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MARQUAY'S BIG FISH TALE
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EVELYN & HER FAMILY “Aaayyyyy!” My grandson, Marquay screamed.
“Baby, it’s just a fish.” I replied.
His small body pulsed with adrenaline,
Ready to run, to escape,
To flee from this unknown.
“Marquay, you wanted to come and fish with me,
Right?”
He stood there, motionless, with his fingers in his mouth,
Just looking at me with his deep dark brown eyes.
I took the fish from the hook,
And through my hand it wiggled loose.
The commotion started Marquay screaming all over again.
“Aaaayyy! Don’t let it get me!” He cried.
“Marquay, it is just a fish!
It won’t hurt you.”
In disbelief, he stood,
Farther away from me than before.
Eventually, the fish flipped and flopped,
And back into the water it plopped.
“Good, it’s gone! It’s in the water!” He screamed.
His smile beamed from ear to ear.
“Yes, he did.”
I was mad that I lost my fish,
But it was too hard to stay mad at such a warm smile.
Carefully, he came closer and closer,
Then finally, he sat beside me.
As we waited
For the bobber to plunge under the surface, I asked,
“Marquay, why did it scare you?”
After he took his fingers from his mouth,
He leaned to my ear,
“Him don’t know why.”
He whispered.
I could understand that a big ugly catfish
Might be enough to scare anybody,
But this was my “little man”, my BIG BOY.
He never feared anything but a good old fashioned whoopin’.
Then after a while,
And a few sips of Pepsi later…
“BIG PAPA, you know, that wasn’t a fish,
That was a monster!”
“Marquay, what are you talking about?
That fish wasn’t all that big.”
“No, BIG PAPA!” He replied.
“A fish is cold, and comes in a box.
And it’s got crunchy things on it.”
“Marquay, this is what they look like
Before people clean them and get them ready to eat.
They freeze the fish because they’ll spoil,
And it will make your ice box stink!
Your Granny has cleaned a lot of fish in her day,
Go and ask her.”
“No her didn’t!” He smiled.
“Yes, her did.” I replied.
I thought of how horrifying it might be
If I took him to a dairy farm.
It would be a sight for him to see,
All the milk pulsing through the tubes on the ceiling,
Watching it chug on down to get stored into a tank.
I remembered my first time.
When my grandfather placed my hand up against the vat,
All I could feel was warmth.
“Grandpa, that ain’t milk!”
“Why sure it is. You saw it come from the cow.”
“But it’s not cold.”
“That’s because they store it in the refrigerators.
When we get it from the cow, it’s warm, like she is.”
That is about when my dad, being ornery, said,
“Yep, milk comes out as warm as piss,
And eggs shoot out a chickens ass.”
I didn’t want to eat eggs or drink milk for a long time.
Then I thought,
When will Marquay eat another fish?
What would he do with a warm milk tank?
Would he flip watching a chicken lay an egg?
For that moment, I treasured my Grandson’s eyes.
He saw the world in ways I once had,
But I was too small to find any humor in it.
I want to be there for him,
To protect him.
But then when he looks at me,
With his four year old body,
And says,
“What’s up, Stacy, m’shizzle.”
I just about die laughing.
He is scared of nothing,
And it’s getting to the point that whoopin’s don’t phase him.
He’s going to school for the first time this Tuesday.
And I think about what he’ll tell his teacher.
His Granny and I just sit at the wonder of it all,
Where did time go by?
Then that’s about when he’ll run around the corner of the house,
Squirt us in the face with his water gun and laugh.
I want to laugh too, he got us both really good.
But then I just get mad,
And it just makes me want to grab that fish,
Shake it in his face and put the fear of God in him.
Yeah, that is where time goes---
Making memories in moments of every ordinary day.
We just don’t know it’s happening until some special day comes,
And realize we didn’t make enough magic together.
