Two-Thousand-Pound Goldfish

by Betsy Byars

  “Come on in,” Pepper called. “I’m cooking.”

  “That’s encouraging. Usually she’s defrosting.”

  “Grandma!”

  Grandma felt her way to the sofa and put her swollen legs up on the coffee table. “You two socialize,” she said. “I’ll rest.”

  Warren went into the kitchen where Aunt Pepper was reading the instructions on a package of frozen lasagna. “Sit down,” she said with a grin, “and tell me about your latest movie.” Aunt Pepper was the only person who was really interested in his plots. “I hope there’s a good part for me.”

  “It’s about a goldfish,” he said without his usual enthusiasm.

  “What is this? Some sort of a nature study?”

  “No, it’s a two-thousand-pound goldfish. See, it got flushed into the sewer and has grown to enormous size because of a chemical in the water.”

  “I like that.”

  “You like them all.”

  “No, no, I did not like The Revenge of the Snails. I refused to be slimed to death, remember? I have my principles. Anyway, what does this goldfish do, swallow people?”

  “Ingests them.”

  “Ah, and somebody says, ‘No, no, it can’t be. No goldfish can weigh two thousand pounds. Why, a goldfish that big could ingest …’ ‘Go ahead and finish, Chief. Could ingest …’ ” She paused and looked at Warren, waiting.

  “Two sewer workers,” he supplied.

  “This goldfish has ingested two sewer workers? I love it. Can I have a part in the movie?”

  He nodded.

  “How about this. I come into the sewer. I am pursued by a mugger and I hide behind a pipe. The mugger spots me and starts for me. Suddenly he sees a look of horror come over my face. He thinks, naturally, that I am horrified because of him, but actually it is because I see an enormous, giant goldfish rising out of the water behind him. I scream, ‘Look out behind you!’ He says, ‘Lady, that is the oldest trick in the book,’ and at that moment—” Pepper broke off. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you interested? I was just getting into my role.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said.

  “You can tell me.”

  “It’s nothing!”

  Aunt Pepper waited. She knew that when Warren claimed nothing was wrong, he usually broke down on his own and told what the trouble was. “Well.” He looked up at his aunt. “What’s wrong is that I think Weezie knows where Mom is.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “Weezie talked to Mom on the phone.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “No, but I know it’s true. Everybody probably knows where Mom is but me.”

  “I don’t know where your mom is, and I don’t think Weezie does either.” She sat down at the table across from Warren. She glanced at the door to the living room and lowered her voice.

  “All right, you might as well know this. Once a month—on the first Monday at seven o’clock—your mom calls the phone booth in front of the library. Or that’s when she’s supposed to call. One of us, Weezie or me, goes there and waits. Sometimes she calls and sometimes she doesn’t. It’s her way of keeping in touch.”

  He sat up straighter. “How long has this been going on?”

  “In the past three years your mom has called maybe six or seven times. She asks about you and Grandma and Weezie, and that’s it. We never talk about where she is or what she’s doing.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “Honey, your mom has broken the law.”

  “I know that, but—”

  “Once you’ve broken the law, it stays broken It’s like smashing that glass right there. And afterward you can be sorry for what you did, and you can live like a saint, but that doesn’t wipe out what you did.”

  “I know that!”

  “Look at Abbie Hoffman. He’s been living in some town in New York, a model citizen. He served on local committees. A governor commended him for some special service. But none of that wiped out the fact that he broke the law.”

  “I don’t want to hear about him.”

  “I’m telling you so you can understand why your mom can’t come home and be a mom and why you can’t call her and visit her. Your mom has broken the law, and she’s got two choices. She can live in hiding, or she can go to prison.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t talk to her like you do. Maybe if I talked to her, I could go see her. Maybe I could—”

  There was a noise in the doorway. Warren looked up to see his grandmother.

  “Mom, we’re talking about Saffee,” Pepper said in a gentle voice.

  “I don’t know any Saffee,” his grandmother answered and, turning away, went back and sat heavily on the old sofa.

  “It’s got to be destroyed. We can’t have a two-thousand-pound fish swimming under our city.”

  “I agree. Our sewer must be made safe for mankind.”

  WARREN WAS STANDING AT the window, watching for his sister to return. His grandmother was in the living room in front of the television set. Usually his grandmother turned on the TV first thing, the way other people switch on lights, but tonight the house was dark and silent.

  Warren’s thoughts turned from the dreary, empty street to the sewer below it. There Bubbles waited in the dark swirling waters.

  Warren had always had strong feelings for his individual monsters. The creatures who attacked in groups—the snails and the cockroaches and the leeches—he could never work up much sentiment about them. But the individuals—Bossy, the giant skunk—he cared about them.

  Even so, Warren believed he had a special feeling for Bubbles. Perhaps it was because Bubbles was one of those saddest of creatures who are peaceful by nature and who are, because of man’s careless stupidity, turned into something that has to be destroyed.

  He knew he was going to hate it when that happened to Bubbles. If, that is, he ever destroyed Bubbles.

  Oh, sooner or later someone would get around to saying, “It’s got to be destroyed. We can’t have a two-thousand-pound fish swimming under our city.” And someone else would answer, “I agree. Our sewer must be made safe for mankind.”

  But at the moment nothing was happening. Bubbles was swimming freely through the waters of the sewer, stirring the long, green slime on the walls, causing eddies in the dark water.

  It was the point in a movie where the director would have to build up suspense with a few cutbacks to dangerous pictures of Bubbles’ mouth. Slurp … slurp … slurp. …

  Warren straightened. Maybe the two neighborhood dogs could come into the sewer for shelter from the dog warden, and Bubbles could ingest them. Warren imagined the two dogs, dusty, tired, glancing over their shoulders, lumbering into the sewer, falling down on the hard cement like two bags of bones.

  Warren discarded the idea. He never let anything happen to mongrel dogs unless he absolutely had to. And he liked the neighborhood dog pack. He was proud of the way they escaped the law.

  Perhaps a policeman on horseback could come into the sewer. The horse would sense something was wrong and be skittish, but the policeman would …

  Warren became so engrossed in the thought that he did not see Weezie come around the corner of the drugstore. Then, for a moment, he didn’t recognize her because she was bent forward like a person struggling against a strong wind.

  When Warren saw it was Weezie, he leaned forward so abruptly he struck his head on the window. He turned and started for the door.

  “What is it?” his grandmother said, sitting up straight, startled out of a dream. “Has something happened?”

  “No.”

  Warren went out the door and down the stairs so quickly he met Weezie out on the sidewalk. “Where have you been all day?”

  “Don’t bother me.”

  Weezie looked even older, more tired. She never wore makeup, and now she looked like she needed some. She attempted to push past Warren, but, for once, he was the stronger.

  “Where have you been?”

  Weezi
e rested one hand on her hip in an old gesture of defiance that now only made her look more tired. “I would like to go upstairs,” she said.

  Warren was blocking the doorway, filling it like his grandmother. “Have you seen Mom?”

  “Warren,” she said, “did it ever occur to you that seeing Mom might not be the wonderful, glorious event you think it’s going to be?”

  “No!” He paused, then said, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you think finding Mom would be the greatest thing that has ever happened in the world. It would be like old times—”

  “It would!”

  “Only it would have to be better than old times to be all right, because you do remember what the old times were like, don’t you?”

  There was a hard note to Weezie’s voice. Warren shifted uneasily, squinting at her, though there was no glare from the late-afternoon sun.

  “The old times, the good old days you want to recreate, were Mom rushing in and out of the house and you and me trying desperately to get her attention and tell her something that had happened at school or something we were worried about and her saying, ‘Go on, go on, I’m listening,’ while she painted signs and cut out pictures of injured Vietnamese and made telephone calls. That was all we ever were to Mom—a background noise, like the radio, something to listen to while she was busy with what really interested her. The only reason she had us was because she was anti-abortion.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Do you realize it has been three years since we even saw her?”

  “I can count.”

  “And because it’s been so long, it’s easy to deceive yourself, don’t you understand that? It’s easy to believe that—oh, if Mom would only come home everything would be all right—”

  “It would!”

  “All right, let’s be realistic, Warren. Suppose we found Mom. Suppose we performed a superhuman feat and found her. Do you honestly believe that she would welcome us with open arms?”

  “Yes!”

  “Or do you believe that she wouldn’t be interested in us at all, that we would just be leftovers from a life she’s left behind?”

  “It wouldn’t be like that. She can’t be with us because of the police. It’s the police that—”

  “You know what it’s like to me? It’s like a long time ago when girls used to have babies when they weren’t married. Back then the girls would go away and have their babies and give them up for adoption and then pretend it never happened. The next-door neighbors wouldn’t even know about it.”

  He looked at her, puzzled. “That didn’t happen to us. She didn’t put us up for adoption.”

  “Let me finish. Today you hear a lot of stories about those adopted kids trying to find their real mothers, only—here’s the point—the real mothers don’t want to be found.”

  “Our mom is not like that.”

  She looked at him, her brown eyes serious. “That’s the way it seems to me.” She made a move to pass him, and he, silenced for the moment, did not try to stop her.

  He watched Weezie go up the stairs. She was pulling herself along by the banister. “Anyway,” he called, his defiance returning, “Pepper told me that Mom calls every month. If she calls every month she must care about us.”

  “Five calls in three years,” Weezie said without turning around.

  “I thought it was more than that. Pepper said six or seven.”

  “Five calls.”

  “Still, she called!”

  Suddenly Warren was overcome with the wish that he had a mother who didn’t care so much about the world. He wished she had never even thought about future generations or atrocities in Asia. He wanted a mother who had smaller concerns. He wanted one of those mothers he saw in Sky City, standing in line to have their children’s pictures made, the children as clean and combed as if they’d just come out of a box.

  He leaned against the doorway. He was breathing with effort, as if he’d been running.

  He wanted a mother who cared what he got on his report card and came to school for conferences and raised a fuss when his pictures weren’t up on the bulletin board. He wanted a mother who would make cupcakes for the Halloween carnival and make him go to Sunday School on Sunday and—

  Suddenly he straightened. He began to run up the stairs after Weezie. He slipped, went down on one knee, and scrambled to his feet.

  Weezie was waiting for him on the second landing, looking down at him with a kind of sadness. Before he could ask his question she said, “No, I did not see our mother, but I can tell you for a fact that you are not going to like finding her.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not going to like what you find.”

  All of a sudden Weezie no longer looked like his sister. She was a stranger. He put one hand on the banister to steady himself.

  Weezie waited, watching him with her dark eyes. Warren and Weezie had different fathers. Weezie’s father lived in the city and gave money for her support and was learning computer science. Warren’s father lived a fugitive life like his mother and sent no money. Warren felt it was that difference that was important now. Weezie actually looked like her father now. He probably looked like his.

  Weezie opened the door and went into the apartment. Warren did not move.

  There had been something in Weezie’s manner, something serious and deep, that had made him stop. This warning—if that’s what it had been—left him with such a strong feeling of dread that he had no desire to run after her with more questions.

  He had the feeling, new and strange to him, that whatever Weezie knew was unhappy information, something that could wait, like a report card. He ran his tongue over his dry lips.

  “Excuse me, Warren.” It was Mrs. Oglesby, coming down the steps. He moved dutifully to the wall. “There’s a good boy.” She patted his head as if he were a puppy.

  He waited, leaning against the wall. Then slowly, feeling tired himself, he began to climb the rest of the stairs.

  “Chief, the monster appears to go for old women.”

  “Mean old women, from the looks of this one.”

  WARREN WAS READING THE old postcards from his mother. It was night, the light was poor, and he was in the bathroom, sitting on the side of the tub, reading from the streetlight. The poor light didn’t matter. Warren knew the words by heart.

  Dears—

  His mom’s handwriting had a rushed, spidery look. He could barely make out the words in good light.

  Dears—Things have been going well—great progress on the media front. Did you see the news coverage of the White House protest last month? I was there—plaid coat, big green hat (borrowed finery as usual). Hope you saw me. I didn’t chain myself to the fence so that (if necessary) I could flyyyyyyy. Be good. Remember me.

  Miss you. Saff.

  The postcards were dark with fingerprints, limp from many readings. They were post-office cards—no pictures of palm trees or mountains or monuments to linger over.

  Dears—

  That was the way she always started. He wished just once she would use his name. Dear Warren would mean a lot to him.

  Dears—Today we went swimming and ate hot dogs and did the things we will all do together when the world is right. I thought of you because on one of the rides—we were at an amusement park (business with pleasure; we glued 2,000 “No Nukes” bumper stickers on cars)—anyway, on one of the rides were a boy and girl who reminded me of you—

  By now she was at the bottom of the card, and the handwriting was smaller, the letters cramped. The personal messages, the parts Warren cherished, were always written like this. He had to have Weezie make them out.

  —laughing and happy, and that’s the way I hope you two are. Love me. Miss me. Saff.

  He shifted uncomfortably. The edge of the tub was hard, and his seat bones needed more flesh. Still, he kept sitting there, turning through the postcards, trying to find some proof that what his sister had implied was not true.


  He knew that his mother loved him and missed him and wanted him with her. He knew it! Yet the almost careless freedom of the postcard messages … The postcards came from everywhere, it seemed, places he wouldn’t have minded visiting himself—the amusement park, the White House.

  This flitting around made her seem more like a creature of nature than a mother. She was like a bird or a moth. And—

  He bent over the cards, searching each one in turn. His eyes were hard and narrow, a scientist looking for evidence.

  And it did not really seem like she was saving the world. Marches and bumper stickers didn’t seem like a Wonder Woman struggle. He felt a faint stirring of guilt as this unsettling thought took root and grew.

  He began going through the cards slower, carefully turning through the limp pieces of paper. Nowhere—not on any postcard—could he find a mention of hardship, of loneliness. Sure, right here she said, “Love you. Miss you,” but she hadn’t even bothered to make those thoughts into complete sentences.

  And lots of times it was “Love me. Remember me. Miss me.”

  He paused, frowning slightly, and read again the message about the amusement park. When he had first received this card, he had loved hearing about the bumper stickers. He remembered he had stood in the hall smiling, as he imagined his mother creeping through the parking lot, her red head bowed, applying the bumper stickers to Cadillacs and Jeeps alike.

  Now there was no pleasure in it. He felt betrayed.

  He thought back to the last time he had seen his mother. She had come into his room one night in her nightgown, clean, her long, curly hair smelling of soap. “Are you asleep, Warren?”

  “No, no.” He had been awake instantly. He had struggled into a sitting position.

  “How’s my pumpkin?” She had hugged him. Her thin body always felt a few degrees cooler than everybody else’s.

  “I’m fine. How long are you going to be here?” This was always his first question.

  “Just tonight. Tomorrow we’re on the march.” Smiling, she held up one fist in a pretense of defiance.