THE GOLD FISH: A Kick to the Nuts (1.14)

If you’re new to THE GOLD FISH, start from the beginning.

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It was nearly twilight by the time Uncle Joe pulled his station wagon down Pitney Road. Barbie bounced in the back seat, a look of impatient hopefulness on her face, the dirty Styrofoam cooler held lovingly in her lap.

Before the car had even drifted to a full stop, Barbie was up and out, crying “Thanks Uncle Joe,” as she bumped the car door closed with her backside.

Joey scooted over to shout encouragement from the open window. “I’ll rub my rabbit’s foot for ya!”

“Thanks Joey!”

Bridge was on the sidewalk in front of her house swinging a jump rope for one of her siblings and lifted her head in interest as Barbie exited the car on a run. Bridge wasn’t the sort of girl to miss out on something exciting, so she dropped the rope -- ignoring the protestations of her sisters -- and headed across the street.

Barbie hit the set of stairs leading to her front porch but paused when she spotted Mr. Charles and Trixie in their usual spot next door. She changed course and veered towards them. “Mr. Charles! You won’t believe it!”

Mr. Charles emerged from behind his newspaper --from which the latest Vietnam War death count screamed in large type -- and raised his eyebrows in question as Barbie set down the cooler. “Oh I don’t know about that Red. These days, I’d believe just about anything.”

“Me too!” gasped Bridge, who arrived, breathless, from her sprint across the street. “Whatcha got there?”

Barbie swung her gaze between her best friend and Mr. Charles, and with a dramatic flourish, lifted the lid from the cooler and beamed. “It’s what I caught. Look!”

Mr. Charles and Bridge put their heads together and peered into the box.

“Jesus Christ on a stick,” said Mr. Charles.

“Ha!” said Bridge.

“Is that a… a giant goldfish?” queried Mr. Charles.

Barbie’s blinked, her eyes narrowing. “It’s not a goldfish,” she said patiently, using every once of self control she had. Barbie rarely lost her temper around grown ups, but this situation -- this mis-naming of her beloved catch -- was really starting to bother her. “It’s a gold (pause) fish,” she said evenly. “A big one.”

“Beg your pardon, Red,” said the ever intuitive Mr. Charles. He held up his thick hands up in apology and supplication. “No need to get your knickers in a twist. Is that a giant gold (pause) fish?”

Barbie straightened her shoulders. “It is. I caught him off my Pop’s pier. And I’m going to get him stuffed and mounted.”

Mr. Charles burst into laughter. He couldn’t help it. The idea of stuffing a giant goldfish was perhaps the funniest thing he had ever heard. At least in a long time. He bent over double, sputtering and snorting, until he had to pull his handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his streaming eyes. Every time he thought he had himself under control, one look at the fish would break him up again.

Bridge was no better. Egged on by Mr. Charles’ display, she slapped her thighs in amusement. Ho-ho-ho’d and held her belly like a demented Santa Claus. Howled at the sky. Bridge was not one for nuance.

There’s a thing that sometimes happens to a person when they’re full to bursting with passionate resolve and that resolve is dismissed. Ridiculed. Mocked. And made worse by the dawning realization that their keen desire is most likely -- most assuredly -- going to be thwarted.

That thing is rage. And Barbie was filling up with it.

“Oh my, oh my. Wooo…” sighed Mr. Charles, his mirth finally spent. He lifted his eyes to Barbie, and the look on her face filled his veins with ice water. For his young friend wore an expression the likes of which he’d never before encountered. From her anyway. It was pure, unrestrained, murderous fury.

He backtracked. “Oh ho... Yes, yes. I see what you mean, Red. That is one fine specimen. Hmmm hmmm. One fine specimen.”

He punched Bridge lightly on the shoulder to quiet her and backtracked. “Right, Slim? Ever seen a fish like that?”

Bridge shrugged and giggled.

No help there.

Barbie slammed the lid back on the cooler, hitched it up onto her hip, and in a tone worthy of Clint Eastwood declared, “I. AM. GETTING. THAT. FISH. STUFFED.” And with that, she turned and marched off his porch.

“Wouldn’t try to stop you,” Mr. Charles called after her.

“Good luck,” added Bridge in a tone that sounded more like a dare than a wish.

Barbie ignored them both. Mouth set in a determined line, she simply climbed the steps to her porch, flung open the door, and entered the breach.

“Lord knows you’ll need it,” Mr. Charles muttered under his breath.

Bridge nodded sagely in agreement.

Together they waited. For the inevitable. 

The inevitable didn’t take long. Within minutes, a series of SHOUTS, THUMPS, SCREAMS and STOMPS issued forth from the house next door.

“And there it is, ladies and gents, the swift kick to the nuts we knew was coming.”

Bridge shook her head like she’d seen it all, then skipped off Mr. Charles’ porch and back to her siblings.

Mr. Charles looked down at Trixie, who had had the wisdom to stay silent for the entire interaction. “C’mon girl. I need a drink. There’s only so much bad news a man can take in one day.”

:::

Barbie lay in her bed furious. She moaned and groaned. Tossed and turned. Pulled the blankets up, then kicked them off.

In the twin bed beside her, Karen did her best to ignore her sister’s hysterics and tried instead to focus on her novel and her lip picking.

Barbie flipped over yet again and punched her pillow.

For the thousandth time in the last two years, Karen cursed the injustice that The Belle had her own room, while she, the OLDEST, didn’t! Why, she thought bitterly, should she have to share a room with a noisy 12-year-old who smelled like FISH, while her baby sister got her own room?! She was fourteen, for godssake, and needed, privacy, peace, and at the very least, fresh air. It was so unfair!

Barbie groaned and kicked again, and Karen’s tenuous hold on her patience snapped.

“Would you stop?! Jesus! What is the big whoop, anyway?! Why do you care about a stupid fish?”

“I don’t know,” moaned Barbie. “It’s just that... he’s special. Really special. I mean, how many fish like that even exist? And he came to ME. Joey fished for like an hour and got nothing!”

“So you caught him. Goody, goody gumdrops for you. Isn’t that enough? Why do you have to show off too? Display him for the world to see?” Karen’s tone turned mocking. “Oh look at me! Look what I did!”

Barbie lurched towards her sister. “It’s not about showing off! I just want to keep him. Forever. Because if I don’t, then... then...” Barbie’s words turned into a howl of pain. “Then I KILLED HIM FOR NOTHING!” She flopped back down and turned her back to her sister.

Karen looked at her sister’s skinny, mourning shoulders and frowned. She definitely didn’t get why anyone would want a stupid fish, but she also knew that her sister didn’t usually ask for much. So she felt bad for her. She really did. But honestly, she thought, it was her own damned fault. Barbie should have insisted that her fish be stuffed. Made her parents do it. Pitched a fit until they agreed. But Barbie never stood up for herself. And that was a pattern that, once established, was hard to break.

Like with the fried eggs.

Joan usually made a big breakfast on Sundays, and both girls liked fried eggs. But Karen liked hers to be perfect. Demanded they be perfect. The yolk had to be perfectly runny, while the white part had to be perfectly firm. Karen wasn’t an idiot, mind you. She knew that cooking one part completely firm while cooking another part runny was probably difficult. But she also knew it could be done. After all, she had seen -- and eaten -- plenty evidence of it. If her mother dared serve Karen an egg with even one translucent spot of jiggling white, she would simply refuse to eat it. Send it back. Because it was just too gross. And if her mother served an egg where the yolk had turned hard and pale, even if only around the edges, she wouldn’t eat that either. Because it was unsatisfying.

Look, Karen didn’t ask her mother to make her breakfast. Her mother just did. But if she was going to do it, Karen thought she might as well do it right.

But here’s the point of the story. Those slimy or overdone egg rejects didn’t end up in the trash. Where they belonged. No. Her stupid sister Barbie ate them. Willingly. Miss Goody-two-shoes would gobble them right up in some pathetic attempt to prove to their mother that she was the good one. The easy one.

Whatever. What it really proved, to Karen anyway, was that Barbie was a sap.

That’s why her dumb fish wasn’t getting stuffed. And that’s why she was miserable. Whaddya gonna do, mused Karen. Some people just can’t be helped.

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