Dominick’s Fish

[In aquariums, fish] were extricated from their natural habitat, relocated into an artificial one, and subordinated to the implicit scopophilia of display. This separation of things from their original — or, in some cases, attributed — context and functions made them into commodities, increasingly susceptible to the projection of cultural desires and anxieties.

— Celeste Olalquiaga, The Artificial Kingdom

On a miserable January day last year, I made a list — garbage bags, laundry detergent, socks (black), goldfish food — and headed for Wal-Mart. Normally, shopping at Wal-Mart is about as attractive to me as a tailgate party, because I’m a snob. But something about the grey sky, the wet cold, and the fact that Wal-Mart had successfully driven all the local independent pet stores out of business made me crave a colourful, lurid, trashy experience, ideally with plenty of shrieking children.

The Wal-Mart was packed, of course, the children were high on off-gassing plastic, and the “Seasonal” aisle was loaded with cheap red and pink Valentine’s crap. Perfect. In the pets section, the tanks were glittering with hundreds of bright orange, yellow, scarlet, and white goldfish. I watched them swim in circles, bob for non-existent fish kibble, and bite each other. Entranced by the silky beauty of long, fanned fins, I forgot to buy the damned food for my own motley school of fat, fading, urine-coloured carp.

But when I came back the next day, the tanks were empty, drained of water and life. I asked a pimply clerk where the fish had gone and she shrugged, then made a toilet-flushing sound, a flat whoosh. All that beauty, all those tiny, hungry, bug-eyed lives, gone. (Wal-Mart, of course, denies disposing of unsold fish. While I can’t be sure that the teenage clerk knew what she was talking about, I do know the fish had gone somewhere.)

I immediately had two thoughts. First, I should call the Animal Liberation Front or peta — people who will show up at Wal-Mart in giant goldfish costumes and balaclavas. Second, I must tell my old pal Dominick, a selfdescribed “aquarium nerd” and selftaught ichthyologist, because he’s in the hospital and he’ll be so appalled by the story that it will take his mind off his troubles. A week later, I went to Antwerp and London on assignment. I forgot to call Dominick. When I got back, he was dead.

Dominick Eden died in Saint John, New Brunswick, on February 13, 2006, from lymphoma. He was forty-two years old, a completely original person, and I loved him like a brother.

We met when we were both in our early twenties, while I was attending the University of New Brunswick in Saint John and sharing classes with his partner, Debbie Murphy. We bonded instantly because I too am an aquarium nerd. I’ve kept tanks of fish all my life and know enough about the practice (though hardly as much as Dominick knew) to keep from killing too many of the little pretties.

All fish people understand each other, understand the attraction of creating a perfect world behind glass. It’s a melancholy pursuit, as are all things related to the unknowable quiet of the ocean and a passive pet/owner relationship — something between doll collecting and gardening in that it involves a love of ornamentation and of cultivation. The stillness cherished by fish keepers is often mistaken for an adjunct of the nerdish love of solitude, of libraries and quiet study. But it’s not the same. Fish people are generally quiet sorts, but we’re also fierce lovers of beauty, of colour and light and mystery. We’re like people who collect glass art or solemn abstract paintings — except our art swims around in obsessive-compulsive circles, sometimes bites, and requires the occasional water change.

Over the years, as Dominick built a small real estate empire in Saint John by buying and fixing derelict nineteenth-century apartment buildings and Debbie and I pursued our educations, I became a part of the family. I lived with Deb and Dom on and off, helped take care of their son, Mitchell, and watched them assemble their lives. Through all the renovation upheavals, moves, business gains and losses, family changes, and my own departures and returns, one thing remained constant — Dominick’s fish.