The Set Up

            When Billie let the fish fly through the air, she always liked to picture them plopping down into the ocean and swimming away. The fish would go down to the depths of the ocean and retreat from human society. But instead, she was letting them loose into a man-made lake as children cheered her on. The kids always liked to see how the fish flip-flopped in the air before splashing down into the murky water. The scene kind of disturbed her, but a job was a job. 

         Once a month she would make this stop at the county park. At least, she would stop at the park between March and October. Billie lived in the area, and always laughed when she saw people fishing in the cold New Jersey months of December and January. She knew the residents were wasting their time, but she never bothered to tell them. Why waste the energy? Besides, the news that the lake was not stocked with fish this month was not something anyone took kindly.

         The park always took a literal ton of trout, which was hardly an unusual order. Billie would take her truck's tank all around the Garden State, dropping different kinds of fish, from trout to koi to bass. Delivering fish to their deaths bothered her, but the job paid well. And all she had to do was drive around and tolerate her driving partner, Buzz. He got his name growing up for looking like Buzz Lightyear. As he aged, his face grew into his chin, but the name stuck. Billie thought Buzz was kind of an asshole because he never let it go that she wasn’t as into him as he was of her. It wasn't that he wasn't good looking, it was just that Billie didn’t like him. They had gone to the same high school and had walked different paths at the time. He was still friends with a lot of their classmates, and she was not. 

         "Hey, one more net full. We have another delivery today." Buzz told her, standing on the side of the trunk alongside Billie.

         "Sure thing, Space Command." Billie replied. Buzz thought nothing of the comment, jumped off the truck, and told the group of kids to clear out. They all moaned in disappointment.

         The next stop was someplace new. It was called "The Funzone." Billie thought there could be nothing fun about fishing for trout, especially in a set up like the ones she delivered to. The trout were raised to be caught. It was inhumane and wrong in her opinion.

         "'The Funzone,' I used to go to this place as a kid. Me and my friends loved their laser tag." Buzz said, looking at the road. He always enjoyed his small talk with Billie, and he loved her looks too. She always had her brownish red hair in a long ponytail sticking out of a hat, with freckles on her pale face and an athlete's body. Buzz was a gym rat, fit with a six-pack and a pretty good face, so he could never understand why she never went for him. At least to fuck, he thought, they were on the road eight hours a day with each other after all. But Billie didn't want to go down that road with him, and Buzz had a hard time accepting that.

         "Why does a place for kids want trout?" Billie asked.

         "I don't know. They didn't have any fish when I would go there. It's been a long time though. Maybe they added a space for the parents. Or maybe kids find fishing fun, if you can believe that, Billie." Buzz replied.

         "I can't." She replied.

         Billie drove the truck up a steep hill. She had driven up this road before and had always enjoyed the view of Manhattan peeking out from the clouds and soot. Her usual, everyday car outside of work would always work extra hard driving up the peak, but the old fish tank truck was having an exceptionally hard time. Billie imagined the truck's work was equivalent to an old man with heart disease running on a treadmill, with the machine slanted on the highest incline setting.

         "When will Tim get us a new truck? This is ridiculous, we're barely going to make it." Billie said in frustration to her coworker.

         "When this one gives out. Which will hopefully happen when we're going downhill." Buzz replied with a smile. Billie didn't acknowledge the humor.

         Finally, the truck made it over the hump and was beginning to pick up speed as it glided down the hill. Buzz rolled down his window to let the wind blow his long blonde hair, annoying Billie.

         "Can you close that please, I'm getting cold." She said.

         "Relax, this is my side of the truck. It's only cracked open a little bit." He replied, looking out his window.

         "Buzz, close the window." Billie said. Now annoyed, she reached over to her door handle to close his window. The perks of being in the driver's seat were becoming obvious. Buzz let out an annoyed huff once his window was closed.

         "Why don't I drive us back." He said.

         "You know Tim doesn't want you to drive. The last time you did you somehow used up a quarter more of a tank of gas than he estimated." Billie replied, knowing that the extra gas was used to bring some of the fish to Buzz's parents house for food. His family wasn't poor, they just enjoyed free seafood.

         "Whoever gets to the car first, gets to drive." He replied. She decided not to reply, hoping Buzz would just settle down by the time they headed back to Tim’s facility. 

         The complex wasn't that far from the hill, only a few more minutes down the road. It sat on the edge of another large county park, and from the outside it looked like an ice rink. It was a circular shaped dome made out of hard wood, and it had an entrance that stuck out like a duck's beak. Cars filled its parking lot, and screams of kids playing could be heard from the outside.

         "I would have hated this place as a kid." Billie said, as she looked for a place for the truck to park.

         "I can't believe you never went here. You must not have been popular." Buzz said with a sting. Billie rolled her eyes.

         "Do you know of any loading dock or anything like that?" She asked him.

         "No." Buzz replied. "I was a kid. I was busy having ffuuunn." Buzz said.

         "Well, I don't know, let's park out front. I'll go in and talk to them, you stay here in the truck."  

         "Sure thing." Buzz replied, rolling down his window.

         Billie stepped out of the truck and walked through dirty glass doors in the front. The lobby looked as if it hadn't changed much since Buzz was a kid. There was an old poster of kids playing, with a caption that read, "'The Funzone,' where only fun is allowed." Billie looked around, and saw kids playing in the dome section of the complex. She saw a ball pit, a trampoline, and a sectioned off area for laser tag. But no area for fish.

         "Hi, I'm with Tim's Fish Delivery, I'm here to deliver the trout you ordered." Billie said to the teenager standing behind a ticket booth. There was a row of booths like at a baseball stadium, but only this one guy was there.

         "Uhh, I'll call my manager." He said, looking at her strangely. He walked into a backroom and came out a couple of minutes later. "We didn't order any fish." He said, as if he wanted Billie to leave.

         "What? No, we have an order. Let me speak to your manager." Billie replied.

         "She's busy right now. I'm sorry, but we definitely did not order any fish." The teenager said. His voice squeaked to a high pitch when he said "I'm sorry."

         "Ugghhh!" Billie said, turning around to notice the truck was gone. She ran out of the complex to find the truck parked in the lot to the side of the building. She walked over to Buzz in a boil of anger. 

“What are you doing, Buzz? We don’t have time for this. I’ve gotta call Tim, there has been some sort of screw up.” Billie said, looking up at her coworker sitting in the driver’s seat. 

“I know.” Buzz replied. The way Buzz was smiling pissed Billie off. She didn’t know why he thought that what was going on was so funny. 

“You know what?” She said.

“I’m the one who ordered the fish. Or, at least I had my friend do it for me. Come on, get in, I have a place we can take them.” Buzz said, hoping Billie would lighten up and get in the passenger seat for once. 

“What are you up to, Buzz? I have a pocket knife on me.” Billie said. 

“Oh, it’s nothing like that, Come on, you’ll like this, I promise. Besides, you’re too cheap to uber home from here anyway.” Buzz replied. 

Billie walked around the front of the truck and climbed into the passenger seat. She gave Buzz a stare as if she was evaluating whether his intentions were good. She never cared for Buzz’s flirting, but his behavior never went past that. Buzz started the truck and happily drove onto the main road back toward the way they came. Instead of going up the hill again, Buzz drove around it using the backroads. The backroads were more scenic, Billie thought to herself, as they mainly went through a major county nature reservation. She had visited the large park as a kid, but had not been in a long time. Billie and her high school friends enjoyed going for a hike and smoking some pot, but her friends all went off to college and got jobs in a city somewhere. They lived in hotel style apartment buildings, the kind that are better than owning a home in pretty much every way other than the long-term financial gain a home investment brings.  Yet here was Billie, driving in a truck with Buzz, who was the cool kid two years younger than her at her high school. She barely remembered him, as she had tried not to pay attention to the gossip of the school, but she did know that Buzz had a girlfriend at the time. She was popular too, but she went away to college and is now engaged to a Wall Street banker or something like that. Or maybe she married a lawyer. Billie couldn’t remember, but it was one of those soul crushing careers. 

The ride was quiet, Billie sat annoyed and Buzz a little nervous. After about ten minutes of driving, Buzz pulled into a parking lot of a food kitchen that sat at the bottom of a cliff. Netting covered the rocky wall that rose ten times the size of the one story building. Billie had never known the kitchen existed, nor had she seen the cliff that hovered over them. She was beginning to be impressed, but she did not dare admit it. 

“What are they going to do with the trout here, Buzz?” Billie asked. 

“We’re going to have a fish filet.” He replied. He parked the truck with the tank facing the back entrance. 

“We?” Billie replied. 

“Yeah, me and the other folks who volunteer here. You too, if you want.” Buzz said. 

“Well, I guess since I’m already here.” Billie said, with a little more anger in her voice than there had been a few minutes earlier. 

Buzz then got out of the truck and went into the shelter through the back. He and several other people of different ages and races stepped out a few moments later. The newcomers looked over the truck as if it were a tiger at the zoo. Billie heard someone say they were excited for some filet. The comment irked Billie, she didn’t eat meat or fish. 

She walked out of the truck and introduced herself. One of the guys she recognized, Dwayne. He recognized her too. He was buddies with Buzz in high school. Dwayne was known around town as an all-American track star. Billie guessed he gave the sport up once he didn’t make it into the Olympics. She didn’t know what else he did now, but he apparently volunteered here too. The other people Billie didn’t recognize. One person looked like she was in her 50s, perhaps the leader of the group. And the other looked like she was 16, with big glasses and green hair. 

The food kitchen was homely on the inside. The back door led to the kitchen itself, where everything was of stainless steel and looked about twenty years old. The kitchen was pretty empty, with the exception of some trays that had been placed on the island in the middle of the kitchen for the fish along with bowls full of breadcrumbs and eggs. The refrigerator was large but bare, only some milk and eggs were kept inside it. 

“Should we put the fish in the freezer?” Dwayne asked Buzz. The group of volunteers walked back outside, but Billie stayed behind. She walked up to the food station dividing the cafeteria from the kitchen and looked at the people on the other side. There had to be at least thirty people in the large dining room. At one table sat an elderly couple, covering themselves in blankets in the heated room. Another had a large family, with a mother and father and six children of various ages. Another table had a disabled veteran, and another some teenagers who looked like they hadn’t eaten in days. There was a time when she was a teenager that Billie thought that she would have to come to this kitchen, or seek assistance through another program. It was during the crash of 2008, when her father lost her job and her mom had cancer. Thankfully, her grandparents moved in with them and her and her brother both got jobs to help out financially. But Billie could imagine herself here, and the mix of feelings that it would bring her. A couple of the people stared at her, but most went about their business not noticing. 

Billie began to feel uncomfortable standing in front of them and walked out back into the kitchen. Buzz and Dwayne were throwing trout into the freezer. She saw them struggling for air, sitting in the freezing temperatures and looking for help. Or some water. 

“How many fish did you get, Buzz?” Dwayne asked. 

“A few dozen. I think we should have a few left over.” Buzz said, throwing the last of the fish in the freezer. 

“There are a lot of people today.” The girl with green hair said. The manager-looking woman, Megan, nodded in agreement. 

“Yes, I posted this on Facebook.” She replied. “Thank you again Buzz. This was such a good idea.” 

“Why did you not just get fish the regular way Buzz?” Billie asked, knowing that people only buy live trout to fish. If Buzz wanted a fish filet, why not just go to the store?

“Because, this way is a lot cheaper. Besides, it’s hard to buy fish in bulk at the supermarket.” He replied, subtly looking at Dwayne for support. 

“Yes, it’s hard to buy food for this place.” Megan said. “We need all the help we can get.” 

“You still could have given me a heads up.” Billie said. 

“Where would the fun in that be?” Buzz said. “C’mon, Billie, you never tell me that you do anything fun. Driving in that truck is such a bore.”

“Just because I don’t tell you something doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.” She replied.

“But does it though?” Dwayne said, causing all three of their faces to turn a shade of red. Buzz nabbed at Dwayne’s shoulder and told him to get the cutting board. The slicing of the fish was about to begin, and Billie became sick to her stomach. She remained calm, but quickly walked out into the cafeteria and sat with a family. The mom looked tired, but pleasant, and the father looked miserable. Their three young children sat in their seats fidgety, and the grandfather sat at the edge looking pleasant after a good night’s rest. 

“You get squirmy?” The grandfather asked. 

“I’m an animal lover. .” Billie replied, trying not to pay attention to the kitchen. Buzz caught a peak of her. He was happy she hadn’t left, but things were not going the way he had hoped. 

“Ohh, my wife was a vegetarian.” The grandfather said. The mother at the table looked at her father as if she hoped he wouldn’t talk about her mom again. Billie could tell the grandmother was deceased, and that the love for her was still hard to deal with. “She hated the way people dealt with animals too. Remember, Jen, how she refused to eat with me if I ordered steak. Every Thursday I’d go off to a bar with my buddies and have a steak, because I wasn’t getting it at home. But, that was a long time ago.”

“Yes, Dad, I remember.” His daughter replied. “Justin, cut it out!” Jen grabbed her six-year old son next to her and pulled him away from his sister, who began crying after he pulled her hair. The father groaned and lifted his son and brought him outside. “You can come back when you behave.” The father had said as he took his son away from the table. 

“You just start volunteering here?” The grandfather asked. “My name’s Hank, by the way.”

“Hi, Hank, nice to meet you. Uhm, this is my first time, I guess.” Billie replied. 

“Oh, nice. We really appreciate what you people do here. We’ve been struggling for a few years now.” Hank said. His daughter had stopped paying attention to the conversation and was instead dealing with her two young daughters. The grandfather shook his head. “I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that anymore.” 

“Haha, yeah.” Billie said, deciding it was time for her to go back into the kitchen. “Well, it was nice meeting all of you.” 

“It was nice meeting you. Hopefully, we can talk again soon. And thank you again for your work.” Hank replied. 

Billie walked back into the kitchen with her head facing the floor. As she walked back into the kitchen, she felt her phone vibrate. She was getting a call from Tim. She grimaced as she knew he would be pissed at them. Billie took the call outside and explained to him what had happened. Tim told her he didn’t care as long as the fish was paid for, but the truck needed to be returned immediately. 

Billie went back inside, grabbed the keys Buzz had left on the counter, and left without any of them noticing. The next morning, she quit her job, and disappeared from the town she had lived in her whole life. Eventually, Buzz got sick of not knowing where Billie went and showed up to her parent’s house to find out. They told him she left for Vermont and had gotten a job as a ski instructor. Her parents didn’t tell Buzz that she had met someone and was happily engaged, but Billie’s mom regretted not doing so after he left. She thought Buzz had seemed a little disappointed, but when the conversation ended, he gave a little shrug and went back into his own personal truck. He lit a cigarette and drove away.