The man in the hat kept a sty-pond behind his lean-to where he kept three coelacanth, an angelfish with one eye, two speckled groupers and a school of Norwegian carp. He fed them from the garbage behind the Seder grocer’s, a diet that consisted of dross, mildew, mold, rot, blister, fen, spoil, cabbage (so rotten it was indistinguishable from moldy parchment) carrot greens, sebaceous runny eggs, sunny-side down and yolk-less, potatoes with so many eyes they looked like a grammar-school of half-blind pupils, pupa, pupae, scaled chicken skin, so yellowed it looked more like meringue than chicken skin, boxtops and bottoms, uppers and downers (that had found they’re way into the Seder’s garbage by some form of apothecary alchemy) elbow grease, ankle jelly, gluten-free rye bread, half-bottles of Coca Cola and Spruce Beer (and on occasion Jamaican Ginger Beer) and an odd assortment of canned goods and tinned meat. He had a red snapper with an airbladder so bilious it died from overexposure to ultraviolet rays and lifelessness (as it could only float, due to its biliousness, sinking to the bottom of the sty-pond only after it expired).
This got him thinking about his da and riding round in the Mercury Fish truck delivering stacked crates of fish and fishy things, his da poking the nose of the truck in and out of traffic, shirt sleeves bristling in the wind, his fist pounding the dashboard, a trail of cigarette ash hedging along the ceiling of the truck cab. He always remembered the smell, of fish oil and grease, the pong of the disinfectant his da used to scrub clean the back of the truck when the deliveries had been delivered and the empty crates accounted for. At the end of the week his da’s pay envelope contained one-hundred and 27½ dollars, the highest denominations at the bottom, the lowest at the top. He always kept a few of the smaller denominations for himself, folding and placing them in his back pocket. He kept them to pay for the tall brown quart-bottles he bought on credit at the men’s only tavern across from the Mercury Fish Co. It was here that he first became acquainted with the man who made the ice at the local hockey rink who drank his quart-bottles with the palms of both hands clasped together as if in prayer, on account of the fact he was missing three fingers on each hand.
This got him thinking about his da and riding round in the Mercury Fish truck delivering stacked crates of fish and fishy things, his da poking the nose of the truck in and out of traffic, shirt sleeves bristling in the wind, his fist pounding the dashboard, a trail of cigarette ash hedging along the ceiling of the truck cab. He always remembered the smell, of fish oil and grease, the pong of the disinfectant his da used to scrub clean the back of the truck when the deliveries had been delivered and the empty crates accounted for. At the end of the week his da’s pay envelope contained one-hundred and 27½ dollars, the highest denominations at the bottom, the lowest at the top. He always kept a few of the smaller denominations for himself, folding and placing them in his back pocket. He kept them to pay for the tall brown quart-bottles he bought on credit at the men’s only tavern across from the Mercury Fish Co. It was here that he first became acquainted with the man who made the ice at the local hockey rink who drank his quart-bottles with the palms of both hands clasped together as if in prayer, on account of the fact he was missing three fingers on each hand.
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