CATFISH

All of a long knife, waiting there to take on this thing, where did we get started? Oh yeah I was one of the boys, well not really one of them, we grew up together and now we were all graduated, well I was sort of graduated, very close, only a couple of more months of some classes that I had wanted to take so as to feel overly academic.

Matt, Huston and I, we were the inseparable trio though my not being athletic had always somehow jeopardized the genuine equilibrium of our friendships.

Today we were sitting here on the couch at Mrs. Monties house, it was at Mrs. Monties that we grew up, she had three lovely daughters, and all six of us grew up in this house playing with Cocker Spaniel Albert, so named after Albert Einstein, Mrs. Monties liked men like Einstein, distant that is, neutered like Albert; she herself had had three daughters already when she moved into our neighborhood, some how it wasn’t necessary to ask about a father or a husband. The girls, Miniach, Ann and Lundi never mentioned a father, when they got here they were all fine and complete without one. Mrs. Monties invited the local college professors over for many an engaging conversation on the topics of the day but we never saw any love interest, we sort of accepted her autodidactic marriage.

Today, we were all going to celebrate the graduates together, a nice Sunday lunch awaited us all at Marley’s. Marley’s was as expensive as it was delicious; Mrs. Monties was treating us to a celebration of the mostly successful conclusion of our studies. Miniach, Ann and Lundi were still getting ready while Mrs. Monties was tidying up the house, something she liked to do a lot. Me and the boys were just sitting in the family room, overlooking a fine green lawn, ignoring the occasional bird or Albert’s barking and simply talking about our assured future successes with one exception; Huston, he had graduated a year earlier, as was his right as he was a year older than Matt and I, which was why he was already on his first year out in the workforce, a successful investment banking something.

I never took the time to understand what it was that Huston did, it wasn’t that he didn’t explain it to us several times, but perhaps it was how he explained it. Always in terms of his salary, why just today he had confessed, “…this next year alone I could end up making a quarter of a million dollars and I don’t know what I do to earn all that money.”

Yeah, I kind of agreed with that, I don’t know what anyone could possibly do to earn that kind of money. Matt was in awe of the amount and he was asking for pointers on how to land a job with Huston’s firm in New York; only the matter was that Huston didn’t seem near helping him.

“Well Matt, its like this,” Hands gesturing unknown modalities, “…to get you in I think is easy but do you really want to be in investment banking? I mean you have to consider how much of a fanatic you are, these guys that you could be working with are highly accelerated types, they are always eating vitamin A, its daily tennis, that fast, that strenuous and that confusing in scoring, and so you want to give it some thought because it is not for everyone.”

Fortunately Matt was a sensitive fellow but not an intuitive one and so he was undaunted, he would crash into that wall as he put it himself in a less robust fashion: “Well I would like to give it a try, my major was after all in Economics so I am suited for the role at least academically, and I intend to pursue a masters. Why I could fly down next week and maybe you could set up some meetings for me.” Yes, that was the Matt I knew, perfectly tuned to nothing but himself and his unknown objective; he was a homing pigeon he would fly anywhere he thought you wanted him to fly as long as it wasn’t towards himself.

Then there was me, in-between the laughter and the naive eternality of our friendship I had nothing more in common with these boys than my neighborhood; a neighborhood that grows over time because you live in it and you see the same faces over and over again and so they conscript themselves as part of your essence, there in your mental catalog they all successfully flutter. Miniach, Ann, Lundi, Matt, Huston, Mrs. Monties; and even types like Joe the elder statements of the neighborhood, having amply proven himself the helper of the neighborhood, Joe was Matt’s father, always ready to come over and cut your lawn help fix a leaky faucet. And then there was The Admiral.

The admiral was the go to guy for advice, he always knew what to do in any situation, he would always reasonably settle any fights between us boys. I will never forget the time that Huston and Matt dragged me through the cement in a fit of communed rage over possession of a silly water gun. My knees all bruised up and somehow we ended at the presence of the admiral. He quickly bandaged my knees up nicely, this after pouring aching disinfectant and then joining us via an all encompassing group hug, my tears were moot, I toss them off my face with a backhand and started smiling with the boys; heck we were memories for life times.

“Yoohoo boys, I need one of you to do me a favor before we leave for Marley’s.” From the deep end of the hallway, a hallway that tunneled in grayness in-between the well lighted family room to the equally well lighted dining room, there stood lacquered red hair Mrs. Monties. Her ricocheting smile, her firm grasp of the crown feathered duster, “Well which one of you boys is going to do me this favor?” The girls lined up behind her, and from there studiously analyzed us boys, their eyes were focusing on me, their smiles were focusing on me, their thoughts were pinpointed, “Jake he looks so noble…” “Why look how handsome he looks with those curls…” “…Yes he will do it for you mommy…” And that was that, Matt and Huston went to toss around a football while Mrs. Monties channeled herself from one end of the hallway to administer instructions.

Her fingers flirting through my curls, “They are so cute.” While I recollected how much free work I had nicely done for this woman, and here I was again. “All you need to do is take this here knife and go get me the catfish that is at The Admirals…” Her requests were always flirting with happiness, “…he promised me fresh fish and I just want it scaled and fillet so I can refrigerated before we leave for lunch.” She pauses as if to think with her index finger poking her cheek, “Why maybe we could even have it for supper. Yes.”

There was no question mark about the task at hand, again the neighborhood sort of builds itself into you and you are no longer just yourself, you are owned by the neighborhood it is so much you that it cannot leave you alone. I was all dressed up in olive trousers, a lightly yellow shirt and a mostly blue Cashmere sweater; and I despised with all intensity the smell of fish and fish in a bone and the scales of a fish more so, thus my fainted refusal. “But I will get all dirty just scaling the fish Mrs. Monties, how about I do it after lunch?”

“Oh nonsense Jake I will get you an old raincoat that I have had forever and it doesn’t matter if it gets dirty and then all you have to do is wash your hands afterwards and that will be that.” Hearing nothing else she fast tracked to the coat closet and in animated fast-forward returned with a brown raincoat and helped me put it on or just put it on me. The she handed me a large meat cutting knife and with that I went across the street, in a tight raincoat on a bright sunny day, with a knife in hand to get a catfish from the admiralty.

The admiral owned a sailboat and he was known for his good will gestures of bringing fish from his wild sea outings for the neighbors. I knocked at the door. “Jake how are you son? Come right on in.”

I entered at there was a beer drinking, spent the night here gang all over the house.

“Hey ballast and sailors say hello to Jake.”

They all valiantly championed off their hangovers “Hello Jake, Hello comrade.”

A nice and jolly old lady even launched a compliment my way, “Sure wishing I were a little younger right now.”

The admiral as master of ceremonies interjected, “Helda don’t be so pessimistic maybe the lad likes them good old oldies.”

The gang fornicated all over that joke and the admiral molested himself to guide me down the hallway into a smelly bathroom, that had a huge fish tank and thus he left me. “There it is boy you take that nice one there to Mrs. Monties, and tell her I kept it all lively fresh for her.”

There was this huge catfish glistening before me, giving me that non stare that is the gift of fish to give. Swimming back and forth in this aquarium that was only twice his size, thus no sooner had he gone in a straight line that he had to turn around by making slight undulations in the water, and so he kept on doing this before the man in the raincoat with the knife.

I went back without the fish, Mrs. Monties opened the door or her door was always open in our neighborhood, I threw the knife on the table while saying, “I cant do it Mrs. Monties.” And with that I let out a blistering sigh of relief.

“What do you mean Jake! Why I will have none of that, you boys cannot be disrespectful to me, you go back and get me that fish, you haven’t grown up so much that you can just be rude to someone that has cared for you all your life.” She took the knife and placed it in my hand and said. “Now go on and get me the silly fish and hurry we best be getting to Morley’s quickly.” Her resoluteness was indefatigable.

I stormed back into the admirals house, trying not to think about fish, trying not to think about anything, reflection was my problem, I was always reflecting upon things and that is why I couldn’t really do anything. My major was philosophy, I didn’t know how to scale a fish, I hypothesize about it, you just rasp the knife’s edge against the scales and they will readily come off, after that you slice the fish in half, and then cull off the fillet from the skeleton. Cannot be that hard. After scaling over the admirals gang and reaching the bathroom and facing the aquarium, and catfish yet again I realized that catfish was still alive; this wasn’t just about cleaning catfish, catfish had to be killed first. I sat on the toilet seat and reflected upon my situation.

The tank that stank had to have a limited supply of oxygen right? I didn’t know how gills worked but I had heard that fish may suffocate in water, that they can exhaust an entire seacoast of oxygen; however this catfish was the size of half of my arm and longer by three to four inches, he didn’t seem set to die of natural causes. I thought, if I could just hold him out of the water for a few seconds and if so he would drown from the over exposure to fresh air and that would do it. That was it.

Fishing his slimy body from the small aquarium was a cinch, all I then had to do was just allow enough time, catfish out of the water and he would collapse. I reached in and elevated catfish with my arms into the air as if I were offering him to the gods; and the thing was heavy maybe five or six pounds of catfish there and he hastened to a furious rush of flapping, and in the wet floor we lost our balance and catfish fell on top off me; and pretty soon we were both splashing all over the wet floor, as I was trying to grab him and he seemed not to want me to grab him, though I finally did and raised myself to my feet and without thinking I threw him back into the fish tank! Fuck! I couldn’t do it.

The raincoat had repelled water but not the stank from the tank, and I walked over to Mrs. Monties, and climbed over the fence, instead of going through the gate, as I was now more adrenalin driven, and I opened the welcoming door and there were all of them sitting there, waiting for me, and the chorus was thunderous, “We are all starving here waiting for you Mr. Jake!”

Mrs. Monties started on me. “What is going on Jake? For Christ sake it is just a little fish inst it?”

“Yes Mrs. Monties, I am sorry for taking so long but its just that the fish is not dead…” Gesturing with my hands and arms, “…it is a large and well alive catfish!”

“Well of course it is alive, it is kept fresh that way that is why I gave you the knife all you have to do is cut its head off!” With that she walked around the coffee table while frustratingly grabbing her head.

Matt, who could not stand to see any woman in any form of misery, “Mrs. Monties don’t worry I will go get the fish, why Huston will help me, we will bring it right back and clean it, it will only take us fifteen to twenty minutes at most, count on us.”

Her frustrated eyes raised towards the kind young man, and then she marched over to me, cringing. “Look that is very nice of Matt to offer but you are already wearing the coat and it will just take you a little bit of effort to get this done fast, there is no need for anyone else to get dirty here, please Jake!”

The admiral with a sleepy hussy on his lap gave me a reassuring drunkard’s smile, “Back again Jake?” I didn’t respond, there was nothing to say, I just walked over to the bathroom angry and despondently determined.

Catfish was back to normal, back to that indifferent stare, he didn’t seem to hold a grudge or any other kind of feeling, he was swimming in his forced oval circuit. I grabbed him again raising my arms, and tried hard to ignore everything that I could think, “How old is this fish? What seas has it swam? Has it had a chance to spawn? Will it know it was me that killed him? Does he have a memory of my neighborhood?” stuff like that, and while I was ignoring all those thoughts the fish drowned in my hands from all the fresh air.

I sat on the toilet and put him on my lap. I kind of knew this fish now. I looked all around the bathroom and in the empty aquarium but I didn’t see his ghost anywhere. I took the knife and dutifully cut his head off, the blood running throughout my fingers and palms, almost crawling up my arms, his head fell to the tile floor. I scrubbed the scales off his body or peeled his skin and it all seemed just like I had imagined, some parts of this lump of fish required a little more elbow grease but they all mostly came off. Until all I had on me was now catfish fillets.

I got up and threw them fillets back into the aquarium. I then went back to the expectant Mrs. Monties and friends, “Hey I wont be joining you guys for lunch today.” And with that I walked off to enjoy a nice sunny day’s walk, still wearing my stank.

RC