I Am The Oyster—Writing

“So it is like a pearl then?” The boy asked.

I had the boy’s eye pried open under the counter lamp, my thumb and index finger parting his upper and lower eyelids. Three days had passed since his eye had taken red. It is sand, the boy had said, It is sawdust from the pier construction, You will have no need to worry about it, I can fish, the boy had said. And the boy is resilient. More resilient than I have ever been. His knack for instinct is intuitive, and I am an aging old man, so I did not give the redness much credence, and for this, I hold much regret.

How could I have been so self-obsessed, I thought, standing over him. His face is frightened, but even then, he does not know the stakes of this. I hope the face I am showing him is one of comfort, but I worry the worry in him is my own reflection.

“Yes,” I said. “It is something like the pearl. The pearl and the oyster, yes.”

“Then I hope my eye becomes — what was the word you said last night — after the Avalanche of Colorado defeated the Stars of Dallas?”

“Opalescent,” I said. “Remember? The ice had a beautiful —”

“Sheen to it,” the boy finished. “I remember.”

“You remember many things.” I said.

“I hope that my eye will become opalescent,” the boy said. “Then the fish will think that I am one of them, but really, it will be a pearl that is staring at them, and I will have tricked them.”

I could not help to laugh. The boy was a child as much as he was a man. And in truth, it is a waste of words to work in making sense of it; he is a wonder, and that is all that can be done to understand him.

“Let us hope that you find other resources to deceive them,” I said.

“How much longer must I stand here?” The boy asked.

“You must hold still young boy,” I said. “I am surveying the land.”

“What do you see there?” The boy asked.

“There most definitely a stye here,” I said. “On the lower ridge of your left eyelid.” I released my grip from the back of his head and he twisted. “Do you feel its heaviness?” I asked.

The boy moved his hips left, then right again. “The eye does feel a smidge different today, yes.” The boy said.

“It is decided then.” I said.

“What does it mean?” The boy asked.

“It means nothing,” I said. “But you must not pick it. The water will rid you of it when you rinse and have taken good rest.”

The boy nodded and walked to the mirror next.

“Young boy,” I said. “You must not pick it. Do you understand?”

“I will not pick,” the boy said, staring at his reflection. “But how will the water rid me of it?” He asked.

“When we swim in the morning.” I said. “We will walk the street of 30th after breakfast. It will be dark and we will both be damp by the time we reach the water. The air will be clean, as no trucks will have passed for delivery. And then we will swim out to the first buoy and back, and we will see how far you can make it.”

“I will beat you this time,” the boy said.

“That is what you said the last.”

“This time will be different,” the boy said. “I am sure of it.”

“How will it be different, young boy?”

“Because you are an old man who knows many things, but you do not have the pearl to be salvaged from your eyelid,” the boy said. “And with the power of the stye, I am just as the oyster is.”

“That is true,” I started. And I thought to myself then, how does a man not laugh in a moment like this? “I did not think of this.” I said.

“That is because you know too many things,” the boy said. “There is no room to fit new knowledge.”

“But you have not taken account of the fact that I am an old man who holds many tricks.” I said.

The boy’s eyes widened. “What tricks are you holding?”

“I will call on the horseshoe crab.” I said.

“They will not have the power needed to defeat me in the ocean,” the boy said.

“Perhaps,” I said. And this is how I made the boy forget.

He spent the afternoon in practice. All strokes and stratagem, tiring quickly in his dominant position, hugging close to the coral patch, where he always placed himself to glide more efficient and fast. And all the while, he had forgotten about the stye harboring in his eyelid — he played no words for its itch, nor did he linger on his own reflection in the heart of the sun’s path. He did not even acknowledge the weight it had levied over him at breakfast, for this new game had taken him, just as it always did.

We returned to the shack for lunch meat when the tide turned in. The boy stepped to the side of the doorway and leaned forward, letting the full of his hair fall until the tips brushed the mix of gravel and sand beneath him. He used both hands to bundle his hair, then squeezed until much water came from it.

Inside of the shack, the boy took his place on the wooden stool, while I prepared the lunchmeat. Turkey and cheese. American. The boy liked this, with a bit of yellow mustard and mayonnaise. I will call it a meat taco, the boy had said when he had first conceived of it. And I will sell them at the taco stand for all of the fishermen at mid day. It is a healthy snack that does not leave a man or woman in sleep! It is good for them. And it is. The boy eats two of them for lunch each day, and on occasion, I will sneak a third in while he prepares to go back to the ocean.

“Come here,” I said, and led him to the mirror. “Look.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “It is gone,” he exclaimed. The stye had been ridden and so had its redness.

“Gone to the ocean,” I said. And then the boy’s face did something that was only ever his.

“But the pearl,” the boy said. “What has come of it? How will I know what kind of pearl my eye produces?”

I opened my hand and revealed it. “You will wear it as a necklace” I said, pressing the pearl to his chest.

“I am the oyster,” the boy said, smiling at my hip. “It is just as I imagined it.”