There
was never so much fuss in our house as there was the week we got the fish. After a year of noise and chemical smells, we
had added a new wing to our house. Now
Mom and Dad wanted something to dress up that new space. Dad decided that something should be a
fish-tank. He brought his new-wing-warming
present home that day, and put it on top of the cabinet, across from the
TV. In it were five fish, a pipe blowing
bubbles, a diver in an old-time suit, and a plaster Buddha in one corner. And at each end a clump of plastic pink daisies
were planted in the turquoise and magenta pebbles.
When
Dad unveiled the tank for us, Mom gave the same look I’d been trained to give
when someone gave me a pencil case or pack of socks for Christmas. Meg and Molly, my two younger sisters jumped
up and down clapping and shouting, “Fishes! Fishes!” That first day, they
couldn’t get enough of those fish. Me? I
thought they were creepy. There was
something zombie-like about them, the way they drifted around with that
dead-eyed look at everything. They were
two goldfish, one thin silvery one, and a round zebra-striped one. And then there was that one fish, bigger than the others.
We never knew what sort he was. He was pale yellow, had big grey eyes, a
sort of bulge in his head, and a mouth that kept sucking in and out. I’m not sure how to describe it, but if any
fish could strut swimming, it would be him. He had a look that seemed to say
“This is MY tank. This is MY diver, MY
Buddha, MY daisies!”
He
was the only one we bothered to name - Bubba.
His favorite activity was to burrow under the pebbles and push up those
plastic daisies so they floated around the top of the tank and caught in the
filter. Then some of the other fish
would get caught in the plastic leaves, and after a zombie-ish struggle, just
die. Five times Mom had to empty the
tank and replant those daisies, but Dad was determined to keep his investment
in the new space. Week after week he’d
bring back new fish to replace the dead ones. The ending was always the
same. Down went Bubba, up went the
daisies, and something or other happened to the other fish. Even the ones that
didn’t get caught barely lasted three days.
Maybe Bubba ate too much of the food, maybe he scared them to death. Only Bubba went on.
Meg
and Molly enjoyed holding little burials for the fish in our yard. Meg wanted to find real daisies to throw over
them before filling the hole in, but Molly protested saying “No! You’ll crush
them!” She seemed to believe the daisies
were somehow responsible for the deaths. For a long time the three of us had a
friendly debate over how many daisies it would take to crush a dead fish.
After
a month and a half, Bubba was still the only survivor under the floating leaves,
and Dad finally gave in to Mom’s demands and gave it up. He donated the fish-tank, with the Diver,
Buddha, daisies and Bubba, to our pediatrician’s offics. After that we saw Bubba at our annual
check-ups. A year later, he was still
there, and he’d become huge, as big as a mini-basketball, and the other fish
the staff had filled the tank with were all avoiding him. The receptionist told me they’d named him
Nikita, because the bulging forehead and big lips reminded her of
Krushchev. “If only we could stop him
pushing up those daisies!” she fretted.
We
replaced the fish with two guinea pigs, which I found a lot more lively and
satisfying, but I could never really get Bubba out of my mind. One year, we went to the doctor’s office, and
Bubba wasn’t there anymore. There was a
new, circular tank filled with tiny fish.
I assumed he’d finally passed on, but no – the receptionist told me
they’d given him up. He’d gotten too big
for the tank, and started eating the other fish! She’d heard he was now living in a dentist’s
office across town, under the name of ‘Blofeld.’
After
that, we lost track of him. Fish, living
or dead, are still sort of freaky to me, but I’ve never met a fish like that
one. I have to assume he’s swimming in someone’s tank, somewhere. Or maybe he’s
finally been flushed out to sea where he’ll get even bigger and start digging
up something bigger.
Last
year when our cousin got married, she chose to decorate all the reception
tables with a fishbowl in the center.
Inside each of them was one tiny yellow fish. And floating on the top of the water were a
number of freshly cut daisies. Now I can’t
help wondering if there’s some smaller version of Bubba left behind in one of
those tanks.
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