Fish Story
Mona Gazala
Northeast Ohio Writer
Editorial Mentorship Letter
There's a fish out there in the pond, biting down on a worm even though it sees the silvery line. There's a fisherman’s natural tendency to exaggerate the size of their catch. Sometimes we see whatever it is we want to see. Sometimes we believe our own stories.
Time only occasionally brings clarity.
Time only occasionally brings clarity.
Richard came home late again. He does that a lot. I sit there wondering where he is for hours, and then he comes home with another story about how he got held up doing something or other at work, or the car broke down. Or he ran out of gas. I don’t know. It’s a different story every time. But he’s almost always late. Sometimes, when he’s very late, I worry that maybe something bad has happened to him. And sometimes, when he comes home very, very late, I hope something bad has happened to him.
About three years into our marriage, I noticed he was bringing home six-packs and sometimes twelve-packs of beer, which disappeared quickly and quietly. They weren’t for company, and he rarely offered me anything. They just kept quickly coming and disappearing.
Don’t get me wrong. He held his liquor just fine. He rarely stumbled around in a stupor. He didn’t fly off into rages; he didn’t beat me or anything like that. But the weakness that it showed in him, the way he lived for the stuff. Not even that he lived for it in a conscious way, but that it was just so embedded into his life and routine that he didn’t even see how dependent he was on it, and how impotent it made him . I couldn’t respect that. He was a well-built man, six-foot two, one hundred eighty pounds, and he could lift twice his weight. But he was not a strong man where it counted, you know what I mean?
For all I knew he was screwing around. He certainly had enough time, what with all those late nights.
He worked for a roofing company. I forget what story he had for me when he came home that particular night – a last-minute roofing emergency, a late delivery truck – I hardly listened anymore. I lay there in bed, awake. He slept like a rock next to me, his immovable body taking up most of the bed. Yes, he held his liquor alright…but at night, I could smell it in his sweat, his body so permeated with alcohol that it oozed from his pores, smelling like a tavern floor at closing time…that pungent smell of beer-sweat coming from his body and permeating the little bedroom until I was nearly nauseated. At last, I went downstairs and fell asleep on the couch, watching something unmemorable on cable TV.
I longed for a room of my own.
About three years into our marriage, I noticed he was bringing home six-packs and sometimes twelve-packs of beer, which disappeared quickly and quietly. They weren’t for company, and he rarely offered me anything. They just kept quickly coming and disappearing.
Don’t get me wrong. He held his liquor just fine. He rarely stumbled around in a stupor. He didn’t fly off into rages; he didn’t beat me or anything like that. But the weakness that it showed in him, the way he lived for the stuff. Not even that he lived for it in a conscious way, but that it was just so embedded into his life and routine that he didn’t even see how dependent he was on it, and how impotent it made him . I couldn’t respect that. He was a well-built man, six-foot two, one hundred eighty pounds, and he could lift twice his weight. But he was not a strong man where it counted, you know what I mean?
For all I knew he was screwing around. He certainly had enough time, what with all those late nights.
He worked for a roofing company. I forget what story he had for me when he came home that particular night – a last-minute roofing emergency, a late delivery truck – I hardly listened anymore. I lay there in bed, awake. He slept like a rock next to me, his immovable body taking up most of the bed. Yes, he held his liquor alright…but at night, I could smell it in his sweat, his body so permeated with alcohol that it oozed from his pores, smelling like a tavern floor at closing time…that pungent smell of beer-sweat coming from his body and permeating the little bedroom until I was nearly nauseated. At last, I went downstairs and fell asleep on the couch, watching something unmemorable on cable TV.
I longed for a room of my own.
There was a drought summer shortly after we were married. The pond in the back lot, way behind our house, went down to only a couple of feet of water that year. We had been fishing in it earlier in the season, and we caught some bluegill and an occasional small-mouth bass. Once, a baby snapping turtle got caught on Richard’s line.
I wondered if there was anything left alive now in the greatly-diminished pond – besides, the carp, I mean. The carp in the pond were ancient, and huge. And now, with the water so low, you could often see their enormous, ancient bodies mucking around in the shallow places at the edge of the pond, their tail and dorsal fins flopping out of the water, thumbnail-sized scales standing out plainly on their flanks, like slate shingles on a roof.
Richard had his long-time friend George over for a visit, and the two of them were target-practicing out back, shooting a couple of twenty-gauge shotguns at some styrofoam targets on the far bank of the pond. They sat there under the beating-hot sun, shooting amiably for a while. Then they got fucked up on Jack Daniels, forgot about the guns, and began to walk down into the pond in their bare feet and cut-off shorts. The water was only knee-deep in most places. The mud, though, went much deeper. It was hard to lift up their feet to walk. They were constantly being sucked down into the mud.
The sun was beating down on the two of them, and they trudged back and forth in the shallow, muddy water, hunched over and grabbing at the huge carp as they swam by. Richard suddenly lunged at one of them and splashed down into the pond. He rolled over after a minute, smiling triumphantly as he sat in the brown muck and water. He was holding up a fish that was about two feet long; the fish’s mouth sucking open and close, open and close, gasping in the foreign air.
George had gotten one, too. He cradled the huge fish lovingly in his arms, like a baby. His muddied shorts sticking against his legs. They posed together for me—kind of sheepish and kind of proud – holding their catches while I took pictures with my 35-millimeter camera. Otherwise, who would have believed that they had strolled right down into the pond and caught these two enormous carp, just like that? In all the years that followed, the pond was never that low again.
After George left, Richard was tottering around the house, still drunk. I watched him silently. His body was so lithe and young and virile, but his eyes were so vacant. He laid down on the old sofa in the living room, the one that we had garbage-picked off the roadside, with its maroon velour-covered cushions spitting out stuffing in some spots. He slept heavily. The lowering sunlight coming through a window made his sun-browned skin glow like copper. He had a fine, sculpted body. Very pleasing to the eye and to the touch. It made me remember…how much I had wanted him once. I lifted up my 35-millimeter and took some more pictures of him as he slept.
The one that got away.
I wondered if there was anything left alive now in the greatly-diminished pond – besides, the carp, I mean. The carp in the pond were ancient, and huge. And now, with the water so low, you could often see their enormous, ancient bodies mucking around in the shallow places at the edge of the pond, their tail and dorsal fins flopping out of the water, thumbnail-sized scales standing out plainly on their flanks, like slate shingles on a roof.
Richard had his long-time friend George over for a visit, and the two of them were target-practicing out back, shooting a couple of twenty-gauge shotguns at some styrofoam targets on the far bank of the pond. They sat there under the beating-hot sun, shooting amiably for a while. Then they got fucked up on Jack Daniels, forgot about the guns, and began to walk down into the pond in their bare feet and cut-off shorts. The water was only knee-deep in most places. The mud, though, went much deeper. It was hard to lift up their feet to walk. They were constantly being sucked down into the mud.
The sun was beating down on the two of them, and they trudged back and forth in the shallow, muddy water, hunched over and grabbing at the huge carp as they swam by. Richard suddenly lunged at one of them and splashed down into the pond. He rolled over after a minute, smiling triumphantly as he sat in the brown muck and water. He was holding up a fish that was about two feet long; the fish’s mouth sucking open and close, open and close, gasping in the foreign air.
George had gotten one, too. He cradled the huge fish lovingly in his arms, like a baby. His muddied shorts sticking against his legs. They posed together for me—kind of sheepish and kind of proud – holding their catches while I took pictures with my 35-millimeter camera. Otherwise, who would have believed that they had strolled right down into the pond and caught these two enormous carp, just like that? In all the years that followed, the pond was never that low again.
After George left, Richard was tottering around the house, still drunk. I watched him silently. His body was so lithe and young and virile, but his eyes were so vacant. He laid down on the old sofa in the living room, the one that we had garbage-picked off the roadside, with its maroon velour-covered cushions spitting out stuffing in some spots. He slept heavily. The lowering sunlight coming through a window made his sun-browned skin glow like copper. He had a fine, sculpted body. Very pleasing to the eye and to the touch. It made me remember…how much I had wanted him once. I lifted up my 35-millimeter and took some more pictures of him as he slept.
The one that got away.
Later that summer, one of the carp – a female, her belly swollen with eggs – beached herself in the mud at the edge of the pond. She laid her eggs, alright, but she was too old and tired to move after that. She died on foreign land, unable to make it back into the cool, deep water.
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Mona Gazala (she/her) is a Palestinian multidisciplinary artist and writer, born and raised in Cleveland and now living in rural west-central Ohio. She holds a masters degree from the Ohio State University in studio art and city and regional planning. Her writing/text art has appeared in the Shuruq Literary Festival, Muff Magazine, Utopian Megapraxis, About Place Journal, and Palestine Writes. More about Mona can be found at www.gazalaprojects.com/
Social Media: Instagram: @monagazala Instagram: @gazalaprojects |
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