The Lives of Many Goldfish

I tried to remember all of their names.  The first was Harold, and then Jerome, Gilligan and Ethel, and then Gregory—who lived the longest of all—Diablo and Pinky, Barnaby and Shelby, and Nico.  And now, Gretchen was among them.  I watched her for a moment, floating belly-up in the glass bowl.  She led a good life for a goldfish, I suppose, living eleven months.  I picked up the green net and scooped her up ceremonially, and then deposited her into the toilet.  It wasn't a burial at sea or anything, but I saluted her anyway as she set off into a swirling oblivion.

I thought about knocking on my sister's door, but I lowered my fist and left her in peace.  It felt like a bad idea to invite her, after all.  When Billie was much younger, she used to ride on my handlebars to the pet store, and each time we took turns picking out the fish.  When she was a bit older, she rode her own bike behind mine, unsure of herself.  But when Diablo died, she quit coming altogether.  Unchaining my bicycle from the fence, I thought about how every time I looked back at her then, she always watched the black street underneath her, as if something was going reach up out of the pavement and grab her by the ankles if she wasn't careful.  Riding down the driveway, I missed her.  But we were older now, and I didn't know her at all.

It was the first really hot day of the summer, and the adults in the neighborhood had all retreated indoors, leaving the streets and yards to the children and the dogs.  I saw the Birch twins, each in their bathing suits out on their lawn.  Herbie Birch was sitting way up high in the tree looking cool in his dark red and white swimming trunks.  His sister, Susie Birch, stood beneath him in her robin-egg blue one piece.  She was skinny everywhere, especially her arms and legs, but she had an awkward potbelly, which protruded out fantastically as she stood with one hand on her hip, scolding him.  In the other hand, she held the green garden hose like a deadly snake.  She was shouting and spraying him, and he was swearing and cackling back at her.

“Geez, Susie.  What'd Herbie do this time?”

“Whaddya mean, Ben?”  Herbie shouted down at me.  “She started it, damn it!”

“Like hell I did!”

“Christ!  You lunatics are in the third grade.  Who taught you guys to talk like that, anyhow?”

“Dad did,” Susie answered matter-of-factly.  “What are you doing out?”

“Mm, nothing really.  Gretchen died today.”

“You and those goddamn fish, Ben.  You're killing off the whole population.  Killin' 'em off, one by one.  They're going to go extinct.”

“They ain't going extinct, Herbert.”

“Christ.  Maybe they ain't going extinct, Susie, but he's killed off quite a few.  And I mean, I read once a goldfish is supposed to live to be pretty old.  Like people do, you know?  Not as old as Mom or anything, but pretty old.”

“How old?” I was intrigued.

“The oldest was forty-four.  But I think the average is about fifteen or twenty.”

“Christ.  The oldest any of mine ever lived was about a year.”

“Well, whaddya keep 'em in?”  Susie asked.
 “Just some old fishbowl.”

“Well no wonder then!”

“What?  Fish aren't supposed to live in fishbowls now?”

“Well, no.”  Herbie began making his way down the tree.  “Bowls aren't good for 'em.  They're too small.  No room for 'em to grow in a bowl, you know?  They should be kept in at least a tank, or something.  Something where they can really spread out and swim around.  I mean, they are fish after all.”

“I guess you're right.  Well, I better be going if I want to get a fish at all.”

“So what are you going to do?”  Susie dropped the hose and turned off the water.

“Whaddya mean what am I going to do?”

“Well, you can't keep putting 'em in the fishbowl, can you?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“You could put them 'em in the bathtub,” Herbie suggested, thoughtfully picking at his ear.

“But what do I do when I have to take a bath?”

“Then take a bath in the goddamn bowl, you fish-killer.”

That was why I liked talking to the Birch twins.  They had always just read something in school or heard something on the radio, something nobody else knew, and they weren't afraid to tell you if you were a fish-killer or not.  I hoped they were always like that.  Sometimes people had a way of getting rotten, like good fruit that sits under its tree too long.  I knew people like that.  Hell, nearly everybody I knew was like that.  And most days, the Birch twins were about the only people I felt like talking to.  I told them goodbye, and they disappeared into the house, dripping wet and upsetting their parents, I imagined, for a lunch of butter sandwiches and lemonade.

I rode on the sidewalk, which wound around the river, for the rest of the trip to the pet store.  Three old men—the same three men I saw every day—sat drowsily in  lawn chairs fishing.  As far as I knew, they never caught a single thing, yet there they stayed with their fishing limp fishing rods and worn-out hats over their eyes.  Surely there were fish in the river.  There had to be.  But I never heard about any fish being caught.  And I never once heard a fish jumping.  And each time I thought I did, it was always just some kid I didn't recognize skipping rocks from the other side.  Still, I thought the Birch twins might know how big river fish were.  Maybe there were fish all over, swimming around in lakes and rivers and oceans, all the size of Labradors, but only at the bottom, way down so nobody would see them.  You never know about things like that.

I forgot my bicycle chain, so I just left my bicycle leaning against one of those sickly-looking city tree that never has enough to breathe.  I was a little worried about leaving it there, because I'd spent a whole summer mowing lawns to pay for it and it was my only way around.  But, for the most part, we lived in a pretty safe place.  It was a place where people could leave all their doors unlocked at night, if they wanted to, and without having to worry about some lunatic making off with their new television or microwave.  It was too safe, in a way.  It reminded me of waking up in the winter time; when the entire house is colder than Antarctica, except the one place on your bed that you laid in all night.  That's the hardest spot in the world to leave.  But people can't go on staying in bed all day.  They can't.

Opening the door, I nodded at the familiar chime of the bell which hung down from the top.  It's funny how you get to become acquainted with things like that.  Bernie Gronewald, the owner, looked up from the cage of chameleons and let out a hardy fat man's chuckle.  He was quite literally a giant, towering high above the ground like tree.  He was thick and hairy all over, as if someone had trapped a bear in the woods, dressed him in a dirty white t-shirt and oversize spectacles, and trained him to work in a small city pet store.  Also, he was a bit of a hooligan, and it was rumored he engaged in certain other, less respectful businesses, and I didn't doubt it.  I could smell it on him.

“So you killed another one, old Benji?”  He picked up one of the chameleons and it moved up and down his sleeve with ravenous curiosity.

“Yeah.  I did.”  Honestly, I was embarrassed.  To think, I had come in again, for yet another goldfish.  “Have you got any more?”

“Well,” the chameleon was running up his neck now, but Bernie didn't even notice, “I guess I could fork over another.  Hell, you're the only customer I can always count on, Benji.  Another dead goldfish is another meal on the table for me.”  He winked and stomped over to the aquariums.  “Are you sure you wouldn't like a rabbit or something, though?  Ah, what am I saying, you couldn't take care of a goddamn rabbit any better than you could take care of a fish.”

“I don't want a rabbit.  Just give me another goldfish.  A goldfish is just fine.”

“Christ, all right, Ben.  You don't have to be so touchy about everything.  Which one of 'em do you want, then?”

The aquariums looked like a wall of blue bricks swarming with life.  It wasn't like looking at a wall, really.  I'd never been to the ocean, but I always thought that if you could build a house on the seabed, and you had a nice big window, you'd see something an awful lot like those aquariums.  I admired their brightly colored aquarium pebbles, like a box of crushed Crayola crayons.  I watched an angelfish dart its head in and out of a plastic castle, but when I put my hand to the glass, it went swimming away beneath an artificial log.

“How about I throw in some guppies, at a special rate.  A quarter apiece.  It's a real steal, but I've got too many.  Whaddya say?”
 “I'll just take the one.  That one, right there, swimming up at the top.  The real little one.  See?”

“Yeah, yeah.  I see him.  Are you sure you just want one, though?  How about a friend for him?  Whaddya say, Benji?  C'mon.”

“I just want one.  That one.  Christ.”

“All right, all right!”  He lowered in his fishnet and swept him up, but only after a great deal of chasing him around, and dropped him into a clear plastic bag.  “So, have you decided on a name yet?”

“I was sort of thinking about Merlin,” I said, with one hand strangling the door handle.

He certainly got a kick out of that.  He hooted and cackled, as the chameleon raced up the side of his neck and then clung to his ear with its baby hands.  “A fish named Merlin,” he wheezed, “You're really something, Ben.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“Say hey to your sister for me,” he snickered, but I was already off like a shot.  He was beginning to nauseate me, that old Bernie.  And the thought of him around my sister—my kid sister—I just couldn't take it.

Standing out on the sidewalk, relieved to finally be out of there, I held Merlin up to the sunlight.  He shimmered as he swam, back and forth.  He was becoming one of my favorites already.  Sometimes the new goldfish swam around in utter panic, but not Merlin.  He had all the serenity of the sky I held him against.

I glanced at my watch.  My mother wasn't going to be home for about an hour yet, so I decided to go ahead and pick up some of the groceries from the store just down a little ways from Bernie's.  Softly, I eased Merlin into the basket on the back of my bicycle, because I was afraid I'd drop him in the store.  There was a girl—I didn't really know her—that worked in there sometimes, usually in the afternoons.  The first time I noticed her was the day I went swimming in the river with the Birch twins the summer before.  (I was supposed to go with Billie that day, but in the end, she didn't feel like it.)  When we were all done, I thought I'd buy us all a soda apiece for the walk home.  Herbie and I each had a root beer, and Susie, of course, chose instead to have an apple juice.

“Why don't you just talk to her, Ben?”  Susie said after watching me peeking around the cereals to see her at the register.  “It isn't like it'd kill you or anything.”


"I heard she's from out of town.  Is she?”

“Yeah, I heard that, too.  Too bad you're too much of a wuss about women to go talk to her.”

“Oh, like you're some stud.”  I said, and slapped him affectionately on the back of the head.  “I don't know.  She's pretty and new.  Like the only shining bright penny in the wishing fountains at the zoo.  But you don't go grabbing at wishing well pennies.”

“Who said anything about grabbing?”  Herbie giggled.

“Never mind.  Let's go home.”

Anyway, she wasn't there, so I just gathered up a loaf of bread (it was harder than stone), a half-gallon of milk, and a bag of candy I bought for Billie and left immediately.

But when I stepped out of the store, there was some kid—a younger kid, named Joe or something terribly plain like that—taking off on my bike.

“Hey!” I shouted, like an idiot, but the kid didn't even turn around.  I chased him, but he was like the wind.  For a moment, wincing at my fiery lungs, I was too impressed with his swiftness to be angry.  I managed to keep okay, though.  I yelled after him again, and he turned his head at least, but he just laughed.

“Kid!  Joe, or whatever it is.  You can have the damn bike if you just give me back my goldfish!”

“Yeah right.  I hear you go through about two fish a week, you goddamn murderer!” 

It stunned me.  I was unaware the whole town knew about my fish troubles.  I chased him across the street, and he just kept laughing horribly.  It wasn't even a laugh, it was a howl.  A horrible, evil howl.  And listening to it was like Chinese water torture.  I felt like I was going insane listening to it.

And then, without thinking about it really, I unsheathed the loaf of bread from the plastic sack and hurled it right at his disproportionately large head.

The kid fell off the bike, crashing in the grass.  The tires still spun dizzily and the handlebars were all bent up.  He tried to sit up and looked around crazily, just like Bernie's chameleon.  I tackled him, dropping my bags to the ground, and dug my knees into his chest and yanked him around by his shoulders.

“What the hell are you doing?”  He spat in my face.

“What am I doing?  What are you doing, you goddamn thief?”


“Going on a goddamn bike ride, jackass!”

I loosened my grip on him and just stared at him.  His hair was filthy and uncombed, and his eyes were a little too close together.  He was long and bony, like most of the boys his age were.  I hated him, but he pierced me with those goddamn goofy eyes.  He wasn't afraid of anything.  I wanted to break all of his goddamn teeth, which stuck out jaggedly in all directions, but I couldn't do it.  I pulled myself up off him.  “Get outta here, Joe.”

“My name isn't Joe.  My name is Jonah.”  He propped himself up on his elbows.  “Nice to make your goddamn acquaintance.”

“I'm Ben.  Ben Breaker.”  I extended my arm out to him.

“I know who you goddamn are.”  He slapped my arm away and got up on his own.  “Your parents really lucked out, you know.  Between you and your good for nothing sister—”

“I'm going to kill you!”  I swung at his face but he darted out of the way.  I stumbled a little, and before I steadied myself, he grabbed Merlin and my groceries and catapulted him into the street.  (This kid had an arm, too.  He must've been a real athlete.)

I scrambled up off my knees and strained my legs to run a little faster for just a little longer.  I didn't see anything, except for Merlin splashing in the water on the road.  All my muscles burned and my side was splitting open.  After I leapt from the curb, something struck me, and for a moment, I was knocked clean out.

“Christ, Mom!  I think you killed him!”  I heard a girl screaming from someplace very far away, with my eyes closed tightly.  They peeled open and the sun glared down on me.  The sky was the same color as Susie's bathing suit and appeared to be alive, quivering with static, and I thought of Merlin, swimming peacefully over it.  I rose weakly.

“I'm okay, I'm okay.”  Luckily the speed limit was only about ten miles an hour there.  Suddenly, that didn't bother me as much as it used to.

“Is he dead?” Her mother said.  She didn't even get out of the car.

“Your head is bleeding,” the stranger said.  “You probably shouldn't walk.  We'll take you home.  Okay?”

“No, it's okay.  Christ, where's Merlin?”

I looked at the ground.  He splashed at her feet in a watercolor of fish water and milk, and the blood from my head, and the coating of Billie's candies, which were scattered for miles.  I wasn't about to let him die like that, in that dismal puddle.  I pinched him by the tail and took off for the river.  I fell really sick from all the running and then getting hit by that goddamn car, but it didn't matter.  I thought about the Birch twins growing up in that suffocating town.  I thought about the new girl, and the place she lived before, and I wanted her to go back.  And then there was ugly old Bernie and my kid sister and I didn't want to think about it anymore.  I was almost there, I was so close, but I tripped on some knotted tree root near the bank.  So I threw him.  I just threw him into the river.  It turned out, luckily, that I had a bit of an arm on me, too.  He broke the surface with quiet splash.  I heard the girl from the car screaming at me, but I didn't try to move.  I just laid there.  I'd had enough that day.