Our dad’s favorite was the third movie: GIANT ROBOT OCTOPUS vs GIANT ALIEN SQUID. It’s the one where the US military seizes a glass dome from the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo before they get the chance to unveil it to the public. It was to replace the aquarium — a massive fishbowl to rival the already massive desert dome. Soldiers flash their IDs and guns at a zoo custodian because it’s a matter of life and death and fly away with the fishbowl to a secret base. The custodian sneaks onto the army’s helicopter, hoping to steal back the bowl and avoid losing his job. When the camera follows the custodian’s eyes down to Omaha as the helicopter takes off, you can pretend to see our house before the movie transitions to a montage of scientists converting the glass dome into a spacesuit for GIANT ROBOT OCTOPUS. You can see our red roof. Our Jeep with the cracked windshield. Our dad insisted it was our real neighborhood. It was him, even, that brown speck on the street. Though it’s not difficult to do a quick search online and find that the movie was filmed entirely in California. But none of that mattered because it wasn’t the best part of the movie, our dad would say. Not the eight tentacles going against six. Not the explosive eggs. Not the GIANT-ALIEN-SQUID-shaped crater on the moon that is carried into the sequels. But this: the fishbowl was a real scrapped idea. Our dad claimed he knew a custodian who had seen it being built in the depths below the zoo. After our dad died, we scrounged the custodian’s number.

We found the custodian in the aquarium standing by the Japanese giant spider crabs. We had come ready to break into the underground labyrinth that the zoo refused to admit was real, but instead the custodian told us his name was Juan. And Juan was, to our surprise, our tío. We followed the custodian to the penguin exhibit and sat. He watched the penguins, waiting for someone to answer his call, and we watched him. We could see the resemblance when we looked at him closely. The same beer belly as our dad. The same wide nose. Even the way he talked on the phone with our mom — because obviously our mom knew him; we only then realized and felt like idiots. He spoke louder than needed, just like our dad. The phone’s speaker on the other side of the call would buzz with the boom of his voice, but no one asked our dad to repeat himself, he’d say, and he’d laugh enough to fill rooms on both ends.

We wanted to ask about the fishbowl, but instead our custodian tío told us he was sorry. He would have liked to have met us sooner. In fact, he and our dad were inseparable in México, but, our tío said, he wanted money quick and easy. His mom couldn’t be any happier with all he’d send — she could buy cows and chickens and pigs, and he was the best son, my favorite son, she’d say over the phone, so he made bad decisions. By the time he saw his wrongs, our dad was dead. Sorry, he said, about your dad, but we had few words. GIANT ROBOT OCTOPUS never cried, and neither did we. 

Long story short, our tío fell into the drug scene over in Los Angeles. He’d do a little coke here and there, but mostly he sold it. Shrooms. Heroin. Ketamine. He blew up on our dad when he refused to join the stint. Our dad left Los Angeles altogether, moved to Omaha of all places, and our tío hated him more for it. They had crossed the border together after all. They had dreamt up big homes, shiny new cars to drive along the coast, happy wives, happy children, but our dad went off to Nebraska. Nebraska! What the fuck was even Nebraska? We had two guesses for him. Our mom had once told us our dad felt restless in Los Angeles and a friend of his was in Nebraska, so they moved. On another occasion, she told us our dad liked the mountainless landscapes; he liked being able to look far into the horizon without any obstructions. And while our dad was here, trying to make something of the flatlands, our tío stayed in Los Angeles. Pushing drugs. Pushing his luck with cholos who demanded more from him. Drugs weren’t cutting it anymore. He either sold guns or they’d slit his throat. Toss his body into a crate to be shipped across seas. 

He managed to escape, move to Nebraska, settle himself at a landscaping business, and only then did he seek out our dad. He needed to apologize, but by then our dad was dead. 

We had many questions. Which door led down into the zoo’s cellars? If the fishbowl was real, then did it mean GIANT ROBOT OCTOPUS was real too? Frozen down there, waiting for a radioactive substance to rain down onto the zoo and make all animals GIANT and hungry for flesh and destruction? Did he have a key? How was our dad when he was younger? He passed away before we began elementary school. Was our tío also an avid GIANT ROBOT OCTOPUS fan? Could he please, please sneak us down into what might be catacombs? And what did he mean he was a landscaper? Our dad had him saved as THE CUSTODIAN, all caps, on his phone.

Our tío, the custodian-not-custodian, didn’t have the slightest clue. He’d never been a custodian. Though, he offered, our dad was always the dreamer. In México, our dad would jump from roof to roof, the pueblo’s hero, fending off the cucuy and serpent space invaders. Someday, our dad would tell him, he’d be a film director of space odysseys. His name would be on movie posters. His name would be said at award shows. He wouldn’t just be another face gringos thought only worthy of picking fruit and mowing lawns.

It’s an unpopular theory, but some, including us, believe the custodian in GIANT ROBOT OCTOPUS vs GIANT ALIEN SQUID is the hero. Three quarters into the movie, GIANT ROBOT OCTOPUS is bleeding out on the moon’s surface, his body slimy with toxic squid ink. It is corroding his machine parts. Cannibalizing his soft flesh. The custodian hurries into a space suit, grabs a mop, and moon jumps to the dying octopus. You have to ignore the plot hole — why isn’t the mop destroyed by the toxic ink? — but if it wasn’t for him, GIANT ROBOT OCTOPUS wouldn’t have been able to stand back up and defeat GIANT ALIEN SQUID with his steel beak. It’s pretty badass. GIANT ALIEN SQUID is eaten alive. 

Maybe, our tío said, our dad wanted to dream a better life for him. And at that he cried. Our dad the movie director, and him the underdog on screen.

We wanted to know more. We wanted to explore the tunnels below the zoo. But instead, we watched the penguins. GIANT ROBOT OCTOPUS doesn’t cry. If our dad were here, he might’ve imagined one of the king penguins more than tripling in size. Us finding a key, finding a lab below the zoo, and a power switch to awaken GIANT ROBOT OCTOPUS. And then we would all be laughing. Maybe he was laughing now. Saving heaven from the latest GIANT THING attack.