in brown dots

An excerpt from BOTTLE.

I need to mention something. Should have I told you earlier?
Probably.
Secrets aren’t acceptable.
Even if I didn't lie, you might think I haven't been honest as I left things out.
So I want to come clean about it.
What happened?
Context is important.

It started after my freshman year. I went home to visit my father one weekend, but when I pulled into the driveway, his white Ford F-150 was gone, and a black Mercedes with tinted windows was parked. As you know, that’s not a common look out there, particularly shiny with little dust. I opened the front door and yelled: "Dad? "

“Noah?” I heard a woman’s voice with an odd accent. Actually, it wasn’t odd, but it wasn’t expected. Dad had lots of guys on his crews that came from different regions of the globe. When he realized that there were thousands of men with advanced degrees in electrical engineering and architecture, etc., that didn’t have the language capabilities or proper work visas for top-shelf companies, then he started hiring under the table.

She stood at the top of the stairs. She had long legs and dark black hair. She said: “Noah, Noah. Please forgive. I’m Natasha. Your father hunt with my husband Boris. They hunt moose. Do you know Boris? He electrician with short body and bad manner,” she walked down and smiled as she stood across from me as I unlaced my boots. She wore a white t- shirt. Her nipples were eye level. She arched her back.
I remembered my manners and focused on her dark pupils. She smirked. Her fat lips were dark ruby and moist, as though she’d just put on lipstick. She shook her head and apologized and asked if I was hungry. I was. She’d just made borscht.

We sat on the living room couch and watched a hockey game. She tried to explain about her background with Boris and kept returning to various visa issues. And though her accent and irregular English were charming, I grew irritated when she had to convey complex details. I started nodding and wasn’t really listening.
Then she turned to me, “I can use?”
“What?”
“You’re computer. Just quick. Send important email so we don’t lose status.”
“What status?”
Her shoulders slumped. “I didn’t explain right. Let me start over,” she slid closer and turned to face me. “You understand green card process?”
“Umm. No. What do you want?”
“I just send quick message.”
“Don’t you have a phone?”
“Ugg. That’s what I explain. Boris has it somewhere in woods with moose and squirrel. I just need to log-in to email and send message. “So,” she put her had on my shoulder, “could I use your?” she put her hand on my pocket and felt my phone. “I be grateful woman.”
I reached in and took out my phone. She opened her purse and took out a cable and a little hard drive. I unlocked my phone so she could plug-in.
“Don’t worry about enter wrong.”
“Nothing there. Want a beer?” I said as I walked into the kitchen.
“Yes,” she called after me. “I love bottle.”
I returned. She slid my phone back in my pocket. “Something you should know,” she put her hand on my knee and parted her lips.

I’ll paraphrase.

She arrived without a visa. They were poor and lived in a mobile home by a lake. Boris was freelancing as an energy consultant, but there were big gaps in his work schedule, and they rarely had extra money. He hunted squirrels with a mouse trap and cleaned and dried them on a rope line in back of their trailer.

Natasha started fishing by the shore of Lake Missoula. One day she caught a golden fish. As she took it off the hook, it said to her: “Release me. Please. I’ll give you any wish.” Natasha looked at the fish and said: “I suppose you’d rather be swimming than frying in my pan.” She set the fish back into the water.
When she went back to the trailer, Boris was drinking vodka and said, “Where are the fish?”
“Nothing today. Just a golden fish that talked. We don’t want to eat that.”
“Why not?”
“It said it would give me a wish. I didn’t know what to say. It was unexpected. Probably a vaxxed mutant. Do you want to eat harmful RNA?”
“Useless idiot,” he threw a bottle at her head. It grazed her skull and put a dent in the tin siding. “Now what? I’m hungry. The mouse trap for squirrels broke, and we’ve got no money for a new one. We’ll starve.” He ranted on and on through the night, blaming her, demanding she set up an OnlyFans profile.

As dawn broke, she went down to the lake and called out, “golden fish? Golden fish?”
The fish came to the shore and poked its head out: “What? I’m eating now. Can’t this wait?”

“I need to ask a favor. My stupid Boris broke his mouse trap and cannot catch squirrels. We are hungry.”
“Don’t worry. Go home and your need will be taken care of.”

She went home and a driver pulled up to their trailer and gave them fifty pounds of baked beans. They ate until bloated.
“Just beans?”
“Don’t complain. Once you were hungry and now you are full.”
They almost smiled but the heater broke down. It was cold and so they had to huddle in a sleeping bag. Boris’ bloated belly made it smelly.
Natasha returned to the lake.
“Fish. Oh, great fish. Could you give us a home? Our place is foul and cold.”
The fish nodded and swam away.


She returned to her trailer—it had been turned into a stone castle with a big hearth and high ceilings. Boris paced in front of a roaring fire. He wore a moose coat and drank from a crystal bottle. He was ranting about dialectical materialism. He threw diamonds at her: “With rampant inflation, what are things worth? Why don’t you ask for real power? You could get anything and this is what we have? Stupid woman. Go back and invert our fate. Make me god of the sea.” He threw his crystal bottle, and it clunked against her forehead.

She woke on the floor with glass shards and diamonds. They sparkled from the light of stained-glass windows. She was dizzy.

She went back to the lake and called to the fish: “Listen to me, oh fish, golden fish. Please grant me a wish.” But the golden fish didn’t respond. The water was still and matched the gray sky.

She went back to find their silver trailer. Boris was huddled in a sleeping bag. “I can’t do this again,” she said. He muttered that he’d try and find regular work at a local construction company.

Love, Noah