Bob, or Man on Boat

Bob knows enough about fish to know that when the fish aren’t in the river, the fish are out in the lake.

And so, some nights, Bob in his boat will go, out into the lake.

Nights like those, the man in the lighthouse will light up his light and say to himself, because there’s nobody else there for him to tell this to, Look, there goes Bob.

Bob has been known to sometimes go out into the lake and not come back for days.

Days later, Bob will return to the river with his boat riding low in the river, his boat is so full of fish.

There are limits to how many fish a fisherman can fish out of the river and out of the lake.

There are people on the river whose job it is to count how many fish in a day one fishing man might catch.

Sometimes, on good days, for you to count how many fish there are in the bottom of Bob’s boat would be like asking you to count how many stars there are at night in the nighttime’s sky.

These people, because they know who and what Bob is, because they know that Bob lives on and lives off the river, they look the other way, to the other side of the river, to the other side of the sky, whenever they see Bob’s boat out on the river.

Like the lighthouse men, these men with badges shining on their chest, they say to themselves, There goes Bob.

There goes Bob to fish the fish, they say.

There goes Bob to talk to the fish.

There goes Bob, they say, to whisper whatever he whispers to the fish that he fishes out of the river.

There goes Bob, I say this too. But not just to fish, not just to talk, not just to whisper.

There goes Bob to sing to the fish, to sing them up from the darkness of the river’s bottom.

Once, on a visit to a big city, I saw a man on the street who was talking to himself.

I saw another man, too, there in that same city, who was walking down the same street singing.

I was told, by someone who lived at the time in that same city, that both of these men were nuts.

There are people in our town who believe that Bob, too, is a little bit nuts.

What I say to this is, Who among us in this town of ours is not?

Most of the people who I say this to, when I say this to them, they nod their heads to this yes.

Bob is not any nuttier than anybody else is.

It’s as simple as this: Bob knows what he likes. And Bob does it, what it is that Bob likes best.

Bob follows his heart.

Bob’s heart is a fish.

Sometimes, Bob comes walking into town, lugging with him, hanging from his hands, two buckets filled with fish.

Fish, Bob’s lips whisper.

Fish.

It’s all Bob has to say.

It’s as simple as this.

Fish.

Bob does not have to say it any louder than this.

Fish.

The people in our town who know who Bob is come running up to Bob to buy Bob’s fish.

In our town, Bob is known for catching fish when no other boats are catching fish.

A dollar a fish.

Two dollars a fish.

Fifty cents a fish.

When you buy one of Bob’s fish, you pay Bob whatever it is you think the fish is worth.

It doesn’t take long for Bob to run out of fish.

When Bob’s buckets are dangling empty from his fists, Bob turns and walks away, back to the river.

Back to Bob’s boat.

Sometimes, when Bob is hungry, Bob will wish that he had a fish left in his bucket for him to fry up for himself to eat.

Back in his boat, his belly as empty as his buckets, Bob will head back out onto the river.

To fish for himself more fish.

When I was a boy, I sometimes used to wonder, How can a thing that is made out of metal not sink? It seemed strange to me then that a metal boat would be able to float.

Most things made of metal do not float.

Most things made of metal sink.

Down to the river’s bottom.

Think refrigerators.

Think automobiles.

Think nuts and bolts and screws.

I also used to wonder, back when I was a boy, how it was that Jesus could walk on water.

Every time I tried to walk across the river the river rose up and swallowed me up.

It’s true that Bob’s father’s father was not a fishing man.

He was not a river man.

He was not a hot metal man.

What he was, Bob’s father’s father, he was a preaching man.

This is my great-grandfather — this man that I am right now talking about to you.

A preacher.

That’s what this man was.

This was the man who one day took Bob down to the river and told him the story about Jesus and the fish.

You know the one that says, If you give a man a fish, that man will eat for a day.

But if you teach a man to fish.

I picture this preaching man pointing his finger out towards the river.

That man will never go hungry again.

Bob’s grandfather, the preacherman, took Bob down to the river and he told Bob about this.

Some years later I learned that these words, they aren’t from the Bible as I had for a long time believed them to be.

It isn’t Jesus who is the one doing the talking.

These words, they’re from the Chinese, I think.

Or so I’ve been told.

Maybe it was a Chinese fisherman, or so I’d like to think.

It was these words, whoever it was who said them, that taught Bob how to fish.

To be and to be a fish.