Fish in a Jar

It's the first warm Sunday of Spring, and we have all gone to Patapsco State Park, just outside of Baltimore. The grownups unload the "machines," their radiators hissing from the long hot ride. I run off immediately, up the Cascade Trail until I get to the big rock. Its granite surface is wet and cold, despite the heat of the day, and the ground around it is mossy, a bright green coat of fur fed by the water that seeps through the hills above and creeps out from under the huge boulder. I run my hand across a dry patch of the rough surface and scrape the sweat of the ride from my palm, which quickly turns red and alive with an itching sensation.

A sheet of spider silk fans out like a miniature trampoline across a crevice of the rock. I bend closer and peer at the spider that sits patiently in a walled-in corner, at the mouth of the silken funnel that serves as its shelter. One of its spindly legs is extended forward, resting on the surface of the web, waiting for the vibration that will telegraph the news that something alive—food—has fallen into its trap.

A large black ant comes into my view and meanders across the stone surface. It stops suddenly, frozen in place, inches from the edge of the spider's web. I realize that my heart is beating rapidly, and my hand shakes as I reach slowly toward the ant. I place a finger on the rock, behind the ant, and slide it slowly toward the unsuspecting insect. I hold my breath and then quickly flick the ant into the web. With a speed that startles me, the spider leaps out of its lair and pounces on the ant. Within seconds its victim is wrapped in silk, no longer recognizable, and the spider draws the small white package to its face and pierces the silk shroud with its fangs. I slowly relax the tension in my hunched shoulders and look around. I’m alone. No one has seen what I did.

From the rock I follow the trail of the water until it no longer just soaks the ground, but now flows visibly in a narrow channel until it joins the stream. I look downstream, see no one, and take off my shoes and socks. I roll my pants up to my knees and go into the water, not much above my ankles but still, in the water! The wet and the chill excite me. I'm free to be wet—to jump in the water. To splash. To "make a mess." I don't care if I get wet—I want to get wet—but I need to leave time for my pants to dry in the sun before I return to the family.

The water feels so good.

And the rocks under my bare feet—like scratching a year-long itch.

There are fish in the water, just an inch or two long: thin minnows, a single lengthwise stripe black against an olive gray body. I'm going to catch one. I've brought my empty mayonnaise jar with a long string tied around its neck. I place a small piece of bread inside and carefully submerge the jar so that all the air gets out. And then I wait.

I sit patiently on a rock in the stream, and though it rises a few inches above the surface the water splashes over it periodically as the main current parts and swirls around it. After a while I can feel the wet coming through my pants, and then through my underwear. It feels good on my skin, cold and tingly.

I close my eyes and rest my forehead on my knees.

Something nibbles at my toes. I open my eyes and look into the water. A fish swims against the stream, toward the mouth of the jar, and barely pokes its head into the opening. I wait, but it does not enter and when I move my foot it quickly darts away. Two more fish approach and then a tiny one swims inside the jar and begins to pick at the bread. My heart jumps with indecision. Should I pull the jar up and trap this fish, or wait for a larger one? Will a larger one come?

I decide; I pull the string and raise the neck of the jar from the surface of the water. The fish darts frantically within, trapped by the glass walls. I hold the jar to my forehead, and my eyelashes brush against its surface. I've never been this close to a live fish before. I feel as if I am in the water with it. Sunlight reflects from the scales, scintillates as the fish moves about quickly. I watch for a while.

Then a bird cries out from an oak tree nearby. I’m startled, and when I look up I see a bluejay fly from one tree to the next. It hardly has to flap its wings. It glides so smoothly.

I wish I could fly. I wonder what it feels like to be so free.

I lower the jar into the stream and carefully tip the water out so that my captive fish can leave without injury. I return to the family. My aunts are gathered around the picnic tables, laughing and putting food away into containers. My uncles are spilling pots of water onto the embers in the fire pit below the grill, putting out the last of the fire. Helping with the cleanup.

My mother asks where I was. “No place” seems to satisfy her, but only for a moment. “Your pants are wet,” she says. I don’t respond, and she hands me a bag stuffed with garbage—paper plates, watermelon rinds—and nods toward the trashcan closest to our picnic tables. It is a big steel drum, almost as tall as I am, swarming with hornets feasting on the remains of the picnics of the day. I get as close as I dare, about three feet from the can, and hurl the bag toward the opening. I watch to make sure that it goes in, and then I run from the bees that fly up as the trash crashes down on them.

The cars are being readied for the return. The trunks are open, the packaged leftovers, the unopened soda bottles, are being stacked into every available space. I carefully place my empty jar between some bags of potato chips.

I get into the back seat of the car, end up wedged between a cousin and an aunt, and then after the long ride home I go to my room and close the door. I read some comics for a while, and when my mother calls to ask if I want something to eat I say, “No; I don't want anything.”

I just want to be alone with the memory of my day. I think about the ant, and the fish, and the bird, wondering: which one am I?