Fishbowl

By: David H
(© 2011 by the author)
Editor: Ken King

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

 Chapter 3

The week had been long, to say the least.  Elias had spent most of it reading and reacquainting himself with the campus and facilities.  On Thursday afternoon, he couldn’t read any more files of students he’d be working with, so he stepped out of his office and began to walk around the facility.

As he walked past the sports field, he remembered the very first time he’d gone out there.  He’d spent a week in his room, detoxing.  The next two weeks were spent in counseling sessions with Peggy, Mr. Abney (his substance abuse counselor), and in Dr. Owens’ group therapy sessions.  Like all the other kids in the place, he had chores that, at the time, he thought were cruel and unusual punishments. 

By his fourth week, there, he needed to be outside.  He’d been cooped up in the Dorm or in the School buildings for weeks and hadn’t had much of a chance for fresh air.  Being that he’d been living on the streets, his body almost needed some outside exposure so that he wouldn’t feel lost among the buildings.

“So, why don’t you go out and play?” Peggy asked him, quite point blank, during one of their sessions that week. 

“What would I play?” he asked her as he sat across from her in a plush chair, perhaps the most comfortable one he’d ever experienced.

“What do you want to play?” she smiled, responding again with a question.

“I don’t know.  I don’t really know how to play anything,” he admitted as he looked toward his lap, into his palms, the rough, calloused skin staring at him, almost as if they were taunting him.

“Are there any games that you like to watch?”

“I’ve always wondered about baseball,” he said as he looked up and considered a piece of art in the corner.

“Well, you know that between each term, we do some type of sporting thing.  Your roommate was the grand champion last spring,” she smiled.

“Caleb?”

“Yes sir,” Peggy told him.

Their session ended just before dinner time, and in the cafeteria, Elias sat with Caleb at one of the small tables just large enough for four people.  “So how was your day?” Caleb asked.

“It was good,” the fourteen-year-old responded.

“Cool.”

“So, Ms. Peggy was telling me that you played baseball last spring,” Elias mentioned.

“Yep.  I love baseball.  I mean, if I don’t make it as a fashion designer, I’m going to play pro ball.  Maybe I’ll play for the Red Sox or the Yankees or something,” he said.

“Would you…” Elias started before stopping.  It was a stupid idea, or so he thought.

“Would I… ?” Caleb inquired.

“Would you show me how to play?” Elias meekly requested.

“Sure!  I’ll see if I can get two gloves and a ball during activities time tomorrow.  We’ll start just by playing catch!” he said.

“Cool,” Elias smiled.

By the time the next afternoon was upon them, Caleb had used some of his points, the rewards the kids got for doing chores and going to all their classes and counseling sessions, to check out two gloves and a single ball.  After they put on their heavy jackets, they went outside to the sports field.  They started off easy.  Caleb told him that the most important thing was simply to watch the ball.  Gently, in an underhanded motion, he tossed the ball to Elias, who missed it.

“That’s OK.  Just do that same thing back to me,” Caleb noted as Elias ran to stop it from rolling away.  “Good job!” Caleb told him as he caught the ball Elias had thrown to him in the same underhanded gesture. 

After a few missed catches, Elias started getting discouraged.  He began to think that this wasn’t a game that he was going to be suited for at all.  But once more, Caleb reminded him to watch the ball moments before tossing it to him.  He watched as the little sphere went into the air, getting smaller as it climbed and then again larger as it fell toward him.  He positioned the glove to catch it, adjusting as the ball got closer.  The ball landed in the glove, stinging his hand a little bit as he clinched the glove closed.

Amazed, he opened the glove and looked at it for what seemed like an eternity.

“You OK?  Did I throw it too hard?” Caleb asked as he walked over.

“No…” Elias answered amazed.  Looking at Caleb a moment later, “I caught it!”

“Hell, yeah!  Do it again!” Caleb encouraged as he moved back to where he was.

They continued until the half-hour rental of the equipment that Caleb’s points had paid for was up.  He didn’t miss another one.

As he snapped back from his memory, he realized that it was at that point that his recovery began, the exact moment when Elias Thompson became more than a number, more than an addict, more than a petty criminal.  He became a kid again, and he remembered it as an amazing feeling.  It was in that moment that he realized that those people, all of them, weren’t trying to keep him from his life; they were trying to give him a chance that fate hadn’t.

**************************

That weekend, Jenny decided that she and “her gays” were all going to go out to their friend Scott’s band perform.  The brothers, Ashton and Steven, and “The Shauns,” their significant others, were all on board.  It took the five of them getting onto Elias, though, to convince him to go.  He hated going out, however; he hated the bars; he hated clubs; he hated the crowds; he hated the volume; he hated the alcohol; he hated the drugs that he knew, from first hand experience, were so in circulation in places like that.  Ashton and his Shaun, whom Jenny called ‘Rockstar,’ who often did go out for the dancing and the inebriation, assured him that this particular night’s destination was clean and had a very relaxed atmosphere.

As Elias was getting ready, Jenny arrived at his place.  The plan was that Steven and his Shaun, known as Scotty because of his ethnicity, who lived in Montgomery, were going to meet them at his place in Montevallo.  The four of them would then go to Hoover to pick up Ashton and his Shaun before heading to Vestavia for dinner and then the show.

By about ten o’clock, the band was set up and began playing.  They played a fusion, sort of, of jazz, rock, and blues.  There was also a unique Southern rock element in all their songs, whether covers or original pieces.  They started off their set with an updated version of “Come Together.”

As they moved from that song into a few original numbers, Jenny looked at Elias, who, sitting against the wall, was quietly enjoying the performance.  “You OK?” she mouthed to him anyway.  He nodded and smiled again, reaching out and touching her hand as he winked at her. 

It was as they played “I Want to Know What Love Is” that he really started to enjoy the music.  The first time he head that song, he was walking down the hall of the School Building toward one of his classes.  He’d been there for almost a year at that point.  One of the girls who was doing music therapy was singing it with just a piano accompaniment.  The song filled his soul as much as art was the expression of it.  She had a nearly operatic voice that, with the proper training, could have sent goose pimples over anyone who cared to listen.

“Canteloupe?” Jenny asked him as the brothers and the Shauns watched the manner in which he was enjoying the music, quietly, stilly, with his eyes closed.  Of course, they wondered what ‘canteloupe’ meant, but they figured it was just another part of a carefully orchestrated language the two of them had developed.

“The furthest thing from it,” he smiled.

“Good,” she winked as they all returned their attention to the music. 

************************** 

After the show was over, they all headed south.  With Elias behind the wheel of Ashton’s SUV, they were dropped off first before he drove them all back to Jenny’s place.  Given that none of them were sober enough to drive from his place, the deal was that he would come pick them up the next morning and drive them to pick up cars.  Jenny, though, asked if he just wanted to stay there with them.  He would have to share her bed, but he was more than welcome, she assured him.  He smiled but declined. 

“You’re gonna call me if you get bad or anything aren’t you?” she asked.

“I will…” he smiled, but both of them knew that he wouldn’t.  He rarely did.

At home, he walked into his place and turned on a small lamp in his living room.  His plan was to come back and go to bed, but, for whatever reason, he thought about how he’d never had a pet.  There were no dogs in his life; there were no cats; there was nothing.  So with that, at three in the morning, he left for a middle-of-the-night Wal-Mart run.  It was something he’d done many times before, but never by himself and never with the intention of buying what he was planning to buy: a fish!

The trip included the fish itself, a small tank with all the necessary attachments, food for it and some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for him.  After setting everything up, he dropped the fish in and sprinkled a few of the flakes into the top of the water, watching as this gold and black striped beauty quickly nibbled them.  Closing the top of the tank, he stared at that fish for an eternity.

“So what am I going to name you?” he asked the fish as if it could respond.  “If you were a dog, I would name you something dog-ish…like Fido or something.  If you were a cat, I could name you Tiger, despite your ferocity.  I’ve got it!  Max!  I am going to name you Max.  What do you think of that?”  Elias smiled as Max came to the edge of the glass and did the little kissy-mouth thing that fish do to breathe.

The simplicity of the little creature made his mind wander for hours about things philosophical.  As the sun rose the next morning, it dawned on him that he’d not slept.  Knowing that Jenny would be calling him in a few hours to come and pick them up so that they could get their cars, he quickly went into his bedroom and removed the clothes from his body.  As he climbed into bed, there was a simple, sweet, almost innocent smile on his face.

To be continued...

Posted: 09/23/11