Fish Heads

That summer in Tobermory, I fished and crabbed behind the harbor wall or from the pier, and sometimes I took a rowboat out into the harbor. But mostly, I headed to the lighthouse. That summer was a typical affair if I don’t count the arrival of Lim-Tom, moving to the island from Sterling. Lim-Tom was Korean. It was my introduction to people who didn’t act, think, and look like me, white, dumb, and Scottish. There were, that I can recall, no intellectuals living on the island. Well, there was a young Jack Rafferty who always did well in exams. He grew up to become a police officer. Farming and fishing were the main work making up our community, and later, hoteliers. But at the time, there were no hoteliers.

The thinking, which seemed perfectly natural to me, with no reason to doubt my peers, was that black and yellow people were less, less everything when compared to white people. But I never heard of a place called Korea, even going to school. Lim-Tom didn’t look so yellow to me; maybe at sunset, his skin would shine some.

After a few weeks, he and I became close. I was the only adopted kid on the island, so it made sense we should stick together. Lim-Tom was a good fisher, which I didn’t understand, him coming from Sterling. He would sit on the rocks holding his rod and then begin rocking back and forth.

Lim-Tom knew hardly any English, but as we didn’t do much speaking it never presented itself as a problem until the day he caught a fish and bit its head off!

Lim-Tom had a strange mouth, different from anyone else I knew.With two protruding teeth and he drooled some. I remember the time Mum took me to the dentist in Oban. My mouth drooled all the way home. He wore his belt high on his waist, almost to his chest. I knew from experience whenever Mum had hitched up my pants how my crown jewels pained me. Poor kid, no wonder he walked around having a super sorry look.

I tried asking why he bit the head off a live fish? It took a while to imitate him biting off a fish head. He grinned. That was it. I didn’t make much progress with Lim-Tom using language skills. Other kids told me that if the ‘yellow’ boy keeps wearing his pants that way, he isn’t going to become a daddy! That was too complicated to even try.

In his house once, with his father not home, we opened the fridge. I saw it packed with seaweed and ocean plants in jars, some in plastic bags. My teeth might have bucked on me, too, with nothing but seaweed for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Using hand gestures, I tried asking if what was in the fridge was all he ate? I made some progress. He smiled, teeth like pearls, and said, good.

I thought the fish-head-biting should only be done in secret, like pinching a second a cream cake. But then, what if seaweed made him deliberately sick to avoid school? I would do most things to skip school, but he had me whipped with that one. I never told other boys what Lim-Tom liked to do with live fish or what his family stocked in the fridge.

He was picked-on quite a lot at school. I knew what that felt like from the orphanage. I never did like Billy Harrison. No reason except Susan Rafferty held his hand and not mine. The next time Billy started making fun of Lim-Tom, I began a fistfight. I came off really bad. To this day, I remember Billy sitting on my chest, his fist piling down into my face. But after that, Lim-Tom was never made fun of again.

I felt proud. Years later, I learned Dad had visited Mr. Harrison. When Dad paid anyone a visit, that person remembered it for a long time. Dad was the biggest man on the island. When he came close, it was like a cloud descending. It didn’t change Susan’s mind. Being a hero had not turned her head.

You can imagine my surprise when next we went fishing, and Lim-Tom brought bananas, grapes, strawberries, and plums. I was thrilled. I’d been completely wrong about his family. We never ate a single piece of fruit. What? I know!

He started putting fruit on his fishing line. An hour later, he caught a Conger eel with a strawberry. I gestured, asking if he was going to bite its head off? He laughed like a lighthouse siren or whatever laughs loudly in Korea. Several weeks later, we came across a dead harbor cat. Lim-Tom took out its eyeball and used it on a hook. Later that afternoon, he was fighting to keep a Skate on the line. I wonder now how good that strawberry must have looked to a thirty-pound Skate. Lim-Tom landed it after fifteen minutes. It was the biggest thing caught I’d seen from those rocks to this day on a rod. That alone would have perfectly ended the day, but we had only fished for an hour.

He cut up a banana and hooked it onto his line, still in its skin, then sat down and started rocking to and fro. Half an hour later, I am yelling for him to pull up his line. I yelled and yelled, and he pulled and pulled as if he were saving his life by doing so. The fish sprang into the air. It was a big, beautiful mackerel. Lim-Tom landed the fish, wrapped his hands around it, popped the hook from its mouth, and took the fish’s head straight between his teeth. Before I could look away, I heard a loud skeletal crunch, and the mackerel went from a tail-whipping side-to-side to a curved stiffness. Lim-Tom removed the fish from his mouth and spat the head onto the ground. Some light-red blood eased down his chin from the corners of his mouth, along with some strands of mackerel innards.

Lim-Tom wiped his mouth and chin, having pulled the bottom of his shirt from his high-waisted pants. He had no idea why the face in front of him had fascination written all over it.

Lim-Tom and I remained good friends into our early teens when he left to go home to Korea. It had to do with visas and other immigration issues I never understood. It was a loss, and knowing what grief would feel like in my future, I think his leaving was my first taste.

When, as an adult, I’m out on the ocean, I think about Lim-Tom, though we never met again. His boat, I guess, ran out across the sea beneath the stars and into the night.

Lim-Tom was my first experience with someone not Scottish. I never referred to him as yellow, just a boyhood friend. Things have changed a great deal since the late fifties, early sixties. I don’t recommend the act of biting off live fish heads, or suggest that it is acceptable. It isn’t.

I have no idea where Lim-Tom is today.