So Ravid wakens on an impulse that may contain its own small dose of adrenaline but feels different than fight or flight. It feels more similar to the challenge at depth, of facing conditions no person could ever control, conditions demanding that the diver relax or die. He flies back to LA that night, assuring Minna, the kids and the cat that he’ll be home for din, not tomorrow night but surely by Tuesday night.
He’s not known in LA like he used to be and really can’t tell if people are actually recognizing the fish guy or have become friendlier than they used to be, which doesn’t seem likely, but still.
The late night talk shows are filmed in the daytime. Ravid knows where and when. He enters the NBC studio like a kid home from school. “Hey, Roland. I’m back.” Roland smiles with a return greeting and checks the clipboard. Ravid says, “I’m not on there. I just got off the phone with Meg. Call her. It’s a walk-on.” So Roland makes the call, as Ravid says, “Roland, man, I got to take a whiz. Do you mind?”
Roland minds and could lose his job by letting anyone through without clearance. But the fish guy remembered his name, after all; now who remembers the name of a no-consequence schmuck working a clipboard and a door at middle age? Nobody who’s anybody, that’s who. Ravid helps him connect the simple dots by nodding just up the hall to the men’s room door. The fuck? It’s right there. What’s a fish guy gonna do, sneak in to the studio? With Meg standing by?
So Roland, like a fish who sees, knows and feels — a bottom dweller to be sure, maybe a bi-valve crustacean — returns the nod, authorizing the unauthorized whiz.
It’s the old duck into the head, count three, two, one and out and farther up the hall but not by much to the double swingers — doors, that is — swinging in to Stage One and the brave new world of cameras, kliegs, mikes, drama, melodrama, monologue, dialogue, inspired antics, zingers, one-ups and the very elements of greatness, where celebrity is born.
The swinging doors open on old home week with pats on backs and whispered greetings. Where you been, man? What are you up to? Hey!
The fish guy is back in khakis and flops and a Hawaiian shirt with flying fish, and he’s walking onto the set in the middle of an interview with that hot new starlet with the cleavage to die for but the halitosis to die from, but nobody knows that except the crews backstage who make foul jokes about its source, speculating on pornographic behavior instead of bulimia and gastric malfunction resulting from chronic tension, what they used to call stage fright, what’s her name...
“Hey! Looka this. The fish guy!” Ravid waves to the audience, who follow the lights with APPLAUSE. “What? You’re in the neighborhood?”
“Yes. You said stop by. Anytime.”
“Yeah, uh...Rave...”
“Ravid. Rockulz. The fish guy.”
Well, it’s disappointing to see nervous eyes in a seasoned host. This has to be quick — and good — or it’ll cut to commercial and die in security.
“Okay, fish guy. Uh, you know Marci...”
“Hi. It’s a pleasure. I’m so sorry to interrupt, but I have an urgent request for the fish.”
Well, maybe that was a lucky phrase, a conceptual twist that opens adequately, so a seasoned host can move in. With his face flopping quizzically, he falls into step. “Okay. I’m game. What is it that the fish need?”
“They’ve been kidnapped and are being held prisoner.”
Not such a good line — over the top. The host grabs the laugh for himself. “Do we need to come up with a ransom?”
“No. You need to empty your aquarium and smash it.”
This could get ugly — no laugh line should be followed with a call for violence. Changing pace with the alacrity that made his mark when he was a far younger host, the host asks: “What do I do with the fish? In my aquarium. I mean my aquarium is smashed, and the fish are flopping on the rug, which won’t stay wet forever, I might add.” LAUGHTER.
“Smash the fish tank outside. But first give the fish away. Take them to the pet store and give them away.”
“Okay. Wait a minute. I had fish for dinner...”
“Not those fish. You should think about not eating those fish. But now I mean the aquarium fish.” The host nods, maybe fishing for another laugh line. “Many thousands are in a warehouse near here. One warehouse out of many. All the colorful fish that should be on reefs.”
“Hey. Stick around. We gotta take a break, but we’ll be right back with the fish guy, who just dropped in.” Host turns, profile left. “Hey. Are the fishnappers in a Ford Bronco?” LAUGHTER and APPLAUSE and...
Cut to commercial.
Here comes security, stopping short for the host’s raised hand. He leans near like he did a long time ago. “Hey, fish guy. You stopped in to tell people to empty their aquariums?”
Ravid nods.
“You got a new book? A movie? A toy? You had toys, yeah? Anything?”
Ravid shakes his head. “I’m here to sell an idea.”
“Yeah. That’s tough. Look. Sit down here by Marci. You know Marci?” She holds her breath, assessing him sexually. “Other side. Okay? Marci has a movie. We got a young comic in the green room we’ll bump to next week. We’ll have a minute or so with you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” The host asks the producer, who throws his hands in the air and walks away. The security guys fall back.
And three, two, one...
“Hey! Marci Marceau opens Tuesday at the Wireless. And the new movie is The Deadbeat Goddess. It looks fantastic, and so do you.” She writhes subtly, her cleavage twisting like a sleepy snake in a pleasant dream, rolling to the other side. “Give it up for Marci Marceau!”
APPLAUSE!
Marci exploits the short shrift with a slow rise to stardom, profile left, right and frontal with a leer, some sizzle and a slink. The host gazes along with the rest of the late night crowd at her luscious ass in retreat. Then cut to Camera 2 as he resets to personal confidence. “Okay, we got broken glass out in the yard. We got nothing for dinner, because we had to hurry up and get the fish off the rug and back to the pet shop...”
“Not necessarily back. Many were bought online. Just find them a home. Don’t worry about the money. Smash the tanks.”
“You know, I gotta tell you, I never saw this side of you. You’re Mr. Deep Blue Sea. Mr. Cool, Calm and Collected. You got yourself worked up here. What happened?”
What happened? A man found himself at sea and below it on the reef, where he made close, personal friends and got lucky with a camera and a few contacts and made it, maybe not huge but big, maybe even very big for a while there, and then he stumbled onto what he already knew but declined to focus on it till it went toe to toe, front and center and wouldn’t go away. The old neighborhood is dying because the garish innocents are being sold for money. “I woke up.”
The host shares his famous clownish incredulity. LAUGHTER. “Fish guy. Work with me here. You woke up, what, from a nap?” Mild laughter.
“Yes. A long nap. A deep sleep. Now we wake up. You know a dream can feel the same as underwater. Have you tried running through a dream? You can’t. So, you slow down. You drift through a dream. I dream of a reef with thousands of fish — have you ever seen a reef in abundance? Have you ever seen a reef?” Mild laughter.
“This is the fish guy I know. So why the smashed glass?”
“The glass is our confinement. Look — why would a man want a job as a prison guard? He gets to go home every night, but he’s tired. He spends his days in jail, like another prisoner.”
“He probably showers at home.” LAUGHTER.
“Yes. I’m sure. But I’m making a point. If you have an aquarium, you put yourself inside it. You won’t die there like the fish do, but you shut yourself off...”
“That’s interesting — life in a fish bowl. Why does that sound familiar?” LAUGHTER. “Hey, it’s always great to see the fish guy again. We gotta run. See you tomorrow, when it’ll be Anna Indiana and Bones Morrow...”
“I’m not done.”
“Come back. Can you come back?”
“Yes, but...”
And so it would end — the dream, the story and all its endings, wishes, will and consequence. So the average home aquarist, a thirty to fifty-something hobbyist focused on personal amusement, would remain oblivious to reef decimation. Ravid must think and act rather than react. Rising slowly as his slowest bubbles, out of the small talk and into the credits, he steps to the little red light on camera one and beseeches, “Mr. Gorbachev! Tear down that aquarium!” LAUGHTER! APPLAUSE! Pull back. Finish credits. Sustained APPLAUSE! The fish guy stands firm, eye-to-eye with the late night crowd.
Then he goes home to Hawaii on a wake of goodwill, apology and friendship forever with the TV crowd. He pledges to return with more wonderful stuff and he bids farewell to the last fan waving at LAX, because, let’s face it, the Wheel of Life spins onward with its changes, rewards and disappointments.
Any ripple on the late night pond will reach the far banks. Thirty million people cannot exist without thought, assessment and statistically measurable response, however small or brief.
Just so, a lonely boy in Utah wonders what life could hold with no aquarium. But he lost six hundred dollars in fish to an imported disease, and now the on-line guy wants to sell him a back-up system for quarantine, to safeguard his current fish against new fish from sick oceans. Two aquarium systems should be twice the fun of one. But near midnight the boy empties and disconnects his tank. He leaves it in the yard to sleep on the idea. But after a snack before bed, he heads back out to smash it now so he can’t change his mind in the morning, so he can get a fresh start tomorrow on his new hobby, photography, which should cost less, not more. He fantasizes telephoto and mysteries revealed.
A forty-something woman in a wheelchair in Fresno would rather sell her tank or give it to charity than smash it. The nut guy fish guy wants it all to stop, but what a waste. What a nut, like one of those nuts in the park or in town, preaching the end... Giving it away could likely lead to somebody else setting it up, so she carefully severs the silicone seams in each corner. But then even if it leaks, it could still be a terrarium, and a little seed of liberation has taken sprout, so she puts it in a corner of the garage and fills it with garden utensils.
A seasoned aquarist in Newark thinks it makes no sense, but by morning he’s still thinking, and so on into the evening news, where thoughts would jostle into the next news cycle, though on this night his thoughts accelerate, because...
Turner Huldquist was only fourteen when Sumner Redstone hung on to a burning hotel balcony awaiting rescue; Sumner Redstone achieved salvation with uncanny fortitude as he achieved success in business through wizardry. Redstone became an icon to Turner Huldquist, who went on to develop a distribution company that got him far more than the twelve cents most young hustlers get by rubbing two nickels together.
Six hundred million dollars are nothing to sneeze at, but Sumner Redstone did just that, adding 8-Arms Distribution to his list of majority holdings, under CBS, Viacom, MTV, Black Entertainment Television (that’s funny; he doesn’t look black), Paramount and Dreamworks. Nominal reorganization following the takeover left Turner Huldquist out in the anonymous cold with nothing but money.
Soon after the takeover, PBS interviewed Redstone at home, showing his three-wall aquarium, eight feet deep with an abundance of fish, including adult eels and brood tangs. Redstone bragged that he had more fish than they do over there in Hawaii. So the monster who ate Hollywood formally sanctioned aquaria as de rigueur.
Not long after that, Turner Huldquist remembered and responded with an unfriendly takeover in kind, rendering faux pas what the monster had endorsed. Oh, hell, it’s only petty bickering with a dash of color — and a smidge of social bloodletting. After all, it’s what we live by, a little lower than the angels here in the city of.
So Turner Huldquist’s camera crew arrives on the morning after the fish guy told the nation to smash its aquarium — arrives as a local pet shop delivers a three hundred gallon tank.
But a camera crew does not a production company make — yes, he could step up for the home run with his Louisville slugger and get the shot. But maximum potential calls for Production Values Ltd., so the session can come to a boil. The tank is set four feet up and filled for the dramatic release of three hundred gallons to set our deliverance awash, along with the smashed glass — wait a minute. Get another tank. We’ll smash it dry, with glass shards flying all over the fucking place in a beautiful detonation of our oppression. Can you see it? Can you feel it? Wait a minute — three tanks? Maybe do one dry tank with the slugger and the other with a couple three blasting caps? I don’t know. But we’ll segue it all together, you know, artfully. And we’ll lead with Redstone on a short loop repetition of more fish than they do over there in Hawaii more fish than they do over there in Hawaii more fish than they do over there in Hawaii...
Then we smash some glass. Nuance? Well, you might get some nuance in there on a, you know, shapely sliver or two flying into space on double slo-mo. You know? That’s subtle. Fuck.
Okay, look: we’ll go with the two tanks for now, one full and one dry, and hope for the best. If the dailies don’t look perfect, we can get a third tank in an hour and blow it up. Okay? And we won’t need blasting caps. My kid sells fireworks on the side. Okay? He’s like, you know, working his way through junior high. He’s got those whatchamacallit M-80s. Cherry bombs. Whatever. He says it’ll be cake with cigarette fuses. There’s the push — where the hell we ever gonna find some motherfucking smokes? Oh, the kid says he can get some. And he’ll work for scale. Little prick.
Oh, and we’ll need some goggles and body cover for Mr. Huldquist — and no leather!
So Turner Huldquist’s statement achieves news value like a single cell sending tiny cilia to root in fertile media for a news cycle with new life — with back story, sidebar and peripheral interviews — teachers, friends and eyewitness accounts. To aquarium or not to aquarium? That is the question, submerged in implication, overtone, repercussion, countersuit and nuance — fuck yes — till, alas, the morality of the thing is revealed, including social order off and on our reefs.
Then come the fish shots with resurging drama, intrigue and interest. The fish guy avoids overexposure by calling in the young diver who took some very nice shots of his aquarium. Wait a minute — you can’t call in a guy from a dream! Relax, numbnuts; you know this guy. He’s an Oybek recruit, on his way up the evil path but get this: no longer Oybekian! He’s reformed! Come to Neptune! Yes, the showbiz card sailing his way across the poker table of life is an ace! He’s back from the dark side and speaking out, denouncing evil and embracing reform: “Mr. Gorbachev!...”
By day three a billboard is up on La Cienega Boulevard not too far from the thick of the hub of the pulse of your better LA traffic. Bigger than life, Turner Huldquist is smashing the bejeezus out of a huge fucking aquarium, the water and glass exploding with such viral virtual veracity as to generate a traffic hazard in your face, as it were. The message is concise and potent as a smart bomb aimed at your heart: Mr. Gorbachev!...
It’s all the talk in a twelve-block radius, with growing speculation on whose body Huldquist’s head got morphed onto — McGuire, Sosa, Bonds? Can the glass/water explosion combo actually carry a plotline or at least nominally connect scenes through a hundred and ten pages of screenplay? Oh, and juiciest of all: just guess what studio is actually test marketing the concept this minute? The radius goes eighteen miles on four hundred more billboards in a blink — take over this, Sumner! You fish-killing fucker!
Well, all the rage in La La is a tempest in a teapot when viewed from the three thousand mile radius, and viewed it is. A few more tankists in thirty-nine states chew on the idea like it’s broken glass, spitting it out till the next week, when Ravid and Minna Rockulz and their two children Leihua and Justin and Skinny the cat and Little Dog are surrounded in their Maui home by boxes and packing material and the confusion of moving to a new home much closer to home, slightly warmer and far less crowded — when the phone rings.
We didn’t even know it was working, the phone. It’s Hawaii State Senator Kevin Kanishiro on the line, asking if Mr. Rockulz will support a bill to limit aquarium extraction from Hawaii reefs. “We’ve been embarrassed in the eyes of the world.”
“No. I will not support regulation. I will support a ban. You want to fuck around with footsies? Or you want healthy reefs?”
“Please. Mr. Rockulz. Let me do my job. Okay?”
Alas and again, The End.