he hated the incessant back and forth

                                                                                 no he didnt

but he suspected if he didnt put-up a miniscule protest inculcate some sense of PC it might not carry water 

he . .what was the word . . . . unabashedly. he unabashedly relished confrontation                                                                                          

his relish enveloped its mystical sense  he relished the back and forth as he relished the rock of sex  though perhaps what he disliked of these particular volleys were that the arguments were between his selves

An interior monologue?

give im a fuckin break

they were diatribes  houndings  his varied aspects back and forth which at once were as aggressive as he

they were Contrarians Provocateurs frothing eidgets

                                                 he figured one day itd break out in a fistfight

and he could only begin to hope that someone with a smartphone might walk by and film it or whatever they did with it for prosperityhed really like to see what that looked likehis imagination to struggle otherwisehis selves bullying his selves would be comical

but thats what comedians did

though they had the commonsense perhaps to script it sanitise it

he waylaid himself at every opportunityhe couldnt help himself

he didnt have eyes to peer over both shoulders of all hes at once

                                                         he was a sitting duck

fish in a barrel . . .

                      . . . NO    catfish in a barrel . . .

. . . he carried them home to his house from next door . . . the Laceys . . . carried them off away from the barrel of Edwins pellet gun . . . Edwin shot them the three fish in the back of the head and when he cried Stop Youre killing them Edwin backhanded him knocking him down in the backyard bloodying his nose . . . he smeared the blood with the back of his hand and looked at it to confirm he was bleedingit felt like he was . . . standing over him Edwin told him if he really wanted to he could save the fish . . . he could bring them back to life . . . Jesus came back to life didnt he . . . he didnt know about that . . . he knew Church and Jesus . . . he knew that because of Edwins stories when the Laceys returned after dressing and going to Church several times a week . . . Edwin said they went to please his mother . . . Old Lady Lacey Edwins wildhaired mother who resented the neighbourhood kids and treated them spitefully so badly that his mother and grandmother told him to steer clear of her . . . he hid when he saw her . . . she rarely saw him first unless she watched from inside her house .. . watched from between her closed curtains her dark angular form behind the white embroidered linen panels . . . hed see her watching him and spooked he beat it into his grandmothers house where he lived with his family and a young uncle

he carried the catfish home in a ballia a tin-metal basin and hid them under the wooden backporch stairs tucked away pushed forward against the bottom of the treads covered with a burlap onion sack so they wouldnt be seen unless someone was looking for them

Edwin said he could raise them like Jesus was . . . You feed them bread like the host given at Mass at Church  Everlasting Life  and feeding them you pray Pray yes You wish them back to life and if you wish or pray hard enough they will come back to life but you have to believe they will you have to believe they will . . . And he did with every fiber of his body

his grandmother discovered the catfish two weeks later under the humid heat of a Chicago summer

she had been complaining of a foul smell for a couple of evenings

at dinner at the large kitchen table she wondered to the family if someone hadnt paid their garbage collection bill to the city as it sought to shut down people from incinerating their garbage in the alleys behind their homes

she wondered if someone hadnt paid the garbagemen and they refused to pick up their garbage this week 

Now the whole neighborhood has to suffer she said

she had an acute nose

everyone in the family would admit as much but they couldnt smell anything  during the heat of day they were usually at work

she didnt complain a third day
she found his rotting catfish in the ballia in the tepid unchanged water among scabs and swirls of the white bread he snuck out of the house to feed them

he fed them host as Edwin called it and believed they would come back to life with his help and spite Edwins cruelty

shooting them in the head while they were helpless to defend themselves

they were unable to defend themselves and he too puny to stop Edwin

that was his angst  though not that he knew what to call it

his grandmother called him out of the house and standing in the backyard before the ballia she asked him in broken English if he knew anything about it and the dead fish

Im trying to bring them back to life

Edwin said if I believed I could I would

I tink you try very hard but dey are beyond saving

I tink you ought to bury dem now

You understand dey are dead

I do I just wanted to save them

she rest a quiet palm on top his head caressing him  You tried  We dont always succeed when we try

Do you need help burying dem

No grandma

Would you bury dem in da unturned ground in da back corner of garden

By the fence  By the alley

Yes

I will

I go get da shovel from da garage and leave you to your fish for bit

bitter hot tears flooded his eyes

he slowly knelt on the grass before the catfish in the ballia he silently told the three that he was sorry he couldnt help themhe couldnt stop Edwinhe couldnt raise them like Jesus

he closed his eyes in his childs misery to stop the burning of the tears  and to stop seeing the terrible state of their once smooth beautiful bodies

when he opened his eyes again the spade his grandmother went for laid beside him

he covered the ballia with the burlap and went to the garden plot and dug a very deep hole a quiet hole a hole that might feel like the river bottom that might feel good to them

he poured them with the water into the hole and stood over the catfish until the water was sucked up by the earth

they laid side by side head to head facing back towards his grandmothers house as if they acquitted him of his failure and would watch over him forever be his guardians

that he didnt arrange them to lay as they did spoke to him  and the latent tears he thought hed shed while he gently covered them with unnatural earth unnatural to them were stayed pent up turned into stronger blood in his veins passing through his heart lions blood changed blood   changing him

nothing was said at the dinner table that evening about the smell

nothing furthur was said to him about the catfish by his grandmother or his parents or uncle

. . . No  he didnt have eyes to peer over both shoulders of all hes at once 

he only had his own eyes 

                      and what he had lived informed him what he might expect and not expect

he preferred confrontation

1040,  Sunday,  24  7. 16

 0804,  Sunday,  31  7. 16