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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=498203" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Part 6 of Trout Fishing in America</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">THE HUNCHBACK TROUT</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The creek was made narrow by little green trees that grew</div><div style="margin:10px 0">too close together. The creek was like 12, 845 telephone</div><div style="margin:10px 0">booths in a row with high Victorian ceilings and all the doors</div><div style="margin:10px 0">taken off and all the backs of the booths knocked out.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Sometimes when I went fishing in there, I felt just like a</div><div style="margin:10px 0">telephone repairman, even though I did not look like one. I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">was only a kid covered with fishing tackle, but in some</div><div style="margin:10px 0">strange way by going in there and catching a few trout, I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">kept the telephones in service. I was an asset to society.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> It was pleasant work, but at times it made me uneasy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It could grow dark in there instantly when there were some</div><div style="margin:10px 0">clouds in the sky and they worked their way onto the sun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then you almost needed candles to fish by, and foxfire in</div><div style="margin:10px 0">your reflexes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Once I was in there when it started raining. It was dark</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and hot and steamy. I was of course on overtime. I had that</div><div style="margin:10px 0">going in my favor. I caught seven trout in fifteen minutes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The trout in those telephone booths were good fellows.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There were a lot of young cutthroat trout six to nine inches</div><div style="margin:10px 0">long, perfect pan size for local calls. Sometimes there</div><div style="margin:10px 0">were a few fellows, eleven inches or so--for the long dis-</div><div style="margin:10px 0">tance calls.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I've always liked cutthroat trout. They put up a good fight,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">running against the bottom and then broad jumping. Under</div><div style="margin:10px 0">their throats they fly the orange banner of Jack the Ripper.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Also in the creek were a few stubborn rainbow trout, sel-</div><div style="margin:10px 0">dom heard from, but there all the same, like certified pub-</div><div style="margin:10px 0">lic accountants. I'd catch one every once in a while. They</div><div style="margin:10px 0">were fat and chunky, almost as wide as they were long. I've</div><div style="margin:10px 0">heard those trout called &quot;squire&quot; trout.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> It used to take me about an hour to hitchhike to that creek.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There was a river nearby. The river wasn't much. The creek</div><div style="margin:10px 0">was where I punched in. Leaving my card above the clock</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I'd punch out again when it was time to go home.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I remember the afternoon I caught the hunchback trout.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> A farmer gave me a ride in a truck. He picked me up at</div><div style="margin:10px 0">a traffic signal beside a bean field and he never said a word</div><div style="margin:10px 0">to me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> His stopping and picking me up and driving me down the</div><div style="margin:10px 0">road was as automatic a thing to him as closing the barn</div><div style="margin:10px 0">door, nothing need be said about it, but still I was in motion</div><div style="margin:10px 0">traveling thirty-five miles an hour down the road, watching</div><div style="margin:10px 0">houses and groves of trees go by, watching chickens and</div><div style="margin:10px 0">mailboxes enter and pass through my vision.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Then I did not see any houses for a while. &quot;This is where</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I get out, &quot; I said.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The farmer nodded his head. The truck stopped.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> &quot;Thanks a lot, &quot; I said.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The farmer did not ruin his audition for the Metropolitan</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Opera by making a sound. He just nodded his head again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The truck started up. He was the original silent old farmer.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> A little while later I was punching in at the creek. I put</div><div style="margin:10px 0">my card above the clock and went into that long tunnel of</div><div style="margin:10px 0">telephone booths.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I waded about seventy-three telephone booths in. I caught</div><div style="margin:10px 0">two trout in a little hole that was like a wagon wheel. It was</div><div style="margin:10px 0">one of my favorite holes, and always good for a trout or two.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I always like to think of that hole as a kind of pencil</div><div style="margin:10px 0">sharpener. I put my reflexes in and they came back out with</div><div style="margin:10px 0">a good point on them. Over a period of a couple of years, I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">must have caught fifty trout in that hole, though it was only</div><div style="margin:10px 0">as big as a wagon wheel.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I was fishing with salmon eggs and using a size 14 single</div><div style="margin:10px 0">egg hook on a pound and a quarter test tippet. The two trout</div><div style="margin:10px 0">lay in my creel covered entirely by green ferns ferns made</div><div style="margin:10px 0">gentle and fragile by the damp walls of telephone booths.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The next good place was forty-five telephone booths in.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The place was at the end of a run of gravel, brown and slip-</div><div style="margin:10px 0">pery with algae. The run of gravel dropped off and disap-</div><div style="margin:10px 0">peared at a little shelf where there were some white rocks.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> One of the rocks was kind of strange. It was a flat white</div><div style="margin:10px 0">rock. Off by itself from the other rocks, it reminded me</div><div style="margin:10px 0">of a white cat I had seen in my childhood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The cat had fallen or been thrown off a high wooden side-</div><div style="margin:10px 0">walk that went along the side of a hill in Tacoma, Washing-</div><div style="margin:10px 0">ton. The cat was lying in a parking lot below.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The fall had not appreciably helped the thickness of the</div><div style="margin:10px 0">cat, and then a few people had parked their cars on the cat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of course, that was a long time ago and the cars looked dif-</div><div style="margin:10px 0">ferent from the way they look now.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> You hardly see those cars any more. They are the old</div><div style="margin:10px 0">cars. They have to get off the highway because they can't</div><div style="margin:10px 0">keep up.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> That flat white rock off by itself from the other rocks</div><div style="margin:10px 0">reminded me of that dead cat come to lie there in the creek,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">among 12, 845 telephone booths.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I threw out a salmon egg and let it drift down over that</div><div style="margin:10px 0">rock and WHAM! a good hit! and I had the fish on and it ran</div><div style="margin:10px 0">hard downstream, cutting at an angle and staying deep and</div><div style="margin:10px 0">really coming on hard, solid and uncompromising, and then</div><div style="margin:10px 0">the fish jumped and for a second I thought it was a frog. I'd</div><div style="margin:10px 0">never seen a fish like that before.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> God-damn ! What the hell!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The fish ran deep again and I could feel its life energy</div><div style="margin:10px 0">screaming back up the line to my hand. The line felt like</div><div style="margin:10px 0">sound. It was like an ambulance siren coming straight at</div><div style="margin:10px 0">me, red light flashing, and then going away again and then</div><div style="margin:10px 0">taking to the air and becoming an air-raid siren.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The fish jumped a few more times and it still looked like</div><div style="margin:10px 0">a frog, but it didn't have any legs. Then the fish grew tired</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and sloppy, and I swung and splashed it up the surface of</div><div style="margin:10px 0">the creek and into my net.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The fish was a twelve-inch rainbow trout with a huge hump</div><div style="margin:10px 0">on its back. A hunchback trout. The first I'd ever seen. The</div><div style="margin:10px 0">hump was probably due to an injury that occurred when the</div><div style="margin:10px 0">trout was young. Maybe a horse stepped on it or a tree fell</div><div style="margin:10px 0">over in a storm or its mother spawned where they were</div><div style="margin:10px 0">building a bridge.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> There was a fine thing about that trout. I only wish I could</div><div style="margin:10px 0">have made a death mask of him. Not of his body though, but</div><div style="margin:10px 0">of his energy. I don't know if anyone would have understood</div><div style="margin:10px 0">his body. I put it in my creel.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Later in the afternoon when the telephone booths began to</div><div style="margin:10px 0">grow dark at the edges, I punched out of the creek and went</div><div style="margin:10px 0">home. I had that hunchback trout for dinner. Wrapped in</div><div style="margin:10px 0">cornmeal and fried in butter, its hump tasted sweet as the</div><div style="margin:10px 0">kisses of Esmeralda.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Richard+Brautigan">Richard Brautigan</a><div class=q>
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The creek was made narrow by little green trees that grew

too close together. The creek was like 12, 845 telephone

booths in a row with high Victorian ceilings and all the doors

taken off and all the backs of the booths..."></div>
</div>
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