It’s a steamy Saturday in Berwyn. We’re standing in the backyard of Bill Miller’s yellow brick bungalow, staring through sweat at a gurgling six-foot-deep pond. Miller, a burly recently retired factory supervisor, is delivering a lecture on koi aesthetics in rich Brooklynese. “The skin has to have a texture to it that looks like a paintin’,” he says. “The white has to be impeccable. The reds can’t bleed into the other colors. The blacks have to look like they were just dabbed with a paintbrush on ’em, so they look like a work of art.” He pauses for a draw on his cigarette, letting a moment pass before crossing the fine but inevitable line from aesthetics to commerce. “A good koi of 24 inches or so will cost anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000,” he says. “In the California area, $20,000 to $40,000 is not uncommon for top quality.”
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Below us, under the Japanese maple and the waterfall, his herd of 16 koi cavort, smug and cool in their water world, precious agates, objects of desire. One after another they glide by for a look at us, tottering on our absurd legs, sweating and stinking in the hot air. When the weather gets uncomfortable for them, about November, they’ll drift majestically to the bottom of the pond and take a long nap. They won’t need to eat again till May.
The Millers have made their passion their livelihood. After years as hobbyists, they are now full-time wholesalers of koi and goldfish. A club they founded with two other collectors eight years ago in their basement has grown into the Midwest Pond & Koi Society, which boasts 350 families as members. Its seventh annual Koi and Goldfish Show, a regional event, will be held this weekend, with beauty contests for 15 categories of koi (judged on body shape, color, pattern, and skin quality) and 10 categories of goldfish, plus seminars and exhibits. Hours are 9 to 5 Saturday and 9 to 3 Sunday at the Du Page County Fairgrounds, 2015 W. Manchester Road in Wheaton. It’s open to the public; admission is $3. Call 312-409-2081 for more information. –Deanna Isaacs
