The Complete Drive-In

5

One thing you don’t expect inside a fish is light.

Soon there would be other things unexpected. But, for the moment, let’s just consider the light.

Lights actually.

A row of them.

But let’s not jump too far ahead.

Let’s roll back and talk back and go up the throat of the fish, and let me tell you how we came down.

We came down in a stink, baby. The water nearly filled the bus. We bumped our heads on the ceiling, and the water smelled bad, and there were things in the water, and the bus went fast, and then it slowed. There was a feeling like being a mole in a water hose. And somehow I knew we were in some piece of gut, making our way to the center, where, I figured, stomach acid, or whatever fish use to digest (is it rocks? no, I believe that’s chickens that get pebbles in their craw), would be our final destination.

Seven for the soup.

Dinner served.

A little later that day it would be out the ole sphincter, blown through the asshole into the deeps, an acid-pocked bus full of skeletons.

If that much was left.

Just so much fish shit.

But, I was saying about the lights, and now we come to them again. So, we’re jetting along through the guts and into the stomach, hanging onto the seats, drenched in water, not quite drowned, but in a position that we in the business of being swallowed by fish like to call, seriously wet, and then – SQUIRT – right out into The light.

A muddled light, I might mention, as if shown through thick wax paper, but it was light. The bus came down with a smack, right side up (thank goodness), and the water in the bus sloshed back and forth across us, and the light shining through the windows, piercing the water that was now almost to the ceiling, burned our eyes.

Water fled from the bus the same way it had come in. Only took a matter of minutes before it was to the point where we could stand in the seats and have the water about our waists. At that point it slowed its drain. The windows, though lit up with light, also were splattered with all manner of dark business I would rather not consider, and so was the floor of our bus. There were even small fish flapping about, and I found leeches clinging to my body like day commuters grasping the handholds on a subway car.

All our food supplies were ruined, soaked up with that water, and possibly the water and fuel were fucked too, depending on how well the corks held in the containers. But, at that moment in time, that didn’t seem like a big concern.

Steve dove under the water and worked the bus door, and it came open. The water rushed out, and so did Steve, Grace, Cory, and Jim. Homer, Reba, and I clung to seats and waited for it to wash away.

Then we too slipped and slid along the sopped floor of the bus and out into the lights.

They hung from long cables at the summit of the fish, which was pretty far up there, dear hearts. And the fish itself was like a great aircraft hangar in size, but its sides heaved, and the meat and bones moved with the pressure of its breathing. In the sides of the fish were great pockets cut into the meat, and in the holes of this meat, high up, we could see people. On both sides of the fish, extending back for a goodly distance, as far as we could see before the rows of lights played out and there was only darkness.

Occasionally, as I observed, I’d see a spark emit from the fish’s insides, pop out like a firefly, crackle like cellophane. There were a few metallic ladders on wheels and runners, like in a great library. The ladders were narrow, but they went high up. Down into the dark spot at the tail of the fish, where the lights played out, my eyes adjusted enough I could see there was a pile of cars, both old and new, and one small airplane. All of this was mounded up together in what could almost be called a wad. The paint was off the cars for the most part, and there were holes in the metal, like termites the size of motorcycles had been at work.

Our bus was resting on a grid, long and flat with drainage holes all through it. The grid began at the pulsating gut gap that had launched us here, and a sewage aroma came from that gap as it irised open and closed. We wobbled slightly, not having gained our sea legs, as the great fish propelled itself through the depths. Beneath the grid, I could see a boiling green mess that gave off a fart odor that blended with the special smell that puffed out of the sphincter. The catfish that had swum before us lay flapping on the grillwork, its mouth opening and closing as it gasped for water.

People in the meat caves started down the ladders. There were a lot of them. Some wore rags, but most were raw and wet looking, covered in fish blood, their hair matted. Many were covered in puckered scars.

As they came down to see us, Steve said, “You know, I caught many a catfish in my lifetime-well, not that many, I suck as a fisherman-but, I never found no folks inside of one. Or any lighting equipment.”

“How about old cars or airplanes?” Homer asked.

“Nope,” Steve said. “None of those either.”

Grace said, “I just hope the natives are friendly.”