New Year's Shark

Jan 16, 2008 - 16:46 PM PST

The one thing they had in common was that they were drunk. That was the unifying element, the common denominator. The frivolity of that social bond was outweighed by the gravity of it being New Year’s Eve. And the fun they were having. Old friends coming back together, electrified by their new powers, cowering inwardly from the previous year’s secret embarrassments. But it was the old group back together again. That was what mattered.

There was Erwin, the Christian who in the old days wouldn’t drink out of principle, out of regard for his religion, but who now recognized the simplicity of it and drank for the spectacle of it. He was a beast of comedy, who delighted in his own witticisms, prided himself on the enjoyment he took in describing his friends.

He shared this enjoyment with Drake, who hadn’t gotten off work yet. Drake had called Tomothy to say he wouldn’t be there for the countdown.

Tomothy, with his normal amiable demeanor, said, “All right, man. Get here when you can. We’ll have plenty of drink for you.”

Tomothy was a Renassiance man of the modest ones’ new age, a juggernaut of delightful logic who embodied the ethics of friendship, who was not only the host of the party but the caterer to everyone’s drinking whims. Every form of hard liquor and many variations of beer and wine were accounted for under his supervison. Not once did he ask for compensation.

There was Ren and his wife Candy, newly weds, still glowing from the splendor of marriage. Ren’s brother, Roland, a recluse by decision, lurked nearby, waiting for Drake to arrive and scare up a game of Texas Hold ‘Em.

Sera entered the room, rubbing her titties. She had sent her boyfriend for the night running for the border by removing her panties in front of everybody, laying them to rest on the center of the carpet . . . for the dog to find.

Tomothy’s dog was Chomsky, named after the social philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky. He was cantankerous and rugged, but solemn, obedient and loving.

There was Davey (Salad Tooth, or Butter Tusk), a juggernaut of the group, who moved away to go to medical school but returned to remind everyone how much they loved each other and remembered the high school days. Davey had vampirish teeth, with canines more pronounced than Chomsky’s. He had also had a ferociously anayltical mind. But his love for drunken banter usurped his intellectual impulses. He was also likely distracted by Sera, his ex-girlfriend, who had arrived at the party with her new boyfriend like a time bomb of lustful energy, waiting to detonate outward with sexual shrapnel and cripple the hell out of everyone.

There were more friends, many more. They came and went, passing like cars in an intersection, saying hi, laughing, saying goodbye, and turning for the door, some leaving forever.

There was old Donald, the big-nosed architect with glasses, who was confident enough to be flirting even though he was in a serious relationship. You see, Donald felt stuck, and this feeling caused him to flirt. He hoped ostenisbly to hook up with someone and provide himself with a tangible reason for breakup. The catch is, the girl Donald happened to be flirting with was Tomothy’s ex-girlfriend, ex-heartbreak. This girl was Christina, a sexy law school student, a mother of one wearing a short black skirt.

Finally Drake arrived. He wore a New Year’s Eve hat and wielded a digital video camera. He yelped like a baby wolf several times in comedic fashion, attracting attention on his way to the kitchen where he quickly downed two shots of whiskey. He rushed into the party like a fun demon. He was the crazy alcoholic party-lover who started conversations like a major league pitcher, throwing all the girls the cock curveball. He and Erwin enagaged in several absurd exchanges, jumping high into the air in order to mockingly exchange high-fives.

The night progressed like a train of liquor, derailing and crashing into the human brain. By the time the festivities were nearing their end, not a soul was sober nor dared to dream of a normal REM cycle. Nor did a soul slumber in a room unfouled by the sounds of snoring and the poisonous, wafting smell of beer fart.

By four in the morning everyone was asleep.

Some, such as Ren and his wife claimed a bed. Others crashed on couches or cushioned chairs. The unlucky ones, the ones too drunk to have anticipated procuring a bed, slept on the floor, their limbs and spines twisted like snakes across the living room carpet.

Morning arrived with the clarity of a thousand crystals. Everyone awoke feeling focused, optimistic and robust. The men felt focused, the women robust; both harbored equal shares of optimism. They emerged from their disparate sleeping quarters, communing in the living room.

There was a long silence.

They smiled at each other. Drake farted. Everyone laughed.

“You know, I’ve got to say . . . I feel great,” Tomothy confessed, sheepishly.

“I do too, man,” Donald chimed in.

“I drank enough to kill a water buffalo last night,” said Drake. “I think at one point I did a beer bong rip of Tequila. Yet I’m not hungover at all.”

Everyone simultaneously turned their heads to the kitchen (as in a group exorcism) and did a quick inventory of the fortress of empty liquor bottles and beer cans barracading any outside force from the kitchen. Collectively they realized that despite the oceanic quantities of alcohol imbibed on New Year’s Eve, no one was even remotely close to being hungover, that in fact an incomprehensible phenomena had descended upon them sometime during the night.

Drake suddenly grew very comfortable with himself and began to fart. It was a sneaky killer, escaping first with the sound of a drawling, kittenish, moan (the sound of a balloon losing its air, or a menopausal woman being interrogated while coming down from hard drugs) that soon evolved into a more brassy, whale-like noise. Drake rose into the air, sitting yoga-style, levitating above the couch like a deity, propelled upward by the force of his flatulence.

He jerked his head violently to the right in order to look out the living room window. His eyes dilated; his mouth quivered; his arm shot out so that his forefinger could redirect everyone’s attention to Tomothy’s backyard pool.

Everyone held their nose, first and foremost. It might have been Ren who uncovered his nostrils first. He motioned for the others to let go off their nostrils and follow him to the window.

It was Tomothy’s house so it made sense that he was the first to actually stand up, go to the window and look outside. Drake, returning to Earth, joined his side. Erwin followed. Roland was next. By the time Ren, Candy, Donald, Sera, Davey and Christina crowded in there was a single mass of curious spectactors gazing out onto Tomothy’s backyard pool.

They saw, spilling out over the perimeters of the pool, a freckled and furious great white shark. Its torso filled the walls of the pool to capacity. It’s fins occationally thrashed out effiminatly over the concrete love handles of the pool.

Drake lit up a cigarette and turned away, morbidly distracted. The others continued staring for a full three minutes.

“What is that?” Sera asked, suddenly. “What the fuck is that?”

Christina chimed, hysterically, “What in the hell is that?!”

Davey paced around the room, pulling his hair. Christina and Sera garbled to each other incredulously, in hysterical girl-speak. Donald and Erwin spoke to each other through a sequence of articulate, pathologically re-affirming FAQ sessions, immediately agreeing to agree that there was indeed a pool-sized shark outside.

They went outside, to the backyard, and formed a loose perimeter around the pool. The sounds of the enormous thrashing shark had them all on edge. Its bloodshot, beachball-sized eyes darted around like spinning globes, throwing razzle-dazzle beams of eye contact at the spectators. Only Tomothy approached the edge of the pool and looked the shark straight in the mouth. He was the size of of a submarine. He rumbled and snarled ferociosly, then collapsed doggedly down into the pool. Pus oozed from its nose. He moaned. He was evidently not in a good way.

“This animal needs our help,” Tomothy announced. “We need buckets of water, immediately!”

Galvanized by the queer but inspired call to action, the group collectively organized a water-fetching chain gang. It started at the sink, manned by Sera, and followed a series of bucket-passings before ending at Tomothy, who splashed the buckets and glasses of water on the shark’s face and torso. This only went on for ten minutes before Ren ran up to the front of the chain.

“Wait a minute! Sharks are salt-water fish!”

Everyone gasped. Slowly realized their tragic stupidity, they put their buckets down and looked at the shark. He was sinking, looking sicker and more miserable by the second.

“We need salt then!” Drake yelled.

The others agreed and went to fetch salt. They spent the afternoon dumping buckets of salt into the pool and onto the back of the shark. They thought they were saving the shark’s life. They even gave him a name, Sharky.

By early afternoon Sharky was looking sicker than ever. Tomothy and Drake knelt by the edge of the pool. It was sad. They knew Sharky was dying. They wanted to make sure Sharky knew he was loved. They pet his snout for a half hour. Sharky’s energy expired and he slowly sunk below the water.

Drake tried to grab hold of one of his teeth, but Tomothy stopped him.

“He’s gone, man,” he said.

When the rest of the group learned of Sharky’s death they gathered around the pool for a silent funeral. They observed a ten minute vow of silence and lost themselves in meditation, trying to use the power of collective conscious intention to boost Sharky’s spirit to a higher stage of the karmic cycle.

Drake busted out with some chronic weed from California and everyone got high as hell. They laughed hysterically at the enormous dead shark in Tomothy’s pool. Then they tripped out about the absurdity of it, the agonizing death of Sharky. They cried. All of them.

Then they got hungry. At first, no one said anything. Erwin looked up at the door to the house, which prompted the girls to look too.

“I got the munchies,” Sera said.

“Yeah, do you have any chips?” Christina asked.

Erwin chimed in. “Tom-dude, do you have any Hot Pockets?”

“What are those things called- spring rolls! You know? At Vietnamese restaurants!”

“No, no, no! Dude! Bagels with lox, cream cheese and capers!”

“How about just some scrambled eggs and bacon?” Drake asked.

Tomothy sighed. “Unfortunately, guys, I have no food right now.”

Everyone knew it was the truth. If Tomothy had anything he would have already gladly offered it up. Everyone grew crestfallen about the situation. They were hungry but didn’t want to rudely abandon the site of a traumatic experience.

Then Erwin said, “You guys, I’m leaving.”

“Why?” Drake asked.

“I just have things I want to do today. I’m having lunch with some extended family.”

Erwin said goodbye to everyone and left.

“Look, if everyone’s hungry,” Tomothy said. “Let’s eat Sharky. He’s dead, his meat will taste delicious and we’ll absorb his prana life force.”

Everyone looked at each other, looking to corroborate their approval. Then they grinned and nodded.

A half hour later they were taking part in one of the great barbecues of the 21st century, certainly one of the most unorthodox. With the use of a elaborately designed network of pulleys and cranes, assembled on the fly from twigs, floss and shark Sharky’s teeth, they had dragged their enormous dead friend out of the pool. They skinned him, slaughtered him, and cut into nearly a hundred log-sized chunks of meat. These chunks of meat were then smothered in remoulade, barbecue sauce and a lemon-lime garnish, cooked, scorched, and roasted under a blazing roteserie fire.

The bloody, tendon-covered skeleton was left to bake in the sun and attract flies while the group feasted.

Donald stood up. “I have to go. Thanks for the grub. I’ll see you guys later.”

Hardly any one looked up. Their mouths were full of medium rare shark meat.

Ren and Candy left next. They wanted to start working on a baby. They took Roland with them. That left Tomothy, Drake, Christina and Sera. There were brief thoughts of an orgy but that was ruined when Chomsky discovered the skeleton and went to town.

“Chomsky! Go inside!” Tomothy yelled. Chomsky sulked and ran up the stairs and into the house.

“What should we do with all these leftovers?” Christina asked.

“Let’s give them to homeless shelters,” Drake responded.

Tomothy shook his head. “They won’t take it. But we can make sandwiches and hand them out to people on the street.”

Sensing they were about to be asked to make sandwiches, Sera and Christina got up and went inside. Drake and Tomothy looked around at the catastrophic mess they would spend the rest of the day cleaning up. They both started laughing. Drake sighed and lay on his back, still high from the weed. Tomothy followed suit and lay on his back, swatting a fly off the bridge of his glasses.

“So what’s your New Year’s resolution, man?” Drake asked.

Tomothy was silent for a few moments, then did a sit-up. “I’m going vegetarian.”