Bob, or Man on Boat

by Peter Markus

  The fish that is the son.

  The fish that is the son is a fish that wants to be fished up from the bottom of the river.

  I am a fish.

  I am a fish.

  When I fish, I fish for Bob.

  When I go out onto the river, in my boat, I am not just a fishing man.

  I am a fish waiting to be caught.

  The river is a bridge to Bob.

  In my boat, I float and I drift and I motor on by Bob with the hope that one of these days Bob is going to look up. One of these days, when Bob looks up, he will see a light that he is looking to see.

  One of these days, when Bob listens up close, he will hear a sound that he is listening to hear.

  This light, this sound, it is not coming from the inside of a fish.

  This light, and the song behind it, it is coming from a boat.

  Not just any old boat.

  It is coming from the dead man’s boat.

  And I am the captain, I am the fish steering and standing in the back of this boat.

  One of these days, I am going to holler out, to Bob, Bob, take a look at this fish.

  I will stand with my arms spread apart as far as I can stretch them, to say to Bob that this fish that I am talking about, it is a big fish, it is a fish so big it is too big to fit inside this boat.

  Will Bob even look up?

  Will Bob lift up his head?

  If Bob knows anything, it is this:

  The fish that’s already been fished up out of the river, that fish isn’t the fish that he is fishing for.

  It’s not the fish that you can see.

  It’s the fish that you can’t see.

  The fish that hasn’t yet been caught.

  The fish that hasn’t yet been named.

  When Bob reaches his hands into the river, there is no telling what he might fish up.

  And then, one day, up from the river, it is the sun that rises up.

  And then, like this, in the light of this light, I see the man that I call Bob.

  Bob, I say, when I see that it’s him, but Bob doesn’t see me.

  I am the son that Bob does not know.

  I am the fish at the bottom of the river waiting to be fished up.

  Bob’s boat is a magnet.

  The fish in this river rise up, up to Bob’s boat, as if they are fish made out of steel.

  Bob’s father liked to fish but he did not like to fish as much as Bob likes to fish.

  Bob’s father was most of the time too tired from working to be able to want to fish.

  When Bob’s father left the mill, after working his shift, he did not go down to the river.

  To the bar, not the river, is where Bob’s father liked to go.

  Bob’s father liked to drink.

  Like a fish, Bob’s father, he drank.

  Bob’s father liked to drink.

  Like a fish.

  Bob likes to fish.

  Like a fish.

  Bob and Bob’s father are like two fish.

  They are like two fish swimming in two different rivers.

  Sometimes, Bob’s father drank not just after work.

  Sometimes, Bob’s father drank before work too.

  Sometimes, Bob’s father even drank when he was working.

  Sometimes, drinking was all that Bob’s father ever did.

  And then, one day, the mill stopped making metal.

  One day, the fires burning inside the mill stopped burning.

  One day, the smokestacks of the mill stopped smoking with their smoke.

  And from that day on, Bob’s father only had one place to go.

  No, he did not go down to the river.

  He’d go down to the bar.

  Where he drank and drank until, one day, after drinking too much whiskey, he turned into a fish.

  One night Bob’s father drank so much that when he left the bar to go home, he walked the wrong way home.

  He headed down to the river.

  It was dark out that night.

  The moon was not anywhere in the sky shining.

  Bob’s father walked down to the river in the dark.

  When he got down to the river’s edge, Bob’s father, my grandfather, walked out into the river.

  He did not stop walking even when the river rose up past his feet and knees.

  He went on walking and walking.

  He did not stop walking.

  The river, it did not hold him up.

  What the river did, the river, like a hungry fish, it swallowed Bob’s father up.

  Bob’s father ended up, three days later, being spit back out onto the river’s other side.

  The fishing man who found Bob’s father stretched out on the river’s muddy shore hoped that this man stretched out face down in the mud was only just sleeping.

  But no, he wasn’t sleeping.

  Bob’s father was a fish washed up dead on the river’s muddy shore.

  Bob’s father’s body was brought by boat back to our side of the river.

  It was then driven by ambulance into town where it ended up being taken to our town’s only undertaker.

  Mr. Lynch.

  Unlike many undertakers, ours did not dress in black.

  Ours—Mr. Lynch—liked to wear white.

  Ours was more like a clown at a birthday party than a man who took care of our town’s dead.

  But it’s not like we had any choice.

  Mr. Lynch was all that we had, the only one, the town’s keeper of our dead.

  If you lived in our town, when you died in our town, it was to Mr. Lynch that you’d go.

  Bob’s father had made it clear to Bob’s mother that when it was his time to go, he did not want to be buried.

  The furnace, Bob’s father had said.

  It’s how he lived, face to face with the blast furnace. And it’s how he wanted to leave.

  Besides, Bob’s father had said, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper.

  Take the money you’d spend on a casket and buy yourself something nice.

  So Bob and Bob’s mother did what Bob’s father said.

  They did not bury Bob’s father in the dirt of this earth.

  They sent Bob’s father back, one last time, to the furnace.

  Bob’s mother took the money they would have spent on buying a casket for Bob’s father and with this money in her hand she handed it over to Bob.

  He was your father, she told him. I’ve got the house. So do like your father said, she said.

  Go and buy yourself something nice.

  Bob took the money from his mother’s hand.

  Then Bob took from his mother’s other hand the container that contained his father’s ashes.

  Where are you going with your father? his mother called out after Bob.

  Bob did not say anything to this.

  It was too late to get Bob to stop.

  In his head, Bob was already standing at the river’s edge.

  All Bob needed now was a boat.

  So Bob bought a boat.

  Bob took the money that his mother gave him and with it, instead of a casket, Bob bought himself a boat.

  It was a good boat.

  It had a good motor on the back of this boat.

  Bob got in this boat and Bob motored with this boat out onto the river.

  Bob boated around the river for a while before finally cutting the engine.

  Bob drifted a while like this with the motor switched off.

  Bob looked up at the sky.

  The sky was the sky.

  Then Bob looked down at the river.

  The river made Bob think of steel.

  Maybe because of the color.

  It was the same color as Bob’s boat was the color of.

  A color somewhere in between green and gray.

  Bob took the container that contained his father’s ashes inside it and then he undid the lid.

  Then Bob turned the container upside-down.

  The ashes that were
Bob’s father poured out like smoke and sifted down into the river.

  Bob watched for a while as the ashes drifted down the river.

  Then Bob saw with his eyes something that he almost could not believe.

  It was a fish.

  It was a fish leaping up out of the water.

  This fish slapped the river with its silvery tail.

  Then this fish, it leaped again.

  It was hard for Bob to say how big this fish was, though it looked to Bob as big as Bob’s father.

  And then it was gone.

  Into the river.

  This fish, up out of the river, it did not leap again.

  That night, Bob spent the night out on the river, out on his boat, hoping he would see again this leaping fish.

  That was the night that Bob realized that a boat on a river is a good place for a man to be.

  A good place for a man to live.

  Bob’s been living out on it ever since.

  This boat.

  This river.

  Fishing for that fish.

  That night, up in the sky, Bob did not notice if there were any stars.

  Bob was too busy looking down, into the river, looking out across the river, to see if there were any stars.

  What Bob was looking for, looking down into the river, looking out across the river, was that leaping fish.

  Bob did not see, that night, that leaping-up-out-of-the-river fish.

  What Bob did see, in the river, that night, was the light of the moon.

  The moon, that night, it was as big, it was as full, as the moon can get.

  The moon, it was too big for Bob not to notice even though he was looking down into the river.

  The moon that night shining up at Bob from the river, it looked to Bob like the moon was some sort of a fish.

  It wasn’t too hard for Bob to see that the moon, it was shaped like a face.

  It was not a face that Bob could say whose face that it was.

  It was not the face that was Bob’s father’s.

  It was not a face that was even Bob’s.

  Bob motored his boat over so that he was close enough to get a good look at whose face this face might be.

  Bob got so up close to that face that Bob reached out with his hand to touch it.

  When Bob reached out with his hand, the moon, this face, it shattered into a billion pieces. Each broken piece, that night, there in the river, became a floating star.

  That night, there in the river, there on the river, each floating star was eaten by a fish.

  This is how the river works.

  Fish eat other fish.

  Each star, then, turns into a fish.

  If the fish were stars, the sky at night would be lit up, fish-belly white, with light.

  A fish is a fish.

  Who teaches a fish how to fish?

  This is the question.

  The answer to this is this:

  Fish just fish.

  It’s how fish live.

  It’s what they do.

  It’s just like Bob is.

  A man who fishes for fish.

  Bob fishes.

  Bob is fishing.

  Bob was fishing.

  Bob fished last night.

  Bob will fish again later tonight.

  By day, Bob sleeps.

  When Bob is sleeping, Bob is dreaming about fish.

  When Bob sleeps, Bob dreams about fishing.

  Bob dreamed today, as he was sleeping, about fishing for that fish.

  That fish, in Bob’s dreams, it leaped up out of the river.

  Bob dreamed that he woke up on the river.

  In Bob’s dream, Bob dreamed that the river was his bed.

  Bob dreamed that when he woke up from his dreaming, the fish was sleeping next to him in this bed.

  Bob reached over across this bed and put his hand on this fish’s fin.

  Bob shook this fish’s fin to try and wake this fish up from its sleeping.

  But this fish did not wake up from this sleeping.

  This fish was not sleeping.

  This fish, it was dead.

  It’s true.

  Fish in this river die.

  It happens all the time.

  Sometimes, fish stop breathing.

  Sometimes, fish stop swimming.

  Sometimes, these fish float up to the river’s top.

  Sometimes, these fish float on past Bob and Bob’s boat.

  Sometimes, Bob will fish these floating by fish up out of the river, and Bob will fish these fish up into his boat.

  Bob does not fish these dead fish up out of the river and fish these fish up into his boat so that he can sell them.

  Bob does not fish these dead fish up out of the river and fish these fish up into his boat so that he can eat them.

  What Bob does do to these dead fish that he fishes up out of the river is, Bob guts the guts out of these fish.

  The guts of these dead fish, Bob throws the guts back into the river.

  Bob throws the guts of these dead fish back into the river so that the guts of these dead fish can turn back into fish.

  This is true too.

  There are some fish in the river that never leave these waters where they are born.

  There are other fish, too, who do leave the river waters where they are born, though these fish, when it comes time for them to die, they come back to the river where they were born to do their dying.

  Bob’s father was a man born and raised right here in this dirty river town.

  Bob, like Bob’s father, was born and raised right here in this dirty river town too.

  Like Bob and like Bob’s father, I was born and raised right here in this dirty river town too.

  Only Bob’s father’s father was the only one of us fathers who was not born and raised right here in this dirty river town too.

  Bob’s father’s father was a man who came to this country from a country other than ours.

  Bob’s father’s father came to this country on a boat.

  This boat, it was the kind of a boat that can tip a boat like Bob’s boat over in its wake.

  When, by boat, Bob’s father’s father came over to this country, this is when this Bob was given his new country’s name.

  Bob.

  It’s true that when Bob’s father’s father came to this country, Bob’s father’s father did not speak any English.

  Some other man who did speak English gave him his name.

  Bob.

  When Bob’s father’s father married Bob’s father’s mother, they had a baby boy and they named this newborn boy Bob.

  When Bob’s father grew up to be a man, he married a woman who would become Bob’s mother. When it came time for them to have a boy of their own, they called this boy Bob too.

  This Bob is the Bob who is my father.

  This Bob is the Bob who lives on a boat, on the river, and is the Bob at the center of this story.

  When I was born, even though Bob did not know a thing about it, I too was named, by my mother, Bob.

  Bob.

  As my mother once told me, Your name’s the one thing you got from your father.

  When my son was born, even before he was born, even before I knew if he was going to be a girl or a boy, I took to calling him Bob.

  Hey, Bob, how we doing today? I’d say, with my lips pressed against my wife’s fish-white belly.

  My wife didn’t like it one bit, the name, Bob, or the fact that I took to calling our not-yet born child Bob.

  What if it’s a girl? she said.

  We’ll call her Bobara, I said. Or Bobbie.

  But it’s not a girl, I said.

  It’s a boy.

  Because I knew that it was.

  It’s a Bob, I said.

  I said, It’s just the way it was meant to be.

  Bob.

  After a while, my wife gave in.

  When our son was born, my wife took one look at him and then she nodded her head.


  Robert, she said.

  My little Bobby, she said.

  We can always call him Junior, she said.

  But it’s Bob, I said, for short.

  Night.

  It is night.

  At night, on the river, it feels to Bob like he is on a boat floating across the sky.

  Sometimes at night, floating on the river like this, Bob feels like he’s a bird flying across the sky.

  There are birds out here on the river who live along the river’s bank.

  We call these birds river birds.

  River gulls.

  River ducks.

  River gooses.

  River swans.

  These are the birds, and these are the names of the birds, who live with Bob on and along the river.

  Like Bob, these river birds fish the river for fish.

  Hunters who hunt these river birds, when they eat these river birds, these hunters sometimes say that these river birds taste like fish.

  We are what we eat.

  Bob, if Bob were a thing to be eaten, Bob too would taste like fish.

  Fish in the river fish for other fish in the river.

  After Bob fishes the fish out of the river, Bob eats the fish that he fishes out of the river.

  Sometimes, Bob eats the fish without even first cooking up the fish.

  These fish that Bob sometimes eats without first cooking these fish up, these fish that are so small that they fit in the palm of Bob’s hand, Bob eats these fish in one quick swallow.

  Bob eats these littler fish, fish that fit in the palm of his hand, whole—head, tail, guts, bone.

  The fish and everything that is the fish.

  These fish, Bob does not cut off the heads off of these fish.

  These fish, Bob does not cut off the tails off of these fish.

  These fish, Bob does not gut the guts from out of these fish.

  These fish that Bob eats whole and in one swallow, these fish, I can picture these fish swimming around inside Bob’s belly.

  To these fish, Bob is as big a fish as a big fish can get.

  To these fish, Bob is as big as a whale is big to the fish that swim in its shadow.

  A whale is not a fish.

  If Bob were to one day sit down and write down the story of his life, this life story of Bob’s might begin something like this: