Big Fish by Daniel Wallace Page B

of times, and when he finally stops I take his thin and brittle hand in my own. “No more stories, okay? No more stupid jokes.”
    â€œThey’re stupid?”
    â€œI mean that in the nicest possible way.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œJust for a little while,” I say, “let’s talk, okay? Man to man, father to son. No more stories.”
    â€œStories? You think I tell stories? You wouldn’t believe the stories my dad used to tell me. You think I tell you stories, when I was boy I heard stories. He’d wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me a story. It was awful.”
    â€œBut even that’s a story, Dad. I don’t believe it for a minute.”
    â€œYou’re not necessarily supposed to believe it,” he says wearily. “You’re just supposed to believe in it. It’s like—a metaphor.”
    â€œI forget,” I say. “What’s a metaphor?”
    â€œCows and sheep mostly,” he says, wincing a bit as he says it.
    â€œSee?” I say. “Even when you’re serious you can’t keep from joking. It’s frustrating, Dad. It keeps me at arm’s length. It’s like—you’re scared of me or something.”
    â€œScared of you?” he says, rolling his eyes. “I’m dying and I’m supposed to be scared of you?”
    â€œScared of getting close to me.”
    He takes this in, my old man, and looks away, into his past.
    â€œIt must have something to do with my father,” he says. “My father was a drunk. I never told you that, did I? He was a terrible drunk, the worst kind. Sometimes he was too drunk to get it for himself. He had me get it for him for a while but then I stopped, refused. Finally, he taught his dog, Juniper, to go get it. Carried an empty bucket to the corner saloon and had him bring it back full of beer. Paid for it by sticking a dollar bill into the dog’s collar. One day he didn’t have any ones, all he had was a five, so he stuck that in his collar.
    â€œThe dog didn’t come back. Drunk as he was, my father went down to the bar and found the dog sitting there on a stool, drinking a double martini.
    â€œMy dad was angry and hurt.
    â€œâ€˜You never did anything like this before,’ my dad said to Juniper.
    â€œâ€˜I never had the money before,’ Juniper said.”
    And he looks at me, unrepentant.
    â€œYou can’t do it, can you?” I say, voice rising, teeth grinding.
    â€œSure I can,” he says.
    â€œOkay,” I say. “Do it. Tell me something. Tell me about the place you come from.”
    â€œAshland,” he says, licking his lips.
    â€œAshland. What was it like?”
    â€œSmall,” he says, mind drifting. “So small.”
    â€œHow small?”
    â€œIt was so small,” says he, “that when you plugged in an electric razor, the street light dimmed.”
    â€œNot a good start,” I say.
    â€œPeople were so cheap there,” he says, “they ate beans to save on bubble bath.”
    â€œI love you, Dad,” I say, getting closer to him. “We de­serve better than this. But you’re making this too hard. Help me, here. What were you like as a boy?”
    â€œI was a fat boy,” he says. “Nobody would ever play with me. I was so fat I could only play seek. That’s how fat I was,” he says, “so fat I had to make two trips just to leave the house,” not smiling now because he’s not trying to be funny, he is just being him, something he can’t not be. Beneath one facade there’s another facade and then another, and beneath that the aching dark place, his life, something that neither of us understands. All I can say is, “One more chance. I’ll give you one more chance and then I’m leaving, I’m going, and I don’t know if I’m coming back. I’m not going to be your straight man anymore.”
    And so he