Jan Harrison

            On Friday, since my friend Tom would be coming over to rehearse for our gig at the anti-shock therapy rally, I decided to clean up a bit. Although I vacuum I have not washed my floors in a very long time and so I scrubbed the floor tiles in front of my kitchen counter and stove. I also cleaned an area of my wood floor in the living room. Ever since years ago I pulled up the tiles to reveal the wooden floor underneath, I’ve been cautious about washing them because water can ruin them. The consensus online though is that the best way to wash wood floors is with a damp cloth and some soap or dish detergent. I got some of the black off but it will take several tries before they’re bright and beautiful again. I really need a maid.

            I ate a slightly earlier lunch than usual and took a siesta. I managed to get an hour of sleep before Tom called. When he got here he told me that he’d phoned half an hour earlier but I hadn’t answered.

            We rehearsed my song “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” several times. After that we did a few of my other songs, including “Love Song”, my song about my penis, which he thought was hilarious. I told him how it had gone over like a fart filled lead balloon at the Tranzac open stage and that a feminist bartender had been deeply offended by it. I still don’t understand how a song about my penis could be seen as anti-feminist.

            I also played him a couple of my Serge Gainsbourg translations.

            Tom left a little after 16:30. I considered taking a bike ride and I just about had time to get ready and leave by 17:00 but I wasn’t mentally prepared and if I was going to ride past Victoria Park I would want to drink some water first. I decided to just ride to the supermarket instead. I rode to Freshco and was just crossing Dufferin in the last few seconds of the green light when a car turning left came straight at me and only stopped in the last second that he might have hit me.

            At the supermarket both grapes and strawberries were on sale. I got two pints of berries and seven bags of grapes. The cashier was amused and asked me, “You got enough grapes?” I told her, “They’re the perfect snack!” She said she likes the green ones. I commented that they’re sour but she said, “I like that!” She told me that her family used to have grapes in the back yard but the raccoons would always get them.

I weighed 88.7 kilos in the evening before dinner.

            I roasted three frozen chicken legs, I made chicken gravy, I boiled a carrot and two small potatoes and had them with one of the chicken legs while watching Sea Hunt.

            In the first story Mike is in the Florida Everglades doing a study of the possibility of salt-water fish living in fresh water. He is investigating sightings of a shark and just after seeing it he is shocked into unconsciousness but has just enough time to inflate an emergency device that carries him to the surface. He wakes up in a boat as two rangers are resuscitating him. They explain after saving his life that there is an escaped convict living as a poacher in the swamp. He uses electricity to shock fish so he can catch them more easily. They chase the poacher but he has an airboat and escapes. A couple of weeks later Mike has built a cage to contain salt-water fish to see if they survive. We never find out if they do but for most salt-water fish it would be a death sentence, unless they were bull sharks, salmon, trout, shad or striped bass.

            Mike is called by the men that saved his life and he is asked to bring his diving gear. The poacher is holed up on an island with a rifle. They need Mike to swim in behind his shack underwater to take him by surprise. He tells them to start firing at the poacher after five minutes to distract him while he comes up from behind with his spear gun. Mike encounters an alligator on the way but it doesn’t bother him. He says they are scavengers that don’t attack large live prey. That's generally true. They like food they can swallow in one gulp. They bite in self-defense. Mike is able to get behind the poacher but ends up having to fight him in the water.

            In the second story Mike witnesses an underwater magic act in which a woman is straightjacketed, locked in a trunk and then dropped in the lake. Minutes later the woman comes to the surface, free of her bonds. The magician claims he frees her with his mental powers. Mike is curious and so the next day he investigates by going underwater to watch the escape. As he expected a diver arrives with a ring of keys to undo the three locks that hold the chains around the trunk. He fumbles with the third lock when every second of the girl’s air counts. He opens the trunk, unlocks the woman’s straightjacket, she kisses him and then swims alone to the surface. The next day Mike approaches the woman, Verna and Johnny the diver and tells them that their act is dangerous. At first they deny Verna had help from a diver but when Mike says he saw the whole thing they admit it. They ask him how they could make their act safer and he tells them they need a second diver. Their boss, Baldwin the Great, approaches but when he finds out Mike spied on the act he gets angry and thinks he’s trying to steal his ideas. Later Baldwin apologizes to Mike and asks him if he knows of a second diver that could join the act. Mike tells him he might know someone. Baldwin says he doesn’t want anything to happen to Verna because he’s going to ask her to marry him. Mike calls his friend Bill in Florida and he accepts the job but meanwhile Baldwin notices Verna and Johnny together. When Bill arrives Baldwin tells him he’s never heard of Mike Nelson and then he prepares to sabotage the trunk locks. Bill calls Mike to ask what kind of a joke he was trying to pull, making him quit another job to come there. Mike realizes there is something wrong and rushes to the carnival with his gear. He waits for the trunk to drop in the water and then when Johnny can’t open it he swims forward with a torch to melt the lock. The act is ruined when Verna and the two divers surface together. Baldwin calmly tells Mike he should take him to the police.

            Verna was played by Jan Harrison, who appeared on Sea Hunt more than any other credited actress. She was a pin-up model in addition to being an actor. She was married to racecar driver Carroll Shelby