7:20 a.m. - Sunday, Oct. 27, 2002
Ms Leslie treats Ornery
A few days after I got home, I got my ornery fish back. I have to give Ann credit. She kept him in good health while managing to kill three or four fish of her own. Still, it couldn�t have been easy for old ornery. He shared the house with two cats, one of which made it a habit to get it�s drinking water from Ornery�s bowl. How humiliating is that?
So anyway, a few days later, in a fit of sentimentality and goodwill, I decided to stop at the little pet store where Ornery was bought and pick up a packet of the food he really prefers. Yes, it�s true; he prefers it. When I sprinkle his (expensive) food on the water, he actually jumps for it. It�s a little startling, actually, to have this little fish break the surface of the water and come at your finger like a miniscule shark. When I give him the regular K-Mart food, he usually just swims through it, giving it a dog-eyed look of disdain. I thought, after all he had been through, and having had the courtesy to survive, it was the least I could do to add a little happiniess to his life.
One hour and eighty-five dollars later, I emerged from the little hole-in-the-wall store with my little packet of fish food. Both of the store clerks followed me to my old van, carrying my new aquarium; just a little five-gallon one, light, gravel, floating isolation tanks, another feisty young male buck and a shy young female.
I would have thought Ornery would be simply overcome with emotion and happiness to share his world with some of his own kind� and in a new dig that�s easily five times the size of his old bowl. I would have been wrong. I put his new friends into smaller plastic tanks that float around on top of the water in the larger aquarium. Ornery�s interest went first to the young male in his little plastic cage. The male was game, that�s for sure. Both fish launched right away into a series of postures and displays calculated to intimidate and eventually cow the other. It was really quite impressive to see their colors flash and their fins spreading in the water, quivering with rage. Eventually, however, Onery got the better of his new room mate. When I looked in on them a few minutes later, the poor younger male was resting, pale and downtrodden, on the bottom of his cage. Clearly, he could not live there. I took him out and gave him a bowl of his own. Ornery turned his attention next to the female. Things looked pretty good at first. He pressed his nose up against the plastic tank like a pimple-faced teenager spying on a whorehouse. Then he went right to work making an impressive bubble nest. In the meantime, his potential future mate did her part whenever Ornery was in sight by pointing her body nose down at a forty-five degree angle and holding herself rigid, as if waiting for her lover to embrace her and collect his reward of eggs. I gave them a couple of days together until Ornery�s nest looked good, and then I gently pushed the floating tank down to let the female swim free.
The very moment that Ornery noticed the female in his space, he attacked her with a viciousness that took my breath away. It was, quite frankly, appalling to see my little buddy treat a lady this way. He chased her all around the tank until she lay exhausted at the bottom of the tank, pressed into the corner and trying as hard as she could to be invisible. I had to remove her and put her back into her little plastic floating tank. That seemed to be OK for several days, as Ornery didn�t seem to mind as long as she stayed put. Sadly, she developed a habit of jumping the tank to join her man, only to be driven into the corner again.
So now my tiny breakfast bar in my itty-bitty apartment is cluttered with an aquarium and two fishbowls. Everyone is happy, each in his own little home. But happiest of all is Ornery as he patrols his palatial tank, flaring and glaring at anyone who comes near and lunging out of the water at the delicacies I crumble to him from the top of the tank. Life is good at my house.. if you�re a fish.
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