And Easy Reader Reader contest winners are….Phillip the Shark & Madrona Marsh frog
Madrona Marsh frog. Photo by Mike Barbee
PHILLIP THE SHARK
by J.E. Marshall
It was 15 cent Sunday at Der Wienerschnitzel and Billy Brown was stuffed. He huffed and puffed his way up the stairs to his favorite bar on the Redondo pier. A pretty barfly named Louise was there, tossing her hair, laughing at the bartender’s jokes. They were laughing about how cheap some people were. Billy decided he would win her admiration by ordering the biggest steak and lobster dinner on the menu. Louise left before the showy meal arrived. Billy had it boxed to go.
As he walked back towards his sister’s condo that overlooked King Harbor, he saw Louise being helped into a gondola by a handsome young man. Billy stormed off in the opposite direction of his sister’s place. He needed a drink to calm himself down. He was too angry now to explain the expensive meal he had charged to his sister’s credit card so he threw it over the sea wall. To his amazement a great white shark that had come down from El Porto to snack on tender baby seals rose from the dark green water and swallowed the package whole.
“You shouldn’t feed it. It won’t go away if you feed it,” eight-year-old Mike Delroy said, repeating what his parents had told him. His parents Bunny and Frank were fishing at the other end of the wall.
“Mind your own damn business you nosy brat or I’ll feed you to the shark,” Billy snapped at the little boy.
Billy arrived at his sister’s condo around three in the morning. He was trying to sneak up the stairs when she called to him from the kitchen.
“I’m having a cup of tea and some biscuits. Will you join me, Billy?” Clarice Crane called out.
“You’re still up?” Billy found her sitting in the kitchen with just the stove light on.
“I miss him so. I’m not used to being alone. We did everything together,” Clarice cried. Her husband Lester Crane had died that week. Billy moved in as soon as he heard. Clarice was 75 years old and Lester Crane had made quite a fortune, a fortune Billy Brown was going to inherit because there were no other surviving relatives.
“Maybe you should take a sedative to help you sleep,” Billy suggested while thinking that if she had a prescription he could spike her tea. Even though she was old as hell, Billy was sure she was going to outlive him unless he helped speed the process up. Where he was overweight and riddled with health problems, his older sister had been lean and always ate her vegetables.
“I don’t believe in those things, you know that. Did you find a suit?” Clarice had loaned Billy her credit card so her could buy a suit to wear to her husband’s funeral.
“No. I’ll look again tomorrow.” Billy made an excuse to go to his room before Clarice could get close enough to smell the liquor on him. He was glad he had thrown the steak and lobster over the sea wall. How he wished the shark had eaten Clarice as well. The image of Clarice being eaten by that shark would not leave his mind.
The next day Billy had himself fitted for several fine silk suits. He hadn’t liked any of the reasonably priced suits at the department store and ended up traveling to a famous tailor the department store clerk joked he should go to since he was so fussy. He ordered a black suit, a grey and a pinstriped suit. Since he was going through all the trouble to get a perfect fit he figured he might as well get three.
On the drive back to his sister’s condo he saw a sign that made him do an abrupt U-turn. He left the butcher’s shop with two huge slabs of beef. Then he stopped at a sporting goods store in Manhattan Beach and bought a large cooler with wheels and a lot of fishing gear so he could pretend he was fishing should anyone notice him. That evening he went down to the sea wall with the hopes of seeing the shark again.
Night after night Billy Brown fed the shark a little farther down the wall until they met regularly at a wooden platform nearby that was no longer used to launch boats. Billy even named his pet shark.
“Phillip, you’ll like my sister. She won’t fill you up, but if you eat her, I swear I’ll bring you a hundred pounds of filet mignon,” Billy Brown promised the shark.
At Lester’s funeral, Father Gary was very surprised to see Billy Brown at his sister’s side and even more surprised to see Billy so nicely dressed. He had no way of knowing Billy was stealing from his sister and she was too grief stricken to notice the quality of Billy’s new clothes. Billy got up early each morning so he could intercept the mail to make sure none of the credit card bills would be reviewed by Clarice.
Just two months after the funeral of Lester Crane, many of the same parishioners gathered again for another funeral. That the death was due to shark attack made it seem surreal.
“Poor Clarice,” one of the parishioners said to Father Gary as everyone gathered in the cemetery.
“Yes, and just when it seemed Billy was getting it together, this had to happen. Such a terrible loss,” another person whispered.
After the funeral, Father Gary and a few of Clarice’s closest friends met at Clarice’s condo.
“Not to be indelicate,” Father Gary sighed, “But I suppose now you will have to change the will. I only mention it in case you need help. I’ll be happy to drive you downtown whenever you need to go. Just call if you need a ride anywhere.”
“That won’t be necessary. I changed it a month ago. Funny how things work out,” Clarice shook her head.
“What do you mean?” Father Gary was confused. By all appearances Billy seemed to have gotten his act together.
“Billy was the sole benefactor until he showed up and started spending huge amounts of money on steak. It wasn’t so much that he spent a fortune at the butcher’s shop as it was that he never once invited me to even one of the barbecues. I was actually going to confront him about it but he fell off the landing and was killed before I was able to bring it up. I knew he was intercepting my mail. My husband Lester liked the paper copies but I have always paid the bills online. I knew about the barbecues from the start. I love a good barbecue. Lester and I threw many a fine barbecue,” Clarice said wistfully.
“Indeed, I will never forget those barbecues. Let’s help you arrange more of them,” Father Gary offered.
“Oh, would you? That would be nice. I would like that,” Clarice smiled for the first time in months. She had changed her will to leave her entire fortune to the church that had always been there for her throughout her life.
“By the way, have you managed to figure out who Phillip is,” Father Gary asked.
“No. I’ve looked through my brother’s things and there is no Phillip mentioned in any of his documents. It’s a mystery. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,” Clarice shrugged.
On the evening Billy had planned to murder Clarice, he had managed to get her to walk out on the landing, but out of the blue he was distracted by the little boy who ran by screaming.
“Mommy! Mommy! That’s the man who yelled at me,” little Mike Delroy screamed, pointing at Billy.
As Billy grabbed his sister and turned her towards the ocean so she would not see where the boy was pointing he stepped on the plank he had loosened and fell into sea. Phillip was eagerly awaiting his delicious evening snack.
“No, Phillip, no Phillip,” were Billy Brown’s last words.
