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Maybe what I heard in my sleep was only a soft
thud or maybe it really whispered my name. I’d
fallen asleep in my bunk reading a flower catalog
by flashlight, munching on hazel nuts. My dreams
were as usual in black and white, but more vivid;
especially the voice.
I was on my feet, out of bed, and more or less
on automatic pilot. I was compelled to do perform
a task, undertake a mission. I was a barefoot fuzzy
robot in pajama bottoms. I walked directly to the
living room, not banging into anything in the blackness,
without stopping in the bathroom to pee.
Groping through the dark I grasped the knob on the
television twisting it until I sensed the set come
to life. Its screen filled with a swirling blizzard
of blue-gray and white specks, becoming my nightlight,
casting a wash of bluish light and brownish shadows
over the living room.
As tubes drew heat through the miracle of electricity,
the television yawned and crackled. The ensuing
snap and cough of the audio was benignly muffled.
Fortunately for the seven family members still asleep
I hadn't turned the TV knob further, otherwise the
noise would have disturbed their slumber the way
the voice in my dream had awakened me.
In the bluish television light something didn't
catch my eye. All the goldfish in the tank were
just that: gold. My wrong color goldfish, Popeye,
was missing. I tilted my head to scan the surface
of the water for floaters …. no belly-up fish.
Carefully, I backtracked to the couch, where I'd
left my shoes the night before. I plopped onto the
overstuffed sofa, leaned forward and tucked the
laces inside my shoes before slipping my feet in.
The laces were broken and had been knotted back
together so many times that there was little give
between the eyelets. I didn’t want to trip
on my laces nor did I want to tie them. More than
anything else, I didn’t want to step on anything
with my bare feet. I walked out of the living room
without turning off the television and through the
dining alcove and into the kitchen.
I had already visualized the tablespoon in my hand,
long before I reached for the silverware drawer,
long before I pulled the drawer handle. Even before
I passed through the persimmon hued dining room
I could feel the weight of the metal implement cradled
in my palm. I already held it with my mind, knew
I needed it, even in advance of slipping my feet
into the unlaced shoes.
Why hadn’t I replaced the laces? I could
have bought myself a pair of shoe laces. Dad gave
me an allowance of a dollar a week for doing the
dishes, taking out the trash, and other chores.
Instead of blowing my income on anything so mundane
as laces, I focused my financial resources upon
seasonal purchases. During the spring I bought Burpee
flower seeds, having drooled over flower catalogs
since January. Baseball cards consumed all my funds
through mid summer and the rest of the year I spent
what I could on goldfish.
I liked goldfish because, like flowers, they came
in a large variety of shapes, sizes and colors.
Goldfish are the quintessential cheap pet.
On my budget I could afford fish.
I enjoyed watching goldfish glide back and forth
effortlessly in a bowl. Goldfish have simple lives
and simple needs. They have no work to do, no chores,
no homework. Watch a bowl of fish swim, cruising
back and forth, not pacing like a caged beast. I
found it more interesting to watch a goldfish attempt
to shake off a long fish turd, than to watch any
television program. Only a good fire is more relaxing
and dramatic than an aquarium.
Not all goldfish look alike and not all goldfish
are gold colored. I collected examples of as many
different kinds as I could find in town. Woolworth's
Five and Dime offered the largest selection and
every few weeks I spent about eighty-nine cents
and came home with a small orange box of Hartz Mountain
fish food wafers and a new specimen in a little
white “take out” carton. The carton
was identical to the type used for
Chinese take out. Inside the tiny paper pail was
wax coated to make it water proof. Open the box,
put a half cup of water inside, then add a shiny
new goldfish. The result was stunning. The light
bounced off the four white walls and bottom, reflected
off the goldfish and caused the box to shimmer and
glow: Orange!
I have no idea what fish food is made of, but fish
love it, or at least ate the stuff. The tiny box
of food contained thin sheets of white wafer material.
I imagined the wafers were not unlike the Eucharist,
except intended for fish. Observe excited goldfish
as manna miraculously cascades into their world.
Walt Disney's Pinocchio had a pet cat, Figaro,
and a single goldfish, Clio. The many and varied
fish in my five gallon aquarium were unnamed, except
for Popeye. Popeye was a bubble-eyed Black Moor.
Popeye stood out from the others and was easy to
spot in the aquarium, being the wrong color for
a goldfish. Popeye was goofy looking, in addition
to not being gold. His eyes were almost as large
as his fins. He was not aerodynamic. He was not
built for speed, he was breed for his eyes. I often
wondered if his view of his world was different
from other fish.
Feeding goldfish, and watching them in their little
aquatic world; could there be a simpler pleasure?
A more carefree pet? Ah, but it’s not all
upside and happiness. There are basically two problems
with having goldfish. One is cleaning the tank,
which if you haven't smells like a sewer, thanks
to the accumulation of rotting, unconsumed manna,
intermixed with decomposing fish turds, which blanket
the pebbled floor of the tank. Cleaning the aquarium
is enough to test one's love of goldfish. I didn’t
have enough money to buy a filtering system, so
I periodically had to change the water and clean
the tank. Oh, how I hated to do that job!
The second nasty task was disposing of dead fish,
"floaters" and "jumpers." If
you are lucky you can remove the floaters before
the other fish decide to take a nibble and end up
gobbling a fin or the entire head. That’s
gross. Jumpers are more dangerous, like a landmine,
if you step on one.
Today was a Saturday morning and something made
me crawl out of bed before the sun was in the sky.
My name whispered? A distant cry for help? A light
thud?
I had to get a tablespoon from the drawer so I
could find and scoop up my black, bugged-out-eyed
fish and return him to the aquarium or transport
him to the toilet for the traditional "burial
at sea."
Unfortunately, the living room light switch was
on the wall just beyond the aquarium. Even with
the blue light of the television, It was too dark
to see any object on the carpet and too dangerous
to venture in bare feet toward the switch. So, while
still in my pajama bottoms, I slipped into my shoes
and lumbered toward the silverware drawer. My heart
was filled with dread.
No way was I going to touch a fish, dead or alive,
with my bare hands. That’s why spoons were
invented. I suppose I could have used one of those
little nets used in the pet store to catch the fish
and put them into the take out carton, but I never
had enough money to buy one. Also, a spoon works
perfectly well when a fish is floating or lying
on the carpet. In neither position are they about
to escape.
The thing is, once you use a spoon to dispose of
a dead goldfish, you really, really don't want to
eat with it. It gives the spoon a peculiar taste
that cannot be washed away. That is why, in a case
such as this, I always used my father's souvenir
from his W.W.II experience. He served on the USS
McGowan, a destroyer, and this was his keepsake
to remind him of his days at sea. His spoon was
unlike all others in the drawer: heavy, deep gray
steel, and embossed "U.S. NAVY." This
tablespoon could not be confused with others in
the drawer, even in the dark; plus it seemed poetic
to commit a fish to a watery grave with an instrument
from a naval destroyer.
I could hear someone rustling, shuffling down the
hall, as I stood over the toilet bowl, spoon inverted.
I flushed the toilet twice and passed my father,
taking care to conceal his spoon, as he maneuvered
around me into the bathroom. Moments later he joined
me in the kitchen. I'd had just time to wash the
spoon and return it to the drawer. He’d heard
me run the water. Dad grumbled a "good morning"
and after he had filled the coffee pot and put it
onto the stove added, "My, you're up early.
Are you looking for a raise?"
I was puzzled by his remark and it showed on my
face, so he spoke again. "I noticed that you
got up early and did some dishwashing. Is that your
way of asking for an increase in your allowance,
so you can buy some more damn fish?"
Shrugging my shoulders, I put a slice of stale Wonder
Bread into the toaster and waited, staring at the
glowing wires inside. I wanted to blow on them and
make them work faster. While the coffee perked on
the stove, dad emptied the crumbled remains from
a Wheaties box into a custard colored bowl, doused
it with a glug of milk, and reached into the drawer
for his favorite spoon. Surprise! Right on top again.
I grabbed my toast and looked out the window toward
the rising sun, not wanting to make myself ill.
With toast in hand I walked out of the dining room
and toward the sofa, as I crossed the carpet near
the aquarium felt something squish beneath my shoe.
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