Fish Pants
By Meg Tuite
Posted on
We called them his fish pants. If mom threw them in the hamper at night when
Knuckle stripped them off, he followed her and fished them back out. When mom
tried to sneak in to his bedroom after he was asleep, he took to stuffing them under
his pillow. They billowed out a chicken-of-the-sea stench that gave them their name
and lingering importance that pronounced them before they ever entered a room or
left it.
Knuckle was the youngest of seven in our brood. He went through challenging
phases. When he was two he was a sweeper. He carried the broom everywhere and
swept away at the floor, the rug, our desks and our dog, Shana, who wasn’t as easy
to contain. She kept biting at the bristles, which frustrated him and got in the way of
his progress.…
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