By: Daiyu Tang
There is a storm coming to Hathian, one I had intended to write about today, but which a brief interlude with Fitz and his wife got in the way of. But, let’s just start dear readers with the very basics… By now, you know you should probably be thinking about water, batteries, first aid, fuel, protecting your windows and working out which possessions you are prepared to watch float majestically down the street like some of our images from prior years.
But guess what! You don’t have to do all the thinking… Because Wilbur Fitzgerald has apparently been thinking about all of those things too. For you
This should worry you.
I found Fitz and his wife Grey setting up what can only reasonably be described as a pop-up hurricane shop beneath the cover of the local gas station, surrounded by stacks of lumber, sandbags and enough assorted emergency supplies to suggest somebody had looted the sensible aisle of several hardware stores or else, was smart enough to keep a ‘rainy day’ fund (literally) for when the Hathian weather rolled in.
From the top of the pile came the sales pitch and yes, I stopped and listened and got distracted about actually covering the weather and the FDH’s warnings and so on.
“HURRICANE SUPPLIES HERE! COME GET YOUR HURRICANE SUPPLIES! LIMITED PRODUCT, LIMITED TIME!“
Excellent.
Nothing calms a potentially anxious Hathian population quite like LIMITED PRODUCT, LIMITED TIME being screamed from atop a stack of plywood while storm clouds gather over head. I imagine the intent was kinda like the ‘closing time’ shout at the Titty Twister; better get that last lap dance in if you’ve not popped already, because this shit is closing. Ok.. I am not quite sure if the analogy works, but hey, you’d pay more right, at the end, when things are really needed… so…
So What Is He Actually Selling?
Quite a lot. Fitz listed plywood, flashlights, batteries, cases of water, fuel, canned food, tarps and sandbags designed to inflate as they absorb flood water. There was also a lifeboat. Grey added pre-made first-aid kits to the shopping list. Oh and there was a parrot… Apparently the parrot is trained in search and rescue, although Fitz considered it equally important to tell me that the bird can perform renditions of Get Low and Fuck the Pain Away.
So a variety of stock and some comedy value if you start to drown, you can do so with that refrain in your head. But dear reader, there was, however, one fairly fundamental piece of information missing.
The prices!
“Price is subjective ya know,” Fitz told me.
I would like to personally thank him for saying this directly to a newspaper editor while selling hurricane supplies. I asked again.
What makes a price subjective? Supply and demand? Gang affiliation? Breast size? How frightened somebody looks when they approach the stall? The answer was slightly more complicated than I wanted it to be. Fitz said that if a single mother of five needed a case of water, he would give it to her. In his version of events, “need outweighs demand” and he and Grey are stepping into a gap left by a city which has not done enough to visibly prepare its residents.
Grey was rather less diplomatic. “I don’t see our mayor, or hell, even HPD out here doing any of this shit for the people,” she said, asking who exactly local authorities were protecting or serving if residents were being left to prepare themselves.
Now, I am not entirely convinced that the ideal alternative involves HPD officers controlling the plywood supply either, but annoyingly there is a useful pile of stuff sitting there. Water. Batteries. First aid. Flood protection. Fuel. Something to stop your windows becoming exciting new ventilation. That is considerably harder to condemn than I had hoped and well… do we trust Fitz a bit more than we used to perhaps?
From Dumpsters to Disaster Capitalism?
Long-term Observer readers may remember a somewhat different Wilbur Fitzgerald.
Back in 2024, this newspaper was documenting a man whose apparent training regime involved dumpster diving and unexpected displays of panther-like athleticism. By January this year, Fitz had progressed to the somewhat grander arena of suing HPD for five million dollars following a notorious bus crash.
Then, most recently, he committed perhaps his most suspicious act yet… He organised something that actually worked.
Crackchella should, according to several laws of nature and at least one principle of event management, have been a catastrophe. Instead Fitz and the people around him somehow produced a real music festival: proper stage, performers, vendors, crowds, original music and enough organisation to keep the entire thing moving for most of a day.
I was there. It was good. This remains irritating. So perhaps the man standing on a pile of storm supplies shouting at traffic deserves slightly more benefit of the doubt than the words PRICE IS SUBJECTIVE would ordinarily encourage me to provide.
Slightly.
Because despite repeatedly asking, the Observer left without receiving the price of a single piece of plywood, case of water or flashlight. Fitz instead offered the argument that “you can’t put a price on safety.” Yah. Right. But you can usually put a price on tangible things. Like plywood.
Daiyu’s Verdict:
So my current verdict on Fitz’s Hurricane Emporium is approximately where I left him… balanced awkwardly between annoyingly useful and I am absolutely coming back if I find out that plywood costs six hundred dollars and somebody’s first-born child.
If you need supplies, there is active business happening there now.
And Fitz?
Print a price list, you menace.
