Filed under: Writing Stuff
Two pages.
I spent about 10 hours staring at a computer screen to make two pages. And that’s not counting the time I tried to sleep in but my mind was already working on the assignment.
The NYCMidnight boys had given me 48 hours to write a thousand word story. But because of other plans that had already been made, I only had 24 of those.
Genre: Science Fiction. Location: Fish Farm. Object: Heroin.
Here’s what I came up with.
Fishmonger
This is how I met the Fishmonger:
I had taken the early Hover Train west. It didn’t make for the best view; at that time of day, the greenish brown clouds hung low, grabbing onto the earth as if fighting to stay. Later, the giant fans would blow them up into the hills so people could start their day. What was left the sun would burn off and it would be clear and hot. As always.
The trip was a gamble. Spending your last few credits on a train to some hickville town, based on nothing more than a tip from a guy in the joint…well, it’s not what most people would call a smart bet. But I always say it isn’t gambling if you have nothing to lose.
A train attendant walked through with a small rolling cart. “Can I get you anything, sir? Coffee? Beer? Marijuana? Something stronger?” She opened a cardboard pharma box, full of cigarettes, cigars, small bags and vials of pills, powders, and plants, labeled clearly and arranged by price. “The heroin is on special this week, an especially good deal.” She winked and I smiled, but shook my head.
The sun broke through the clouds, and I reached up to my specs and engaged the sun screen. I could see hundreds of kilometers in every direction. As we started our descent, I noticed little buildings surrounded by brown squares, pencil thin roads connecting them and leading off into the horizon, disappearing into the mist.
Walking off the train, I scanned the billboards absentmindedly. One of the attached retinal scanners must have caught my glance because it automatically started playing its message in the speakers on the stems of my specs. “RE-ELECT MARIA GONZALEZ FOR PRESIDENT IN ‘76” it shouted as trumpets blared. I shook my head as I walked past and the volume dropped out.
The nervous-looking guy with the gray beard and tinted specs had to be the guy I’d spoken to on the phone. He was waiting for me, I could tell. Not just because he was the only one in the station, or because I was the only one getting off the train, but because of the look on his face. He fidgeted a lot, glancing around, clearly uncomfortable. “Mr. Irratu?”
“Yeah,” I replied, disengaging my sun screen. He held a retinal scanner to my face and it beeped. He looked at the screen, then put it back in his pocket, satisfied, and reached out to shake my hand.
“Welcome to Missouri.”
*******
I grew up eating fish. My family had a little pond on our property, out in the middle of nowhere far away from everyone, and no one ever even told us about the ban. Looking back, it seems amazing, but somehow we never heard about all the deaths. We were just too far inland and too far off the grid. In our schoolbooks, the oceans were still blue, there was still white on the globe, and penguins weren’t extinct. Too bad those books were wrong. I always liked penguins.
But why should all fish be illegal anyway? Yeah, our oceans, lakes, and rivers were filled with oil, chemical waste, and other toxins. And because of that 90% of fish were poisonous. But not all. Not ours. With drugs legalized, the country was financially stable again, but now it was full of junkies, so it seemed stupid to say people couldn’t eat fish. And my pops had always taught me that it wasn’t breaking the law if it was a stupid law.
I gave my life to the fish business. I spent every day at the hatcheries and farms, and every night doing the books, handling our other affairs. I helped the Fishmonger build an empire across the Midwest, the Bible Belt, even up near the Great Lakes area. We had everywhere but the coasts. Because that’s where the regulators were. That’s where they were watching for you.
What we both knew but never said was: it couldn’t last forever.
*******
The Fishmonger’s name was Bob. But no one called him that. Even after 15 years with him, I still called him “sir,” just like everyone else. In private, though, he was Bob, and I was Al. I was more than just his right hand man. I was his best friend.
That’s why it was such a hard conversation we had that night.
For so long, it had seemed like we were just doing a good deed. People wanted healthy fish; we provided it and made a lot of money. Everyone was a winner. But breaking the law was still breaking the law. And if people threatened our business…well, they had to be stopped. That’s just how breaking the law works.
Bob wasn’t privy to this information. He never thought that there were rivals trying to take down his business. That there were snitches offering us up to get reduced sentences. That blackmail was something I dealt with every day. He never knew because he never wanted to know. That’s what I was there for.
His daughter’s husband was a gambler, who hadn’t come up a winner like I had. He came to me for help, but that’s not how the game works. You don’t get money for being a loser. You earn your keep. He didn’t like that answer. He was desperate, threatened me, and the business. So I did what needed to be done.
Late that night, the Fishmonger came to me, confronted me. He was red-faced; his daughter had come to him crying. What had I done. He’d finally come face to face with the truth. And he blamed me.
I reasoned with him, tried to make him see. Called him Bob. But he was emotional. Things were said that couldn’t be taken back.
I did what had to be done. As I always had.
That’s how I became the Fishmonger.
- Mon, September 11, 1995; Foo Fighters Concert at Liberty Lunch (405 West Second)
- Wed, Oct 18, 1995; Matthew Sweet, Dog’s Eye View at Liberty Lunch
- Wed, Nov 8, 1995; Rancid, Lunachicks, Liberty Lunch
- Thur, Nov 9, 1995; Everclear, Ruth Ruth, Magneto USA, at Electric Lounge (302 Bowie)
- Thur, March 21, 1996; Refreshments and Dishwalla at Electric Lounge
It all started, as most things seem to do for me recently, with Turntable.fm. Someone played a Spoon song, and I heard a lyric about the “Electric Lounge.” I immediately recognized the name as a venue here in Austin that exited the first time I lived here, but not the second. I remembered seeing shows there, wondered what had happened to it, where it used to be. (I find that I know the city a lot better this time, and so don’t really have any idea of where I was before and how it corresponds to where things are today.)
Googling it, I found not only the address, but a couple of shows that I know I attended. Which led to looking up Liberty Lunch another live music venue (not surprisingly, both locations have recent construction/condo/developments there now). Which led to some information on a couple of the shows I attended at those venues, most notably Foo Fighters at Liberty (after which Dave Grohl hung out in the back till every autograph seeker/fan was gone, turning down one guy’s invitation to go play pool with, “I would love to man, but we gotta get back on the road to Dallas tonight”) and Dishwalla with Refreshments at the Electric. Both of these shows stand out in my mind very distinctly.
Those memories were good ones, are still, and made me miss those days when I was young and stupid, living hand to mouth, going to school in the morning, working at the Doubletree hotel till 11 and running to a live show after work. I remember buying two tickets to every show, even when I didn’t know who I could take with me. Even taking my roommate Bill to see Rancid (he slipped out of the club to go watch a Red Sox game at the sports bar down the street and came back for the encore. He told me after: “those guys would have been all right if the guy could sing at all”). Standing alone with a Shiner waiting for the band to play.
Hm, it starts to sound kind of sad when I think too much about how many of those shows I went to alone, but the truth is that it wasn’t. It was amazing. I saw more live shows in that time than I’ve probably ever seen in any other time of my life. And big rock bands, that were just getting started. It was special to me, and it holds a good place in my heart.
But the most interesting thing I’ve taken from that, aside from the wave of nostalgia that sweeps over me as I think of more bands to look up, was the date of that Foo Fighters show. I remember sitting out back waiting for Dave to leave the venue and walk to the bus with the other fans. I remember telling him that I had seen him with Nirvana a couple of years previous in Oklahoma City. I remember him signing my ticket and still not leaving just to see what else he would say—not just to me, but to anyone.
What I did not remember is that day was September 11, 1995.
The reason I didn’t remember, of course, is that that date had no significance at the time. Only now, in retrospect, can I look back and think, “wow, six years later, the World Trade Center would be destroyed, and it will change all of our lives.” Weird perspective to have, even now.
Of course, there was lots of stuff I didn’t know then. That I would move to NYC with a guy I didn’t even know at that time that would prove to be the best friend of my adult life. That I would move to Los Angeles, live with a Swiss girl, be a camera guy on a Disney television show. And of course, the millions of other things that would happen AFTER 9/11. Oh how much of my life has changed since then. And I had no clue. I just wanted to talk to Dave.
I’m glad, though. What would I have done with all that information? How do you live your life knowing what’s coming the whole time? How do you concentrate on the present if you know the future? What would that moment mean to me if I had known what would happen in 2001?
I hope to think of more shows I saw here in Austin, and look them up. Record the dates, so I can always know. It’s a bit of chronology I never had, a good way to track my first time in Austin, which is such a blur in my memory. Because those were some of the happiest moments of my time here, and I don’t want them to disappear the way the clubs that held them have.
Foo Fighters Setlist:
- Winnebago
- (Late! cover)
- I’ll Stick Around
- Butterflies
- Wattershed
- Big Me
- This is a Call
- Weenie Beenie
- For All The Cows
- My Hero
- Oh, George
- Podunk
- Alone + Easy Target
- Exhausted
- Down in the Park (Gary Numan cover)
- Good Grief
Remember in high school, when your friends came over and hung out at your house? There was nothing really meaningful to do, so you all just sat around and hung out, talking about…whatever. Girls, teachers you hate, what you’d do with your life as soon as you had the money/time/freedom.
And through it all, the music always played.
There was always music playing. The idea of silence or an unaccompanied conversation just wasn’t an option. There was always a new album, either from that band you all loved, or better yet, something new that you found, that you loved, and that you couldn’t wait to share. You told them all how this was “gonna blow your minds,” and then you threw it on, and watched their faces as they heard it for the first time. They saw you watching them and closed their eyes to avert the pressure, to try and appreciate the music without letting your enthusiastic stare affect them. And slowly, their heads started to bob, or they smiled, or they made that “ooh!” face, or…and for that moment, you were a God.
Remember? Well, they made a site to let you experience that feeling again, and it’s called Turntable.fm.
Being at least marginally technologically literate, I first heard about it on twitter, where someone I barely know bemoaned that it was “totally over” since some publicist had mentioned it to him. It being the first time I had ever heard of the site, I didn’t know if I should pretend to know, shake my head, and agree that it really was a shame, or acknowledge that he was way ahead of me and go check it out. I opted for the latter.
Now, a couple of weeks later, I have to be careful lest my new obsession get in the way of other things, like work…and my actual life.
At first it was just a neat place to hear some new music, picked by other people, not an algorithm. I imagined it could work like Pandora, but with less repeats and a little more variety. But then I started thinking, “you know, if they like this song, I bet they will like this other song.” I realized that every time someone clicked the “this song is awesome” button which made their little avatar dance. The DJ playing the song got a point, and there were much cooler avatars for people with more points. I thought, “I can play them some music they will really like, and I will get those points, and we will all be so happy!”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one with this thought. Turns out, it’s actually quite hard to get a coveted spot at the decks. I tried starting my own room, but no one came. I finally found a room that allows three songs per user and keeps a waitlist. And this room has become my new online home. (I’m even there right now as I write this.)
Now I stay in the same room every day, interacting with this little community of people that do the same. I get on the list in the morning, finally get on the decks to play my three jut after lunchtime (the list is always long), and am done. Should be simple, right? But somehow, it isn’t. I spend hours watching people chat, seeing what songs people like and what they say about them. Telling them what I think of their music. And checking to see if it’s my turn yet. All for the 15 minutes of watching people’s little avatars bob their heads as one by one they click the button to let me know they like the song that I made them listen to. And it’s the highlight of my day.
Not sure how I feel about that fact, but there it is.
