
Goldfish Boots
Haydon’s boots complained ever since he injured his leg.
“It’s been three days and we’ve barely gone walking. Our soles are starting to atrophy. Our laces are stiffening, they need to be looped, otherwise they’ll never tie again.” On and on they prattled.
Haydon did his best to soothe his boots. He wore them to bed. The boots clunked together under the covers whenever he rolled over. The tongues panted, claiming they were suffocating beneath the heavy down quilt, and kicked the blankets to the floor. Haydon’s bare legs sprouted goose pimples and his teeth chattered.
The boots said, “We’re starting to shrink. Keep us from walking and soon you won’t be able to fit us anymore. You’ll have to hack off your heel like Cinderella’s wicked stepsister.”
So Haydon put the boots on his hands and walked around the cabin. Blood rushed to his head until the pressure behind his eyes made him temporarily blind. Balanced above his head, his sore leg throbbed.
His boots were not satisfied.
“Your hands are too cold. And they stink of cigarette smoke. You ought to be putting socks over them, you know, just as a courtesy.”
Haydon did not appreciate being lectured by his boots, which if he hadn’t rescued from that telephone line, would still be dangling there, filling up with rain every time there was a storm, and getting crusted over with guano. Some gratitude.
The last straw was when the boots made threats.
“Every day you don’t walk us we get lazier and lazier. How can you visit your sweetheart, Auntie Linda, when we’ve forgotten how to run?”
Haydon did not appreciate being lectured by his boots, which if he hadn’t rescued from that telephone line, would still be dangling there, filling up with rain every time there was a storm, and getting crusted over with guano.
Auntie Linda’s acreage was located all the way out in Pelham, at the end of dirt roads so long, jet airplanes used them as runways when they needed to make emergency landings, which, due to the number of Canadian geese jamming themselves in the engines, was quite often. Auntie Linda gave permission for the planes to land on her acreage on the condition the airline replaced the engine turbines with a softer material, so that the geese could be untwisted from inside, their pride hurt, but otherwise no worse for wear.
Haydon couldn’t walk to Auntie Linda’s acreage; that was a 12-hour trip. By the time he arrived, she would have forgotten all about inviting him. The only way to get there was by running. With his boots in tip-top condition, he could make it to Auntie Linda’s acreage in just over an hour. 45 minutes when the wind blew at his back.
“Alright you horse’s ass,” Haydon said as he tugged the boots onto his feet and did up the laces. “You want to run, I’ll give you a run.” He never dropped in on Auntie Linda uninvited, but fortunately, Auntie Linda never held a grudge over first-time mistakes.
Due to his leg wobbling painfully in his hip joint, Haydon had to stop to rest several times. Whenever he did so, his boots stomped in place like impatient horses, kicking up clouds of dust.
“Let’s go!” his boots urged. “Stand here too long and a plane is liable to land on us.”
When Haydon arrived at the acreage, he spotted activity in the thick of Auntie Linda’s garden. He lumbered over, expecting to find a couple of rabbits. He intended to remind them which vegetables Auntie Linda planted for scavengers and which were ghost plants that would cause painful death if consumed, and advise the rabbits to eat accordingly. Instead, he found a young boy. Scrawny and barefoot, he crouched in the garden, watching the lone lit window of Auntie Linda’s acreage house. Haydon’s sudden arrival startled him. The boy’s eyes bulged from the overload of adrenaline coursing through his body.
The boy relaxed when he saw Haydon’s boots. Scuffed and weather-beaten, malodorous, decades out of fashion, it was obvious Haydon hadn’t bought the boots out of some fancy shop where the salesperson measured your feet for a perfect fit before selling you oil with which to shine the leather thrice weekly. The boy figured Haydon acquired his boots out of a garbage dump or maybe even off the feet of an exhumed convict. Assuming Haydon to be a fellow thief, the boy resumed watching the house, waiting for the light to go out.
“I was here first, so I go in first,” the boy said. “You’re welcome to whatever you like once I’m finished.”
Haydon settled down in the garden beside the boy. He put his hands over his boots, signalling them to hush up for awhile.
“I’m not greedy,” the boy said. “I’m just here for the old witch’s book.”
Haydon winced, knowing Auntie Linda hated the epithet “witch.” He’d seen her get angry while recounting incidents of uninformed travellers calling her that. Other times he had seen her cry. The grey steel wool on Haydon’s chest had turned silky and blonde where her tears had dribbled.
“‘I’m not greedy,’ the boy said. ‘I’m just here for the old witch’s book.’”
The boy held the circular bottom of a busted glass bottle to his right eye. The lens focused his vision, allowing him to see clearly across the garden into Auntie Linda’s window. Haydon reflected that a pair of glasses would correct the boy’s vision just as well, and leave his hands free at the same time. “What do you want with her book?” Haydon asked.
“I’ve been watching her for days. She sits up at night reading that book.”
Haydon knew Auntie Linda read a lot of books, which she found along the side of the highway. Often the first or last chunk of pages were missing, but Auntie Linda read them anyway. She thought not reading a book was like letting meat go to waste. It was shameful not to eat that for which a life had been taken. Even when she found the same book twice, she read it again, unless she really hated it, in which case she pressed the book onto Haydon to read for her, just like how she’d give him the scraps of her latest turkey for him to boil into soup.
“She licks her finger before turning the page,” the boy said, holding up his nose-picking finger to demonstrate. “Every page in that book has her spit stain on it.”
Haydon nodded. Auntie Linda’s spit was highly prized, with some people claiming it to be an aphrodisiac. Others claimed it could clean infected wounds, while still others claimed it beneficial for getting roaring drunk without regrets in the morning. “Is there equal interest in my piss?” Auntie Linda had once asked him.
“Yeah,” Haydon told the boy. “Having a couple hundred dabs of her spit would be valuable. Assuming you can get away with it.” Auntie Linda did not tolerate thieves. On the far side of the barn was a pit filled with the bones of those who had attempted to steal from her. The bones were cold, especially at night when they shivered. The sound of the clattering limbs and skulls echoed across the acreage, sounding like a swarm of cicadas. Despite their owners’ trespass, Haydon always felt sorry for them.
“I got it all figured out,” the boy said. “I bet she’s got a good memory and knows everything in her house.”
Haydon, who had once seen Auntie Linda pick up a salt shaker and weigh it methodically in her palm before remembering she had given three grains to a visiting ant, told the boy, “That sounds like a fair assumption.”
“I brought a book to replace the one I’m taking.” The boy held up a tattered, coverless tome, the edges greyed from car exhaust, that was a dead ringer for any book Auntie Linda found by the side of the road. If the boy had concerns about Auntie Linda being confused by the story changing drastically the next time she picked up the book, he didn’t mention it.
“What about getting out of her house?” Haydon asked. “I’ve heard the doors are uncooperative.” He recalled early visits to the house, when none of the doors would open for him without permission from Auntie Linda. A temporary prisoner, he spent hours at the kitchen table, passing the time by drawing images in the grains of salt from the overturned shaker while waiting for Auntie Linda to wake up and release him.
The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a daddy longlegs spider. Dozens of silk fibres had been affixed to the arachnid’s legs. “If the door won’t open, I just pop buddy here into the keyhole. Once he’s crawling around in the mechanism, tickling the latches and making them laugh, that door will come flying open.”
“Suppose she wakes up? If she hears the door, she’ll come chasing after you.”
The boy grinned like the evil genius in a Superman comic. He tapped the side of his head. “She can’t chase after me if I don’t go anywhere. She expects me to cut through the garden and head for the road, but instead, I’ll crawl under the porch. Then, I’ll wait a couple of months until she’s forgotten all about me. When it’s safe to crawl out, I may be a little hungrier and a lot smellier, but I’ll have outwitted her.” He stabbed his finger into the front page of his decoy. “And I’ll have an entire book of her spit.”
The boy’s eyes turned dreamy, imagining the comfort this new wealth would bring. Haydon pitied him. Whether the boy intended to sell Auntie Linda’s spit to save a dying sibling, or to drown himself in debauchery, didn’t matter. His supply would eventually run out, and he’d be right back where he started: crouching in her garden, scheming to rob a woman he looked down on. It was only a matter of time before he wound up shivering in her bone pit. Haydon couldn’t bear the thought of the chorus of thieves under her porch growing louder.
“Boy, you’ve thought of everything,” Haydon’s boots marvelled, clearly impressed. Their encouragement made the boy grin, stoking his desire to storm Auntie Linda’s house. Haydon seized the boots’ laces and pulled them tight, silencing their tongues.
The lone light in the house went out. Auntie Linda had retired to bed at last. The cicada-rustle of the bone pit shivering cold and lonesome drifted across the acreage. Before the boy could make his move, Haydon put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Have you ever heard the story of the goldfish and the barrabass fish?”
“There aren’t any barrabass,” the boy said. “They were hunted to extinction.”
Before the boy could make his move, Haydon put his hand on his shoulder and said, “‘Have you ever heard the story of the goldfish and the barrabass fish?’”
“Maybe, but that just means this story happened when there was still at least one barrabass left.” Haydon leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees, and began telling the story. “One day, a goldfish was swimming in the river when suddenly, a great barrabass came up from behind, mouth open, ready to devour the goldfish. Instead of giving up their life, the goldfish tells the barrabass, This isn’t fair. You’re so much bigger than me, I barely stand a chance. The barrabass replies, Precisely. Just as all the tiny life forms you eat stand no chance against you.
The boy’s head slowly drifted back to Auntie Linda’s house. His toes curled, raking the dirt. His impatience of being forced to hold still for a moment reminded Haydon of his own restless boots.
“The goldfish says, You must give me a fair chance. Amused, the barrabass says, What do you propose? The goldfish waves their fins, thinking for a moment. Three bites. Allow me to take three bites of you. If I can’t devour you in three bites, then you’re free to eat me. Now, as I’m sure you know, a barrabass is much bigger than a piddly goldfish. So, the barrabass says, Alright. Go ahead. Bite me. The goldfish swims up with their lips puckering. They latch onto the barrabass’s chin, yanking and pulling, biting off a single scale. The goldfish says, I will meet you here again tomorrow, and you’ll allow me to take my second bite.”
“I bet the goldfish didn’t come back, right? And the other fish laughed at the barrabass because he looked foolish with a big scale missing from his face.” The boy’s eyes focused on Auntie Linda’s house menacingly. “The barrabass learned when you see your chance, you strike hard and first.”
“Not quite,” Haydon said. “The goldfish knew a thing or two about how valuable barrabass skin was to those who cast spells, so he brought the scale to a woman he knew. Let’s not call her a witch, let’s call her … a woman of certain skills. There wasn’t much magic she could generate with a single scale, but after some haggling, she and the goldfish came to an agreement.”
“What was the agreement?” the boy asked.
“The next day, the goldfish and the barrabass meet in the same part of the river. The goldfish looks slightly different. Their body is the same size, but their mouth has been enlarged. The goldfish’s new lips trail behind their body in the water, like a big, droopy mustache. In exchange for the scale, the woman of skills stretched out their mouth and fitted it with new, metal teeth. This time, when the goldfish takes a bite, they rip into a good piece of flesh. The barrabass thrashes and bleeds. The bite stings, and the barrabass regrets making this deal with the goldfish instead of gobbling them up yesterday, but they are a fish of their word and have no choice but to see the agreement to the end. The goldfish says, I will meet you here again tomorrow, for my third and final bite.”
Haydon’s feet began to sting as his boots pinched tight. The boots hated the goldfish story, and urged him to wrap it up. For the sake of the boy, Haydon took his time, luxuriating in the telling.
“Again, the goldfish brings the mouthful of barrabass flesh to the woman of skills for bartering. She lifted the goldfish out of the water and bonked them over the head to knock them out while she performed the surgery at her kitchen table using needles and an old otter bladder she’d been keeping around, knowing it would come in handy eventually. The next day, the goldfish and the barrabass meet in the same part of the river. Again, the goldfish looks different. The body and tail are the same size, but the belly, flat and enormous as a flounder, drags through the water. The barrabass accepts their fate, closing their eyes as they pass in a single bite through the goldfish’s new lips into the tight confines of the goldfish’s new stomach, wholly devoured.”
The boy nodded, clearly inspired. “That goldfish thought of everything.” He saw himself reflected in the cunning goldfish. Auntie Linda thought she was the powerful one, but in the event of confrontation, he’d swallow her whole.
“Not quite everything. You see, goldfish are pooping machines. What goes in one end has to come out the opposite. Now the goldfish is in intense pain. They can barely swim with the barrabass weighing down their belly. So, they gobble some shrimp brine, a natural laxative, thinking once they pass the barrabass everything will be fine. Soon enough, the goldfish feels it’s time to push. They squeeze their insides, eager to poop out as much barrabass as they can. But while the stomach was big, the goldfish’s anus remained the same size, and the barrabass shot out, splitting the goldfish wide open, as tattered as a paper bag filled with air and then popped.”
Haydon picked up the boy’s decoy book and flipped through the pages. He had read this one before. “Sometimes you think you have everything figured out, but in the end, you just make yourself into a giant asshole.”
The bedroom light flicked on. The boy flinched when Auntie Linda’s voice called from the window. “Is that you out there, Haydon? Quit talking to yourself in the garden like a nincompoop and come to bed.”
“I’ll be right there!” Haydon called as he stood up. The boy, on his knees, looked terrified. Haydon reassured him. “It’s alright. We don’t hold grudges for first-time mistakes.” Haydon bent to press his lips to the boy’s ear, whispering confidentially. “You wouldn’t have liked it under the porch. It’s already crowded with others waiting for her to forget. She still hasn’t. They’ve been down there for years, since even before I’ve known her.”
His scheme of infiltrating and escaping Auntie Linda’s house foiled, the boy handed his book to Haydon. He got up and began walking home, his defeated posture every bit as limp as the remains of the tattered goldfish that eventually floated back to Auntie Linda. She fashioned the skins into boots she strung over a telephone wire, where they hung collecting rain water and guano until Haydon discovered them.
“Do you have far to go?” Haydon asked, noticing the imprint of thick calluses and broken blisters in the boy’s footprints.
“If I keep up a good pace and don’t get distracted, I can make the journey in a couple of days.”
Haydon smiled. “Suppose I told you you’ll be home before I even have a chance to fall asleep?”
The front door to Auntie Linda’s house swung open before Haydon was halfway across the porch, welcoming him inside. The wooden beams of the floor slanted, helping to take weight off his sore leg. He plopped the book onto the kitchen table, not minding he’d have to read it a second time. In fact, he looked forward to it. In the bedroom, Haydon lifted the sheets and crawled into bed beside Auntie Linda, their arms curving around one another with great familiarity. Before he could drop off to sleep, she gasped. “Your feet are ice cold! Where are your boots?”
In the distance, the boots thundered, carrying the boy home, happy to be matched with youthful feet who would give them the proper exercise to keep them in tip-top shape.