We go out onto the river, for the first time in our lives, father and son, fishing for our fish.
I want that fish.
I want to get that fish.
I want to be able to say to Bob, This fish is your fish.
So I get into my boat.
I get into the dead man’s boat.
I’ve got my bait, whatever it takes.
Minnows, worms, leeches, slugs.
There are things made out of metal — lures, spoons, spinners — that are made to look like fish.
Little fish for the big fish to eat.
I’ve even got mud to bait my fishing hooks with so that my hooks look just like Bob’s.
Maybe I can fool the fish in the river into believing that I am Bob.
Like Bob, to be like Bob, I talk to the fish.
But unlike Bob, when I open up my mouth to talk to the fish, it is more like I am talking to the river.
I don’t mind this.
The river is a good ear to talk to.
When I talk to the river, the river listens.
The river never talks back.
This is my wife talking.
It’s after midnight, she says.
She tells me, You said you’d be home before dark.
You said, she says, that you’d be home in time to tuck Bobby into bed.
You know what your son said to me tonight?
I shake my head.
He said that you said that you’d promised him tonight to tell him a bedtime story.
My wife says, You know what else he said?
I don’t say anything.
He said, Why does Daddy spend more time with the river than he does with us?
Doesn’t Daddy love us anymore?
Doesn’t Daddy love us as much as he loves the river?
This is what your son said to me tonight, she says.
What did you tell him? I say to this.
I told him that of course your daddy loves you more than he loves the river.
I told him that in your daddy’s eyes, if you were a fish you’d be the biggest fish in the river.
What’d he say to that? I say this to my wife.
My wife says, You want to know what your son said?
She says, You sure you want me to tell you what your son said about all of this?
I nod with my head.
He said, your son, is what my wife says, that he hates the river.
He said, your son, that he wished the river would go away.
I don’t say anything to this.
I can’t say anything to this.
I must say something to this.
That night, I go into my son’s room.
Only his head is sticking up and out from the covers.
He looks more like a turtle than he does a fish.
His eyes, my son’s, do not open up even when I whisper his name.
Bobby, I say.
I sit down on the edge of his bed.
I put my hand on his head.
His head, he turns it away.
Is this my son flinching from the touch of his father?
Sonny boy, I whisper.
I put my hand on his chest.
It’s me, Daddy.
I’m home, I tell him.
His eyes only halfway open.
I can see that he can see me even though he isn’t even close to being awake.
I came home, I tell him, to tell you a bedtime story.
Are you too tired to hear a story?
He shakes his head.
Good, I say.
Once upon a time, I whisper.
In a kingdom far away.
There was a man who lived in a boat on a river.
And in this river, I say, there lived a fish.
I stop the story there.
I don’t say anything else.
I don’t know what else to say.
After a little while, my son’s eyes flitter open.
A fish’s eyes, I should tell you, never close.
Daddy, he says.
Did you bring home any fish?
A couple.
Can I see the fish? he asks me.
He always asks me this.
My son, he likes to look at the fish.
He likes to touch the fish.
This is my son.
In the morning, I tell him.
It’s late.
I tell him, Close your eyes.
He listens to what I have told him to do.
My son, he is not a fish.
Use your imagination, I say, to imagine seeing the fish.
Then I tell him, Tell me what you see?
What does the fish look like? I ask him.
Is it big?
I can tell that he is looking hard, I can see that he is trying hard, to picture this fish in his head.
He looks like he’s having a little bit of a hard time finding a fish in his head to see.
His eyes, I can see, he is squeezing them as tight as he can get them to close up tight.
It’s okay if you can’t see them, I say.
I tell him, You’re probably too tired.
In the morning you can see the fish, I say.
Go to sleep.
But then he tells me this:
I can see the fish.
I see the fish, he says.
I see you, too, Daddy, he tells me.
You see me? I say.
What about the fish?
He nods his boy head yes.
Daddy, he says.
Yes, buddy boy.
He tells me, You are the fish.
I’m the fish?
His eyes close and go back into that other place.
He is seeing something none of us can see now.
I say to myself, I am the fish.
I whisper those words, I am the fish.
Then I say, again, to my son, Go to sleep.
This is all that I can say to my son for telling me I am a fish.
Daddy, he says, after a little bit of nothing.
What’s up, buddy boy?
I don’t want you to be a fish.
I am a fish.
I am a fish.
That night, I sleep out on the sofa.
I try to sleep but I cannot sleep.
I close my eyes and try counting the fish swimming around inside my head.
There are more fish in my head than there are stars up in the sky.
All night long all I hear is the sound of these words:
I am a fish.
I am a fish.
I am a fish.
This, and the sound of my son’s voice saying to me, his father, I don’t want you to be a fish.
So I take the next few nights of fishing off.
I don’t go out onto the river.
On one of these nights, we go out for dinner.
As a family.
When I order fish and chips, my wife shakes her head.
She says, You and your fish.
For supper on one of these other nights, I fry up some fish fished up out of the river.
My son looks at me from across the table as I am eating up this fish.
I can tell that he is thinking.
He doesn’t say what it is he is thinking about.
When I ask him if the fish tastes good, he says that it’s tasty.
I fry up the fish in lots of butter.
My son likes to watch me fry up the fish.
He likes to watch me clean the fish.
He likes to watch me gut the fish.
The guts of the fish, we do not throw the guts into the garbage.
We do not throw them back into the river the way that Bob does the guts of his fish.
My wife has a garden out back in our backyard.
I dig a hole in the dirt in this garden and we bury the guts back here.
At the end of summer, you should see it: my wife has the biggest, reddest tomatoes that God has ever seen.
That night, my son wakes up in the middle of the night crying from a bad dream.
We run into his room, turn on the light.
It was just a dream, my wife tells him. It wasn’t real.
She pets his head.
I want to know, What was the dream about?
My wife gives me this look that says, What does it matter? It’s just a dream.