"Salty Dog"

Postscript: The following was written one Saturday afternoon when I still had Saturday's off. It was written completely off the cuff and took me a few hours. Whiskers is based on "Jaws," < duh! > the movie, and my favorite flick of all time. The characterizations, the dialogue, the intrigue-plus I've always been a big sci-fi fan-the sunny beaches, the actors, just the whole damn thing makes it my favorite. Apologies to "Gone with the Wind," "Casablanca," "Citizen kane," and "i was a teenage werewolf. Submitted for your approval and perusal:

A movie:


Scene 1: Young adults sitting around a campfire. On a sandy beach. Waves cascading in the background. Drinking beers. Having fun.
One young male eyes a young female. She eyes him back. He wants to get naked. She gets naked. He tries to get naked. She wants to go skinny dipping. He wants to do something else.
Girl swims out into the water. He's still trying to get naked.
Girl is suddenly attacked by something in the water. Young man is looking for his beer and trying to get his pants off.

Scene 2: Sheriff Labroddie wakes up at his house on the island. Only an island if you look at it from the sea. Kisses his wife. Scolds the kids. Gets a phone call. From the young male from scene 1.
Young male wants to report that Prissy may have drowned. That was her name. He thinks. But he was drunk.
Labroddie discounts the story. Makes obligatory
sweep. Finds girl washed up on the beach. Looks like she's been attacked by something.

Scene 3: Labroddie wants to close the beaches.
Coroner, Mr. Quincy, tells him that a shark attack was the reason for the girl's death. Paints signs. "No Swimming." To be posted all over the island.

Scene 4: Mr. Springer, the mayor, finds out that Labroddie wants to close the beaches. Finds Labroddie on the ferry. With his signs and paint cans.
Springer: "You gonna close the beaches, Rotino?( Labroddie's first name ) On whose authority?"
Rotino: "On my authority." He didn't know he had to check with anyone.
Rotino says there's a big fish in the waters. And boy scouts are doing their mile swim. He's worried.
Springer tells him that the coroner made a mistake. Wasn't a shark but a boat's propellers. They've never had that kind of trouble in these waters.
Springer tells Rotino that the 4th of July is looming. Might be a panic. Labroddie acquiesces.

Scene 5: Everybody from Damnity Island is at the beach. Swimming and having fun. Kids are splashing in the water. A young man is throwing a stick into the water. His dog is retrieving.
Labroddie is pensive as he sits on the beach. He worries about deferring to Labroddie.
A lttle kid named Jason runs up to his mother, Mrs. Voorhees, who's sunning herself on the beach. He wants to go back in the water. She looks at his prunish hands, but lets him go back in the water. He jumps on a raft. Splahes about. Having fun.
Young man with dog hollers out: "Toto, Toto."
Toto has disappeared. Show stick floating on the water.
Jason disappears, too. Mrs. Voorhees looks around for Jason. Big fish is eating him.

Scene 6) Damnity calls a meeting. Everyone wants to know if they are going to close the beaches. Everybody's talking at once. Chaos. Suddenly a terrible sound emanates from the back of the room. A finger on a chalkboard. The finger belongs to an old salty dog and shark fighter. Mr Quick.
"You all know how I make a living. I'll find this bad fish. Shake it and bake it. Get your businesses back on a paying basis, so you won't have to go on welfare this winter"
He values his life more than $3000. Mrs. Voorhees reward. Gonna take more. He wants a quart of watermelon jelly every day plus $20,000. Plus expenses. Springer takes plan under advisement.

Scene 7: Labroddie calls in help. Matt Scooper from the Oceanagraphic Institute. Damnity's fishermen throw chum in the water. Throw firecrackers. Everybody wants the reward from Mrs. V. Somebody catches a huge tiger shark. Everybody's happy. Mrs. V shows up in black and slashes Labroddie with a knife. He's o.k. But she delivers a poignant soliloquy. Tells Labroddie that the girl from scene 1 had been killed by the big fish and he didn't do anything about it. Labroddie's depressed. Springer tries to cheer him up. Quick drives by in his boat. The "HOKI." Scooper measures bite radius.

Scene 8) Scooper dines with Labroddie and wife.
Brings wine. Wants to let it breathe.


Labroddie says to his wife that Hooper is into sharks. Everyone laughs. After drinking the bottle of wine, they decide to cut open the tiger shark. Half ass autopsy. To see if it's the man eater.
Scooper cuts open the tiger. Came from southern waters. From the ailimentary canal, Scooper pulls out a La. license plate, a hoki swallowed whole, and a takeout plate from Piccadilly ( vienna sausage el grande ).
Scooper and Labroddie get on Scooper's boat. His vessell has a state of the art fish finder.
They see an abandoned boat through the haze. It's Ring Lardner's boat. Scooper dives into the water with his scuba gear. Sees a big hole in the rectal of the boat. Pulls a long whisker from the hole. 20 footer. 25 footer. Ring Lardner's head suddenly appears. Frightens Scooper. Drops the whisker. Hauls ass back to his boat.

Scene 9) Springer, Labroddie, and Scooper are in front of a billboard. The message says "Welcome To Damnity's Big 4th of July Regatta." A lady is pictured. Swimming on a raft at the beach. Some paint happy bastards have drawn a large great white vietnamese catfish swimming menacingly towards the lady. "Help, catfish!" says the caption.
Scooper is irate. Springer doesn't believe the story about the catfish.
Springer: "Dropped the whisker, eh. Did you see it, Labroddie?" He says no and looks away.
Scooper says the fish is a mutant. A great white catfish. A charcharodon carcharis catfishis. Scooper urges Labroddie and Springer to close the beaches.

Scene 10) More people are eaten. A man loses a leg. All of Damnity see the giant catfish swim away from the pond. Labroddies' son is in shock. Wife brings him a harvest cake from Piccadilly, while he's recuperating in the hospital. Springer is visibly shaken. Labroddie makes him hire Quick.

Scene 11) Quick and Scooper and Labroddie are going fishing for the catfish. On the Hoki.
Scooper brings an anti-catfish cage. Quick makes fun of him.

Scene 12) Labroddie's throwing out chum. Quick gets a nibble. Quick sits himself in the captain's chair. Locks himself in. Scooper thinks he's only snagged a stingray. Wants Quick to cut it loose. Scooper bumps his head on the deck, when the catfish takes the chum and runs. Scooper says that busting his head doesn't mean anything.
"It means one thing Mr. Scooper. That you college boys aren't man enough to admit when you're wrong."
Quick drinks a can of beer. Smashes the can in his hand. Scooper smashes a 20 oz. styrofoam cup.

Scene 13) They have a close encounter with the catfish. Quick springs into action. Shoots the 25 foot cat. Quick's got one barrell on him.
Quick, as he reels the mutant in says: "He's either a very smart catfish or a very dumb catfish. It's too easy. He's very smart. I think he's gone under the boat. I think he's gone under the boat." Quick hollers at Scooper. Night falls. Day one of fighting the catfish is over.

Scene 14) All three men are whipped. They get drunk. They share war stories.
Quick's encounter with the great white whale. Scooper's scar from the raptor, while filming Jurrasic Park.
Quick's brush with the beast.
Scooper's close call with the coelocanth.
Labroddie looks at his appendix scar and says nothing.
Scooper catches a glimpse at Quick's arm and asks him what the tatoo used to say.
Evidently, Quick had tried to have it removed.
"U.S.S. Piccadilly, Mr. Scooper."
Scooper: "You were on the Piccadilly?"
Quick's mood changes from jovial to somber.
"We had just delivered the bomb. The Azam Malik bomb." Labroddie looks incredulous.
"On our return, somebody launched a torpedo into our hull. And the Piccadilly sunk into the water.
Thousands of men went into the water. And there were catfish in the water. You ever look into a catfish's eyes, Rotino? He's got lifeless eyes. Like a doll's."
Labroddie had never looked into the eyes of a catfish.

Quick continues the tale of carnage. How the men of the sunken Piccadilly were left to fend for themselves in the water.
How some of his mates were bitten in half by tiger catfish. How the sea water turned red.
How the mission was top secret. And how they
weren't listed overdue for weeks.
He says he was most afraid waiting for his turn to be rescued, when the relief plane finally arrived.
"I'll never wear a life jacket again."
Like men with their heads in a noose, they start singing "show me the way to go home."
The great white catfish comes back home, too. And butts the boat with its large whiskers.
Quick is certifiable.

Scene 15) By now the great white has 3 barrells in him. The barrells surface. Quick can't believe it. Scooper wonders aloud to Quick if he's ever met such a tough foe as this catfish.
"No."

Scene 16) All hell is breaking loose. The ship is full of holes. The crew looks worried. Quick asks Scooper if he brought anything with him to kill the catfish.
"All I've got is a case of TQC sweet potato pie filling. 4 one gallons.
"Great!" says Quick.
Scooper pulls out a syringe. Puts the tqc sweet potato pie filling into the syringe.

"You can get that little needle through his skin, Scooper?"

"No, but if I get close enough, I can squirt some into his mouth. That'll kill him."

"How?"

"Anti-catfish cage."

"He'll tear that cage apart."

No one had any better ideas. The boat was leaking and the motor was shot. Quick had smashed the onboard telephone. Labroddie was mad as hell.

Scene 17) Scooper descends into the water, supposedly protected by the cage. His syringe, filled with tqc sweet potato pie filling, is in his hands. Scooper is nervous.

Scooper is blind sided by the catfish. Is eaten alive. Labroddie and Quick try to hoist the cage, but it's too late.

The catfish emerges from the depths of the ocean and jumps onto the Hoki. He swallows Quick whole. The boat is sinking. And Labroddie is the only one left. He grabs his gun and heads for the crow's nest of the boat.
The top of the boat is teetering closer and closer to the water.

It doesn't look good for Labroddie as the catfish keeps returning, attempting to swallow him in one gulp.

The catfish is close to eating him when Labroddie grabs an air tank that Scooper had brought along. And pushes it into the catfish' mouth. A gallon of TQC pie filling falls in, too. Unopened.

"Dammit," cries Labroddie. "If only that pie filling jar had been opened."

The catfish glides away, but comes back for the final sweep. Labroddie is dangerously close to the water.

He fires at the catfish. Once, twice, three times, nothing.

The air tank and pie filling are in the cat's mouth. Labroddie hits the air tank with a perfect shot. The cat keeps advancing.

Time for one last shot. "Smile you son of a bitch." Another perfect shot. Hits the TQC pie filling. The catfish explodes.

Labroddie is elated. He's safe. And the great white mutant catfish is destroyed.

Labroddie mourns the loss of his fallen comrades and paddles towards the shore.

The End