The Late Eighties

For whatever reason, when I think of the late eighties, I think of child trafficking in and around Houston, Texas. The heat. The flat land, long highways, and congested industrial districts. Maybe at some point I watched a movie about it or read an article. Who knows, but it's what the late eighties are to me.

No more than six or eight, a small girl stares out through a dirty window, sad, missing the life she is quickly forgetting. She knows only the people who own her. Who buy and sell her. In the back of her mind she knows that not every little girl lives this way. She sees them sometimes. Outside. Walking down the sidewalks with their fresh new dresses and mommies. She sees them and longs. She sees them and even at such a young age somehow feels that no other world could truly be worse than hers.

The heat. The dust. The men.

Then, my mind switches. It's twenty years later. The girl survived. She faced peril after peril, but eventually it was over. A thousand years in a decade. Now, she is clean. She has an apartment. She helps other girls. But, she is lost.

She tried dating, once, but that chunk of living is gone to her. No romance. No sexuality. No men. No more.

She tried to find her parents, luckless.

She tried drugs.

She tried school.

Even after years, nothing helps her forget, or move on, or smile.

Now, she survives only to help others survive. Now, she sells herself to the victims. I think about her, and to myself; "I am lucky."

And I am.

First thing, Monday Morning.

I sat at the beach for the next few days, staring out at the lake and dreaming. I had never really noticed it before, but Lake Henry, in the right light, was nearly perfect. I had always thought it to be a scuzzy tourist trap, filled with imposing families from the city and lined with bars kept busy by twenty-something brainless disease bags, pounding chests and trading women. I was only sort of right. You had to leave the strip to see any more than that. Down here, down in the park, down by the water, at the "poor people's beach", things were beautiful. The air was clean. The traffic was quiet, the women were beautiful and subtle, and I could stare at the water uninterrupted.

Large, elephantine clouds sat sparingly in the sky, casting great contrasts on the bright green mountains surrounding the lake. It would be sad when the leaves turned, died, and fell, leaving only the brown and grey remnants of their former glory. I felt stoned. Maybe I ate something. Maybe there was some residual wine left in my blood. Everything seemed bright, fresh, and new. I had come up with a plan. I would work at Seasons with Michael. Maybe even just part time. At the same time, pick up another part time job. Maybe just a series of little work. I needed no career. So long as my bills were paid, and I could save a little here and there, it didn't matter how it happened. The idea that I could provide for my wife, and still lead some semblance of the care-free living I so longed for sat light on my heart. I smiled. If everything worked out, maybe this time next year, I could do this professionally. Sit on a beach, write, drink wine, and feel love.

"What are you thinking about baby?" Marie asked. She was tanning on the blanket next to me.

"A year from now, I want to write."

"You write now."

"No, I mean, as a source of income. I want to have a column in a paper, or a successful blog, or be a reviewer of beaches, booze and bikinis. I want this, today, everyday."

She smiled and raised her eyebrow. "Good luck baby. It won't be easy."

"I know it."

She went back to reading. She was stunning. Lying there, stomach down on the towel. Her body filled out in all of the right places. Each curve, crease, and tone as tempting as the serpents apple. Thank Christ she was mine.

My cell phone rang next to m. I looked at it. I didn't recognize the number, and for a moment hoped that I could fuck with a telemarketer. I answered.

"Hello?"

"...Mr. Martin?"

"Yes?"

"Hello, this is Raymond. We spoke the other day..." It was the fellow from the cable company.

"Hello Raymond."

"We got your test results back, and we would like to officially offer you the installation technician position. Are you interested?"

This was it. I had fought the idea for over a week now. The cable company. The 401k. The middle management and the bullshit. Coming home everyday after working too hard for too little, to throw my fat-ass down on the couch, watch television and pretend that that's what I've always wanted. Stability. Only, that wasn't what I would be truly getting anymore, is it? No, I have seen the papers. I have heard people talk. I have watched my friends parents drown. No, a career was no more a guarantee for stability than sucking dick on camera. Taking this job meant nothing more than losing all of the things that made me me. My friends. My music. My writing. My time with my family. My smile. This was a voluntary fade from existence. This was a slow inhale in a long gas chamber. This was the enemy of all I had recently discovered, of all I was hoping for.

Marie looked up at me. "Who is it?"

"Hold on just one moment, please," I said to Raymond. I looked at Marie. "The guy from the cable company."

"Did you get the job?" She smiled. Her eyes lit up. My heart sunk.

"Yes," I said, through a wall of defeat.

She leaned over, and kissed my arm. "I love you honey."

"I love you too."

I went back to my phone call. "I'm sorry Raymond, are you still there?"

"Yes."

"I am interested. What now?"

He filled me in. I was to report first thing Monday morning to their local office. I needed tools, and steel toe boots. I was to get work pants. It was suggested I get a tool belt. I would do six weeks of training, work fifteen hour days, six days a week on average, and work piece rate after training was completed. I was fucked.

I set the phone back down.

"Well?" Marie asked.

"I go in at eight Monday morning."

"Okay. Do you need anything?"

"Steel toe boots and a few tools. Work pants."

"Okie doke. We'll get those tonight."

"Okay."

I stared back out at the water. I felt doomed.

Hank Peterson

The fish swam in circles while I watched and drank wine from a green water bottle. The sun was high and hot, but the fish and I were shaded by the leaves of a large tree.

He was the only fish in the pond. A concrete pit the size of a small car hidden off to the side of the Springer Town Park. He was a brown shadow, weaving silently through the leaves, weeds, and reflections.

I leaned over the railing a little to watch as he passed too near to see normally.

The fish was beautiful, really. The size of my forearm with green and blue flecks in his scales. I wondered if he was a handsome or ugly fish, by fish standards. He swam and swam. Around and around. Alone. It bothered me.

Perhaps this fish has been here for a year. Perhaps he will be here for only one more. He will see no other fish for an entire two years.

No fish jokes to crack with friends.

No fish ladies to eyeball and wink at.

No one at all to bitch about the water temperature or unfortunate murkiness this morning.

Just himself, swimming in circles until he dies. Briefly my brain tried to point out some kind of metaphor, but I pushed it aside. Today was no day for cyphers, or philosophy, or bullshit. No, today was a day for wine. And fish. I took another drink and went back to watching.

Two girls walked up, looked into the pond, at me, and left.

I looked back and the fish had stopped and stuck his head out of the water, facing me.

"I don't mean to be rude," he said, "but do you have anything you could go do for a couple of minutes?"

"Not really. Why?"

"Well, it's just," he coughed up some water, went under for a second and came back up. It's just that I have been swimming around and around, waiting for you to leave, and you just keep staring at me."

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize it bothered you."

"Well," he said, "It doesn't normally, in fact I like it, but it's just, I have to go, you see, and I can never do it with people looking."

"You mean, like..."

"Yes. Exactly."

"But you're a fish. Could someone even tell from way up here?"

"I don't know, but, honestly, please, just give me a few minutes."

"Okay, I'm sorry." I began to walk away, and then turned back. "Can I come back after?"

He paused, then said; "Sure, I suppose, but you haven't got anything better to do than stare at fish all day?"

"Not really." I took another drink.

The fish dipped down, and came back up. "Okay. I'll let you know when you can come back."

I walked up the path a little and sat on a stone bench. The two girls were sitting across the field talking and smiling. The sun bounced off of their skin and lit through their hair. They were amber and glowing. Youthful and free. I was aging and drunk.

"Okay," said the fish from behind me. "You can come back."

I got up, and walked back to the pond. "Better?"

"Yes, thank you."

I leaned up against the railing. "I'm James."

"Nice to meet you James."

"What about you?"

"What about me?" He asked.

"You have a name?"

"Used to. Not anymore though."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Well, for one thing, I'm a fish."

"Fair enough."

"Also, I'm the only fish here. Names seem kind of unnecessary, I guess."

I smiled. He nodded, dove, and returned.

"What did you mean, 'used to have a name?'"

"I mean, before I was here."

"You aren't from here?"

"Oh, no," he said."Chicago."

"Chicago?"

"Yep."

"Seems like a long way to swim," I said, like an idiot.

"I suppose it would be."

"Also, impossible."

"Yes, also that."

"So, what was your name in Chicago?"

"You ask a lot of questions."

"It's probably the wine," I said.

"Probably."

"So...?"

"Hank, actually."

"Hank?"

"Yes sir, Hank Peterson."

"I didn't realize fish were named Hank. Or, had last names."

"They aren't, and they don't."

"Oh. So, how'd you get here. From, Chicago, I mean."

"Don't really know," he said. "Just kind of woke up one day, swimming, and here. Glad I did though. Best thing that ever happened to me."

"Being here?"

"Oh, yes. The water. The solitude. The sunshine. The curious onlookers. The scales."

"The scales?"

"Yep, always wanted them."

"I'm pretty sure you always had them," I said.

"Nope."

"No?"

"Just skin. And hair, and clothes, I guess. You know, normal stuff."

"Wait, what?"

"Sorry, I must have skipped that part." He dove and returned. In Chicago I was human."

I took another drink.

"And, apparently a decent one. I mean, I ended up here, with everything I have ever wanted."

"I'm confused."

"Drunk?"

"Probably that. But, no, it's a little weird to think about. I used to be human, in Chicago, sold shoes."

Wind rustled the leaves above me and cooled my skin. Sun sprayed out over the water, jagged glowing ripples spread around Hank the fish. He bobbed down and came back up again. "So yeah, then I died."

I finished my wine. "How do you know?"

"Know what?"

"That you died?"

"Well, one minute I was driving, then I was going off the road into traffic, then I hit another car, then there was fire, screams, my wife was crying, and now I'm a fish. Seems kind of easy to put together."

"Shit."

"Shit indeed."

We looked at each other for a moment. I wasn't sad for him anymore. I couldn't place why. He stared up at me with blank, black fish eyes. I wondered if he, the talking fish, had been fucking with me.

"I need more wine." I walked away.

Corkscrew.

"Where's the liquor store?" I asked.

"Just around the corner. Across the street," Michael said. "It's weird. There's also an Alcoholics Anonymous place there. The meetings and shit. And a dentist."

"In the liquor store?" I asked.

"Well, in the same building."

"Oh."

We passed a Ben and Jerry's. The small parking lot was littered with yuppie offspring trash. Tourist kids who would never know the meaning of "broke", who would never have to beg someone for a few bucks so they can eat that week, who have never had the pleasure of getting clearly used presents at Christmas, and they let you know, every time they fucking looked at you. They were trash. And there were a lot of them in Springer in the summer. All up and down the streets. The clean, trendy ones, anyway.

"I need a belt," Michael said.

I looked over and he was hiking his cutoff shorts up around his waist.

"Fucking things keep falling," he said.

"Get rope."

He laughed. "That might be a little too punk for me."

"Pussy."

"How about you give me your belt and you wear fucking rope."

"Okay. Find the rope, and we'll trade."

"Whatever."

We continued up the street, and turned into a large parking lot just before the intersection. We walked along the side of a row of buildings overlooking the park and I kept an eye out for loose rope. Punk as fuck.

"It's in here," he said.

We came to a large black glass door that read "Springer Wine Merchants: EST 1907" in large gold leafing. We went in. The air was cold, the A.C. unit boring away loudly somewhere in the darkness. My eyes slowly adjusted and against walls, floor and ceiling of black, rows and rows and rows of wooden wine racks stretched out in front of me. I suddenly felt very intimidated with my limited (at best) knowledge of wine. I assumed I would soon be getting frowned at by a wine merchant, begrudgingly packing my $6 bottle away into a paper bag. The air smelled of cedar and drywall. I wondered if a re-model had just taken place. A lady came around the corner. Tall, thin. Not really my type, but after heels, a more than adequate set of calves ran out from her tight gray skirt. I followed them up to a fair set of hips, and lost it all somewhere amid an ocean of shirt. Her breasts were missing, her face was terrible, her hair blonde. I forgot about the calves.

"Can I help you?" She asked.

"I don't think so," I said. "I'll let you know though if I change my mind."

"Okay." She disappeared again, apparently deeming us (rightfully) unimportant, sales-wise.

We looked at the shelves, walking slow.

"What do you want to get?" Michael asked.

"I don't know. I don't have much cash, so, whatever's cheap."

"You want wine though?"

"Yeah."

"Red or white?"

"Red."

"Okay. Over here."

We walked a few aisles over, to a wall. Red wines separated by country, and again by vineyard, spread out in front of us by the hundreds. I began looking at the price tags, working my way from right to left. Michael went left to right.

I texted Marie. "What kind of wine do I want? I like dry red." I put my phone back in my pocket and waited a few minutes, pretending I knew what I was looking at. Soon, it buzzed.

"You like a Cabernet Sauvignon. DON'T SPEND TOO MUCH!"

I put the phone away again, and began looking for a Cabernet Sauvignon under ten bucks. You see, I used to drink whiskey, almost exclusively. The issue with that is whiskey is expensive (unless you get a brand that hollows you out in a matter of seconds, sending you screaming for the nearest restroom, arms clenched tight around your mid-section, asshole squeezing, face alternating reds and greens). Wine solves that issue. Besides being generally amazing on the tongue and a little bit classy, it's cheap as fuck and does the trick just as easily as any liquor (save for maybe moonshine).

I found myself holding a bottle with a kangaroo on it.

$9.99.

Sold.

I walked over to the counter. The lady was somewhere else. I looked but there was no bell to ring. Of course there wouldn't be, I thought. This joint is too classy.

I stood there. Michael came over. "Did you pick one?" he asked.

I showed him. He looked it over, and appeared to hold back a frown. "Okay."

Calves first, the lady came around the corner, and ruined herself all over again. "Are you all set?" she asked.

"Yes."

She came around the counter, and sure as shit gave my selection a grimace. Poking angrily at the register, she said; "Twelve seventy three."

I reached in my wallet, dug out my card, and handed it over.

She swiped it, and handed it back to me, the whole time between watching the green LCD screen, presumably waiting for it to read "declined".

"Do you have any rope?" I asked.

She looked up. "Excuse me?"

"Do you have any rope? I want to keep my friend's pants up."

She looked at Michael. He nodded back at her.

"No," she said, and walked out from behind the counter, and back into the labyrinth of wine racks.

We left, out to the sunshine.

"Where can we transfer this into the water bottle?" I asked. I put the bottle into my bag.

"I don't know. We could use the Ben and Jerry's bathroom, I guess."

"Okay."

We made our way through to the Ben and Jerry's parking lot. The smell of American Eagle and Drakkar Noir burned my nostrils. Flashes of watching my number of friends dwindle through school as they all slowly realized the societal importance of finance shot through my brain. I kept my eyes to the ground. Just being near them struck me wrong. We went inside.

The air was cold, and to the left of us, a table of middle aged women dressed like twenty-somethings (and pulling it off fairly well). My hatred for the shit outside began to subside.

"Can I help you?" the girl behind the counter asked. She was tanned. Short. Maybe eighteen. Eyes green, with dark rings around the iris'.

"Bathroom?"

"Right over there," she said, pointing.

"Thanks."

I walked over, my bag, huge and destructive hung from my side, drawing the housewives attention to the suspicious, handsome young man heading to the bathroom for reasons obviously other than the normal use. I liked the idea that they liked the idea.

I closed the door behind me and set my bag on the sink. I opened it, took out the wine and my water bottle. Then, I realized I didn't have a corkscrew.

"Fuck."

Looking around the bathroom, I began to wonder what I could use. There is absolutely nothing of any real use in a public bathroom. My alcoholism would have to be much more desperate for me to take apart the toilet and fashion a corkscrew out of the chain in the tank that operates the flushing mechanism...

I put the wine and water bottle back in my bag and left the bathroom. As I opened the door, one of the women was smiling at me, as if she had been smiling at the door, waiting for me to open it. I smiled back and she arched her back, pushing her tits up. I kept moving.

"All set?" Michael asked.

"No."

"Why?"

"No fucking corkscrew," I said, walking out. Michael followed me as we bore our way through the parking lot of filth.

"What do we do?" Michael asked.

"I don't know. I guess we can see if the wine store sells corkscrews."

"I don't really want to go back in there."

"Me either," I said.

"We could go to one of these bars and see if they'll open it for us."

I thought it over. "That's a fucking great idea."

"Wait, what? No, I was kidding."

"No, it's a good idea. Do you know any of the bartenders? Where do you think we should try?"

Michael stared at me with concern, although whether for what I was thinking, or for what I would drag him into, I couldn't tell. Maybe both. "We should try a foreign restaurant. Like the Japanese place down the road. They don't speak much English. Maybe we can just confuse them enough and they won't know what's going on."

"It shouldn't be that big of a deal, I don't think. We just need our wine opened."

"Yeah, but, I don't know, kind feels a little scummy."

"I don't care. We have a problem, and we figured out a solution. Fuck it. Let's go."

We walked down the road, past crowds of people, trendy restaurants, bar after bar, and seven or eight horse statues. Finally, we came to KOTO, the Japanese bar.

"You coming in?" I asked.

"Are you talking?"

"Sure."

"Okay. I want to see how it goes."

I took the wine bottle out of my bag, and walked in swiftly, hoping to catch the bartender off guard. He was standing behind the bar (of course), and wiping off a glass.

"Excuse me sir," I said. "I need a little help."

"Okay."

"My friend and I were going on a picnic and we bought this bottle of wine, but now we lost our corkscrew and can't open the goddamned thing. I was wondering if you could help us out."

"A pic-nic?"

"Yes sir, and we need a corkscrew. You have one right?"

"Yes." He reached under the bar, and then held one up. A chrome beauty, big as my hand.

I put the wine on the bar. "Can I see it?" I asked him, holding out my hand.

"Okay." He handed it over, and I plunged it into the cork, twisting and pulling. I pulled the cork out, and gave the bartender back his tool.

"Thanks man," I said, and Michael and I left just as swiftly as we came in.

Outside, we moved toward the park.

"I can't believe that worked," Michael said.

"Where can we fill up now?" I asked.

"Ben and Jerry's again?"

"No. I don't want to go there right now. Parking garage?"

"Sure."

We continued down the street toward the parking garage, which was directly across the street from the park, and Seasons, and Ben and Jerry's, all on separate sides. It was a two level garage, and was always full, but rarely were there people there.

I walked up the sidewalk, and down the stairs into it's bottom level. Michael followed. I took the wine and water bottle out of my bag at the bottom of the stairs.

"Right here?" Michael asked.

"Why not?"

"Okay."

I filled the water bottle. It left us half a bottle for later. Some of it spilled down my fingerts, but I licked it off. People walked by above us and didn't notice or care. We had succeeded.

I pulled off of it, and passed it to Michael.

I felt good.