Ours — Mr. Lynch — liked to wear white.
Ours was more like a clown at a birthday party than a man who took care of our town’s dead.
But it’s not like we had any choice.
Mr. Lynch was all that we had, the only one, the town’s keeper of our dead.
If you lived in our town, when you died in our town, it was to Mr. Lynch that you’d go.
Bob’s father had made it clear to Bob’s mother that when it was his time to go, he did not want to be buried.
The furnace, Bob’s father had said.
It’s how he lived, face to face with the blast furnace. And it’s how he wanted to leave.
Besides, Bob’s father had said, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper.
Take the money you’d spend on a casket and buy yourself something nice.
So Bob and Bob’s mother did what Bob’s father said.
They did not bury Bob’s father in the dirt of this earth.
They sent Bob’s father back, one last time, to the furnace.
Bob’s mother took the money they would have spent on buying a casket for Bob’s father and with this money in her hand she handed it over to Bob.
He was your father, she told him. I’ve got the house. So do like your father said, she said.
Go and buy yourself something nice.
Bob took the money from his mother’s hand.
Then Bob took from his mother’s other hand the container that contained his father’s ashes.
Where are you going with your father? his mother called out after Bob.
Bob did not say anything to this.
It was too late to get Bob to stop.
In his head, Bob was already standing at the river’s edge.
All Bob needed now was a boat.
So Bob bought a boat.
Bob took the money that his mother gave him and with it, instead of a casket, Bob bought himself a boat.
It was a good boat.
It had a good motor on the back of this boat.
Bob got in this boat and Bob motored with this boat out onto the river.
Bob boated around the river for a while before finally cutting the engine.
Bob drifted a while like this with the motor switched off.
Bob looked up at the sky.
The sky was the sky.
Then Bob looked down at the river.
The river made Bob think of steel.
Maybe because of the color.
It was the same color as Bob’s boat was the color of.
A color somewhere in between green and gray.
Bob took the container that contained his father’s ashes inside it and then he undid the lid.
Then Bob turned the container upside-down.
The ashes that were Bob’s father poured out like smoke and sifted down into the river.
Bob watched for a while as the ashes drifted down the river.
Then Bob saw with his eyes something that he almost could not believe.
It was a fish.
It was a fish leaping up out of the water.
This fish slapped the river with its silvery tail.
Then this fish, it leaped again.
It was hard for Bob to say how big this fish was, though it looked to Bob as big as Bob’s father.
And then it was gone.
Into the river.
This fish, up out of the river, it did not leap again.
That night, Bob spent the night out on the river, out on his boat, hoping he would see again this leaping fish.
That was the night that Bob realized that a boat on a river is a good place for a man to be.
A good place for a man to live.
Bob’s been living out on it ever since.
This boat.
This river.
Fishing for that fish.
That night, up in the sky, Bob did not notice if there were any stars.
Bob was too busy looking down, into the river, looking out across the river, to see if there were any stars.
What Bob was looking for, looking down into the river, looking out across the river, was that leaping fish.
Bob did not see, that night, that leaping-up-out-of-the-river fish.
What Bob did see, in the river, that night, was the light of the moon.
The moon, that night, it was as big, it was as full, as the moon can get.
The moon, it was too big for Bob not to notice even though he was looking down into the river.
The moon that night shining up at Bob from the river, it looked to Bob like the moon was some sort of a fish.
It wasn’t too hard for Bob to see that the moon, it was shaped like a face.
It was not a face that Bob could say whose face that it was.
It was not the face that was Bob’s father’s.
It was not a face that was even Bob’s.
Bob motored his boat over so that he was close enough to get a good look at whose face this face might be.
Bob got so up close to that face that Bob reached out with his hand to touch it.
When Bob reached out with his hand, the moon, this face, it shattered into a billion pieces. Each broken piece, that night, there in the river, became a floating star.
That night, there in the river, there on the river, each floating star was eaten by a fish.
This is how the river works.
Fish eat other fish.
Each star, then, turns into a fish.
If the fish were stars, the sky at night would be lit up, fish-belly white, with light.
A fish is a fish.
Who teaches a fish how to fish?
This is the question.
The answer to this is this:
Fish just fish.
It’s how fish live.
It’s what they do.
It’s just like Bob is.
A man who fishes for fish.
Bob fishes.
Bob is fishing.
Bob was fishing.
Bob fished last night.
Bob will fish again later tonight.
By day, Bob sleeps.
When Bob is sleeping, Bob is dreaming about fish.
When Bob sleeps, Bob dreams about fishing.
Bob dreamed today, as he was sleeping, about fishing for that fish.
That fish, in Bob’s dreams, it leaped up out of the river.
Bob dreamed that he woke up on the river.
In Bob’s dream, Bob dreamed that the river was his bed.
Bob dreamed that when he woke up from his dreaming, the fish was sleeping next to him in this bed.
Bob reached over across this bed and put his hand on this fish’s fin.
Bob shook this fish’s fin to try and wake this fish up from its sleeping.
But this fish did not wake up from this sleeping.
This fish was not sleeping.
This fish, it was dead.
It’s true.
Fish in this river die.
It happens all the time.
Sometimes, fish stop breathing.
Sometimes, fish stop swimming.
Sometimes, these fish float up to the river’s top.
Sometimes, these fish float on past Bob and Bob’s boat.
Sometimes, Bob will fish these floating by fish up out of the river, and Bob will fish these fish up into his boat.
Bob does not fish these dead fish up out of the river and fish these fish up into his boat so that he can sell them.
Bob does not fish these dead fish up out of the river and fish these fish up into his boat so that he can eat them.
What Bob does do to these dead fish that he fishes up out of the river is, Bob guts the guts out of these fish.
The guts of these dead fish, Bob throws the guts back into the river.
Bob throws the guts of these dead fish back into the river so that the guts of these dead fish can turn back into fish.
This is true too.
There are some fish in the river that never leave these waters where they are born.