Peter Markus - Bob, or Man on Boat

O-hi-o.

Down to Ohio, Bob has never been.

Why go to some other river, down in Ohio, when there is a river right here for Bob to fish?

This is the river where, on the other side of this river, this is where Bob saw and heard the fish that is the fish of all fishes.

There are other fish to fish for in this river.

But in Bob’s boat, in Bob’s eyes, there is only one fish for Bob to fish.

Sometimes, Bob calls out to this fish by name.

Bob calls this fish Brother.

Brother, Bob whispers, out to this fish.

Brother, Bob sings to this fish.

Bob was born brotherless.

I was born to a father who did not know that he was the father of a son.

Which is what brings both Bob and me out onto this river.

Two fishermen.

Two fathers.

One fish.

I never did tell you what name I named the dead man’s boat.

I named it Bob.

Hold on, Bob, I say.

Bob, I say, don’t quit on me now.

Okay, Bob, just a little bit longer.

Good job, Bob, I say.

It’s like I’m talking to my father.

Good, Father, I say, every time we make it back from the river’s other side.

Bob, the boat, it never says anything back.

It just sits, it just floats, here on the river.

Just like Bob.

Bob is sitting on his boat.

Bob’s baits are not in the river’s water.

Bob is, at the moment, just sitting there staring out across the river at what I do not know.

Maybe this is Bob thinking.

What is Bob thinking about?

Fish.

His fish.

What if Bob never finds the fish that he is fishing for?

Is this what Bob is thinking?

Or is Bob thinking this:

That the fish that Bob is fishing for, it is somewhere in the river waiting for Bob to find it.

Bob is an optimist.

If you teach a man how to fish, Bob knows, that man will fish forever.

He will never go hungry again.

Such a man is Bob.

Bob is only hungry for one fish.

The fish that is the fish.

There are fish in the river that are considered eaters.

This fish is not that kind of a fish.

And there are other fish in this river that are the kind of fish that you throw back when you fish them up and into your boat.

Come back when you’re older is what we say to these kinds of fish.

And then there are the fish like the fish that Bob is fishing for.

This kind of fish, I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do with this kind of fish.

To fish this kind of fish up and out of the river, I can only imagine that this might be like coming up to the man who is your father and hearing this father call you his son.

What do you do at a moment like this?

You hold onto it is what you do.

You hold that man in your arms.

You hold your hands onto that fish.

But how long can you hold a fish out of water before this fish starts gasping for breath?

You only get one fish like this.

You only get one father who is your father.

You only get one son if one son is all you’ve got.

There comes a time when you’ve got to let go.

There comes a time when you’ve got to look this fish straight in the eye and then that’s it.

It’s over.

And the river keeps flowing and flowing.

And so Bob goes home.

Bob goes home to his boat that floats on the flowing river.

Bob goes home to the river.

Where Bob fishes for fish.

I go home too.

To be with my son.

I am a father.

My son is a fish.

I like to tell my son stories.

My son likes to hear me tell him these stories.

In each story, there is always some kind of a fish.

In each story, there is a man in the story who is fishing for this fish.

This man, I always call him Bob.

The story always ends the same way, with Bob living happily ever after.

After Bob catches his fish.

What my son always says to this is, What happens next?

What does Bob do after he catches the fish?

That’s the part of the story, I tell my son, that I don’t know what happens next.

What do you think happens to Bob next?

Sometimes I ask my son this.

My son says that he thinks that Bob, after he catches the fish, Bob gets eaten by the fish.

Bob gets eaten by the fish? I say.

I say to my son, Is that a happy ending?

My son reminds me that this is what fish do.

Fish eat, he tells me.

Fish eat other fish.

So in my son’s version of this, Bob gets eaten by the fish that he’s been fishing for.

That fish must be a pretty big fish, I say to my son.

It is, he says.

It’s this big, he says, and he stretches his arms out as far as he can get them to stretch.

It’s as big as the river is, he says.

He says that this fish, it’s as big as from where our house is and it goes up all the way to the moon.

That sounds like it’s bigger than a whale is, is what I say to this.

It is, he says.

It’s a moon-fish.

This fish, my son tells me, it swam all the way down from where the moon is.

That’s some fish, I tell him.

I say, That’s some story.

It gets even better, my son says.

Tell me, I say.

What happens next?

What happens next is this.

This fish, this big moon-fish, it has swum down all the way from where the moon is to eat up all the fish.

To eat up all the fishermen.

It won’t stop, it won’t swim back to the moon, until there’s nothing left for this fish to eat.

So maybe I should stay away from the river, I say, if this fish is going to eat up all of the fish.

It won’t be safe to be fishing the river if this fish is going to eat all of us fishing men up.

And what my son then says to this is that he thinks that might not be such a bad idea.

Three days later, I go out on the river.

Out on the river that night, I see Bob’s boat tied up to its dock, but I don’t see Bob sitting up in Bob’s boat.

I do not, at first, think that something’s gone wrong.

I think to myself that maybe Bob has gone into town to pick up some gas to gas up his boat.

But the river, without Bob sitting on it, there’s something big missing from this picture.

That night, I fish more fish out of the river than I have ever fished out of it before.

And I know why.

I know that the fish that I am fishing out of the river are the fish that would be Bob’s.