife likes to feed them, when we go to the park next to campus," he offers.
Don grins. "I like to explode them."
Stan nods.
"Ed'n'I came out here last year, and I saw one lurking around some rotted stump. I knew." He cocks his arm, in rememberance. "Walked over to it, and about fifteen larvae were writhing at the bottom. Just stuck the 12- down into it...[I]God, it was a mess[/I]." He laughs, inappropriately.
"Hey, man. Sorry about the 'light-duty art fag' thing. Your professor-friend's kid is always saying that. He wants to be an FBI agent. His folks are always hosting these wine and cheese parties. [I]'****in' light-duty art fags[/I].' Sorry, man. You know how I am. ...And I grabbed your tackle box."
Stan chuckles. "I didn't know Jump's kid wanted to be Fed."
"Yeah," Don grins. "I told him he should go into the DEA, he'd make a lot of spare change around here."
They laugh like jackals.
"Speaking of which: Where's the rest of your acid? I'm coming down, man; I need some more."
A low sound comes from out of Stan's throat.
"You didn't leave it back at the shack, did you? ****, we're twenty minutes down the road!"
"Worse," Stan says. "I ate the rest."
Suddenly, there is a cloud of red dust surrounding the monster rig, which is pitched at a 45-degree angle and is no longer on the road.
"[I][B]**** you[/B][/I]...you [I]did[/I]n't? [I]When[/I]?"
"When you and Ed were deep into the 'grinner' thing. I didn't see us moving anywhere."
A tortured groan emerges from Don's belly. "[I]All of it[/I]?!"
"I mean, there were only about four hits left," Stan says, extracting the food-coloring vial from his front pocket.
"Oh, man. Good, you still...what are you [I]talking[/I] about, this thing's [I]coated[/I] in it," Don says, upon inspection. Then he unleashes a buck-knife and proceeds to carve open the plastic housing and plunges his tongue into the recesses, then rubs it all over his gums.
"I bet there's 300mic left," he says, smacking his lips. "I can taste it."
And on comes Zappa again, which Stan is still trying to get his mind around. He knows it is genius; he is willing to understand it, just, thus far, not able.
"Alright," Don nods, understanding. "I feel the same way about that shit you listen to. You know. I'm not a total cave man. I spent about three weeks reading the Henry Miller you gave me. [I]Tropic of Capricorn[/I]. I've never laughed so hard in my life. You're the only one who still writes like that. Well, Hunter's still alive, but... You're the missing link." And it is then that Stan is happy to know there were still 300mic left in the dropper.
"That's about the coolest thing anyone's ever said to me."
Neither of them can speak for a long while.
"You're going to make me a character in your next one, aren't you? I know how you work."
Stan nods. "It's already mapped out. You're my Neal Cassady."
Don sucks in, involuntarily. "Thanks, man," he says, finally. He fast-forwards the CD through "Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast," which is not getting any kind of reaction out of his road partner.
"Too silly," Stan shrugs.
"Alright. I like it, but...I can see what you mean. [I]This[/I] one," he says with emphasis. "Listen to the lyrics. You ever seen a 'lawn jockey'? You know, the little negro boy with his cap on--"
"That sits on the lawns of white people--"
Don nods, eagerly.
"--my Grandpa has one--"
"--where does he live?"
"Glendale, California."
"[B][I]HHoooh! [/I][/B] [I]Iii'm[/I]...[I]s-s[/I]orry. I'm sure that he is a good man--", he offers, as an apologia.
Stan inspects the CD case, his eyes tracking over the roster of musicians, which is indeed impressive. On [I]Apostrophe[/I]--which is what they are listening to--is, on keyboards, the great black jazz pianist George Duke, who is also credited with backing vocals. Stan spent many hours listening to George Duke back at UC-Santa Barbara.
"That's the thing," Don says, zoning in on his friend's third eye. "OK, man, now, just listen."