We Blew Up Spider's Fish

My pal Spider had a betta for a little over a year. Bettas are those poor anger management fish that will kill each other if you put them in the same tank; luckily they don't need a bubbler or a heater or anything and can pretty much be kept in peanut butter jars. The males are big and showy, the females are smaller and look like generic fish; silver with lightly colored fins.

College students tend to buy bettas because, as I said before, they don't take very much maintenance. They apparently breathe air, not water (the fish, not the college students (okay, the students too)), going up to the surface and taking great greedy gulps. This is probably untrue - everything I know about bettas is gleaned from three web searches, listening to Spider and hanging around fish stores. But bettas live in dirty tanks, in tiny tanks, in tanks filled with cigarette butts and bongwater. They're the cacti of the fish kingdom and the favorite of dorm rats.

When Spider and I were living together last summer, we decided to get her male betta, Hermes, a female to keep him company. It was to be the fish equivalent of a mail-order Slavic woman named Olga. From this adventure we learned that fish sex is creepy, babies are tasty, and playing matchmaker sets one up for all kinds of disappointment. Hermes chased his mate around the tank, nipping at her, which is apparently normal for bettas.

"Damn it, female, how come you always gots to make me bite you?" we said mockingly, moving our lips like a fish, "Baby, I squeeze you up against the side of the tank and charge into you repeatedly 'cuz I love you."

The fish books said that after mating, the female betta was supposed to look "stunned." They got that right. After they mated, we'd check on them to see if they were done yet and take bets as to whether the female was dead or just stunned. We'd plop her back in the sociable tank with the tetras and the other fish that didn't try to kill each other. She'd sink straight to the bottom like she'd been on a date with a Kennedy.

Spider has an aversion to dealing with dead fish, so I got to heroically retrieve and flush the ones who turned out to be victims of the dating scene. It was kind of like Looking for Mr. Goodbar, except without the deafness and the club hopping. Basically, there was sex that we didn't want to watch and then someone died.

Meanwhile, Hermes worked on his nest. He'd blow bubbles into a big heap of floating foam, then work to place all the fertilized eggs in it so they could have air. All this work paid off, however, when the babies experienced the miracle of life and Hermes could set about eating them. It seems that the female betta tries to destroy the nest and babies before they hatch, so the male tries to kill her. Then the male tries to eat the babies after they hatch. I'm not sure how these fish work in the wild.

Eventually, all the fish died except for Hermes. The babies got eaten, half of the tetras died mysteriously as only feeder fish can, and some psycho in Bean hall poured milk into the big tank and poisoned all the rest of them. The female bettas languished and died of infected, intestine-spilling love wounds, and Hermes sulked triumphant in his tank, alone again. He was a real Bluebeard of a fish.

Spider moved out and moved back in, cursing the Byzantine housing system here. On the move back in in the cold Oregon rain, she carried Hermes down the stairs and outside for a couple of blocks. That night, he began behaving erratically. Being a fish who didn't get much oxygen, he usually lurked at the bottom, coming up for air occasionally and generally trying to keep a low profile. That night he started leaping wildly around the tank, charging into things and swimming upside down. Spider was at the computer lab, so I took the situation into my own hands.

I put him in a different tank with clean water and threw in an antibiotic tablet. That's all I know how to do for fish, much like I know how to change the tire and replace the fan belt on my car. Sometimes that's enough.

Not this time.

Hermes started floating perpendicularly, nose pointing straight down. Every time we thought he'd given up the ghost, he'd jerk and leap again. He was covered in either bubbles or fungus that we didn't remember seeing earlier that day. Eventually, around 3 AM, he died.

Spider didn't want to flush him, and this time she didn't want me to flush him either. She'd been through a lot with this fish. I suggested we bury him in an Altoids tin - I'd been looking for an excuse to buy a German army shovel for my trunk and there's a semi-deserted cemetery right next to campus. Spider thought that was a capital idea.

Thinking about things in the car, I had another idea. I breathe fire on occasion (Pop taught me), and because my housing agreement says I can't keep flammable liquids in the dorm, I keep my kerosene and other fuels in the car. There's a river just off campus. We could have a Viking funeral for Hermes!

Spider liked that idea a lot better. She likes fire. I put Hermes in the Altoids tin with a bunch of Whipper Snappers (those white-wrapped fireworks that explode when you throw them on a hard surface) and put the tin in a cardboard box full of newspaper. Spider threw in some plastic flowers. We waited until dark and left for the river, assembling a bit of a party along the way. Spider brought along a 32 oz. glass bottle of Stewart's root beer, the closest thing we could manage to a 40. I brought my gallon jug of kerosene.

We walked to the bank of the river. It had just rained and the ground was springy. I'd brought a flashlight, and our halfling scout Sam checked nervously for transients. I was right behind him with the 32, followed by Spider with the bier and our other pal Alex bringing up the lead in his great grey cloak.

We found a clear spot down by the river with a big wet rock on which to squat. It sounds much less romantic than it was in the moonlight. It was awfully cold and I was loath to take my gloves off to perform the necessary fine manipulations required to uncap the kerosene and activate the lighter. I poured the kerosene on the box on the rock and stepped back to let Spider take over, it being her fish and all. The box went up and her face glowed wild in the firelight. I stepped back a little farther.

The box floated in the water but did not go downstream. It actually went upstream and into some green reeds right by the shore, where there was some confusion as to whether the reeds were on fire or the smoke was all just from the box of newspaper and kerosene.

At about this point my superego kicked in.

"WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! COME ON, LET'S GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE THE COPS COME! I'M TOO PRETTY FOR PRISON! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"

Luckily, nobody paid me any attention.

Sam started kicking at the box, trying to get it away from the banks. This was hampered by the fact that he is a only little over 5 feet tall and nobody was quite sure where the reeds and bank ended and the deep, cold river began. Alex started looking for a great big stick. Spider just stared at the fire. She likes fire.

I snapped out of my combat paralysis, looked over the situation and threw the 32 oz. bottle of root beer smack dab into the flaming box of death. This did not have the effect I was hoping for, i.e. sinking the box or tipping it enough to make the flaming newspaper fall out. That thing was buoyant. Spider was laughing at us.

Sam asked me to hold on to him as he kicked at the box. I did, but it didn't work. Then Alex finally found a stick and saved the day. The box drifted lazily down the river, back past Spider on the rock.

Then it EXPLODED.

I bet you forgot about the explosives.

I sure had.

Since nothing was on fire, we got the hell out of there.

I think we decided later that my yelling "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" was enough of a eulogy, pointing out as it did that all flesh must be eaten come to dust. Flaming dust. May I say in my defense that I was covered in kerosene at the time and carrying a half-full jug of it, bearing the most burden of both suspicion and flammability?

I'm such a goddamned wuss. I hope my funeral goes half that well.