A Look Into The "Sane Asylum" Downtown

Dernberger Spengleton,
Tender to the Grand Conveyor

The Smoking Fish opened on Main Street a few months ago and it has garnered quite a lot of attention. We at The Times recently made a visit to get a closer look.

For those unfamiliar, the Smoking Fish is a place for the excessively-sane to commune and work together to escape the heavy chains of reality.

From the moment my photographer and I arrived, I had a strange sensation of gravity pulling me slightly in the wrong direction. I mean this in the most literal way possible -- instead of pulling me straight down, the earth’s gravity seemed to pull slightly sideways.

We walked down a long, winding walkway adorned with exotic plants and paper mâché dolls, all leaning slightly to the side. The front door showcased an ornament, a giant (rotten) tuna fish with a cigarette in its mouth and flowers in its ears. A sign read: “doorbell inside of mouth”, with an arrow pointing down the fish’s throat. Hesitantly, I pried open its jaws and felt around the guts of the fish until I got hold of what felt like a doorbell button. “I think I found it,” I said. My photographer asked what I was waiting for. “I think it’s stuck.” When I pulled hard on what I thought was a doorbell, it broke off into the palm of my hand and splattered fish juice all over me. It was not a doorbell, but a fish tooth.

A short, excessively-clothed but barefoot man crawled out from under the picnic table, brushed off his jacket, and yawned as though he had just woken up. “Oh great, there’s two of you. Sounded like three for a second there. Thought I’d need to sleep outside again, but nope, it’s my lucky day. Anyways, either of you got a light?” he asked, picking up the cigarette that had fallen out of the rotten fish’s mouth.

I had so many questions for this guy, about him and about this place. What was it like? Were people here really trying to go insane? But he blew a dandelion in my face and said “Poof!” I forgot what I was thinking about. “Back to reality, dreamfucker,” he said, “I know you want to ask me something, but it would be impossible for me to answer.”

“Why would it be impossible?” I asked.

The guy’s face went red. He dropped into a sitting position on the ground, cross-legged and pouty. “No questions!! Who do I look like, an uncivilized librarian? I know my manners. Cigarettes before conversation. My mother taught me that.”

My photographer ran back to his car to grab a lighter. We sat cross-legged in silence as our new friend took his time smoking the cigarette which, by the way, was completely drenched in fishy guts.

“This is stupid,” he said frustratedly while trying to light the soggy cigarette, “I know a better way.” He tossed the remainder of the smoldering thing into his mouth and gulped it down. “Ok, I’m ready now. Let’s go inside and talk. Nice job on the doorbell, by the way. I couldn’t reach it last night.”

“It didn’t seem to work,” I told him.

“What do you mean? You’ve got it right there.” He pointed to the fish tooth on my lap. He snatched it up, wiped it off in his beard, lifted his many layers of shirts, counted down ‘3’, ‘2’, ‘1’, ‘go’, and put the tooth in his belly button. He made a click with his tongue at the same time. He instructed us, “Life is built on threes. It always takes three. And, tongues are important, the mother of all satisfaction. The only problem is choosing a direction. I’m going to count to three from one and from three to one at the same time. Make a tongue click at the end and then we’ll go inside. Make sense?”

“No, I’m a bit confused actually”

“Perfect, let’s get started. Everyone put a hand on the doorknob”

ONE THREE

TWO TWO

THREE ONE

Click!

The doorknob turned and we barged into a ginormous foyer with a roof a hundred feet tall. Mirrors lined the circular walls, creating infinite reflections in all directions. It was astounding and it captivated your gaze with the sheer impossibility of it all.

I looked down to find the man choosing from a large supply of footwear. “Everyone put your shoes on”, he said as he tied the laces of a pair of high heels. “First rule of manners: always wear shoes inside, never outside.”

My photographer and I locked eyes. He mouthed “strange…” and I nodded as I tried to scribble some observations into my notebook.

But then, Poof! The man blew another dandelion on my face. “Rude!” He yelled. “You have shoes on already? Rude rude rude! Don’t you have a mother, anyway? Don’t you have a mother, anyway? Don’t you have a mother, anyway? Did she teach you things? Get out! Get out! GET OUT!” He was furious and physically shoving us out the door.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “I’m sorry, I was just writing my notes in my journal. I’m a journalist.”

He slammed the door in our face, and there was silence but for the sound of footsteps going up a round staircase. The little man popped his head out from a small circular window above the front door fish.

“GOOD BYE, shoe-wearing word-writing stupid dumb librarians. Never never do any of that in front of others or while outside. GOOD BYE, GOOD BYE, GOOD BYE!”

“I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand? What are you waiting for?" The fish is not smoking. That means the doorknob cannot open and guests are not welcome. Obvious stuff. Now leave and go away!”

“Was the door even locked in the first place?”

“Questions make everything worse, especially on a sunny day. I must advise you to take off your shoes and leave, unless you want to get stuck to the ground by melted rubber. Goodbye.”

He shut the window and disappeared, leaving my photographer and me alone and befuddled. My photographer said that the guy had stolen his lighter. I told him it didn’t matter, we’d expense it. We chatted a bit and eventually came to the conclusion that, if we ever want to come back (keyword ‘if’), it’s probably important that we leave our shoes on the front steps now like we’d been told to. We could expense a new pair of shoes too.

We were walking back to the news van in our socks when, again, the man popped his head out the Smoking Fish window. “Hey!” he yelled, now in a much more friendly tone.

“By the way, my name is Andy. I enjoyed hanging out with you guys. Hope to see you again sometime!”

“Yeah, same to you,” I said. Andy waved goodbye before shutting himself away again. On our way home, I asked my photographer to drive because I had a lot to think about. He said, “sure, but we’re stopping at the 7-11 on the way.”

“That’s fine.

For more articles by Dernberger Spengleton, click here. To get in touch with this writer, email spengleton@surrealtimes.net.

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