Kai Nagata
A couple of weeks ago, I started poking around the online classifieds, looking for a used fish tank. I was hoping to resurrect the tropical aquariums of my boyhood, except for much less money. I cringe now when I think of the sums I spent in those days on proprietary European aquarium components, not to mention historically-authentic shades of model airplane paint, or Star Wars action figures, which I blithely took out of their packages and played with. Everything I bought with those long summers of lawn-mowing is now worth less than the effort of putting up a “free” posting online.
After a few fruitless days, I found an aquarium on craigslist that looked to be the right size. The poster claimed that it came with all the relevant accessories. I fired off a two-line message: Have you sold the fish tank. If not, can you tell me what models the filter and heater are. Then my name and phone number.
This is an excerpt from the poster’s reply:
The filter is ...I don't know...it's a big smoky colored and I just don't know. The heater is a Hagon Radiant.
"Kai, i don't know much about this, I never had to set it up, that was done by my wife who passed away and I am just cleaning up now.
As a matter of fact I had negelected to cover the tank and it's rather dusty inside.
You gave me your phone number, would you like me to call you? If so, when and what time. I don't want to bother you."
Horrified at my intrusion, I realized that this apologetic man probably had dozens of postings up, his late wife’s possessions now being pawed over by online scavengers. I had planned to nickel-and-dime him until he dropped his price, but the thought of a dead woman’s fingerprints on the glass killed my desire for the aquarium, much less the act of haggling over it. I sent the widower a lame email, trying to defer the matter to the weekend, “when we’ll both have more time”. At all costs I had to avoid that phone call.
Spooked, I turned to Kijiji, desperate to find something before the weekend. Success! I got a call from a quiet woman whom I was able to bully into dropping her price. She said that she and her husband were leaving the city and couldn’t take the aquarium with them, so whatever she could get for it would have to do.
A man’s voice buzzed me in to their apartment building. I waited for the elevator next to a woman and her tiny daughter. When the door slid open, a huge mastiff lunged out in a spiked collar. The little girl grabbed her mom’s leg. The dog’s owner hauled back and dragged it outside, hiking up the leash until the slavering animal was walking on two legs. In the elevator I remarked that it must be sad, being a big dog in a little apartment. The girl’s mother smiled and said that she thought fish were a much better pet in a building like this. We dinged to a stop on their floor. That’s funny, I said. That’s what I’m here for. She gave me a confused smile as she led her daughter away.
On the top floor, a husky man in his early thirties let me into the apartment. I took off my shoes. The living room was glass on two sides, offering a commanding view of the vast city cemetery. Row after row of headstones edged up against an expanse of fresh, undug turf still waiting for bodies. The house was full of packed and half-packed boxes. The man led me into a bedroom, where the fish tank was sitting on a cloud-print blue bedspread. Great, I said, passing him a handful of cash and opening up my backpack. He stood in silence, watching as I loaded up a container of catfish food, a plastic diver’s helmet, a pH testing kit, a gravel vacuum, one at a time. Holding up the fragile glass water heater, I asked if I could have some newspaper to wrap it in. Grateful for the distraction, he took the heater and disappeared into another part of the apartment.
I took a moment to look around the room. A polar bear on the lampshade. Small, white Ikea furniture, no sharp edges. I was in a child’s room, but it had been stripped of any toys or books. Just then the front door opened. It was the woman I had spoken to on the phone. She said hello and hung up her coat. Her husband reappeared, holding my safely wrapped heater. Thanks, I said. So which one of you was the household fishkeeper? “Uh, yeah,” said the man. “I mean I was. I just did it mostly for my son, but he—”
His unfinished sentence hung. I shouldered my pack and picked up the tank, making a parting handshake impossible. Thanks again, I said, scurrying like a crab toward the door. Bye, said his wife. Good luck with your move, I said, fumbling blindly with my feet, trying to jam my shoes on. Next to me in the entrance hall was a little side table that I hadn’t noticed on the way in. It was covered in photos showing a happy family: mom, dad, and young son. The biggest photo was an 8 by 10 studio portrait of the little boy. Next to the picture frame, a few tea-lights flickered in their glass holders. A stick of incense was burning away, the ash above the orange glow towering to an unlikely height. Before it could fall, I negotiated the doorknob and escaped with the fish tank in my arms.
Here in my living room, the dead boy’s aquarium has been disinfected and lined with fresh gravel. Live plants sway in the current. Minnows dart away from carnivorous shrimp. When I die, my will stipulates that it rejoin the fish tanks of the dead, passing online along with my oddly-tailored blazers and my deer head.
