Clownfish Blues

Chapter 22

The Gold Coast

Another hot and bustling day along U.S. 1 in Miami. Sidewalks full of businesspeople on lunch and aimless people on parole. Broken headlight glass in the street, and the rest of the fender bender at the curb. An old man worked the intersections with a cardboard sign: Why Lie? I Want to Buy Beer. A tent sale with balloons, a bicycle with dangling iguanas, a hooker past her sell-by date.

At every corner, waiting customers spilled out of convenience stores. Above, perpetually updating billboards where the workers might as well just camp out.

A silver Corvette sat at a red light. Coleman popped a Pabst and stared. “What’s the deal with all those people in line? Did a Stones concert go on sale?”

“Shhhhh! I’m trying to listen.” Serge turned up the radio. “Lottery’s now projected to break another record by Saturday. I always monitor the lottery when it gets this high.”

“But you hate the lottery.” Coleman burped. “You said it preys on people least able to afford it.”

“Plus, my coffee gets cold waiting in line at the counter.” The light turned green, and Serge passed another daunting assemblage that extended into an alley. “But even if you don’t play the numbers, you have to follow the jackpots as a matter of survival down here.”

Another swig. “How so?”

“If you live in Florida, a major jackpot is like a hurricane about to make landfall,” said Serge. “Society looks no different than during the final hours of storm preparation. The lottery lines screw up all major infrastructure for basic needs, so frantic people fight through snarled intersections to stock up on water and food, get prescriptions filled, hit ATM machines, and keep their cars full of gas, because God knows if you can’t pay at the pump and have to go inside, you better be wearing comfortable shoes.”

“Never thought of it that way.”

“The closer you come to the official drawing of the Ping-Pong balls, the lower the state’s IQ.”

“But why all the fuss now?” asked Coleman.

“That stupid Powerball jackpot a couple years ago that broke a billion dollars. Since then, everyone’s had lottery fever. But the Powerball prizes are back down, and Florida’s are up, so we get all the commotion.”

“Lucky us,” said Coleman.

“But it’s also the perfect setting for our next episode,” said Serge.

Coleman looked down at a ripped spot on his shirt, where an employee name tag had been unceremoniously removed a half hour earlier. “At least we got our new jobs out of the way. Working at that supermarket was nerve-racking.”

“Getting fired after thirty minutes doesn’t count toward an episode,” said Serge.

“I think it does.”

“You don’t get to make the call,” said Serge. “You were the one drinking at the register and messing up the lottery tickets.”

“And you’re the one telling everybody in line not to buy them, then shoving the manager,” said Coleman.

“That was tough love,” said Serge. “I did another statistical analysis. Did you realize that among all the millions of people who played the lottery last week, there were no winners, yet seven others will be struck by lightning in their lifetimes?”

“For losing the lottery?” said Coleman. “That’s harsh.”

“No, that’s not what— . . . forget it.”

Coleman glanced down again. “Do you think they’re going to want their shirts back?”

“I’m taking a wild guess that ‘Get the hell out before I call the police’ means the shirts are our severance package.” Serge hit a blinker. “But it’s all for the best. I just came up with a much better idea for our next gig.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll find out when we get to the Party Store.”

“The Party Store?” said Coleman. “They have everything! . . .”

. . . An hour after their shopping spree, the silver Corvette sat at another typical South Florida strip mall anchored by a tattoo parlor and a Hungry Howie’s pizza place. Serge stood on the edge of the parking lot with a megaphone. “You’re fantastic! Just keep it up!”

“I’m having trouble breathing,” said Coleman. “And I’m getting really hot.”

“That means you’re doing it right,” Serge barked. “Now execute a camel foot and the pancake spin, then a big finish with the inverted butterfly.”

“Okay, here goes.”

“Whoa!” yelled Serge. “That’s way too fast!”

“What do I do?”

“Slow down!”

“I can’t!”

A heavy cardboard sign flew into the air and came down, bonking Coleman on the head. “Ow!”

Serge ran over and helped his fallen friend up into a sitting position. Then he removed the giant, furry costume head. “Coleman, speak to me.”

“This sucks.” He rubbed his forehead. “How come I’m the one who has to dress like a panda and twirl a sign for the Chinese lunch buffet?”

“Because I’m your manager,” said Serge. “Sign-spinning has become an increasingly competitive field. They now even hold conventions with their own version of the X Games. If I don’t teach you the newest technique, there’s no way you’ll survive out here . . .” He pointed across the highway at a gorilla executing a triple Lutz to promote international calling minutes.

“Can’t I just stand still and wave at cars?”

“No!” Serge grabbed the panda head. “Now put this back on. There’s much work to do. Many crowd-pleasing routines to learn: the swim, the flop, the gator, the reverse axle, the Heimlich maneuver, the DUI field test, the restless leg syndrome, the Czechoslovakian Dance of Death . . .”

“I’m just going to wave at cars.”

Serge seized him by the shoulders. “Get a grip on yourself!”

Coleman held out a paw. “I think it’s starting to rain.”

Serge looked up. “Crap, you’re right . . . Hurry! To the bus-stop shelter before your sign starts to smear!”

They dashed under the metal overhang and the sky cut loose, as it is known to do every afternoon in the Florida summer for fifteen minutes.

Coleman took a seat with the panda head in his lap. The bench had an advertisement for corrupt personal injury attorneys: No Pain? No Problem! Across the street, a gorilla glared at them from another bench advertising a credit repair service that just made it worse.

A fingernail scraped at a mustard spot on the panda’s chest. “Serge?”

“Yes, Ling Ling?”

“How come it rains every afternoon in the summer?”

“Temperature differential because land heats up faster than the sea as the sun climbs into the sky, creating a pressure drop and pulling air and moisture in from the ocean.” Serge chugged a giant cup of coffee and gave the gorilla across the street the bird; the gorilla beat its chest. “The rain effect is most pronounced in the summer.”

“Huh?”

“It’s above your need-to-know.” Serge reached in his pocket and began fiddling with a new cell phone. “But don’t worry. It stops as fast as it starts.”

“Rain makes me sticky inside this suit.”

“What are you complaining about? I’m pissed off at filling out official forms.”

“Forms? Where? When were you filling out forms?”

“Inside my head. Another flashback.” Serge pressed phone buttons. “I forgot that I’m really angry at all the forms we’re forced to complete. Name, address, emergency contact, page after page, checking off tiny boxes that you’re a U.S. citizen, don’t have artificial joints and understand the terms of agreement.”

“Who makes you fill them out?”

“Everyone with more money,” said Serge. “It’s the American Dream, version six-point-oh: Some dude finally makes it big, and the first day he drives up to his new mansion, ‘Excellent, now I get to make the others fill out forms.’”

“It’s just not right.”

Serge nodded with conviction. “I’ll be standing at that counter with the sliding-glass window where they hand you a clipboard, and I say, ‘I’ve been here before,’ and they say they have a new filing system, and I respond, ‘But my doctor referred me—he already has all this info. Can’t you share?’ They say, ‘That’s a different office,’ and I say, ‘It’s the same building, in fact it’s right next door. For heaven’s sake, you have state-of-the-art imaging machines that can produce cross sections of every organ practically down to the cellular level, and yet that wall behind you is a baffling barrier to my date of birth?”

“What happened?” asked Coleman.

“The same glare every time, like I’m the one who’s crazy,” said Serge. “But I’m hip to their mind-control scheme. The whole process is no accident. The receptionist herself owns a personal phone with a thousand times the computing power of the entire Apollo program, and yet the clipboard she just handed me has a crappy pen hanging from twisted-up rubber bands, not to mention that all the forms are primitive, tenth-generation Xeroxes so grainy that people haven’t seen resolution this poor since Three Dog Night was big.”

“Jeremiah was a bullfrog! . . .”

“Man! Keep it together! . . . So I finally acquiesce, taking a seat in the waiting room to fill out this same shit for the millionth time, and they’ve set me up for failure again! I know they’re all hiding behind the counter giggling: ‘Look! Look! He’s trying to write his e-mail address on that line that’s only a half-inch long! This is too much! Now he’s trying to write his Social Security number on the line that’s only a quarter-inch! I’m laughing so hard my sides hurt!’ . . .”

“Serge?”

“Wait! Wait! Wait! . . . Then the receptionist tells the others: ‘Shhh! Pipe down! He’s coming back up here. You guys keep hiding and I’ll stand up and take care of this . . . Ahem, yes, Mr. Storms, thank you for filling out— . . . Wait, you missed this one part, the address of your primary physician . . . Yes, I know he’s next door . . . Yes, I understand it’s the same address as ours . . . No, sir, I’m sure that line on the form is longer than a half-inch . . .’ Then they send me into the bathroom: ‘Look! Look! We asked him to pee again in a cup that’s way too small! And we told him not to eat anything after midnight when it doesn’t matter! This is priceless!’”

“Serge?”

“Huh?” He looked around with a glazed stare. “Why are we here? What are you doing in that costume?”

“The new sign-spinning job.”

“Oh, right. It’s coming back now.”

“Serge, when was the last time you filled out a form?”

“I don’t know, two years? Three? But that’s the thing about trauma.”

A panda arm extended from under the bus shelter’s overhang. “I think the rain is letting up like you said.”

“But the streets will stay flooded for hours.” Serge deftly navigated a small touch screen.

“You sure love your new cell phone.”

“These new babies are now called smartphones. I don’t know how I’ve managed to get along without one!” Tap, tap, tap. “I’ve never possessed a cooler gadget in my life, and I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of its potential. But from what I’ve seen so far, these phones are the pinnacle of human achievement. Forget nuclear fission and stem-cell research. Every culture on every continent now has instant, around-the-clock, multiple media platforms to share with the rest of the globe that cats like to sit in boxes.”

“There’s an app for everything.”

“And here’s the crucial reason I needed it for our mission. While we’re crisscrossing the state tilting at lighthouses, we can watch all the old episodes of Route 66 that were filmed in Florida . . . Hold on, I’m trying to pull one up now.”

“I’m still having trouble believing the two main characters could land a new job every week.”

“It was a golden age,” said Serge. “The baby-boom economy became so robust that people had no trouble getting any job in any city at any time if they were the stars of a hit TV series.”

“Wow.”

Vehicles on U.S. 1 continued speeding by with a rhythmic whoosh of tires on the slick roadway. Clouds began to part. Pedestrians folded umbrellas.

“Okay, check it out,” said Serge. “I just finished a show from season four where Martin Milner—who would later star in Adam-12—gets hired as a safety diver for the mermaids at Weeki Wachee. And here’s one from season three, when they’re over in Punta Gorda doing yard work, and the town rises up after Linc is falsely accused of injuring a family dog with pruning shears. Back then the viewing public required less stimulus.”

Coleman peeked over Serge’s shoulder at the phone. “I don’t see anything.”

“That’s because it’s not finished loading,” said Serge. “Just keep watching the screen! This is going to seriously rock! I’m getting the tingles! It just finished loading! It’s starting! . . .”

A taxicab went by, followed by a red Porsche just off the factory line. The Porsche’s driver spotted the bus shelter and cut the wheel at the last second, swinging over for the lane closest to the curb. The motorist timed his skid perfectly, hitting a deep roadside puddle like a slaloming water-skier.

The wave of spray drenched a pair of people at the bus bench.

Serge stared silently at the road as bulbous droplets fell off his eyelashes and streamed down his cheeks. The departing Porsche had a vanity plate: Scrw U.

Coleman tapped his shoulder. “Hey, Serge, you were just about to show me something really cool on your new phone. Why’d you turn it off?”

Florida Cable News

The assignment editor saw Reevis heading across the newsroom and waved him into the office.

“I just caught it on TV,” said Reevis. “I can’t believe they’re dead. What happened?”

“Accidentally shot each other while disposing of a body in the Apalachicola Forest,” said an Australian accent.

Reevis turned to find two people he hadn’t noticed sitting against the wall. “Who are you?”—then, turning to the editor’s desk, “Who are they?”

“Reevis,” said Shug. “I’d like you to meet your new film crew. This is the acclaimed producer Cricket Brisbane and the equally renowned videographer Dundee.”

Reevis covered his face. “It doesn’t end.”

“I know you’re still in shock,” said the editor. “But I think you’ll have a much better working relationship. After all, they broke the story about Nigel and Günter’s violent demise. That’s the kind of hard news you’ve been begging for.”

Brisbane tipped his bushman’s hat. “We also went back and reviewed their work. Tonight we’re airing a segment that discredits them professionally. They manufactured a hoax story.”

“I’m getting dizzy,” said Reevis. “They hoaxed about a hoax?”

“Who knows? But we ran it by the focus groups.”

“The important thing,” said the editor, “is that all of you get to know each other and find a chemistry.”

Brisbane stood. “No time like the present. Saddle up, buckaroo!”

Reevis meekly turned to his editor. “Help . . .”

. . . When the SUV arrived on the scene, U.S. 1 was backed up all the way to downtown Miami. It wasn’t congestion. It was rubbernecking.

Drivers slowed and stuck their heads out windows and stared up. No fewer than five news trucks were already there. Reevis climbed out of the sixth. “Dear God!”

Cameraman Dundee got down on one knee so he could film Reevis at an upward angle, framing the source of all the curiosity.

“Look this way,” Brisbane told the reporter.

“But we can’t film this,” said Reevis.

“Why not?”

He pointed skyward. “Because the body is still hanging up there. We never show victims on TV when they’re still— . . . I mean, look!”

The three of them did. It was one of the countless lottery billboards across the state with an insane new jackpot number . . . and not the figure that was up there when the body was discovered, but the one state officials in Tallahassee had ordered put up while he was still swinging, because police interviews of witnesses were taking too long. And hanging by a noose in front of the digits was a lifeless state employee in a short-sleeve dress shirt with a laminated badge clipped to his pocket. The badge said Dagwood Foote. Can’t buy that kind of publicity.

“Ready when you are,” directed Brisbane.

“I told you, we don’t show corpses!” said Reevis.

“New directive.” Brisbane flapped a sheet of paper as proof. “This is the future. We posted crime scene photos on the Internet and took a poll, promising to ‘like’ the page of anyone who approved. They couldn’t get enough, the more grisly the better, especially if there were sexual overtones or the victims had funny haircuts . . . Just look at all the people around us taking selfies with the billboard over their shoulders.”

“Because there’s something deeply wrong with them,” said Reevis.

“That’s our specialty,” said Brisbane. “All of my audiences have problems. That’s why they watch.”

“But journalism is supposed to lead the way,” said Reevis. “Not follow.”

“Not anymore.” Brisbane held up a page with another directive. “I’ll feed you your opening line: Has lottery fever claimed its first victim?”

“I’m not saying that!”

“Is there a problem?”

“Yes! It’s distastefully flip! The man probably has a wife and kids, for heaven’s sake.”

“Do I need to call your assignment editor?”

“Fuck you! Fuck all these callous people!”

Brisbane leaned sideways to his cameraman. “Did you get that?”

“Every word.” Dundee adjusted the lens for a close-up.

“Good!” said Reevis. “Go show it to my supervisor, for all I care. Now you have your evidence that I’m insubordinate.”

“No,” said Brisbane, high-fiving his cameraman. “You nailed it!”

“Nailed what?”

“The confrontation that was essential for the segment.” Brisbane nodded. “They said you were a genius. Forget feeding scripted lines. From now on, you work best organically.”

“But that was just a confrontation between you and me.”

“That’s why they call it editing.”