15.1 – What’s That Funky Smell?

The winter rainstorms that swept down from Alaska and lashed the West Marin coast gradually let up as the days got longer.  Eventually, the creek subsided enough to trigger the annual salmon run, and it was the biggest one the redwood canyon had seen since the White family moved in.  Papermill Creek was significant for being one of the last spots in Central California where Coho Salmon and steelhead still migrated.  They could no longer access the main artery of the watershed because of the four dams, so the San Geronimo Valley branch, which flowed past Marty’s house upstream from the confluence just below the Inkwells, was crowded with hopeful candidates splashing in the gene pool.  If fish had shoulders, they would have been rubbing them with each other – that’s how closely they were packed in the water!

Marty was fascinated with those intrepid creatures, and spent much of his spare time observing them from the banks.  The fish he saw were all born in that stretch of creek probably two or three years ago.  Then they wandered over half an ocean, gorging themselves on plankton, before returning to the exact spot where they were spawned; to propagate and renew the cycle.  They carried in their genes the coordinates of the Lagunitas Triangle, and were as much a part of the Rusty Bucket Ranch as the redwood trees.  The act of reentering freshwater caused the males to develop hooked jaws and teeth, until they mutated into nightmarish creatures from the acidic seas of an alien planet.  Their normally silver sides turned scarlet red with blotchy dark spots, and their grotesque heads turned the sickly blue color of a dead possum that had been out in the sun for too long.  Their scales and flesh were ravaged from struggling past the Inkwells and now hung like tattered clothes, so the fish were no good for eating.  Otter refused to take any of them, even though he could have netted dozens.  “It’s bad medicine once they get this far,” was all he would say. 

Marty, Mike, and their Inuit elder hiked down to the gushing cascades when the run began, just to watch the athletic feats of the leaders who leapt mightily against the surging waterfalls to reach their goal, bouncing off the rocks in their lust to spawn and die.  The fierce competition could have been the pole vault finals at the Salmon Olympics, but instead of medals the winners got genetic immortality.  Otter pointed out the magnificent ones: the “spirit salmon” or “Amarook” as he called them, and he burned some ceremonial herbs in tribute, passing his soapstone pipe around so they could all quest with their animal spirits.  Mixed in among the do-or-die heroic types were a few sniveling, parasitic lamprey eels, with their malevolent sucker mouths and rows of tiny, hooked teeth for attaching to their host.  They, too, were spawning in the gravel beds wherever they could find space to defend.  All up and down the 300 yards of creek frontage on their property, bright red splashes betrayed the carnal acts that were brazenly displayed in the shallows for 25 cents a peep.  It was an enthusiastic festival of  filthy fish porn, and at times the water was milky with unlucky sperm.

The exuberance of life would soon become the horror of death.  After the peak of spawning activity, most of the exhausted, tattered fish flopped over in the shallows and died within a few days of each other.  Some of them were over two feet long, and the compounded stench of their decomposing flesh dominated the unusually warm days of late February.  The sickly sweet odor permeated the canyon’s atmosphere, and was so overpowering that it got into Marty’s clothes, which further decreased his popularity at school.  He was downgraded in the social rank from “rat boy” to “fish freak.”  He learned to keep his freshly laundered clothes in plastic trash bags, instead of the drawers under his bed that were only about fifteen feet from the pungent decomposition.

To make things even worse, Lobo and Keno broke their chains and gorged themselves on the rancid, fishy carcasses.  The smell must have been too tempting for their instincts, and incited them to summon reserves of canine strength from some legendary ancestral source.  Before anyone could stop them, they had an uproarious feast while fulfilling their disgusting fantasies, and when they couldn’t eat any more, they joyfully rolled in the putrid guts in contaminated ecstasy.  And then they actually wanted to come inside the house!  They were covered with such a fetid stench, it forced a family of skunks to move out from under the shed.  Mike and Marty tried to re-chain the overfed pups without touching them, which of course was impossible, and both had to take very long showers.  Soon after they finished, they smelled of fish again, because the air itself was thick with their reeking molecules, clinging together in the oily air like roe.  Perfumed soaps and shampoo would soon become covetous items of worship.

This was no ordinary stench!  It had a complex, organic presence of its own, like a web of primordial slime.  Annie refused to come out and see Mike anymore because of the smell.  Even Otter and Rabbit, two of the most experienced outdoor people Marty knew, discreetly decided to find lodging at a friend’s apartment for a couple of weeks.  Of those who remained, most straggled on like haggard survivors of a toxic biological disaster.  Mike and Marty felt they had to do something.  Wearing yellow rain slickers, and double bandanas over their faces, the erstwhile hazardous waste cleanup crew clambered along the banks of the creek, shoveling any exposed carcasses into the water – hopefully to wash away and subdue the smell faster.  The air above the creek was delightfully infused with the stench of decomposing fish flesh for many days.  No one really enjoyed eating anymore, and sleep was hard to come by, so they all found excuses to go “over the hill” as much as possible.  Just another fragrant February at the ol’ Rusty Bucket Fertilizer Factory! 

It was about that time that a single man moved into the derelict house across the creek, which had been vacant since the Animal Witch beamed back to her mother ship.  Predictably, due to the horrific stench of spawning season, their new neighbor stayed inside the house with the windows and curtains closed, and they didn’t see much of him.  Marty sometimes glimpsed him through his window, but preferred to stay indoors as much as possible and burn incense.  He and Mike decided the dude was a redneck stereotype: partly because he drove a big tanker truck for his work, and partly because he blasted country & western music to try and drown out the steady rock & roll soundtrack on Marty’s stereo.

Then suddenly one day, the smell was gone!  The bacteria causing the odor gave way to fungus, and the disgusting organic invasion reached a kind of biological equilibrium.  It was a beautiful spring day early in March, and the redwood trees seemed to be rejuvenated with the influx of nutrients.  One could only speculate on the net cosmic effect of having so much genetic material return to its place of origin.

Marty still hadn’t met his new neighbor, who proved to be rather reclusive, but the grapevine at the Slodge informed Marge that he was an outcast member of a family that homesteaded back in the 1800s and still owned a large ranch in Woodacre.  His job was to drive around and suck the shit out of septic tanks, which placed him firmly in the Untouchable caste of just about any society.  That indignity seemed to have had a negative effect on his temper.  He yelled at the boys whenever they played their music too loud, and shouted from his deck about “hippie freaks,” “gooks,” and “God Bless America.”  Of course, that just made him a target in Mike and Marty’s book.  Things would have turned out much better for him if he’d pretended to be a curmudgeonly hermit, and didn’t talk to them at all.  Marty called him “Rubber Duck,” from the popular song Convoy by C.W. McCall about C.B. radios and truckers.

One night, wearing bandanas tied around their faces like guerillas, the two brothers sneaked over the creek to where the disgusting poop-sucking vehicle was parked.  They painted a large, washable “Support Gay Rights” graffiti on the side away from the driver’s seat.  Early the next morning, Rubber Duck drove that contraption into downtown Pt. Reyes as he always did, and became breaking news in that slow-moving ranch town, where a cow fart is headlines.  The brothers learned the juicy tidbits from Marge, who couldn’t stop laughing long enough to play the part of the serious parent and discipline them for vandalism.  She tried to act stern between suppressed snickers, and failed.

Their outraged victim could never prove who did it, but of course he knew it was them!  The next day was Sunday, and he splashed across the creek to complain about their shenanigans.  Marge answered the door not knowing who it was.  Otter, Mike, and Marty were crowded around the TV watching the Forty-Niners lose again, but this new fracas promised to be more interesting.  Rubber Duck didn’t introduce himself, but launched into a tirade about “those damn kids of yours,” and then he made the mistake of asking for “the man of the house.”  He was short and wiry, with a Glen Campbell haircut.  He had unusually thin lips that twitched behind a scraggly mustache.  The pack of Camels stuffed inside the front pocket of his shirt was just about the biggest muscle on his body.  That was when the three men got between him and Marge.  Otter grabbed the whompin’ stick he kept by the door, brandishing it fiercely with the menace of a warrior.  Mike brought the hatchet, in case some redneck firewood was needed.  Marty stood in front of his mom, in a protective Bruce Lee stance.  Rubber Duck quickly decided caution would be the greater part of valor at that point, and stomped back across the creek, threatening to call his lawyer.  The guard detail laughed, with high fives all around, and decided that a little neighborly combat was definitely more entertaining than football!

From then on, whenever Marty saw the Rubber Duck, he played Queen and David Bowie really loud on his stereo, to remind him of his support of gay rights.  This always made him slam his front door and stomp around inside his sagging, dilapidated shipwreck.  The windows next to Marty’s bed faced the wreckage, and the heavy artillery of his Emerson speakers and Kenwood amplifier broadsided the homophobic neighbor’s position ceaselessly.  Rubber Duck defiantly hung a Confederate flag in his window (as gay repellent?), so Marty switched to blasting Dueling Banjos and Bluegrass music at full volume, which pissed him off even more.  They decided the situation required a more apt response.  Nobody in the Rusty Bucket tribe was a homosexual, but they certainly knew where to find them!

Paula had been coming over sometimes in the evenings, to surreptitiously disappear inside Marge’s bedroom and do cocaine.  Then they’d come bursting out, all hyper and sniffing like a couple of terriers that just got let out the back door, but trying to act as if nothing happened.  This was often more amusing than what was on TV.  Paula was queer as a three dollar bill and Jewish, with a strong “Joy-zee” accent.  He loved it when Marty played Bowie and Queen on his industrial strength speakers, which could move furniture.  Marty explained to him their running battle with the homophobic redneck across the creek, and he smiled wickedly, like Jack Nicholson with all his teeth showing, “Oh, I know some ‘ladies’ he needs to meet.”

That weekend some of his transvestite Special Forces came over, and they proved to be an extremely entertaining pest control team.  They had been briefed on the situation, and knew exactly what to do.  They pointed Marty’s mega-speakers of death out the creekside windows, and blasted Donna Summer disco in a full-frontal assault, having themselves a riotous time.  They crowded into the narrow kitchen in their slinky dresses, leaning out the back door and saucily calling out, “Yoo hoo!  We love you!  Thank you for supporting us, honey!!”  

Rubber Duck briefly came outside to see if his new admirers were actually women, then stomped back to his porch and yelled a few words that weren’t polite to use in the company of ladies (even the phony kind).  That just made the cabaret company more agitated.  Bella Donna, the six-foot-four black drag queen in a platinum wig, actually clambered down from the door in her high heels, and made like she was going to cross the creek and “teach him a thing or two.”  The Great Defender of American Pride ran back inside, and for a moment Marty thought he was going to come out with a gun, but he got his keys and left hastily in his truck, spitting gravel like expletives.  A chorus of high-pitched cheers rose from the crowded dance floor in the narrow kitchen galley.  The exceedingly gay victory party lasted far into the night, with Bella and the ladies reenacting their triumphs over and over, to howls of jubilation.  They even brought their own LPs!  The ceaseless disco music probably defiled Marty’s stereo, but the carnival was more hilarious than a movie, so he let them play.