The Fish

The Giants just beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl…?

‘HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT! I just won $20,000!’, Maggie screamed in her head. She wanted to jump up and down and buy a round for the bar, but she reminded herself of The Fish’s golden rule. “Always win more graciously than you lose. It’s all about trust,” he always insisted. These were powerful men that made reckless decisions to feed their addictions. They needed Maggie; The Fish had seen to that. Now, she realized why.

14 years earlier:

The room was exactly what Maggie expected for twenty-eight dollars, but she didn’t care. She eased her shoes off and winced at how cold her feet were and how bad they hurt, and then she succumbed to the exhaustion of the previous three months. She slept like the dead until 3:14 when she awoke from the same, old nightmare. He’d found her again. She sat up, drenched in sweat. ‘Where in the hell am I?’, she wondered for a moment and then the previous night came roaring back into focus. She laid back and let the terror of the dream recede.

When she drew back the curtains, she saw that there was a bar across the street. ‘What I need is a beer’, Maggie thought to herself. Showered and determined to blend in, she skated her way across Broehn’s main street at 5:30 that evening to Joe’s Bar. When she pulled the door open, she was enveloped by what sounded like summer thunder. It was a deep, rolling laugh that settled over her like a warm blanket and she smiled. Maggie smiled for the first time in months.

There were three working stiffs sitting at the bar. Five eyes peered at her over mugs of draft beer. The man in the middle had one wandering eye that didn’t quite look at anything. Behind the bar was a mountain of a man and the owner of that glorious laugh.

“Hello,” he boomed. “What can I get you?” Her intention had been to get a 6-pack and go back to her room, but the friendly smile and genuine eyes on this giant made her change her mind. Hitching herself up onto a stool, she ordered a Bud Light in a bottle. A disgusted snort was followed by, “God-damned piss water!” growled a man wearing a heavy brown coat and matching coveralls. When she looked at him, he stared deliberately at her. Then, with exaggerated conviction, he drank deeply from his Budweiser in a can before turning his attention back to the muted television in the corner.

“Shut the hell up, Schmitty” bellered the bartender, and then that laugh filled the bar to the rafters again. It was golden, the way a laugh could do that, Maggie marveled. While she waited for her beer, she glanced around the dingy, little bar. There were 4 old men playing cards by the window; she hadn’t noticed them earlier and felt embarrassed remembering her less than graceful attempt at ice skating across Main Street. ‘Ugh’, she cringed, ‘they must have seen the whole thing’, and her cheeks burned. The five eyes lingered curiously.

A 6:00 shift change put the bartender belly-up next to Maggie. Hearing his laugh change from “customer service” to “genuine” and enjoying it even more fascinated and intrigued her.

“Name’s Dwayne Fisher… friends call me The Fish” he said with a meaty paw. “Who are you and where are you from?”

“Maggie… from New Mexico,” she answered by rote. She watched him perceive and catch her lie in a blink. He nodded and winked. He laughed again and Maggie eased into that comfortable sound and commenced to get loaded in a small-town bar with The Fish until last call had run its small-town course. Not once after that knowing glance from The Fish had a single Friday night patron asked those questions of her again.

The next morning she lay motionless and endured the pounding in her temples. ‘Are my eyes set in concrete?’ she wondered. The angry, ripping turmoil in her stomach was threatening a violent, and sure to be excruciating upheaval. Maggie was contemplating hangover fatality rates when four happy knocks came thundering through the door.

“Maggie” bellowed The Fish, “Breakfast in an hour. I’m buying!”

Maggie groaned. “Oh, gawd, I don’t think so”, she whispered.

And then it happened again. There it was. That laugh. That safe place. “One hour,” he said “Alice makes great eggs” he offered over his shoulder and she listened to his steps squeak away in the cold morning snow.

By 10:30 that Saturday morning Maggie was showered and ravenous. Devouring the omelette in front of her, she assured The Fish that he was right; Alice made great eggs.

By noon on Monday, Maggie was unpacking her bag in a small one-bedroom house on the edge of town and listening to the furnace work to warm the tiny space. It was one of The Fish’s many hunting rental properties. When Maggie asked about rent, he assured her that he’d get that when she was “back on her feet.”

Wednesday found Maggie with a job waitressing for the egg guru, Alice, and her sleeping bag and duffel supplemented with a full-size bed, couch, chairs, kitchen table and all she could want to cook a meal. Again, The Fish promised that he’d let her pay him back when she “found her legs back under her”, and he’d laugh.

By Friday, Maggie was cautiously optimistic. ‘Who was this strange and generous man?’ When he asked her to come to Joe’s the following Friday night, how could she say no? And upon entering Joe’s Bar for the second time in her life, Maggie realized she was home. She was unsure of his tactics, or how he made it happen, but in one short week, Maggie was a local; no questions asked.

That week eventually turned into months and then years without The Fish ever admitting she had found her legs. All he ever asked was that she feed him a home-cooked meal on occasion. He had no family, he explained, and Maggie was more than happy to pay this man anything she could. He had given her the chance to stop running. Maggie owed her life to The Fish.

As the years passed, Maggie learned that, though he had no family, he was the heartbeat of this small, quirky town nestled in nowhere. When there was a quarrel, it was The Fish they turned to to settle it. Marriage problems and need a place to crash? Call The Fish. Find yourself on the unfortunate end of a DUI? Call Fish, he’ll know what to do. No problem was too big or too small that didn’t warrant asking The Fish to at least weigh in on it.

It was during their many dinners and weekly Friday nights on the town, though, that Maggie learned The Fish’s true passion. The Fish loved everything and anything about gambling. Through the years, she never saw The Fish without his little black book of boards peeking out of his pocket. The Fish ran boards on everything from the Super Bowl to Little Leagues. College playoffs to high school golf. NBA, MLB, PGA, NHL, PRCA, all the way to friendly cow drops and turtle races during the annual small-town festivals. When he ran a board on Kent and Jackie’s marriage and how long until they’d get divorced, Maggie thought it was risky, but The Fish even managed to make money on that when they hit the 10-year mark. The Fish did know how to bet.

Life with The Fish was comfortable, and it was safe. However, when Maggie would try repaying him, The Fish would just laugh and assure her, time and time and time again. “Maggie, sweet Maggie…, You already have”, and he’d laugh some more.

The Fish left for his Vegas trip on the Wednesday before the Super Bowl, just like every other year. When Maggie dropped him at the airport that afternoon he said he had a ride home, but that he’d be at her place by 6:30 on Monday for supper and stories of his vacation antics. When Schmitty called her at 4:30 Monday afternoon, wondering where he was, Maggie had no idea. She assured him that The Fish had probably just missed his flight.

“Maybe he’s getting laid, Schmitty…lighten up,” she tried to joke. “He’ll call, don’t worry”, but Maggie was worried. It wasn’t like The Fish to make Maggie worry.

By Wednesday, she stopped answering her phone. She couldn’t bear to tell one more person that she didn’t know where he was, either. On Friday, she went to the bar, like every other Friday, but what she found wasn’t the usual rowdy group of revelers. It was a wake. Clumps of people whispering amongst themselves, all murmuring the same question; “Where’s The Fish?”

On Monday, Maggie received a package. Inside was a manilla envelope and a duffel bag akin to the one she’d shown up with all those years ago. The Fish had scrawled “Maggie, sweet Maggie” on the envelope that contained the deed to her house, the title to a new car, and bank information for an account with $10,000. A post-it note stated simply, “For when you’re ready”.

When she unzipped the duffel bag, she saw that it was filled with The Fish’s little black board books. There must have been a hundred or more. She picked one up at random. Paging through it, she saw stats, names, bet amounts, and phone numbers. She was confused until she landed on four meticulously written pages that started with, “Maggie, sweet Maggie”. It went on to give detailed directions, suggestions and ideas that coincided with the numbers in the book. She grabbed another one. Again, numbers that made no sense to her, yet, but hand-written directions on how to use them. The contacts the books listed alone were enough to blow Maggie’s mind. She’d had no idea just how pervasive the gambling was in not only this small town, but the neighboring towns as well. She learned that nothing buttered the bread of a small-town bookie like Class B basketball when she discovered that even the Home Ec. teacher liked to wager on that. The Fish had left Maggie a complete manual to take over where he’d left off.

As per The Fish’s explicit instructions, Maggie went to the bar every Friday, just like she’d always done. She watched the shock subside and smiled when she saw more and more people solving their own problems as the months went by. It would take time, but aspects of life without The Fish were finding new balances; except for one, the people of Broehn missed their bookie. They wanted that thrill that only The Fish had ever been able to provide.

Maggie set out to give something back to this community, the town she’d grown to call home. She wanted to give back that unique “something” that The Fish had offered that had always tied them together. Maggie studied the notebooks in her every spare moment. She learned and absorbed the notes The Fish had left her. She took solace in the constant back ground noise that made her feel like The Fish was with her…any sporting event happening live on T.V.

Nearly one year later, and endless hours spent focusing on the plan that The Fish had so meticulously laid out for her, down to the people to contact and the pitch to give them when they came to listen. ‘They’ll show up’ his notes promised. Maggie’s palms were sweating when the five men crowded into her tiny house.

“I’ll let you gentlemen discuss it?” she concluded as she finished delivering, perfectly, everything The Fish had taught her to say. She gave them her ‘Maggie, sweet Maggie’ smile that had always seemed reserved for The Fish alone, tipped her Budweiser in a can to Schmitty and stepped outside for a cigarette.