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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/book “the End of the World” cc&d, v279 (the January 2018 issue) Order this as a 6"x9" paperback book:  |
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Bird Island
Chapter 9
The Crabs
Patrick Fealey
“Mail call! I think Bird got a letter!”
Wawp is home from the boats.
“Don’t act so hot, Bird. It’s only June. Here’s your mail.”
Bird takes the letter and stands on it and pulls. Bird rips the paper while Wawp laughs. “No news is good news!”
The big one, always fish. Where are the fish? Scott is not a fish.
Sitting in the chair, like a fish, Scott talks to Wawp. “My parents are dead. I was left to fend for myself. I was still a teenager when they both died. Both of them. My parents had money, but when they died, my aunts and uncles and my older brother, they stole it all. I got nothing. My own brother. I grew up in a waterfront house - look at me now.”
“Narragansett Island?”
“I never saw you,” it says.
“I never saw you.”
“We never met because I went to private schools off-island.”
“Scott, what’s your last name?”
“Locke.”
“That’s probably it.”
“I don’t have any problem living with your bird.”
“He likes you. Must be the Batman shirt. It should be alright. I have a cage for him, his house, in my room, if needed.”
“I like bats, myself.”
The fish die on the edge of the sea. A red face spits at Wawp and Bird: “Scott? Fuck me if I know where that fat fucker is.” Wawp takes Bird and the silver fish to the water. Bird pecks and Bird pulls it out. The white ones shout about it, but they stay away from Wawp. The white ones always shout about it.
The ringing and Wawp wake Bird. Wawp is talking.
“Scott! Get up! Your boss just called. He says to get your ass down to the docks now or your ass is fired!”
“Can you drive me?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve been lifting crates of fish and wearing these yellow boots for a year and you know how much that asshole pays me? Five bucks an hour.”
Bird is on Wawp. Wawp is walking among the humans on their day. Wawp drank some ta-keel-laa in a quiet bar. There is more noise on the street than there are humans here. Wawp talks to Bird below the noise and humans. In the field of humans Bird sees the fish human Scott Bird and Wawp talk with. Scott is walking, bent looking at his feet. Scott is slow. Scott makes small steps, falls onto one foot, catches himself, falls onto the other foot. Scott is bigger than other humans and yellow legs shine with fish scales. On Scott’s black chest is a black bird caught in yellow. It has fins.
Scott is in Scott’s sitting place, talking to Wawp. This is how Scott and Wawp do it in the dark, after the fish smell. Wawp is silent. “One night I was coming home – it was dark – I am just about here – when I get jumped by a bunch of niggers from the projects. High school kids. They knock me down. I come away with two black eyes, but I managed to grab one of them by the throat and nearly strangled him to death. I let go right before he was about to go out. It scared the shit out of the rest of them. They all took off on their buddy. He got reality – for no reason. They jump me for no reason. No reason at all. Niggers. They abandon their friend. Niggers. That guy walked off alone, slowly, after a brush with death. I wasn’t looking for any trouble.”
The human who makes the nice sounds is outside this place and it does not smell it.
Fish. It is the fish smell, but there are no fish to eat. It is Scott. Scott eats fish, wears fish, smells like fish, but never leads Bird to fish. Wawp and Bird climb the house and the fish smell is strong and when Wawp opens the door Bird looks and sees Scott again sitting in Scott’s place, eating FISH. Scott is looking at the light box and eating fish out of a bowl. Scott is crunching dry chips out of a bag. Scott is in his fish pants. Scott drinks black water from a bottle. Wawp takes Bird into the room. Wawp says, “He should take a goddamn shower first thing when he gets home.”
“What are you doing in there? I gotta crap!” Wawp says.
“Sitting on the toilet,” Scott says.
“After you take a shower?”
Wawp slaps his beer on the desk.
“I think there might be something down here causing all the trouble, Bird. That sensation that is half itch and half pain is not fiberglass . . . Follow the pain . . . You birds are good at this shit . . . Motherfuck . . . There he is. Smaller than a flea . . . With a red dot of blood in the middle of his clear body . . . He’s running! Holy shit! It actually looks like a crab! I got him! I killed him, Bird . . . But we’re not going to eat him . . . Sorry . . . Here’s another one! Got him. I feel sick. How the fuck did i get these? I’m going to the drugstore.”
“I hope you said a prayer to Marlin Perkins!” Wawp says, coming into the room, Wawp’s eel’s nest glowing.
Wawp jumps, hitting Wawp’s legs on the desk. The tapping-paper machine rings. “Holy shit! They’re pray to Ernest Hemingway.” Wawp comes back wet with Wawp’s body red. “I’m going to look like an obsessive-compulsive going to the laundromat again.”
“Bird. They’re back again. I don’t know what else to do. I fear I am losing my mind. I have to find out where they’re coming from. I’ll ask Jess first. Shit, man.”
Hellophone. Wawp is talking. The door is closed.
“I had to ask you first because if you hadn’t given them to me, there was a good chance I had by now given them to you, as careful as I have been not to sleep with you until after I had performed the Rid ritual. I don’t want to believe I caught them from you, but I have to start somewhere . . . Are you sure? . . . No itching, or- . . .”
“I am inclined to believe her, Bird. Time-wise, it doesn’t make sense, unless she is cheating and lying. Jess and I have been going out for three months and the crabs just arrived, right after we moved into this place with Paul and Scott. Scott is next on my list, and given his hours on the toilet and the nights he spends with prostitutes, he has become my prime suspect.”
“I don’t know why I’m procrastinating with Scott because I’m just getting more pissed off. When is the right moment to bring it up? I’m wiping the toilet seat with Lysol before every crap. I know I’m stalling. I’ve gone through six bottles of Rid and I am getting extremely paranoid. If I don’t feel anything biting into my crotch, I am waiting for it to happen.”
The other human is here. It sleeps at another place. It is in its skin. It makes smoke and rubs its arm where it is green. It and Wawp drink from bottles of beer. Wawp stands in the big room and it stands in the glass door that is always closed. It slept here last night.
“What do you think of that guy Scott?” it says.
“He’s alright,” Wawp says.
“My girlfriend is afraid of him. That’s why I’m never around. She refuses to come over here.”
“He’s a total pig to live with,” Wawp says.
“Yeah, I thought so. Look at my chair! It stinks! It’s ruined!”
“What are we gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” it says. “It’s disgusting.”
“We don’t have to live with Scott,” Wawp says.
“You mean kick him out?”
“What else can we do? We can ask him to try to change.”
“ . . .”
“I know it would be a pain in the ass to find someone, but I have my reasons,” Wawp says.
“What?”
“Do you have crabs? Because I caught them since I moved in.”
“What? No. Did you ask your girlfriend?”
“Yeah. She said she doesn’t have them.”
“Do you believe her?”
“Jess? Yeah,” Wawp says. “The timing isn’t right. I got them right after i moved in here.”
“When?”
“About two weeks.”
“That’s about right. Did you ask Scott?”
“Not yet.”
“You know, the guy who lived in your room before you might have had them. He was a sailor, a real scumbag.”
“Maybe.”
Scott is in Scott’s sitting place, talking low. Wawp is listening to Scott. “Paul gave me an ultimatum. Clean up your act or something is going to have to happen. This has happened to me before. I have been tossed out of places for exactly the same reason. I am a slob.”
Scott is in Scott’s sitting place, watching the light box and eating, but there is no fish smell. His hair is wet
“Look! There are no beer bottles rolling across the floor,” Wawp laughs.
“I have to be clean or face homelessness,” Scott says.
“There are no dishes in the sink,” Wawp says.
“Did you ask him yet? Did you ask him?” it says.
“What are you smiling about? It’s not funny,” Wawp says.
Scott and Wawp are standing in the dark room talking after making the sound play.
“I have a question, Scott,” Wawp says. “Do you have crabs? I caught them and I don’t know where from, but I got them recently. Do you think you have them?”
“Oh no, I don’t got the crabs. Oh no, i don’t got the crabs.”
FISH. The fish is in the house. Scott is in Scott’s sitting place and Scott is the fish. Scott is watching the light box. Wawp kicks a bottle across the floor and Scott goes into Scott’s room. Low sounds through the house. “Bird. Scott’s blown it. He’s out. The crabs are out. The lobsters are out. The tuna is out. Tom Petty is out.”
