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theGreatxIam

The Fish Tank
in honor of ASSD's FishTank
Chapter 2 (of 5)
By theGreatxIam

The astute reader, not easily fooled, will have noted
that the beginning of the story has not yet been
reached. Have faith; it draws near.

By the time the fourth season of "The Fish Tank"
arrived, its origins in a tender young sociologist's
dreams were but a distant memory. Tank mania had swept
the nation. Every network was trying to rip off the
concept, but the original kept topping itself and
hogging the ratings -- celebrity versions, blooper
shows, the holiday special, "I Fish You a Merry
Christmas."

The producers made even more money on the package tours
they sold to visit the sacred spot than on the
outrageously priced commercials.

What was most remarkable about those tours was that
people would pay to, in essence, become part of the
cast. Make no mistake: By the fourth season, what went
on outside the Fish Tank was almost as important as
what went on inside.

People had been bringing signs from Day One -- the
"Today Show" influence. But those first signs were
basic "Hi Mom" placards. Over time, they switched to
paeans to favorite players -- many featuring phone
numbers and increasingly graphic descriptions of what
was in store. By the end of the second season, though,
it became much more complicated. Signs told one player
what another had done behind his back. They urged
alliances, tried to rattle front-runners, demanded
retention of favorites. It was pro wrestling meets "Big
Brother."

The producers rode the wave. The crowds outside
eventually were given the say in which players got
booted every week, resulting in huge turnouts and a
premium on players who could polarize the audience. All
attempts at keeping people away from the house were
abandoned; security just made sure no one got inside.

That policy survived even the Derek incident, when a
very fetching young man of ambiguous tastes attracted
hordes of women and men. The competition for his notice
was so intense that an arms race atmosphere prevailed
and soon dozens of naked bodies, of both sexes,
wallpapered every camera shot. That week's TV episode
had a lot of tight shots. The phenomenon ended only
when Derek made the mistake of signalling his
preference, producing a massive negative vote from the
disillusioned.

On the other side of the walls, things were also
changing. Players adapted to the new rules, each
playing to the crowd in his or her own way. One would
be nice and try to woo them, another nasty, offering
entertainment value.

None was nicer than Jon Armstrong and none nastier than
Desdmona Gasten, and there is where our tale truly
begins.

---- ---- ----

There were six players left.

Jon, of course. The 28-year-old was what all the
astronauts looked like before NASA started sending up
science nerds and old politicians, pissing away their
proud image in the public eye.

Desdmona. Despised by all in the house. The audience
didn't like her, either; the Gallup Poll proved that.
But they loved what she did to the group dynamics. They
voted to keep her for the same reason boys tie
firecrackers to cats' tails.

Pete. At 48, he normally would have been the elder
statesman, but Des had him by 15 years. He was ruggedly
handsome enough, but couldn't compare to Jon. In just
about anything, in fact, he was second-best. The
handicappers -- and every newspaper had its own stable
by now -- said that was how he had survived so far,
flying under the radar. But they thought his time was
up.

Janelle, the sultry Jamaican. Was her beauty just skin
deep? Who knew: Her unformed 19-year-old personality
didn't even sink in that far. She contributed nothing
to the group dynamic. But she had an array of underwear
quite appreciated by the male audience.

Brad the Christian annoyed the hell out of a lot of
people, but Baptist churches organized busloads to come
and vote for him. At 18 he was the youngest in the
house, the youngest ever on "The Fish Tank." A lot of
old people looked at their nose-ring-wearing grandkids
and then voted for Brad.

Licia. She cooked like Bocuse, played piano like
Paderewski. She ran her own business, established a
charity that cured cancer. Cancer of the eyelid, that
is, but it still looks good on a resume. Every one of
her long red hairs was in its place. Her clothes were
so expensive even their designer labels had designer
labels. She made Martha Stewart feel inadequate. Why
did she stoop to the Tank? "I have no secrets," she
told the audience in the opening show. "She has a new
book coming out," her critics noted.

Jon made the first move. He pulled Pete into the
kitchen and whispered his plan. The onlookers knew this
because several of the crowd outside heard him through
the window. (If the reader wishes to quibble at this
point over the purpose of windows in a house made of
Plexiglas, we won't be able to make any progress at
all. This isn't PBS, it's ABC. It doesn't have to make
sense.)

Jon's plan, however, the crowd did not learn at the
time. The eavesdroppers said the gospel choir next to
them was making too much noise for them to catch the
details.

But a few days later, when it came time to tape the
individual interviews for the next show, Pete shocked
the world.

"I'm going to ally with Desdmona," he told the camera.

The host's smooth demeanor cracked. All he could get
out was a croaked "Why?"

"To get the prize, of course. Desdmona and I can sweep
to the finals. I'm in it to win it."

"But --" The host tried to recover. "But she's called
you a bland, blithering idiot. When Fred (a quickly
departed player) ended up in the master bedroom with
her, she almost ripped his -- ah --"

"Almost injured him," he ended lamely. "She's called
every other player a fool. She reduced every other
woman to tears at least once."

Pete smiled. "And Brad, too. Yes, I know. Isn't she
wonderful? What brilliant strategy. When she shouts, I
hear music. When she glowers, it's beauty. She tells me
to get the hell out of her way and it's the best
invitation I've ever gotten."

The host was struck mute -- one could say struck dumb,
but that's not only disparaging to the deaf but also,
in his case, redundant.

---- ---- ----

The producers huddled as soon as the video was beamed
to the studio.

Though the audience thought "The Fish Tank" was about
the players, it was the director and this group who
really manipulated events -- or so they were used to
thinking.

After all, they chose which moments to show on TV, in
which order, with which comment from the host. Putting
votes in the hands of the onlookers had complicated
matters, but as long as they could limit contact to
visual, not aural -- and the toughened Plexiglas had
great soundproofing characteristics -- they still had
the upper hand. Monitors set up all around the yard
and, by the third season, the neighborhood, showed the
weekly episode live to the crowds. Only after that
could they vote.

Swaying the crowd one way or another was child's play
to people who'd sold entire nations on razors with
three blades.

Sometimes they did it just to show they could, but
mostly they carefully monitored events and let them
play out straight, as long as things stayed close to
their intentions.

Thus the tizzy that Pete's comments caused. Des had
been the greatest thing to happen to the show ever, the
most hated villain, the bitchiest bitch. They were
loath to let anyone interfere with that. And Pete --
the perpetual runner-up had an almost nonexistent Q,
the measure of audience appeal. Where did he get off
trying to hitch his wagon to their female lead?

One of the producers -- as the men were all effeminate
and the women butch, they were interchangeable -- came
up with the conclusion that won the day.

"She'll chew him up," s/he said, brushing fingers
through pompadour, "and save us the trouble. Give him
enough rope and let him hang himself."

---- ---- ----


Privacy is a relative word in a transparent house. Pete
found Des alone in the laundry room.

"Hello, Des," he began, shutting the door behind him.
The door muffled the sound, but it didn't keep anyone
who was looking from seeing the older woman whirl
toward Pete.

"My name is Desdmona," she said, eyes narrowed. "Or is
that too many syllables for you to handle? Try to sound
it out. Come on, you can do it." She reached up and
squeezed his cheeks so his mouth popped open. "Say it
with me: Dezz-deh-moh-nah."

Pete kissed her hand. She pulled it back as if
scorched.

"No," he said, "they call you Des. Des the Destroyer.
But you're beautiful Des. Wonderful Des. Des, my
destiny."

"Are you drunk?" She leaned forward to sniff his
breath. He grabbed her head and planted a kiss on her
forehead. She swung. He ducked. She kicked. He backed
up against the door, grabbing a laundry basket and
holding it as a shield before his crotch. She lobbed a
pair of dirty underpants at him. He barely grabbed them
before they hit him in the face.

"Spirited, athletic Des," he said. "With a beauty that
grows ever more bewitching."

She held a spray bottle of stain treatment in front of
her like a gun. "Stay back," she said, blue eyes
blazing. "You must be drunk. Or something. You think
I'm beautiful? With these?" She pointed to the crow's
feet on the edges of her eyes. "Or these?" She held the
back of a hand up, calling his attention to a few small
age spots.

It might have been a more convincing performance if Des
actually looked her age. But the age spots were almost
invisible, the crow's feet mere shadows. Des was 63,
but she never would have reached the show if she wasn't
attractive -- slim, shapely, yes, even sexy. If TV
showed imperfect people on reality shows, the home
viewers could just as well sit in front of mirrors --
and how would anyone make money off that?

So while Des could not match the vibrant look of the
youngest contestants, she was about as sexy as 63 gets.
Her breasts maintained a certain structural integrity.
Her face was small, even in proportion to her body,
with delicate features and unblemished skin. Her hair
was blonde then, cut short but full. And her cheeks had
a glow, especially when she argued. As she did with
Pete.

He ignored her jabs, serene and smiling. "I admire your
spirit," he told her. "That's just what a team needs to
win this game."

"What team?" She waved the spray bottle menacingly.
"It's everyone for himself. And I don't recall inviting
you, even if there were."

"Your offer is graciously accepted," he said, exiting
as she stood, speechless for once. The cameras and
mikes had captured it all, and diligent editors were
already picking out the best bits for a show just a day
away.

---- ---- ----

When the cameras rolled for the live segment of the
weekly show, Pete raised his hand and announced that he
and Des had become allies.

She was livid, which showed up quite nicely on TV. "No,
we're not," she shouted. "He's crazy. He thinks he can
tell me what to do. I'm my own woman. I don't need
allies. Not when I'm competing against losers like
these."

"You can drop it, Des," Pete said calmly. "You were
right in the first place. We don't need to play games."

"What are you talking about?"

"I know I suggested this whole 'pretend we're fighting'
idea, but the audience can see through it. It's me, not
you. You were really convincing in that laundry
sequence -- you guys put that in the show, right? But I
just couldn't bring it off. Sorry. But it's good to get
it out in the open, isn't it?"

"You ... You ..."

They broke for commercial. When they came back, Des was
still fuming at Pete, but the host moved on to the
other players.

It was one of the weeks a guy was to be eliminated, so
they got special attention. Jon mostly preened for the
camera. Brad, as usual, delivered a humble sermon. The
choirs outside always hushed for his sermon.

For his text he chose Purity, which was a crowd
favorite and seen by the more cynical worshippers at
the video altar as a slap at Pete in particular, whose
previous conversations had revealed him as, to put it
mildly, a more experienced man.

So, after Brad's speech, all eyes turned to Pete. He
did not disappoint.

A pair of underpants appeared in his hands. A
bewildered Brad admitted they were his.

"Then," Pete said, waving them before the camera,
"perhaps Mr. Purity would like to explain this crusty
stain -- the one that looks suspiciously as if someone
was having impure thoughts?"

Brad stammered as the crowd outside murmured. The faces
pressed to the walls all had open mouths.

"I -- who says that's mine? You're the evil one. What
if you --"

"Shall we ask the producers for a DNA test?" Ever since
a hushed-up incident involving an unexpected sequel
nine months after the end of the first season, the
producers had insisted on DNA samples from every male
player.

Brad looked around and saw the eyes of a hundred
Baptists. "It -- it might be mine, but that won't prove
anything. It could've happened while I was asleep. I
can't control nature."

Des snorted. The camera swung to her. "So who put these
in your bed? Mother Nature?" She held up three pairs of
panties. "I couldn't find mine in the laundry, so I did
some checking. Found them under your pillow."

On the audio of the show, you can hear an odd noise
then. It was the sound of a hundred Baptists turning
their backs. They didn't even wait for Licia to
recognize one of her pair -- and discover a crusty
stain on the outside. Brad was voted out by one of the
biggest margins in "Fish Tank" history.

---- ---- ----

Licia went down hard the next week when Des turned up
evidence in online financials that she'd been cooking
the books in her charity to cover losses in her
business. "And she's not really a redhead, either --
but then, everyone who saw her in the shower knows
that."

That brought it down to Pete and Jon, Des and Janelle.
In online chat rooms and among the crowds outside the
Tank, depleted by the departure of the Baptists,
speculation began to spread.

The guess was that Jon wanted to end up in the Tank
with Janelle, or at least not with Des the Destroyer.
Jon had won every one of the master bedroom privileges
in the final weeks and had made sure his partner never
was the Destroyer.

As word of Jon's little chat with Pete filtered out, it
was assumed he'd suckered Pete into helping the scheme
in return for Jon's agreement not to try pushing Pete
out until the semifinals. That could mean a lot more
money to Pete.

The older man's repeated claims that he was in it to
win were dismissed as further proof of how deluded he
was. The only question the oddsmakers had was whether
Des could make it past Janelle.

She'd seemed a shoo-in all along based on her caustic
criticism and cold-blooded attacks. But Pete's
confounding approach of the last few weeks had weakened
her image. Though she did her best to avoid him, her
inability to pierce his friendly front, her bafflement
in the face of his determination to ignore her insults
had cost her dearly in polls of the crowd.

As the showdown show began, last-minute surveys even
showed her falling behind Janelle. TV Guide pushed the
button on a cover showing Brad and Janelle in the Tank
alone.

Des clearly sensed the swing. The signs plastered to
the outer walls that said "You're Going Down, Des" and
"Ding, Dong, the Bitch Is Dead" might have tipped her
off.

She pulled Pete aside just before the show started.

"All right," she said. "You got me in this shit. How
are you going to get us out?"

Pete was stone-faced.

"Come on," she said, a little louder, trying to ignore
the taunting faces pressed to the walls around her.
"You wanted an ally, you got one."

"I don't want an ally."

"What?" Her shout brought the TV cameras swiveling
toward them. "You're no better off than I am. You're
going down, too. Our only chance is to work together."

"I disagree."

"You stupid son of a bitch. Don't you get it? Jon set
you up. It's all over the Internet. The whole camera
crew told me. He suckered you!"

"If that's true," Pete said, slowly, "then I certainly
shouldn't do what he told me, should I? Which, as I
recall, was to ally with you. So, sorry. You're on your
own."

Des stared at him. PeteÕs face was utterly blank. She
launched herself at him, but he was able to hold her
off. She pounded on his chest with both fists, tears
streaming down her face.

When the call came to assemble for the start of the
show, Pete peeled her off and walked away. The cameras
zoomed in on Des's red face. Her eyes narrowed. The
mikes, cranked up to high, caught her muttered words.

"You cold-hearted bastard," she said to Pete's back.
"I'm going to lose, but at least I'll take you with
me."

To be continued...

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