THE GOLD FISH: Resolved (1.15)

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While Karen and Gigi slumbered, Barbie stewed, her face a riot of emotions. Sorrow. Frustration. Regret. Calculation. Hope. And finally, steely, anger-fueled determination.

Minutes later, she slithered out the back door like a phantom, stepping into the yellow puddle cast by the porch light and carefully easing the screen door closed behind her. On tiptoes, she raced down the steps and towards the end of the yard where a set of galvanized garbage cans sat on the other side of the fence. Easing open the gate’s latch, she crept through and lifted the metal lid of the closest can. An earsplitting SCREECH rent the air.

She froze, waiting for all hell to break loose. From up the alley, a dog barked. But nothing further disturbed the quiet.

Barbie let out her held breath, and did her best to slow her beating heart. Carefully, carefully, she reached into the can and removed the top of Pop’s old Styrofoam cooler, which Joan had decided to throw out along with the fish. Joan was a big thrower-outer. If she didn’t like something or had no immediate use for it, into the garbage it went. No regrets.

But by throwing that cooler out, thought Barbie, her mother was playing with fire. For she was incurring the wrath of Pop. Because Pop threw NOTHING out. Not even a busted old, dirty, stinking cooler that was held together more by old glue and duct tape than by any original structural integrity. Boy, oh boy, how Barbie hoped Pop remembered to ask for it back. Because IF Pop found out Joan had tossed out a perfectly operational cooler which, with careful re-patching and gluing, surely had 10 more years of service remaining, he would pitch a holy, helling fit. And Pop in the midst of a holy, helling fit was not for the faint of heart. Family legend held that Pop once couldn’t find a hanger for his coat, so he threw it to the floor and stomped on it like a demented Rumpelstiltskin. So who knew what Pop was capable of? What he would do to Joan for her transgression? The possibilities filled Barbie with an uncharacteristic, and let’s face it, evil glee. Because Joan deserved whatever punishment Pop could dish out. Maybe not for the cooler, but surely for throwing out her precious gold (pause) fish.

There was no time, however, for IFs and BUTs and WHAT A GLORIOUS CHRISTMAS IT WOULD BE if her mother was caught, because right now, the fish’s golden scales gleamed in the moon light, taking Barbie’s breath away and filling her with terrible, heart-rending regret. Just this morning this magical creature had been swimming in Sue Creek without a care in the world, and now it had taken its last breath in a trash can on Pitney Road. Because of her. If anyone should be punished, Barbie revised, it should be me.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. And vowed, right there and then, that she would honor its sacrifice and get this beautiful fish stuffed and mounted if it was the last goddamned thing she ever did.

She grasped the fish with both hands and lifted it out of the can. Then paused, uncertain of her next move. The fish was too big and heavy to hold in one hand, and there was no place to put it while she replaced the cooler lid and closed the can. Placing it on the ground seemed a sacrilege. But inspiration soon struck. She placed the fish against the hem of her nightgown and rolled it up her body like a fishy Hostess Ho Ho until its fabric-clad bulk rested on her chest. Then, taking the edge of the fabric in her teeth to hold the bundle steady, she freed her hands and replaced the garbage can lid. Then ran like hell back to the house.

Once inside, Barbie laid the fish on the kitchen counter. She hadn’t the faintest idea how she was going keep the fish safe (and fresh) until she found the money to stuff and mount him, but it was like making the pool, right? A thought could become a thing, she reasoned. If only she thought hard enough. Even Mr. Charles had said “What man can conceive, man can achieve” when Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon. Of course, she wasn’t a man, but she wasn’t trying to fly to the moon either. She was only trying to stuff a fish! All she needed was to make, find, beg, or borrow $50. It was, of course, an unfathomable amount of money. But it wasn’t any different than a journey of a thousand miles. You did it one step -- and in this case, one penny -- at a time.

Barbie pulled the Saran Wrap out of the cabinet and laid a long sheet on the counter like she’d seen her mother do a million times for extra chicken breasts. She placed the fish in the center of the plastic, wrapped it up tight, and for good measure, flipped the whole bundle over and did it again from the other side. Next, she repeated the procedure with aluminum foil. Satisfied now with the bundle’s anonymity, she headed to the freezer. But when she opened the door, she was stopped cold. The freezer, already shrunken by a decade’s long accumulation of built-up frost, was stuffed to capacity with crushed boxes of Eggo waffles and Gorton’s fish sticks, half-eaten tubs of ice cream and sherbet, sticky blue and purple Fla-vor-ice tubes, aluminum ice cube trays, and countless other mystery bundles wrapped in aluminum foil. There wasn’t room for another ice cube, let alone a giant gold (pause) fish.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way. Barbie removed the entire contents of the freezer before pushing the fish to the back, and re-arranging everything around it like a complex, tightly fitting 3-D puzzle. By the end of her repacking, there was only one remaining bundle left. Peeling back a corner of crumbling foil wrapping revealed a pair of ancient freezer-burnt pork chops, and with a certain serves you right glee, Barbie marched over to the kitchen trash can and shoved them in. How do YOU like it when I throw YOUR stuff away?, she thought bitterly.

When she turned back to the freezer, headlights swept past the kitchen curtains, freezing her in place.

Don’s car was pulling into the driveway, if you could call the square of cracked concrete that stood between the backyard and the alley a driveway. You could also call it the spot where the family’s garbage cans always sat, the exact same spot Barbie had stood no more than ten minutes ago.

Boy, oh boy, she thought. Talk about cutting it close. She slammed the freezer door shut and skedaddled back off to bed.

Tomorrow, she’d get to work.

~ End of Part 1 ~

Next → The Monkey (2.1)