Fish Soup Part II

I must have fallen asleep sometime between the lake and home; when I woke it was to the sound of an old Hank Williams song on the radio and my dad telling me to grab a fish bowl and bring it downstairs when I got in the house. I climbed out of the truck and made my way up the front steps, fumbled the door open in the dark, and dragged myself up the stairs to the kitchen. There was a big metal bowl in the pantry; I grabbed it and headed to the basement, flipping on light switches as I went.

My dad was already in the laundry room, fish dumped into the sink, old plastic shopping bag lining the bucket to collect guts. I set the bowl on top of the washing machine and stood back to watch as he pulled the first fish out of the sink and laid it on the cleaning board he’d placed across the sink. He grabbed the piece of board he kept on the window ledge above the sink and used it to smack the fish over the head, stunning or killing it so it wouldn’t flop around. He slid the nose of the fish into the clamp at the front of the board and its eyes bugged out as the metal teeth pressed down, holding it in place. Next came the knife, a long, thin, razor sharp thing that got skinnier as it reached a point. My dad started at a place just below the gills and made a cut into the fish, and then he turned the blade flat and ran the sharp edge down the fish’s side and backbone, separating the fillet cleanly from the fish. He set the fillet aside and unclamped the fish to turn it over and do the same on the other side. Then he ran the knife along the back of each fillet, taking off the skin. He made a cut up the middle of each fillet and took out the bones, leaving behind something in the shape of pants.

I always wondered why when we had to dissect fish for biology class we didn’t do it this way. It left all the insides completely exposed and easy to see; if you did it right there wasn’t even too much blood. Maybe it was because knives weren’t allowed in school and it was awfully hard to fillet a fish with a pair of miniature scissors and a metal toothpick.

As my dad threw the guts into the trash bucket I turned and headed over to the basement family room to watch T.V. I only ever stayed to watch him clean the first fish. It wasn’t that I thought it was gross or anything, it was just that it got boring after a while and there were a lot of fish left to go. After checking to see if anything interesting was on T.V. I went across the hall and got ready for bed. It was too late for my dad to cook anything tonight, but with any luck, if I got up before my dad left for work in the morning I could get a nice fish breakfast.