Little Fish

Author's Note: If you're looking for a story filled with lots of sex, this isn't for you. I've tried to make this as real and believable as possible, hence it moves at a slower pace.

*

I leaned against the car, while Jerry fumbled with a wrench. He wasn't mechanically inclined and could have paid someone else to fix his bike - say, a professional who knew what they were doing. But in doing it himself, Jerry considered it rebellious.

The wrench slipped. Jerry swore.

"Son of a bitch."

"Funny."

"You go to hell."

He put the wrench back on the nut and tried to twist. It didn't budge. He pulled the wrench off and put it on again. Nothing. He huffed, put the wrench back on, still nothing.

"Fucker."

"Do you even know what your doing?"

"Fucker, yes, I know what I'm doing."

"What?"

"Trying to use a fucking wrench."

I watched him for a moment. The wrench came down, he turned his head and spit, put the wrench back on, nothing, threw the wrench over his bike and into the garage where it bounce twice and slid to a halt on a black oil stain.

Jerry sat staring at his bike, not moving, not saying a word, his cheeks puffing as he tried to calm his nerves. He was twenty-one years old, but had the mind of a world-angry teen. And he dressed and looked like one, too: Chubby belly, chubby round face, thick legs and stocky arms, and his clothes were always haphazard. His hair was a curly black mat atop his head that always appeared unkempt, because it was. But his black-rimmed glasses accurately depicted him as an intellectual, which he was. He simply lacked common sense.

"What about those other wrenches?" I said pointing.

He turned his eyes down.

"Where?"

"Under the first ones."

He lifted the top tray revealing another row of shiny silver wrenches. I asked if he had tried any of them. He looked up at me, and then down to the wrenches. Jerry stared at them for a moment, huffed, and then his eyes closed. "Mother fucker." I chuckled. "Just shut the fuck up." He took a deep breath and quickly rose to his feet. He stomped into the garage, bent down for the wrench, inspected it, cursed, then dropped his hands and moped back.

"Shit."

"Yeah, there's a difference. Some are metric, some aren't."

He dropped the wrench in the toolbox sitting open next to his bike.

"Oh, thanks, mother fucker. Where were you ten minutes ago?"

I went to speak, but caught sight of Caroline crossing the street. Jerry planted his hands on his hips and turned to say something to me, but when he saw me looking down the driveway, he turned around. When he saw her, he dropped his hands, fidgeted, and finally slipped the tips of his fingers into his pockets. Then he cleared his throat.

She walked toward us, arms folded, no expression on her face. Her long hair shone golden in the late afternoon sun and fluttered in her wake. Jerry held a fist to his mouth and coughed. She stopped before us and looked to him with a nod.

"Jerry."

He fidgeted.

"Hey, Caroline."

Then she looked to me.

"I'm coming over tonight with some boxes. Are you going to be there?"

I rose from the car and my mouth opened and closed. I went to push my fingers into my pockets, but Jerry's were still in his and I didn't want to look like him, an unconscious decision. I folded my arms, but looked too much like her; it was her pose, after all. I finally sank my hands into my back pockets and gave a quirky nod.

"Yeah, sure. I can be there. What time?"

She brushed the hair from her eyes.

"I see. Well, if you've got something else going on..."

"No. No. Nothing. What time?"

Caroline enjoyed making people uncomfortable. I suppose it was her way of exerting control, which she liked. She also liked putting people in their place, so when she suggested I might have something other to do, this is what she was doing to me. I glanced at Jerry, still staring in awe, and then to his bike. This was my social life, whereas Caroline was a debutant in demand. She knew I had nothing else going on.

I pulled out a hand and scratched my chin. I asked what time she wanted to stop by.

Damn it, why didn't you give a specific time? Now she's going to make you sit around and wait. More control.

Jerry coughed as she pulled a finger across her brow. She shot him a glance and he apologized. She looked to me and said, "Between eight and nine."

I pressed my lips and bobbed my head.

"Okay, sounds good. I'll - Yeah, I'll try to be there."

Her simple smile said she knew I couldn't play her game.

She nodded to Jerry, turned and walked down the driveway to our house across the street. A car was coming, but she didn't stop. They didn't honk or anything and she didn't bother to look. They simply stopped, let her cross, and continued on their way. Then Jerry spoke.

"I could so fuck the living shit outa her."

With his mouth drawn tight, he watched her walk across the grass to the front door. He looked to me and said, "You are so fucking lucky."

When the door closed behind her, we both turned to his bike and stared at it.

"So what's The Lump think about this?"

I gave a little shrug.

"He hasn't said much, but I think he understands. It's just getting too crowded over there anymore."

"She doesn't like crowds."

"Not that kind, anyway."

The Lump owned a towing and wrecking company, but because of his size, he couldn't get to the shop, so worked out of the house. As a result, many of his customers, all of them his friends, were frequent visitors in our home. I found them to be friendly and generally inoffensive, but outside their element in this rather ritzy subdivision. I wouldn't be surprised if some were low-level criminals or had connections to the mob. Maybe that's what drew these deviants, as my sister called them, to do business with The Lump. They knew he was honest and a fair businessman. Plus, he never asked questions. And he had a good sense of humor working in his favor. He could even make Caroline laugh, which nobody could do.

How long had we lived there? Eight years come July. The Lump inherited his first gas station from his dad and expanded from there. By the time he purchased his fifth station, he moved us to the subdivision across from Jerry's parents, whose dad was a radiologist and his mother some sort of managing accountant for a brokerage bank. Nobody said anything about us, of course, even though we were literally from the other side of the tracks. And maybe the odd customers coming and going, sometimes at late hours, intimidated the neighbors into silence.

But Caroline found her place there. That is where she belonged. She was already pretty, there was no denying that, but now that her family had money, she could cavort with the proper people. Even if The Lump had never made a dime, there was little doubt Caroline would move up the social ladder. Her standards were quite high and she stuck to them rigidly.

Jerry became our first friend in the subdivision, and my only. He stood across the street on his porch watching the movers unload the van and carry items into our new home. After a time, he walked over and introduced himself. His first words to me were, "Hi, I'm Jerry and I'm a Jew. People don't like me, and they won't like you, either." He said his last name was Schwartz, but their mailbox said Black. His grandparents wanted to blend in after immigrating, so Anglicized their name.

When he met my sister, like everyone else, he was awestruck by her looks, and for a time I wondered if he was only my friend just to be near her. And maybe that was true. Even when she developed the attitude to go along with her new surroundings, he never stopped pining for her. But she kept him at a distance, holding him in something of polite distain, and he was no fool. Jerry was aware of his place in her circle, which was just outside its periphery. They were similar in many ways and by all accounts should have got along better than they did. Both were surly, somewhat rebellious, and didn't care much what others thought of them. But Caroline carried the air of a sophisticate, whereas Jerry was more slovenly and didn't give a damn.

He also wanted badly to sleep with her, though as he often put it, he just wanted to fuck her. Jerry made no secret of his attraction to her, although he never came right out and told Caroline as much. I'm sure she assumed it by way of how he acted whenever she was near. That is to say, he was uncharacteristically polite. I think she secretly found him amusing, but she never said so.

We studied his bike some more, and then he looked at me.

"Wanna go play Space Invaders somewhere?"

"No. I should probably go make room for Caroline."

He looked to his bike.

"Fucking piece of Jap shit. How long's she gonna stay?"

I shrugged, replying, "I guess I'm not sure. I think just the summer."

"If you guys have parties, don't forget to invite me."

"She'll have parties, not me. And I doubt she will."

"If she goes to parties, find out where they're at. Then invite me."

"I don't think she's much of a party person. She's more of a socialite."

Jerry scratched his arm and stared at his bike. Then he gestured to it, saying, "Why the fuck would they do that? Why make it so goddamn impossible to work on? Yeah, she is more of a socialite."

I looked to him, saying, "You can come over if you want. She'll probably need help unloading."

He scratched his arm again and cursed under his breath.

"Can't. Fucking Frieda's coming over with her goddamn apes and my mom wants me to stick around and be sociable."

Frieda was his aunt on his mother's side and her "goddamn apes" were her two children, both boys, aged nine and eleven. Jerry called them apes for two reasons. First, they got into everything, including his room, and ran ramshackle through the house every time they visited. And secondly, their parents were of Eastern-European descent, therefore their kids did seem to have an abnormal amount of thick black hair on their arms, legs, head, and eyebrows. Jerry thought it was disgusting, even though he didn't look all that different.

He looked at me and laughed, "Who the hell names their kid Frieda, anyway?"

"Wasn't there a war going on?"

Jerry looked to his bike.

"That doesn't mean there was a shortage of fucking names."

Then he walked into his house. ------------------------------------

"I guess I'm going now."

The Lump rotated his chair from his desk and smiled. "Sure you won't stay for supper? It'll be ready here soon." Before I could reply, he called out to Kelly, the hired cook. I held up a hand, but she poked her head through the door. The Lump asked her what they were having for supper.

"For you, Mr. Massey, chicken and salad. Fruit if you want. Your choice. For the girl, I make those steamed dumplings she likes."

The Lump dropped his shoulders and smiled.

"Can I..."

Kelly shook her head. "No, you cannot."

He tilted his head and held up a hand. She shook her head again.

"No, you may not."

He went to plead, but she said no again and asked, "Is that all you want to know?"

His steady smiled worked its charm, and her stolid face broke and she grinned at him.

"Look, no, okay? That doctor guy said no greasy food. What if something happen to you? Then what? Who's to blame? Me. Right." Then she walked away mumbling, "I can't carry you out. No way."

Kelly was Chinese. The Lump hired her away from his favorite restaurant, and when Caroline moved out, Kelly would move in to help tend to him. And I think it was a sure thing they were sweet on each other. We called her Kelly, because we couldn't pronounce her given name. She tried over and over to teach it to us, but it was too long and complicated. If you were going to ask her something, by the time you finished butchering her name, you forgot what you were going to ask her in the first place. Except maybe how to pronounce her name.

The Lump turned to his desk.

"Well, you're welcome to stay. You'll be missed."

I hemmed for a moment and sank my hands into my pockets. The Lump always treated me as his son, even though he wasn't my biological father. He was Caroline's, but she and I shared the same mother. And it didn't matter that he and I weren't related by blood. He was the only father I knew and always thought of him as such.

"Yeah, okay. Maybe I'll stick around for a while then, if you don't mind."

He turned in his chair wearing a great smile. ------------------------------------

I followed behind as he waddled to the dining room, using two canes to support his heavy body. All I ever knew of his condition was what my mother had told me, that his weight was the result of a surgery gone wrong. A consequent lawsuit is how he bought his second gas station. I had seen pictures of him when he was young and probably not much older than myself. The Lump had played football and wrestled in high school, which is where he picked up the name The Lump. Caroline and I had always known him as that, but Kelly disliked our using the name. "He's a sensitive guy. Don't call your father that." She was right. He was sensitive. So when Caroline said she was moving out, The Lump sat in his office and cried a long time. She stayed in there to console him, along with Kelly. But he understood how she felt, that it was time to move on and start life on her own. She would turn nineteen in June and start college in the fall.

We sat at the table, while Kelly made several trips back and forth from the kitchen. I asked if she needed help, but she waved me off and said no.

When everything was ready, Kelly sat across from me and next to The Lump. They bowed their heads and each said their own prayer. Kelly was Buddhist and The Lump Methodist. I bowed my head, too. After a few seconds of silence, we raised our chins.

I looked around the table.

"Caroline not eating?"

Both wagged their heads.

"She going to say goodbye to some friends. I made her eat before she leave."

I picked up my fork, while The Lump stabbed his salad.

"So you don't mind her staying the summer?"

"No, it's okay."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, it's fine."

The Lump took a bite.

"Has she said anything to you about helping with the bills?"

"No. Just the rent. Said she'd pay half."

He reached for his glass, saying, "Should I put a little extra in your account for food?"

I shrugged and replied, "Up to you. I don't think she'd eat much."

Kelly was looking down at her plate and waved a hand. "She eat like a child. A little in the morning, she good till night."

The Lump looked at Kelly with a smile and asked, "How many of those dumplings did she eat?"

Kelly twirled her fork in a bowl of noodles and lifted it to her mouth. She held up three fingers. The Lump glanced at me, wondering aloud if there were any left. Kelly nodded, but then wagged her head quickly and rapped his arm. He pulled it away with a little laugh. She swallowed and said, "Massey, you eat what you got. Those are for Caroline." Then she looked to me, saying, "You take 'em with you home tonight, Gil. I make 'em for your Caroline, not this guy. He too big." The Lump chuckled and his whole body jiggled. He leaned against Kelly, who leaned into him and shook her head. ------------------------------------

"Is that all you have?"

Caroline walked through the door carrying three shoe boxes, one stacked atop the other.

"No, there's still more out in the car."

I watched her walk down the short hallway to her bedroom.

"Did... Do you want me to go get something?"

From inside her room, she called, "Yes, thank you."

I stood there for a moment, and then walked out to her car.

When I returned, she was standing before her closet rearranging everything. She glanced at me, and then to her clothes.

"Just on the bed?"

She nodded and I set the box there.

Unsure what to do, I slipped my fingers in my pockets. "I guess Schultzy and his guys stopped by while I was gone." Caroline nodded, pulling out a dress on a hangar and placing it in another spot on the rod. "Guess they didn't know where to put your stuff in there." She didn't reply.

Schultzy was one of our dad's friends who owned a moving company.

"Did The Lump ask or did you?"

She glanced at me, saying, "Ask who?"

"Did you ask Schultzy to move your stuff?"

She wagged her head. "No, The Lump asked for me."

"Is he paying him?"

"I don't know."

I looked down at my feet, mumbling, "Probably not."

I watched her for a while, and then asked if I should leave. Without looking, she said it was up to me. I looked around the room. Her chair had boxes on it. I licked my lips and asked if I could sit on her bed. Caroline glanced at me and I gestured to her chair.

"Got stuff on it."

She turned away, saying, "If you like. That's fine."

I perched on the edge of the mattress and flopped my hands in my lap and watched her unpack. ------------------------------------

"So what's it like living with a goddess? Have you seen her naked yet? Tell me you have."

I was looking down the hall to the bathroom door, one hand holding the phone to my ear and the other cupped around the mouthpiece.

"No. Jesus, how can you ask me that?"

Jerry balked. He knew I was as enamored by her as him.

"Fucker, it's been over a week now and you haven't seen anything?"

"Jesus Christ. We lived in the same house for almost twenty years and I hardly ever saw anything then. It's only been nine days here. What, you think she's just going to start tramping around buck naked all of a sudden?"

Jerry growled into the phone.

"God damn, you're dense. The situation's changed, man. The environment is different. The rules aren't the same any more."

I stared nervously down the hall. He asked what she was doing.

"I don't know. She's in the bathroom."

"In the shower or taking a crap?"

"Jesus. How should I know?"

"Is the water running? Fuck, do I have to come down and look for myself?"

I turned away, saying, "She took a shower this morning. Why would she" -- the water came on in the bathroom and my eyes darted down the hall -- "No. Okay. Sounds like she turned on the shower."

In a low, slow voice, Jerry said, "Don't you dare fucking move."

"I know. I won't."

"I swear to God..."

"I won't. I'm not moving."

"If you so much as fart three millimeters from where you're standing."

"God damn it, I said I won't move. I'm staying right here."

We were silent for a long time.

"Is she still in there?"

"Yes. I'll tell you when she comes out."

Another five minutes passed. I asked what he was doing.

"Watching TV."

I looked to mine. It was turned off. I asked what he was watching.

"Just a rerun."

"Of what?"

"The Monkees."

"Oh. What channel?"

"I dunno. UHF. I can't see from here. These guys were fucking geniuses. Way ahead of..."

"Shit, she turned it off."

"What?"

"The water. She turned it off."

"Fucker, if you move..."

"I know. I know. I'm not -- The door's opening."

"Sweet mother of Moses," he murmured.

Caroline turned off the bathroom light as she pulled open the door. My heart pounded in my ears and my breathing was shallow. She looked down at me and I swallowed anxiously. Her eyes were on me as she turned into her room. She had a green towel wrapped around her torso. I had to look down. Her eyes made me nervous. But when I looked up, she was gone. A rectangle of yellow light spilled from her doorway and into the hall, and then slowly narrowed and blinked out as she shut the door. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

"Well? Anything?" I told him she was only wearing a towel. "And? That's it? Did she say anything? Look at you?" I scratched my forehead, saying she looked at me, but then disappeared into her room and shut the door. Jerry gave a short sigh and said, "I guess that's nothing to get excited about." I said probably not, but still felt on edge. He said, "I've seen her in a bikini. A towel just covers up more, anyway. Okay, I gotta go." And then he hung up.