I ain’t mean to most critters. I don’t mean to be mean to most critters. But there’s one that I ain’t got no problems killing or hurting anytime day or night. Fish. I ain’t never liked fish. I don’t care if they’re creek fish or lake fish or fish you see in the store or nothing.

Fish is about the only kind of meat that you can buy in a store that you can look in the eye. I got kicked out of an Albertsons once because I stared at a big salmon so long. I thought I’d seen something in the way he looked at me through the plastic wrap as I was walking toward the dairy section. I forgot about the milk and I sat there on the linoleum floor under the fluorescent lights staring at the fish, holding him close, trying to see if what I’d glimpsed had meant something. Had there been real brains in there? Had he stared into the face of some bristly bearded man holding a net who had dragged him out of his Alaskan river? Had he looked at that man and tried to tell him something, now that he’d been forced to look at a feller square? Had he sunk down to the depths of the ocean, come back fat and full of wisdom, and struck out for his home creek to try to make a difference?

As some feller in a blue smock bent down to grab me by my armpits, I set the salmon back up in his frozen shelf. I hadn’t glimpsed nothing. It’s often the case that you see in a critter what you hope to see, not what’s there. You can look a fish in the eye and see all the secrets in it, if it had any. But fish ain’t got any secrets worth knowing, because they don’t got the brains or the skin for it.

There are two kinds of mysteries. The kind of mysteries like fish, and the mysteries like birds. You can watch a fish swim around in a creek if you are a little lucky and patient, and you go about it carefully. But you can’t really see what it’s seeing, and when you get near them they go wiggling off. They see a caddis fly land and how it vibrates the water, they feel how their tail drags across the gravel bed as they dart forward, they smell a fly’s egg breaking the surface. But they don’t think about it long–by the time they’ve got it in their stomach they’ve already forgotten it. They live their lives trapped below ground, stuck facing the same strangling water, not remembering any of it. It’s all a stupid mystery.

I like birds though. Smart mystery. They can see it all below them, and nothing’s going to sneak up on them. I can’t imagine what they think as they fly, not in tight creeks but in sky that don’t end. I can’t imagine what it’s like to go in any direction, forever, and see all the angles of the world.

I can’t abide by people who do mean things to birds.

There was this time back at school. I know when I was talking before about Monica I was saying how smart I was and everything. How popular I was. That probably ain’t the truth, exactly. I mean I’m smart, but a lot of folks just–I don’t see eye to eye with a lot of folks. Especially kids.

I was out there during recess on the playground eating a hunk of cinnamon roll. I could see this kid named Kevin Anderson. He was mean, but he was tough too. He used to wrestle in classes after school in competitions. He could wrestle near anyone, except for me. He couldn’t lick me, though, because I had an extra gear. Once we’d wrestled, and well, anyway he only wrestled with me once. He said I didn’t fight fair, but you know I don’t know what fighting fair means. There’s just winning and losing, and I don’t lose. I took a bite or two out of him to prove it.

Kevin and a group of others used to school around out there on the playground, laughing at everybody else and being all cool and stuff. I mostly kept my distance, but in the times where I happened to come across them they all just scuttled off, or I would.

Kevin was in a mean mood I guess. He had some fishing line. There were seagulls always bombing down on the field, eating the French fries and potato chips and pizza crusts that none of us wanted to eat. So we’d throw them out there for the gulls to eat. It was fun to watch them bounce up and down, diving in on our scraps. You could never get close to them because they’d just fly off.

I had one that I used to call Herman who had a black mark on his beak. Sometimes he was a little bigger and sometimes a little smaller.

Anyway, this isn’t about Herman. It’s about some other seagull that Kevin went and messed with. See, what he done was to take one of them pizza crusts like I was talking about, and he took some fishing line and a fish hook. I didn’t know nothing about it until I heard somebody say, “Kevin’s going to go make himself a seagull kite.”

I got a little curious and started wandering over, along with a bunch of other kids. Not close, though–still keeping my distance. A lot of kids thought I was kind of funny after the fight I’d had with Kevin. You keep your distance and you can learn a lot about fish and kids, as long as they don’t see you too much.

Kevin chucked out a couple other pieces of bread for the gulls. “That’s to chum the water,” he told us all with a big wide grin. As about a dozen gulls came swooping in he threw out a pizza crust with a hook tied to a fishing line in it. The crust didn’t hit the ground before a seagull came diving down and snatched it out of the air. He made it about thirty yards up in the air before he ran out of high test fishing line. It snapped his head around. He dropped about ten yards and then made to fly again, but the line wound around a wing. He spun down, one wing flapping like crazy while the other was pinned to his side. Like a maple tree helicopter seed.

He thumped when he hit, but he got his head up pretty quick. He looked scared, switching his head every direction as we all came running. He couldn’t seem to get up. We all ran around him in a big circle, close enough to see but far enough away that we could say it wasn’t our fault. 

We all stared at the bird, and he stared at all of us, wide eyed and quiet. The thick fishing line was pink with blood near his mouth.

“Go poke him with that stick,” somebody whispered.

“Think he’s going to die?”

“He looks pretty hurt.”

“Go get a teacher.”

They were just whispers, though. Nobody moved.

It seemed so mean and stupid, circling around this poor bird like a bunch of sharks. So I just did what any normal-thinking kid would do. I didn’t mean nothing by it.

I just wandered in there, hoping people wouldn’t pay too much attention, and I grabbed him by his head and spun his body around quick. Took a couple of hard swings–he had no intention of dieing when he woke up that day. I couldn’t blame him. More often than not you ain’t planning on dieing in a school yard.

At first he was tense, but as I swung him I could feel his body give that quick tug that tells you the neck has snapped. I stopped then, and his free wing flapped hard for a few seconds–it’s a reflex dead birds sometimes have. A red headed girl screamed.

We all looked at her, and she was staring right into my eyes as I stood there with the dead bird hanging from my hand, his legs slowly kicking and the wing coming to a stop. Her freckly face screamed again. I flinched. I don’t look people in the eye much.

“Don’t…” I whispered.

It was quiet again for just a second. Just as I was hoping maybe I could walk off and people would pretend it hadn’t happened, Josh Swanson shouted “Bird killer!” at me. The rest of them stared at me like I was a freak, like I’d done something evil. Nobody even looked at Josh.

I set the bird down and lowered my eyes to look at the dead gull. Anything was better than looking back at them kids.

“What’d you do that for?” somebody shouted.

“You KILLED him you idiot.”

“You’re fucking crazy Theo.”

“Bird killer! Bird killer!” Josh started shouting. I thought it was the dumbest thing I ever heard until all the other kids started joining in. “BIRD KILLER BIRD KILLER BIRD KILLER” they screamed at me, voices filled with hate. “BIRD KILLER BIRD KILLER.” I was, but the way they said it, it didn’t sound so good. I wish I hadn’t, but I started to cry. I’d do anything now to take back the crying.

I just stood there in the middle of the circle until Mr. Mooney came running out. “What’s going on here?” he boomed, shutting everybody up.

“I said, what is going on here?” He was looking at Kevin, who he knew was usually a pretty good place to start in these sort of situations.

“Nothing,” he told Mr. Mooney’s shoes.

“Somebody better start telling me what happened, or I’m just going to throw a bunch of you kids in detention. Why are all you kids shouting around a dead seagull?”

“Theo did it,” somebody mumbled.

“What was that Josh?”

“Theo killed that seagull. He strangled it,” Josh said, his voice getting braver.

It wasn’t true, of course. Snapping a neck is completely different from strangling something. Who in their right mind would bother trying to strangle a bird?

“Is that true, Theo?” he asked softer. He looked a little disappointed. I was one of those kids a teacher never had to worry about.

I looked up a little and whimpered as tears and snot came flowing down my face.

The bell rang, and kids used it as an excuse to walk away before Mr. Mooney got it into his head to get anybody else in trouble. He stood there looking at me as the rest of the kids left.

“Look, just don’t touch it. And get yourself cleaned up. And don’t put your hands near your face. You can’t touch birds like that. They might have all kinds of diseases. I’ll get this taken care of.”

He started walking back to the building, but when I didn’t follow he came and put his hand behind my back to shove me along with him. I don’t know why, but I guess he didn’t want to leave me out there with the bird.

He picked up a grocery sack that was laying around just as we got near the door. Then he bent over and stared at me square. “It’s going to be ok. We don’t have to report this.” I’d got things back in control by then. I gave him my easy look, still sniffling. I wanted so much to give him, or give anyone, my hard look. But you have to be careful with the hard look.

He turned around to go get the dead gull. I stood there and watched him use the bag as a makeshift glove to pick up the gull and then walk around the side of the building to throw it into a dumpster.

After school got out I stopped off at the dumpster on my way to the bus. I climbed up the chain link fence until I could reach the top of the dumpster, then heaved my body onto its edge. I stretched out and could just reach the dead gull. I yanked hard on his head, and because his neck was already broken it tore off in my hand.

After I slid off the dumpster I shoved the gull head into the front pocket of my jeans. When I got home I looked up Josh’s address in the phone book.

The next morning I set out two hours earlier than normal. It was 45 minutes of bicycling before I was finally in town, and then another 50 minutes of scouting before I found a nice little spot that I was pretty satisfied would work. I stashed my bike in a ditch, where I also found a long, thick stick. I wasn’t sure if I’d need the stick, but like they say, it’s better to have a stick and not need it, than need a stick and not have it.

I sat wedged between a big shrub and a tall picket fence for about 45 more minutes. I didn’t budge an inch. I ain’t like a lot of fidgety kids. I can sit. It was plenty cold enough to see my breath, but I switched positions just often enough to keep everything from freezing. 

I figured I’d scouted well enough when I finally saw Josh through the picket slats. He was riding his bike. He was on the wrong side of the street, though. For a split second I thought about coming back tomorrow. But tomorrow was Saturday, and although I’m patient I didn’t see much point in waiting until Monday. I figured I probably could get him with surprise on my side, and even if I didn’t, he’d have all weekend to think about me, which would suit me fine.

At about fifty feet short of me I came charging out from my hiding spot, the stick pumping in my hand like a sword. He didn’t recognize me at first, and stared at me like I was some strange animal he might tell his friends about later in class. By the time he recognized my face I’d already rammed the stick through the spokes of his front tire.

The bike flipped over and he hit the ground hard. Snapped one of his front teeth right off. I think it was the fall that did that, anyway. I don’t think I was that strong.

Before he knew what was what I was already on top of him. I rolled him over and pinned his shoulders down with my knees.

“Who is the Big Bird Killer?” I asked him real quietly. “Who is? Who is the Big Bird Killer?”

He stared up at me scared, not knowing what to say. There was blood all over his face, oozing out his nose and the big gash on his forehead. “Let me see. Let me see if you want some help listening.” I grabbed his ear and twisted it. “Now who is the Big Bird Killer?”

“Nuh-nobody is,” he gurgled.

“Oh, but you don’t have that right. I am the Big Bird Killer. Oh yes I am. That makes you a liar, doesn’t it? It ain’t no good having things like that coming out of your mouth. Lying all the time.”

I pulled the gull head out of my front pocket. I looked at the head right in the eye–you really can only look at a gull’s eyes one at a time because they’re on the opposite sides of the head–and I asked it on one side, “Is he a liar?”

Then I turned the gull head around to face the other side and I said out of the corner of my mouth, “Yes, I think he is.”

I flipped him back. “You sure?”

“Oh I really think so.”

“Now you got to be sure about this.”

And the bird said back, “Oh, he’s lying. He’s lying a lot.”

“Well what are we going to do about that?”

The seagull said, “He needs judgment. He’s got to pay the price.”

Josh started squirming on the ground, bawling “Get off me. Just get off me.”

“No, I’m sorry, but this here bird says you got to pay the price.”

Then Josh made a big mistake. He took a deep breath and screamed “GET OOOOFFFF ME!”, but he didn’t get to the ME! part, because in the middle of OOOOFFFF he made his mouth just custom shape for stuffing a bird head into it.

So that’s when I took the neck end of the bird and jammed it in. I didn’t think the beak end should go in his mouth first. That was too nice for him. I shoved in the other end, with the stringy chord of throat and meat and blood hanging out of it. I spun it around like a corkscrew. As feathers and gore and disease gagged his mouth, I shouted over and over again, “BIRD LIAR BIRD LIAR BIRD LIAR!”

He started crying like a little girl.

Stupid fish.