Fool Fish: A Parable Fool Fish Jim gazed at the green rippling water for a while, hoping to catch a glimpse of the strange eel like fish that everyone was blabbering about. Anything that happened to the Granville pools always made the local gossip, no matter what size it came in. The product of a failed attempt to build a reservoir, the pools were the home for every sort of sunfish, catfish, and bass that you could imagine. And over time, the pools had come to take on a special meaning for every young man born in Granville. As soon as a boy could hold a rod, his father would bring him to the Granville pools for his first fishing lessons. The pools also carried a good deal importance for the young ladies of Granville too. For them, the Granville pools meant an afternoon with their mothers, learning how to cook fish dishes using recipes that had been passed down from each generation. While Jim Walker intently stared at the pools, his mind started drifting back to his own youth. He recalled for a moment the first bass that he had ever caught (which was a beauty), the many days spent trolling in a boat with his father, and the thrill that overtakes young man when he proudly walks home with a scaly prize. And then his proudest memory came barging into his thoughts. The time he caught the biggest, baddest bass that had ever been caught in Granville. He recalled how the twenty bound, shiny green monster damn near split his pole in half and how some four hours later he was the toast of the town. He recalled how the town newspaper took his picture with the mayor and how all the young folks and damn near all the old folks asked him to recant his battle with the scaly behemoth. That one event secured his place in Granville folklore. As his eyes began to a glaze a bit, Jim�s thoughts for some reason or another started shifting toward the current state of fishing in Greenville. Despite the fact that people didn�t have much money right now, people still took the time to fish. In fact, fishing had taken on a greater importance now. Fact was crop prices were dropping like crazy and people turned to fishing to try to ignore that feeling in their guts that the hard times weren�t going to end any time soon. Consequently, the sandy beaches of the Pools were lined with poles and picnic baskets, rain or shine, Sunday or Monday. As Jim�s was thinking about all these things, something gray and slimy broke the surface of the water just about five feet from where he was standing. It happened so fast that he only caught a quick glimpse of what he thought were a row of sharp teeth. �Damn, � Jim muttered to himself. He waited a few minutes hoping that the strange creature would pop its head out again so he could get a better look. Sure enough in a few minutes, he saw it make an encore appearance. �It�s got to be the fish, the other folk were talking about,� he thought to himself. �It�s just like they said. Big, gray, ugly as hell. With beady little eyes and head that looks like it�s been hit on top with a shovel.� As he mediated on the fish�s appearance, he came to the conclusion that it resembled a giant slug with gills. As he started to think of what else the thing looked like, he suddenly became aware of the crowds of people that were starting to fill the beach to fish. Almost instinctively, Jim looked up at the sky and figured it was past breakfast. Time to go to work again. As Jim climbed the short cliff up to where his car was parked, he started thinking about busy today was going to be. As sheriff, one of the things he had to do was evict people. This morning he had to evict two families from their farms and he had to carry out two more evictions before the week was over. Of course, it was no surprise considering corn prices were at an all time low. Jim figured by the end of the month he would have thrown out about ten families from their homes. Before getting into his car, Jim took one last, misty look at the Granville pools. His eyelids rose a bit and the mist in the eyes evaporated real quick. A large congregation of the strange looking fish had gathered in the reeds. �Got a population going,� he muttered under his breath as he started up his car. * * * About a week later, all of Granville�s four hundred and fifty citizens had heard about the bizarre looking fish. A good part of the reason was because the thing was so darn easy to catch. Yarns like �Bobby Jones� boy caught three in one outing� and �Rick Carson snagged one the minute the piece of dough hit the water� floated into the barbershops, diners, and PTA meetings. Soon, people started remarking that it was the stupidest fish that had ever made its way into Norfolk county and the ugly things were dubbed �fool fish� by the local newspapers. Many figured they would be fished out in a month. As Jim put it best one morning in the donut shop, �the poor things were going to go out the way of the Dodo bird.� This kind of talk didn�t last though. No, people started catching more and more fool fish and real quick people started realizing they weren�t catching nothing but �Fool fish�. Gradually, people began to get more and more concerned about the state of fishing in the Granville pools. It all came to a red-hot boil right after Joel Krueger�s boy�s Bobby came rushing into the Ma�s diner one day, red faced and gasping for air. Seated at the counter of the diner at the time were the three folks that had the most sway in Granville, namely Jim, Mayor Simms, and Tully Thomas the town banker. After someone had bought Bobby a soda pop, and the red had come of his cheeks, the boy started to relay his tale to the three men. �Me, and the Schultzes. We were fishing. The Browns were there too. Anyhow, we were fishing, and it was just bam, bam. One bite after another. But problem was, it was just one fool fish after another. Throw in a line. Bam. A fool fish. Throw in another. Bam, another fool fish. I say we done caught near thirty of the suckers. Big ones too. Longer than my leg. Hell as long as my�� �Your Paw sent you,� Tully asked, interrupting. �Yeah, he said you�s three were going to be here and that you should know �bout what happened,� the boy said nervously. �That�s alright, ain�t it.� �Yeah, you did good, Bobby. You did good,� Tully said. He turned to Jim. �At this rate your record might never be broken.� �It getting out of control,� Jim muttered, shaking his head. He looked over at Tully and then at Mayor Simms. �What you reckon we do?� Tully kept quiet and deferred to Mayor Simms with a nod. The Mayor, who was known for taking every second given to him, rubbed his second chin and shuffled his flabby behind, in his stool for a while before answering. Finally, he opened his thick lipped mouth and in his deep, throaty voice said, �I reckon we spread word that we�re going to have a town meeting.� And then he quickly added, �In the church, of course.� Jim and Tully nodded their heads in agreement. The roof on the town hall had long since rotted away and wasn�t likely to be fixed anytime soon. They only had to take an occasional glance at the crop prices to realize that now wasn�t the time to raise taxes to pay for the repairs. So a meeting was called and all of Granville piled into the white washed walls of the church. Right after all the ladies had shed their coats and the fellas, their hats, and everyone had piled into the unvarnished bleachers and said a quick prayer to the man upstairs, tongues started to loosen, followed by a lot of whole lot of hollering and hooting about fool fish. Everyone wanted them gone. It wasn�t just cause just they were replacing the local fish. No. There were a bunch of reasons for hating a fool fish. Rick Carson represented the opinion of all the fellas when he complained that fool fish were too damn easy to catch; once they were hooked, they didn�t fight a lick. Reeling a fool fish in was like reeling in a wet sock. Kindra Banks spoke out for the women when she complained that the things tasted like mud no matter how they cooked them. Absent was the subtle firm meat of a largemouth bass or the sweet, tender taste of a sunfish. The town folk talked about all these things for damn near two hours before Mayor Simms started banging his gavel on the altar. �Ladies and Gentlemen,� he croaked as loud he could. �I have been talking to Jim Walker, and Tully Thomas. And we have figured that an investigation is in order before any drastic measures are to be taken.� The audience then started to moan and groan and the Mayor had to start banging on the altar again. �Ladies, Gents. Let me finish, God�s sake.� Everybody quieted up then cause no one wanted to be taken for rude and the Mayor continued. �This investigation is to be performed by Pierce Dawson, the head of the high school. Dawson step up and address the crowd.� This seemed to comfort the crowd a little. Pierce was generally regarded the smartest man in Granville. If anyone could figure out some quick way out of the mess, it was Dawson. As Dawson made his skinny, spectacled self to the podium to pledge his allegiance to the destruction of fool fish everywhere, he was greeted with loud claps and whistles. Unfortunately, the crowd�s prediction fell short. As smart as Dawson was, he couldn�t do much, because for one thing he couldn�t figure out what the damn things were. He looked in every nature manual that he owned and couldn�t find anything that matched its description. Meanwhile, the fool fish situation got real worse. When it was reported that nobody had caught nothing but fool fish for a month, Jim, Tully and the Mayor conferred among themselves and figured that a second town meeting was in order. At the second meeting it was decided that the town would hire what Dawson called an ichthyologist but what every one else called a fish expert. Dawson wrote some letters and made some phone calls and about a week later, it was learned that Skip Jenkins, a professor from the state university was coming to Granville. Out of respect, for Mr. Granville, the Mayor told everyone not to burn the excess crops that week and he had the volunteer fire department hose down the thick layer of dirt that had piled up in the streets. While all this was going on, everyone in Granville awaited his arrival with great anticipation cause one, he was a �fish expert� and two, everyone needed something to distract them from the God awful news that crop prices dropped for second week in row. So it was no surprise that as soon as Mr. Jenkins stepped in Granville he found over four hundred pair of eyes scrutinizing his every move. And it was also no surprise that when Mr. Jenkins announced he was going to collect some �specimens�, nearly the whole town decided to attend. Right away, Mr. Jenkins proved to be a hell of a lot more competent than Dawson. The minute Mr. Jenkins reeled one of the toothy bastards in, he knew right away what it was. �It�s snake head,� he pronounced the crowd as he held the slimy, wriggling thing in his hands. And in a few minutes, the crowd surrounding Mr. Jenkins knew everything there was to know about snake heads. It turned out the fish wasn�t from the Mississippi valley region. Hell, it wasn�t from the entire United States. Fact was, the thing was from China where it lived in rice patties and swamps. And coming from such a hellish environment meant the monsters could survive anywhere. Also, its favorite meal was other fish, which explained why the sunfish and bass had been picked clean. After Mr. Jenkins had finished saying his piece, Mayor Simms was quick to jump the gun and ask how the damn things got there. �Well, I noticed a few goldfish ponds on some of the farms here,� he replied quite calmly. � It wouldn�t surprise me, if some of the snake heads came with some of those goldfish.� After everyone took the time to curse out whoever owned a goldfish pond for a couple of few minutes, Jim asked the question that was on everyone�s mind, namely how they were going to get rid of the darn fool fish. But as soon as Mr. Jenkins heard Jim pop the question, his face became real grave. �I don�t know�, he responded in a sullen tone. The townspeople gasped all at once for a few moments and before anyone could gain control of their tongues and ask another question, Mr. Jenkins uttered under his breath, �Getting rid of them is going to be real difficult, folks. Real difficult.� This reply lead the town folk to murmur in disgust for a couple more minutes about how it wasn�t worth five hundred dollars to know that fool fish came from China especially since money was real short. However, the crowd became silent real quick, the moment Mr. Dawson turned to Mr. Jenkins and started to speak. �You say there�s nothing we can do. But what about poison?� he asked. �I heard that�s how they took out the pike in Riverside County. �Poison ain�t going to work,� Mr. Jenkins answered, his eyes dropping to the ground trying to avoid the stares and glares. �You might kill off most of �em but a good deal of the snake heads will escape out of the pond and repopulate somewhere else. The damn things lay 30,000 eggs each time so in no time they�ll take over that area, too.� His eyes still stuck on the ground, Mr. Jenkins heard nothing but silence so he looked up and saw that Dawson had a puzzled look on his face. His eyes panned right and then left and he saw that the rest of the crowd also had equally puzzling looks on their faces. �You got to understand snake heads aren�t like other fish,� he explained quietly. Mr. Jenkins reached into a bucket and pulled out the fool fish that he had caught earlier. �Snake heads breath air. That�s why you keep seeing them come up the surface and opening their mouths. And that�s why they can survive more than seventy-two hours out of water. Watch.� And with that he hurled the damn thing about twenty feet from the edge of the pool. After flopping on its back for a bit like it was possessed by the devil, the thing managed to right it self onto its belly. Something kicked in its noggin and it started using its thick front fins to make a mad dash back towards the lake. And in a less time then it took to hook one of the sorry things, the fool fish had made its way back into the water and swum away. The townspeople watched this whole process unfold with wide eyes and held breaths. Nobody was angry anymore, just real scared. There was dead silence until Jim asked the new question that was on everybody�s mind. �So what do we do? I mean for God�s sake tell us what we can do.� Jim looked at the people of Granville, saw the defeat in their faces, and his heart started to ache. �I mean you got to understand these pools-they�re our tradition�.� The big bass that made him a legend was in his thoughts all of sudden. �They are our memories. Hell, they are all we got.� Nearly everyone in Granville nodded his or her heads, sadly in agreement. There was a look of pain painted on the face of Mr. Jenkins too. This last statement and the crowd�s subsequent reaction had hit him like a stack of bricks. He recalled for a moment the empty stores, the unpaved roads and the fact that he was the only occupant of the inn he was staying, and then looked around him. Four hundred dejected faces stared at him in silence waiting for him to tell them their fate. He closed his eyes for a moment, and sighed before deciding to tell them the awful, ugly truth. �I understand how important fishing is here,� he said in an empathetic voice that everyone knew was genuine. �But really there�s nothing you can do. The only thing you can do is to try to live with them.� The crowd surrounding Mr. Jenkins raised their eyebrows in a look of pain, and some looked as if the apocalypse had rained down on them. �You mean just leave them alone?� someone shouted. �Not quite. You should try to curb the population by letting people fish for them. If you can contain the snake heads in this lake, then, you might be doing the other towns a real favor.� �But nobody WANTS to fish for them! They ain�t good sport and they taste God awful!� The fear on everyone�s faces got real worse and nerves were as taunt as tightropes. Almost everyone had the inkling in his heart that this might be it. The painful look on Mr. Jenkins got more painful looking right then too. He turned away from the crowd and started to think real hard, trying to dig up a solution. Finally, he hit water and turned to face them again. He took a few deep breaths before finally giving them the answer that they all wanted to hear. �Well�you might try poisoning them. But you�ll need to get real strong stuff. Its got be strong enough to kill them on impact so none will escape and end up somewhere else.� * * * About a week after Mr. Jenkins left, the Mayor talked things over with Jim and Tully. They figured that the decision of whether to poison the fool fish should be decided by the whole town since buying the poison was going to take a huge chunk out the local treasury. Of course, they might as well damn called the poison company then and there, cause every resident of Granville checked �yes� on the ballot. So about a week later, Bracey Chemicals dropped off a fifty-pound drum of a type of chlorine so strong that its fumes were said to �bleach a fellow�s hair white.� And the following day, Fred Ingles and Marty Schultz, the town garbage men dumped the foul smelling chemical into the lake with the whole town watching from a distance. And sure enough fool fish after fool fish started popping up to the surface, dead as a doornail. About half an hour later the whole lake smelled of chlorine and rotting fool fish and the air was filled with cheers and whistles. Seeing as how the whole thing was resolved and town spirit was at an all time high, the Mayor issued a proposal calling for the pools to be drained and restocked with game fish. The town, of course, eagerly ratified the proposal and work on the pools started almost immediately. While all this was going on, spirits began to rise. No longer would the good people of Granville be deprived of their fishing hole. No longer would a boy not know what a hooked bass felt like. No longer would a girl be kept from learning her mother�s secret recipes. But then trouble struck. One day, Sam Kinney found a fool fish in his goldfish pond. Later that day, Varney Wilkens reported seeing one surface in the town reservoir. And in time, a few housewives reported seeing fool fish in their gardens when it rained. Soon the blasted things began to appear in every ditch and crevice that had a drop of water in it. Fact was some of the fish had figured that since the lake was no good anymore, everywhere else in Granville would have to do. And to make matters worse, the fool fish made their way back the Granville pools just days after it had been refilled. The county didn�t give up right away and tried a few more poisonings. But then at the next town meeting, people started pointing out that some of the cattle turned out dead from drinking the water and that the children would be next. While everyone was screaming Bloody Mary about the poisonings, the Mayor, Jim and Tully had their own little meeting behind the altar. �Well, boys. It looks like its curtains,� the Mayor said with a sigh. While Tully nodded sadly, Jim�s turned away quickly. His face had a look of disgust on it. �Jim, what�s wrong. Oh, come on Jim,� the Mayor whispered sympathetically. �You know we can�t keep at it.� �I know,� Jim responded softly, trying to not to look his buddies in the eye. �It�s just�you know.� �Hey, you know all things come to an end,� Tully chimed in, trying his hardest to be as comforting as he could. �Nothing lasts forever.� �Except my record,� Jim muttered and right then the Mayor and Tully fell silent. After about a minute, Jim turned to face them. �I want to see someone break my record,� he said, his voice trembling a bit. His eyes were wet and shiny now. He then looked around the altar and at the people of Granville. �I want to see some kid break my record and know how it feels like.� �Jim,� the Mayor said gently. �We got to look to the future.� Jim nodded, wiped his eyes and walked away silently. And with that the Mayor stormed out from behind the altar. In his deep, strong voice, the Mayor asked the crowd if they wanted to call it quits and quick as lightning they responded a bellowing �yes� followed by an even more resounding �for the children�, which sent the bats flying from the Belfry�s. Of course, nobody would�ve have admitted it then but the real reason that they all voted give up had to do with the simple fact that the crop prices didn�t recover. Damn nearly a quarter of the town was now unemployed and the council had stopped collecting taxes temporarily. So after about a year and after spending nearly the entire treasury, Granville had to finally concede defeat to the fool fish that night in the house of God. And likewise, nobody was real happy about all this at first. People would catch fool fish and kill them out of hatred and talk of fool fish usually included a few words that most parents wouldn�t want their children to learn. But like all unpleasant things that don�t go away, eventually everyone just accepted the fact that the fool fish were part of Granville. But then something strange happened. After a couple of years, a few creative people sent out for some oriental cookbooks to make the best of a bad situation and soon word got around that vinegar and ginger were the ticket to making snake fish flesh edible and quite tasty for that matter. In fact, people liked eating them so much that soon fool fish were being served in every restaurant in Granville. And when word got around to the neighboring areas of �the fish that was simply delish�, people from all over Norfolk County started flocking to Granville. And in time, someone got the bright idea to farm the things and soon every swimming pool, ditch, and reservoir was converted into a fool fish farm. Neighboring peoples just couldn�t get enough fool fish. Soon the people of Granville had money jingling around in their pockets again. The town hall was rebuilt, the roads were re-paved and soon people started praising the Lord for having sent them fool fish. Of course, by then the fish weren�t called fool fish anymore. The people of Granville preferred to call them �Asian dragons�, which hinted of an exotic delicacy. * * * Jim sat at the edge of the Granville pools and stared long and hard at the green water. A fool fish broke the surface every few seconds. After a while, he grew tired of looking at the fool fish and turned his attention to staring at the horizon. In the distance several farms were being demolished to make way for a fish processing plant that when finished would supply ready made fish dishes throughout the state and provide nearly half the town with work. As Jim watched the bulldozers at work, he began to think of his son who was five going on six. He would never have a chance to know what real fishing was like. He would never know what a real fish tasted like for that matter. As he watched the wall of one of the farms come crashing down, he couldn�t help thing that everything�s changing. Everything�s changing.
Copyright © 2002 Jt Pearce |