SIX MONTHS EARLIER

In the heart of a mid-city convention center, surrounded by stalls and booths alive with early morning preparation, there stood a man dressed like a catfish. His felt fins rested awkwardly on his hips as he stared down at four open boxes on a table covered in cheap cloth. Inside the boxes, rows of slim, glass bottles filled with a bright yellow liquid that looked not unlike toxic waste.

Russell picked up one of the bottles, inspected the label, and sighed. Then, with a grunt, he pushed the massive catfish head up over his own sweaty face.

“We need to talk about my payment.”

Luanne and Sheila LeBlanc, standing across from him, exchanged glances. Luanne crossed her arms, and Sheila looked around at the other business owners setting up their stalls, worried someone might overhear.

“We already talked about your payment,” Luanne said, her voice low, leaning close. Sheila, ever the sweet one, chimed in, her tone like honey but barely above a whisper. “Don’t you remember, sweetheart?”

“Right, I remember,” Russell said. “But now we need to re-talk about it. I’m gonna need some money up front.”

Luanne frowned, her arms tightening across her chest. “Russell, what’s going on? We worked this out, remember? We’re a young business. Every dollar we’ve got is tied up in that sauce.” She gestured to the bottle in his hand. “Which you said was fantastic, by the way. You love the sauce.”

Sheila took her wife’s arm, trying to keep the peace. “And why you agreed to forgo a paycheck and take the equity instead.”

Russell let out a single breath of disbelieving laughter, the kind that said you’ve got to be kidding me. He reached into the box and grabbed another bottle, holding them both up like evidence in a trial.

“That was before I found out you changed the name to Catfish Piss. I mean, come on! Are you two out of your goddamn minds?”

“What’s the problem?” Luanne said. “It’s catchy as hell!”

Russell blinked at her. “Catchy? It sounds like cat piss, Luanne. Cat piss! And look at this stuff — it’s like, violently yellow! You think people are gonna douse their food with a hot sauce that reminds them of cat piss?”

Sheila waved off the concern with a dismissive smile, always the optimist.

“Oh, stop. It’s a good name. Rolls right off the tongue!”

Russell leaned in close, delivering a reality check the size of a nuclear payload. “It’s not going anywhere near a tongue, Sheila! What happened to Sheila’s Smack-Yo-Mouth Sauce? I could sell that! Tell me the truth, is this Luanne’s doing? She’s been listening to those dumb entrepreneur podcasts again, hasn’t she?”

Luanne’s nostrils flared. “Don’t talk shit about Dr. Make-Money’s Road to Success!”

Quelling the storm, Sheila calmly plucked one of the bottles from Russell’s fin. She cradled it against her chest like it was a family heirloom.

“It’s not Luanne, sweetheart,” Sheila said with a serene smile. “The name change was my idea.”

Russell froze, stared at her, then slowly dragged a fin across his face.

“Oh, god dammit.”

Sheila lit up. “No, really, the name has history! Just listen — last week I’m digging through old photo albums for the website, and I find these pictures of my grandpappy. There he is, happy as can be on his fan-boat, looking like he owns the bayou. And I remembered this cute little thing he used to say. He’d go…”

Sheila puffed out her bottom lip and rocked her arms up and down like a hillbilly animatronic. “‘Woo-wee, today’s hotter than catfish piss!’ Or, ‘Shit-dang, that lady’s more sour than catfish piss!’ He just loved saying it. Mostly when he was talking down to women, simply for expressing themselves! Oh, he was just the cutest thing…”

Russell stared at her, mouth open, as his head began to shake in furious confusion. “Was he saying catfish piss is hot or sour? It’s cloudy messaging!"

Luanne threw up her hands, already tired of the back-and-forth. “Russell, the man lost a chunk of his brain wrestling an alligator. He couldn’t even read! So don’t read too much into it yourself. Now, we got about five minutes until they open up those doors and the people with the checkbooks come bouncing in. So, we good?”

Russell looked up at the banner stretched high across the rafters of the convention hall: WELCOME TO THE SMALL-BIZ BONANZA — CONNECTING GREAT IDEAS WITH DEEP POCKETS!

Part of him wanted to ditch the booth. Leave the LeBlanc's in the dust and head for the lobby bar. Vendors got one free drink. He’d already used his token, but it wouldn’t be hard to snag another. Catfish Piss. Today was supposed to be a good day.

Sheila must’ve sensed his growing urge to bail. She placed a hand on his felt fin and smiled, warm and gentle, like the kind of woman who should’ve been selling cookies, not hot sauce.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

“I want to tell you something, sweetheart,” Sheila said, leaning in like she was about to share a secret. “Lu and me, we gave up everything to make this dream happen. And we didn’t have to — we had the most successful pet taxidermy business in the state. Life was good! But, you know, besides stuffing every breed of dog, my only dream has been getting my family’s hot sauce on every shelf in America.”

Russell sighed, once more burying his face in his fins to smother his frustration. “Sheila, you’re a sweet lady, but please, for the love of God, don’t put that story on the bottle. Just say your family liked hot sauce.”

Luanne stepped in, politely moving Sheila aside, her tone all business now.

“Russell, the sauce is good. Now, yeah, it may take a bit more time, but truth is, we could do this without you. Honestly, I don’t know if we would’ve even hired you if you didn’t have your own catfish suit. Which was weird thing to have, man. That’s weird.” She took a step closer, lowering her voice. “But I’ve seen you work your game. You can set the vibe, you can make people feel welcome, and you can get them on the hook.” She swatted one of Russell’s big fish-whiskers. “No pun intended. So lemme ask you: Do you wanna make good money down the line or keep making nothin’ forever?”

Russell stared down at the bottle of Catfish Piss in his fin, turning it over like he might find the answer written somewhere in tiny print. He didn’t know Luanne all that well — outside of work stuff, the only time they’d really talked was about basketball, and even then, she got all defensive about the views of her favorite sports podcaster. But maybe that was enough. Enough to let his guard down just a bit, enough for a crack of vulnerability to sneak through.

“You’re telling me,” he said slowly, his voice tinged with disbelief, “you want me to go out there, dressed like a goddamn catfish, and sell my own piss?”

Luanne placed a hand on his scaled shoulder. She leaned in close, her smile sharp enough to cut glass.

“That’s exactly what you’re gonna fuckin’ do. Sweetheart.”

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

Russell sat a curb outside the convention hall, a cardboard box sat next to him. After three hours inside the catfish head, he’d finally freed himself to revel in the fresh air. Or rather, to smoke a cigarette. He stared straight ahead at nothing, eyes glazed over, concentrating only on the inconsistent rhythm of inhaling and exhaling smoke. His brain was switched off.

“You got some kind of nerve, fella. Been a while since I’ve seen hustle like that.”

It took a second for Russell’s brain to reboot, the husky voice registering as more than just background noise. He blinked, glanced up, and frowned when the man standing over him came into focus. Oh shit, he thought with great surprise. That’s Buzz Holiday.

"I know you,” Russell said, smoke curling out of his mouth.

Buzz grinned wide, extending a hand. “Well, you still gonna make it official?”

Russell wedged the cigarette between his lips and took the offered hand. “I’m Russell,” he said, voice flat. Buzz’s grip was like iron, one of those handshakes that left an impression. Even pushing his mid-50s, Buzz was a massive, commanding man, a presence that hit like a freight train. Seeing him here, in this nowhere parking lot, was almost surreal. Twenty years ago, Russell had watched this same guy dominate late-night infomercials like he was selling dreams instead of cleaning tools.

“Russell,” Buzz said, easing himself back to full height, “I gotta ask you something important.” He jabbed a finger at the box by Russell’s side, where a couple of bottles of Catfish Piss rattled inside. “The sauce, is it hot or sour?”

Russell didn’t answer, just smirked. Buzz, master bullshitter that he was, could already guess the kind of gauntlet Russell had run inside to sell even one of those bottles. The handful left in the box told the story better than words.

“They’ll figure it out,” Buzz said with a shrug. “At least the sauce is good.” Then, with a groan of a sinking battleship, Buzz dropped down onto the curb next to Russell. He was broad as a bear, his sheer presence sucking up half the sidewalk. “I’d ask for a cigarette, but the doctors say my heart’s ready to pop like a piñata full of hookers. Blood pressure, or something or other.”

The thought of Buzz’s heart exploding next to him was enough for Russell to ash his cigarette on the concrete. “Yeah,” he said, stubbing it out entirely, “I’ve been meaning to quit, but, you know. It’s been a day.”

“One shitty day,” Buzz said. “All it takes.”

They sat in the quiet for a moment, the kind of silence that only comes from two guys who’d seen too many of those days. Finally, Russell clapped his felt fins together, breaking the mood. “So, you here for the convention? Looking for something to sell?”

“That’s the idea,” Buzz muttered, followed by an exhale that said it hadn’t gone well. “Hoping to find that next Gunk Buddy.”

Russell couldn’t help but smile, his mind wandering back to the basement of his childhood home. Back when he was a teenager, staying up late to watch the kind of skin flicks his parents would’ve killed him for. During commercial breaks, there’d be Buzz, hawking Gunk Buddies like they were the crack cocaine of cleaning products. Even a horny kid could see the magic in the pitch, the magic in the man. Simpler times, for both of them.

“Coming all the way out here,” Russell said, gesturing at the cheap banners and budget setups around them. “Feels like scraping the bottom of the barrel, don’t you think?”

Buzz chuckled, low and knowing, like a guy who’d heard the punchline before. They didn’t need to say it out loud — why he was out here in the boonies, rubbing elbows with weekend hobbyists and the barons of custom bumper stickers. Real entrepreneurs didn’t let Buzz Holiday anywhere near their products anymore. Not after what he’d done. The man sitting next to Russell, the good ‘ol boy dressed down in a corduroy jacket and cowboy boots, used to be king of the infomercial jungle. The guy could sell anything. He could turn the dumbest doohickey into a national obsession. Hell, ten years ago, every home in America had a Gunk Buddy — Buzz’s goofy, do-it-all grease-buster with enough attachments to clean your kitchen, your car, and probably your conscience if you used it right.

But Buzz had taken all that fame, soaked it in gasoline, and burned it to the ground. Then he snorted the ashes for good measure. DUIs became a hobby. Public bathrooms, a place for impromptu parties involving substances and naked strangers. He spent the better part of a decade living like a bat out of hell, so it was only a matter of time until the Devil came for his due. It all came to a glorious end when Buzz barricaded himself in a Tijuana brothel, demanding the workers rub him down with the full rotation of Gunk Buddy attachments. And it’s not even that they wouldn’t — they just didn’t have one. That little stunt earned him a standoff with the Mexican police, a short stint in prison, and extradition back to the States. Rehab followed, then obscurity.

Now, freshly paroled and supposedly sober, Buzz was an old dog in a world that didn’t need his tricks anymore. Infomercials were dead, relics of a time when people still flipped channels. But a guy like Buzz? He could always sniff out a product to pitch, a market to conquer. The problem was, to the real-deal entrepreneurs, his Midas Touch was forever tainted. That’s how he’d ended up here, at the Small-Biz Bonanza, where dreams were humble and hope was cheap.

“Maybe I’ll pick up Catfish Piss, take it to the home shopping networks,” Buzz joked, giving Russell a playful punch on the shoulder. “Leave you in the swamp where you belong.”

Russell smirked, letting the punch slide off his costume. The guy still had it — that charm that made you want to buy whatever he was selling, even if it was bullshit.

“Sorry to break it to you, Buzz, but home shopping’s not the big deal it used to be. It’s all about the internet now. You ever hear of it?”

Buzz rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe I’ll just pick you up instead.”

Russell blinked. Pick me up? The conversation had taken a hard left into uncharted territory. Did Buzz have some sort of fish fetish? “Uh, yeah, that’s not really my thing, man.”

“Ah. Sorry man, that’s not my thing.”

Buzz shook his head, standing with a groan. “Not like that, jackass.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dog-eared business card, handing it to Russell. “Look, I’ve got some… rebuilding to do, but my time’s coming again. I could use a guy in a silly suit — especially one that knows how to hustle. You’re like me. A grinder. Let’s stay in touch. Maybe I’ll have something for you down the line. Get you on TV, or this ‘internet’ you’re so fond of.”

Russell took the card without saying a word. Like Buzz, it had clearly seen better days. The phone number printed on it had been crossed out, and a new one scrawled in pen. He gave the card a once-over, front and back, then did the same to Buzz. After a beat, Russell nodded, tucking the card away.

“Thanks, Buzz.”

Buzz gave him a subdued version of his old trademark move — both thumbs up, the same pose he’d used to close every infomercial. Then he turned and walked off, his big frame silhouetted against the orange glow of the setting sun. Russell lit another cigarette, inhaling deep. Finally, he let himself lean into the exhaustion that had been dragging him down all day.

Later, box of Catfish Piss awkwardly tucked under one fin, Russell was halfway to his car when he pulled out his phone and shot his contact info to the number Buzz had scribbled. If the guy wanted to build an army for his comeback, why not sign up? Not that Russell thought it would work. If he were a betting man — and he definitely was, to his own detriment — he’d lay odds the next time he’d see Buzz Holiday, it’d be on the 6 o’clock news, fresh off the wagon and onto the back of a zebra he’d liberated from the local zoo.

But like so many other bets Russell had made, that was one he would’ve lost.