Somehow, things have to change. I've never been a bachelor, don't know how to perform that role. Michelle is no longer an option, no matter how many times I envision scenarios. I need something tangible. It's time.
At the moment I reach this decision, something within me relaxes, a trembling muscle finally unclenching after months of overwrought tension. I feel myself give in to the inevitability of change.
Chapter 3
Two men prepare to go fishing unencumbered
I'm up early, making sandwiches. Last week, Karl and I made plans for this morning, but everything might be out the window if the girlfriend is still around. The door to Karl's room is closed, and my curiosity is like an itch. I want to get a look at her in daylight.
There are sounds of movement just as I'm finishing up, stirring and footsteps. Karl's door opens, heard rather than seen, around two corners from the kitchen. I wait, but nobody emerges far enough for me to see. The bathroom door clicks shut, shower spray commences. No talking, just the usual commotion Karl makes getting ready each morning. One thing I grudgingly admire about Karl is his minimalist routine. Boot camp hair, beard trimmed weekly with electric clippers. He requires nothing but soap, deodorant, toothbrush and towel.
I move toward my bedroom, hoping to steal a glance down the hall. Karl's door remains open, but the room is empty. Unless she's in the shower with him, she must have already departed. I never heard her go. Though I don't remember getting any sleep, I must have drifted off. Maybe when I found her there, sitting on the edge of Karl's bed, she was getting ready to leave. That doesn't explain where Karl was.
The shower shuts off. I return to the kitchen, not wanting to be obvious. I listen for voices, the kind of interaction I'd expect between two crowded into our tiny bathroom, but all I hear is Karl stomping around. The sink runs briefly, then the door opens. Karl rounds into the kitchen, wearing gray boxer briefs and a white t-shirt, carrying his blue uniform shirt. "You almost ready, Tiger? Can't be late. We've both been ass-chewed one too many times."
I set the knife and cutting board in the sink, trying to guess whether he's kidding.
"Move it, get going," Karl says. "Two minutes." Not joking, apparently.
"Karl, you said we're going fishing."
"No, that's Saturday." His face shows such theatrical confusion, I wonder if it's a put-on. "Oh, fuck me running, today's Saturday. Well, that's cool. Fishing beats working."
"You're probably a little foggy. I'm guessing you didn't get much sleep either."
"Check this out." Karl lifts his t-shirt to reveal his right flank, a series of red inflamed scratches above the hip.
"I heard your yelling last night," I admit. "I mean, hers."
"Last night?" He looks at me crooked, seemingly mystified. "Just me here, by my lonesome. Turned in early." Karl twists, trying to examine around the side of his torso. "Jehoshaphat, Tiger, check out these marks. I'm all tore up."
"Sure." I laugh. "You were alone. You clawed yourself to pieces."
He looks like he really doesn't get it, but I'm not sure whether to take him seriously. Karl's constantly trying to get a rise out of me, always dropping some embarrassing goof, waiting to see if I'll fall for it. "Fuck, it's all raw." He traces a finger down the reddest wound. "Jesus."
I venture a high-throated, feminine whine, breath in and out fast. "Ohhh, owww, ohhh."
Karl doesn't seem to get it. Just looks at me like I'm nuts.
"You're saying you were alone here?" I confirm. "Last night?"
He nods, pulls down his t-shirt and throws the uniform shirt over the back of the couch, which forms a boundary wall between kitchen and living room.
"Karl, seriously, she was here. I got up to go to the bathroom, and your door was open. I couldn't help seeing her sitting there on the edge of your bed."
"Saw who?"
"I don't know her name. You never introduced us."
He shakes his head.
"A woman," I continue. "Your girlfriend. Who else would it be?"
Karl breaks up laughing, shaking his head. "So where was I during all this?"
"How should I know? I asked her, ‘Where's Karl?’ She just said, ‘He'll be back.’"
"I never left, Tiger. My girl, she wasn't around last night."
"What's her name? Tell me what she looks like."
"She's out of town. And I definitely never left."
"So how'd you get all scraped up? You get a little too passionate with the self-love?" I made the sound again, a tense wail so high and piercing it pained my throat to make it. "Whining and crying, howling all alone like that?"
"Stop that shit, Tiger. Hurts my ears. She's out of town, visiting family. These sex fantasies of yours, Jehoshaphat, Tiger. Sexual frustration will drive a man fucking unbalanced. See, here's the reason you need to go fishing. You know why so many old guys love to fish? Distraction from that traffic jam taking place in your nut sack."
I'll grant Karl one thing, he knows how to shut me up.
"Her name’s Sadie." Karl rubs his side. "I'll see her tonight. Wonder what she's going to say about these scratches?"
"When she comes over, I want to ask her if she was here. See what she says, without any coaching from you."
"Sure, bro. I'm telling you, Tiger, hormone seepage is getting into your bloodstream. Your brain's poisoned by the DSB."
"Sure, bro." I want to change the subject. "I made sandwiches, plus Coke for you, iced coffee for me. It’s all in the ice chest. You say I need fishing. Let’s go."
"Said it's a substitute, didn't say it's a good substitute." He looks at me, mock serious, puts one hand on his hip, juts it sideways like a supermodel. "Tiger. Seriously, it's time."
"I get it, I know. Really. I'm over Michelle."
"No."
"It's a process. I'm getting out into the world."
"Bullshit. You're hanging around here all by yourself, like a pussy."
"I promise you. I'm not holding out for Michelle. Seriously."
"Michelle, that's her name?" He glares, pops his knuckles, like he's inspired to do violence.
"You know her name." I pick up the ice chest. "Let's go."
"It's time, that's all I'm saying. Maybe Sadie's got a friend. You interested?"
This catches my attention. I stand frozen, imagining some unknown woman, her face. It's just an idea.
"You are interested, I can tell. You horn dog. Okay, I'll do some digging, but if Sadie does have a friend, you can't be a pussy. You got to assert yourself a little. At least pretend you own a pair."
Maybe. The possibility gets me thinking. "I had weird dreams. Maybe that's what it was."
"I bet you have weird dreams." He makes a face, and goes back for weekend clothes.
A few minutes later, we're driving.
Chapter 4
Private land on the Kalama River
Karl parks just outside a yellow gate on the shoulder of River Road. A long driveway beyond the gate winds through pines and Douglas firs.
"You sure this is okay?" I grab the ice chest from the back seat.
Karl slams the trunk. Carrying fishing gear in both hands, he ducks under the gate. "Sure. I've been fishing this river since I was a little peckerhead."
"You're still one." It's a small thing, but joking with Karl on his level pleases me. I crouch and slip past the barrier.
I may have to revise my assessment of Karl. He's always played the carefree lecher, and carried his perfect lack of give-a-shit like a shield against the world. But now he has a stable girlfriend, and a job that compensates him well, even if it requires harder labor than I'd care to do. He persists in trying to push me along, nudge me through my difficult time. He doesn't understand me half as well as he believes, but he's trying to boost me, to prop me up as much as he's able. Even when he's driving me crazy, I appreciate his intentions. Even something like today's fishing trip, it's Karl's idea of something I may not realize I need.
Karl leads the way up the gravel drivewa
y. "Lots of people fish the Kalama, but this block of land is private. The man who owns all this, our guy Cayson, he's this kingpin developer type in Northwest Portland. Once my pop helped Cayson with zoning, some warehouse deal in the Pearl, this is before the Pearl went all hot shit condos. So Cayson said we could use his property any time."
For weeks Karl's been trying to get me out here, first with vague suggestions about fishing, then challenging my expressed desire to try new things. When he started things up with the new girlfriend, I thought this might be forgotten, but he didn't let it drop. He kept mentioning this beautiful, quiet stretch of river twenty-some miles north into Washington, particularly these spots within canyon walls where you scramble down to find clear pools where a hundred steelhead are holding, resting out of the sun, willing to take a fly if you float it right through their midst. Karl has heard my counter-arguments, that fishing is dull and smelly, a poor exchange of time and effort for food. He's smart enough to recast it as an adventure of natural discovery, delving into untouched creases where ancient river cuts through rock, and primordial creatures wait hovering in transparent water, alien and otherworldly. Never using these exact words, of course. Most of the things I told him I dislike about the idea of fishing don't apply here. No elbowing throngs of fisherman swarming both banks. More like a private nature preserve.
A quarter mile up the gravel, just as a sizable gray house comes into view further along the driveway, we cut off to the right, toward the direction of the river.
"Looks like quite a place," I say.
"Cayson don't actually live here," Karl says. "It's pretty much a rich man's fishing hut. You could say Cayson owes my pop for everything he's got."
"I thought your dad was dead?" I say, and immediately wish I hadn't.
"He is dead, dumbshit." Karl glances sideways, only irritated for a moment. "That don't mean somebody like Cayson stops owing him."
As this offshoot trail curves nearer the river, I can hear the churn of water. To me, it's the sound of frustrated sleep. This sound is different, not a slower movement of a broad corpus of water, but a narrower and more varied churning over rocks.
"Here." Karl pushes through overgrown brush and vines at the top of the ridge.
The downslope is less drastic than I expect, after his talk of deep, hidden canyons. Dry soil gives way to a bank of river-smooth rocks, not far below.
"This isn't the place I mentioned, but we'll start here. It's easier." Karl begins laying out poles and assorted gear, dividing it in half. "This side's yours."
"Thanks."
I'm not sure how to proceed, so Karl does everything first, tying flies to leads, then leads to lines. I watch everything, and try to duplicate what he's doing. Casting seems tricky at first. I make mistakes, and Karl demonstrates what I'm doing wrong. He's unusually patient, almost serious. He describes aspects of the river, formations of rock and current, resulting in different kinds of water, each with a distinct name. Chutes, riffles, pools. We don't catch any fish, but Karl seems unconcerned, as if this isn't the point. He focuses on casting, watching the drift, reeling in. The repetition is quiet and rhythmic, almost meditative. The goal appears to be simple presence, a pleasingly mindless following of pattern, and watching the drift. Down near the water, the flow gives me a different sensation from that distracting flow beneath me every night on the Columbia. After so many sleepless nights, I'd love to think of the water in a different way.
One thing I love, an aspect unexpected, is how the line goes from well behind me, well out of view, to far ahead, with an almost effortless gesture.
It occurs to me I've been in a broken emotional state, all these months. I believed I was seeing clearly, but now I recognize I've been looking through some kind of heavy, obscuring veil. From the clarity of this moment, my recent mental state appears fragmented and dysfunctional. I wonder if I'll remember this insight when I return home, or just fall back into delusional misperception?
Upstream, Karl casts, watches the fly at the end of his line drifting down. He appears perfectly at peace, unaware of my presence.
If things within me have been tangled, I now feel a sense of opening up, at least a hint of the possibility that frayed ends may eventually be sorted. I'm not sure whether it's this place, or what we're doing here. I've never been interested in the outdoor life, always imagined it a realm of the physical. Maybe I'll grow into my physical side, or at least become more comfortable with the fact that it exists, it's part of me. Trees, sky, river. It's all so invigorating, like a chest full of cool air supercharged with oxygen.
"That pole and bag of gear," Karl says. "That's yours to keep. I've got too much stuff. Maybe you'll fish again."
"Thanks." I consider whether or not to smart-ass him back. "Just what the doctor ordered. Good, manly activity."
Karl doesn't rise to the bait, but remains serious. "What do you think it is, being a man?"
I regret opening the subject. "It's not... that I don't intend to move on. It's just that it was a long time, Michelle and me."
"Weren't you married forty years or something?"
"Fuck off. Twenty." There's something satisfying in replying to Karl in kind, coarse and direct.
"So, you know how to talk to a woman, how to live around a woman. How to fuck, even. Probably not very well, I'm guessing. Least you can find a hole once in a while."
"Karl." I don't feel like pursuing this direction, but maybe that's why I'm always stuck. I stubbornly resist any honest scrutiny of what's bothering me, what's holding me up. I'm great at analyzing others. "I only know Michelle. Not women in general. Only one."
"Sorry, Tiger, there's no difference. Ain't like your wife's a delicate gentlelady, and the kind of girls I meet are some kind of wild animals. Thinking like that's probably what got you divorced."
"Michelle..." I begin, trail off. "Michelle's difficult."
"Don't take this bad, Tiger, but your ex is a cunt."
I can't help being shocked, and even feel myself reflexively begin to defend Michelle. I realize these rationalizations are feeble and meaningless even before I speak them. "I get your point, it's just, that word is—"
"Use a different word, then. But this idea your ex is perfect, well, that's mistaken. She treated you like shit, and got you believing you deserve it. You should get something better, it's that simple."
I'm thrown off by Karl psychoanalyzing me, summarizing and explaining me.
"I say you need to demystify women," he continues. "Have an experience or two with some woman you don't love. Just be with her, see her for whatever she is, good and bad. Shit, women are mostly like men. Sure, they're built with different parts, and the hormones are different. But they're just another sex, not some higher form of life."
I want to go along, even agree with some of the things he's saying, but there's so much he doesn't understand. "I'm not someone who's just dived into life before. I've had my books, my wife. Now all that's left is my job, which you know I don't love. So what next? I have to think it all through. I'm not a man of action."
"No kidding," Karl says. "Your name's Guy, but you're the least guy-ish dude I know."
This makes me angry, Karl presuming he knows so much more about women that he can lecture me about Michelle. But I'm even angrier at myself, because I know he's at least partly right, that he's cut through all my denial and rationalization, gotten right to the core of truths I've avoided facing. Envy and jealousy start to rise in me. Why can't it be easier for me, like it is for Karl?
No. This isn't his fault. These feelings, my desperate fear, hatred of my own weakness. These are all mine.
I've stopped reeling and casting. My line is played out, far downstream.
"Come on." Karl reels in. "We'll fish those pools downriver now. That's the payoff. A hundred fat steelhead resting there, hiding from the sun."
I reel in too. We climb back toward Cayson's fields and parallel the river, which keeps dropping away below the level of the upper bank. This thin
trail is all that exists between endless tall evergreens to our left, and the deepening river valley to our right. We walk without speaking.
After half a mile, Karl stops. "Careful here." He pushes through a gap in the overgrowth at the top of the bank. A rocky path drops steeply, at least thirty feet to the river. I scramble down, grasping roots and branches on my way.
"See?" Karl points.
In water clear as glass, a cluster of steelhead hover like silent hummingbirds levitating in air.
"Do it just like before," Karl says. "But here, there are more, and you can see 'em."
Without speaking, we cast into this otherworldly place. Karl stands upstream from me and works further out. I watch my line drift over the holding fish, casting a sharp shadow on the bottom of the pool. Time stands motionless. I breathe and cast, watch the slow movement, and repeat. No gravity, no time. As if we've disappeared from where we—
"Fish on!" Karl shouts.
I snap out of my reverie. "You've got one?"
"You, dummy."
Only then, I'm aware of commotion in the water. Frenzied tugging on my line.
"Pull back, not too hard." Karl feeds instructions, urgent but patient. "Reel in, but slow. Baby it."
I take in a little line, follow as the fish pulls left, then swerves back to my right. When the tension lets up, I reel in a few feet of line. This pattern repeats. The steelhead's struggle is straightforward, intuitively understood. All the rest of the fish have left the pool, scattered up or downstream. They no longer matter. There's only one fish, the one at the end of my line. The smell of the struggle is powerful, not a smell of fish, but disrupted water, my adrenaline and sweat, the dust stirred up by my feet, and spores of sunbaked ferns and the green vitality of vine leaves along the bank.
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