In Which We Assert Our Dominion Out of Fear

There is a fish hanging on the wall in my current apartment.  It used to be hang in my childhood bedroom, and it stared there for many years, until I brought downtown a month ago, finally confident in my ability to not destroy it.  It is a sixteen-inch-long brook trout, which I caught in September 1989, when I was six.  It is the largest freshwater fish I have ever caught, and there is only one bigger fish of any kind I ever got: a three-foot sea bass that I caught one of the two times I ever went deep sea fishing. 

I have always had a somewhat tentative relationship to fishing.  I am not fishing for sustenance, but I do like to eat a trout if I catch one.  On the other hand, I didn't eat the trout that I eventually had stuffed and mounted as a trophy.  On the other hand, is there something necessarily wrong with engaging in a relaxing, enjoyable sport and then being proud of an accomplishment?  Maybe so, if that sport involves the unnecessary taking of a life. 

Like a lot of young boys, I also got a kind of perverse pleasure out of the death, destruction, and pain that I brought as a fisherman.  The piercing of the wriggling worm, and the brutal savagery the hook wreaked on the fish's innards when yanked out all brought me a certain joy.  When I was ten or so, I discovered the thrill of casting a line while a small fish was still attached, watching it fly through the air, flopping in terror, until it finally dropped into the water, undoubtedly relieved to be home again, until it was once again dragged into the terrifying world above. 

I think the pleasure I got was from the sense of control I had over a world that was inherently beyond my grasp—the world of life and death.  I was always a morbid child, with a dry sense of humor and an implacable sense of mortality.  My dad's oldest friend dubbed me "Dr. Death," a nickname that he uses for me to this day.  At some point very early on in my life, I became extremely aware of the fragility of life, and I'm sure it terrified me.  How reassuring then, to express my authority over another living thing—to assert control over something that is intrinsically chaotic and full of anxiety. 

Sometimes I imagine Rosie's death.  I picture her getting hit by a car, and then I hold her in my arms, tears rolling down my face, running to the vet's office, but I am too late.  Or she is an old lady, aching and worn down, riddled with cancer, and the vet suggests that it is time to let her go; I hold her little head in my hand and whisper my love to her as she closes her beautiful eyes for the last time.  Most of the time when I imagine these scenarios, I become pretty emotional, sometimes my eyes water and I can feel my chest tighten.  It is not the most enjoyable feeling, but I get a lot out of it.  Mostly it helps me feel like I have some control over this unknowable event that I dread.  Acting it out in my mind makes me feel like I am prepared for anything, and have some mastery over it as well.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  Nonetheless, I think I shall keep my mounted fish on the wall.  It's nice to have the illusion sometimes.