What Do Fish Have to Do With Anything?

by Avi

  Talk about getting goose bumps. I nearly froze to death. Really freaked. “Oh, man . . .” was just about all I could say.

  He was staring at the gun.

  “Where’d . . . you get that?” I stammered.

  “A guy I know.”

  “What guy?”

  “Hangs around school.”

  Trying to lighten things up a bit, I said, “What else did he give you?”

  At first he didn’t say anything. Then he reached into his pocket, fished around, and drew out his balled-up hand. And held it out to me. In his palm lay six bullets. Their casings were silver, the bullet heads were dark.

  “That gun real?” I said.

  Danny grunted, which I took to be yes.

  Really upset, I just stood there, trying to figure what this was all about. Truth is, with that dejected look on his face and that gun and bullets, I was scared.

  “This guy — why did he give it to you?” I asked.

  After a long moment Danny said, “To make fun of me.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I think he sells drugs, or something. And there are always these guys who hang around with him.”

  “Do you?”

  “Do what?”

  “Hang with him?”

  He shook his head. Then he said, “But I watch them. I don’t know why. They’re always laughing. Fooling around. Then this guy suddenly looked at me and called me over. And at first I didn’t think he meant me, but he said yes. So I went over. And he says, ‘What you looking at?’ And I said, ‘Nothing.’ And he said, ‘You look like one dead dog. I mean, you look like you’re nothing.’

  “And I didn’t say anything because I know it’s true, so I just stood there. Then he said, ‘Why don’t you just do the whole job?’ And I said, ‘What?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, finish it off. Do something useful. Go kill yourself.’”

  When I heard that, the hairs on the back of my neck crawled. I just stared at Danny, feeling a trickle of sweat slide down my back.

  “People think I’m nothing,” he said, looking like he was going burst into tears.

  “That’s not true,” I whispered.

  “It is true,” he said, as much to himself as to me.

  “I don’t have any friends. I go to school, but I hate it. I don’t do much of anything. But all the time, inside, I have this . . . this fear in me.”

  “Fear about what?”

  “About being who I am. Nothing. It’s just always there. Inside.”

  “You ever talk to your parents?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I think they feel the same way.”

  “But you’re not . . . going to do it, are you?”

  He stared at the gun and squeezed the bullets in his fist till his knuckles turned white. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “I am.”

  “But . . . why?”

  “People think I can’t do anything. That I’m a coward. I . . . I want to show people I’m not.”

  “I don’t think you should,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “You could fix things. You could. And you’re just doing what someone told you to do, not what you want to do. I mean, you should talk to your mother. Your father. How do you think they’d feel?”

  Actually, what I wanted to do was jump forward and grab the gun, but I didn’t think I could. He was bigger than me. Besides, I was scared about myself too. I had heard about people getting killed in struggles for guns.

  Then I thought, maybe the gun isn’t loaded. But, like he was reading my mind, he began to load the gun, pushing the bullets into its handle. I had missed my chance.

  “I just don’t think you . . . should do it,” I stammered.

  He kept loading the gun. “I’m not so sure I should either,” he said. “That’s why I came here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Those boxes,” he said. He looked across the room. There they were, the two boxes I’d made, sitting on the mantle. “Bring them over here,” he said. His voice was getting stronger. “Come on,” he almost shouted. “Do it!”

  Jolted, I fetched the boxes, one at a time, and put them on the low table before him.

  “Maybe I won’t do it,” he said, his voice quavering a little. “But I have to try.”

  “Danny, you’re not thinking,” I said, edging forward. “You’re — ”

  “I want to do what I want!” That time he did shout. It made me jump back.

  He opened the two boxes. Into one of them, he put the gun.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  He closed the lids. “Okay,” he said, “here’s where you come in. Just mix up the boxes. Then I pick one box. If I pick the one that has the gun inside it, I do it.”

  “Danny . . . that’s crazy.”

  He shook his head. “It’ll prove something.”

  “What?”

  “I told you. That I can do it. See, if there’s something inside, I do it. If nothing, I don’t.”

  “Danny, please,” I cried. “It’s really insane!”

  He looked at me. There was something wild in his eyes. He meant what he said.

  “I’m not going to do it,” I said.

  “Then I’ll pick without you. And I’ll know which box it’s in. This way you can give me a fifty-fifty chance.”

  “I don’t want any part of this,” I said.

  “Too late,” was his reply.

  “It’s so wrong!” I shouted. Then I wheeled around. “I’m calling the police.”

  “You call and I’ll do it before they get here.”

  That stopped me. “Danny!” I shouted. “Please!” I was crying now, not knowing what to do.

  He reached for the boxes, flipping open the lid of the one in which the gun now sat.

  “No, wait!” I said. “I’ll do it. Only, you have to promise you won’t do anything if you pick the empty one.”

  He became thoughtful. Then he said, “Yeah, I promise.”

  “You going to leave the room?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Then how am I going to do it?”

  “I’ll shut my eyes and count to . . . fifteen.”

  “You might peek.”

  “I won’t. You going to do it?”

  I took a deep breath. “Yeah.”

  He shut the box lid.

  “And you promise,” I said, “if you pick the box with nothing inside, you won’t . . . you know, kill yourself? Danny, this is stupid!” I shouted.

  “You going to help or not?” he demanded. He had become almost fierce.

  I licked my lips. “I guess. . . .”

  “I want to do it now,” he said.

  I edged a little closer. “You going to count fast or slow?”

  “Medium,” he said.

  “And you promise you won’t look?”

  He nodded.

  I got close to the boxes. “Okay,” I said, my voice hoarse from tension.

  He shut his eyes.

  “Can you see me?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I had this sudden thought of grabbing the gun and running out of the house with it. But I was too scared of what he might do.

  Then, even as I tried to think that through, he said, “One!”

  I reached for the boxes.

  “Two! You’re not shuffling them,” he cried out. “I can hear. Three.”

  I shuffled the boxes, loudly as I could. As I did I glanced up, wanting to make sure he really had his eyes closed. Fast as anything, I dropped the gun into my bathrobe pocket.

  He kept counting, and it seemed that he, you know, counted a little slower at the end. Then he finally said, “Fifteen.” He opened his eyes and stared at the boxes. They were really identical. I mean you really couldn’t tell one from the other, and of course, you couldn’t see into them. I could see him swallowing, and that place over his jaw, near his ear, was fluttering.

  “Please, Danny,” I said, stepping back toward the do
orway and praying like mad that he wouldn’t see what I’d done. “Please, don’t even choose.”

  For a while he just stared at the boxes. Never looked at me. Not once. Then, with his hands shaking so hard I could see it, he reached forward. First he moved toward one box, stopped, and turned to the other. Then he swallowed hard, licked his lips, and, like, squirmed about on the couch. I was feeling sick. Don’t catch on, I was saying to myself. Don’t catch on.

  Finally — and it looked like he had to force himself — he placed his hands — with a clunk — on one of the boxes.

  I could hear — and see — his breathing as he drew the box toward him. Not that he opened it right away. He just sat there, his hands on the box, eyes closed. Tears were running down his cheeks.

  He lifted his hands slightly and, using his thumbs, lifted the box lid. His eyes were still closed. Then he opened them.

  “Empty!” he cried. Oh, man, it was one huge shout of relief. Then he threw himself back against the couch and started to cry.

  I watched him. Would he or would he not check the other box? I decided I had to take the chance. I went out into the hall to the phone and called my father. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “It’s Danny,” I said. “Get here quick. And you’d better call one of his parents too.”

  My dad did get there quick, and when I told him what happened he took over, starting by putting his arms around Danny, who was still crying. Then Danny’s mother came. And there were a lot of tears, and I kept hearing Danny say, “I didn’t want to do it.”

  After a while Danny and his mother went home. I was standing there, still in my bathrobe, looking at my father. He was sitting in his easy chair, lost in his own thoughts. He suddenly looked up. “Do you think he would have killed himself if he had opened the other box?”

  “No,” I said.

  Puzzled, he looked at me. “What makes you so sure?”

  I went over to the other — still closed — box and flipped open the lid. Of course it was empty too.

  “I don’t get it,” he said, obviously baffled.

  I pulled the pistol out of my bathrobe pocket and handed it to him. “When he had his eyes closed,” I explained, “I made sure both boxes had nothing inside.”

  My dad stared at me.

  I said, “Nothing inside the box but his life. Good thing he couldn’t see that.”

  Okay, you want my side of the story. Hey, no problem. It begins cool. But it ends . . . well . . . I have to tell you.

  See, my parents had been divorced for about eight months. Then along comes my first birthday since that captivating event occurred. Like, I figure, this has to be something special. I’m about to become a teenager. Way killer.

  When my folks got divorced it was supposed to be a joint custody thing. But as far as I could figure out, my father thought that “joint custody” meant that he could live in his own joint, while my mom could take care of the custody part. I was living with my mom along with my younger sister. Course now and again Dad was willing to see us — when it fit his schedule. So, since he wasn’t living that far away, I saw him once in a while.

  When I did see him we’d do a movie or dinner, maybe both. With him you never knew. I even spent a couple of weekends with him — and his girlfriend, whose name is Louise. I call her Lulu. Killer boring. Most of the time I watched TV. Copped some of Lulu’s cigs. Worked on my addiction. She didn’t care. I mean she didn’t want to be my mother. Sister, maybe. Friend. Who knew? Not me.

  Anyway, for some reason that I never figured out, my father always called me on Tuesday nights. I mean, I know why he called me, but I don’t know his reasons for picking Tuesdays. As far as days go, Tuesday is what? Like, not exactly ripe. Know what I’m saying? On Thursdays he called my little sister.

  So there it was, my birthday coming up and he calls me the last Tuesday before it happens. Three-day warning.

  “. . . okay, pal,” he said, after he asked me official father questions like, “How are you doing? How is school? See anything good on TV? Did you see the Cowboys game?” Once we got this sitcom dad talk out of the way, he said, “Listen here, pal, your thirteenth birthday is coming up. That’s a big one. I’d really like to get you something nice. So what would you like? How about you suggesting something?”

  “Anything?” I said. You know, checking, ’cause my dad is big on promises, small on delivery.

  “Well, you know,” he said, sort of backing off and blowing off black murk like a squid, “anything within reason.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I’ve been thinking.” Which was true. I’d been working on what it meant to have my first birthday with my parents split and all that. I mean, birthdays are important. I know, there must be tons of people — millions — born on the same day, but you don’t know that. You think it’s your own day. Know what I’m saying? The day belongs to you. It’s like writing your own fortune cookie. Cool.

  So I said to him, “I’d like to go out to dinner with you — ”

  “Hey, great. Love it. You’re on.”

  “Yeah, just you, me . . . and mom.”

  For a moment he didn’t say anything. I had blind-sided him. Anyway, he took the hit and breathed. He does that — breathing — normally, I know, but when he’s uptight, you hear it, like a smoker running the two hundred right after dinner. Sure enough, he says, “Your mom?”

  “Yeah, you know,” I said. “The one you were married to for fifteen years. Remember her? Brown hair. About five six, with hazel eyes, dumpy figure, who is supposed to get regular child-support checks — ”

  “Parker . . . ,” he said, “I don’t need your sarcasm.”

  “I wasn’t being sarcastic,” I said. “But isn’t my idea within reason?” I asked. “Having a birthday dinner with my mom and my dad doesn’t seem to be such a big deal to me.”

  Of course I was lying. It was a big deal. I knew it. He knew it. Thing was, I knew he wouldn’t say it. Like, I love putting my parents on the edge. You know, the absolute edge. It forces them to be themselves. Makes ’em squirm. For real. And best of all, I can watch.

  He says, “I don’t know. . . . Your mother and I have sort of given up talking these days. When I need to know something, I speak to . . . uh . . .” He stumbled for words.

  “Me?” I suggested. “And Sarah. On Thursdays. But what about the dog? You know, Big Foot misses you. In fact, he misses you most of all. Lately it’s been so bad he’s been asking about his dog-support checks. Really, Dad, you should call him too. Maybe give him Sunday.”

  “Back off, Parker. Back off.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’m not asking you and Mom to renew your sacred vows and get married again. I just — ”

  “Okay. Okay,” he cut in. “You ask her. See what she says. Then get back to me.”

  “Cool.”

  “You know my beeper number.”

  “Right,” I said. “And you know mine, 666.”

  I slammed down the phone, lay back on my bed, and tried to think out my next step. Because the next step was asking my ma.

  My ma works as a legal assistant at some stockbrokers’ place downtown. She puts in long days for little pay and then comes home to us all beat up. We beat her up some more.

  After school we have a baby-sitter. Me, at my age, with a baby-sitter! These baby-sitters are usually college girls — excuse me, young women — and they don’t stay very long, mostly because I give them a hard time and then they quit. Not that they ever tell my ma that I am the cause. Since they tend to like her they usually say something about a lot of schoolwork. No way.

  Like, with one of them — her name was Dora — one day I said, “Hey, cool, you have a mustache. Does it tickle the guys you kiss?” Next day, she was out of there. But, hey, I’m honest.

  Anyway, I made my way to Mom’s room. She wasn’t there. I went to my sister’s cave. I mean, it is a room, but Sarah keeps it dark, and she never picks up her stuff from the floor. So it’s like a cave, or better yet, a
n abandoned cave, a cave that’s about to collapse. I think she’s hiding. But then she’s only nine.

  She was there, and so was my mother. My mother was helping her do homework. My ma’s not supposed to do that, but Sarah is a whiner, and my ma gives in. If I whine, she gets sore. Look, I’m just telling you the way it is.

  “Hey, Mommy . . . ,” I called.

  “Just a minute,” she said. “I’m working with Sarah.”

  As if I hadn’t noticed that for myself. I mean, the way I see it is, one of the basic jobs parents have is to tell you what you already know. Know what I’m saying? Echo machines.

  Anyway, I said, “Something incredibly important came up that I need to talk to you about. It’s so awesome urgent it’ll change the course of my life forever. But it can wait.” I left the room, making sure my baseball cap was on backward. It bugs her.

  By the time my mother came into my room it was about nine-thirty, and I was stretched out on my bed doing nothing but listening to some loud music, which is the only way to go. Otherwise you think too much.

  People always say kids like me don’t think enough. But I’ll tell you, actually, we think too much. We just don’t let on.

  Well, she stood by the door, leaning on the frame. I could see she was tired. And I knew she wasn’t going to be thrilled by my birthday idea, but a teenager has to do what he’s got to do. Hey, we’re practicing to be adults.

  “You said you had something important . . . ,” she said. From the look on her face, I could tell she didn’t really believe me, but was prepared to listen to me like a good ma should. And my ma is good. I know that because she’s always telling me.

  “Yeah, right, it’s about my birthday. . . .”

  Her face softened. “Thirteen years old. Would you like to have some friends over? Do something special?”

  “I want an arm tattoo of a busty nude lady fighting a python caught between her legs.”

  “No.”

  “I want to have my left nipple pierced with a gold chain that attaches to my right nostril.”

  “No.”

  “Third time lucky. I want to go out for dinner.”

  “Well, sure . . . though I have a small gift already. But if it’s not too pricy a place.”

  “No, I mean, I want to go out to dinner with you and Dad.”