by Alix Ohlin
Whereas Hank, not that he was some starry-eyed undergrad, thought the fish mattered in their own right. In fact, some wiseass in the lab had plastered a bumper sticker to the side of a tank that said FISH MATTER. These were the kinds of jokes that made Erica dread department parties, and Hank couldn't blame her— but still. When Purdy, on the day in question, came in and tapped on the glass with his jerky, it obviously annoyed him. So Hank asked him, very politely, very calmly, if he could please not do that anymore, and then mentioned that he was trying to finish a paper for the upcoming meeting of the ichthyological society and it was going slowly and that he'd really appreciate some peace and quiet.
“You bet, guppy man,” Purdy said, cheerfully as always. And this, for some reason, was the last thing Hank wanted to hear. Guppy man. He basically just could not stand those two words coming out of Joe Purdy's mouth. And Purdy, incredibly, was smiling at him as he said this, even waving his jerky good-bye as he started for the door, and Hank knew guppy man was code for a lot of things that weren't related to guppies at all. That, in sum, is why he stood up, crossed the room, and smacked Purdy square in the jaw, causing him to stagger backwards, hand on his chin, jerky flying across the room—though even in his expression of shock Hank couldn't help noticing that there remained a kind of smirk, as if yet another hypothesis about male dominance and hierarchical behavior had just been substantiated by real-world observations. Then Purdy, from the floor, said, “Whoa, Jesus, Hank,” and blood streamed out of his nose, thick and red as if in a drawing by Max.
The next few minutes passed in a kind of a blur.
Hearing Purdy cry out and fall to the floor—actually, he fell against a filing cabinet, knocking off a stack of journals on top of it, and then fell to the floor with a clatter and violence that, admittedly, gave Hank no small amount of satisfaction—two of his grad students came in and took him away, apparently to the hospital, although it seemed unlikely to Hank that he personally could generate enough force to put someone in the hospital. He wasn't exactly brawny. But the grad students were shaking their heads and clucking almost maternally over their fallen leader and stage-whispering things like “What the hell's the matter with that guy?” and “We'd better get to the emergency room right away,” which Hank, sitting back in his chair, acted like he couldn't hear. They left him alone in the office, the fish still swishing quietly, and he could hear mutters and whispers outside in the hall, and no doubt everybody in the department already knew about this behavior, which, though it might confirm Purdy's research, could still potentially get him fired. Which would mean no more escaping to the fish. Which would be the last thing he needed just now. Which is how he came to be alone in his office as day turned to night, afraid to go home and face Erica and Max, unwilling to face even the hallway outside; instead he was sitting there typing this analysis of some recent troublesome behavior.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
It is possible to think logically about all this. Like a female guppy responding to the brilliant orange spots on the male, which mimic the orange fruits that guppies like to eat, the subject's behavior arose in response to a clearly defined set of stimuli. If he were to defend himself to the chair of the department, or at the very least provide evidence of these stimuli, Hank would have no trouble providing the data. He could, for example, present the following data points:
TABLE 1. Annoying Behavior of Joseph Purdy TYPE OF ANNOYING BEHAVIOR NUMBER OF TIMES IN RECENT MEMORY
Starting conversations about grant funding merely in order to brag about the amount he has gotten 8
Mentioning expensive renovations done to house, clearly paid for by salary attached to said grant funding 6
Offering deer jerky and using offer as opportunity to brag about hunting exploits 5
Asking questions about fish, then not paying any attention to the answers 4
Tapping items (e.g., jerky) against aquarium glass and bothering fish, which even a behaviorally challenged five-year-old knows not to do MORE TIMES THAN CAN BE COUNTED
This was not the only data. Ideally, for a complete discussion of the behavior in question, other figures would be designed and included—a graph, maybe, showing the relationship between these factors and the factors at home. An xy graph, where x would plot Purdy's annoying interruptions and y would plot Erica and Max, and the two would intersect in a jagged, mountainous line cresting at the peak point, which would represent the events of today.
Yes, a graph like that would certainly illuminate the subject.
CONCLUSION
Whether this troublesome behavior is a temporary aberration or a permanent feature of the animal's behavior cannot be determined at this time. Perhaps this paper will result in copious grant funding to pursue the crucial questions raised by the preliminary investigation. Or, perhaps not.
Cleaning up the journals that fell off the filing cabinet, Hank found lying next to a power outlet the stick of jerky that must have fallen from Purdy's mouth at the climactic moment. He clenched it in his hand, thinking again of Purdy's swagger, his large white teeth, his cheerfulness, and Hank's only wish was that he'd hit him harder. With these thoughts in mind, it is impossible for the author of this paper to express regret for any troublesome recent behavior by Hank Higginbottom, Ph.D.
But home is a different thing. At home Erica sits in the dark, crying or not crying, and Max is in his room—because he does not enjoy the company of other children or even, lately, his parents, and at this point you can't really blame him—either screaming or not screaming, but most likely screaming. And Hank is left to wonder what will happen when he gets there, whether Erica will have changed her mind or solidified it, and what he will say to her. He can't go home yet, because he can't stop thinking, among other things, about what the life inside her will look like when the doctor drains it: a potential human form stripped to some forever partial version of itself, a reduction, a piece of jerky. He pictures Erica's face and his inability to comfort her; he pictures Purdy nodding and chewing and saying, “Certain scientific facts may be hard for people to grasp.” Men act according to biological imperatives. While your wife cries at home, you manufacture figures on a desktop computer in your office. What kind of man are you?
In the tanks the fish watch quietly, showing themselves off, selecting their partners. One mating of Poecilia reticulata can result in several batches of fry, spaced over an interval of months. If the newborn fish are not provided with cover or protection from their parents, they might be eaten by them. Yet they come nonetheless—batches at a time the guppies emerge, orange-spotted and oblivious of risks, swimming reckless and confused into the world.
Copyright © 2006 by Alix Ohlin
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks and Vintage Contemporaries is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
These stories originally appeared in the following publications: “The King of Kohlrabi” in Five Points; “Transcription” in Best New American Voices 2004 (Harcourt/Harvest); “Simple Exercises for the Beginning Student” in Swink and subsequently in Best American Short Stories 2005 (Houghton Mifflin); “You Are Here” in Bellingham Review; “A Theory of Entropy” in Prism International; “Edgewater” in The Ex-Files (Context Books); “Wonders Never Cease” in Colorado Review; “I Love to Dance at Weddings” in XConnect; “Land of the Midnight Sun” in Shenandoah; “Meeting Uncle Bob” in The Cincinnati Review; “Babylon” in Salt Hill; “Local News” in Backwards City Review; “The Swanger Blood” in Southwest Review; “In Trouble with the Dutchman” in The Massachusetts Review; “The Tennis Partner” in One Story.
Babylon and other stories / Alix Ohlin.—1st ed. p. cm.
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PS3615.H57B33 2006
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2006040985<
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