“Beloved father in the heavens,
Oh, hear your children’s footsteps meek.”
At first I think they’re saying creak, and I hide my face in my hands so nobody can hear my giggle, but Mom jabs her elbow into my side and joins in the high-pitched singing.
Monday morning and I’m taking off my pajamas when Gertrude opens her bedroom door and stomps through my room, half-naked as usual, and I’m barely able to turn away with my pajama pants around my ankles. This has become a nerve-racking situation every morning. I might have to start sleeping fully dressed. When Mom and Gertrude have left, I complain as loud as I can into my cereal and curse the two classes of math that stare me in the face from the school schedule on the fridge.
I stumble through the dim morning light to school with the shoulder strap on my schoolbag ripping my shoulder off. I’ve just arrived in the school yard when the bell rings, and I have to run like mad into the building and up the stairs to be on time. Everybody’s already in their seats, and as soon as I open the door to the classroom, I’m met with the silent stare of sixty eyes. I blush and try to glide really quietly to my seat, but I bump into a table on the way and the shoulder strap gets tangled around my left foot as soon as I sit down, so the bag falls from my lap. I bend over to grab it before it lands on the floor, but I hit my forehead on the corner of the table and I feel the urge to scream at the top of my lungs. But I bite my lip and am completely silent like the rest.
The deathly anxiety finally subdues when Pinko delivers the homework in the second math class, and I feel how the tension relaxes in my body and trickles out the soles of my feet. Still I’m not quite myself. For example, I have no control over my head in Miss Wilson’s class. It wants to turn at the neck, and the eyes are searching the middle row, where Clara Phillips is sitting, carefully sharpening her pencil or combing her hair over to one side while she tilts her head and writes in her book or raises her hand to answer a question from Miss Wilson. And isn’t it just magical how the morning sun sends its golden beam exactly where she’s sitting? But then Miss Wilson mentions my name and tells me to read down page fifteen. The letters are muddled before my eyes for a while, and I stutter.
“Read properly, Josh,” says Miss Wilson, and I try to focus on the page, but my forehead is sweating and I speed up reading. And then my tongue starts to trip.
“The farmer said that these stories were fabrics made by historical women full of flies. . . .”
Suddenly I can’t hear myself because of the laughter all around me.
“Silence!” Miss Wilson shouts. “Fabricated by hysterical women full of lies,” she corrects. “Keep going, Josh.”
I hover over page fifteen, sweating like a pig, while the class around me boils with laughter, waiting for my next failure, like vultures waiting in a tree for a dying animal to give up its last breath.
“Read louder,” Miss Wilson says.
“That when these women were in the kitchen . . .”
“Eating flies,” Tom mutters behind me.
“Silence, Thomas,” orders Miss Wilson. “Continue, Josh.”
“Preparing the food . . .”
“And taking their fabrics off,” Tom adds. Then the giggling starts for real.
“Silence!” Miss Wilson shouts, and hits the wall with the wooden pointer.
On and on I read, down page fifteen and sixteen, in physical pain, until finally I’m finished reading and the pages are wet with perspiration.
By the end of school, I’m Fool of the Day, and I stumble home, utterly spent, under the heavy load of my schoolbag.
I’m ordered to go out to the shops with a dumb note in one pocket and some cash in the other. There are always a couple of old ladies whispering to each other at the fish shop. These little ladies from the neighborhood have put on lipstick for the occasion. They wear scarves of many colors, with a tuft of hair, rolled up on a pink roller, protruding from underneath. They’re wearing pale-colored coats, and their shopping nets are made from real nets, like they’re out fishing for supper.
“One fillet of haddock, please,” one says to Mr. Penapple, Ari’s dad. But Mr. Penapple is filleting and stands there in a white plastic apron with the sharpener in one hand and the knife in the other, fencing with himself. He nods to Ari, who stands by the cooler and reaches in to get the fillets.
“Rather have two small ones, love,” the lady then says. It’s always the same story with them. Ari splashes two fillets on the scale, and they take a long time deciding how many ounces more or less they need, until finally it’s, “I’ll take the big fillet and the small one.” And Ari wraps both of them up in yesterday’s paper, under the watchful eyes of his father, who nods and smiles to the old ladies.
I buy a fillet of smoked haddock, like it says on the note, but I can’t hide the fact that I’m a little shy of Ari because of what happened the other day. Here he is on his home turf, and here nobody would dare to call him Pineapple or make fun of him. Not even Tom. At least not while his father is sharpening the knife. And nothing could be further from my thoughts than making fun of him. I’ve never done that anyway — I just want him to know somehow that it’s fine by me that he’s got a furry crotch. It becomes him damn well, I’d say. But of course one doesn’t talk out loud about those things. I just take my time choosing the fillet, asking him if he has another one, maybe a bit bigger, since now there are three of us at home, and I let him feel that I’m not in a hurry and there’s no bad feelings behind my words; I’m first and foremost just buying a good piece of fish from him, as I would from any other honest fish salesman.
While Ari is wrapping up the fillet, I see Alice, Peter’s sister, run down the street, right in front of the shop window, like she’s being chased by the devil. But nobody is following her. I swing the bag over my shoulder and stroll homeward and am not really thinking anything when I glance into a narrow opening between two buildings, where trash cans are kept. There I see Alice, crouching, half hidden behind the cans, smoking a cigarette. I am so surprised that I stop in my tracks and look again. She has her usual war paint on and is wearing jeans and a black jacket with her hair brushed down in her face. And there’s no doubt about it: she’s smoking a cigarette. She inhales with such force that deep holes form in her cheeks. She takes the butt between her fingers and is just about to shoot it out onto the street when she notices me. The smoke curls slowly out of the corners of her mouth, and she stares at me without blinking an eye, until finally she closes her eyes, curls her upper lip, and blows the smoke forcefully in my direction.
“What?” she asks.
“Nuthin’,” I say.
“Are you spying on me?”
“No.”
“Then what are you looking at?”
“I was just walking here.”
“Then go,” she says.
I obey and continue walking down the street with the bag over my shoulder. Behind me I can hear a trash can being moved around and Alice swearing, and finally she calls after me. She comes out on the street and leans against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Don’t you dare tell Peter.”
“No, I won’t,” I say.
“Sure you will. You’re going to do it — I know it,” she says, full of suspicion.
“I promise I won’t,” I say.
“You can’t wait to tell on me. I don’t give a fuck,” she says with a provocative smirk, as if smoking is the least of her sins. “Oh, get lost,” she says, full of disgust, then pulls out the pack of cigarettes, takes one out, puts it between her lips, frowns, and lights it with a lighter. The look on her face is like she’s really torturing herself and is forcing the smoke down into her lungs by sheer necessity. It’s so funny seeing her do this. She’s just a kid, was confirmed only last year; still, she stands there like she’s already twenty-something, with all that paint on her face and a cigarette between her fingers. I turn and walk away, and probably it’s because I’m so surprised that I shake my head.
>
“Why are you shaking your head?” she calls after me. “Look at you! Like an old man!”
“Shut up!” I call back.
But then suddenly she is by my side, tearing at my shoulder, turning me around.
“What did you say?” she hisses, staring at me with her eyes, so black from all the makeup painted around them.
“Are you going to tell on me?” she asks, grabbing a fistful of my sweater, twisting and turning it.
“Leave me alone,” I say angrily, and tear myself loose.
“I can have you beaten up if you tell,” she says, and I feel the tingling of fright from the tone in her voice.
“Beat me up? What for?”
“You just watch out,” she says threateningly, pointing two fingers at me with a glowing cigarette between them.
“What took you so long?” Mom asks when I come into the kitchen.
“There was a line at the fish store,” I say, and hand over the bag and the rest of the money.
“Supper’ll be ready in a little while,” she says. “Tell Gertrude — I mean Trudy,” she corrects herself as she puts the fillet on the wooden board and starts slicing it up into equal pieces. The potatoes are boiling in a pot on the stove, and the steam is setting on the windows.
I feel like a visitor in my own home. It’s Mom and Gertrude who live here; I’m just a delivery boy. Mom has changed since Gertrude arrived. It’s like everything is now done to please her, to let her have some peace in her room to study, let her sleep in on Sunday mornings. Mom would never order Gertrude to go to church with us. But it’s all right to order me to do all these things: go shopping, take out the garbage, peel the potatoes, vacuum the living room, fold the bedding with Mom, change the lightbulb in the hall because Mom gets dizzy if she has to stand on a chair, thread the needle when she’s sewing because sometimes her hands are shaking too much, beat the dust out of the rugs because it’s too hard for her. My cousin never has to lift a finger. When I arrive at her door, I’ve become so angry that I bang the door forcefully with a clenched fist. I hear Gertrude jump to her feet and shout. She rips the door open.
“What on earth is going on?” she says, holding her hand on her heart.
“Supper,” I growl.
While we eat in silence, we listen to the evening news on the radio. There’s a severe storm warning, and all trawlers and small fishing vessels are advised to dock before midnight. But somewhere out there on the vast ocean is my dad, standing in the machinery room of the cargo ship Orca, dressed in dark blue overalls with oil on his hands and sweat on his brow. Maybe he’s listening to this broadcast, this very minute. At this moment, the voice of the news announcer is the only thing that connects us. Maybe he sits down and cleans the oil off his hands with a white cloth and is wondering why in the world he had to divorce Mom and leave me all alone in the turbulent ocean of life.
Vipera berus glides very carefully from underneath the fallen leaves, long, thin, and soundless; only her cloven tongue twitches, her eyes cut in stone. Faster than the devil himself, she strikes with her jaw wide open, and the pretty little forest mouse is no longer among the living. It disappears slowly and surely down the throat of the snake. Its last message to the world a tiny twist of one of its hind legs. Maybe it’s just waving good-bye. The snake continues to swallow and swallow, and the mouse moves under the glistening skin until it has reached the middle of the snake. Then the stomach liquids start to dissolve the poor little thing, or rather to change it into energy, as the narrator puts it, so the snake can continue to glide around the world with her cold blood and stony eyes and kill some more. What are snakes for? I lie on my stomach in front of the TV and shoot a glance at my cousin who’s spread herself all over my mom’s TV chair, which once upon a time was Grandma’s radio chair. She dangles a long leg over the side of the chair, chews her gum, and flicks through a fashion magazine, turning the pages so fast that her bracelets jingle ceaselessly. She’s wearing a thin but wide sweater with a very low neck and the precious short skirt. Her thighs are bare. We haven’t said a word to each other since I entered the living room, turned on the TV, and lay down on the floor with my book, Life and Creation. She didn’t even ask me if I wanted to sit in the chair, although it was obvious that I was going to watch TV. It’s time to make her aware of some rules that apply in this home.
“That’s Mom’s chair,” I say.
“Really?” she says, not looking up from the magazine.
“If she wants to watch TV when she’s home, then she is to sit in that chair,” I add.
“It wasn’t labeled,” she says, like it’s none of her business. “Where is she, anyway?”
“She cleans on Tuesday nights,” I say, and try to make it sound as if Mom has to work harder because Gertrude is now living with us.
“Cleaning! Christ! I would never do that,” she mutters into the magazine.
I’m coloring the shadow on my drawing of the snake. For a while there’s silence, apart from the occasional sigh and the sound of her chewing gum. Then she stops leafing through the magazine, and I can feel a tingling in the hairs on the back of my neck. It must be because she’s looking at me.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
The pencil stops in front of me, and the sharp point is right under the stone-carved eye of the snake. I clench my jaw and lower my head closer to the book, determined to act as if I didn’t hear the question.
“Are you deaf?”
This remark is followed by a light kick to my right calf. She has positioned herself in the chair so that she can poke me in the legs and the backs of my thighs with her toes. Then she starts to chew on this joke as she chews the poison-pink gum. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her black-painted toenails dangling over the side of the chair.
“Joshy boy? Got a girlfriend, huh? Tell cousin Trudy. Joshy Woshy boy? Girlfriend?”
Poke in leg, poke in thigh, poke in leg.
“Stop it,” I say, trying hard to keep calm.
“Still a virgin boy, boy? No dirty thoughts yet?”
I climb to my feet, black with anger, holding the book, Life and Creation, tight to my chest, like armor. I don’t realize what I’ve said until I’ve already blurted out a damn good insult.
“Shut up, Gert-Rude.”
First the magazine comes flying in the direction of my head — an immensely thick catalog, as a matter of fact — and I duck just in time to avoid it. Then comes my cousin, full force, with all her claws stretched out, hissing in the air, jumping on me, knocking me to the floor like nothing and sitting astride me. I notice she’s wearing black lacy underwear. She grabs my wrists, pinning them to the floor. This girl knows how to fight; I’m stuck in a vise. She’s much stronger than she looks. I could possibly shake myself loose by thrusting my hips upward. But somehow it doesn’t feel appropriate. I’m a victim, stuck in a trap, and it’s a curiously exciting feeling that shoots from my head down into my crotch. Her face is close to mine, and her breasts, large and heavy, swing gently back and forth under the sweater so I can almost see them above the rim of the open neck. She hooks her long legs around my feet so I can’t move except for my head.
“Well, then,” she pants. “Want a little fight, boy?”
I try to break loose, but I don’t want to get free just yet. Her earring is dangling at my face. I could bite it and rip it out of her ear. Her dark hair falls over my face and tickles my nose. I try to move to the side, but it’s hopeless.
“Don’t get too excited,” she purrs, and arranges herself on top of me. The two hills under her sweater rise and fall, and I can smell the sweet fragrance up from the open neck. The smell is quite different when she’s put it on, much warmer and sweeter.
“Now, I won’t let you go until you’ve had a proper kiss,” she says.
I react immediately, trying to break free, but she spits her chewing gum on the carpet and sticks out her lips, kissing the air between our faces. This is the sickest and most disgusting situation I’ve
ever known, but at the same time so exciting, so exhilarating. I’ve never felt such a powerful tingling inside of me. It shoots down my thighs and out of the soles of my feet, on one hand, and on the other it runs up into my head and out of my ears.
She’s trying very hard to kiss me on the lips, but I jerk my head to the sides so her kisses fall on my cheeks, my neck, my ears. I scream and shout and pretend I want to break free, but really I don’t want to. This is so horribly exciting that the humiliation is completely worth it. At least for as long as she doesn’t figure out that I’m actually enjoying it. She chuckles as she nibbles my earlobes and growls. Then the excitement is about to overwhelm me, and she must not realize that I am about to shame myself by the natural function of the male body in this situation, so without thinking I grab the last straw that every cornered victim is forced to apply if he’s going to run free. I spit right in her eye. She howls with a piercing noise, moves her hands to her face, and jumps to her feet. I run like a cockroach, on all fours, down the hall, up the stairs into my room, then slam the door, turn the key, and lock it.
Panting, out of breath, I fall into a heap at the door and listen to my cousin’s thundering noise as she storms toward my room, throws herself at the door, and shakes the doorknob. But when the door won’t open, she bangs her fists on it, and the sounds from her are far from being made by a human throat. It’s like a terrible ogre is trying to break down my door, wanting to tear me to pieces. And most likely that’s exactly what she has in mind. I sit on my bed, trying to catch my breath. I have to get calm and figure this out. While the door is locked, there’s nothing to fear. I stumble to my fish tank, open up a can of food with trembling fingers, and sprinkle the tiny flakes onto the still water. How many fish do I have now? It’s been a while since I’ve counted them. Are there eighteen or twenty? I close my ears to the swearing and cursing by the door and start counting my fish. The buzz dwindles down, and my body corrects itself; everything is as it should be, my breathing calm, my heart at ease. The program was really educational and showed conclusively that snakes are the most disgusting creatures on the planet. They’re ice-cold and slimy and don’t have any feelings, no more than a rug. They are, in fact, nature’s greatest blunder because they’re completely useless but ruin things constantly for others. They murder small animals who just want to live in peace and quiet — wind themselves around them until they choke or else paralyze them with poison. Just like my cousin there, who has finally ceased the beating and gone over to pleading.
Fish in the Sky Page 6