Fish Tank
Gabriella Flournoy
Last week was my birthday. I turned 25 and my
grandmother didn’t call me. I’m in my last semester in grad school
and by the time I got out of class I didn’t want to drive around the
big ol’ loop to get to somewhere with a true top shelf and reviews
Micheladas and $2 cups of gumbo at the place shaped like a boat
would have been a better choice. Either way I was getting fried
shrimp.
As Aaron and I sat at the worst table in the restaurant,
wont tip well, I looked at the baguette crumbs on the carpeted
whispering the specials and taking forever. But mostly I looked
and whispered its own novella. Aaron glances over, “Fish Gallery.
Contract tank. No one here takes care of that thing.” He tells
company.
absolutely nothing about. Something I care absolutely nothing
about. He will coolly tell me about cleaning the tanks of Dallas
he had as a teenager, the best guy to get weed from he always says.
me. He got a salt water tank for his Bar Mitzvah. I had friends that
A junkie shouldn’t keep the keys.
surface. Over and over again he would dive down to the bottom of
the tank, a determined torpedo. That guy must be hungry, or angry,
I thought. So determined. So fast. But then he would rise back
50