SIX FISHEYS

by

Cindy Rosmus

          “Six?” Mom nearly spat out her wine. “Whaddya mean, six?”

          “Ahh, shut up.” My brother Vince was deep in his phone.

“We can’t have just six fishes on Christmas Eve!”

          “Fisheys!” my nephew Jack said, from his high chair. “Fisheys!”

“Why can’t we?” I said.

          “I couldn’t get mussels.” Either Vince was googling a new recipe, or up to no good. “You want me to cook, or not?”

“Yes!” I said.

He’d already made the sauce, and the aroma of rich tomatoes, olives, capers, and—best of all, anchovies—drove me crazy. “Thanks, Vince.” But he was still into his phone.

Till recently, he’d worked nights at the diner, feeding drunks after last call. He made the best eggs. But something happened, and he got fired.

Screwed the owner’s slut wife, I thought, when his phone pinged. He smiled.

Katrina, Jack’s mom, was a slut, too. Disappeared months back, but we weren’t supposed to talk about it.

I was twelve but smarter than they thought. Not cool, like other kids. In school, they made fun of me, so I pictured them all dead.

Maybe someday they would be.

“We need a seventh fish.” Mom looked antsy. “Or else . . .”

“Or else, what?” Vince said. Whatever that slut had texted, brought him back to us. “I already made a great puttanesca sauce.”

Puttanesca, I thought, snickering. The sauce of sluts.

Mom poured more wine, this time in a bigger glass.  

“We got anchovies, clams, shrimp . . .” Vince counted on his fingers. “Scallops, calamari, salmon. Fuck, Mom . . .”

“Watch your language.” Mom eyed Jack.

Vince began sautéing the fishes. Five, ‘cos the anchovies had beat them to the sauce.

My mouth kept watering. Unlike most kids, I loved fish. Weird, huh? Besides being into death. And ghosts. I saw stuff that nobody else did.

Like the music teacher hanging in our school, long after they’d cut him down.

“So . . .” Vince said, out of nowhere. “What if we don’t have seven?”

Mom shrugged. “Seven fishes is supposed to be good luck.”

“Fisheys!” Jack bounced up and down. “Fisheys!”

“I got plenty.” Vince smirked. “Trust me.” Turning from the stove, he ruffled Jack’s hair. Jack’s was red, unlike all of ours. Even Katrina the slut-mom had dark hair, but she dyed it pale pink. Cotton candy, it looked like.

“So, if seven is good luck,” I said, “That means six . . .”

Is bad.

Like in death.

But whose?

“Stop, Angelina!” Mom could’ve read my mind. “It’s seven fishes for the seven sacraments . . .”

Suddenly, I got a strange feeling. Like when I saw Mr. Pearson hanging, but he wasn’t really there. Woozy, but at the same time, like my nerves were on fire.

Please, I thought, not before we eat.

“Open a can of tuna,” Mom told Vince. “That’d make seven.”

I didn’t realize I’d gotten up till I was almost to the stairs. “No way,” Vince said, in the distance, “Are we adding that shit to my sauce!”

On my way up, my feet sunk into the carpeted stairs. Deep, like quicksand.

Something bad was coming. Maybe Mom’s liver would finally give out. Or that diner owner would come for Vince. Maybe he was outside, right now, behind the twinkling lights and inflatable snowman, with a gangsta gun.

Jack, I thought, panicking.

Like a live, sweet toy. A red-haired angel, so unlike us. Repeating everything he heard, these days.

Fisheys, he’d said. Fisheys.

Jack couldn’t die!

Maybe a creep from school.

But tonight, even that couldn’t make me smile.

Maybe whatever it was, had already happened.

Vince’s room was always locked. But I was meant to go in, ‘cos magically, the door opened by itself.

On his unmade bed lay what looked like Katrina. At least, what she looked like, now. Bloated, stinking of the bay. Skin bluish, except for all the bruises on her throat. That hair looking like pink pulled taffy. Hands wrinkly, like she was Mom’s age. Dead baitfish stuck to the black T-shirt she had on, the last time I’d seen her. The night Vince said she took off.

No, “disappeared.”

But this time, she really did.

“Angelina!” Mom had come up the stairs. “Don’t you hear me calling? Come down and eat!”

The bloated ghost got lighter and lighter till all I saw were the wrinkled sheets beneath.

“Add the tuna,” I said. “Please?”

“Six Fisheys” originally appeared in Issue #150 of Danse Macabre in May 2023.

Cindy Rosmus originally hails from the Ironbound section of Newark, NJ, once voted the “unfriendliest city on the planet.” She talks like Anybodys from West Side Story and everybody from Saturday Night Fever. Her noir/horror/bizarro stories have been published in places like Shotgun Honey, Megazine, Dark Dossier, Danse Macabre, The Rye Whiskey Review, Under the Bleachers, and Rock and a Hard Place. She is the editor/art director of Yellow Mama and has published seven collections of short stories. Cindy is a Gemini, a Christian, and an animal rights advocate.