Save a whale - Read a book

I love my fish. They don’t do anything. And they’re always hiding. My friends, they come over and say, Hey how come your fish don’t do anything and how come they’re always hiding. I tell ‘em I don’t know. Why don’t you ask ‘em yourself.

I finally moved one of the fish’ hiding rocks from the back corner to the front corner cause they always hide behind it and ya can’t see ‘em. I thought it would be pretty cool to come in and know right where they are, say to ‘em, There you are! and sit there and watch ‘em. Even though they don’t do anything. I’d sit there and watch ‘em doin’ nothin’.

Well, now they just don’t hide behind that rock anymore. It’s cool though. There’s still something tranquil about a tank full of water and rocks and fake plants. I have to turn the thing off at night though. Be laying there trying to sleep and it sounds like Moses parting the sea, freakin’ geyser, it is. Plus I always dream about having to pee. Vivid dreams - no joke. I’ll be holdin’ it in and such and finally dream I find a john then let the river flow, if ya catch my drift. It’s fifty-fifty whether I’ll wake up soaked through. Wake up with my fingers crossed. Slide my hand down and feel around a bit. Never have any leaks. Got solid plumbing downstairs. Thank goodness.

Still got to turn the tank off at night though. All it takes is one accident and I’d be pissed. I really did piss my pants in the third grade though. Took me three years to get over it. Of course I spent three years in the third grade too. They finally got tired of me. I like to tell people I finally got tired of them. I was scared to ask the teacher to go to the bathroom. Get this though, no lie, her name was Mrs. Wiener. I'm not making that up. It’s not pronounced the way ya’ll are thinking. It’s Way – ner. But in the third grade it was pronounced way funnier. I often think of the poor kid that sat in my desk after we changed classes. He was the star athlete, peewee quarterback or something. Yes, even in the third grade, there were hierarchies – cool kids and not cool kids. Needless to say, I was part of the latter. Thought he was gonna’ beat the hell outta me during recess. He didn’t. And I'm glad.

I didn’t get beat up till the fifth grade, four years later. Being older than everybody else, but still smaller, came with a whole lot of ridicule. Genetics. Can’t live with ‘em. Can’t live without ‘em. My first time, it had snowed the night before. Doesn’t snow a lot in Memphis, so it was something special. Not getting beat up, I mean. The snow was pretty special. Getting beat up sucked. I was hanging out with my best bud, Loren, and his friend, another jock a-hole named Randy. They decided to throw snowballs at me. Then they tackled and held me down cramming snow in my face while I squirmed around helpless, crying, not from pain but from what I considered bitter betrayal.

I think I’d cry in a fight even now. At twenty-three years old, I’d feel like the biggest wuss ever - and probably cry even harder because I was crying in the first place. Sucks, cause I think I’d be good at fighting. It would just be distracting, crying all over the place. I wrestled in a small hick town high school on the outskirts of the county. It was the one sport I was remotely good at. I remember overhearing my dad tell one of his friends about his son being on the wrestling team. Dad said, Yea, his feet are just too big for other sports. He tried basketball but was too clumsy. Baseball, he was too slow running the bases, and scared of the ball besides. Wrestling seems to fit him. And he really seems to like it.

I’ll admit, I was pretty scared of that ball. I remember trying out for a church team around the eighth grade and seriously thinking I was on the unlucky end of the Alamo canon barrage when they batted the balls my way. Anyway, wrestling worked out for me pretty well. Especially after hearing how proud my dad finally was of me. I learned a lot about my body and what I can do to another body. Which is important if you’re gonna’ fight someone. Once I got past the middle school years of getting pounded every day at the bus stop, I haven’t really had any use for my – too late acquired – fighting knowledge. Thing about those middle school years, the kids were older. They didn’t even ride the bus. I don’t know that they even went to school. They’d just be waiting for me at my stop.

The best day ever was when one of ‘em rode his bike away after making sure my blue eyes stayed black. He was all into bike tricks. I'm sure it got him real far in life too. Yea well, this one day he got the idea of riding his bike into a tree. Not like crash into it. But ride up the roots, up the trunk itself, and I don’t know if he wanted to do a full flip or what, but instead of rolling safely back down the tree he did end up doing a flip. Pretty flippin’ sweet flip – well…the part before he landed on his back and lay there like a dead horse for several minutes. Sounded like a dead horse too. Anyway, I got a kick out of it. The next day at the bus stop I got another kick out of it...

Pissed blood that night…

Did make it to the bathroom – first – at least…