Tribble Fan Fiction #19: The Big Lebowski — The Tribble Abides
Tribble Fan Fiction #19
I. The Dude
The Dude — and I’m using that name because that’s what he preferred, or “His Dudeness,” or “Duder,” or “El Duderino” if you’re not into the whole brevity thing — found the tribble on his rug.
The rug really tied the room together. Everyone who visited the Dude’s bungalow in Venice Beach said so, and the Dude agreed, because the rug was the foundational element of his living space the way the ocean was the foundational element of the beach — remove it and everything else just became sand and chaos. The rug was Persian. It was warm. It was, on this particular Thursday morning, occupied by a small, round, beige ball of fur that purred.
The Dude, wearing his bathrobe and holding a White Russian — his beverage of choice, his morning constitutional, his liquid philosophy — looked down at the tribble.
“Far out,” he said.
He sat down on the rug next to the tribble. It purred louder. He sipped his White Russian. The Creedence was playing on the stereo — “Lookin’ Out My Back Door,” which was, when you thought about it, a song about seeing something unexpected in your own space and being cool with it, which was essentially the Dude’s entire philosophy of life.
“You’re on my rug, man,” the Dude said.
The tribble purred.
“That’s okay. It’s a communal rug.”
II. Walter
Walter Sobchak did not like the tribble.
Walter Sobchak did not like most things. He did not like nihilists. He did not like people who questioned the rules of bowling. He did not like anyone who rolled on Shabbos. He was a man of strong opinions, loudly expressed, backed by a Vietnam War service record that he referenced in every conversation regardless of relevance and a concealed-carry permit that he considered more of a suggestion than a restriction.
“What the hell is that?” Walter said, standing in the Dude’s living room with his bowling bag in one hand and a Big Gulp in the other.
“It’s a tribble, Walter.”
“A what?”
“A tribble. Like from Star Trek.”
“Dude, Star Trek is a television show. This is a — this is a — what the hell is this?”
“It’s a tribble.”
“Where did you get it?”
“It was on my rug, man.”
“Things don’t just appear on your rug!”
“This one did.”
Walter put down his Big Gulp. He picked up the tribble. It purred against his palm — a warm, steady vibration that traveled through his hand, up his arm, and into a part of Walter’s brain that had not relaxed since 1975. His jaw, which was perpetually clenched in anticipation of the next argument, loosened by approximately two millimeters.
“It’s…” Walter started.
“Nice, right?”
“I’m not saying it’s nice. I’m saying it’s… warm. There’s a difference. In Vietnam, things were warm. That didn’t make them nice. But this — this is—” He paused. The tribble purred. Walter Sobchak, who had opinions about everything and had never once reconsidered any of them, reconsidered his opinion about the tribble.
“It’s not terrible,” he conceded.
“That’s the spirit, Walter.”
“Am I wrong? Am I wrong? The tribble is on the rug. The rug ties the room together. Therefore the tribble ties the room together. Am I wrong?” — Walter Sobchak
III. The Bowling Alley
The tribble came to league night.
The Dude didn’t plan this. The tribble had crawled into his bowling bag while he was making a White Russian, and by the time he discovered it — at Hollywood Star Lanes, with Walter already arguing with the league secretary about a scoring discrepancy — it was too late to take it home.
“You brought the fur thing?” Walter said.
“It brought itself, Walter. It’s in the bag.”
“It can’t be in the bowling alley. There are rules, Dude. There are rules.”
“Show me the rule that says no tribbles in the bowling alley.”
Walter opened his mouth. He closed it. He opened it again. For perhaps the first time in recorded history, Walter Sobchak could not find a rule to cite.
Donny, who had been listening from his seat with the gentle confusion he brought to every conversation, said: “I had a hamster that looked like that once.”
“Shut up, Donny,” Walter said.
“It’s not a hamster, Donny,” the Dude said, more kindly. “It’s a tribble.”
“What’s a tribble?”
“It’s like a — you know what, Donny, it doesn’t matter. It purrs and it’s on the rug and it’s cool.”
The tribble sat on the ball return. It purred at the pins. The Dude bowled a 150, which was above his average, and he attributed this entirely to the tribble’s presence, which he described as “good vibes, man, just real good vibes.”
IV. The Nihilists
The nihilists wanted the tribble.
This was inevitable, because the nihilists — three German men in black leather who believed in nothing and demanded everything — had heard about the tribble from a guy who knew a guy who knew the Dude’s landlord, and they had decided, in the way nihilists decide things, that the tribble was worth stealing because nothing mattered and stealing was therefore neither right nor wrong, just something to do on a Thursday.
They showed up at the Dude’s bungalow at midnight. They were wearing their leather. They had a ferret, because nihilists always have a ferret, for reasons that were never adequately explained.
“We want the tribble, Lebowski.”
The Dude was in his bathrobe. He was holding a White Russian. The tribble was on the rug behind him, purring at a level that suggested it was completely unaware of the threat, because tribbles are unaware of most threats, because tribbles operate on the assumption that the universe is fundamentally warm and safe, which is either profound wisdom or catastrophic naiveté depending on your philosophical framework.
“It’s on the rug, man. The rug ties the room together.”
“We don’t care about the rug. We want the fur ball.”
“Can’t do that, man. The tribble abides.”
The nihilists looked at each other. The ferret looked at the tribble. The tribble purred at the ferret. The ferret, who had been trained for menace but was at heart a small, curious animal, wriggled out of its owner’s grip, crossed the room, and sat down next to the tribble. They purred at each other — the tribble’s warm 26-hertz purr and the ferret’s higher, chattier vibration — creating a duet of small, warm creatures who had no interest in nihilism, theft, or the existential void.
“Dieter,” the lead nihilist said, “get the ferret.”
“The ferret doesn’t want to come.”
“We believe in nothing! The ferret must—”
“The ferret believes in the tribble,” the Dude observed. “Far out.”
The nihilists left without the tribble. They also left without the ferret. The Dude now had a tribble and a ferret on his rug, and the rug still tied the room together, and the Creedence was still playing, and the White Russian was still cold, and the world was, for this particular moment in this particular bungalow in Venice Beach, exactly as it should be.
V. The Tribble Abides
Sometimes there’s a man — well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that’s the Dude.
And sometimes there’s a tribble — well, it’s the tribble for its time and place. It fits right in there. On the rug. Next to the ferret. In the bungalow of a man who asks nothing of the universe except a White Russian, a bowling alley, and the freedom to abide.
The Dude didn’t try to sell the tribble. He didn’t try to study it, or contain it, or understand where it came from. He didn’t call Animal Control. He didn’t post about it on the internet, because the Dude didn’t have internet and wouldn’t have used it if he did. He just… let it be there. On the rug. Purring.
This was, when you thought about it, the most radical thing anyone had done with a tribble. Everyone else — Starfleet, the Klingons, Federation scientists, the entire apparatus of galactic civilization — had tried to manage tribbles, contain tribbles, study tribbles, deport tribbles. The Dude just coexisted. He shared his rug. He let the tribble eat his leftovers. He talked to it while mixing White Russians at 11 AM on a Tuesday.
“You know what, man?” the Dude said, lying on the rug with the tribble on his chest and the ferret curled up by his feet. “The whole world’s trying to figure out what to do with you. Everybody’s got a plan. Containment plans. Management plans. Research plans. But you don’t have a plan. You just purr. You just sit on the rug and purr.”
He sipped his White Russian.
“That’s pretty cool, man.”
The tribble purred.
“The tribble abides.”
The tribble stayed. It reproduced once — a single baby tribble, smaller and rounder than the original, which the Dude gave to Donny. Donny named it “Lil Lebowski Urban Achiever” and kept it in his bowling bag. Walter never admitted to liking the tribble, but he was observed on three separate occasions holding it while watching football, his jaw unclenched, his opinions temporarily suspended. And the Dude — the Dude abided. As he always had. As he always would. With a White Russian in his hand and a tribble on his rug and the Creedence on the stereo, rolling on, man, rolling on.
