Adaptive Curmudgeon

Please enjoy the next post in Murdertrout, Chapter 8 of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. Comments are welcome. Tips via the PayPal link to the right are also welcome but always optional.

Merry Christmas and happy reading.

Men, Cindy concluded, were idiots. But she let them coax her into playing the rough draft of the video. She setup a projector aimed at the van door while The Curmudgeon gallantly produced a third folding chair. Was there anything he didn’t have stashed in that truck?

They joyously began watching the video of something they’d just seen in real life, a mystery none of them explored. Sometime around then a third (or was it fourth?) six pack was breached. There was a chill in the air but The Curmudgeon kept the fire roaring and they moved their chairs closer to the flames.

Cindy had jotted notes and started planning a narrative script. They started the video at the beginning to watch it a second time; this time with narration. It began with their already recorded intro.

“Hello, I’m Cindy Leachman and I’m delighted to welcome you to Untamed Monarchy, a documentary about America’s most interesting animals. First, a word from our sponsor ‘Incremental Insurance’”.

“Are you a dumbass who keeps wrecking your car?…”

A few seconds later, the audio reverted to the ambient sounds of nature. Cindy tried to make up narration on the fly.

“Here we see the raptor, which clearly thinks and acts as if it were an Eagle, responding to the music.”

Brett happily nodded along. The Curmudgeon suggested they refrain from explaining exactly what music they’d used, based on the logic that “a fisherman never tells.”

“Now we can see that the fish are responding to audio cues. While modern science hasn’t yet established a causality, it appears to be related to pollution. Perhaps more funding for a second season of Untamed Monarchy can explore this mystery.”

Brett was no longer nodding along. His jaw was set in a grim line.

Ignoring the projection, The Curmudgeon shifted in his chair to watch Brett. Cindy was busy with ad hoc narration.

“An unexpected tragedy befalls my brave colleague as the stupidfish pull him down along with the trans-species raptor.” She continued.

For this section she’d shifted the action to slow motion and zoomed in. It was still a rough cut but it was obvious that she knew what she was doing. When she was done with it, the scene would look like it’d been done by Hitchcock. To build tension, she’d cut to a close up of a single hawk feather, floating on the water. It was only a half second of raw footage but she’d slowed it way down and subtly tinted it red, as if to suggest blood. This extended the length of time when Brett and the Hawk were submerged.

She continued making up narration. “We all know the risks a Riparian Ecologist takes in their never ending quest to save nature. Death is always looking over our shoulder as they master pH and hydrology. This seems like the end! Will our esteemed colleague perish in the grip of stupidfish? Before we find out, a word about collision insurance. Are you an absolute dipshit who keeps running into stuff with your car? Do you find it a hassle to pay for endless bodywork? If so, Incremental Insurance has a plan for you…”

The Curmudgeon was now watching Brett intently. Brett was fuming.

Cindy noticed too, she’d never seen Brett so mad… or drunk. What the heck?

“Stop!” The Curmudgeon ordered.

Cindy hit pause.

“Cindy, your narration tells it exactly like it happened.” The Curmudgeon explained.

“Yeah, so?” Cindy was confused.

“Hasn’t college taught you anything? People hate the truth.” He waved vaguely at the tipsy fellow who was glaring at the van/projection screen like it had kicked him in the head. “Look at Brett here. You’re killin’ the man!” Brett’s jaw dropped. Now he was split between being livid at the video and proud to be called a man.

“Restart at the beginning, let me have a shot at it.” The Curmudgeon reached out for the remote. Brett stood up, tripped over several empties, and headed off to pee on a tree. Quietly, so only Cindy could hear, the Curmudgeon whispered. “Watch Brett, write down whatever sentences make him smile.”

“But that’s not scientific, or journalistic!” Cindy was shocked.

“Nice van you got. Wanna’ keep it?” The Curmudgeon countered.

By the time Brett wandered back, Cindy was on board with the plan. The Curmudgeon had the remote, Cindy was clutching a notepad, and Brett had been demoted to unwitting lab rat.

They began again; “Are you a dumbass who keeps wrecking your car?…” The video asked.

A few seconds later The Curmudgeon cut in. “Here we see the first video evidence of a trans-species raptor. Note that it unquestionably acts as if it were an eagle. It’s a scientific fact that if a bird thinks it’s an eagle, then it is an eagle.”

Cindy glanced at Brett, who was grinning ear to ear.

The Curmudgeon charged on with his narration. “Trans-species raptors, which are brave and beautiful, are rare these days, because of racism.”

Brett nodded in approval.

As the video continued The Curmudgeon laid it on thick. He added random buzzwords without concern whether they made sense in this context or not. He claimed scientific knowledge that didn’t exist. He stated opinions as fact, facts as opinion, and declared that anyone who didn’t have a long track record of support for theories which had only been spoken aloud just then, was a literal Nazi.

There were a few bits of video that didn’t match the story he was telling. The Curmudgeon paused and encouraged Cindy to mark the time of those sections so that she could delete misinformation.

Some of The Curmudgeon’s narration came out in ways that were the complete opposite of actual events but which fit the visuals. That was irrelevant to him. As he explained, a witness to events is never as good an account as a properly edited video. After all, she was a white person and therefore her recollections would have the unavoidable taint of privilege. This made perfect sense to Brett and Cindy. Whether it did to The Curmudgeon is a mystery, he simply acted like he believed it and let you form your own conclusions.

As he talked, he’d glance at Brett. Brett was a perfect, if unknowing, arbiter of the truth. He’d spent years steeped in University groupthink like a teabag in a pot. He smiled whenever The Curmudgeon mentioned a politically correct notion. He frowned whenever The Curmudgeon deviated from whatever was required of the University belief system. He was a perfectly tuned human weathervane.

At the slightest hint of discomfort on Brett’s part, The Curmudgeon would hit the pause button and reformulate. “Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Let me try again.” He’d rewind the video a minute or two back and narrate again; usually in a way that bore no resemblance to what he’d said just a minute ago. Invariably, Brett preferred the second explanation. He would nod in approval and Cindy made sure to cross out the first attempt and scribble down the second as carefully as she could.

It was perfect! The script was aimed like a cruise missile at the “Brett demographic”. The Brett demographic, a hive mind of confirmation bias encircled by a cadre of mid-wit gatekeepers, clearly loved being reassured it was right. If the Curmudgeon’s explanations bore little resemblance to true events, who cared? As long as his story merged seamlessly with Brett’s preconceived notions, it was, by definition, true… and also delightful!

There was a big pause at the scene where Brett went under the water. This was to be the climax of the story.

“What a catastrophe! The stupidfish have attacked our producer, brave and honorable Brett Alverson. He’s almost certainly going to die…”

Brett was frowning. Hardly skipping a beat, the Curmudgeon paused and rewound.

He spent a few seconds thinking over how to tell the story and then smiled. It was a wicked smile. He gave Cindy a knowing wink. She couldn’t wait to find out what happened to Brett and the stupidfish!

“In a catastrophic turn of events, Brett Alverson, esteemed researcher and highly respected riparian ecologist is attacked by murdertrout!”

Cindy’s jaw dropped. Brett’s eyes went wide. Seeing the reaction, The Curmudgeon paused.

“Murdertrout?” Brett inquired. “I thought they were stupid?”

“Did they not bite you?” The Curmudgeon reasoned.

Brett began to smile. It was a great big beatific smile. It’s one thing to be pecked at by little stupid fish, it’s another thing entirely to face an onslaught of murdertrout!

The Curmudgeon continued. “Murdertrout are the most dangerous creatures in this environment. They’ve been known to kill Grizzly Bears and damage bridge abutments.” Brett was nodding vigorously. “While more research is needed to ascertain why some fish become vicious, brutal, aquatic death machines…” Brett’s smile faded a bit. “…it’s likely caused by global warming.” Brett began to clap and laugh.

Cindy was delighted. This version was far better than her unemotional retelling of events! Despite the fact that all three of them had witnessed the same thing, she was already forgetting what she’d formerly believed. Clearly, The Curmudgeon had delved into the true heart of the matter. Brett, of course, had been won over completely with the word murdertrout. From his point of view, everything The Curmudgeon said was henceforth perfect and unassailable truth. The Curmudgeon, for his part, was clearly enjoying his own show. Playing off Brett’s existing opinions and more or less ignoring faulty human memories was a brilliant choice. It made everything so much more fun!

It was all lies. It was total bullshit. Therefore, it was completely believable and the unquestionable truth! Brett and Cindy were going to be rock stars of the documentary profession!

All too soon, the video came to an end. Brett applauded like he’d just seen the best performance in human history. Cindy set down the pencil and grinned. It all made so much sense. It wasn’t stupidity at all. It’s pure science. If a bird thinks it’s an eagle that’s exactly what it is. Anyone who disagrees is racist. Riparian ecologists are practically Indiana Jones. Murdertrout are caused by global warming. Brett had heroically saved the long oppressed trans-species victim of historic trout dominance. Car insurance is awesome.

It fit together so well. She chuckled at the Curmudgeon. That scamp! Setting them up to get all distracted by misinformation when they first met. Blathering on about stupidity and water conditions when he already knew everything came from global warming and racism; what a joker! If he’d simply explained it correctly as soon as they met, everyone would have gotten along fine right from the start. In fact they were great friends. His initial rants about water pollution and tossing pinecones was just a test of their loyalty to The Science. What a silly fellow! And what a nice guy too!

There sure were a lot of beer bottles under her lawnchair. Where’d they come from? She hoped The Curmudgeon wouldn’t run out.

It was a glorious shared moment of triumph. Brett was beaming. Cindy was grinning. Everyone was happy. The script was already written out. She’d type it up exactly like The Curmudgeon had said and read it into a microphone. They’d be ready to ship the first episode in no time. How easy it had been! When this documentary was released, it was going to be a viral hit.

His work done, The Curmudgeon wandered off to piss on a tree.

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Merry Christmas and happy reading.

It was clear that The Curmudgeon considered getting wet and scraped up to save the life of a college student and a demonstrably confused bird just barely a worthwhile exchange. It was also clear that he’d faired much better than Brett. He had a few cuts and scrapes but his thicker clothes, heavy boots, and work gloves had spared him the worst of it. Unlike Brett, he carried himself like a man who’d been attacked by wild animals before. He was darned near nonchalant about a cut on his brow that was bleeding all over. Brett, meanwhile was whimpering like a kicked dog.

“Uh… thanks.” Brett gasped.

Cindy turned off the camera and pivoted toward the Curmudgeon; who produced a sopping wet bag of M&Ms before she could find some way to blame him for Brett’s condition.

Cindy, gradually realizing that she was expected to care about her fellow man, helped Brett up and led him to her lawnchair. He slumped in it with the kind of exhaustion only a ride in the spin cycle can generate. She turned to the other chair and frowned to see The Curmudgeon already seated. She shrugged, it was his chair after all.

“Cindy, please go to my truck and grab a beer from the red cooler. One each for you and Brett here if you wish.” He glanced at Brett. “Also grab the first aid kid next to the passenger side door.”

She nodded and hustled off.

By the time she returned, Brett was looking better. Without asking, The Curmudgeon popped the top on two beers and handed one to Brett. “Any time you almost die but don’t… you’ve earned a beer.” He intoned sagely.

Brett nodded and clutched his beer. If every documentary filming session was like this, he would be dead within the month.

“Or a hell of a lot tougher.” The Curmudgeon grinned, as if he could read Brett’s thoughts. They clinked their bottles together and both men smiled. It was Brett’s first moment of shared male comradery after a good solid beating. He was exhausted, he’d nearly drowned, he was soaked to the bone, and he was bruised all over but he felt a strange new emotion too. He felt pride.

As for The Curmudgeon, various things had tried to kill him so often he hardly noticed. Slightly battered was more or less his normal state. Even so, he had an uncharacteristically charitable notion. Brett, in his opinion, was a gutless schoolboy and preening twit, yet he’d just gotten his ass handed him by nature. Each well deserved beating is an ideal opportunity for personal growth. Perhaps the lad wasn’t completely hopeless? Now was the perfect time for a mentor to give a positive nudge, maybe the boy could still become a man?

“You look like six miles of washboard on a flat tire. Clean your wounds.” He tossed the first aid kit to Brett.

This was The Curmudgeon’s idea of a positive nudge.

Brett had no idea how to administer first aid to anyone for any reason. He started pawing through the box. Being entrusted with his own welfare was another new sensation. It was actually quite pleasant. After a lifetime of being coddled, he savored the interesting experience of being in the presence of a man who considered Brett’s welfare to be entirely Brett’s problem.

Cindy wondered what the two men were thinking about. Of course, her feminine mind could not plumb the primal caveman depths of the bonding The Curmudgeon intended. She opened her mouth to speak but The Curmudgeon moved quickly to distract her with another bag of M&Ms.

Brett had found alcohol wipes. They were the least dangerous of the many things in The Curmudgeon’s first aid kit. The kit was ominously comprehensive and clearly well used. The Curmudgeon apparently had the knowledge to use, and for some reason the continuing need, to do a surprising amount of cutting, stitching, and other things best left to the medical profession. For example, The Curmudgeon not only had a scalpel but an impressive array of them! And there were other things too. Some of which were probably illegal without a medical license. Taken as a whole, they made the alcohol wipes seem tame and inviting.

Brett winced as he swiped across a slash where a trout, which barely have teeth, had indeed taken a bite.

“Nice cut!” The Curmudgeon enthused.

Brett grinned. All men need to hear their various injuries are laudable. Testosterone is the difference between an unpleasant minor cut and a coveted battle scar.

“I thought you were a goner. You must be a hell of a swimmer.” The Curmudgeon continued.

Brett, who really was a good swimmer, began to grin. “Yeah.” He dabbed an alcohol pad on another tiny trout bite. It stung… which was the closest thing to the rush of battle Brett had ever experienced. He couldn’t help but smile.

“Cindy, please bring Brett another beer, he’s going to need it.” The Curmudgeon had decided to hasten the process. First comes battle, then comes drinking. His eyes twinkled as Brett unconsciously chugged his half full beer to prepare for the incoming one.

Twenty minutes later, Brett was on his third beer and loudly relating his story to the two people who’d just watched it. The Curmudgeon beamed; from a boy to a man. Even stupid has a purpose.

After his third beer was done, The Curmudgeon loaned Brett dry clothes. Soon Brett was dressed in carefully laundered and bone dry clothes that were twice his age. The clothes had lived through far more adventures than Brett ever would. The shirt had been patched three times. Who patches a t-shirt? The jeans fit reasonably well, had even more patches, and were twice as thick as anything Brett had ever worn.

A man dressed like this might as well be wearing armor. Brett reflected on the fact that The Curmudgeon was relatively unscathed. Apparently dressing like a farmer had certain advantages. After all, Brett looked like he’d been attacked with a cheese grater while the The Curmudgeon looked the same as always.

The Curmudgeon’s truck apparently had an endless supply of clean dry clothes because the Curmudgeon changed into dry clothes too. During that process, Cindy had gotten a gander at the kind of hairy ass that makes theories about Sasquatch seem plausible. Then she nearly passed out when The Curmudgeon saw her peeking. Completely unperturbed, he blew a kiss her way and continued dressing. Gross! She shook the thought out of her head but was sure she’d have nightmares for a week.

Shortly thereafter, The Curmudgeon announced that it was only right and proper that men who’d been in battle should now eat steak. Fortunately for them, he was just the man to handle the situation. He began gathering wood for a fire.

Brett, who hadn’t gotten to eat the sandwich his mom made, didn’t complain.

Cindy disappeared into the van to exorcise the mental image of Sasquatch ass by doing crude first draft video editing. Whatever those two idiots were up to, she wanted nothing to do with it.

Cindy was a whiz and had a 40 minute rough cut of their first episode pieced together in no time. She hopped out of the van to find Brett wearing a faded shirt that said “Pobody’s Nerfect”, patched jeans, and decrepit Chuck Taylors. He was on his fifth beer and enjoying it as only a true lightweight could.

Before she could mock Brett’s ridiculous appearance, The Curmudgeon handed her a plate with freshly cooked steak. “Elk.” He explained. It smelled delicious.

They all shut up and ate. Cindy and Brett normally would have embarked on a discussion of the merits of hunting but it was just too damn tasty.

For desert, The Curmudgeon came up with a bag of homemade cookies, more chocolate, and another six pack. Wait! Was that another six pack? Cindy started counting empties and indeed it was. She lost the train of thought as The Curmudgeon laughed with Brett, who was telling a lame joke about a train and some dude on an old timey bicycle. “It’s not a bicycle, it’s a pennyfarthing!” The Curmudgeon roared, to Brett’s delight.

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Merry Christmas and happy reading.

“Aw shit!” The Curmudgeon griped. “Always saving the damn world…” He didn’t bother finishing his sentence. Instead he shoved his hands into leather gloves and waded purposefully into the water. Unlike Brett and the hawk, The Curmudgeon kept his footing. Cindy continued recording.

The Curmudgeon stuck his hand into the spinning whirlwind of fish/bird/missing college student and grabbed something solid. With a grunt he yanked out Brett. Brett was battered; helpless and floppy. The Curmudgeon was an old hand at manhandling clueless livestock and his skills worked fine on the limp college student. With one hand he held the cuff of Brett’s shirt and with the other he brushed off the more or less toothless fish that were gnawing on him.

Brett coughed weakly. Cindy was both relieved and disappointed to know Brett was still alive.

Having removed most of the fish, The Curmudgeon tossed Brett up onto the shore. He landed like an overeducated bale of hay.

Without pausing, The Curmudgeon reached deeper into the mess. This time his hand emerged with the Hawk, grasped by one talon, upside down and flapping. Three trout were hanging on the half plucked bird. The Curmudgeon shook violently and the fish fell away.

“Fly asshole!” The Curmudgeon ordered and he hurled the bird as high as he could.

The Hawk came to its senses and flew away in a wet sloppy retreat.

Cindy recorded the retreating bird’s errant flight before turning the camera toward a battered and lacerated Brett. Brett lay there gasping for breath.

Just then the song ended. The madness at the stream died down as fast as it had started. Cindy ran for the MP3 player to avoid letting it play another song.

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” The Curmudgeon grumped. He’d emerged from the stream and was removing a few errant fish that still had teeth locked onto his clothes. Two came off his left arm and he tossed them away gently. One was attached to his pantleg. He kicked it back into the water with a dismissive motion. He made a quick inventory of his condition; checking fingers and toes. Only after assuring himself that nothing was missing, did he take the opportunity to glare at Brett. Nearly killed by stupidfish! What a wimp!

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Merry Christmas and happy reading.

The Curmudgeon was consulting his notebook and mumbling to himself. “All hook and no brain… there’s a pattern here somewhere.”

The song ran out without another suggestion from The Curmudgeon, who was deep in thought. Hoping for more M&Ms, Cindy let the MP3 player skip to the next song; Dancing Queen.

“You can dance

You can jive

Having the time of your life”

“Abba?” The Curmudgeon mused.

“Ooh see that girl

Watch that scene

Digging the dancing queen…”

It took a few seconds for the song to sink in. Then. All. Hell. Broke. Loose.

The fish turned the water from a froth to a roiling foaming mess. Impressed, The Curmudgeon leaned back and grinned. Meanwhile, Brett ran past him in a panic.

Brett was shouting something over the disco singers. Cindy saw Brett’s frantic hand-waving and brought her camera up with a quick draw that would fit in at the OK Corral.

The trans-species raptor was back! It was zipping around the stream like a hummingbird on crack. Fish had started jumping out of the water; trying to bite what should be their feathery nemesis. Brett was waving his arms like he’d found the Holy Grail. Cindy was running the camera like her life depended on it. The Curmudgeon just grinned. “Abba,” he said to himself, “no shit.”

It was at this moment that the Curmudgeon got an idea. An awful idea. The Curmudgeon got a wonderful, awful idea!

By now the Hawk had lined up for an attack run that would surely land him a huge tasty exceptionally stupid trout. Meanwhile, the fish were going nuts, as if they’d love to eat a Hawk. Brett was shouting at everything and being ignored by all.

Amid the chaos, The Curmudgeon had formed a theory. Clearly there are different varieties of stupid. These fish were most certainly infected with University based stupid. Students couldn’t afford to even sniff the air in the vicinity of a Tesla; thus the Tesla line hadn’t gained much traction. What about a prompt specifically tuned to the University variety of stupid?

Without hesitating, The Curmudgeon bellowed the ultimate mating call of the University Marxist. “STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS!”

That did it!

The fish went from random jumps to a single unified explosion. They erupted from the stream in a giant wall of shimmering insanity. This took the Hawk completely by surprise. It plowed into the mass of fin and scale with the grace of a bowling ball.

The Hawk had met it’s match in sheer fish density. It crashed into the water where it was immediately beset on all sides by trout doing their best impression of Rocky Mountain Piranha. Feathers began to fly and the hawk let out a terrified squawk.

Brett freaked out. He’d isolated the rarest, most special, most politically correct and therefore marketable wild creature on earth. To have such a thing snuffed out just when he might cash in on it was unthinkable. He dove into the water hoping to save the bird.

Cindy gasped but held the camera rock steady.

The Curmudgeon cocked an eyebrow. “Bad move.” He muttered.

A few seconds passed. The fish hadn’t let up. Abba was still playing. The Hawk was still submerged and Brett still hadn’t surfaced either.

“Do trout have teeth?” Cindy worried. She was still recording the patch of stream where man and bird had gone down. She was genuinely concerned for Brett but also (if she were honest with herself) pondering the market value of a video where a rare unique wild animal and a college student were simultaneously torn to shreds. It had to be significant!

“Small teeth.” The Curmudgeon winced. “Not likely to hurt a human… but”

“But?” Cindy prompted.

“Maybe a bunch together. It would be a bad way to go. Like getting pecked to death by ducks.”

Cindy was a college student trying to study the hard sciences within a woke campus. Intellectually she’d been pecked at my weak little ducks all her life. She began to feel genuine sorrow for Brett’s fate.

“Bad way to go…” She mumbled. A tear came to her eye. Poor Brett, killed in the dumbest way by the dumbest creatures.

Please enjoy the next post in Murdertrout, Chapter 8 of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. Comments are welcome. Tips via the PayPal link to the right are also welcome but always optional.

Merry Christmas and happy reading.

“Flummoxed eh?” The Curmudgeon chuckled merrily, effortlessly channeling the Universe’s monologue.

He held his most recently caught trout against his forearm. Brett noticed a series of safety pins in the fabric of The Curmudgeon’s sleeve. He compared the fish’s length to a pin, mumbled something to himself, tossed the trout back in the water, and made a quick entry in the notebook. He stowed it in a pocket before Brett could peek and began slathering up in Purell for the next cast.

A light-bulb went off in Brett’s head. The pins were roughly an inch apart. The Curmudgeon was measuring fish!

“How accurate are your measurements?” He teased, hoping The Curmudgeon might explain further.

“Fishermen lie, gentlemen never tell, scientists record, and college students remain clueless.” The Curmudgeon intoned. “How watch this,” he grinned. He took a deep breath and yelled at the water “subsidized Teslas!” The froth in the water reduced somewhat, the Curmudgeon cast, immediately landed another fish, and got busy measuring it. It was smaller than the ones he’d already caught. “Huh. Teslas don’t do it.” He grunted to himself.

Brett’s mouth dropped. The whole situation was intolerable. “Stupidity is not a waterborne contagion!” He shouted. “Fish don’t have political opinions!”

“Well they’re dumb, that’s an observable fact. I haven’t yet developed the correlation with bad judgment into a mechanism of causality.” The Curmudgeon lectured. “Honestly, I thought electric cars would set them off but it didn’t.” He shook his head slowly. “Clearly I don’t understand the full depth of stupid in play.”

Brett seethed. It’s not an easy thing to see your entire world view subverted by a jerk with M&Ms.

Cindy had melted into the background and was covertly videoing the situation. If a hick beat Brett senseless she wanted it on video. Random violence and a trans-species raptor would make the most popular documentary since the History Channel switched to Aliens!

The Curmudgeon sighed at Brett’s discomfort. It was annoying as hell. The Curmudgeon witnessed breakdowns due to cognitive dissonance with alarming regularity. They just seemed to happen wherever he went. It was such a hassle.

“OK fine”, he hissed, “fish don’t eat M&Ms, they don’t have opinions about Marxist economic theory, and the University doesn’t send stupid downstream from it’s source to this location.”

Brett calmed. The guy was seeing things his way.

Brett glanced at Cindy who had the camera out. She gave him a thumbs up. He’d won the argument, though he couldn’t say how.

Meanwhile, the Curmudgeon had yet another of his patented thoughts. “Yo Cindy, why don’t you play some music for the fish?”

This set Brett off yet again. “What the hell are you…”

“If Boy George brought in a trans-species raptor, what music will set off these fish?” The Curmudgeon wondered.

Brett looked at the churning water. He wasn’t sure “set off” would be a good thing.

“Of course, they’re just normal trout, as you’ve established.” The Curmudgeon needled.

Apparently pleased with his fishing success, The Curmudgeon strode from the streambank, produced two lawn chairs from his truck, and made himself comfortable. He clearly intended to watch a show. He waved for Cindy to occupy the empty chair, which she did with relish.

When Brett asked if there was a third chair, The Curmudgeon only leered and tossed a bag of M&Ms to Cindy. Brett wound up leaning on the van’s bumper. Cindy cycled through her MP3 list and blared dozens of snippets through the PA system without a noticeable result. The Curmudgeon flipped through his notebook, frowning as if the conversion from political slogans to hook filled songs from the point of view of a stupid trout was possible. Brett scanned the skies in case his raptor might return.

“Try Space Oddity,” The Curmudgeon coaxed. “I don’t know if Bowie was gay or just a spaz but it seems on the spectrum.”

“Ground Control to Major Tom…” the PA warbled. Unfortunately, Bowie’s story of detachment and isolation did nothing.

The Curmudgeon was deep in thought. “Too cerebral.” He concluded. “Bowie was a freak but a pretty good lyricist. We need him singing something dumb. How about Let’s Dance?”

Cindy complied and soon their pleasant natural scenery was awash with Bowie’s talk of wearing red shoes to dance the blues. They all saw the hint of a change in the swirling water. The Curmudgeon watched the water with intensity. Brett and Cindy leaned forward. The trout were responding!

Please enjoy the next post in Murdertrout, Chapter 8 of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. Comments are welcome. Tips via the PayPal link to the right are also welcome but always optional.

Merry Christmas and happy reading.

Cindy and Brett were so busy cycling through music samples that might bring the hawk/eagle back that they’d forgotten about The Curmudgeon, who’d obligingly wandered off. They were arguing about the parallels between Boy George from the 1980s and Marilyn Manson from the 1990s.

“They’re both sexually ambiguous freaks.” Cindy shouted.

“”Wildlife cannot be attracted to an asshole like that!” Brett countered. Cindy was about to eviscerate his bias that wild animals had some sort innate soulful beauty when The Curmudgeon interrupted.

“Showtime!” He announced.

They both looked over at The Curmudgeon. He was sniffing the air. He’d detected a faint scent. Axe Body spray combined with socialism! That meant only one thing. The river was about to go into “stupid mode”!

“What!?!” Cindy barked. She’d formulated a devastating riposte to Brett’s bullshit and was upset she’d missed the moment.

“Stupid mode! The time is now.” The Curmudgeon announced with satisfaction. He tossed a pine cone in the water. Whoosh… a trout struck at it. The Curmudgeon beamed. “So, you doubt my theory that stupid gullibility is somehow transmitted from its source upstream? Watch this!”

While they’d been distracted he’d dispensed with his willowy fly rod. He was now holding a generic and far more stout spinner rod. He speared an M&M with a bare hook and cast a line. Almost immediately the line went taut. The Curmudgeon set the hook and reeled. Soon he had a trout in his hand.

He removed the hook and tossed the fish back. Then he slathered his hands with Purell. “Got no idea how communicable stupidity really is.” He explained as he wiped his hands clean and baited the hook with another M&M. Cindy wished he’d save some for her. As if reading her mind, The Curmudgeon tossed a bag her way.

He cast again and landed another trout within seconds.

“Trout. Do. Not. Eat. Chocolate.” Brett stammered.

“I agree, any trout that wants chocolate is an insult to piscine honor.” The Curmudgeon nodded vigorously. “But they’re in stupid mode, so it’s a lock.”

He cast again and landed a trout effortlessly. The water was literally frothing as fish charged to and fro in a sort of frenzy.

“I’ve been working on audio clues.” The Curmudgeon added. He was consulting a little notebook on which he’d scrawled notes. “If I say the right phrase I seem to increase the size of the catch. Watch.”

He baited another hook and took a deep breath. “Universal Basic Income!” He shouted at the water. Brett and Cindy both noticed a slight increase in the froth and looked at each other. The Curmudgeon cast into the maelstrom and immediately landed another fish. Cindy and Brett stared at each other. They were flummoxed; uncertain whether they were witnessing a new and heretofore unknown fact of the universe or falling for some weirdo’s magic trick.

Please enjoy the next post in Murdertrout, Chapter 8 of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. Comments are welcome. Tips via the PayPal link to the right are also welcome but always optional.

Merry Christmas and happy reading.

An additional note, please don’t read any synchronicity between the glorious holiday of Christmas and a post about sewage treatment. It’s how the text broke and nothing more.

Jimmy was the best employee at F-SPEWT, the Facility for Sewage Processing and Ecological Waste Treatment. He was also the only one working that shift. Mostly automated, there usually wasn’t a whole lot to do.

The facility was proof that people will spend lavishly to avoid interacting with their own shit. It had been carpet bombed with Federal funds some years ago and was now officially a coveted and photogenic “Green Investment”. It had a beautiful front lawn featuring patches of native vegetation with interpretive signs explaining each plant and its role in the ecosystem. It had a giant mural on its three story concrete wall facing the road. The mural was an artist’s interpretation of a third grade elementary school project. It implied that rivers full of fish came directly from clouds, cascading into a giant clockwork of happy stick figures wearing hard hats, which did something with lots of big red hearts. From there the water emerged into a pond where a blue whale swam in circles.

The building smelled like shit; because it was where shit goes.

Jimmy was pleased to have landed a “trainee level” job at F-SPEWT. He was a probationary hire, destined to work at half pay another two full years while he completed a degree in environmental studies with a minor in chemistry. Environmental studies was a breeze. All you had to do was pretend that blue whales lived in ponds and you’d get an A. Organic chemistry was a lot harder, but Jimmy was a hard worker and a good student. He’d earned a steady series of good solid B grades. This made him smarter than virtually the entire population that flushed their shit into his workspace. Jimmy owed a fortune in student loans.

He’d had a busy day. Someone or something was sending terrifying levels of… everything his way. He’d been titrating this and sampling that in a desperate attempt to tune the treatment facility to manage incoming chemistry that was literally “off the charts”. It was like someone had flushed a pharmaceutical plant run by space aliens.

It wouldn’t do to let this witches brew flow through the plant under “default” procedures! There were substances in there that weren’t mentioned in even his most advanced textbooks. There was no way a residential sector should contain, much less offload, gunk this complex. Yet here it was. It was overwhelming the system!

In desperation, Jimmy consulted Operations Manual 3.02b. Removing it from it’s place of honor among the the manuals and guides in the operations room made him worried, but also excited. He turned to the dreaded and almost mythical Appendix R. He’d had hours of training on Appendix R. His provisional certification in Appendix R procedures had taken months of paperwork.

He frowned. Appendix R was clear. This was a time to file an “Exceptions Buffer Emergency Approval”. He’d never expected to file a EBEA so soon in his career. Maybe someday, if his career took him to greater heights, but not yet! (He’d heard stories about Buffalo NY and one particular EBEA near Niagara Falls that kept him awake at night.)

The thing about understanding chemistry is that you know things nobody else knows. It was Jimmy’s burden to know what’s in our water. Having such dark knowledge, you can’t blame him for being a bit high strung.

Dutifully, he filled out the EBEA. It took him an hour. He added test results he’d been accumulating over the last few hours. He checked boxes. He cross referenced the Catchment Permit specifications. He was filling out the kind of paperwork that made people quit the military and become monks.

The facility had dozens of computers but only one was usable for the EBEA. An decrepit, long ignored, computer that had the words F-SPEWT / NOTAT scrawled on the old putty colored monitor with permanent marker. This was the “notable transmissions terminal”, affectionately nicknamed NOTAT. It was the only legal and official channel for communicating protected data about the State’s water supply. No other computer was officially accepted.

He turned it on.

“Updating, please do not turn off while updates in progress.”

Oh no! The computer hadn’t been used for months, maybe years. As soon as it hit the Internet, every component demanded the newest software patch and security upgrade. This could take hours!

Jimmy looked at a display on the wall. It represented incoming effluent. He’d stopped outflow in accordance with step 11 in the Appendix R checklist. A green bar was rising, rising, rising… soon it would turn red. And then what?!

He shuddered, things were getting serious. In accordance with Appendix R, step 11d, he’d have to move to the “NOTAT Interruption Protocol”. This was not good! The whole system was obsolete, stupid, and convoluted but entering a second order layer of obfuscation surrounding “interrupted communication” was a far deeper bureaucratic rabbit hole. Originally instituted during the Cold War, the “Interruption Protocol” was written in 1954 to deal with the effects of nuclear war. The protocol predated cell phones. It predated FAX machines. It predated everything. Nobody in 1953, freaking out about Russkies and ICBMs, could have anticipated a future society where everyone had a portable communications device stashed in their pocket! As he flipped through the instructions, he found a spot where it literally referred to sending a Telegram! He was doomed!

The door opened and Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief. Longtime F-SPEWT employee Francis sauntered in. Francis was twice Jimmy’s age, had no education, and didn’t know a titration from a Bud Light. However, he’d been at the plant since it’s inception. Rumor had it he was a union pipefitter on the original construction site. Supposedly, he’d stayed there because his car had been repossessed while the building’s footings had been poured. When the rest of the crew left to build other things, Francis simply put down roots and became a founding father of the F-SPEWT family.

Jimmy was delighted to hand over this terrible responsibility to the older, more experienced fellow. Francis knew every valve and pipe in the facility. Francis never panicked.

Hurriedly, Jimmy explained the situation. The incoming effluent was “hot”… filled with more chemicals that Jimmy had ever seen. It was far worse than the meth lab incident of last Easter weekend! He’d checked the outflow to keep untreated pollutants from exiting the facility… but that wouldn’t hold for long.

Catching a breath in his worried monologue, Jimmy glanced at a nearby poster. It showed a bear catching salmon with the inspirational message “this is why we do it”. He paused for a second, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. Then he continued; the checked outflow was only a stop-gap measure. He’d bought a few hours at most. The NOTAT wasn’t responding. Appendix R wasn’t helping. What were they going to do?

“Relax kid.” Francis patted Jimmy on the shoulder. “When’s your shift over?”

Jimmy glanced at the clock; time sure does fly. “An hour.”

Francis smiled reassuringly. “It’s gonna’ be fine. Open the ‘buffer pool B’ valve in sector seven. Then report back here.” He ordered.

Jimmy hopped to it. Ninety seconds later he was back, still worried, bouncing from one foot to the other.

Francis steered him away from the F-SPEWT / NOTAT computer. He had no idea what it did. The thing was never on. If it managed to boot up, which he doubted, all it probably could do was play Pac-Man. He pictured some abandoned Cold War bunker with skeletons sitting at the seats and chuckled.

Gently, like a mentor ought, he led Jimmy to the staff room where they rested on the old couch. He regaled Jimmy with a racy tale from the time his ex-wife had sent a repo-man after his car. Stories about that bitch always got a laugh.

As the hour wound down he accepted the form Jimmy was waving about and sent him on his way. He had no idea what the hell EBEA meant but he wasn’t about to let Jimmy know that. The poor kid would probably hyperventilate.

He watched until he saw Jimmy pedal his ass out of sight. (The poor kid still considered bicycles a legitimate form of transportation!) Then he walked back to the control center. He spent a while on the catwalk, watching a Technicolor chemical soup flow from the main pond to buffer pool B. Unlike usual effluent, which stunk to high heaven but predictably so, this had a different and oddly disturbing scent; like Axe Body spray had become sentient and eaten burritos for lunch. It stung his nose. He felt a little dizzy. He caught a glimpse of something floating. Was that a cat in there? Best not to think about it.

Whatever was in there was an unholy mess he didn’t want in his vicinity. So he got to work. By “getting to work” he meant sauntering in no hurry at all to the F-SPEWT / NOTAT computer. It was making whirring sounds and still trying to update. He unplugged it.

Then he fed Jimmy’s form into the shredder.

In the main room he glanced at all of Jimmy’s careful calibrations. The kid must have been working his ass off to do all the… whatever it was. Francis shrugged, clicked “reset to default”, then “flush b-p B”, then “flush main”.

He rubbed his hands together. Everything was fixed!

Satisfied, he kicked back on the couch to watch a repeat of Bonanza. Tomorrow he’d tell the kid his stuff was approved and he’d applied some exotic protocol from the book. The kid would eat it up. If there’s one thing he’d learned from a steady flow of more or less identical environmental studies students was that they were invariably gullible. He could tell the kid that Men in Black had arrived by helicopter to ship everything to Guantanamo and it was classified so he couldn’t explain further. The kid would buy it. He wondered if any of them ever paid off their student loans.

Half an hour later he was engrossed in Bonanza. Meanwhile, the first wave hit the waters where a trans species raptor had recently been recorded.

Please enjoy the next post in Murdertrout, Chapter 8 of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. Comments are welcome. Tips via the PayPal link to the right are also welcome but always optional.

Merry Christmas and happy reading.

Brett and Cindy laughed until the idiot fisherman slunk away muttering “Can’t teach ‘em a damn thing.”

Cindy, on the rebound from The Curmudgeon’s fool notions, was now more amenable to Brett’s similar but more palatable fool notions. “So, how do we get video of a gay hawk?”

An hour later Cindy was scrolling through a collection of audio tracks that Brett had assembled during his thesis studies. Cindy would play the track for a few minutes on the News Van’s P.A. system while Brett scanned the skies with binoculars. Brett admitted he wasn’t sure which sounds were best. They’d cycled through dozens of audio tracks to no avail. Not far away The Curmudgeon sat sullenly, tossing the occasional pine cone into the flowing waters.

“I am the very model of a modern major general.” the P.A. System squawked.

The Curmudgeon’s patience had worn thin. “Gilbert & Sullivan? Really? You’re looking for a hawk, not a theater major!”

They ignored him, scrolling next to a lilting piano solo.

“Liberace? Really? How old are you?”

“Shut up!” Brett shouted.

“If you want gay piano, what about Elton John!”

“Shut up!” Brett shouted.

On a whim, Cindy scrolled and soon “Tiny Dancer” was oozing from the van.

“Cindy stop listening to him!”

“What about Freddy Mercury? Gay doesn’t mean lame you know.”

Cindy cued up Queen.

“Flash! Ah ah… it’s a miracle!”

Cindy felt her toes tapping to what had to be the dumbest song she’d heard in years.

“Stop it!” Brett shouted, while staring through his binoculars.

Cindy, happily listening to music in the van, was rudely disturbed as The Curmudgeon stuck his head in the open door. It wasn’t the first time Cindy wondered if she should start carrying mace. Wild-eyed, The Curmudgeon glanced around.

“Nice van.”

“Get out!”

“I saw motion on the hillside for Queen. I figured it out. You need stupid with a hook.”

“Get Out!”

“Try…” The Curmudgeon closed his eyes, thinking hard.

“Try Boy George.”

“Who?”

“This cross-dressing freak from the ‘80’s. Played a lot on the radio. Nobody knows why.”

Cindy couldn’t help but be moved by The Curmudgeon’s optimism, he just didn’t give a shit that they knew he was nuts.

“Karma Chameleon” He smiled. “It’s got everything… dumb song, great hook, sung by a gender ambiguous one hit wonder…”

“Cindy, why is the lunatic in the van?” Brett called out anxiously.

The Curmudgeon waved another bag of M&Ms.

“I’ve got candy…”

“Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon…” The P.A. system emitted the world’s most pointless lyrics wound into a powerful hook.

“Dammit!” Brett stomped toward the van, unsure of what he could do to the lunatic, who was much older but seemed to glow with the vitality of madness. In fact, why the hell was it his problem that…

-SWOOSH-

A hawk flew inches over Brett’s head to perch happily on the P.A.’s speaker. It looked like any regular hawk but prouder and taller. It swayed along with Boy George’s song as if nothing could make it happier.

Brett and The Curmudgeon all watched in amazement. Cindy whipped out her makeshift camera and started recording. There was something very odd about the hawk.

“I think,“ Cindy paused, “I think it wants to be an eagle.”

“Yes.” Brett agreed. “Something about its posture looks eagle-like.”

“It’s closer to being an eagle than laying an egg.” The Curmudgeon agreed sarcastically.

“I’ve never seen a bird look so much like an eagle without being an eagle.” Brett whispered. Cindy, spellbound, merely nodded. The hawk stretched its wings and posed flamboyantly from its perch. It certainly thought itself impressive.

“There’s something about that bird,” The Curmudgeon scowled. “It’s like I’ve see it before.”

When the song ended, the hawk took flight. As if a spell was broken, the three stood there for several minutes; basking in the newfound knowledge that trans-species raptors were a thing.

Please enjoy the next post in Murdertrout, Chapter 8 of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. Comments are welcome. Tips via the PayPal link to the right are also welcome but always optional.

Merry Christmas and happy reading.

Ignoring Brett and Cindy’s argument, The Curmudgeon snatched up Brett’s iPad. He read quickly, swiping through several pages of text. Brett didn’t notice because he was too busy cringing at Cindy’s shouting. Cindy was too pissed to care.

“You’re wrong.” The Curmudgeon pronounced, as if his word was law. This brought Brett and Cindy to a halt. They’d been unaware the scruffy fisherman intended to insert himself in their debate.

The raptor you’re looking for isn’t gay. It’s trans-species. You’ve conflated gender with species. Also,” The Curmudgeon continued, “it’s probably wicked stupid.”

“What!??” The university students exclaimed in unison. In four sentences The Curmudgeon had violated at least a dozen hate speech codes. Cindy looked around in case someone had overheard (unlikely in a forested parking spot near a river but you can never be sure). Brett started with the counter arguments that sprang, Pavlovian style, into his head. (It never occurred to him to question how certain “facts” sprang directly to mind given the appropriate cue.)

“First of all… we never say “gay”.” Bret was ticking off talking points on his fingers. “Second, if a creature wishes to identify as…”

“Relax Poindexter.” The Curmudgeon interrupted. “Spare me the logic behind your rooster egg omelet.” He beamed expansively. “I’m here for the same reason you are.”

“What?” Cindy repeated for a second time.

“This habitat, the water conditions; something about it leads to the dumbest fish for two hundred miles.”

Brett and Cindy stood there dumbstruck. What the hell was the man saying?

“I’m unsure about the actual environmental processes involved,” The Curmudgeon was sounding something like an old school professor, or an idiot, “but this particular drainage produces trout of exceptionally low intelligence.”

He paused. Brett and Cindy stayed silent so he expanded further.

“Fly fishing for trout is a pain in the ass. Tying up bits of fluff to make a floating likeness of a mayfly? That sucks. So I explored a bit and came here. These trout are the gullible idiots of the trout world.” He smiled happily at his own innovation. “I fish here to improve my self esteem by interacting with stupid exploitable retarded trout.”

Brett and Cindy were at a loss. They both sat down on the bank. Finally Brett prompted for more. “And?”

“I think it has to do with the University.” The Curmudgeon happily expounded. “We’re only a few miles downstream of the municipal water treatment plant. It serves mostly to process University effluent. I think the stupid gullibility of the University students is somehow passed on to the fish.”

“So the fish are somehow harmed by pollution?” asked Brett.

“More like, they lack individualized decision making.”

“Brain damaged?” Cindy suggested.

“Socialist.” The Curmudgeon corrected.

It was too much for Brett. “Are you implying political views are waterborne!?!”

“I think so. Or more like stupidity is infectious when concentrated.”

“So the trout go on strikes and protest?” Brett mocked.

“Not quite.” The Curmudgeon answered without defensiveness. He hadn’t detected Brett’s mockery. “You know how a baby bird in the nest just sits there demanding to be fed; for no other reason than it expects it? That seems to happen here. That’s why I catch fish with these.” He held up an M&M.

“That’s nuts!” Cindy exclaimed.

The Curmudgeon tossed a fun sized bag to Cindy, who gobbled it up before realizing the joke. Brett giggled.

“No proper trout should want a candy coated chocolate nugget. They should want a bug or worm. Right?” The Curmudgeon continued.

Brett and Cindy nodded.

“But when conditions are right, they’ll eat anything. How’s that for proof?”

“So they turn into baby birds?” Cindy grumbled.

“Almost, but less… um…” The Curmudgeon grasped for a descriptor, “…self-aware. Yes, that’s it. A baby bird demands it gets fed which implies some level of sentience. The stupid tuns them into something like a filter feeder that just assumes the food is there. An oyster, but dumber; a barnacle!” The Curmudgeon spoke it proudly, as if he’d communicated a deep truth of the Universe, across a vast gulf of unseen knowledge which the two students lacked. From his point of view, the University was an accretion of so much stupidity that it overflowed the natural order of things and turned trout from bug eating aquatic predators to pseudo-barnacles that eat chocolate.

“Bullshit.” Concluded Brett.

“Furthermore”, The Curmudgeon ignored him, “a raptor exposed to those fish will surly think itself highly skilled at fishing. Perhaps a kingfisher or a hawk would think themselves an osprey or an eagle.”

“Bullshit.” Cindy added.

“And this is why I only catch and release when fishing here. No knowing what harm would come from a diet of unnaturally stupid prey.”