The Star Fisher

by Christopher F. Mills

  “Have you ever had any great fights?”

  “I've had my share. But my dream match would be with Ernest Hemingway. He was a practiced pugilist and I think he needed a great fight he never got.”

  “You think you could beat him? He and Wallace Stevens had a pretty good row once upon a time.”

  “Don't know if I could beat any man, but Hemingway's head was large, so that would make an easy target. How could anyone miss that head? I think if I was smart with my money I would put my money on Hemingway, but if I wanted to make a killing, I'd bet on me. That is what would make the struggle grand, the difficulty to make it happen.

  If this fight could happen, I would tell Hemingway; with a smile I would say it, as I was shining his shoes at the club: You don't want to fight me, Jack. I have extra lucky hands, see. You don't want to fight me with your fist or your pen, old boy. And Hemingway would smile back and say—I believe this is what he would say—My bullshit detector is beeping off the charts now, son. Just shut the hell up and lace up. Let's get this over with. I have drinks later with Fitzgerald, who is even more intolerable an ass than you are. And I would retort, That's rich, old boy. The ass of all asses, calling some other ass an ass.

  “At that point Gertrude Stein would interfere and decide she would be the one to fight Hemingway. So she would shoo me out of the ring and glove up and I would ring the bell and then Gertrude Stein would clean and reset the big-game he-man hunter's clock—and win a lot of cash. For that is one of the essential reasons for a club to come into existence: to allow men to come together and make bets on stupid, impossible chances. But Stein wouldn't be a complete underdog. Emerson, Shakespeare, Socrates, Keats and myself would have put cash on Stein.

  “They didn't call Hemingway a big bear for nothing and Stein was a big bear herself but she was a female, of course, which is what would make it worth the time, for it is no fun if it doesn't seem impossible at first. It does not make for wonder in other minds if you do what they think is easily accomplished. It is when you accomplish what they think you cannot do that you bring wonder to minds.

  “Stein beating Hemingway and doing what seemed impossible would create the extraordinary perception of wonder. And when Hemingway woke up, by Stein slapping him awake, I would say to the man: Now you have been brought to wonder by Stein. Use that and stop killing things, why don't ya? Stop screwing and sucking things for a change. Quit being a goddamned savage for a moment and find your wonder. Lose that ridiculous ego and live on the inside for a change, quit writing all these simple lines that drone on and on about eating and drinking and fucking, you big bag of crapulent foul wind.”

  He picked out Hemingway's biography and flipped it open and read a quote:

  “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

  He closed the book.

  “Hemingway wrote that. And it just doesn't make sense; not on the surface or in depth or in a side-ways, subjective meaning, does it make sense. All men are made for defeat and all men will be defeated. And any man that says otherwise is an idiot. He wrote the creed of the age with that foolish, untrue line. And because he wrote that, and tried his best to believe it—and could not live up to it—he ended up killing himself. A damned shame he did that. There is no single iota of truth in that foolish line. That could be the American creed of the first half of the twentieth century. It's a misbegotten definition designed to cover bullshit. Hemingway's bullshit detector only worked on his prose and not on his philosophy. It sure wasn't Hemingway who was unbeaten. Hemingway was lucky. And when the luck ran out, the truth of Hemingway came out. He was a beaten man, refusing all along to admit he was beaten, because of his arrogance and pride. Hemingway was a man playing a part. He was the model representative and perfect illustration of the age just past. Hemingway and the first half of this American century is the story of a headlong flight into pride, ego, destruction and death. Suicide by lack of true wonder and seeking to fill it with all the other horse, dog and bull shit. Look at what has happened to our country since the war ended.

  “Hemingway's battle was with himself, same as all of us. But he refused to fight himself. Same as most. He instead decided to fight other things; to kill dumb animals and watch other savages do the same and clap his hands and play the man. We all have our impossible battles to fight, and some enjoy the battle more than others and some never do battle at all. Some seek too much personal peace. But what kind of real peace can there be on a rock with billions of confused souls, one great ocean churning constantly and the simple little fact that this rock is itself suicidal, as it hurtles through the mine-field of space at an astronomical rate?

  “And forget all that; the churning souls within us and the ignorance we all must overcome if we are to get rid of our confusion is enough to fill any life from begin to end with constant work and battle. Peace in life is a dangerous illusion. Our days are too short and full of possibility—good and bad—to ever seriously seek for peace while living or ever to believe it has actually been found.

  “It is a running away from existential questions. They say Hemingway lost his mind near the end. He lost nothing but his capacity to write the simple, logical line. He couldn't write straight any more. No man who is still smart enough to kill himself has lost his mind, only his spirit. He lost his ego and had to look at himself directly without all the other gifts he had been give for so long. And he couldn't stand what he saw.

  “I would want to fight Hemingway for a specific reason: to help him get back to—or discover—a profound state of poetic wonder. That is what fighting battles, physical or otherwise, does for souls. And it's important that the battle be lost. It has to break the will, bump aside the ego. It has to introduce the person to their deeper selves. That's what all that bull-fighting and big-animal killing was; just palliative for the Hemingway ego. And it never worked because that never works and it all eventually drained him of the last bit of the thing he was seeking more of—that profound poetic wonder. His killing big game animals was the same as all other forms of passive or direct aggression; the same as drugs or sex. It gives the experience of profound poetic wonder for the moment, but then takes it back away twice as much. So it never works. Whoever destroys what is wonderful ruins the same wonder or hope of wonder within themselves. They do not know it, but when men destroy, whether with a gun or their hands or the false and impossible choices they give to others, which are not really choices, they also destroy the same wonder, or hope of wonder—and hope of life—within themselves.

  “So it is a trade-off, these things, by which to feel a false sense of the poetic wonder of life within. But it's giving of true gold for fool's gold; a true gem for a bauble. It corrupts the wonder within and eventually all hope of wonder is gone away, never to return. A little bit of wonder leaves each time a destruction of wonder takes place. I've seen it happen countless thousand times before in as many ways. And though this is basic truth it is never believed. But they all come to know and believe later, after it's too late.”

  She said,

  “I think it could be that things that bring easy pleasures are generally things that destroy our capacity to know a personal pride. Things that are unheroic destroy our capacity to be heroic. All these things destroy our chance at being heroic to ourselves. Anybody can kill, have sex, get drunk, have a good time. And it fills the day, but it empties the soul. It takes out the wonder in the equation. There is nothing heroic about any of that. And if a person isn't seeking to be heroic, then how could they ever be proud of their lives?”

  He nodded and said, “I think you are right and I would take it further. A lot of people do what is right. But few do what is great. There is a right thing and a great thing and the great thing might seem, usually will always seem, antithetical to being right. The hardest way is the great choice. Few choose it. This way is the way to wonder. The right things are done all day everywhere mostly; but few choose the great thing. They can't choose the great thing, because it
requires a wisdom they never gained because they were too busy. They were too busy smiling and seeking to always be happy, at the expense of becoming wise. Most could argue successfully that they have accomplished the right thing, but few could argue they have accomplished the great thing. I think most live for life, but not for anything in life. And that is to live like a rock; calm and collected and simple wise but not great wise. Most take their own lives too seriously but life itself? Not really that serious at all. It's very odd to me, all that.”

  She said, “It is simple: one gets to choose between two very different ideals; destruction and death or wonder and life. Destruction is the natural entropy that seeks all things animate and inanimate. All matter will be deconstructed sooner or later. It is the nature of the universe. But while matter is in the concoction of animate, conscious life it can choose wonder and life or destruction and death. How easy and often is the choice of destruction and death made, and that would be reasonable, if that was their wish. But it's not their wish, for they are calling life what makes for death and destruction of wonder and so what they do is tantamount to treason against reason and wonder. And so a pox of existence is set upon them for misnaming the things they do as life when it is actually death.”

  They tipped their empty cans and toasted to pox's and he threw her another and said,

  “Our Pabst Blue Ribbons are working on both of us now. We have downed the first one and drank the second one before the third one had time to cross the line.

  He said, as he popped the top for both of them on their newest beer,

  “It's the first beer that is the winner, see. All others after the first are also-rans.”

  She laughed and he said,

  “You know you can get six of these Pabst for a dollar and a half, which comes to a quarter per beer. And that is a fine bargain for a first place beverage.”

  “To fine bargains.”

  “To Pabst.”

  She wondered to herself why people get to toasting when they drink beers. Why not toast while eating? He broke her reverie,

  “So Gertrude Stein and Hemingway would battle and Stein would beat him and he wouldn't believe it as it was happening but then he would have to believe and by the breaking of his angry will then would be effected a profound state of wonder within him; the very thing he had been searching for and could not find. And so he would not have killed himself. The knowledge of wonder in him would have been too great. The great battle would have kept him inspired to live, no matter what. He would have stuck that shot-gun in his mouth and then remembered. . . the wonder. And then he would have put the gun away and saved his life. But Hemingway was surrounded by overly-intellectual, milksop, panty-waist pretenders, imposters and counterfeits. Just like we all are surrounded by now. So that was the real problem, see. Nobody ever inspired Hemingway enough.

  “Which means Hemingway never inspired Hemingway; except by his own large and eventually empty ego. Hemingway failed himself. Most live a life of excessive egocentric living and power-mongering. And when Hemingway's sense of egocentric powers failed him, he was done for. There was nothing to fall back on. No wonder or beauty to remember with pride. I wonder if his works were not mostly for himself first and last. I wonder if those works were not booster shots to his own ego. How could he have killed himself, if he was truly proud of the achievement he had done for the world by writing those great works? But he was famous because he filled for himself the same role he played for others. That is why they loved him so, they wanted to be just like him; to live vicariously through him. They could all be he-men and successful. And all that is unfortunate.”

  She wondered about it and asked,

  “Does anyone inspire you enough? Do you need a street-fight to buck up your soul by? I am not so tough but if it will help you to be inspired to wonder, I will street-fight you. Just please go easy on me.”

  “No thank you, ma'am. I know when I am over-matched. Besides, I have had plenty of fights to remember inspiration by. Maybe too many. And inspired or not, I can wait around a while to let death take care of the quick work that is me. Patience is required. If all the wonder of my life has been wrung out by now and I am left only with the boring parts, then that is that. And anyway, I have plenty of memories.”

  She asked, “You know, I wonder if Hemingway would have written different things after that fight with Stein? Life is all political debacle, even our inner mental workings. It was politics made Adam pick up that worm-filled apple.”

  “I suppose Hemingway had to write what Hemingway had to write. He wrote some pretty grand things, after all is said and done. He was a pure product of the age he found himself in. Most of us are. I just wish the dumb son of a bitch had not blown his head off. I would have liked to seen what the old, wise man would have writ.”

  After the fall

  The First Winter

  January 1940—

  In the quietus of heartbreak he uttered no words, yet was gleaning the elemental knowledge of life. He was in the beginning composition of The First Winter, which is the composition after first love's end, after the first spring, summer and fall of first love's beginning. In The First Winter the mystical memory of a deeper strain of song may be faintly heard. It was early January, and the cold winds whipped around him and chilled him to the depths of his soul. He was no longer inviolate against the winds, but subject to them.

  A memory, and so, too, the images in dreams, are to a philosophical physicist like an image of the future, the past, or the present; images of something that could have or did happen, or is happening now, or may happen — in another reality outside of this one.

  The Living Dream

  As the years passed he pushed his memory of her into the profound depths, where that memory eventually grew undetectable. What once had brightened his day was now like dim starlight, and faintly seen. She swam like a starfish in the ancient sea of his life's mystery. She was still there; she would always be there, but in a murky memory where he rarely went anymore. Sometimes he would plumb the depths and stay awhile, to feel her brush by him. But for many years he would not dive deep at all. Then one day, by the dim, sad light of her faint star, he began to compose, in his mind, the memory of her again. The dream of her became his reality. He lived her, as if she was still and yet beside him. But he knew a certain, hard truth as well as any other, for he had lived it: first love that is true love last forever, but it most always ends too soon; and that is the fashion of Heaven on earth, while what is hell on earth just goes on and on.

  The Author Swears in

  a New Dream; '63

  He drank down the last of his blue ribbon and looked in the empty cardboard box for more, then sat back in his chair and asked, as if he didn't know,

  “What happened to the beer?”

  She pointed at the trash can, which was full to over-flowing with empty blue ribbons.

  “Have we just drank all the beer? Did we just do that?”

  “Yes, we did. Well, mostly you did”

  “Well, it was bound to happen. Where was I?

  “Before Hemingway reared his spectral head you were talking about ordinary things.”

  “Yes. Concerning ordinary things—and unfortunate about all that—all of us have but one ordinary brain. It's been said that two of those are better than one. Having only one brain we must work extra hard to make a mind from it. After a while and some work we may then develop that mind to some little degree. Within our one brain we keep our several minds. There is a common sense mind we may use on occasion. A dreaming mind we should try to use as often as possible—and that one will prove to be difficult. An imaginative mind we will use to try and figure out the more challenging problems with and a foolish mind we should try to keep at arm's length—except when it is necessary to be foolish, which is often—if one is to remain sane in our over-serious-for-no-logical-reason world.

  “Our brains are quite ordinary—nothing special at all—but if we keep working on our several minds, to cr
eate something from them, then by that work we may make something to be proud of. I find most people fear their minds, the thoughts within them. It is not the world we fear, but more the thoughts within our minds that we have of it.”

  “What are the things you fear? That is what this inquiring mind would like to know.”

  “I fear lions, tigers and bears; hungry ones, specifically. And love, that I will never know it again, to its kernel, in tandem with any other soul. I fear I will never know one of those one-true-loves we all hear about but never see; like the snipes in the woods. You can look all week in the woods for a snipe but you're never going to find one. I fear I will never know that one true, great friend. We are lucky to find one of those. I swear off and swear at most social clubs, because I see how full of politics people are—and that I am too ready to talk openly to the politicos could never bode well for any future social success, relative to clubs, even if I did wish for it. I refuse to go along with bull. I suppose a really good friend is someone you can enjoy the same net ignorance with, and I haven't found any other with my own particular net ignorance. Perhaps my biggest worry is that some day my dreams and wonder will die. Nothing lives forever, you know.”

  She poured half of her last beer into his empty blue ribbon can and she toasted:

  “To a new dream and a worldly one: a dream to gain the public of the world and give to that republic of souls the codified wonder and for the nations of the earth to embrace that work which is beyond value, which is their own wonder, in tandem and inspired by the codified wonder of the poet.”

  “Yes. To all that. And then to make a million dollars.”

  “So what, when you are a moneyed man of material means, will you do with it all?”

  “I will build a mountain with the money and call it Million Dollar Mountain, and will charge a dollar per carload to travel over it, so that my money can make more money, see, but not be spent while doing so.”