The Tale of the Wrong Color Goldfish

Wrong Color Goldfish

Maybe what I heard in my sleep was only a soft thud or maybe it really whispered my name. I was nine or ten years old and had fallen asleep in my bunk reading a flower catalog by flashlight, munching on hazel nuts. My dreams were as usual in black and white, but more vivid, especially the voice.

I was on my feet, out of bed, and more or less on automatic pilot. I was compelled to do perform a task, undertake a mission. I was a barefoot fuzzy robot in pajama bottoms. I walked directly to the living room, not banging into anything in the blackness, without stopping in the bathroom to pee. Groping through the dark I grasped the knob on the television twisting it until I sensed the set come to life. Its screen filled with a swirling blizzard of blue gray and white specks, becoming my nightlight, casting a wash of bluish light and brownish shadows over the living room.

As tubes drew heat through the miracle of electricity, the television yawned and crackled. The ensuing snap and cough of the audio was benignly muffled. Fortunately for the seven family members still asleep I had not turned the TV knob further, otherwise the noise would have disturbed their slumber the way the voice in my dream had awakened me.

In the bluish television light something did not catch my eye. All the goldfish in the tank were just that: gold. My wrong color goldfish, Popeye, was missing. I tilted my head to scan the surface of the water for floaters .. no belly up fish.

Carefully, I backtracked to the couch, where I had left my shoes the night before. I plopped onto the overstuffed sofa, leaned forward, and tucked the laces inside my shoes before slipping my feet in. The laces were broken and had been knotted back together so many times that there was little give between the eyelets. I did not want to trip on my laces, nor did I want to tie them. More than anything else, I did not want to step on anything with my bare feet. I walked out of the living room without turning off the television and through the dining alcove and into the kitchen.

I had already visualized the tablespoon in my hand, long before I reached for the silverware drawer, long before I pulled the drawer handle. Even before I passed through the persimmon hued dining room I could feel the weight of the metal implement cradled in my palm. I already held it with my mind, knew I needed it, even in advance of slipping my feet into the unlaced shoes.

Why hadn't I replaced the laces? I could have bought myself a pair of shoelaces. Dad gave me an allowance of a dollar a week for doing the dishes, taking out the trash, and other chores. Instead of blowing my income on anything so mundane as laces, I focused my financial resources upon seasonal purchases. During the spring I bought Burpee flower seeds, having drooled over flower catalogs since January. Baseball cards consumed all my funds through mid-summer and the rest of the year I spent what I could on goldfish.

I liked goldfish because, like flowers, they came in a large variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Goldfish are the quintessential cheap pet. On my budget I could afford fish.

I enjoyed watching goldfish glide back and forth effortlessly in a bowl. Goldfish have simple lives and simple needs. They have no work to do, no chores, no homework. Watch a bowl of fish swim, cruising back and forth, not pacing like a caged beast. I found it more interesting to watch a goldfish attempt to shake off a long fish turd, than to watch any television program. Only a good fire is more relaxing and dramatic than an aquarium.

Not all goldfish look alike and not all goldfish are gold colored. I collected examples of as many different kinds as I could find in town. Woolworth's Five and Dime offered the largest selection and every few weeks I spent about eighty nine cents and came home with a small orange box of Hartz Mountain fish food wafers and a new specimen in a little white "take out" carton. The carton was identical to the type used for Chinese takeout. Inside the tiny paper pail was wax coated to make it waterproof. Open the box, put a half cup of water inside, then add a shiny new goldfish. The result was stunning. The light bounced off the four white walls and bottom, reflected off the goldfish and caused the box to shimmer and glow: Orange!

I have no idea what fish food is made of, but fish love it, or at least ate the stuff. The tiny box of food contained thin sheets of white wafer material. I imagined the wafers were not unlike the Eucharist, except intended for fish. Observe excited goldfish as manna miraculously cascades into their world.

Walt Disney's Pinocchio had a pet cat, Figaro, and a single goldfish, Clio. The many and varied fish in my five-gallon aquarium were unnamed, except for Popeye. Popeye was a bubble eyed Black Moor. Popeye stood out from the others and was easy to spot in the aquarium, being the wrong color for a goldfish. Popeye was goofy looking, in addition to not being gold. His eyes were almost as large as his fins. He was not aerodynamic. He was not built for speed; he was breed for his eyes. I often wondered if his view of his world was different from other fish.

Feeding goldfish, and watching them in their little aquatic world; could there be a simpler pleasure? A more carefree pet? Ah, but it is not all upside and happiness. There are basically two problems with having goldfish. One is cleaning the tank, which if you have not smells like a sewer, thanks to the accumulation of rotting, unconsumed manna, intermixed with decomposing fish turds, which blanket the pebbled floor of the tank. Cleaning the aquarium is enough to test one's love of goldfish. I did not have enough money to buy a filtering system, so I periodically had to change the water and clean the tank. Oh, how I hated to do that job!

The second nasty task was disposing of dead fish, "floaters" and "jumpers." If you are lucky you can remove the floaters before the other fish decide to take a nibble and end up gobbling a fin or the entire head. That is gross. Jumpers are more dangerous, like a landmine, if you step on one.

Today was a Saturday morning and something made me crawl out of bed before the sun was in the sky. My name whispered? A distant cry for help? A light thud?

I had to get a tablespoon from the drawer so I could find and scoop up my black, bugged out eyed fish and return him to the aquarium or transport him to the toilet for the traditional "burial at sea."

Unfortunately, the living room light switch was on the wall just beyond the aquarium. Even with the blue light of the television, it was too dark to see any object on the carpet and too dangerous to venture in bare feet toward the switch. So, while still in my pajama bottoms, I slipped into my shoes and lumbered toward the silverware drawer. My heart was filled with dread.

No way was I going to touch a fish, dead or alive, with my bare hands. That is why spoons were invented. I suppose I could have used one of those little nets used in the pet store to catch the fish and put them into the takeout carton, but I never had enough money to buy one. Also, a spoon works perfectly well when a fish is floating or lying on the carpet. In neither position are they about to escape.

The thing is, once you use a spoon to dispose of a dead goldfish, you really, really do not want to eat with it. It gives the spoon a peculiar taste that cannot be washed away. That is why, in a case such as this, I always used my father's souvenir from his W.W.II experience. He served on the USS McGowan, a destroyer, and this was his keepsake to remind him of his days at sea. His spoon was unlike all others in the drawer: heavy, deep gray steel, and embossed "U.S. NAVY." This tablespoon could not be confused with others in the drawer, even in the dark; plus it seemed poetic to commit a fish to a watery grave with an instrument from a naval destroyer.

I could hear someone rustling, shuffling down the hall, as I stood over the toilet bowl, spoon inverted. I flushed the toilet twice and passed my father, taking care to conceal his spoon, as he maneuvered around me into the bathroom. Moments later he joined me in the kitchen. I had had just time to wash the spoon and return it to the drawer. He had heard me run the water. Dad grumbled a "good morning" and after he had filled the coffee pot and put it onto the stove added, "My, you're up early. Are you looking for a raise?"

I was puzzled by his remark and it showed on my face, so he spoke again. "I noticed that you got up early and did some dishwashing. Is that your way of asking for an increase in your allowance, so you can buy some more damn fish?" Shrugging my shoulders, I put a slice of stale Wonder Bread into the toaster and waited, staring at the glowing wires inside. I wanted to blow on them and make them work faster. While the coffee perked on the stove, dad emptied the crumbled remains from a Wheaties box into a custard-colored bowl, doused it with a glug of milk, and reached into the drawer for his favorite spoon. Surprise! Right on top again.

I grabbed my toast and looked out the window toward the rising sun, not wanting to make myself ill. With toast in hand I walked out of the dining room and toward the sofa, as I crossed the carpet near the aquarium felt something squish beneath my shoe.