BSD

It was years later, on a Sunday evening in the Higgins Conference Room at the hospital, with the murky clipper ship painting hanging overhead, addressing the group, that he would say the truth of what happened that night.

I asked her to go and get the camera, he said. Just so we could tell Joshua about it later, show the evidence and have a picture to tell the whole story, if it became important to do that. Managing levels of truth for age, something we do all the time. So she walked out of the room to get the camera, and it took me less than that long to do it.

To drink the vodka. To drink the vodka, in a paper cup, that we had just euthanized Josh's betta fish in. We were humane people. One of the first bettas had grown a tumor and had started to die a slow, slow, slow death. One night it was evident that the reigning betta at the time was too heavy with tumor to make the surface for air anymore, and I distracted Josh, turning the fish light in the aquarium off, making lots of jokes and being more fooly at bedtime than usual.

That fish I took out of the tank with a net as soon as Josh was asleep, having quickly googled about pithing, and having prepped the back porch with block of wood, nail, hammer, and washcloth for grip. Only the nail was too small. I drove it clear and true through that fish's head on the first strike, but when I pulled the nail out, the fish started flipping all over the place. I had no bigger nail and it took two more strikes, two more holes, the sum of their diameters, to kill that fish's brain. My heart was up in my throat by the end of it.

Pithing. There are tools, you don't use a nail. You insert the pithing tool inside the fish's brain, and you destroy the brain, shred it to bits. People live with projectiles and gunshots that go clean through the head and miss the critical parts all the time. Same principle. You know about that, you've seen it on TV a million times, but you don't put it together when you're in a rush to try to euthanize your kid's pet. You're rushing. Not connecting principles and information.

So I had prepared for the next time. I had re-googled, and learned about the clove-oil/vodka method. Claire went to borrow a half glass of vodka from the neighbors, it being Sunday night, and all liquor stores closed. I had the clove oil from the natural foods store already. I took distilled water, poured it in, shook it hard, made an emulsion. I got some oil on my hands and it burned a little. I read somewhere to be careful about that because clove oil was maybe a carcinogen.

We put the clove oil water in the paper cup, which held Comet the fish with his tumor and near-death jerks and sinks and own aquarium water. He shot back and forth maybe five times, as I poured the emulsion in, and I know Claire and I both seized in our guts: how ugly was this going to get. But then he laid over on his side and floated down, deep asleep, anesthetized, just as the google pages said he would be. And I picked him up and transferred him over into the vodka, which killed him for good.

Opportunity, he told the group. That is what the obsession is. You are doing nothing but waiting on silent radar for opportunity, even after months, even after years, even when you think that part of you is dead and gone. You are WAITING he said, his voice rising, and the group sitting up a little more, adjusting coats, refolding hands.

He paused. I drank the vodka. She left the room, and I had no time to waste. I took it in one hand, cup of vodka and fish, a huge shot down my throat, while slowly pouring aquarium water into the sink with the other hand which Claire would hear and assume was the vodka. Because I don't drink anymore.

And I was rushed, he said. I was COMPELLED. And that fish went right down my throat, like the worm at the end of a tequila bottle. I belched air laced with clove for days after that.

After years of marital wreckage, and detox, and couples counseling, and family counseling, and 6 years of sobriety, and seven sponsors, and a thousand AA meetings, I became obsessed in less than a second to take a huge shot of my own sworn poison, and my son's dead fish. And I was COMPELLED to lie to Claire when she came in just seconds afterwards, with the camera, to make a fist pretending to have the fish in it, and smile as relaxed at her as I could. To LIE. To smile at her, gently, and say I think I will just take him and bury him out in the garden, we'll just tell Josh in the morning.

To see what your wife's face looks like as you say this, the vodka moments from hitting your brain and making you feel like everyone else, but warmer - to not be able to UNDERSTAND what that look on her face is. Because you just pulled it all off and covered it up, and its a 10 out of 10 move and it doesn't count, won't count, because these circumstances you did not premeditate, and they will be unlikely to happen again, so you are still settled comfortably in your six years and your recovery of family, faith, trust, and spirit.

He looked at the table, hands flat to either side. Mismatched books holding the flags from sliding off: Just for Today, on the right; Live and Let Live, on the left.

You have an aquamarine blue shred of fin stuck on your tooth, is what her brain is trying to process, and what that look on her face is about, he told the group. And that is why you will keep coming here, and you will always, always be sick. You will always be one second away from having a fin on your tooth while you tell a lie to your wife with your hand fisted around an invisible fish.

Alcohol, he said, makes you crazy. Alcohol in your body makes you go insane. That is what this disease does.

And with that, the group stood, and shuffled out from behind the rows of chairs to make a circle and hold hands, with him, in the Higgins Conference Room, while someone intoned

Who's father?

And the group answered,

Our Father

and began the Lord's Prayer, heads bowed, clipper ship murking on forward through its murky painted water, indifferent to the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, and Forever, and

Keep coming back, it Works.

Xena November 16, 2010 at 10:33 pm

Tonight I called out sincerely to Ethan while looking up at the kitchen ceiling. I even tried to drop my squeaky sniveling tone that makes him cringe. I was crying and somewhat repetitive but confident. I didn’t hear his voice or see any clear signs of him but he is sneaky so I wouldn’t be surprised if he leaves something subtle. What if there is an afterlife and maybe he is there sitting on a cloud or sleeping on a bench. Ethan may still play the trumpet everyday and maybe he is even meeting new people. He could also be transformed into a pack of crows with no idea that he was once Ethan. I wonder if he will send a post card. I always got his attention before when I started rushing the gravy or mixing salt improperly. Maybe I should try that now do those things that he just couldn’t stand to watch me ruin. I wonder if he is blind there without his eyes. I miss making him laugh and chuckle and find himself unexpectedly joyful in a dull part of life. I miss tackling him. This afterlife place feels so far away where is the consciousness of Ethan?