More Gob and Roe

‘These are terrible crabcakes, these’ complained the harridan, ‘pomegranate sour sourness, yuck!’ The monger mongered small fish, medium fish, lardy fish, fish with gills, fish without gills, some fish with dorsal fins and others whose eyes were missing, airbladders and funnels for siphoning guck and gore, he mongered and mongered until the tips of his fingers bled and his eyes turned inside out from staring and concentrating on fish and fish byproducts, like black tarry roe and gob and fish semen that looked and smelt like fishy bouillabaisse and chowder, and guts and coils of intestine and fecal matter and more gob and roe and sperm so milky white one could easily mistake it for laxative or talcum powder. He mongered until the cows came home and the roosters roosted. The fish-monger would have mongered mutton had he a curing-rod and enough rope to hoist it over the transom. He had a mongrel dog mange with fleas and rime disease he kept behind the mongering-house next to the Sears across the way from the Waymart. He took the dog for daily trots round the aqueduct on a lease made from wishbones and ox-hair, yanking hard on the lead whenever the mongrel drove to the right or the left. He disliked things off-kilter and went to great pains to redress anything that might be perceived as a carom or a veer. As he was blessed with a straight back and equally straight legs, a gift from his mother’s side, he could rein in the dog whenever it mistook a heel for a hightail or a come here for a lunge or an off-cantor.