Do you have a favorite, Walter?
You won’t believe me, but there used to be a sculpin in this tank that would suck the rings right off people’s fingers. They’d chase him down, but he’d always have his hidey-hole. Sometimes they’d get them back, but sometimes he hid those rings too well for anybody to find.
They talked about putting that fish down. Or picking him up, I suppose, which is what you do with an unruly fish—you lift him up, out of the water. I said, Are you crazy? You can’t try a fish under human laws. You can’t punish a fish just for being fishy. I’ll bring all the PETA people down here, I said, all the Greenpeace people, right down here to Ocean Adventure. See if I don’t. And they said, OK, Walter. Have it your way.
Now this is the part you won’t believe. One morning, I come down, and I put my hand in the tank like I always do, and I feel something being slipped over my finger. I have to hold my hand real close to my face, like this, to see what it is. A golden ring with a little green stone—and just the right size, too. I put my hand back in, and on goes another ring, then another, then another. My hand’s all decked out, like a Christmas tree.
I’d like to think that sculpin was showing his gratitude. He knew I’d stood up for him. But who knows what goes on in fish-dreams, in hidey-holes. Maybe he just liked the look of my fingers. Sometimes people will say, How come you never married, Walter? And I’ll say: Didn’t you hear? I married a fish.
What do they feel like, Walter?
The horseshoe crab is like a violin case.
The hermit crab is like knockoff porcelain.
The ray is like the shy thigh of a woman.
The conch is a hard lump in the throat.
The sea cucumber is a silk organ, like a teddy bear’s intestine.
The whelk is a doorknob that won’t open.
The moon jelly is a half-remembered dream.
You’ve been coming here a long time, Walter.
That’s right, and it’s not what it used to be. Fish are always fish and crabs are crabs and rays are rays, but the people aren’t what they used to be. These days a child will stand right next to you and try to peel a sand star off a rock like a scratch-and-sniff.
Now, I don’t blame the children. I blame Mom and Pop and neglectful Nana. In fact, even full-grown adults will do it: lift a sand dollar or an anemone right out of the water to drown in air. They can’t hear it gasping, because they don’t know how to listen.
Don’t get me started on the ones they send to chase me off at the end of the day. It’s always some teenaged tank-wiper ticket-shredder, putting on their big-pants voice. We’re closing in five minutes, sir. Don’t you think it’s time you went home, sir. You’ve been here all day, sir, and yesterday too.
They think because I can’t see them, I don’t know who they are: the lowest on the day’s totem pole, helpless and hapless. And when they look at me, they see someone even more helpless—someone with even less hap. Someone they can put their pincers to.
I encourage it, I guess. I keep my accessories on me, my dark glasses and my stick. That way people see what they want to see. I get a kick out of it. Because in the end, which of us sees more?
Don’t you get lonely, Walter?
Oh, no. All my friends are here. My slimy, spiny, flukey friends. I know them all—I read their backs like braille. And even when I’m all alone at home, I have my dream.
What’s your dream, Walter?
A beautiful person appears at the door. Even I can tell when a person is beautiful. The light treats them differently, more gently. Sometimes it’s a man, but mostly it’s a woman. It’s a nurse, maybe, or a home health aide. Someone sent down from somewhere after a long struggle of applications and telephone calls—you know, for assistance.
The beautiful person takes my hand and helps me to the bathroom where she fills the tub with clear cool water. I take off my clothes and she helps me into the tub. I’m not embarrassed to be naked. I never have been, and I’m not about to start now, not in my own dream.
I lie back in the water, and I close my eyes. I feel the hands of the beautiful person on my body. One hand on each side of the ribs, like she’s going to shock me back to life with her bare hands. Then she says: All right, Walter. Now you’re a horseshoe crab.
I tense up all my muscles and I make myself hard and smooth all over. She feels me up and down. All right, Walter. Now you’re a sea star. And I kick my feet and arms out and I get all sandy. All right, Walter. Now you’re a moon jelly—and I just about disappear. All right, Walter. Now you’re a hermit crab. And my mind shrinks up real small and I retreat into the darkest deepest place of myself. I can’t feel her hands anymore, but I can hear them far above, like someone knocking on the roof of a cave.
All right, she says. Now you’re Walter.
And I come on out of my shell, and I let myself relax. She’s feeling me up and down. She says: That’s Walter, all right. I’d know him anywhere.
