Catfish

While slurping a cup of warm bitter tea, right after having the last bit of irresistible spicy ikan keli masak sambal for lunch, I was teleported to the other world where snippets of my childhood memories paraded in mind like grainy moving pictures projected from an old dusty cinema film projector.

I saw Father jerked back his fishing rod sidearm a few times. It bent down half moon like a grass blade blown by sea breeze. His muscle-rippling arms fought hard the resistance relentlessly and aaah finally, the divine relief – as if he was having a glorious pee after a long morning assembly.

“Ah! A fish, finally!” said Mother.

Father grinned.

“Is that ikang keli? It has whiskers,” I said.

“Dok ahu gok (I have no idea),” Father said.

“Ikang keli mana dudok dalang laok (No keli ever live in the sea),” Mother explained.

“Ikang duri kot (That must be ikang duri instead),” Father suggested. He was still holding the fishing rod. That poor thing, still got its mouth hooked, was laid on the ground that it flipped and flapped and quacked like a duck.

“Ikang dukkang tu! (That’s dukkang fish!)” said a man who was approaching us. His very thick moustache wagged as he spoke. He was thin on top, dark-skinned, and smelled so hanyir, which is the smell of the nearby wet market. I saw him fishing near us. He had stood there a lot earlier than us already, probably missed his garek (early evening) prayer intentionally, as Mother speculated. He generously handed Father his baits. Smelled like rotten fish. Because they really were. He taught Father to cut the flesh into bigger bits because dukkang liked it so much and off he went.

That night, Father caught many dukkangs. Mother marinated them with salt and turmeric. Fried. I didn’t really like the taste. The next day, I told my friends at school about dukkangs we caught that night. “Semalang ayoh aku dapak banyok ikang dukkang! (Last night my dad caught many dukkangs!)” I said. They laughed. They said, dukkangs eat shit.