Goldfish - A Short Story

     Four goldfish swam in a sunken bowl pond fringed with water grass in the small walled garden.  The garden adjoined the dormitory where the whores lived in an off-limits part of town.  There were four of us lounging on the gravel surface surrounding the pond, young soldiers who were a few weeks away from finishing a two-year tour of duty in Japan, and just a few months more from being discharged into civilian life.  We were having morning tea  in the garden which was reached by an open side door of the dormitory.  Well, all except Mike - he was drinking beer.
     "How do we get out of this part of town where we're not supposed to be without being seen?," I asked.
     Don was acknowledged as our group leader.  He said "We ask mama-san to call us a cab.  We can't get in trouble if we are seen riding through."
     "The hell we can't," I said.
     "We'll blame it on the driver," said Don.
     "What'll we do today?" said Mike.
     Virgil said "Why don't we catch a matinee?  The new Cinemascope is over in Fukuoka."  Virgil liked movies.
     "Maybe," Don said.
     "After the movie, what?" I said.
     "Let's go to the turkey farm," said Don.
     "Gobble, gobble, gobble," said Mike.
     "The turkey farm," I said, "Where's that?"
     "Gobble, gobble," said Mike again.
     "In Fukuoka," said Don.  "Hey, mama-san," he called.
     An old woman in a robe came to the door.  Coming up from her bow, she smiled.  She had a face like a marbled gourd.
     "Mama-san, dozo," said Don, "Please get a rickshaw for us."
     "Hai," she said, bowing again and disappearing inside.
     "Gobble, gobble," said Mike, rubbing his crotch.
     "I didn't know they had turkeys in Japan," I said.
     "Geez, Tom," said Don, laughing with the others, "We're not talking about turkeys.  It's girls who gobble your meat.  They call the place the turkey farm."
     "I know," I said lamely.
     "Sure you do," said Mike.
     "We'll take the train to Fukuoka and talk about what to do on the way," said Don.
      All agreed that was a good idea and fell silent, staring at the goldfish until Virgil spoke.  "What are you guys going to do when you get out?"
     "Geez," said Mike, "Who wants to talk about that now?"
     "Well, I've been thinking  about it lately.  Thinking alot about it."
     "Hell, Virgil," said Don, "there must be something you like to do.  Pick something and try it."
     "That's just it.  I can't.  I don't have a choice.  Something's already happened and that's what I'll do, that's what I'll be."  Virgil was more morose than usual.
     "That's crazy.  You can choose."
     "I don't know, Don."  Virgil pointed to the dormitory.  "Last night I'm watching a Japanese girl get the bed ready.  I don't know her name.  She doesn't know mine.  She's naked and so am I.  We're gonna screw each other, and sleep together.  She's in there now if I want more, and it comes to me.  She didn't want to be a whore and I didn't want to be in Japan.  But some old guys started a war fifteen or twenty years ago and here we are.  We had no choice."
     "Well, Virgil," said Mike, "did you screw her or just think about it?"
     "That girl and I ought to be doing something else in some other place, but here we are with nothing to say about it.  Do you see what I mean?  Don't you think there's stuff we can't explain?"
     "You mean," said Don, "like why don't girls whistle?"
     "Or why don't birds fly upside down?" said Mike.
     We were all smiling, good-natured in the tease.
     "Come on, Virgil." said Don, "you sound like a kid."
     Virgil swatted the air with his hand.  "I know that.  I just don't wanna...I don't know... I don't wanna live with nothin' to say...oh, Hell."
     "You will, Virgil," I said.
     "Maybe," Virgil said, but I'm telling you Life has secrets that we don't know anything about."
     "Worse than that," said Mike, "is to know what the secrets are but you don't understand them."
     "No, worse than that," said Don, "is to know what they are and understand them but not know how to use them."
     Don and Mike were laughing.  They looked at me to see what I had to say.  I was looking at the goldfish in the pond.  They were motionless in the water save for the flutter of their gills.  I knew what Virgil meant.  Things happen to people that they just can't seem to do anything about.  My father tried one thing, then another, and nothing went the way he expected.  So he gave up and drank and left the family alone.  My mother grew bitter, silent.  My sisters drifted away.  But I knew what I was going to do.   I was going to re-enlist.  It had come to me one night in barracks when I couldn't sleep and I lay there listening to the sounds one hears in a facility open every hour of every day.  Even when you were asleep, I thought, you knew that out there on the base life was continous, lights were on, work was getting done, a friend was smiling and talking.  And, on waking, it was all there waiting for you to step in and take your place and do your job and keep things whole while others slept. Life had mutuality.  You felt important.  And there were no big life secrets to worry about.  How about that, I got ready to say as I came back from my reverie to hear Mike finish saying "...damn sure won't find me re-upping in this goddamn army."
     "That's for sure," said Don.  Virgil agreed.
     "Hey," I said, "let's go to Fukuoka and find those turkeys."
     Laughing, we rose quickly, stumbling into each other to get inside.  The goldfish fled to the shadowy water grass.
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The Golden Years

The old man could not remember how the sore had begun. a pimple, an ingrown hair - he didn't remember, but now there was a red bulbous sore on his chest. He stood before the mirror and looked at the sore reflected there. Using the mirror as a guide he touched the inflammation and felt hot pain radiate through his chest. His toes curled.
The old man decided to go to the clinic and see a doctor. He left the bathroom and went into the kitchen-sitting-bedroom that made up the rest of his apartment. He wanted no  undershirt. Choosing a white dress shirt, he put it on carefully, holding the shirt away while he buttoned it. He opened his wrinkled black wallet and fingered through the bills. He slipped the wallet into his pocket and left the apartment.
The old man walked the five floors down to the street and stepped outside into the soft summer morning. At the corner he waited for the bus. When the bus came it was full and he had to stand holding a strap. At several stops before the clinic, people passing him in the narrow aisle brushed against his chest and the old man stood there with a queer smile on his face as the pain spread through him.
The clinic was a group of rooms in the basement of one of the city's large hospitals. Inside he took a place among the others waiting there, many old like himself, others poor or pregnant or alien. He felt proud of his affliction this time. It wasn't typical of the kind of problem old people have, and the pain, or feeling there, while it hurt, pleased him too. He held himself close and tried to feel calm so he could concentrate on the tiny pulse that throbbed within the sore.
After some time a nurse came for him and led him to a cubicle where a doctor with a white coat was scribbling on a pad.
"Well, old timer, what's your trouble today?"
The old man opened his shirt for the doctor to see.
"Ummm. Come here and sit down. Let me look at that."
The doctor touched flesh near the sore and watched the old man wince.
"How long have you had that?"
"I'm not sure," the old man said.
"Well, nothing to worry about. We'll have that taken care of. Nurse!"
The doctor wrote something on a card. "I'm referring you down the hall to another doctor. He'll fix it for you."
"How? What will..."
"Lance it. Clean it up. Won't be much fuss. Nurse, will you direct this patient to Med 12?"
In the hall the old man told the nurse that he felt weak.   He asked to rest for a few minutes in the waiting room.   She led him there and soon her attention went to the other patients.   The old man got up and left.   He wasn't sure  he was ready to have his sore lanced. He needed to think about that. He decided to go the park where he spent much of his time.
He wanted to avoid the other old men whom he knew. He took a different path and went to an unfamiliar part of the park and sat on a bench.
This day the park seemed unusually green and the paths curved attractively over the landscape.   A young woman was standing a short distance away. He saw the breeze press her skirt against the roundness of her thighs. He saw the profile of her breasts and her long hair reflecting sunlight. Suddenly the old man realized that he was thinking of his dead wife, remembering her, remembering their life together when they were young. It had been a long time since he had thought about her, but now he knew that he had been missing her all day. He brought his hand up and touched the sore beneath his shirt. He gasped with pleasure at the feeling.
He rose and left the bench to walk out onto the grass. He lay down on his back and looked up at the bright blue sky.  He closed his eyes and brought his hand to his chest and pressed against the sore. This time he did not take his hand away but pressed and pressed again, and again, exulting in the heat and pain until at last, sated, blinded by tears, his heart serene with knowing that he had not felt so much in a long, long time, he slept.