Fish Story

These days, only one national pastime outranks fretting about environmental pollution--and that's polluting the environment. This may not sound precisely like the fastest way to solve the problem, but it does assure us of plenty to fret about. And I would be among the first to raise high my aluminum beer can in praise of the unwavering moral outrage that we share--if it weren't for one thing.

It's our petty, small-minded perspective. Most of us are only worried about the effects of pollution on people, and everything else can go choke. Admittedly, there are a few bleeding hearts around--posing as ecologists, sportsmen and conservationists--who seem truly concerned about the effects of our pollution derby on other plant and animal life; but the intelligent majority of us have had the good sense to ignore them. Down deep, they're just looking out for old number one--humanity. The ecologists only grumble about how we're destroying delicate ecosystems because they want people to continue breathing and eating; the sportsmen want animals protected so they can occasionally hunt a few without wiping out an entire species; and the conservationists are fighting to preserve a few scraps of wilderness so future generations of people can see what the world was like before shopping centers. A selfish bunch, through and through.

Take water pollution, if you have the nerve. These environmental types are always moaning about its effect on fish--which is mainly to kill them. "We care," they cry. "Save our finny friends from destruction." Who could help admiring such fine sentiments? Not I, if they were authentic. But a recent New York Times article makes one wonder:

Ichthyologists have warned that the environment is being threatened by the importation into Florida of 50,000,000 live tropical fish yearly and the inadvertent release of many species.... Included is the famous walking catfish, a slimy creature from Southeast Asia that can live out of the water and transport itself on long, spiny whiskers. "The accidental release of the walking catfish in southern Florida ... may be the most harmful introduction to any North America area so far witnessed because of its severe competitive habits," the ichthyologists reported.

Are these the words of men who love all fish, without regard to race, creed or edibility? If you were an Asian Walking Catfish, how would you feel after reading that? I think I'd get incredibly depressed and spend a week in bed pouting.

It's a slur, pure and simple. Apparently, we're supposed to loathe him because he's a little tougher and smarter than those weak, cowardly fish that faint at the sight of a huge breaker of raw sewage rolling their way, that keel over dead just from splashing through noxious progress near some factory site, that turn yellow belly up the moment their lake turns emerald green from algae. We're supposed to weep for them and treat Asian Walking like some sort of pariah. Hath not a Walking Catfish a heart?

But the last laugh will be on the cold-blooded ichthyologists, because in spite of their mudslinging campaign, destiny is on the side of Asian Walking. He is the

Fish of the Future

The fish that can cope with the complexities and anxieties of modern, nonreturnable life

Mother Nature's Latest Model

This is because he's relearned the trick that some avant-garde fish picked up on a few million years ago--walking. That first revolutionary fish must have been drunk or worse when he stumbled onto land, but he apparently lived to tell about it. Hey, you're not gonna believe this, but I found this place where there isn't any water. No, honest, I did. I don't know what that stuff is up there, but wow, you get an incredible rush when you sniff it.

He obviously started a fad, because pretty soon, every wild kid in the neighborhood was trying it. Unfortunately, some of them took one sniff too many and they couldn't keep it together. They were hooked. I can't stay away from it, I can't! And then one bleak day, these poor, misguided youths awoke to discover that they were, the shame of it, amphibians. I'll never do it again, I swear--just give me back my gills!

Asian Walking, on the other hand, has considerably more integrity and self-control. True, he may look like a benign tumor with a mustache, but his head is together, and that's what counts. A. W.'s rough exterior gives him a certain machismo charisma in the tradition of Belmondo and Spiro--and, furthermore, he's got a great gimmick. Whenever he feels like taking a jaunt on shore, he simply gulps up a bunch of water in his factory-issue sacs and takes off for the weekend.

Suppose he sets up housekeeping in a nice little split-level stream in southern Florida. The water is cool, spring-fed and sweet. He hasn't much more to do than keep an eye out for antisocial alligators and take an occasional stroll in the country. The good life. But--what's this? Tastes ... tastes like ... yecchh ... it is! Somebody's turning the neighborhood into a slum! So he indignantly marches out of the water to find out what's up--and discovers that what's up is a brand-new paper mill. Now, your ordinary stick-in-the-water fish would have to hang around and watch property values plummet. But not Asian Walking. He simply sublets his place and splits.

He may not realize, as he trudges through the saw grass, cursing quietly, that the future is on his fins. For he shall inherit the clean water. At first, of course, it won't be obvious. He'll just get bunions from moving around a lot and a reputation as a no-account drifter. But his heroic and tragic role will become increasingly clear as pond after creek after bayou succumbs to the siren call of those three malevolent enchantresses, Phosphate, Mercury and DDT. Sometimes, after hotfinning it away from the terrible trio, he'll find a great new pond--only to be told by its residents to get out by sundown, because we don't want none of them hippie dropouts around here. At other times, though, he may be greeted by the backwoods locals as some sort of ugly messiah. Look--he can walk on land! Oh, Lord, he can walk on land! It's a miracle, a sign! But in Asian Walking's list of virtues, burning social conscience ranks right after his pretty face, so instead of leading his would-be disciples toward the nontoxic Promised Water, he'll go climb a tree until they all calm down. And on that enzyme-active day when those magic whiteners appear and start bleaching out the mud and minnows around him, he'll heave a sigh and mosey on.

He is obviously in for a sad, lonely life; which, as Rod McKuen could tell you, is often the lot of a leader. While less resourceful fish are expiring around him, Asian Walking is fated to be the cold-blooded Kerouac of the Pollution Era, continuously wandering the face of the land, always hoping that the next pond will be the last. And one day, if we manage to keep up our splendid record-breaking pace, it probably will be. Clean water will be so far away that he'd have to be the Asian Flying Catfish to get to it. Then comes the good part.

You're Asian Walking, and every body of water you check out tastes like last week's crawfish. You run into several buddies on the road, and they tell you it's the same all over. No Asian Walking Catfish Need Apply. Having read your history, you know that there's only one way to beat such oppression--guerrilla warfare. Humans are ripping off what's left of the good water, so there's only one alternative: Off the people.

When the first few militant schools of left-fin Weatherfish attack by night, draining swimming pools and triggering sprinkler systems as they go, it's going to scare local folks right out of their barbecue aprons. Alice, a bunch of fish just jumped out of the shrubs and attacked our swimming pool. Harry, have you been drinking your after-shave lotion again? Soon, it will take a brave man to wash his car outdoors, and while bathing, prudent souls will always take the precaution of inviting a few friends to join them.

The crisis mounts, spreading its inevitable whiskers ever northward. Walter Cronkite reports that 81-year-old Tennessee farmer Jed Mingee battled dozens of them for three hours before driving them off. When asked what prompted him to so bravely protect home and hearth, Mr. Mingee replied, "Didn't bother me none when they captured muh hog wallow and clumb down the cistern, but it made me madder'n a wet rooster when them critters went for muh still." In a responsible democratic reaction to the menace, the House and Senate hastily draft a joint bill declaring it a Federal offense for anyone with a temperature lower than 98.6 degrees to cross state lines, adding, for good measure, (concluded on page 190)Fish Story(continued from page 128) a vitally needed increase in Congressional salaries. Gleefully, J. Edgar Hoover lurches out of his posh suite in the Federal Geriatric Clinic to enforce the stiff new No-Swim laws, immediately tossing all aquarium owners into concentration camps as fellow travelers.

Meanwhile, back in the unpalatable drink, hard times are upon us. All the algae and detergent foam make it a little hard to see, but it looks like the new "in" thing to do is float belly up on the surface, although gasping seems pretty popular, too. A bunch of tough-looking teenage carp are hanging around the sewer conduit, but the algae's too thick to tell what they're up to. Probably waiting to beat the shit out of the next wise-ass Walking Catfish that drops in and tries to be sympathetic. Down here, Asian Walking Catfish are only slightly less popular than they are on land. They make the other fish feel as cheery as the farewell crowd did at the launching of Noah's ark. Have a nice trip, sure wish we could go along!

Where will it all end? In the agony of glory, or the victory of defeat? What will all the news that's fit to print be?

Body Counts Reach New High in Asian Walking Catfish War

Special to The New York Times

Washington, April 6--According to a sanguine Pentagon source, last month's enemy dead in the Asian Walking Catfish War, now in its second grim year, numbered 47,050. This represents an increase of 271 percent over the previous month's figures.

Nixon Pitches Strike; Catfish Drop Big One

Special to The New York Times

Washington, August 21--Using a tricky curve that he picked up playing in the Congress, President Nixon personally tossed out the last hand grenade today, officially ending the Asian Walking Catfish War.

Standing at the edge of Contwoyto Lake. District of Mackenzie, a full 50 miles south of the Arctic Circle, he threw a fast strike that just nicked the corner of the last unpacified catfish's head, making the United States official winner of the series.

Congress Votes Two Billion to Save Endangered Species

Special to The New York Times

Washington, November 19--Congress today voted to appropriate two billion dollars for a powerful House Un-Extinction Commission (HUEC). Chief beneficiary of the move will be the Asian Walking Catfish, one of the few remaining species of fish. Over a billion dollars will be spent building favorable environments for the seven remaining Walking Catfish. President Nixon hailed the move as a great humanitarian step.