Catch and Release

I’m going to limit myself to one specific compliment today. Rather than a scattergun of praise I’ll point out one simple thing which will by itself act as an endorsement for

Adam Kozak

’s entire short story, which he has been kind enough to give us today

And the compliment is this. Not even Wodehouse himself could top the opening sentence to this one.

The clock struck Twelve and Twelve, not being one to take it lying down, struck back. 

That as far as I am concerned is 10/10. This is comic writing at its best. And you can quote me on that.

Enjoy.

TJB.

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Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

The clock struck Twelve and Twelve, not being one to take it lying down, struck back. 

Trevor Tutbury watched the fracas that ensued on, among, and, to a lesser extent around, the clock hanging over the door with a mixture of disinterest and amusement. The same conflict happened every day at twelve and Twelve never won but every day Twelve fought the clock, bobbing and weaving as the clock’s hands whirled. Twelve’s two would inevitably try to wield the one as a kind of pike or halberd before throwing the one in a vainglorious but fruitless attempt to strike down the clock once and for all. Sometimes Twelve hit the mark, though never doing enough damage. Mostly it missed. If it hit, Five and Six, always on the clock’s side and always fed up with Twelve’s antics, would retrieve Twelve’s one from where it landed. If Twelve missed, his one would go wide and tumble down to the floor and the clock would have to climb awkwardly all the way down, little hand over big hand over little hand over big hand, until it reached the bottom and returned Twelve’s one to the top of his clock face. 

Sometimes Trevor would say to the clock, “Need a hand?” always hoping for a “Yes” so he could follow up with “Big or little?” but the clock never answered and would instead seem to stare at him. It had no eyes, of course, but it would stare nonetheless as if offended Trevor would even ask, as if asking implied the clock was weak and needed help. 

Trevor was about thirty-eight years old, mature for his height and thin for his age but otherwise looked relatively normal with two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and teeth where his teeth belonged. On top of his head was a mop of black hair because his real hair had fallen out some years before. 

Trevor shrugged as the clock ignored him, finished its journey down to the floor to retrieve the Twelve’s spent one numeral, then climbed back up the doorframe, arms enlarged to reach outside its clock face and undulating like octopus limbs. 

Twelve o’clock meant lunchtime for Trevor so he closed his laptop, pushed back from his desk, and grabbed his coat from the hook on the back of the door. Removing his coat revealed the handwritten sign taped to the door that read “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Trevor turned the handle, opened the door then spun around to swat away the door’s searching fist that came hurtling toward his face.

Trevor pressed the button for the elevator and, when it arrived at the floor, he took the tin whistle that emerged from the wall and played the melody to “Come Out, Ye Black and Tans.” The door opened in response to the music and, after reinserting the whistle into the wall slot, he took the lift down to the first floor. 

The elevator opened onto a drab corridor with faded red and gold wallpaper and chipped terrazzo that clicked beneath his feet.

Outside, Trevor adjusted his hair then lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and exhaled as he watched the smoke curl down, down to the ground from the lit end. His phone rang and he answered.

“Hey you,” came the cheery female voice on the other end. “How about lunch?”

Trevor sighed. 

“I heard that. Come on, you promised me lunch.”

Trevor didn’t remember promising his girlfriend, Darlene, anything but he wasn’t in the mood to fight. “Sure, of course, where do you want to go?”

“Oh just pick somewhere. I like when you pick.”

“Okay. Flanagan’s.”

“No, not Flanagan’s. We always go to Flanagan’s. We were just there last week.”

“Okay, how about Dorsia?”

“Are you asking me?”

Trevor adjusted his tone. “Let’s go to Dorsia.”

“Don’t we probably need a reservation?”

“More than likely.” He inhaled sharply between his teeth. “But I was hoping we’d waste enough time so that we wouldn’t be able to eat,” he said, mumbling.

“What?”

“Nothing. Harvey Wallbanger’s, then.”

Darlene squealed. “I love Harvey’s. See you there in ten? I have a surprise for you.”

The line clicked. 

Despite long experience telling him that she wouldn’t wait for a response to her question, Trevor found himself forming the words anyway.

He sighed and started walking down the street. 

The midday sun, high in the green sky, beat down between the tall buildings but since it was only early spring, Trevor was still comfortable with his coat on.

Trevor walked glumly, ignoring the pink palm trees towering overhead and refusing to move for anyone walking the other way. After running into two kangaroos and a Steinway hovering six inches off the ground and playing Bach’s Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C Minor, he decided to alter this strategy. 

He wasn’t quite sure why he was avoiding Darlene but lunch with her was the last thing he wanted right now. She would take up all the air and probably complain about work or her friends or her mother and not ask him anything. Trevor’s presence was optional during their conversations. Sometimes he would put the phone down and come back ten minutes later and she would still be talking, totally oblivious that he had been gone. 

Still, it had been nice at times. Nice! What a lackluster word. A sunny green sky was nice. The beach was nice. A cup of coffee was nice. A relationship was supposed to be special, something to keep you alive and wanting more. 

Maybe he was too practical for that kind of romantic notion. 

Harvey Wallbanger’s was a chic restaurant that had run away with its theme and covered every surface in the color orange. This necessarily nauseated Trevor every time he came in. Between the atomic tangerine carpet with geometric patterns in carrot orange, the peach and apricot wallpaper with shades of melon-orange and, of course, the navel tables and chairs, it was all Trevor could do to stay standing. 

The maitre d’ took Trevor to a table, set him down, and announced with a flourish that the waiter would be along shortly.

The maitre d’ was gone before Trevor could tell him that he was expecting Darlene but, with a good view of the front door, he decided that he would surely spot her coming in. 

Trevor was working on his second breadstick (also orange) when something odd came in the door. It had what appeared to be the body of a woman dressed in a fashionable black jumpsuit with a fishbowl on her shoulders where her head should have been. Inside the fishbowl was the head of a fish attached, apparently, to the woman’s body. 

He had heard of such transformations before but had never seen one in person, although they were apparently becoming all the rage. 

What was the world coming to? The line had to be drawn somewhere.

Trevor was just shaking his head and pitying the poor dupe that had done such a thing to herself when he realized the fishbowl lady was being led by the maitre d’ to his  table. Certain that there was either some mistake or that the maitre d’ was merely passing by with the fish lady in tow, he waited with a general air of curiosity. 

It wasn’t until the maitre d’ pulled back the chair opposite him and the fish lady sat down that a mixture of panic, revulsion, and a desire for sushi filled the better part of his abdomen. Trevor stared at the head of a large salmon glittering in the bowl, its chin pointed directly at the ceiling and one eye like a saucer staring directly and unblinkingly at him.

“Surprise!” The salmon’s mouth opened and Darlene’s voice crackled from an unseen speaker. 

To say Trevor was surprised would be putting it mildly. You might also say he was alarmed, astonished, astounded, bewildered, shocked, stunned, and stupefied. Trevor’s mouth hung open like a fish in its natural habitat—the ocean, not a fishbowl attached to his girlfriend’s body.

“What do you think?”

Trevor gulped. “It’s quite the change.”

“I know, right? But I figured I’d just go for it. I mean, I wanted to get it done before it got too popular. I think it’ll really do big things for my career and I know how much you like fish so I figured, why not?”

“Yeah, why not?” Trevor said weakly. 

The waitress—mid-forties and resplendent a navel-orange blouse with matching pants—took that opportunity to materialize next to the table. “Welcome to Harvey Wallbanger’s,” she said in a bored voice that made it clear this was all beneath her. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Two Harvey Wallbangers, please,” Darlene said.

“And a double whisky,” Trevor said.

“Trev, it’s only lunch.”

“And keep them coming.”

“Trevy!” Darlene whined his name.

“Just stack one on top of the other, see how many you can get on the table. Better yet, go three blocks down and five over to St. James the Dismembered hospital, pick up an IV, swap out the Lactated Ringer’s for whisky and plug it into my arm.”

“Got it,” said the waitress. “Any appetizers? Mozzarella sticks? No? Just the drinks? Okay, then.” She disappeared.

“What the heck, Trevor? Is it the fish? You don’t like it.”

Trevor shook his head. “No, no. It’s fine. The fish is fine. Does that eye blink? Can you blink that eye? It just kind of stares at me. It’s unnerving.”

“I knew it. I knew you wouldn’t like it.” Her voice cracked and although it was clear from her voice that she was crying, one couldn’t say that the salmon was crying, although there was a certain frowning curve to its mouth that hadn’t been there before.

“No, baby, don’t cry, don’t cry. Are you crying? I can’t tell because of the water, you know, doch der Haifisch lebt im Wasser so die Tränen sieht man nicht.”

“You know I don’t speak German.”

“Neither do I.”

“You know what?” Darlene said, getting to her feet. “I can’t do this. I really can’t. I can’t do this right now. I try to do something nice, something different for you and this is the reaction I get.”

The waitress rematerialized with two Harvey Wallbangers and four double whiskies on a tray. 

Darlene grabbed both Harvey Wallbangers and upended them directly into the open top of the fishbowl. The orange drink swirled around in the bowl, quickly obscuring the salmon head from view. 

An orange wave of relief washed over Trevor. With the unblinking eye no longer watching him he felt his courage return.

“Darlene, this might not be the best time but I don’t think we should see each other anymore. We should see other people. I don’t mean see like with my eyes, we see other people all the time, I mean see as in date other people and we shouldn’t date each other anymore.”

There was a deep silence for a moment, which unnerved him.

Then Darlene said, “Is it because of the fish?”

Trevor weighed his options for a moment. “No?”

“Is that a question?”

“No, I guess not. No, it’s not. Although the fish didn’t help. I mean, what were you thinking, Darlene?”

“I don’t know. You’ve got a mop for hair.” She spat this out as if it were a worthy retort. 

“Yeah, but we’re not talking about me.”

“Well, I hate your hair. So there.”

“Fair enough.”

Trevor stared at the space where he knew the salmon head sat on her shoulders, somewhere in the murky orange depths of the bowl. The silence crackled between them. Darlene didn’t move or say anything for a minute, which felt like at least two minutes to Trevor. 

Then, quietly, Darlene said, “I gotta get my head back.” She walked quickly away from Trevor, knocking into two orange chairs at two different orange tables before plowing directly into the closed glass door. 

Once she was out on the sidewalk, Darlene leaned over and emptied the bowl, then seemed to regret her decision and whirled around looking for new water with which to fill the bowl. 

“I should go help her,” Trevor said to the waitress who had been standing next to them staring the entire time. He grabbed a whisky from the tray and a pitcher of water from the table and hurried out the door, knocking back the whisky as he ran. 

The waitress watched as Trevor went out and poured the pitcher of water into Darlene’s head bowl. Darlene hugged Trevor, who seemed to hug her back. The waitress shook her head. 

“That’s one fish that boy should have let go,” she said and knocked back the remaining three whiskies in quick succession. 

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