There He Goes, The Fishy Boy

My tormentors are right. I do smell like fish. Plenty of Puerto Caimito kids do. We live by the water, not far from a processing plant that makes fish meal out of sardines — or harina de pescado, as we call it. I am the son of a fisherman. I work on my father’s boat. The smell of fish overpowers everything in Puerto Caimito. Fish keep the local economy from drowning. Fish are what supplies jobs for many of the parents of the kids who are taunting me. I could’ve, should’ve, ignored them.

I do not.

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