What Angie Was Like

Interview with Carla Murphy – Thursday, June 19 – 11:00 A.M.

Who originally caught the mermaid?

           “My brother, Scott. Angie got wrapped up in some netting and he cut her free. She showed up at our house a few days later.”

It came to your house? As in, on shore?

           “Yes. When she was dry, Angie would have legs instead of a tail. She had this long explanation for how it worked, but we just called it ‘mermaid magic.’ To keep it simple, you know?”

What can you tell us about it?

           “She had funny names for things. The phone was called a ‘ringer.’ The TV a ‘picture box.’ She called iced tea ‘cold tea.’ It was always made me laugh like crazy, mainly because she said it so earnestly. She’d come into the kitchen and say in this sweet little voice, ‘Carla, do we have the cold tea?’ She put ‘the’ in front of everything to. The cold tea, the Google. Angie was innocent but not in a childish way that was, like, creepy for someone her age, no, she just didn’t know a lot about the Surface and wanted to learn everything she could, you know?”

The Surface?

“That’s what she called it. Angie always had so many questions. Why we lived in houses. Why we chose to stay in one place. Why we kept pets. If I got tired of them, she would peg Murphy with them until I thought his head would explode. But, somehow, that girl got my brother to use more patience than I thought he had inside his body.”

What did it look like?

           “It? You mean Angie? Um, short? Angie was real short; petite was a good word for her. She made our friend Wizard look tall. She had blonde hair and it came down to her waist at first, but then she saw this woman on the beach with a razor-sharp bob and she begged me to cut it just like that for her. Angie was real cute, she could pull off wearing her hair in this messy looking bob, no problem. Right after I finished doing it, she ran off to show Murphy. I swear he did a double take.”

And the tail? Can you describe its tail?

           “Uh, no. No, I don’t remember what it looked like. I never really paid all that much attention to Angie’s tail. I think it was blue?”

Interview with Louis “Wizard” Warlock – Thursday, June 19, 1:38 P.M.

What can you tell me about the mermaid?

           “You want me to just tell you about Angie? Where do I even start, man? I mean, Angie, she, well, heh, she was a freaking mermaid for crying out loud! What do you want me to say! Long tail, covered in scales, long hair, under the sea with Sebastian nonsense! Murph, he comes to my place with this girl, she’s got no clothes on and is wrapped up in this ratty old blanket he probably had on his boat. Dumps her on my couch and tells me, ‘Okay, Wiz, I need you to stay calm.’ He wants me to stay calm! I thought he was out of his mind when he told me Angie had come straight outta the bay. But then Carla came upstairs, confirmed the story, later I even saw Angie in action—she had to drag Murphy’s sorry butt out of the water because the idiot tried to go fishing during a freak storm. Never thought I’d see a real mermaid! The closest I ever got was those girls who dress up like Ariel at Disney, I’ll tell ya that. I showed Angie that movie and she laughed so hard she spewed soda out her nose. Actually, for a beautiful mermaid, Angie had a real ugly laugh. It was this sort of snorty thing? Reminded me of a donkey. I tell ya, once you got her going she would laugh until she cried.”

Interview with Scott Murphy – Thursday, June 19, 3:25 P.M.

You’re the one who found the mermaid, correct?

           “Yeah, she got tangled in my fishing net. I let her go and she followed me home.”

What was it like?

           “First of all, ‘the mermaid’ is a she. Not an ‘it’. Anyways, Angie, she was…she was something. I can’t even find enough words to describe her. Kind. Silly as all get out. Gullible. Extremely honest but never rude. Polite! Hungry, she ate a lot for such a little thing. Beautiful, more beautiful than you thought one person could possibly be. Smartest person I’d ever met. Curious. She was as curious as a cat. She really liked Jeopardy and the history channel. All Angie wanted to do was learn. That’s why she came up above water so much. She wanted to watch and learn. She learned how to speak by hanging around piers and docks. She would practice talking with small children, hoping they wouldn’t tell anyone they had met a—well, you know. Angie thought everyone she met was her friend. If we let her out into the public, she would take off towards whoever she thought looked friendly, which was pretty much anyone she laid eyes on. Carla threatened to put a leash on her once. Speaking of Carla, Angie thought she was the most amazing woman in the world. ‘Well Carla told me’ this, and ‘Carla says’ that, and ‘but Murphy, Carla said’ blah blah blah. If I had to hear the phrase ‘Carla said’ one more time I, well, who knows what I would’ve done.”

Your sister says that the mermaid-

“Her name was Angie.”

 Angie?

           “Yeah, like the Rolling Stones song. We gave her that name.”

Your sister said…Angie was innocent, that she didn’t know a lot of things about humans. Do you think there are other mermaids like that?

“There ain’t nobody else like Angie. Human, mermaid, no one. Angie wasn’t innocent, she was–she was just inexperienced. That’s an SAT word for you. She had never been up on the Surface and she wanted to let her curiosity take her everywhere. She was fearless. Yeah, fearless. That’s what Angie was like.”

What happened to her?

           “She went home. I figured it would only be safe for her on shore for so long, so we, as in Carla, Wizard, and me, we took her back to the pier and saw her off. Haven’t seen her in four, five weeks or so.”

Do you think you’ll ever see her again? Did she tell you how to find her?

           “Sorry ma’am, but somethings have to stay between me and the mermaid.”