A Tale of Two Idiots, My Ten-Year Friendship with Brian Fugett
Before Zygote In My Coffee, there was Babel. Babel was a monthly online literary journal edited by Victor Thorn. Victor Thorn you may not remember was a bit of a wild man, himself, a man who never met a conspiracy theory he couldn’t connect back to the Clintons. He allegedly took his own life around the time Hillary was ramping up for her futile battle against the orange buffoon back in 2015. I’m pretty sure Victor died by his own hand, but it was just odd enough to cause one to wonder if the Clintons hadn’t orchestrated hit number three hundred, fifty-nine.
Anyway, when Victor Thorn wasn’t investigating Clinton shenanigans, he published this online literary journal. This goes back to the end of 2002, most of 2003, when the internet was an entirely different and more innocent world. This was a time of Myspace, Ask Jeeves, Kazaa, and Instant Messenger. A time when we all had terribly named Hotmail accounts which we used to request naked pictures of each other. At least, that’s my memory of it.
Babel published an early story of mine “The Northside Batman” based on an urban legend going around Huntsville at the time about a white woman picking up guys at the bar and bringing them back to her hotel room where the horny fellas suddenly found themselves ambushed and raped by a seven-foot tall, three hundred and fifty pound black dude dressed in a batman costume. Back then, this sort of shit passed for some decent literature, and it was mostly the stuff I liked to write.
Another writer getting published regularly on the site also embraced the same sort of absurd, psycho-sexual subject matter I worked almost exclusively in. His name was Brian Fugett and we became fast friends, haunting each other’s Myspace pages and constantly lighting up each other’s Instant Messenger with story ideas, supportive attaboys, and very quickly conversations about life, the craziness of our youth, the fear of a domesticated future, and the foibles of the literary scene we felt we were a part of.
In talking to Michele McDannold, looking back at the early years of our friendships with Brian, she said she “felt that she had lived three lives since then,” and that is exactly my feelings on that time. I’ve lived three lives since then, during one life I wrote nothing at all, but to this day, if I write something over the top, batshit crazy, my first thought is Brian Fugett would love this. I wonder if I’m alone in this feeling…
Brian’s background was in film and graphic design. His knowledge of film and pop culture ephemera was staggering, and as great my knowledge on these subjects, I always learned something from him, it was rare I could hit him with any trivia he didn’t already have filed in his memory banks, with footnotes. Like myself, Brian was a collector. And he collected EVERYTHING. For both of us, childhood was a golden time, and we tried to replicate that youthful magic through the hording and organization of comic books, trading cards, toys and action figures. Everything. I was ceaselessly impressed by his lust for life.
In 2003, Brian wasn’t very knowledgeable about the creation and upkeep of an internet website. As much as he enjoyed Babel for its style and position in the burgeoning small press community, he was frustrated by its limitations and believed he could do infinitely better. So, he set himself up to learn everything he could. He wanted to add a message board where we could all interact with each other and comment on each other’s pieces. He endeavored to include a poem of the week (or month, my memory gets hazy) where he could champion an individual writer who he was fond of.
Zygote In My Coffee went live December 31, 2003. He named it, I believe, after a play he’d written. Of this, I’m almost certain, but once again, we’re going back in time almost twenty years and my notes are scant, and my memory tends to only highlight my absolutely worse moments.
I do remember the excitement and nervous anticipation waiting for the New Year’s Eve premiere. I know I had a piece in it, but I don’t remember which it was, though you can be certain it involved some sort of perversion. Zygote In My Coffee from its inception in late 2003 until it folded in 2014 was the entirety of Brian’s personality made manifest. It breaks my heart that the website extant no longer exists, but many of the books published through his Tainted Coffee Press endure including one of my own books from one of my earlier lives. Of course, right out of the gate, Zygote In My Coffee became much beloved in the literary community. No surprise. Zygote In My Coffee was Brian Fugett, and to know Brian was to love him.
A few notes on Brian Fugett. Brian always and forever championed the underdog. It certainly explains the teams he opted to root for. The Bengals. The Reds. He aligned himself with the losers of the world. He loved the oppressed, the disadvantaged, the people relegated to the back of the line. Regardless of race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, Brian acknowledged you and loved you for who you were. You always had a friend in Brian, and he was fiercely loyal. Once he embraced you as his own, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for you.
That’s the Brian I knew. Nothing pleased him more than publishing a first timer. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a successful writer reading this column right now who can trace their first publication credit back to Zygote In My Coffee. You are the people Brian held most dear.
I was never able to meet Brian in person. I may be the only dumb bastard who didn’t get to share poetry grenades with the man, but that’s one of the many dangers of being a Polack. You never do the expected. I hold this as one of my deepest regrets. There was a span of years where Brian and I conversed every day. He was one of my most ardent supporters, and I his. I wrote a monthly (ish) column for Zygote “Observations of a Dumb Polack” which, those are probably best lost to time, and in 2006 he tapped me to be his co-editor in 2006 when he launched the publishing arm of Zygote. He did all the work in his house. While his wife and children left the house on adventures, Brian stayed behind getting high on binding glue putting together piles and piles of books.
We started up a blog talk radio show at some point. I think it was called Zygote On My Radio. I’m not certain of the time or name. I definitely remember his giggling fits as we talked shit with friends of the small press. Before long I branched off to do The Polish Hammer Poetry Hour in which I tried my hardest not to talk about poetry. Brian was a frequent guest and contributor. More giggles. More shit talking. We were ahead of the times. We could have had a hellacious podcast.
When I met Brian he was still dating the woman who would become his wife and mother of his children. I know he loved that woman and he loved and cherished his daughter and son unconditionally, unequivocally. He possessed a questing spirit so I know domestication couldn’t have been easy for him. Hell, I’m a fairly sedentary cat, and it wasn’t easy for me. In the end, I’m sure the impact Zygote had on Brian’s life paled in comparison to the pride and joy he felt being a father to his two children.
Another thing, Brian loved his pops. You’d learn this immediately. And it was always Pops, never Dad or Father. He idolized his pops. I don’t doubt that every good thing that made up Brian’s psyche was passed down to him from his Mom and Pop’s guidance. When his pops died, Brian never recovered. The one/two punch of the dissolution of his marriage and his father’s death cracked Brian’s veneer. Rather than letting the light out, though, it allowed some of the darkness to seep inside.
I think the sudden isolation inherent in divorce coupled with the lack of his iconic father, sent Brian on a downward trajectory. I wasn’t there for him. I was facing down some of my darkest hours as well and I phased out the writing and all the socializing that came with it. I resigned as co-editor. And though Zygote was only a fraction of our friendship. Our communication dwindled.
He was a guy I was incredibly fond of, a guy who deserved all good things in life. I hated seeing him get into altercations at the bar, coming home with his face pushed in, his eyebrow split, his character worked on. He took a strange pride in his battered visage. For Brian, it’s important to understand, every moment of life was a performance piece. He was always playing to an audience, whether there were two hundred, or two, or none. He was always performing his life as an absurdist play. He was a walking installation, fascinating to whoever gazed upon him. I ended up looking away from what I thought was becoming his self-destructive era.
When I saw on Facebook he had passed I tried to think back how long it had been since our last substantial conversation, that didn’t involve Facebook updates or the generic birthday greetings. Probably a year at least I thought, but in reality, thinking back, probably closer to six years. We always mentioned to each other, we needed to set some time aside to shoot the shit, but it never happened.
That’s a long time to be out of pocket with a friend you’re eulogizing. When I heard he passed I feared the worse. How low could he have fallen? Why would I assume he had fallen when he was likely out there living his best life? I don’t know. There’s a strange relief in knowing that it was an aneurysm that ended such a beautiful human being. There’s comfort in knowing my friend didn’t suffer. That it was a mere closing of the eyes never to open them again. We should all be so lucky. I’m all for the examined life, I’d just hate to do my final reckoning on all my triumphs and failures while twisted up in a wrecked automobile, my life’s blood shooting out of my severed arteries…
I can’t believe Brian’s gone. I always held out hope for a Zygote resurrection. I wonder now who’s going to celebrate the birthday of Mr. Pop Tart? Who’s going to get crazy with the Cheez-Wiz? What’s going to happen next with Danny’s Big Banana, or on the further adventures of that little prick?
While Zygote In My Coffee is an incredible legacy to leave behind, I don’t think that’s what we’ve been celebrating here. We are paying our respects to a man who was an endless reservoir of love, hilarity and support. There was a sincerity to his interactions that made everyone sense they were his new best friend. And they were! He loved everyone. No matter how bright or large the freak flag you affixed to the main mast of your life, his flag was bigger and brighter. And if you saw his flag on the horizon, you knew to drop anchor and wait to parlay, because he always had something hilarious to share.
I miss him. I miss his flag. I miss his further adventures we’ve been robbed of. And I look forward to reading all the eulogies and tributes sure to come from the Zygote writers and all the creatives Brian touched in his fifty-three years on earth.
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning.
