The Secret Goldfish

We were out on the ice of Lake Erie, mid-January, or February, or Marchruary, during the Deep Freeze of ’77, when we saw the massive orange carp swimming beneath the estimated three foot thickness of ice. I was reminded of this incident today when reading about a hundred or so walleye ice fisherman, stranded on an enormous floe of ice–like eight miles long–as it broke free from the mainland of Ohio. It’s a fun story–and you have to wonder if they were headed for the Island of Misfit Toys–except for the one guy who fell in the water and died. For him, and his family, and friends, there is nothing but tragedy and sadness. I wonder how tragedy of that magnitude feels when connected with the kind of story that news anchors relate with that horrible, phony storytelling voice and the self-satisfaction that they are finishing off a grim, serious multi-course meal of news with an amusing dessert.

On that cold day so long ago there was no chance of escaping on an ice floe. I can still feel the way the chill rattled my teeth and the brightness closed my pupils to pin pricks. When you’re seventeen you know everything, and if you’re drinking, you even know time. But here was a grand mystery–the thing we were always looking for. Why was that huge orange fish following us around?

The Secret Goldfish

The ice spread out like a February, bad pot, migraine headache all the way to Canada, and beyond, if that was possible. Mick Jones and Smiler and I were skating without skates, thinking without brains. If we had an iceboat we’d probably have been really dangerous. There was no point to it all, really, except maybe to drink the Weizmann’s before they became slushy. I wasn’t really enjoying myself, but then we didn’t actually think about that kind of stuff back then. This was way before the “Me” generation ruined it all for future generations upon future generations.

Look at that orange carp just underneath the translucent yet transparent, shiny yet dull surface of the ice, said Jones. Yes, I said, it’s not unlike our bullshit lives, our country, our future. What, he said, with a question mark rising from his brain like smoke from a stack. Take no prisoners, I reminded him. Take no prisoners.

The Secret Goldfish

We were out on Sandusky Bay in the dead of winter, on a sunny January headache day, sliding around on the ice with no good intentions. Perhaps we had smoked some of the marijuana in the unheated Barracuda on the way over there. Maybe we can walk all the way to Canada, one of us must have said.

Everything was interrupted then when Jones got our attention in a panic. I think there is a goldfish swimming just below the ice! That could have meant many things to us. Perhaps the ice was thinner than we thought. That is one thing you always have to consider in life. That the ice was thinner than you thought. You can pretty much count on that, too. That the ice was thinner than you thought.

The Secret Goldfish

The dead of winter. Seiler, Jones, and I (I being the one who didn’t go by my last name) slid to and fro on the slick ice surface of Sandusky Bay. We were also drinking beer. We were sometimes known as “The Four Horsemen” for no reason I could figure out. Maybe just because there were four of us. I had just found that record, The Four of Us, in a cutout bin at Musicland in the mall. I didn’t expect much, but it was okay.

It wasn’t long before Jones thought he could see a fish swimming through the thick layer of ice. It was hard to believe. But then, it was hard to believe the lake froze over in this way. It was hard to believe that fish existed at all. Weird creatures. It was especially hard to believe, if you’d think about it, that we were here, us, people, on ths planet, at this time. It was like a miracle, and it was also like a joke.

The Secret Goldfish

It was the most bitterly cold day of the longest winter I could remember. Tom Sealer, Mark Jones, and I were walking on the thick, frozen ice of Lake Erie. There had been such a deep freeze, we were confident about the thickness and safety of the frozen surface. As we marveled at the shimmering landscape around us, Mark looked down through the ice and saw an orange carp swimming below us. I didn’t even know there were orange carp in the lake, though it didn’t surprise me, really. “I think it’s trying to mate with my hat,” said Mark, as he followed the fish’s progress.