Corey Hill
How to Fight Against Squids

I have tried many things to stop the advances of the squids.

Like a wave, they come and go, the sneaking tentacles of suspicion that everything is my fault and I will never make good on any of the promises I've made to myself and to others. How best to dodge them, the sneaky cephalopod anxieties mingled with regret mingled with an afternoon drunk that was ballooning like turtle guts in the sun. Best to stamp out their wriggling with a concerted effort.

Vodka shots appeared on the table.

"To the future owner of Jimmy's Hot Dog Stand," I said.

"Jimmy's Hot Dog Stand," Jimmy agreed.

One day, Jimmy said, he would give up his hateful career as a successful day trader and get into the business of hot dog vending which had terrible hours and terrible pay, but the benefit of free hot dogs and working outside, which my friend posited a net gain.

"Jimmy's Hot Dog Stand," I repeated.

How had I fucked everything up?

How were the squids able to get inside so easily?

What measures could I take to avoid the inevitability of their attacks? Nothing could prevent their eventual success. They would penetrate my meager defenses, they would slip right by Jimmy, they would get me and I would die. Jimmy would have to sort through the not insignificant logistics of getting my ashes to the International Space Station alone.

In response to the frustration of circularity and inescapability, I thought I should get high and collapse onto the wicker chair. Drink another large plastic cup of rum so that I could at least face them with some modicum of dignity.

Face it. They were winning. The briny beasts were winning and I was less than I should be. I had somehow been reduced.

I rolled another joint on the table and put it to my lips.

I should accept it. I should accept partial responsibility.

I should accept that sometimes, sometimes those goddamn sea creatures were dead-on in their assessment.

Squids squiggle invisibly and insert lines of code when you least expect it:

You are alone in the world and you will never be able to forge a real connection with anyone. That was the problem with Maria more than anything else. It wasn't that you cheated on her, which you did, many times; she forgave you for that, just like she forgave your snoring, forgave you for spending ten hours a week getting stoned and going to the batting cages, forgave you when you forgot her sister's birthday, and her birthday, and all the other special days. You are alone not because of those things but because of the big one, the real one, the grand marshal, and that is this:

You cannot really connect with anyone else.

Oh, you can make jokes. You are capable of carrying on a half-hour conversation with a complete stranger about the facts of life. But when it comes down to it, when it really comes down to it, you aren't much good at making that deep connection. Maybe Jimmy is close but you don't love him and maybe you never loved Maria and maybe you aren't capable of love and maybe you will die without ever figuring out what that word means. You are alone because you couldn't connect, not with Alexandria, not with Shelly or Priya or anyone else who came before. And now there won't be anyone else.

So there was that.

But what would Captain Nemo do? Would he allow the ship to be overrun, or would he fight?

This was myback porch.

I lit the joint in defiance. And then glass two of rum.

And then glass three. Or four. These are only estimates, in the absence of properly calibrated equipment. Either way, the bottle was getting down towards the bottom with some velocity.

"The problem with capitalism.the problem with capitalism," Jimmy sputtered, "is that it externalizes all of the costs. Like some giant industrial plant that makes chemicals in India or something. They move there because the laws are lax, you know. So they dump all of these chemicals into the atmosphere, into the water, as much as they can get away with. Unless they get sued or something, they don't have to deal with any of the costs of it."

And joint three or four.

The marrow in my bones slurred into the blue sickle of sky, displaced with some sort of amber gel, like honey, but only more versatile and without the danger of bee stings.

"No fucking bees, Jimmy. On my planet, there won't be any bees."

But then I considered the bees. How essential they were to agriculture.

"Your planet?" he asked.

"Never mind. There will have to be bees. What was it that Einstein said about bees? Do you remember what he said, Jimmy?"

"No, not about bees," he said. "I think that was a misattribution. Pretty sure he said something about time, though."

"So there will have to be bees then, it's settled. But no people with stupid little goatees. None of that nonsense," I said.

"Do you want to walk?" he asked, attempting to foreclose this necessary avenue.

"Bees, yes, but ironic facial hair will be strictly forbidden."

"Gary, focus. Do you want to walk to the batting cage?"

There was the problem with the gel. How would we extricate ourselves? Another problem always sprang from an attempted solution. The nature of things. But I still thought we should walk.

"Yes, we'll walk," I said, "but first we are both going to take a shot or two of tequila. To thin out the gel and get some substance into our bones again"."

"Certainly," my friend assented.

Three shots of tequila later, we were suitably limber.

I'd been fired. I'd been dumped. Dancing with the Stars was still on the air. It seemed like a lot to try and face down. But the only viable option before us, blinking from every sign from every strip mall in the great sprawl before us, was Engagement with a capital E. We would push blood through our limbs. Converse with the good citizens. To move, to be alive, to rub it in their faces that we still held uncontested dominion over the land.

We stopped at a gas station three blocks from my house and bought thirty-two-ounce bottles of cheap beer. There was a brief debate beforehand, about whether or not the thirty-two-ounce bottles of cheap beer were completely necessary, in light of both the advanced state of our drunkenness and the open container laws in Duval County.

Thankfully, reason prevailed, and we got the beers and opened them and started drinking them before we even got out the door and the cashier started yelling at us probably about the open container law but by that point we were unable to locate concern.

"This is the perfect day for hitting some balls," Jimmy said.

"Yes," I agreed.

And we clanked our thirty-two-ounce bottles of beer together and dumped their contents down our gullets.

Jimmy was right, as always. It was the perfect day for hitting some balls. It was the perfect day for so many things, really; a perfect admixture of pot and alcohol had thinned not only the sludge inside my capillaries, but the great grey sludge that had settled over a good part of the country. It lifted, the grey sludge, and underneath was a verdant, twisting place I hadn't thought 'existed anymore. Everything was fully alive, as I imagine it must have been some years ago, before Dancing with the Stars came along and killed everything beautiful. Everything was translucent. Jimmy and I would pass right through to the other side.

We ambled quite effectively and arrived at our destination, Adventure Landing-Jax Beach's finest family amusement area. Video games, laser tag, water slides, go-carts, and, the reason for our sojourn, batting cages. The perfect location for a mid-afternoon weekday drunk.

A machine turned our bills into quarters.

An older man and his child on a leash. Laser tag, Street Fighter 2.

Noise. Everything noise. How to sort out the important ones, the relevant ones. A whizzing-fuck, the ball! An important noise. I ducked and the thing went right over my head.

"Watch out, numb nuts!" Jimmy shouted from the cage next to me.

"Fuck you I don't like you," I said.

And then there is a span of time I am unclear about.

Perhaps they politely asked us to leave or perhaps we ran out of quarters to play Ms. Pac-Man, but whatever the case we ended up outside Adventure Landing swimming through the canola oil atmosphere. Without the benefit of a tape to corroborate, there is no way to know exactly what happened there.

And, surrounded as we were by water, it was impossible to keep the giant pink fucks far from my thoughts.

The squids' methods were underhanded. Oftentimes they would insert sentences of squid think into the folds of my brain in the middle of my perfectly good drunk:

You will never find peace.

You are never going to get a good job again.

You are solely responsible for the termination.

You aren't a good friend to Jimmy.

You should have tried harder in that spelling bee that time.

Fucking squids. They are nothing if not tenacious. And liable to dig deep into the Wayback Machine for ammunition.

Under the absurd Florida sun, unguarded by Adventure Landing's many umbrellas, we discussed our pivot.

"You know, Jimmy, Adventure Landing maybe wasn't the best way to tackle this thing. What do you think? Maybe we need a different tactic," I said.

"Agreed, agreed. Maybe something with more."

"Meaning," I interrupted.

Meaning. That was just the thing. But this presented some difficulty, in light of the inscrutable nature of the universe.

"Church?" he said.

We laughed.

"Deep introspection?" I asked.

"Too open-ended," he said. "And not enough time left in the day to really do it properly."

"What about a good deed?" I asked.

"That seems just the thing," Jimmy said.

"But what kind of good deed are we equipped for?"

This query stumped us good. We didn't exactly specialize in this area.

"What about that old lady on your street?" Jimmy said at last, his face aglow with inspiration. "'Don't you think she's kind of a shut-in? We could bring her something."

"Yeah, like Meals on Wheels," I said.

Three bags of Doritos. A two liter of Mountain Dew. Frozen pizzas. Sour Patch Kids. We were on a pretty good tear through this Publix, hitting the cart from long range with hooks and jump shots, and we'd filled up a whole shopping cart before the realization hit us that we were going about this thing all wrong. A three pointer with a bag of fun-sized Snickers brought this realization to the fore.

"Fuck, man, this is all stuff we would eat. We need to get her something else," I said.

Jimmy stopped to examine the processed food-like substances we'd accumulated. He nodded in agreement with my appraisal.

I tried to think back to summers spent with Grandma and Grandpa. What the hell did they eat when they weren't watching the Weather Channel despite never leaving the house?

"Turkey spam. Vanilla wafers. Fish sticks. Jimmy, let's move!"

We were really going to flip her wig. In less than fifteen minutes, we completed a full circuit, replacing our tasty treats with victuals more suited for an elderly palate. We spent nearly seventy dollars on assorted wares. It was all humming now. I did some quick math, figured we could roll all the way to her house in ten, fifteen minutes tops.

We neared the edge of the parking lot, Jimmy clasping the front in a Rose Dawson sort of deal, me pushing with gusto. It was all coming together. Good deed express coming to Mrs. Arnold at full speed.

Then not.

Something stopped the cart, hard.

It spun wildly and Jimmy flew into the air. He landed on the sidewalk and tumbled a good ways.

The wheel lock. The goddamn wheel lock. Everywhere new tactics with which to obstruct us.

"Are you okay, sir?" I asked him.

"I believe so," he said.

But the cart was no longer an option. It was sprawled on the ground, the locked wheel dangling. We'd have to proceed on foot.

We had to stop every thirty feet or so to sweat, to adjust. As a matter of fact, it took us nearly one and a half hours to traverse the distance from the grocery store parking lot perimeter to Mrs. Arnold's front door.

Mrs. Arnold looked rather displeased upon opening the door.

"We brought you something to eat." Jimmy huffed.

She examined the plastic bags, our sweaty faces, our sweaty shirts.

"My nephew brings me groceries every day at 9 AM. I'm quite sure I've never seen the two of you at that time," she said haughtily.

"Well." Jimmy started, but it was no use.

She slammed the door in our faces. From the other side, I heard her say very clearly, "And I hate vanilla wafers!"

We stared at the shut door.

"Well," said Jimmy, "at least we have some snacks."

We brought our mobile fête to the banks of the lake and sat in the grass. I kept a wary eye for tentacles, lest they emerge to snatch our vittles, or sow discord between us.

I handed Jimmy a vanilla wafer, and he munched, deep in contemplation.

"These are pretty good, actually. I don't know what the hell she's talking about," he said.

The fish sticks were not accessible to us at this juncture, but we took our chances with the turkey spam. We ate without conversation, as the heat had done quite a number on us.

I could feel the defenses I'd erected throughout the day wavering.

They probed me:

This is stupid. You're eating turkey spam with your hands.

Turkey spam is the worst spam.

You will never be happy.

Jimmy was getting sleepy, I could tell. I would be alone to face them. I nudged him in an attempt to keep him awake. His eyelids continued to droop.

Another:

Avoidance is not a mature tactic for dealing with adversity.

Their critiques were becoming more sophisticated as the intensity increased. I shook Jimmy with great vim but to no avail.

And another:

Maria was too good for you.

Then, Jimmy snored, and my isolation was absolute. The frogs were croaking. Night was fully upon us, my vision reduced, my associate disabled by turkey spam.

A most vigorous tentacle lashed me as I reached for another vanilla wafer:

You are wasting your day.

Your life.

You've failed.

I stood up and looked around in something approaching desperation.

"You're right, you fucking bastards, you're right!" I said, loudly enough that it caused Jimmy to mumble before turning to his side and resuming his snoring.

The Nautilus was sunk. The suckers were lined up all over me and I would fall into their pincers and be digested.

I flopped to the ground in resignation. This was it. On the shores of a manmade lake with a bellyful of high-sodium processed meat, they'd at last brought me down.

And then I spotted it, leaned up against the villain Craig's house, the method of my deliverance.

A blue kayak.

And a big net right up against the kayak. It was all laid out before us. I jumped to my feet and began running.

"Wake up, you somnolent dugong!" I shouted over my shoulder.

Jimmy came to surprisingly quickly and came running in my direction, looking alarmed.

"What's going on everything okay?" he said in a single breath.

"We're going kayaking and catching a duck," I said in one breath to match his sense of urgency.

"What will we do with this duck?" he asked.

"I think they'll make fine pets. Good pets. It gets lonely in my house," I said.

"Okay then," he said.

The ducks appeared to have no natural fear of man. A lifetime of soggy bread proffered by children had made them soft. We paddled towards them, and they made no effort whatsoever to flee from us.

"This will be easier than I thought," I said.

We paddled close. Still, no attempt to flee. A few quacks, and they were in range. I swung the net into the water, and held aloft a squirming bird.

"Hold 'er steady, Jimmy," I said as I brought the net over the boat.

I extricated my quarry and looked at what we'd done. The duck was flapping its wings like mad, and honking much louder than I remembered ducks being able to honk.

Along the shore, I saw lights turn on.

Then, the duck pooped into the boat, nearly hitting Jimmy with a stream of its fearful excrement.

"It almost shit on me!" Jimmy shouted.

"What do you think then? Not such a good plan?" I asked.

At that moment the duck and I established a direct connection, brain to brain, from my human eye to his tiny little black duck-bead. The entire thing was causing him great anguish, I could see that much. He yearned to return to his murk and chase fish. This whole thing is beneath me, he said nonverbally, and it is merely my short-sighted attempt to dodge a series of decisions that required confrontation and inspection.

"Not such a good plan," Jimmy said.

I would likely have to devise a long term strategy for my maturation as a human being.

I dropped the duck into the water.

It swam away placidly. It was a wonderful little bird, I thought. So happy in the lake. Who was I to disturb its splendor for my own gratification?

Jimmy stood up. He too was entranced.

"Fine birds, ducks," he said quietly.

"Yes, they are," I said.

Little orange feet paddling.

"Well, man, I guess we can always try again tomorrow," he said.

"Indeed," I said.

"What a wonderful biiiii-"

Perhaps he'd forgotten about the duck's excretions, because he stepped straight into the fecal slick.

Like a cartoon, he spilled, falling headlong into the black maw of the lake.

"Jimmy?" I peered over the side. I didn't see him, nor did I hear a response.

I would not fail in this, at least.

I dove into the lake after him.

Sputtering, spitting water. I couldn't find the kayak anywhere.

"Grab a hold of me, Jimmy, you bastard"."

But by that point I don't think he could move much. I wrapped him up, the way I'd learned in lifeguard training many eons ago. Head above water. He didn't struggle against me, like a few mean drunks had done from time to time, but he wasn't helping either.

I saw flashlights swinging back and forth. Craig was standing there in the grass, looking smug and defiant and bastardly as ever. Mrs. Arnold was there, too. She appeared to be holding our nearly empty box of vanilla wafers. I watched in disbelief as she reached into the box, removed one, and began chewing.

And three sheriff's deputies looking less than pleased.

I heard the sound of a fire engine's sirens, too.

"I'll help them," Craig said. He kicked off his sandals and walked towards the water. The fucking villainy of this man.

"Don't worry," I shouted as Craig prepared to enter the water, "I've got this. Back up, Craig!"

Craig stopped in his tracks. Mrs. Arnold ate another cookie. The 'sheriff's deputies continued looking less than pleased.

Swimming swimming swimming.

The water was quite warm, and Jimmy wasn't fighting me at all. I swam forward, Jimmy tucked beneath me.

"They're wrong. I do love you, Jimmy," I said.

"I love you too, man," he said. He was smiling. I let go of him, and we began to swim in tandem.

We'd reach the shore, together. Then I'd deal with Craig. And the rest of them. And once it was over, once I'd found the kayak and called up Maria at some point and paid my bail and completed my community service and gotten a job and accosted Mrs. Arnold for eating the rest of our vanilla wafers, then those bastards would know what for.

_ _

Corey Hill is a human rights activist, journalist, parent, and occasional tree climber. His work has been featured in Yes! Magazine, Earth Island Journal, Alternet, and others.

>> Back to Issue 21, 2018