Uncle Pete found the fish carcass, while spearing for eels. Round about midnight, poling along in his row boat, with a Coleman lantern hanging off the bow, illuminating the shallow, mud bottom of Weir Creek. The eels, in leisurely pursuit of prey, swam into the light and were instantly skewered between the piercing and trapping prongs, of a broad spearhead, attached to an eight foot pole.
The dead moss bunker just happened to be floating nearby. It wasn’t going anywhere. A bluefish had torn out its belly. Pete seeing value where others wouldn’t, scooped up the carcass, with his crab net, and brought it home.
Pete’s neighbor, Kaywin Washburn, hung his hip boots out to dry, near the cellar door, in the alley, between their two bungalows. Pete tolerated the man up to the point where he began pontificating. On how life should be lived: the Christian way. And what should be eaten to sustain that life: mainly fish and game. Since Kaywin wasn’t the Pope, or a nutritionist, Pete felt the need to bring him down a peg, from time to time, or at least keep him busy.
The dead fish was surreptitiously dumped in one of Kaywin’s hip boots.
The strong July sun ripened the decaying fish to perfection. The long idle hip boot captured the essence and, from time to time, exhaled traces, silent farts, that appeared mysteriously and whose source only guessed at. But the exhalent was sharp enough to let Kaywin know: there was a dead fish - and it was somewhere, on his property.
The odor wasn’t too bad yet, but it got the man wondering and wandering about. He was meticulous about fish. He cleaned them, in his row boat. The guts dumped overboard, where schools of killies and tommy cod gobbled them up. The precious filets were brought into the house to be washed, in the laundry sink. His wife Alice was a stickler about that. Wash them and freeze them. She didn’t like the smell of fish; it irritated her bowels. That in turn, affected Kaywin’s peace of mind.
Where in hell was that dead fish?
And where was his wife, Alice?
The noisy vent fan in Uncle Pete’s kitchen blew the odor of slowly cooking pot roast into the window of Pete’s favorite niece, Melissa, who lived next door; Pete’s bungalow sandwiched between the Washburn’s and Melissa’s.
“It burns me up,” Melissa said. From the higher elevation, of her bedroom window, she was able to look down and into Uncle Pete’s kitchen, where Alice was turning the pot roast and stirring the red cabbage. “Why doesn’t he throw her out?”
Her teenage son Jamie, kneeling beside her, at the window, said, “Uncle Pete will handle it. Stop worrying.”
But Pete was nowhere in sight. He didn’t like to cook, and if Alice wanted to cook, she could have herself a meal and perhaps, other unexpected things, in return. The woman never invited Pete to dinner. She was too cheap to buy a pot roast. Why should she? Her husband had enough fish and venison and local squirrel, in the freezer, to last the rest of their lives.
But there was nothing in her freezer whose odor could compete with the gravy percolating in that iron pot. Flaunting its deep earthen color and thickening texture. She added salt and pepper to the gravy. She drained the potatoes. Threw in some chopped garlic, then mashed them, with Pete’s primitive hand masher.
Her mouth watered. Her upper plate lost its grip, on her palate, and very nearly dropped into the pot. She was tired. Of the taste and odor of fish and game. And would be willing, given the right circumstances, to trade her withered left tit (not the good one) for a tasty meal.
Pete was seated on his front stoop, overlooking the bay. But he’d grown tired of watching Kaywin. The man searching his wife’s rock garden and the alleyway, for the dead fish. So, Pete came back into his house, through the waterfront door, passed through the living room, where he had his beer cooler, and stuck his head into the kitchen. Alice’s head was deep in the dutch oven.
“Well, is it done yet?” he said.
She jumped a bit, not expecting him, and wiped her chin. At the same time, suppressing rat-like desires to shake and tear that dark, piece of meat, with her canines. She didn’t need Pete, didn’t want Pete. But now, here he was. It was Pete’s bungalow and his pot roast. But she was doing the cooking. And he ought to stay out of her way. At least, til she’d eaten her fill.
“Could you stand a cold one, Alice?”
“I could,” she said. “I could stand a cold one. Put a good head on it.”
She wiped her hands on her apron and shooed him out of the kitchen.
Across the alley, Melissa said, “That fat, squat, brick laying bitch. I hope she scalds herself in the gravy.”
“Not Christian, Mom,” said her son, Jamie.
“Whose side are you on?”
They knelt at the window, chins resting on the sill, watching Alice.
But they couldn’t see Uncle Pete, as he poured beer into a tall glass, one of several, he delivered to Alice. Each pour produced a perfect two inch head. With some delicacy - Pete weighed two-forty and had a gimpy ankle - he delivered them to Alice, on a circular, steel tray emblazoned with the Rupert Brewery logo. Pete admired each beer, his cigarette limply secured in his dry lips, camouflaging a sly smile.
Little did Alice know of her commonality with the dead fish: neither saw it coming.
“Jesus Christ,” said Melissa. “That fucking woman. She’s got him waiting on her, hand and foot. Drinking his beer. He’s my Uncle Pete.”
Melissa, at that time, was a good looker. Shy of forty, she still had the legs and figure to go with her blonde hair. Kneeling there, next to her son, she looked like a teenager. An Angry one.
“Mom, don’t take it so seriously.”
“Drinking his beer. Eating his food. It burns me up. She calls me a whore. And then goes fee-for-service … with my uncle … every chance she gets.”
“Mom, for cryin’ out loud. What’s the difference? She’s just an old bat.”
“The woman’s taking advantage. Of my uncle. She lives on freakin’ eels, for god’s sake. Then she rushes over to cook. And eat Uncle Pete’s pot roast. I’m the one who bought the roast. For Pete. Not for her. It just burns me up. She’s had four beers already. Now watch her. She’ll eat half the fuckin’ roast.”
“Language, Mom. Language.”
The boy swiveled his chin on the window sill. He said, “There’s something wrong with it. The head, I mean. It just stands there. Even after she takes a swig.”
“The beer?”
“He did something, Mom. Uncle Pete doctored it. He put something in the beer. I’ll bet you anything.”
“What? What did he do?”
“Same thing he did to Fine Day.”
Fine Day. They had a moment of silence contemplating the man. His pink and snowy image passed through their minds. A white haired, dignified, Irish asshole. He took a constitutional every Saturday around noon. When he knew, Pete would be opening his first quart bottle of Rheingold. Fine Day, in his black mortician trousers and starched white shirt. His poached face appeared just over Pete’s hedges and said what he always said.
“Ahh Pete. It’s a fine day.”
And Pete gave his standard reply, thereby branding the man.
“Hey, Fine Day. Can you force one.”
“I can and I will.” Fine Day swung through the wire gate and lowered his bones, into an Adirondack chair. Then the imagery faded out.
“Memba’ that time, Mom. Uncle Pete poured a special glass a beer for Fine Day. Had a head just like the one Alice is downing. I believe, one other time, he pulled the same stunt - on The Mahatma.”
“The who?” Melissa intently watched Alice stir the gravy and take large gulps of beer.
“Mr. Conklin. Another one, always looking for a free beer. ‘Memba him? The guy never wore anything but a skimpy pair a trunks. Bald, suntanned till his skin looked like leather … Exactly like that Indian guy, Ghandi. That’s why Pete called him The Mahatma.”
But Melissa was not listening.
“It just burns my ass, watching the bitch.”
“Memba how Fine Day drank that beer. And then another and was looking for thirds when all of a sudden he got up and left. Practically ran home. And that lazy, old bastard can’t hardly walk. “Memba that?”
“No,” said Melissa. She couldn’t take her eyes off Alice. “Do you know how many times she called me a whore? She and her fat ass sister Rose Kiefer. I couldn’t even sunbathe, in my own yard, without hearing those two sniping at me. And you know why? Cause I can wear a two-piece bathing suit and they can’t. Pure jealousy.”
“Epson salts, Mom. Pete put epson salts in the beer. That’s why Fine Day had to leave like a cat sat in turpentine. Same thing with The Mahatma. You watch. Same thing will happen to Alice. The salts will go right through her. Uncle Pete is no fool. He knows the score. He loves you, Mom. He’ll make it right.
“He’d better. Or he’ll never hear the end of it.”
Alice cut the meat. Half-inch thick slabs that would have fallen off the bone, if the meat had had a bone. She filled her plate with mashed potatoes, red cabbage, apple sauce. And the gravy. A boatload over the meat, over everything, even the apple sauce.
“Choke bitch, choke.”
“Mom, be patient.”
“Look at her, with the Wonder Bread. Sopping gravy like a sow.”
“There goes the rest of the beer, Mom. Volcanic. Trust me.”
Alice helped herself to another slab of meat, cutting, slicing, dicing. Then, down the hatch.
“That woman is a garbage chute.”
“It’s gonna be alright, Mom.”
Then, the brakes slammed on. Alice stopped eating. A fork full frozen in front of her face. Her eyes puzzled and searching inward. She examined the meat for guidance. Finding none, she remained pensive, legs at the ready, as if listening to the gathering power of a subterranean steam pit.
Uncle Pete, now half in the bag, reappeared, leaned his sunburned shoulder against the passage between kitchen and living room - and looked at Alice. The limp cigarette still stuck on his lower lip, his neutral face considering his dinner guest. A nonjudgemental gaze. Mildly curious.
“She’s gonna punch out, Mom”
They could hear the screech of the chair legs, as they were pushed backward on the pine board, kitchen floor.
Melissa was surprised. “Wow. The bitch can move when she want to.”
“Like a shot, Mom. Out the door. Not bad for an old lady with varicose veins.”
“Serves her right. I hope she fills her socks.”
“Not kind, Mom.”
“Shut up.”
Uncle Pete picked up the empty beer glass and rinsed it in the sink. He loaded his plate and sat down at the table. When he finished, he slid Alice’s plate before him and finished it, for the poor woman.
Outside, near his cellar door, Kaywin watched his wife move swiftly up the cement steps and into her house. Dark spots trailed her. Tiny splatters on the red cement walkway. The walkway that she, herself, had formed, mixed, laid and troweled to perfection. The woman loved bright red cement.
Kaywin squatted. Examining his wife’s droppings. Had she gotten wet mud on her shoes, where no mud could be found? Curious. He fingered a sample. He sniffed. He wondered.
Could the two very distinct odors be related, and if so, what was their commonality?
Kaywin’s eyes drifted upward. His sights settled on his hip boots, the trusted footwear that kept him dry, heel to crotch, when he waded out to retrieve his rowboat, from its mooring, at low tide.
He stood up, his back ramrod straight, hands on hips, looking a bit like General Douglas McArthur, contemplating his return to Bataan. Maybe it was just the khaki outfit he favored. And the jaunty captain’s hat.
His nose drew him toward the rubber leggings. He sniffed the right boot, smelling only rubber and the cheesy smell of feet. But the left boot, in there was a head-snapping stench, not detectable until the boot was opened and able to exhale, into a fully engulfed nose.
He removed the boot from its hook and tried to shake out the source of the odor, but it seemed to have devolved into a jellied mass, stuck up there, in the toe area.
Kaywin, in his authoritative, Yankee voice, that was sharp edged and carried well, called out, in two distinctive, ascending, accusatory notes: “Pee-tahh!”
But Uncle Pete was busy. Eating his pot roast.