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Now or never.
Pellatier may not have another article available to meet the Sardine, who knows he's being searched for.
Despite the elusive fish's spurning all publicity, Pellatier has seen enough articles to pinpoint who he is. Without naming him, Newsweek disclosed that the Sardine had been published in several magazines with modest circulations. Pellatier found issues from the largest of the publications and found articles by "the man who would be the Sardine," all of them derived from the Sardine column but longer: "The Snail Eaters," "Social Pets," "Obsolete Innovations," "The League of Non-Voters," and "The Health Utopia."
In a name search on the Internet, Pellatier also discovered a play, "Joe Tragedy," produced in several cities, which had been cobbled from several columns: "Three Hairpieces," "Modern Tragedy," and "Love's Tropism." The variance in these works outside the columns started with the suppression of the "Sardine" persona and paralleled the relationships among the people in the columns and the real people on which they're based.
He even tracked down an early story by the man who would be the Sardine which included Frank Weathers by name and an incomplete incarnation of Joe T.
Otherwise, there were no published books except the recent Sardine non-book, nor, upon checking twenty years of The Reader's Guide for Periodic Literature, other newspaper or magazine feature articles. This column was his breakthrough work and now, impossibly, he wanted to give it up.
If the "man who was the Sardine" really meant it, Pellatier had no choice but to accelerate the pursuit.
*
At first, he wanted to be part of the Sardine's crew and be known by hundreds of thousands of people -- and maybe more if the rumor about a television series had validity. This single-minded desire kept him going through the barren days when he met hundreds of people who had never heard of the column including the very people upon whom the characters of the column were modeled.
Not recognizing it at the time, Pellatier had changed after meeting the real Frank Weathers. Partly, he was let down by the reality that these characters didn't meet in a bar regularly. The shift in focus on the person and qualities of the Sardine had taken him beyond just wanting to shake his hand.
In fact, finding out who he was hasn't made the task of finding the Sardine any easier!
"The man who would be McNulty" wasn't talking, and nobody else remotely knew the son. Apparently, his father had relayed much information to the Sardine.
Why was Pellatier so impelled to find the Sardine? Was there something in, say, an unblessed column that would have given him the answer? Or were there remote familiarities weighing on his unconscious which had stimulated the curiosity cell? The last article perhaps? He also wondered how could have maintained the search for so long a time. Had he been fired from his job? But when? Had one of his own columns not been blessed?
*
Getting his address was the easy part. Should he come to the front door? Would he be asked in, as if he were a member of the Logged-In Public? "The man who would be the Sardine" had an unlisted phone number. Following him to a public establishment, however, seemed almost criminal and, sardine-onically speaking, "pun-ardon-able."
The only chance he would have -- or would avail himself of -- was to visit a local bar, as he had done in Avalon, and hope to run into him. Then Pellatier caught himself thinking that perhaps he was actually trying to avoid meeting the real Sardine. All the warnings against doing this very thing -- warnings that the column would be adversely affected should someone reveal the Sardine to the public -- should be heeded.
It did not take very long when the time they should meet arrived.
Pellatier sat in the darkest corner of the bar at the Country House Tavern outside of Philadelphia. He sipped a drink and ate a salad, giving himself an opportunity to spot "the man who would be the Sardine" before being spotted himself.
Yet, when this man entered the Country House, Pellatier froze in his booth.
He recognized the guy!
Or, perhaps, he should have known who he was all along.
The truth, however, was more difficult to grasp. He had met McNulty's son years ago. They may have even spoken. On a train to New York.
Only that was not how the Sardine had presented it to the world.
Pellatier was the guy on the train with the head-phones. He knew it had to be himself because "the man who would be the Sardine" started to speak about the book that Pellatier was reading. A detective novel.
Seeing him, Pellatier filled his mind with the echo of "dum, dum, dum, dum, dum dum" and realized that he no longer needed to speak to the Sardine.
That he would doing a stupid thing to approach him.
Discovering that it had been himself in Episode 5, "Detecting Inspiration," on the train, now seemed to confirm the purpose of his search -- and existence.
Pellatier understood, now, that he had been the inspiration for the Sardine column! That was why he had searched so hard to find the Sardine.
It was time to go home. Leave the Sardine alone.
Bob Castle is the author of A Sardine on Vacation. He has had two other books published this year: The End of Travel, a comic memoir and send up of traveling abroad (Triple Press) and Odd Pursuits, a collection of stories (Wild Child Publishing). He is regular writer for Bright Lights Film Journal and has over one hundred fifty stories, essays, and articles published. The first fifteen installments of his saga can be viewed at the old Unlikely Stories. A Sardine on Vacation is also available in book form.