Fish in the Sky

by Fridrik Erlings

  “Josh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be nasty. Let’s be friends, OK? Are you all right in there?”

  I listen for a while until I feel it’s time to show my cousin how noble I can be. I feel really good about myself, having shown her how tough I can get and having drawn the line in our relationship in such a decisive manner. I hope that this will teach her a lesson and that she will show me a little more respect from now on. I turn the key, and the knob slowly turns until a small crack appears and Gertrude peeks through, eyes cut in stone. I realize my mistake; my cousin, the snake, has not forgiven my counterattack. She throws the door wide open so it slams into the wall, jumps on me, screaming louder than ever before, shakes me like a rag doll, and throws me against the radiator. I roll up into a ball while her beating and cursing pound on my back. She fills one fist with my hair and clenches the other, but then a key is turned in the front door. Mom’s home.

  Gertrude looks at me for a second, fiery red with anger, her hair standing on end and her shoulder exposed as her sweater has slipped off to one side. Then she lets go, walks briskly into her room, and slams the door.

  I’m lying limp on the floor when Mom appears in the doorway. For some reason I find all this terribly funny and start to giggle.

  “Josh. Are you lying on the floor?”

  “No,” I say, and rise up slowly.

  “Where’s Gertrude?”

  I nod in the direction of her room and try to keep a straight face.

  “Gertrude, dear,” Mom says, and knocks gently on her door.

  “My name is Trudy, goddamn it, if you could try to remember for once!” she screams from behind the door.

  Mom jerks backward, staring surprised at the door, then at me, then back at the door.

  “I’m so sorry, my dear,” she finally says, devastated for having forgotten once again. It would have been something else if I had screamed at her like that.

  “I was just going to ask you when you have to be in school tomorrow morning,” Mom says.

  “Eight o’clock,” the voice behind the door snaps back, boiling with anger.

  “Then I’ll wake you at seven, darling,” Mom says, and then looks at me. “God, I’m tired,” she says. “Aren’t you going to bed, dear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well. G’night, then.”

  My mother drags her feet out into the hallway and closes the door behind her. Now I become a little frightened that my cousin will seek her revenge for real; maybe she’ll sneak up on me while I’m sleeping. A sudden chill of disgust and excitement shoots through me. But nothing happens.

  I sneak up to her door and peek through the keyhole, like a mouse peeking out of its hole to see if everything is safe. The snake sits all curled up on her bed, sobbing into the palms of her hands. Her shoulders are trembling, and it’s clear she doesn’t want anyone to hear her sobbing, because she grabs her pillow and buries her face in it. Then she falls onto the bed, and the sobbing goes in waves through her spine. Suddenly I feel like a bad person, like an evildoer and a thug. Is she crying because of me? Or is she maybe homesick? Well, who asked her to move to the city, anyway? I know I didn’t. Yeah, sob all you like, my mind shouts, icy and remorseless, while I undress and crawl under my comforter. Sob away and then sod away back north.

  I have a hard time falling asleep; I toss and turn and listen now and then to hear if she’s still crying. But I don’t hear a thing. I’m angry and sullen. I thought we were enemies and was starting to look forward to our next fight. But there’s no fun having an enemy that you’ve started to feel for.

  In a basement room at Peter’s house his father, Jonathan, is lifting weights. He clenches his short fingers around the bar, puffs out his cheeks, sticks his ass out, and lifts. Sometimes he farts, then Peter and I giggle.

  He works out hard on the weights — on the bench press, with free weights, and with hand weights. Then he shows us his biceps and lets us feel them.

  “Try this,” he says, and gives us each a hand weight. We can hardly lift them, but we still try, getting red in the face and sweaty, then we burst out laughing and our strength is gone.

  “There now, try to do this properly,” he orders, and we try but give up.

  “You have to work on your muscles, boys,” he says.

  And Peter tries harder again and again, but I don’t bother.

  Peter watches his father practice, helps him count the lifts, writes down the weight. Then he gives me a look of admiration.

  “Man. He’s got two hundred pounds on the bar!”

  Jonathan used to be quite a sportsman and the basement walls are covered in photographs from the time when he was competing in athletics — running or gymnastics or skiing. And even though Peter is not as much of a sports hero as Tom, he’s still no wimp. He is built exactly like his father — broad, strong, and stocky, with auburn hair and short, thick fingers and legs. They’re like father and son should be. They’re very close; they’re companions. And to Peter, all this is very natural and obvious, since he doesn’t know anything else.

  “Aren’t you going to lift it?” Jonathan asks.

  “It’s too heavy,” I say.

  “What kind of talk is that? It will continue to be too heavy if you don’t practice. Go on, take it.”

  And I push myself on the hand weights, mostly so I won’t irritate Jonathan and feel ashamed of being a wimp. Maybe he thinks I’ll be coming here on a regular basis to practice, maybe he thinks I’m enjoying myself, here in the Sweat Hole, as he calls this joint, watching him work out and listening to him fart away. Maybe he thinks I’m enjoying watching him being such a great father to Peter.

  But with Jonathan, it’s always all the way. Since I’m here, I must take part in the lifting and help Peter change the weights on the bar, assist him in writing down how much Jonathan’s lifting. Everything revolves around me and Peter admiring his strength, and Peter is about to explode with pride about his father’s overgrown muscles. Sometimes this father-and-son happiness is a bit too much for me.

  They’re so alike, a bit proud of themselves, a bit better than others, a bit happy about being who they are.

  “My dad was the champion at the hundred-meter around here not so long ago,” I say just to balance my situation.

  “Really?” Peter says, but doesn’t take his eyes off his father.

  “And wrestling,” I lie.

  “Wrestling? Really?” Jonathan pants on the bench press. “What year?”

  “Can’t remember,” I say, and feel at once that this is not working.

  “What’s he doing these days?” Jonathan asks.

  “He still works on the freighter, you know, Orca, the cargo ship,” I say and fill up with pride again, because everyone has heard of the Orca because of Christian the Ninth.

  “Really?” says Jonathan, but then asks no further.

  “His dad gave him that falcon for his birthday,” Peter says, and it’s good to feel the attention finally turning toward me and my father in this sweat-hole joint of father’s pride.

  “The falcon?” Jonathan says with interest.

  “Yeah, you know, stuffed,” Peter adds. “The one who landed on the Orca last year.”

  “Oh, yeah,” says Jonathan. “I shot me an eagle once,” he adds, and farts. He seldom has any tolerance for talking about anyone other than himself.

  “For real?” says Peter, looking at me wide eyed, and I feel my father vaporize from the conversation.

  “When I was on the farm with your grandfather. Yes, sir, I did,” he says, and sits up, soaked in sweat.

  Jonathan also needs to be a little bit better than anyone else. And sometimes Peter is like that. I wonder if you only become like your father if you’re living with him. Or are qualities like bragging and chauvinism inherited in the same way as short fingers, auburn hair, and puffy cheeks?

  The door of the Sweat Hole opens, and Alice, Peter’s sister, walks in.

  When she sees me, she suddenly jerks her shoulde
rs up to her ears, like she’s trying to hide, but I pretend not to see her and start to look at photos of Jonathan competing in various sporting events. Peter gives his father a towel, and he dries the sweat off his face.

  “What do you want, Alice, dear?” Jonathan asks.

  “Can I go to the movies?” she asks.

  “With whom?”

  “With Linda,” she says, and slants her head a bit.

  “Who’s she?”

  “My friend.”

  “How old is she?”

  “She’s in my class, Dad,” Alice replies, and there’s a grain of irritation in her voice.

  “I was just asking,” he says, and it’s obvious he doesn’t like her tone of voice.

  “Can I?” she asks.

  “What are you going to see?”

  “We haven’t decided.”

  “Oh?” he says with a surprised look on his face. “How about deciding first and then asking for permission?”

  “C’mon, Dad, we just want to see a movie.”

  “An R-rated movie, no doubt. Am I right?” he says, and stands up from the bench. “Don’t you have to help your mother at all?”

  Alice doesn’t answer, but she’s red in the face, and her eyes shoot back and forth from Peter to me.

  “Let’s go,” Peter says in a low voice, and I’m grateful for getting out of this oppressive atmosphere.

  We slip past Alice. As soon as we are gone, Alice says in a pleading voice, “Linda doesn’t have to help her mother all the time.”

  And then her father starts to bellow in a thundering voice, “Well! You’re not Linda, young lady! And you’re the oldest; you’ve got responsibilities. I’m not having you wandering off to see goodness knows what kind of movie with some girl we’ve never met. You’ve got to earn our trust by shouldering your responsibilities at home.”

  I follow Peter through the laundry room, and he doesn’t say a word but is silent until we reach the stairs.

  “I have to do my homework,” he says.

  “Me too,” I say.

  And for the first time Peter drops our usual salute.

  “See you later” is all he says, then he runs up the stairs.

  When I walk past the house, I can hear Jonathan’s harsh voice out of the small window of the Sweat Hole, and in between, Alice, shrieking in protest, obviously not going to the movies tonight.

  “It’s the seven o’clock news,” says the radio on the kitchen table as Mom runs around preparing my school lunch and getting herself ready for work. I have an uncontrollable morning stare. I’m not really here or there. The cornflakes in the bowl before me are like yellow icebergs in a milky-white ocean, floating aimlessly until I drip the milk off the spoon onto the flakes and they sink.

  “Heavy storms have continued through the night off the coast. After an eight-hour period of no communication with the shipping vessel Orca, we have finally made contact and learned of an extraordinary story from two of the ship’s crew,” says the announcer at the moment the last flake sinks into the milk. Mom appears in the doorway with her furry hat on, half clad in her coat, with a boot on one foot.

  “Second mate Brian Gibbs narrowly escaped death last night when two loose containers on board the cargo ship Orca were swept loose in the storms, trapping the man who was attempting to secure the containers. Fellow worker Oliver Stephenson suffered minor injuries rescuing his trapped colleague.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Mom breathes. She sits down at the table and turns the volume up.

  “Brian Gibbs was airlifted to the hospital early this morning with severe injuries to both legs. Doctors say he is likely to lose them due to the severity of the damage sustained. The other man is said to be in stable condition and will remain on board the ship.”

  Mom is dumbstruck. And suddenly I realize that my father’s life is in danger. Alone, standing on the wet deck of a rolling giant in the ocean, surrounded by many thousands of tons of thick steel with containers crashing and sliding all around him. At any moment, what happened to that man, could happen to Dad.

  Mom stands up to finish putting on her coat and the other boot, but she’s not in a hurry anymore. She wraps the foil around my sandwich and puts it on the table.

  “Don’t be too late, my dear,” she says, and strokes my hair. “We should thank God that he’s safe. I’m sure we’ll hear more news soon.”

  Then she’s gone to the chocolate factory. That’s her fight with the elements. But that’s never mentioned in the news.

  I can picture the whole thing before my eyes: the gigantic cargo ship cuts the black waves, the white foam spraying in all directions, the ship rolling to the sides, almost capsizing. And the men on board, what are their thoughts? Closed up inside walls of steel out in the vast ocean? Their wives and children? Am I in his thoughts?

  I sit next to Peter, and he taps my arm, asking, “Did you bring it?” I nod and show him inside my schoolbag, where the laughing bag awaits being tickled at lunchtime. But I’m feeling strangely upset inside and can’t wait for the day to end. I’m like my mom is sometimes; I have to take a deep breath every now and then and exhale slowly. Once in a while, I manage to take a glimpse at Clara, who’s sitting there so still and tidy and smart and beautiful and dedicated, so calm and lovely and at ease. I feel so small and hopeless. My head fills with fog and I can’t concentrate and I’m completely startled when Miss Wilson asks me what Ghana’s main export is.

  “Cocoa?” I guess after a short while.

  “No, Josh Stephenson, it’s not cocoa, and you should know that.”

  Then Clara raises her hand, and Miss Wilson points at her. She lowers her arm, clears her throat a little, pulls the sleeve on her sweater over the back of her hand a tiny bit.

  “It’s cotton,” she says.

  “Correct,” says Miss Johnson.

  And I disappear into the fog again and can’t find my way back until lunchtime, when Peter wants to give the laughing bag the stage. He stuffs it under his sweater and walks to the back of the classroom while everybody’s eating lunch. Miss Wilson is reading the paper at the front. Suddenly a metallic voice echoes out into the classroom: Ho, ho, ho! Everybody jumps, surprised, and looks around not realizing where the voice is coming from. Hee, hee, hee, the bag cries, and then some people start to laugh and spit out their lunches, and before I know it, all hell breaks loose and the class is screaming with laughter. Ha, ha, ha — the bag can hardly catch its breath, either, and hisses, almost out of air with almost no voice at all for a while until it starts to neigh: Hehehehohoho, in a deep male voice. Peter walks around the classroom, moving his mouth in accordance with the sounds from the bag so it looks as if he’s really making them.

  Miss Wilson is not laughing. Finally she’s had enough and orders Peter to stop this at once.

  At last it’s Religious Education, the last class of the day. And because Easter is getting close, Miss Wilson says we will read about the Last Supper. She starts to describe the ancient Easter customs of the old Jewish religion to us, the meaning of eating the bread and drinking the wine. Her face becomes really holy and her voice melodramatic. She is a really religious person and has never been married because of it. Peter gets a note from the back of the class, and he looks over his shoulder. Tom is blinking at him. Peter puts his hand in my schoolbag, grabs the laughing bag, and thrusts it behind him. It goes silently, steadily, down the row from hand to hand until it reaches Tom.

  “‘Jesus said unto him,’” Miss Wilson reads in a trembling voice, “‘Truly I tell you, on this night, before the cock crows you will deny me three times.’”

  Miss Wilson looks up from the Holy Book with the sorrowful expression of the Savior, who knows he will be betrayed by his friends. Her voice is almost breaking into a sob when she looks over the classroom. The silence is paralyzed and holy.

  “And how did Peter reply?” she asks the class, but nobody says a word, because nobody knows what he said. There is a moment of silence, but then the sudden answe
r echoes around the classroom with a powerful metallic voice, as if from the heavens: Ho hee ho hee, ho ho hee!

  Miss Wilson is struck by lightning as the class explodes into hysterical laughter. Tom tries, in vain, to turn off the heavenly message, but he can’t seem to find the button.

  Ha hee ha hee ha hee ha ho ho!

  “Silence!” Miss Wilson screams as she storms between the tables in the direction of poor Tom, who isn’t sure anymore whether to laugh or cry but can’t quite stop laughing. She tears the laughing bag from his hands, and it suddenly stops, as if it’s aware that in the hands of Miss Wilson, it’s wiser to keep quiet. Then she walks briskly up to the teacher’s desk, then to the window, and opens it. The class falls silent and catches its breath in perfect unison. Miss Wilson gives us a victorious smile, as if she’s thinking, He who laughs last, laughs best. She puts her hand holding the bag out of the window and drops it.

  Distant sounds seep through the open window: a car passes by, a plane flies far overhead, then silence, silence, silence — until plonk, the bag hits the pavement below. But before Miss Wilson can close the window, the bag’s last words can be heard roaring and echoing around the school yard: Aaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! And the classroom explodes.

  My father is a hero, returning to harbor today with the rest of Orca’s crew.