Summertime!

I mentioned before that my parents divorced when I was a youngster and as a result my mom was forced to take a full-time job. That meant that over summers my sister and I were left to our own devices all day. Fortunately, I was a level-headed boy and always showed good judgement. Always.

Funny how when you’re a kid in elementary school the last couple weeks of school pass slowly and painfully, like a peach pit out of a dog’s hind end. And then, when the last day of school has finally come & gone and you’ve gargled in the fountain of freedom known as “summertime” the days quickly seem to stretch and become…*gasp* boring. So it was for me and my neighborhood chums. It was July 1979, our thirst for school-free days had been quenched, and we were settling into the boring phase of summer. Greg McGuire’s pool had been emptied because it was being re-plastered, leaving us to bathe in the oppressive heat of the San Fernando Valley. Greg and I lounged at the Twangers’ house. The Twanger brothers - Danny, Dickie, and Doug – lived a couple streets over from where I lived. Mr. Twanger was in construction and Mrs. Twanger was a secretary. The buzz was that Mrs. Twanger didn’t have to work but she elected to so that they could save money and take the family on an annual trip to some foreign land. While Mr. & Mrs. Twanger were out pursuing the almighty dollar, the brothers stayed home looking for new ways to cause trouble. Looking back, I wonder if Mr. & Mrs. Twanger ever had a moment of peace on a workday knowing that their three sons were at home unsupervised.

As was typical, we were lounging about the Twanger house, watching Bonanza and The Rifleman re-runs when we finally cracked. We just couldn’t take it anymore. We became so desperate for some other form of entertainment that we braved the heat, threw a leg over our BMX bikes and hit the road. We rode without purpose or direction and eventually found ourselves at a strip mall where we hit the 7-11. We shot our wads on Fun-Dips, Slurpees and Space Invaders and then wandered around the strip mall until we stood outside Grouper’s Fish Emporium. A thick layer of filth on the storefront’s glass obscured the view into Grouper’s. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that old man Grouper hadn’t cleaned the windows since he opened the store when he was a young man. The store’s front window wasn’t the only thing lacking in cleanliness. Upon opening the front door to Grouper’s we were hit with a foul odor that was like having a dump truck full of warm, moist fertilizer and fish parts back up and unload on us. Even Doug, who had earned the nickname, “Crud” was impressed by the stench. Mr. Grouper, a grizzled shell of a man, sat hunched over his newspaper at the cash register, and alternated taking long, hard drags on a cigarette and drinking what appeared to be used motor oil from a dirty stein. He glanced up from his newspaper just long enough to tell us, “Don’t stick your hand into the tanks and don’t bang on the glass. I’m running a special today only, free guppy with any purchase over $5.00. Now, don’t bother me.” With that admonition, he left us to peruse his inventory. We wandered through the store, dazzled by the many aquariums full of exotic fish. We laughed and pointed, sucked in our cheeks to make “fishlips”, and generally had a grand time.

By the time we had seen the last of the fish, a solid two hours had passed and we were convinced that having an aquarium of our own full of the critters was critical to our existence. Never mind the fact that none of us had money to buy a single fish, let alone an outfitted aquarium. We huddled together at the rear of the store, discussing a plan to acquire what we needed to make our fantasy a reality. We knew that our parents had foul senses of priority and asking them to spring for this necessity would be fruitless. We had to do this on our own. We decided that we’d search every place imaginable for bottles & cans, exchange them for their deposit value, and put together the coolest aquarium ever. Mr. Grouper, I suppose thinking we were filling our linty pockets with live fish, hollered to us to, “quit dallying back there and get outta my store.” Our huddle scattered and the elder Twanger, Danny, approached Mr. Grouper.

“Sir, if we come back tomorrow, will you have any specials?”

Mr. Grouper’s scowl softened slightly. He sat back, scratched his bald, bony head and said, “Hard to say. With the special I’ve got going today I’m selling so many of these fish that I may not even have any tomorrow.”

I may have been eleven years old, but I knew when my chain was being yanked. Not a single customer had entered the store the whole time we were in there. Most of the inventory would probably die of old age long before taking the coveted ride out of the store in a clear plastic bag full of water. Still, Danny was no brain trust and he bought it hook, line, & sinker. He swallowed eagerly and said, “But there are no other fish stores around here that we can ride our bikes to and we really need some fish!”

Mr. Grouper broke into a wide, crooked smile and told him, “Well, I’m expecting another big shipment any day now, so I imagine I’ll have a few that I can make a deal on. Don’t you fellas worry.”

A collective sigh was heard. We thanked Mr. Grouper for letting us look at his fish, and then set about the work that would fund our capital campaign. The rest of the day and all of the next were spent collecting every stray can and bottle in a 2-mile radius. And when I say every, I mean every. We dove through dumpsters, we rifled our neighbor’s trashcans, we scoured the sidewalks and gutters. We even used a length of garden hose to lower Crud into a few storm drains to retrieve some spent containers. Finally, we were satisfied that we had mined every potential nugget from the region. We had accumulated six large trash bags in our hunt. It would surely yield enough cash to buy the granddaddy of all aquariums. We slept peacefully that night, confident that the following day would bring the satisfaction that only comes from owning fish.

The next morning we congregated in front of the Twangers’ house. A nervous excitement coursed through us. We loaded our bags full of loot onto a couple of old wagons and dragged the mountain of trash two miles to Dirty Ernie’s Recycling Center.

Dirty Ernie came by his name honestly. He was a foot shorter than an average man, but what he lacked in height, he made up for in girth. His grimy T-shirt stretched across his breadbasket and his hairy belly protruded from underneath. His skin had taken on that special appearance that a bum gets when he’s so dirty that he actually becomes shiny.

As we pulled into the recycling yard Dirty Ernie called out, “That’s a good load you got there, boys.”
We puffed out our chests with pride.
“Let’s make us a deal.”
Ernie sorted our wares, counted them, weighed them and crunched a few numbers.
With a few pokes at his cash register we heard the glorious, “Cha-ching!”

“There you are, boys, four dollars and ninety-two cents.”

“FOUR DOLLARS AND NINETY-TWO CENTS??”

“That’s right, boys… you had 41 pounds of scrap at 12 cents a pound. That’s four dollars and ninety-two cents.”

An hour or so later, we sat glumly in the Twanger living room. All that work for five measly bucks. It was enough to buy a fish or two, but with nothing to put them in, we were as good as sunk. That’s when I hatched a brilliant plan. Why not build our own aquarium? Mr. Twanger had a whole pile of ½ inch thick plexiglass in the garage. With a bit of cutting and gluing, we’d have a tank in no time. And we could make it huge so that our fish would have plenty of room to swim around. We were back in the game. We worked quickly but deliberately. All measurements and cuts were exact and I must say, for a bunch of kids, the finished product looked pretty darn good. We put clamps on all the corners and joints and had a cold drink while the glue dried. When we were satisfied that all joints were secure, we lined every seam with clear silicon to be sure that the tank was watertight. We stood back to admire our creation. It was a true work of art. Not only was it pleasing to the eye, it was huge. The youngest Twanger boy could comfortably lie inside of it without bending a limb. The day was wearing on, so we threw a painting tarp over the tank, cleaned up the mess, and called it a day. The next morning found us wrestling the behemoth up the stairs, around the corner and down the hall into Doug & Dickie's bedroom. The move was kind to neither the walls nor the tank, but eventually it rested in the middle of their bedroom floor.

Thirty minutes later we dumped our bikes in a pile in front of Grouper’s Fish Emporium.

“Well, looky who’s here! I was beginning to give up on you boys.”

“We had to earn some money to buy some fish! Are there any specials today?”

“As a matter of fact, there are some specials today. How much do you have to spend?”

“A little under 5 dollars.”

“Just so happens that any 15 fish from any tank along that far wall is on sale for just under 5 dollars. Have your pick, gentlemen.”

We made a beeline for the “sale” fish and commenced with the, “We need two of these…and one of those… and three of those.”

Mr. Grouper, net in one hand, plastic baggie in the other, stood behind us wearing a wide grin. I think it did that old codger’s heart good to have some excitement in his store. His good humor began to fade, however, when it came time to actually net the fish. Each time he’d successfully capture what he perceived to be a good candidate, we’d scrutinize the captive and then tell him, “No. Not that one, that one,” while pointing at the tank. By golly, if we were going to spend $4.92 on something, we wanted our money’s worth. A short hour later (well, short to us anyway) we had selected fifteen fish for our new aquarium.

After paying for our fish, Mr. Grouper gave us a few instructions.

“When you get home, just set the bags into the full tank so that the fish get used to the temperature. After about an hour or so you can let them out.”

“Thanks, Mr. Grouper!”

“Make sure to put clean charcoal into the filter once every two weeks until the fish are settled in. Then do it once a month.”

We stood and stared at him blankly.

Crud finally offered, “Well, we don’t have a filter. We figured we’d just change the water everyday.”

Mr. Grouper barked, “You can’t do that, the tank will fill with bacteria and those fish’ll be dead in a week! Wait here, you lunkheads.”

He walked to the back of the store grumbling to himself and emerged a minute later with an old cardboard box.

“Alright, listen here, this old filter here works just fine but it’s a bit noisy. I’m feeling generous so I’m gonna give it to you. Here’s how it works…” and he went into a long explanation of how to hook it up.

We thanked him profusely and told him that as soon as it was set up we would invite him over to see it. He softened a bit at our invitation and told us that it was his pleasure and that he appreciated the offer.

As we headed for the door he called out one final instruction, stopping us dead in our tracks. “Make sure your pump is going when you let the fish out of the bags, they’ll be plenty stressed and they’ll need plenty of oxygen.”

We slowly turned around. “Umm… we don’t have a pump.”

“NO PUMP?? Those fish’ll be dead in two days! How do you expect them to live with no oxygen in the water??”

“Well, we figured that in the morning and at night we could just stir the water real fast with a ping-pong paddle and that would make plenty of air bubbles for them to live.”

Mr. Grouper’s face turned red and it looked like his head would come shooting off his shoulders any moment. He removed his bifocals and rubbed his face with both hands. “Wait here you nincompoops.”

He walked to the back of the store, this time grumbling a bit louder and using some of the very same words that Mr. Twanger used the time that Mrs. Twanger backed his new car into a telephone pole. He emerged with yet another cardboard box, this one containing a pump.

“Alright, listen here. This old pump is on the noisy side, too, but it works just fine. I’m going to give it to you if you promise that you’ll do all your future fish shopping at Scales ‘n Tails. Do ya promise?”

He shoved the cardboard box into my arms and said, “There’s instructions in the box. Now get outta here.”

We hustled for the door as he sat down behind the cash register. He’d probably deny it, but when I turned for one last look at him I think I saw him crack a smile.

The ride home went quickly, despite having to stop every few minutes to take turns carrying the fish. We tore into the house and up the stairs, anxious to release our pets into their new home. But first things first. Each of us was assigned a task to ready the aquarium. Danny and I hooked up the filter & pump. Crud collected a bucket of pea gravel from the side yard and used it to line the bottom of the tank. Dickie and Greg ran a garden hose up the side of the house and through the window. In no time at all our tank was filling.

While the bags of fish bobbed around the filling aquarium, we rewarded ourselves with a tall glass of Yoo-hoo and an episode of The Incredible Hulk. It took a solid hour with the hose running full blast before the tank was filled, just enough time for the fish to become acclimated to the water. With both the filter and the pump buzzing loudly, we cut the knots off the plastic bags and released the fish into their new home. There was much celebration and backslapping at the display of what we had accomplished. Some of the fish darted wildly about the tank, others glided by passively. We surrounded the tank, lying on our stomachs with our heads resting on our hands. We were absolutely mesmerized by the sight before us. We all claimed a couple fish as our own and began thinking of a fitting name for each. About that time Mrs. Twanger rolled into the driveway after a hard day at work. At the sound of her slamming car door, the boys came a bit unraveled. Not only had they failed to ask permission to set up an aquarium in their bedroom, they hadn’t even mentioned that we had visited Grouper’s Fish Emporium. Mom and dad would sure be surprised. Dickie screamed, “We gotta hide this thing! Let’s put it in the closet!” Assuming that we could actually lift the 500+ pound reservoir, there was absolutely no way it would fit into the closet. It was simply too large. I suggested we push it to the side of the room and cover it with a blanket. We assembled on the same side of the tank and began pushing with all our might. We were unsuccessful at budging it even an inch. We were successful, however, at torqueing the plexiglass just enough to weaken all the joints we had earlier taken such great care to glue. Just as the front door of the Twanger house slammed shut, the aquarium let out a groan and an entire side separated from the tank. In an instant, well over 60 gallons of water, gravel, and fish covered the bedroom floor. We all shrieked simultaneously as water rushed out the bedroom door and down the stairs, alerting Mrs. Twanger that it was going to be “one of those days that she regretted not following her original childhood plan of becoming a nun.” Upstairs it was pandemonium. We were all soaking wet and scrambling wildly to save our fish. Our $5 fish. Mrs. Twanger appeared at the doorway with a look of absolute insanity on her face. We froze in our tracks. Time stood still. I looked at Greg. He looked at me. We both spoke in unison, “I gotta go” and dropped our handfuls of fish on the still squishy carpet. By the time Greg and I reached the first floor, the deluge of water had already begun seeping through the floor of the second story and had begun to drip through the first floor ceiling. I paused at the door briefly, turning to take a final look at the destruction we’d wrought. It was just in time to witness a large chunk of plaster fall from the ceiling and smash through a glass coffee table in the living room. After that I simply jumped onto my bike and pedaled for my life.

We didn’t see the Twanger boys for three weeks after that. They didn’t come out to play and we were too afraid to knock on their door. Turns out they had been grounded, and they spent most of that time standing up. They later said that their father actually levitated off the ground when he saw the devastation we had caused. Dickie said the visual was really neat, but the audio portion of the performance was a little scary. Pretty soon after that Mrs. Twanger quit her job to stay home and keep an eye on the brothers. What a shame. If the Twanger boys had been level-headed like me, they might have been world travelers.