An Epic Tale With Eerie Similarities to that of Moby Dick

MY ANIMAL FARM

Growing up my family had lots of pets. Well, I don’t know if you’d have called all of them pets. Some of them were half wild and wouldn’t let you touch them. They had a tendency to linger around, though. Just out of arms reach. Occasionally eating the food you’d set out. The small town that I grew up in catered towards this type of animal stewardship by not having any sort of leash laws in place. All of the neighborhood cats and dogs would mingle and interact within one motley, malformed pack. They shared their food, played together, fought together. Attempted to make love in all their neutered glory. It seemed normal to me at the time.

Upon moving into an apartment after college with my best friend, Kay, I was shocked to discover that she’d never had a pet growing up. Not even lightening bugs in a jar. It made me sad for her thinking about how she’d never had the experience of wearing an iguana named Iggy on her head like a living, breathing mohawk or trying to drag her big, smelly black lab named Tippy out of the hallways of her elementary school as he ran around cramming his nose into people’s crotches with his eyes all agog.

She totally missed out.

Our first apartment out of college was decorated in the minimalist style. When we moved in, we had one bed between the two of us.* An air mattress, a metal lawn chair and a nineteen inch TV. Subsequent to bringing in our five possessions, we noticed a loveseat sitting solitary and sad in our new living room. It was furbished in a dingy pastel material that seemed as if it would fit perfectly in with the décor of a beach house. The people that were moving out told us they were planning to throw it away.

*A graduation gift from my parents.

“Don’t worry,” they reassured us, “We’ll toss it in the alley once we get the rest of this stuff into the moving van.”

Kay and I quickly asked if we could have it and they agreed after noting our looks of quiet desperation. To express our gratitude, we offered to help them move the rest of their stuff. They wondered out loud if maybe we should focus on getting all of our belongings moved in first and were shocked when we told them that we were done. Between the two of us, the entire breadth of our possessions fit neatly into the foyer of the apartment while still allowing enough space for the old tenants to get by with their multitude of oversized couches, end tables and hutches. They looked at us with pity.

After our first week in the apartment, we discovered two crates in the alley and a large piece of wood out of which we could construct a surprisingly sturdy coffee table. Things were looking good, but there was still something missing.

After some discussion, we decided that fish would make an excellent, non-threatening, potentially-short-term-if-it-doesn’t-work-out, sort of a pet. So that’s what we did. We picked up a twenty gallon fish tank, five goldfish and got started. The fish were of all different types from your traditional sort to your goggle-eyed freak. We named them:

1 – Pretty Boy,
2 – Pokey,
3 – Fatty McFat Fat,
4 – Ben, and
5 – Tippy

We hated Pretty Boy right away. Every fish tank needs its villain and he seemed perfect for the roll. Jetting around the tank in his speedy, skilled way of swimming and occasionally nudging the other fish while probably thinking things like:

“Oh. Look at me. I’m Pretty Boy and I think I’m so awesome...”

Little bastard. He was totally suffering from delusions of grandeur.

We had two favorites. Ben was one of those goggle-eyed ones that swam around all awkward-like. It took him an hour to go an inch. Our other favorite was Ol’ Fatty. He was by far the largest of the fish, weighing in at a minimum of four inches. Mostly he just floated around being fat, and we loved him for it.

I was surprised by how much Kay took to the fish. She cleaned out their tank and monitored their p.h. levels with a tenacity that absolutely shocked me. She was born to be a pet owner. Terribly responsible. I adopted more of a relaxed stance towards my method of fish keeping by mostly just oohing and aahing over them at appropriate moments and occasionally dropping some fish chow into their tank if Kay was out of town. Things were going great. Until the day Ben died.

It was February and I was in the midst of busy season so I didn’t get home from work until about ten-thirty that night. I’d barely walked through the door when I noticed Kay looking morose on the loveseat with something shiny next to her. It was a small sandwich baggie, but I couldn’t make out what was in it. Her boyfriend, Jim, was sitting across the room from her in the lawn chair with his head buried in his law school textbook ‘Odd,’ I thought to myself, ‘they must be fighting or something.’ I said ‘hello’ before wearily dumping my computer bag and walking into the kitchen for a beer. From the living room I heard Kay say something that was obscured by the hum of the refrigerator motor.

“Huh?” I asked popping the top off my beer with a spoon.

“Benny died.”

“What? He did?” I walked back into the living room and gazed into the fish tank expecting to see his sad little body floating on top of the water, “I don’t see him in there. Did you already flush him?”

I sat down next to her and took a sip of my beer.

“No,” she said lifting up the plastic baggie to provide me a better view of the horror held within its recesses.

“Oh dear god!” I yelped as I leapt off the couch and backed away several feet, “Why did you stick him in a plastic bag?”

“I was waiting for you to get home so we could bury him together.”

I gazed at her for a moment feeling as if I were seeing her for the first time. I’d never had a roommate before that enjoyed fondling the dead.

In honor of little Benny, we mixed a couple of gin martinis and went into the linoleum-tiled bathroom to provide him with a traditional burial. We wanted Ben to make his way down to davy jone’s locker like a true seaman.

Kay took a shallow sip of her drink before setting it down on the side of the sink and opening the bag . She dumped Ben out from a high distance and he twisted several feet through the air, head over tail, before landing in the water with a tiny ploop. We both took another sip. The pine taste of the gin combined with the organic, metallic smell of Ben’s carcass reminded me of the area about twenty miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. The point at which the pine forests start giving way to palm trees and brine scented air that you can taste in the back of your throat. Twenty miles from paradise. It reminded me of myself as a kid sitting in the back of our station wagon savoring that moment. Anticipating our arrival at the Gulf for a week of splashing around in the water and grilling out.

After a moment of silent contemplation, I asked

“Do you want to say anything?”

She didn’t respond at first. Just stood there absently tapping her college ring against the gin filled highball glass.

“No … I don’t think so.”

We walked back into the living room, slouched down on the sofa and watched ‘Sex in the City’ until bedtime. Jim continued reading his law book. Totally oblivious to the mini tragedies occurring all around him. Completely engrossed by the law.

A few months later, we moved into a new place. It was near the corner of Sheffield and Diversey on the cusp between the Lincoln Park and Lakeview neighborhoods. Somehow over the previous months, we’d managed to amass quite a bit of hand me down furniture. We had a few couches, a kitchen table, dressers and tons of other heavy objects. Moving was exhausting and when we were finished, the first thing we did was get the fish tank set up. We were relieved to see that everybody had survived the trip across town.

Pretty Boy, Ol’ Fatty, Pokey and Tippy were swimming just like always. Seemingly unaware of the fact that they’d just moved several miles away into a new home. In our research, we’d discovered that fish have two-second memories so they all must've felt at home almost immediately. Little troopers.

We shared the third floor of our new apartment building with three crazy guys from Detroit. By crazy, I don’t mean crazy great. I mean crazy insane. To provide some context: Two years later when we were moving out, one of them was in jail for throwing a tantrum while going through airport security** and the other two had abandoned the apartment. Literally. Left the apartment in the middle of the night with most of their stuff still sitting in it. Did somebody say crazy?

** Also he had two outstanding warrants for arrest regarding DUI’s, but irregardless...

So anyway, these guys would stop by to visit pretty frequently. Typically to complain about their nut-job girlfriends or borrow some of our food or talk about how great Detroit is or whatever. One night this guy named Mike stopped by and knocked on the door. Kay answered to see what he wanted and was surprised when he suddenly leapt back screaming.

“What are you doing!?! Oh, shit! What is that!?!!”

Kay glanced down at the plastic baggie she was clutching in her hand.

“Yeah,” she said sadly, “Fatty died. I think his stomach exploded.”

Mike slowly backed away clutching his gut with one hand and his mouth with the other while Kay advanced towards him in a distracted manner.

“Seriously dude,” he said from behind his hand, “I fucking hate fish.”

Kay lifted the baggie to eye level and contemplated Fatty’s bloated remains.

“Do you think I can flush him? I’m worried he might clog the toilet.”

With a yelp, Mike turned and raced back into his apartment.

Later that night I got home from work and saw what had happened. Poor Fatty.

We discussed Fatty's funeral arrangements for a few minutes before deciding that a burial at sea simply wasn’t feasible. He was too robust. He’d have to find his way to paradise via the dumpster in our alley. We decided to get it over with immediately, so I headed over to the liquor cabinet to prepare the gin. Afterwards, we stayed out at the dumpster with Fatty slowly finishing our drinks, and, in the meantime, a homeless guy pushing a shopping cart stopped to ask what we were doing. I ran in to fetch him a beer and the three of us stood around discussing the happier moments of Fatty’s life.

Rest in peace Fatty McFat Fat.

At around New Years, Kay got into the habit of catching the fish and holding them for several seconds while they would squirm and struggle. She told me that she was petting them. When guests came over to celebrate the New Year, she began taking the fish out of the tank, holding them concealed in her hand and walking over to greet people as they arrived. When the person reached out to shake hands, she’d drop the fish into their palm forcing them to rush over to the fish tank to put it back.

She mostly did this with Tippy because he was a slow swimmer and didn’t jump around a lot when out of the water. Initially I berated her saying it was cruel to the fish, but she reminded me that they only have two second memories so long-term trauma wasn’t an issue.

She had a point.

One night after the holidays, we came home drunk, grabbed some beers and stumbled over to the fish tank to make sure everything was cool with them. Kay opened the top and reached in to interact with the little guys and, in the process of doing so, accidentally knocked the castle over. To our utter, drunken surprise a dozen baby fish suddenly swam out of the bottom of the castle and whirled around the tank in a tightly synchronized arc.

We were stunned.

“Did the fish have babies?” I finally asked.

“I thought they were all different species?!” Kay responded putting her face close to the glass.

“Maybe they can breed like horses and donkeys and make some sort of mule type fish?”

It was a mystery. The next day we began referring to them as the magic castle babies. From the looks of it they had derived from the coupling of Pretty Boy and Tippy, but this was pure conjecture. The magic castle babies were all orange and looked exactly the same except for one tiny gray one.

We called him Danger.

One by one, all of the magic castle babies were devoured by Tippy, Pretty Boy and Pokey. Until, eventually, there were none left. Except for Danger. Kay and I wondered out loud if maybe Danger was in reality a tiny baby shark that had somehow infiltrated our tank. Either way, we were rooting for him.

A few months later, we discovered that the neighbors had put the baby fish in our tank. They’d initially gotten them to scare Mike*** by dumping them into the shower while he was bathing. In a rare moment of guilt, however, they decided that this would be cruel to both the fish and Mike and gave them to us instead.

***They’d discovered his phobia from Kay.

Over the next year, Tippy and Pokey passed away, Kay and Jim got engaged and we gained a new fish named William from our crazy Detroit neighbor, Dave. That August, Kay and Jim tied-the-knot and moved in together. Kay took the fish. It made sense. They wouldn't have survived long with me.

After Kay moved out, I decided to try living by myself for the first time in my life. I’m one of four kids. Had always had roommates in college. And had lived with Kay since graduation. I was kind of excited to give it a try.

I was terrible at it at first. Wasn’t capable of entertaining myself. Would get outrageously lonely. And was constantly convinced that someone was going to break in at night and harm me. ME. What made it worse was adjusting to the changes. Friends getting married. Friends moving away.

Friends growing up.

I was having a quarter life crisis and couldn’t afford to buy a convertible to make myself feel better.

Pretty Boy, Danger and William survived their second move with no problems and adjusted to their new circumstances in the blink of an eye. Kay would call occasionally to give me status updates. Mostly she would talk about how they'd all grown to enormous sizes.

One day she called and said in a concerned tone that Pretty Boy had what appeared to be fin rot. It’d gotten pretty bad and she was worried he might die. Pretty Boy was approaching four years old at this point and despite his status as fish tank villain, I felt a strong attachment to him. A few days later, I went over to Kay and Jim’s new place to check in on him and he looked like he might be ok.

A few months later, though, she called and left a message.

“Pretty Boy died. His fin rot relapsed and he didn’t make it.”

I went over to Kay’s that night to help flush him.

A year later, Kay sent me an email to tell me that William had died a couple of days earlier. I received it while I was traveling in Toronto for work. My cell phone was off. I promised her that I’d have a drink in his honor. When I got back to Chicago, I went over to Kay’s place for dinner and as I was eating glanced over at the tank sitting in the corner. Inside I could see Danger swimming around. Just as scrappy as ever. The only surviving magic castle baby. All alone for the first time.

I felt sorry for him initially, but then recalled his two-second memory. It was comforting to know that every two seconds he forgot his loneliness. That two seconds after Pretty Boy died, he forgot that Pretty Boy had ever existed. In his mind it had always been just him and William. Until two seconds after William died.

He lived through the winter and into the summer. Until the end of June. I was relaxing out on my deck reading a book and drinking a nondescript glass of wine. As I was reading, I’d occasionally look up to admire the planes flying to and from O’Hare. The lights on the planes had become my evening entertainment. They’d replaced the expanse of stars I'd had in my childhood. Stars don’t exist in the city. There’s too much light to overshadow them.

As I was getting to a really interesting part of the book, my cell phone began vibrating across the table. It was Kay. When I answered I could hear pots clashing and water running in the background.

“What’s up?” I asked after taking a sip of wine.

Kay’s voice sounded happy and distracted.

“Danger died.”

“Oh no!” I said, “Fin rot?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe it was just old a-. STOP JIMMY! YOU’RE GETTING ME WET,” her voice was contorted with laughter.

“What’re you guys up to?”

“We’re making tostadas. Oh shit! I’ve gotta run. The meat’s burning.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll call you later.”

I pressed the end call button on my phone and sat there. Thinking. Shortly after, I went into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of Bombay out of the cabinet. The blue cheese stuffed olives were tough to find, but they were there in the back of the fridge, behind an expired carton of hummus.

I poured my gin over the rocks, tossed in a few olives for sustenance and went back out to the deck. Up above, the planes were still there. Back and Forth. East and West. As I took my first sip, it came back to me. The scent of pine trees combined with the rich flavour of brine. It was probably just the olives, but, it didn’t matter. It was there. The air was filled with anticipation.

MY LOVE TRIANGLE

My hot date was … well … not so hot. He was nice, and I had an okay time. I don’t see it working out, though. On Saturday, I had my once-a-year big party and this guy, Jack, showed up. Jack and I had drunkenly hooked up several weeks prior at a friend’s wedding. Don’t judge. I’d actually known him for years, but he was mostly just an acquaintance. So anyway, he asked for my number but never called. And after a week, I stopped worrying about it. I didn’t invite him to my party, but he came anyway with one of our mutual friends. I wanted to show him that there were no hard feelings and that he was welcome, so I spoke to him for a few minutes before moving on to chat with somebody else. Not to brag, but the party was my best ever. We made it through two kegs. One of my fellow accountants did a keg stand. Two liter bottles of diet coke were exploded utilizing the magical technology of mentos. Everybody ate mini ice cream sandwiches at midnight. And there were homemade strawberry daiquiris made with Botswanese cane liquor aplenty. It was quite the scene, and, although no one said so, I think people were impressed.

So anyway, Jack proceeded to get really drunk and then, suddenly, towards the end of the party began to behave as if he were about to suffer from an emotional explosion and pulled me aside for a confrontation. He told me that the night of our friend’s wedding was the best night of his life and that he really liked me. Now, I will grant you that he was outrageously drunk as he was saying all of this, but I like to think that what he said is true. It makes my ego feel nice. I like him. He’s handsome and smart and we have a lot of the same friends. So he’s pretty much distracted me from what’s his face. I invited Jack to come as my date to a party this weekend, so I’ll let you know if it goes well. I have to admit, I’m feeling kind of optimistic.

Word up.


Everyone Enjoys Kittens except for maybe Nazis