Fiction: The Adventures of Bishka and Bola

By James Callan

Bishka held the rudder, a hockey stick dangling off the back of two couch cushions. Together, we drifted out among the Arctic Ocean, balancing atop a dislodged fragment of glacier. Our basement was cold, even in the summer, but in the winter it was downright freezing. All we had to do was turn off the space heater, wait twenty minutes, or until we could see our breaths. We’d grab a stuffed animal —something in theme, like a polar bear, a beluga whale, or an emperor penguin, the last of which actually lives in the Antarctic, but for kids not yet ten, we couldn’t care less about realism. And that was that, our imagination did the rest; we were transported somewhere north of Svalbard.

“Can I try the rudder, Bishka?”

“Fuck you, Bola. You’re only here in case we have to resort to cannibalism.”

“Wait…we have cannons?” I was thrilled at the prospect, both sound defense from piracy as well as walrus hunting.

“Bola, you are so dumb it hurts. Not cannons. Cannibalism. If we can’t find any food, we’ll kill you. First, we’ll hold your head under the waves, then we’ll tie you up and drag your body behind the boat in the frozen ocean.”

“So you can bring me with you? All the way to the North Pole?” Oh, the naivety! “So you can bury me in Santa’s garden?” I envisioned my body feeding the roots of a tinsel-draped, bauble-laden Christmas tree.

“No, you moron,” Bishka told me. “After we kill you, we’ll put your body in the water so it doesn’t rot away. Refrigeration, idiot. The arctic water will keep you fresh. We don’t want the meat to spoil, Bola. We want your meat to last.”

“Who is we?” I asked.

“Mr. White,” he held up the stuffed polar bear. “And Penny,” he nudged the penguin.

“Where is Baby?” I searched around for my beluga whale, my favorite aquatic mammal and very best of stuffed animals.

“Sorry, Bola.” Bishka smiled. He didn’t look sorry at all. I held my breath and waited for his explanation. “Cannibalism.” Bishka lifted the blanket to reveal Baby Beluga. He was torn open from his dorsal fin to the space between his pale blue eyes. White, fluffy guts erupted like simmering blubber from his smooth, soft body.

“Survival, Bola.”Bishka shrugged, then tied some red yarn around Baby’s tail, tossed him over the starboard side of our mock-leather cushions. “Survival,” he said again. “It’s a man’s game. One suited for the fittest.”

I turned away from Bishka, and, still holding my breath, looked out over the side of our boat into the lazuli depths beyond the weave of the carpet. Trailing us, bobbing on the rough, arctic waves, an infant whale, a baby beluga, floated at the taught end of a mooring line. I longed to jump over the side of our vessel, to bear the cold water and save my friend, to hold him one last time. At length, I looked away, sat back down in our makeshift boat, our spare slab of glacial ice, our cracked pleather cushions.

And even then, I still held my breath, wondering how I did not explode or expire. I was hesitant to let it all go, afraid my own guts might come tumbling out of me with all that I was holding in. Then, as I knew it would, the moment came; I could no longer abstain from breathing. I filled the quiet with dreadful music, a somber dirge among the gloomy, basement landscape. Like a Greenland shark coming up from an abyss devoid of light, I emptied my lungs on a mournful wail, which carried far out over the angry ocean, northward, on a weak spectral mist.

 

*

 

“If you look up the word pussy you’ll find your fat, slobby face pictured next to it in the dictionary.”

“Will not, Bishka!”

“Will too.”

"Will not!”

“Will too, Bola. Or why else, I wonder, will you not eat this booger I have dared you to eat?”

Letterman was cracking jokes on the television screen. He kept a straight face, the sparest of wry smiles, but I knew he was being funny. I knew he was being funny because the band came to life and the audience erupted in laughter.

“You know I hate boogers.” It was true—just looking at them made me sick. My gag reflex wasn’t what I would call strong, but when it came to boogers, look out!

“Bola,” Bishka said, balancing a rather large, wet, yellow-green booger on his upraised swear finger, “a dare is sacred. Sacred.” He came closer with the mutant blob perched on his fuck-you hand gesture. “Now, I say it again: I dare you, Bola, to eat my booger.” He inched closer.

“Please,” I begged him. “Please, Bishka. Anything but your booger.”

Bishka paused, brightened, got this evil-genius look on his face that scared me half to death. “Anything?” He must have seen it in my expression, my loss of resolve to battle his strong will, to try and run away from my grim fate. “Time to dine!” Bishka crawled across the carpet, so close now that I was helpless to run away. He brought the aborted slime fetus to my lips on an extended digit. “Okay, Bola. Open up!”

What else could I do? Big brothers are not to be denied.

Letterman welcomed his guest—some man who was at least as funny as him. I didn’t understand how or why what this man said was funny, but I supposed it was. The band let loose a ba-dum-tss! on the drums, a dead giveaway a joke had landed. The live audience was going crazy. Even Letterman was laughing, openly and loudly.

“Open up!” Bishka repeated, and now the audience was hooting, whistling, applauding. Were they watching me from the television? Was I funny? Was this really, actually funny?” 

“Okay, Bishka.” Slowly, ever so slowly, I opened my mouth, allowing Bishka to claw his way past my lips. He laughed as loud as Letterman, as loud as the audience attending his show. He pressed something salty up into my gums, and I was quickly reminded of my gag reflex, my weakness when it comes to boogers, to crystallized nasal mucus forced upon me.

The band perked up, their music playing with gusto; their sound was jolly, boisterous, and fun. The late-night program cut to commercial, and I used the break in the action to rid myself of too much Domino’s pizza. I purged myself of orange soda and ice-cream, and of only one, but one-too-many boogers.

 

*

 

Bishka and Bola were not our real names—my brother is Chad, and I am Charlie. Bishka and Bola, I imagine, must have had a beginning, an origin of sorts, but I cannot recall their conception, or the first time their names were used in place of our own. They were alter egos, an alias, characters in a game that we played, an adventure of sorts. It is only now, as an adult, that I reflect on their meaning. Bishka and Bola...I mean, what the fuck is that? From time to time, curiosity strikes me like a sucker-punch. 

A quick Google search tells me that Bishka is a Hebrew name, meaning woman of wealth. This fact is mildly interesting, but irrelevant to the genesis of Chad’s childhood character. Bola, apparently, means “ball” in several languages. Okay, but I was never known for my skill in any sport, those using balls, or otherwise.

The origin of Bishka and Bola remains unknown, steeped in utter mystery. My guess? The names were chosen randomly, phonetic sounds pleasing to small children. But really, who cares? It won’t erase the past to reveal its deeper nuance. Why did we pick these names for ourselves as children? Frankly, I don’t think I had a part in the choosing. My play name was given to me, the gift of a fiery brand. I would not choose a name like Bola, which skirted far too close to Ebola. I would not have chosen to play the part of Bola, either. Choice was never an element of the game.

What was the origin of Bishka and Bola? Why these silly, stupid names? That fact is well hidden, obscured in the dark corner of early childhood. It is doubtful I will ever unveil the truth. Frankly, it hardly seems to matter.

 

*

 

It was during one of our many sojourns in the arctic: Bishka and I were placing naval mines in the water to intercept the seasonal migration of narwhals. It was over-the-top, and undoubtedly cruel, but the exploit came at Bishka’s behest—without a word, I yielded to his bidding. The water, which was typically Gatorade-blue, turned to muddy crimson, thick and opaque. The change from clear azure to turbid wine came after a series of explosions (direct hits!). Narwhal tusks, which we thought of as a single horn (like a unicorn!), littered the bay in broken fragments. Other corpses emerged after the blasts —bowhead whales, harp seals, an Eskimo fisherman, and too many fish to count— which floated on the surface, some whole, the majority in bits. Among the carnage was one baby beluga whale. No, not the Baby, whose meat, long ago, had been consumed, whose bones now settled among the mud beneath a fathomless, frigid sea. Not the Baby, but another one. Another victim of Bishka, and his sidekick, Bola, me.

“Remind you of home?” Bishka asked. “Does it remind you, Bola, of where you were born?”

Does what remind me of home? The carnage? The blood-red tide? The echo of detonated mines? How the water-muted blasts bounced eerily off the floating glaciers? Or did he mean the smell of fish? The seagulls wailing? The weak sun, never far from the horizon, always blinding? What did Bishka mean?

“What do you mean?”

“This…” Bishka stood, balancing with grace within our wave-beaten boat. He leaned over the side of the couch cushion and gestured in a wide, all-encompassing sweep. “The cold, the ocean…does it remind you of where you come from? Does it remind you of Alaska?”

This old ploy, a favored deception—or was it genuine truth? Chad would often tell me, had told me no less than 500 times: “You were adopted from Alaska, Charlie. Mom and Dad aren’t really your mom and dad.”

“Who are my mom and dad?” I’d ask when he’d say this to me, and it was always the same, or a variation of something basically like this: “Lowlifes who didn’t love their child enough to keep it. Idiots, like you, who had one good idea in their harebrained minds.”

“What was their good idea?” I fell for it the first ten times.

“Giving up a sack-of-shit kid like you, of course,” Chad would say, always with an air of wisdom. “Your real mom and dad —the Alaskan’s— they jettisoned you the moment they saw your face.”

“What does jettisoned mean?”

“This!” Then Chad was no longer Chad, but Bishka, and Bishka pushed me, hard, over the side of our boat.

I was a good swimmer, but I was terrified of the cold, dark water, which was clouded with blood. I was afraid of all the corpses, and bits of corpses floating in the water, and the sharks that all that gore was sure to attract. I scrambled for the boat in a frenzied dog paddle, my form greatly diminished by my fear, by my desire to keep my head above the water, to keep from tasting the fish guts and eviscerated narwhals.

When I reached the boat, I clamored over the edge of a slick, pleather cushion. I felt pain, and saw Bishka above me, a dark silhouette against the low, dull sun. His heel dug into the back of my hand and he shoved my face backward. I drifted among the dead, the torn apart. Nearby, I thought I saw a passing shark fin. Below my legs, a naval mine was perilously close to my toes.

“Let me in!” I cried. “Let me back into the boat!”

Bishka was a dark stick figure, a boy-shaped rim of fire obscuring the sunset at his back. He bent down and offered his hand. I reached for it, but he drew it back. Then it came hard and fast; he slapped me over my ear.

“Ouch!” I cradled the side of my head, which broke my form, sending me sinking. My ankle grazed something below in the dark. A mine? A shark? An old Eskimo fisherman? I didn’t want to know, and dared not look to find out. But I screamed, and in came the cold, bloody water to race down my throat. I tasted blood, and fresh sashimi. I coughed and splashed on the surface of Baffin Bay. I cried, louder than a flock of seagulls.

Again, I tried to enter the boat. Again, Bishka slapped me, this time harder than before. “Why won’t you let me in?” Tears and snot streamed down my face. Naval mines and sharks were all around me, too numerous to count. So many dark shapes; some motionless, others darting at high speed. “Please, Chad.” The groan of shifting glaciers sounded like the churning belly of an angry god. “Please, Bishka. Let me back into the boat.”

And Bishka was, during that moment, a god, or if not quite a god, a brutal chieftain, and I, his chattel, was for him to safeguard, or jettison, at his pleasure. He reached for me with one hand, held my wrist tight enough to bruise. He pulled me close, my arms up against the side of the boat, my backside and legs still drifting out over the water. With his free hand, Bishka presented his palm, held it within a convenient distance to slap me in a split-second, if such was his will. I did not want to be slapped, but I feared the dead bodies, the exploding mines and ravenous sharks, more than I did the pain and indignity of receiving a beating. I waited for the discretion of my chieftain.

“You’re not my real brother, you know? And Mom isn’t your real mom.”

“Please, let me in the boat?”

He slapped me, and so did the waves, the rust-colored fish-flavored water.

“You were born in Alaska,” Chad said, tightening his grip on my wrist. “You were adopted, Charlie. Unwanted. Thrown away.”

“Jettisoned?” I whispered the word, whimpered it, really, and wasn’t sure if we were talking about the cartoon program, the futuristic family comedy of a similar name, The Jetsons, or if it was just the right word to say, a code, a safeword, a way to bare my belly and show my obeisance. 

“Good boy,” Bishka said, dropping his slapping hand down to his side. “Now, say it with me. I want to hear it from your lips: You were born in…” He waited, bringing back his slapping hand to hover six inches from my face.

“Alaska,” I moaned, hoping that it was a lie.

“And your real parents, who are lowlifes, the worst of the worst —scum, like you— they did not want you, Charlie. So they threw you away, like trash, like used diapers. And what do we call that? What’s the word for what your parents wisely did with their stupid son?”

I thought of George Jetson, the family man, and Jane, his wife—such a wholesome pair. They were from the future, which meant they were yet to come. And I guess, in a cold world with little to grasp on to, it was just enough to keep me afloat. I held on to George and Jane, the small slice of hope that sparkled in their far-future smiles, and, like a buoy in the rough sea, I clung on to them for dear life. 

“What did your parents do to you when you were born, far away, in Alaska?”

“They jettisoned me.”

Bishka smiled, pulling me up and out of the water, into the safety of our boat. “No more mines,” Bishka announced. “No more explosions,” he declared. “Take heart, Bola! The danger has passed!”

 

*

 

If Chad, either as Bishka or himself, was a heavy-handed chieftain, or perhaps a sadistic king, then our two half sisters —ten and twelve years older than me, respectively— were nothing shy of demigods. Their presence was rare, but when they appeared we’d tread lightly, make ourselves scarce as they coalesced on wafts of cigarette smoke, emerging from their mysterious, private chambers. On the verge of going to college, and later, back from out of state, when they were home for Christmas, maybe spring break, with university sweatshirts and tales of sexual exploits, new piercings acquired, old grudges forgotten, as if high school never existed at all…It left us mortals in awe.

And what, then, did this make Mom? God, of course (and nothing demi about it). Mom was more than a god by half measures. She was omnipotent, or, in any case, she was the one calling the shots. And she was a vengeful god; even the demigods fled from her bored, tired chiding.

No doubt about it, Mom was more than a demigod. She was more than Demi Moore—and this was 1994, so that’s saying a lot! Mom was more than any god-like golden star on the silver screen. In our little, sad world, Mom was definitely God, the one and only.

But like God, it took faith to believe in her, a strong faith I couldn’t quite muster. And like God, Mom was in everything, everywhere at once, always hanging around. But also like God, I had to ask the question, had to ask it even when I was looking right at her: was she really there? Has Mom ever been there at all?

And Dad? I couldn’t really say.

His presence predates my earliest memory. I’ve seen the photos. I’ve heard a lot about him. Tales of legend. My dad? I guess you could call Dad a myth.

 

*

 

When Chad and I were older, when we no longer used our play-names, Bishka and Bola, and when, for that matter, we didn’t play at all, but mostly kept to ourselves, I still, on occasion, succumbed to an old, familiar dynamic: the dominance and cruelty that is an older brother’s right.

I must have been twelve when it happened, twelve, most certainly, because at twelve, I was always thinking about how I was nearly thirteen —a teenager— and how that seemed so cool, so unreal, and kind of dangerous, because I knew my brain was about to develop in ways I couldn’t control. I was on the verge, about to transcend.

I remember VH1. I remember Ru Paul, who was a beautiful woman, but who, beneath the veneer, I knew was a man. I remember not caring that this beautiful woman was 6 foot 3 —6 foot 6 in those gorgeous heels— or that tucked up into herself was a black man’s cock that almost certainly, dramatically dwarfed my own. I did not care that my own little dick would look like an injured caterpillar in her massive, manicured claws. All I knew, and all I cared about, was the idea that it was wrong, and that felt right, and suddenly I learned I could play pretend and it felt unbelievably, uncontrollably, unrealistically good. But I knew it was real, because, well, the stains, and the looks my mom gave me when it was time to do the laundry, the offhand comment I hoped, nay, prayed my brother had not overheard:  “Have you heard of tissues, Charlie? Jesus Christ, control yourself.”

I remember Baywatch, and plastic tits like red balloons under swimsuits way too tight, and blonde hair, almost white, and lips that shone like wet, tide-pool invertebrates fresh from the sea, soft, slimy things that frustrated me to the point of aching hardness. I remember those holes in boxer shorts —you know, for pissing— and how it was just too damned easy for a boner to pop out and scrape the zipper. I remember the little scars that came with frequent masturbation, but how the pain was inconsequential to the unholy, perfect pleasure.

And then there was Claudia Colwell, my classmate. I remember her, too. How could I forget? Her eyes were so large, so far apart, like an alien from Roswell—Claudia Roswell! I did not speak to her, but I worshiped her from afar. I wrote her phone number, which I acquired from the school directory, into my notebook, and circled it with a heart. I drew an alien with a head shaped like a strawberry, like the ones from Roswell, and scribbled pink highlighter hearts in the center of its planet-sized eyes. I drew Claudia’s face, life-size, and cut it out. I placed her head on the pillow of my bed and arduously humped the mattress.

It was heaven —pure heaven— the likes of which I may never know again, unless it awaits me after my death. Yes, it was heaven, but it ended in tragedy, a nightmare made reality. Chad entered the room, and heaven swiftly descended to hell.

“What. The. Fuck?!” My brother closed the door and locked it, as I should have done myself, as I thought I had, but I guess I got too excited, distracted by Claudia Roswell, lost in her wide-set, unearthly eyes. Chad held a hand over his gormless delight, his unfiltered cruel sneer. He saw my drawing, the alien head, and the directory, open like a holy text at my side. I was frozen, and my boner was long gone, miles down the road, someplace cold and far away, Svalbard or Baffin Bay.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Chad snatched the directory. “Claudia Colwell?” He laughed. “Isn’t she retarded?”

“What? No?” I was afraid of Chad, but he would not slander Claudia in my own room. “She’s striking, is all. She has strong features.”

“Not retarded, eh? Well, she looks it. Her eyes, for one, are closer to her ears than her nose. And she is taller than me, dude, and I’m seventeen! Your girlfriend is a fucking giraffe.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” My god, if only! Such is the ejaculate of genie lamps, wishes and dreams.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with a girlfriend, kiddo. Do you even know how to kiss?”

I got up from the bed, reached down to zip my pants. “Sure I do.” I tried to sound confident, but I couldn’t look my brother in the eye.

Chad pushed me back onto the mattress. “If you are such an expert at kissing, then show me.”

“Chad, come on.”

“Show me, bitch.” He pointed to the paper cutout of Claudia Roswell lying across my pillow. “Kiss that horny little slut. Kiss your retarded giraffe girlfriend.”

What else could I do? Big brothers are not to be denied.

And so, like a giraffe, who extends its long, purple tongue to strip the tallest branches of leaves, I extended my tongue as far as I could, for this was the method of kissing I had learned from surreptitious glances in the hallways at school. I pressed against the paper. I tasted ink. I slid my tongue along the massive gulf between Claudia’s wide eyes.

“Jesus, Charlie!” Chad was laughing, but he was also angry. “Are you a fucking dog? What are you doing? Lapping up a bowl of slop?”

“I’m just, I don’t know…kissing.” I saw my face in the mirror across the room. Red marker had smeared across my lips and nose. I looked like a clown.

“This won’t do,” he declared, still laughing, ironically now, shaking his head as if he had never been so irritated in his life. “I’ll show you how to kiss.”

Chad threw himself onto the bed. He threw himself right over me. The heel of his palm landed on the paper cutout of Claudia Roswell’s face, which now was not only smeared from my sloppy kissing, but also torn in two, torn right between her eyes. I tried to get up, but Chad pushed me down. He grabbed one of my wrists, pinned me down with the teenage strength that I coveted. With his free hand, he presented his palm, inches from my face. I knew this game. I knew to open my mouth when he told me to.

His kiss was rough, and warm, and wet. It hurt, and tasted like Hot Pockets—ham and cheese. I groaned and squirmed as Chad’s tongue played with my own, as it prodded the back of my throat. Then I felt it, the old gag reflex, and the acidic sensation of half-digested Pop-Tarts coming up and out of me.

Chad was not amused. He almost vomited himself. He ran to the sink and ran the tap, making noises—water gurgling, spitting, and copious, deadly threats. He must have finished rinsing my vomit from his mouth, because he came back in, jumped back on the bed, right where I lay, frozen, covered in pink sprinkles and bile. He yelled some things, lots of cruel things, names, oaths, etcetera. He punched me in the balls —the bolas— which was like leaving earth, flying away to a bad, bad planet. Then he slapped me, like I’d known before, an old familiar game.

My mom made some noise. A halfhearted cough on the other side of the door. It wasn’t much of an intervention, but it stopped the violence.

God, or his equivalent, had saved me.

 

*

  

Even now, pushing 45, whenever I chance upon an old clip of The Late Show with David Letterman, I quickly mute my phone, or X-out my internet browser, or shut my eyes and will the laughter and music to fade away. It does not matter how good, how funny, the interview may be, how genuinely clever, how well the gag might land; I find myself sick to my stomach, I find myself gagging. I can taste the digested Domino’s pizza, the old orange soda, the phantom booger that has been plastered to my palate for 35 years.

Unavoidably, despite the years between then and now, when I kiss a woman, I find myself thinking of Chad, and invariably taste ham and cheese cutting through the would-be lust that is pushed aside among the damaged clutter of my sex life. It is why, despite its often ill-favored reception, I keep my eyes open when I am kissing. No matter how passionate, how tongue-tied and wet, how busy our hands are while groping at other things —bra straps, asses, belts, genitals— I keep my eyes wide open and focus on my partner. If I blink, even for a second, the most beautiful, most sexy, most lavishing lady is turned into my older brother. My lover becomes Chad, becomes my tormentor, becomes Bishka.

Am I traumatized, then? Am I damaged? Has a simple kids’ game infiltrated, infected my mental health? Does time heal all wounds, as they say? And who am I, anyways? Charlie or Bola? Will I ever bite the bullet and travel to Alaska? Will I ever see a real, wild beluga whale?

Are all big brothers, I wonder, so damned impactful? Or is it just me? My own affliction? And who is to blame? Is it Chad, or is it Bishka? Or do I have it all wrong? Is it me? And if it is, where do I point the finger? Do I single out Charlie McMillian, the son of my mother and father? Or curse the simpleton, Bola, an Alaskan-born orphan with the grace and charm of late stage Ebola?

Are all big brothers, I ask again, so damned impactful? As I voice these musings aloud, pacing the room or pulling my hair, I sift through a series of familiar faces. I see a dead baby whale with pale blue eyes. I see a Domino’s pizza delivery boy revealing the warm waft of melted cheese from an open pizza box, the pizza within: mushroom, black olive, green booger. I see Claudia Colwell, her strange, alien eyes set apart the width of Baffin Bay. And I see David Letterman, a ghostly wry smile. He masks it well, but can I tell he is greatly amused. And I swear, I can hear it —ba-dum-tss!— a dead giveaway a joke has landed.

 

 

 

 

 

James Callan lives and writes in Aotearoa (New Zealand). His fiction has appeared in Apocalypse Confidential, BULL, X-R-A-Y, Reckon Review, Mystery Tribune, and elsewhere. His collection, Those Who Remain Quiet, is available from Anxiety Press.