I landed a 70-year-old fish today. Actually, it may be older. It was already dead the first time I looked up at it, mounted on wood with one eye that followed me around the room, or at least that it is how I remember the fish hanging over the fireplace in a relative’s cabin. I was 9 or so and it was to be the summer of fishing for me, according to my parents. The memories are vague, save for this eternal fish that watched over me for a month.
At summer’s end I forgot about the fish until many years later when my father put it up on the wall in the living room, again over a fireplace. I was now eye-level with that eye that appeared more panicked than watchful. Time to move on.
Decades passed without a thought of this fish until a delivery man left it leaning on the front door. My sister had mailed it to me in a long thin box that looked like it might contain a pool cue stick.
As I removed the layers of newspaper I prepared myself to see a relic that was much less than I what remember. Going back has usually been a disappointment for me. Places are smaller, dirtier than expected. But the fish was a surprise—it hadn’t changed, in fact, it had an amber glow that spoke of wisdom and serenity.
For the time first time I wanted to know more about this mystery fish. For one, it was small, about 14 inches, not a match for those sweeping marlins that adorn the homes of people who have everything. I first saw it in that cabin at the edge of Budd Lake, the largest natural body of water in New Jersey. Perch and bass are caught there. Was it my distant relative’s first catch? Why mount it? Why did my father inherit it? Why am I anxious to hang it? And who will get it next?
Some fish are meant to outlive us just as some questions don’t require answers, better to let vagueness embellish the past so it can enrich the present.