Fish is a coming of age story about a group of childhood friends swimming through fleeting but emotionally lasting friendships and turbulent but shallow crushes the summer before their freshman year of high school. 

SYNOPSIS:

The characters in Fish live in a world where little things are everything. These are adolescents, and they are tackling insurmountable odds every day that mean the world to them. Two elements that dominate this story. They are friendship and love. Love is both fleeting and messy as a teenager, and this story captures the complexity of love in a time where feelings mean much more than sense. The second element is friendship. Friendships throughout life grow and adapt. Best friends in elementary school can be strangers by high school. This inseparable bond between these best friends in this story is beginning to unravel as the boys start to explore different interests. That is why the story opens with this anonymous quote, “At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time, and nobody knew it.”

Mark Fisher is our main character. He looks at himself in the mirror unsure of himself. Fish finds himself fixated on advertisements that try to worm their way into his subconscious that can leave him unfulfilled and depressed when he cannot live up to them. The doorbell rings.

Stacy Goode is at the front door. Stacy is a beautiful young outsider with a touch of dark in her personality. She has a tough time getting along with the popular crowd that feels threatened by her. Stacy wants to take Fish to a party that her friend is having. One of the objectives of the scavenger hunt is to find a boy to bring back to the party. Can Fish be a boy?

Fish and Stacy decide to go to Fish’s fort in the woods that he built with his friends. They call themselves The Brew Crew. The Brew Crew is inseparable at this point in the story. The Brew Crew is Fish, Boomer, Chin Strap and Tozzi. Joe Brightbill/Boomer is Fish’s best friend. He has a quiet wisdom and is secure in himself. He is hitting the coveted prize of puberty. He is an athlete, and all the girls love him, and all the boys want to be him. Douglass Smith/Chin Strap is known for being loud and arrogant. Rob Perentozzi/Tozzi has a quick wit and also well-informed about music, movies, and sports. At times, he can be the odd man out.

Jaime and Kelly see Fish and Stacy walking away from the party. Jaime Lengle is popular and in love with Fish. She is an athlete and popular in school. She is Kelly’s best friend. Kelly Davis is much more developed than her friends and the leader. She is Boomer’s girlfriend. She’s the most popular freshman entering High School. Her naive nature and her lack of experience and wanting to fit in amongst the “in” High School crowd makes her easy prey for the boys wanting to spend a night with her. Kelly decides to spread a rumor that Stacy and Fish had sex. Fish spends the rest of the story denying being romantically involved with Stacy when asked by friends and classmates.

Fish and Stacy make it to the fort, and there is a spark between the two as they have a conversation. The conversation is light, natural and flirtatious. They climb a tree that has pieces of wood nailed into it creating a ladder. They sit on a platform made of boards. They joke about having sex at the top and talk about being virgins. Fish playfully mentions playfully that he does not kiss and tell. The scene ends with them close to each other up in the tree with what happens next to them open for interpretation.

Kelly and Jaime are walking through a local mall when Dirt Face and Jazz notice them. They are juniors. Alex Marks/Dirt Face is going to be a sophomore and gets his nickname from the goatee he could grow since he was in fifth grade. He’s a bully. William Jankowski/Jazz is Dirt’s inseparable best friend - is the Robin to Dirt’s Batman. They see prey in Kelly and Jaime because they are young and naïve and about to enter high school. Dirt Face gets them to go with them by offering a ride in his car.

The Brew Crew are at their fort and are bored. Chin Strap just wants to move on from the pre-teen life of playing at the fort and wants to hang with the big kids at The Bridge. The Bridge is where the high school kids hang out. Going to the bridge is a turning point in the story and Fish realizes it. Stepping away from the fort is the end of their innocence.

Dirt Face and Jazz take Jaime and Kelly to a place called The Pit. The Pit is a large hole where kids do drugs, drink and hang out. Dirt Face is smoking a joint and laying the groundwork to seduce Kelly with his age and reputation in high school. It is working.

The Brew Crew make it to The Bridge, and they get invited to a high school party. At the end of the scene, Boomer spots Kelly in Dirt’s car with Jaime. Boomer finds out that Kelly is going to a roller rink and wants to confront her about seeing her in the car with Dirt Face. The Brew Crew make it to the roller rink. During a couple skate, Kelly breaks up with Boomer thinking that she has something with Dirt. Jaime slow skates with Fish to find out what is going on with Stacy. The conversation between Jaime and Fish is awkward as the dance ends. There is a competition relay with square skateboards. Boomer is already upset, and two boys trip Boomer and Fish’s skateboard causing them to fall. This is enough for Boomer to explode on the boys and they challenge the three rival boys to a fight. Boomer and Chin Strap defeat their opponents easily but Boomer injures his hand. When it’s Fish’s turn, he realizes that the other boy is scared and he will beat him handily. He takes this moment to approach the boy as if he is going to fight and diffuses the situation by kissing him in the lips leaving both sides shocked. Fish did not want to fight the boy knowing that he would win. This moment is pivotal for Fish’s development as a person. He is unwilling to fight a person he knows he can beat. The local law enforcement officer that goes by the name of Boonie pops on his patrol lights dispersing the children in a panic to run for their lives.

Kelly meets up with Dirt Face, and she has an awkward and quick time losing her virginity as Dirt Face takes advantage of her naivety and lack of experience. She has no idea that he views her as just another notch on his belt. It is a painfully awkward moment that represents many young women’s first time losing their virginity. She is left alone knowing in her heart she made a mistake.

The next day The Brew Crew go to a lake. Fish is unable to talk to Stacy because she sees him talking to Jaime and leaves the lake. Dirt Face ignores Kelly the next day after having sex and leaves her heartbroken. Boomer moves on with another girl and makes out with her under a picnic table with the help of Chin Strap. Fish and Jaime talk and realize that they are not on the same page and want different things. Jaime wants to be at the top of her class and Fish wants to be an outsider.

The boys finally have to face the music from Chin Strap’s father as Boonie tells him about the fight at the roller rink. The boys get grounded and have to make an effort to sneak out of their houses to go to the high school party. Kelly stops by Boomer’s house to tell him that she made a mistake by breaking up with him and sleeping with Dirt Face.

At the party, Fish finally gets to talk to Stacy. They have a conversation about mirrors and how they can never truly see themselves as each mirror shows a different image. Boomer tells Fish that he is going to fight Dirt for what happened with Kelly. Dirt Face beats up Boomer partly because of Boomer’s hand being injured. Fish steps up to fight Dirt to defend his friend knowing that he is going to lose. He is served a beating. Fish keeps getting up, and Dirt realizes that to get Fish to stop coming at him, he will have to kill him. Dirt eventually stops the fight knowing that continuing it is useless. Fish fought for his friend and not for himself. Fish looks at himself badly beaten up and bruised through a window and finally sees his reflection. Stacy sees Fish’s reflection too. Fish is beneficent, affable and a person that fights for his friends. The Brew Crew sit down next to each other unsure of what to say to each other. Their inseparable bond has ended. They begin to follow interests that their current friendship cannot fulfill. These separate interests of the boys have been foreshadowed earlier in the story. The Brew Crew individually drift naturally into other social circles at the party. Fish gets up to talk to Stacy. They decide to go for a walk away from the party. Stacy turns to Fish and thanks him for not telling his friends what they did at The Brew Crew Fort alluding to the fact that they may have been intimate. Even though the rumor of them having sex, was channeling through their cohorts, Fish was a consummate gentleman and always said that nothing happened. He was a man of his word. He did not kiss and tell.

During the credits, the Brew Crew Fort is void of life. A group of four elementary school boys discovers the fort. They are excited. The fort symbolizes the end of the innocence of adolescence. This group of kids will spend their time here laughing, playing, making fun of each other until it is time for all of them to grow out of the fort and grow out of each other.