shithead raze he caught perch and pickerel from the detroit river. sometimes he'd get a sheepshead on his line. he called them shitheads. he said they weren't worth eating. the only thing they were good for was their lucky stone. i didn't know it was the fish's ear bone. i thought it was a jewel that lived behind its eyes. he dug one out with a knife and kept it in the bottom of his boot for luck. he thought one was enough. after that, whenever he got a sheepshead on his line, he'd say, "fucking shithead," toss it in the air, and punt it back into the water as hard as he could. i watched him clean what he caught on his mother's picnic table. he would set down newspaper to keep the surface clean. he would cut the fins off. he would scale the fish and slice its belly open. he would pull out the heart and brain and lungs and guts. i would watch the newspaper turn red. i always wanted to save the hearts, but he threw them all away. each one a piece of soft candy i would never taste. he didn't bread the fish. he didn't season it. all he did was bake it in the oven. the only thing we had to give it flavour was vinegar. there were two different kinds. black_and_white. i liked the black kind best. my mom hated it. she said it smelled like old feet. i wonder if any of those shitheads made it after he kicked them back into the river. 211211 what's it to you? who go blather from