Beef and Barley Chowder

His mama bought him two Japanese fighting-fishing for his seventh birthday, two in case one killed and ate the other. One was blue and red with yellow stripes along the dorsal-fin, the other red and blue with orange stripes along the dossal-fin. His da thought keeping fish was stupid and made him keep them in a cloudy bowl under the sink. When the alms man wanted to look at his fish he first had to ask his da for permission, then pull the bowl out from under the sink and take it out behind the house where his father couldn’t see him. He wished that Japanese fighting-fish could beat up his da, ripping his ear off or shoving him down the cellar stairs. But as they could only live in water and had tiny heads and even tinier fins he quickly gave up on thinking such thoughts. His da was a debauchee anyhow and would die sooner or later, from some type of poisoning or floundering out in front of the Mercury Fish truck, which came down they’re street every morning at 27 ½ minutes past eight. Keeping fish in a cloudy bowl and begging for alms were twin avocations, the former preparing the alms man for the latter. He could see why the man in the hat ate dog-meat cooked, broiled, steamed, stewed, skewered and spitted, made into a goulash and eaten with biscuits and gravy, as he, too, must have had a troubling childhood. The alms man had no fondness for fish, preferring tinned meats and soup; sometimes cold in a gazpacho or steaming hot with carrots and turnip in a beef and barley chowder.

The alms man laid a bed of stones and coloured pebbles at the bottom of the fishbowl, then scraped the algae and fishy slim off the sides with a squeegee he stole from the Waymart. As the bowl was old, having been used as drip-bucket when his da changed the oil in his sedan, it needed a good deal of scraping and squeegeeing. His da agreed to lend it to him as a fishbowl on the condition the he kept it hidden under the sink where he couldn’t see it. It took his days to squeegee and scrap the oil from the inside of the drip-bucket, and even longer to convince his da to lend it to him for his fish. He’d thought about stealing some fish from the back of the Mercury Fish truck, but decided against it when he realized that his da was up and out the door by 26 ½ minutes past eight, and would have made a scene in front of the truck-driver and his loader. Then he thought he could pilfer some of the smaller fish from the marble pond in front of the Waymart, but on second though, thought it would be just as easy to steal them from the Japanese Embassy, so made a plan to steal some more fighting-fish in case the two he got for his birthday ended up killing and eating on another.