This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?
The police filled the theater. Well, fifteen did, including the mustache man, who seemed in charge. They walked through the back of the theater in the dark, searching for an eight-foot crab man and his tour guide girlfriend, who seemed to have lost her shoes in the last little while, as if they could just blend in with everyone else.
The rest of the cops, and there were a few, stayed outside to keep anyone else coming in as if this were the only entrance to the building.
They canvas out, and tiptoed the steps up and down the aisles on one side, the audience in the dark save for the few people who couldn’t help from recording video on their phones. All of them had a brief blur of light flashing on their face. The auditorium could hold a couple of hundred folks and be currently about half-full. On the other side, instead, a stage was a great big aquarium wall from edge to edge that looked out forever, even though it looked that way by professionals. In the tank, we’re a variety of fish, including a couple of lumbering, very well-fed sharks, and three mermaids, three ladies, dressed in mermaid costumes, with incredibly long flowing, floating wigs that surrounded every move they made with graceful edges. They were dancing to a song that was being piped into the auditorium and one of them; looked like the one on the left was mouthing the words like she was on Broadway and trying to project her lip-syncing to the very back row, and she did that exceptionally well.
Tubes floated about every three or four feet that bubbled, and though the ladies were incredibly adept at holding their breath, you had to breathe sometimes, and there it was.
As the cops crossed in front of the aquarium wall, their black silhouettes screwing up everyone’s video of the presentation, the mermaids started pulling air from the tubes much more often, to where the lead had to blow a huge bubble in the middle of her big part.
They then started a dance where they turned and flipped, and they flew into the sky, presumably gasping for air as it was Janet and Wen who helped there, up and out of the aquarium.
One of them was hiding in the dressing room.
One of them screamed, and another started giggling. They were backing away, their latex fins flapping when Wen spoke. “Please do not be afraid.”
“What are you, some kind of mascot for Captain Tacos?”
He smirked, which was interesting to watch because it involved lots of difficult muscle movements and his feelers popped up as well.
“No, I’m off the sea. I have a brief memory of wince I came.”
“Did he just say ‘wince?’”
“He did. Darling, you are hot.”
“He’s mine!” said Janet, and she was between them.
“I’m not butting in, but can y’all help us if you’re going to be up there?”
Janet scowled, but helped. They were just sitting there. With those fins on, they couldn’t get up.
“Of course,” said Wen. He picked each of them up, and Janet helped them out of their fins.
“Excuse us, coming through!”
While he, an eight-foot crab monster, Jan stood there, helping Janet get the fins off three beautiful young ladies, four clowns dressed like sea lions, passed through and went face-first into the water.
One of them yelled to the last one, get the shark thing on your way. Then they were gone. The last guy picked up what looked like a crazy harpoon gun before jumping in.
One of them popped up for a second and said, “New act?”
“No?” said, Wen.
Once the mermaid’s fins were hanging up, and they were standing there in bikinis, drying off enough to throw something on, one looked up, then at Janet. “It’s him, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” said Janet.
“This is the monster of blueberry falls, right?”
“It is.”
Janet hugged him around the waist.
“How long has he been hiding out there?”
“Time? For a little over a year,” said Janet.
“My god. I should scream, but Janet, what are you going to do?”
“Run?”
“You can’t do that forever.”
“I know.”
“This is like a legit space man moment!”
“What?”
“I Jean, this is the thing where you too run like hell, and then eventually while you’re sleeping, the black ops guts get you, and string you up by your toenails and ask you tons of questions you don’t know the answer to, while they race him away and pack him on ice so he can’t hurt anyone.”
“Dizzying,” said Wen. “I wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“Unless they went after her, right?”
“I suppose?”
“Janet, is he a good kisser?”
“Oh, so good!”
“Then you know it, those guts are probably about three to five minutes before knocking to get in here. Y’all got to get out!”
“What’s the best way?” said, Janet.
“Through the pool.”
“Down there?”
“Sure! It is full of bubblers, so every few feet you can get a gulp of air. Then, towards the back, there’s a rock. From the glass, it doesn’t look that big, but from the inside, it’s huge. There’s a tunnel down there that leads straight back to another tank where they keep fish we are getting ready to let into the big one.”
“Okay, don’t you think I need more than a bubbler or something to breathe? Are they on the other side?”
“Yeah, they go back. I know I’ve snuck boyfriends back there, and we made it fine.”
“More than once,” said another.
“Okay, frequently, all right? Gimmick a break.”
Three knocks sounded on the door.
“In you go,” said one mermaid, and pushed Janet into the pool.
“We peeked at her.”
“Well, I figured you’d be fine. Get in!”
Three more knocks. “We’re coming in police!”
He jumped in after her where Janet was struggling to get down to one tube the bubblers were pouring the air in with. Meanwhile, the mermaids threw off their robes to kiss the incoming cops to see how dedicated they were to their jobs. At least one got a new friend for life.
Wen pulled Janet down to the bubbler and waved at the cheering crowd while Janet got used to it and took a good breath and stopped kicking so much.
Her shirt rode up around her, filling with bubbles. Those trying to do their show were astonished by the crab man busying in on them. Only one of them realized he was a) completely at home under the water in that getup, and b) didn’t need the tubes to breathe anything.
One shark swam by and he caressed its smooth vellum belly as it passed. It came to face for more.
When pointed at the rock at the back.
Janet nodded her head, and he took her by the hand.
They swam, mostly him doing the work, pulling her along, and they entered the cave at the back, but not without waving to their cheering public, who were already blowing up their cellular data plans, uploading everything right away online.
They ducked down into the cave and Janet found something that made her love the girls upstairs in a heartbeat, a bubble tube she could carry with her. They swam down the tunnel, no longer decorated for anyone’s pleasure, and passed several fish who were usually out in the big tank on their way out to the other end, where there was a barrier.
After they floated there, Janet saw the pull and pulled it, opening the sliding door. The swimmers pulled the door behind them as they swam out into the next pool.
Janet looked up and saw about a hundred swirling stingrays. He smiled at her and, pulling her by the hand, swam up into the middle of the swirl. The stingrays reacted to him, scattering as they approached. Janet wondered was the magic was normal, but she was busy running out of air, so she sort of lost interest.
They popped up in the middle of the pool, and she took a huge breath.
“I have never wanted to talk so much in my life!”
“What did you want to say?”
“I do not know. Let’s get out of here.”
They climbed out. She looked fine. Her clothes were dripping.
“Shit, she’s right.”
“What?”
“Where will we go? They’re just going to find us.”
“Look, there’s a couch and a gym bag by the side. See if there’s a change of clothes. I’m sure they won’t mind if we take it.”
“Look like a towel, too.”
She dried herself off. He enjoyed watching her disrobe and toss her wet shirt aside.
Rummaging through the gym bag, she scoffed.
“I can’t believe this!”
“What?”
“There’s only a dress in here, oh, and shoes.”
“Shoes? That’s good, right?”
“High heels?” Naked, with the black dress over her arm, she held the five-inch turquoise heels up to show him. “I can’t run in these!”
“I’ll bet they look great on you.”
She rolled her eyes, and kissed him anyway, then pulled on the dress and screw it, the shoes too.
The mermaid show let out. After a series of other acts, each one a little more disturbing than the last, and no more sightings of the crab man, the doors opened, and everyone filed out. Several folks were milling around talking about the crab man. Several of them were on their way to Captain Tacos, some were talking to the officers. They were showing each other their videos and counting their comments and likes, and giving each other thumbs-ups.
The officers in the dressing area above the tank found themselves joined by the clowns in fins, and after waving goodbye, joined others chasing around and down the hall. They stormed into the back room, just as Janet jumped up to ride Wen out the door. He tore across them, swinging with his great claws, and knocked one man right to the ground, and another man down into the tank. He immediately started screaming and saying “sting rays,” repeatedly.
Wen bounded through an extensive set of double doors, carrying Janet at his side, kicked through, and bounded down the hall. Her hair flew behind her. Her eyes were bright, and she was singing as he trounced one officer after another. This one down, that one in the dirt, up on the wall, hooked on a giant hook by his jacket, down under a table, up through a window. He yelled a lot as he flew through, head first, shoes last, and lots of shattered glass everywhere. They bounded out the back door, slamming it with his claws.
They were a pair. He with his armored exoskeleton and she in her black dress and turquoise pumps. She thought, all I need is some nice shell earrings or something, right? No problem. He jumped across the alley, up on a pole. He hit a corner and broke it off. Then Janet, still holding on, jumped back on the roof of the building behind him, housing all the tanks. He got to his feet.
“Ready?”
“Ready!” he jumped off the roof, and out onto the ride building for the haunted house. He climbed to the roof, with Janet by his side, and everyone in the courtyard cheered. One of them got him on her camera phone again.
“Gotcha.”
“Thank you,” said the man next to her. He took the phone from her hand, without her even knowing it.
She couldn’t see his face, with its disguise, and she could almost concentrate on it. Then he stepped back.
“Where’s my phone?” She turned and lost where he was. She was by herself, looking around as Wen and Janet jumped from the roof of the haunted house and landed right in front of her.
“Hi.”
“Hi back,” said Janet.
“You look nice,”
“Thank you.”
They bounded off down the way.