It was late so Pap made Jen throw the fish out in the snow and Pap said for the 100th time oh ho ho we don’t need no freezer course come summer we will need a freezer but ain’t this just the best life we could possibly have and he was saying this outside and I heard Mam inside fixing dinner it always sounds like she is throwing pots at the wall when we are outside and she’s alone inside but when we go in there she is just glued there like always steam coming off the stove her with a spoon in her hand and sometimes fanning herself with her apron. It’s so loud when I hear it outside one time I looked around after everyone was asleep and sure enough there were some dents in the wall and all the pots were dented but maybe all those dents and things were already there and how anyway could she be doing that and then we don’t see anything like that show about the poltergeist the family hears all this noise and then when they look nothing is out of place.

So anyway we have the same cream corn and peas and the same fish every night and every night they look exactly I’ve looked like what we had the night before. Of course Jen and me we don’t eat fish we have a system it disappears off our plates as soon as Pap starts a fight with Mam and they aren’t paying attention to any of us it disappears into whatever we have a boot a pocket a paper bag and then one of us slips out and buries the dam things where Mam and Pap won’t find them. One day we couldn’t get out Pap was making us play cards so he could win our allowances back like we’d have anywhere to spend them anyway and the next day before we went out Mam found what we hadn’t eaten in the laundry basket where we put it till we could get out all she said was I know what you are doing. I know what you are doing. Just like that. Not pissed off though I guess she would be sad if she could still be sad. Mam we said we. Don’t say a word she said and then went on sorting the clothes like she does every day.

Anyhow. So the next morning Pap was all excited rousted us out of bed made us all get dressed even Mam and Tom who still hasn’t talked and he’s four and Pap said come look what the fish we caught done done we went outside and Pap said it’s like magic ain’t it and there were the fish down from the trailer all in a line standing on their heads with their tails up in the air. Jen turned her head away and I knew she was crying. Jilly was all excited and said how’d they do that Pap how’d they do that and Pap said they were acrobat fish that like to stand on their heads and flip around and then Mam said it’s more like they want to show you their behind and Pap raised his hand up like he was going to slap her and then started laughing and said he was just kidding then he sent Jayjay inside to get the camera and traipse down there and take a picture of the rest of us standing up at the trailer looking down at the acrobat fish and it seemed like forever before Pap would let us go inside and get warm before we went out fishing for the day there are never enough fish for Pap and we never do anything right and I hate him.

When we were in bed that night Jen whispered real loud to me Why’d he have to do that to the fish isn’t it bad enough we kill them I hate Pap and I said that I hate Pap too. Jen said she wished the next morning when we woke up we’d look down there and see Pap frozen on his head with his f—-n feet in the air. I said don’t talk like that it might come true. Oh Jen said you’re just afraid that if it happened we’d have to eat Pap piece by piece night after night with the cream corn and peas. No I said if it happened then the fish would come back and eat Pap and maybe eat us too. No she said Only Pap.

Don’t say it I said it took me a long time to get to sleep I kept hearing these scrambling and tapping kinds of noises outside but it’s just the wind. Then I dreamed that we went in to dinner and all those fish were sitting at the table all of them like the table was surrounded by fish and they were looking at that big platter Mam uses for turkey at Thanksgiving and there on it was Pap’s head steaming a little with the look on his face that’s always there when he slaps one of us except Jilly he never slaps Jilly. One of the fish looked at me and in this strangling kind of voice said Eat up. And then all of them were hollering Eat up eat up eat up.

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image: “Frozen walleye pike kiss the snow in Mille Lacs, Minnesota, 1959.Photograph by Thomas J. Abercrombie, National Geographic.http://natgeofound.tumblr.com/post/57795083277/frozen-walleye-pike-kiss-the-snow-in-mille-lacs”