Notes From the Time Biscuit Tripped Balls after Eating a Fish
“Sarpa salpa, known commonly as the dreamfish, salema, salema porgy, cow bream, karanteen, salpa, saupe, or goldline, is a species of sea bream, recognizable by the golden stripes that run down the length of its body, and which can cause ichthyoallyeinotoxism when eaten…” — the fine folks at Wikipedia
“Ichthyoallyeinotoxism, or hallucinogenic fish inebriation, comes from eating certain species of fish found in several parts of the tropics…” — also the fine folks at Wikipedia
“Fuck fish.” — Biscuit, after the worst 36 hours of his life
For what it’s worth — and if I would ever tell him this to his face I would hope that the ground opened up beneath me and my body be swallowed by the churning molten hell — Biscuit is a braver man than I. During a brainstorming session, the lot of us, including several other writers and The Editor, were literally throwing darts at the wall to determine which stories were going to make the debut issue of the ‘zine we were trying-like-it-was-1996 to create. The story had to be something attention-grabbing, said The Editor, the manic gears of his thought process increasing their velocity to maddening levels.
That was the moment Matthias McNasty, our UK news correspondent, remembered a story he was told as “a wee lad,” where his friend Angus’ father, also named Angus, caught some fish with his dad, also named Angus, and his dad’s friend, not named Angus, only to realize that several of the fish they caught were those fish that make people lose their shit and trip balls for days — dreamfish. Matthias told us that his friend was put to bed, and his father and not-Angus cooked up the little gold-kissed bastards and ate them. Matthias’ friend told him that he remembered that his father’s diction fully fell down the rabbit hole into gibberish, while not-Angus completely lost his mind, stripping buck-naked and running off into the night.
The Editor being The Editor, he loved this idea and quickly tasked our youngest staff writer, Biscuit, and myself, to travel to Spain and catch some in the Cantabrian Sea. He booked us a place to stay in outside Santander — a small cottage among a cloister of other small Air B&B-esque cottages — bought us a shitty hotplate from Amazon, and sent us on our way…
… Only to stop us on our way to the airport to tell us the company credit card was declined and he couldn’t procure the boarding passes. So, we went back to the office.
The Editor, undeterred, spent the next couple of weeks using some of his sketchy connections to procure a few dreamfish (which may or may not cost more than the boarding passes, but whatever), then sent us to the Red Roof Inn in Lewisville to ride out what he was calling “Biscuit’s Grand Adventure.”
These are my notes from that ordeal.
Friday, June 16, 2023
4:16 pm. Biscuit and I arrive at the Red Roof Inn in Lewisville, TX. Biscuit is excited — he recognizes the brick exterior of an IHOP every time! He’s disappointed to find it permanently closed. He laments the loss of pancakes.
4:18 pm. With our bags in hand, we enter the lobby and check in. We get our room key and are given some rules and guidelines, including not to use hot plates or anything in the rooms themselves. We thank the desk agent, Chris, or something, for the notes and head to our room.
4:22 pm. We enter our room and set down our bags. I ask Biscuit if he wants to go ahead and get started. He says no, instead wanting to lay down for a bit before doing it. I lay down on the other bed and look around the room. It’s actually not bad for a Red Roof. It’s no Homewood Suites, but it will do.
4:24 pm. Biscuit starts snoring. Probably best for him to sleep beforehand. I mess around on my phone.
5:38 pm. Biscuit is still sleeping, so I head out and get into the car, having located the nearest liquor store. I go into the Total Wine and buy a couple bottles of whiskey. Then leave, and head back to the Red Roof.
6:19 pm. I come back to find Biscuit awake. He asks for some booze. I remind him of The Editor’s strict orders not to consume any alcohol (“lest you compromise the integrity of what you have been tasked to do!”). Biscuit, dejected, agrees to “get on with it.”
6:22 pm. We exit the room and kick up the hot plate. It takes forever. Meanwhile, Biscuit is typing up his will furiously on his phone’s notepad app.
6:48 pm. After an eternity waiting, and about three minutes per side, the dreamfish is ready. Biscuit wants it on bread. I say no. He says fine, then hurriedly eats a fish. He asks if I want any. I told him “no,” and that I “had to keep my wits so I can make sure you don’t die.”
I urge Biscuit to eat more, since there was no guidance on how many he needed to eat. “But I don’t want to eat more,” Biscuit complains.
“Come on, man, we don’t know if one’s going to do the trick. You need to eat more just to make sure this works. The last thing you want to do is eat this gross ass fish for no reason, right?”
“But, it tastes bad!”
“Tough shit, buddy, eat up!”
He eats two more fish, then promises to kill me if I feed him any more.
I tell Biscuit to go inside and watch TV, keep himself calm, and relax. He obliges. I turn off the hot plate, collect the refuse from the cook, then head inside to watch TV with Biscuit. He’s watching a TV edit of Dolores Claiborne. Fine, I say to myself, he’s the one who ate the fucking fish. Let him choose.
7:31 pm. Biscuit gets up to use the bathroom. He lets out a scream! It’s starting! “There’s a fucking retainer in the trash!” he shouts. False alarm.
8:22 pm. Biscuit’s had a weird look on his face for the last several minutes and I can’t break from staring at it. It’s terrifying, and admittedly, I cannot write it down well enough to do it justice. As substandard a description as this is, imagine the look on Norman Bates at the end of Psycho, superimposed on Jack Nicholson’s frozen sneer at the end of The Shining, with a Glasgow smile blended into the image, all on top of the look of someone who just smelled a rank fart. It was otherworldly.
Suddenly, Biscuit gets up and vomits all over the floor. He doesn’t stop. It’s like he drank an entire bottle of ipecac. Writing on the floor in agony, he begs for it to stop. Panicking, I ask him what I can do to help. He tells me that he wants to me to locate the waiver The Editor forced him to sign and “make it disappear.” When I tell him The Editor put it in his safe deposit box at the bank, Biscuit lets out a visceral cry and blows out both ends. Fueled by the searing pain I’m sure he was feeling, Biscuit lets out an expletive-laced vocal tirade the likes of which are probably still hanging in the ether over the Lewisville Red Roof Inn to this very day.
Somehow, Biscuit manages to drag himself into the bathroom.
8:41 pm. Biscuit starts talking quietly in the bathroom. He mentions something about “peas are the least impressive vegetable” to some guy named Stu.
He’s in the thick of it. There’s nothing I can do.
9:03 pm. Biscuit lets out a sudden scream and tries to flee the bathroom, but slips and runs into the wall. He tells me millipedes are coming from the shower head and are screaming at him.
I decide I want a soda.
9:06 pm. I get ready to leave to grab a soda. I ask Biscuit if he wants anything. He replies, “do something to assassinate the lizard battalion’s leader.”
9:10 pm. I kick the soda machine — it tried to steal my money — and something red comes out. I shrug and start drinking it on my way back to my room.
9:12 pm. Biscuit lets out another scream and tells something to “stay back.” I ask him about it, to which he replies, “the millipedes are singing in the rain!”
Biscuit doesn’t realize that has turned the shower on.
10:16 pm. Biscuit finally stops freaking out and emerges from the bathroom, bleeding from his knuckles and shivering. He climbs into bed and just lays there with his eyes open. He’s got that look on his face again.
Some other movie is on. I don’t know what it is. It’s unimportant.
10:39 pm. Biscuit, exhausted, falls asleep. I decide to turn in too, just in case Biscuit starts freaking out again in the middle of the night.
Saturday, June 17, 2023
1:06 am. Biscuit wakes up and pukes all over the floor next to his bed. He starts quietly crying to himself. I ask him what’s wrong, to which he replies, “there is a moose outside of the window and it’s trying to get me to swim with it.”
1:29 am. Biscuit gets out of bed. I ask where he is going, to which he replies, “the moose won’t stop, so I’m just going to do what he says.” Biscuit, hanging brain, opens the motel room door. I slip on my shoes and follow.
1:32 am. Biscuit jumps in the pool and starts to splash a bit. “There!” he shouts to the imaginary moose. “Are you fucking happy now?!”
I lay on a lounge and smoke a cigarette.
2:09 am. Biscuit exits the pool and tells me the moose has decided he’s swam enough. We head back to the motel room.
2:12 am. We re-enter the motel room. Biscuit goes into the bathroom and violently hurls again. I tell him he should probably take a shower, to which he replies, with terror in his voice, “no, because the screaming millipedes still occupy the shower head.”
Biscuit continues puking.
2:31 am. Biscuit emerges from the bathroom and climbs back into bed, shivering. He smells awful. Like death, almost.
2:47 am. Biscuit is asleep. I close my eyes too.
7:03 am. Biscuit wakes up and starts hurling again. I roll my eyes and plot to kill The Editor for thinking this shit was a good idea. Then, my thoughts wander to my own complicity. Should I have had him eat three of them? I think back to that moment at the hotplate; it feels like a lifetime ago.
“But I don’t want to eat more.”
“Come on, man, we don’t know if one’s going to do the trick. You need to eat more just to make sure this works. The last thing you want to do is eat this gross ass fish for no reason, right?”
“But, it tastes bad!”
“Tough shit, buddy, eat up!”
I realize I’m complicit. Fuck me.
Biscuit tells me the moose is in the bathroom.
8:11 am. Biscuit exits the bathroom and returns to bed. I shove four Advil and some water down his throat, which he almost gives back to me. But, he surprisingly keeps it down and just shivers in bed.
8:36 am. Biscuit falls asleep. I decide to catch some more sleep myself. This experience is tiring.
11:14 am. I wake up. Biscuit is still passed out. I decide to quickly leave and grab something to eat without waking him.
12:02 pm. I return to the motel room. Biscuit is still passed the fuck out. I decide to hang out in the room and continue to keep an eye on him.
12:44pm. Biscuit is still passed the fuck out so I abandon keeping an eye on him in favor getting some fresh air. The smell eminating off of him is making me lose my mind. While walking around the motel, I run into a woman named Catarina, who is staying in another motel room, smoking a cigarette by the gate of the pool.
We start talking about stuff. She mentions she’s heard horrible things all night. I told her my friend had a nasty case of food poisoning. She gave me a look like she wasn’t completely sold on my story, but instead of confronting me about it, she chuckled and shook her head. She offers me a drink in her motel room. I happily oblige.
1:32 pm. Catarina’s blowing me in her motel room and suddenly, I hear Biscuit’s inhuman howls pierce the air. I quickly get up, readjust my jeans, and bolt out the door to see Biscuit, still naked from the waist down, running around the motel courtyard, declaring to the world that “the moose was evil all along” and is trying to abduct him and sell him into sexual slavery.
I quickly turn around and see Catarina fully exposed on her chair, propositioning me. Biscuit has disappeared from view. I think for a moment: fuck this beautiful woman, or save Biscuit from getting killed by running onto the highway.
Like an idiot, I chose the second option.
1:42 pm. I can hear Biscuit, but can no longer see him. I return to the motel and get in the car, driving around the area multiple times. I simply cannot find him. I stop the car in a parking lot, curse The Editor, then go back to the motel.
1:52 pm. I drop in on Catarina. She’s screwing some other guy. She sees me peeping in through the window and throws a lamp. I run just as I see the other guy turn around.
1:53 pm. I get back to my room. I’m not being followed. I open the door and am immediately assaulted by the smell of shit and vomit. I decide to go to the pool instead.
I fall asleep pretty quickly. It’s been a taxing weekend.
2:19 pm. The guy from Catarina’s room wakes me up. He punches me in the stomach and walks off. I deserved that… I think.
I go back to sleep.
6:11 pm. I am awakened by a Lewisville police officer — Winston, I think he said his name was — who informs me that Biscuit was picked up for soliciting donations for the Church of Beetleborgs outside the Wal-Mart on 1171. I explain to Officer Winston that Biscuit ate a hallucinogenic fish and has been going batshit ever since. Officer Winston is confused. I further explain that this was a field study assigned to us by The Editor and that a first-hand account of the affects of the dreamfish was our assignment. Officer Winston shakes his head and tells me that Biscuit is under observation at Lewisville Medical Center.
As his last bit of wisdom, the departing Officer Winston told me that Biscuit and I should find new jobs.
6:41 pm. I arrive at the hospital and look in on Biscuit. He is sedated. He fucking reeks.
6:49 pm. I go into the waiting room and fall asleep watching ESPN.
8:10 pm. I wake up cursing myself for prioritizing Biscuit over Catarina. I look in on Biscuit. He’s still sedated. I wonder if I can smother him and no one will notice…
8:18 pm. I go to the cafeteria downstairs and find it’s closed. I hit up a vending machine instead, creating a dinner spread consisting of candy bars, packaged cakes, and a Coca-Cola.
8:26 pm. I return to the waiting area and continue watching ESPN while eating dinner. Biscuit wakes up, has another freak out about bees or something, then is sedated again.
8:34 pm. I speak to the doctor about Biscuit and tell him the situation. He wishes to keep Biscuit overnight for observation. I agree. The doctor informs me that I cannot sleep in the waiting room, so I’ll have to come back tomorrow. Reluctantly, I don’t put up a fight. I’m fucking tired, cranky, and secretly hope they’ll give Biscuit an accidental dose of, like… something… that will kill him… fuck all, I’m tired!
9:16 pm. I arrive at the motel. I jaunt over to Catarina’s motel room. I hear her going at it with someone… again.
Goddamnit, it could have been me.
9:25 pm. I get back to my motel room and brace myself to re-enter. Surprisingly the room is clean. I collapse into my bed and watch some TV before falling asleep.
Sunday, June 18, 2023
7:17 am. I wake up and groan. Biscuit is still in the hospital, but I have no desire to see him. Checkout time is 11 am, so I still have a bit of time to get something to eat, pack up my stuff (and Biscuit’s) before heading to hospital to pick him up. I think I’ll procrastinate.
8:02 am. I leave my hotel room and head to a nearby diner to get some grub. I can still hear Biscuit’s screams in my head.
I consider forcing The Editor to spring for therapy when I get back.
8:26 am. I am waiting on some eggs and hash browns.
8:33 am. My eggs and hash browns arrive. I’m underwhelmed.
9:19 am. I get back to my hotel room and veg out for a while. I also pack my stuff and haphazardly throw Biscuit’s into his bag.
11:37 am. Biscuit is discharged from the hospital and we head back to the office.
Author’s Post-script: Following Biscuit’s encounter with the forces of evil brought into this world by the dreamfish, he took some time off from his work for The Editor to “find himself, find Jesus, and find a reason to come back to work.” While he couldn’t find Jesus — who may or may not have been hiding in some bushes — and probably didn’t have any dramatic revelations about himself, he did find a reason to come back to work.
He handed a lawsuit to The Editor for emotional damages associated with his encounter.
Biscuits lawsuit proved by the flashpoint for the staff, with some jumping to The Editor’s defense (either by coercion or not, no one knows for sure), while others broke ranks and sided with Biscuit. It made for a messy deposition a couple of weeks later.
Biscuit eventually dropped his suit, though. The Editor hired some hot-shot Southern attorney and offered Biscuit his dream job — an exclusive interview with The Hamburglar.
So all that ultimately became Biscuit’s first piece of hard-hitting long-form journalism, Burnt Fries in the Sleeve, where he sits down one-on-one with the Hamburglar to get the dirt on the villain every pretends isn’t — Ronald McDonald.
