Part 6 of Trout Fishing in America
THE HUNCHBACK TROUT
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 knocked out.
Sometimes when I went fishing in there, I felt just like a
telephone repairman, even though I did not look like one. I
was only a kid covered with fishing tackle, but in some
strange way by going in there and catching a few trout, I
kept the telephones in service. I was an asset to society.
It was pleasant work, but at times it made me uneasy.
It could grow dark in there instantly when there were some
clouds in the sky and they worked their way onto the sun.
Then you almost needed candles to fish by, and foxfire in
your reflexes.
Once I was in there when it started raining. It was dark
and hot and steamy. I was of course on overtime. I had that
going in my favor. I caught seven trout in fifteen minutes.
The trout in those telephone booths were good fellows.
There were a lot of young cutthroat trout six to nine inches
long, perfect pan size for local calls. Sometimes there
were a few fellows, eleven inches or so--for the long dis-
tance calls.
I've always liked cutthroat trout. They put up a good fight,
running against the bottom and then broad jumping. Under
their throats they fly the orange banner of Jack the Ripper.
Also in the creek were a few stubborn rainbow trout, sel-
dom heard from, but there all the same, like certified pub-
lic accountants. I'd catch one every once in a while. They
were fat and chunky, almost as wide as they were long. I've
heard those trout called "squire" trout.
It used to take me about an hour to hitchhike to that creek.
There was a river nearby. The river wasn't much. The creek
was where I punched in. Leaving my card above the clock
I'd punch out again when it was time to go home.
I remember the afternoon I caught the hunchback trout.
A farmer gave me a ride in a truck. He picked me up at
a traffic signal beside a bean field and he never said a word
to me.
His stopping and picking me up and driving me down the
road was as automatic a thing to him as closing the barn
door, nothing need be said about it, but still I was in motion
traveling thirty-five miles an hour down the road, watching
houses and groves of trees go by, watching chickens and
mailboxes enter and pass through my vision.
Then I did not see any houses for a while. "This is where
I get out, " I said.
The farmer nodded his head. The truck stopped.
"Thanks a lot, " I said.
The farmer did not ruin his audition for the Metropolitan
Opera by making a sound. He just nodded his head again.
The truck started up. He was the original silent old farmer.
A little while later I was punching in at the creek. I put
my card above the clock and went into that long tunnel of
telephone booths.
I waded about seventy-three telephone booths in. I caught
two trout in a little hole that was like a wagon wheel. It was
one of my favorite holes, and always good for a trout or two.
I always like to think of that hole as a kind of pencil
sharpener. I put my reflexes in and they came back out with
a good point on them. Over a period of a couple of years, I
must have caught fifty trout in that hole, though it was only
as big as a wagon wheel.
I was fishing with salmon eggs and using a size 14 single
egg hook on a pound and a quarter test tippet. The two trout
lay in my creel covered entirely by green ferns ferns made
gentle and fragile by the damp walls of telephone booths.
The next good place was forty-five telephone booths in.
The place was at the end of a run of gravel, brown and slip-
pery with algae. The run of gravel dropped off and disap-
peared at a little shelf where there were some white rocks.
One of the rocks was kind of strange. It was a flat white
rock. Off by itself from the other rocks, it reminded me
of a white cat I had seen in my childhood.
The cat had fallen or been thrown off a high wooden side-
walk that went along the side of a hill in Tacoma, Washing-
ton. The cat was lying in a parking lot below.
The fall had not appreciably helped the thickness of the
cat, and then a few people had parked their cars on the cat.
Of course, that was a long time ago and the cars looked dif-
ferent from the way they look now.
You hardly see those cars any more. They are the old
cars. They have to get off the highway because they can't
keep up.
That flat white rock off by itself from the other rocks
reminded me of that dead cat come to lie there in the creek,
among 12, 845 telephone booths.
I threw out a salmon egg and let it drift down over that
rock and WHAM! a good hit! and I had the fish on and it ran
hard downstream, cutting at an angle and staying deep and
really coming on hard, solid and uncompromising, and then
the fish jumped and for a second I thought it was a frog. I'd
never seen a fish like that before.
God-damn ! What the hell!
The fish ran deep again and I could feel its life energy
screaming back up the line to my hand. The line felt like
sound. It was like an ambulance siren coming straight at
me, red light flashing, and then going away again and then
taking to the air and becoming an air-raid siren.
The fish jumped a few more times and it still looked like
a frog, but it didn't have any legs. Then the fish grew tired
and sloppy, and I swung and splashed it up the surface of
the creek and into my net.
The fish was a twelve-inch rainbow trout with a huge hump
on its back. A hunchback trout. The first I'd ever seen. The
hump was probably due to an injury that occurred when the
trout was young. Maybe a horse stepped on it or a tree fell
over in a storm or its mother spawned where they were
building a bridge.
There was a fine thing about that trout. I only wish I could
have made a death mask of him. Not of his body though, but
of his energy. I don't know if anyone would have understood
his body. I put it in my creel.
Later in the afternoon when the telephone booths began to
grow dark at the edges, I punched out of the creek and went
home. I had that hunchback trout for dinner. Wrapped in
cornmeal and fried in butter, its hump tasted sweet as the
kisses of Esmeralda.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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Part 4 of Trout Fishing in America
THE AUTOPSY OF
TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA
This is the autopsy of Trout Fishing in America as if Trout
Fishing in America had been Lord Byron and had died in
Missolonghi, Greece, and afterward never saw the shores
of Idaho again, never saw Carrie Creek, Worsewick Hot
Springs, Paradise Creek, Salt Creek and Duck Lake again.
The Autopsy of Trout Fishing in America:
"The body was in excellent state and appeared as one that
had died suddenly of asphyxiation. The bony cranial vault
was opened and the bones of the cranium were found very
hard without any traces of the sutures like the bones of a
person 80 years, so much so that one would have said that
the cranium was formed by one solitary bone. . . . The
meninges were attached to the internal walls of the cranium
so firmly that while sawing the bone around the interior to
detach the bone from the dura the strength of two robust men
was not sufficient. . . . The cerebrum with cerebellum
weighed about six medical pounds. The kidneys were very
large but healthy and the urinary bladder was relatively
small. "
On May 2, 1824, the body of Trout Fishing in America
left Missolonghi by ship destined to arrive in England on the
evening of June 29, 1824.
Trout Fishing in America's body was preserved in a cask
holding one hundred-eighty gallons of spirits: 0, a long way
from Idaho, a long way from Stanley Basin, Little Redfish
Lake, the Big Lost River and from Lake Josephus and the
Big Wood River.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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First things first for my friend Ben
The moon is shining on the lake
where trout are rising after flies
this tells me that it’s time to fish.
The gentle art of casting flies
correctly as my father taught,
has filled full many a supper dish
A trout that’s fried in bacon grease
Has a unique taste all its own,
If I were hungry I would wish.
For a fresh trout upon my plate
A feast I would appreciate.
But first you have to catch your fish.
28-May-07
poem by Ivor .e Hogg
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Yes, the Fish Music
A trout-colored wind blows
through my eyes, through my fingers,
and I remember how the trout
used to hide from the dinosaurs
when they came to drink at the river.
The trout hid in subways, castles,
and automobiles. They waited patiently for the dinosaurs to go away.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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An Eagle's Life
An Eagle soars high above,
Skimming seas, lakes and cove,
Piercing, sharp, an Eagle's eye,
Swooping down, did spy,
Swimming trout en route,
Mother Nature's food.
She swooped down and without a doubt,
The majestic eagle has just caught a trout.
With one swipe, her claw did grab,
A fleshy trout, hardly a flap.
Part 10 of Trout Fishing in America
WITNESS FOR TROUT FISHING
IN AMERICA PEACE
In San Francisco around Easter time last year, they had a
trout fishing in America peace parade. They had thousands
of red stickers printed and they pasted them on their small
foreign cars, and on means of national communication like
telephone poles.
The stickers had WITNESS FOR TROUT FISHING IN AM-
ERICA PEACE printed on them.
Then this group of college- and high-school-trained Com-
munists, along with some Communist clergymen and their
Marxist-taught children, marched to San Francisco from
Sunnyvale, a Communist nerve center about forty miles away.
It took them four days to walk to San Francisco. They
stopped overnight at various towns along the way, and slept
on the lawns of fellow travelers.
They carried with them Communist trout fishing in Ameri-
ca peace propaganda posters:
"DON'T DROP AN H-BOMB ON THE OLD FISHING HOLE I"
"ISAAC WALTON WOULD'VE HATED THE BOMB!"
"ROYAL COACHMAN, SI! ICBM, NO!"
They carried with them many other trout fishing in Amer-
ica peace inducements, all following the Communist world
conquest line: the Gandhian nonviolence Trojan horse.
When these young, hard-core brainwashed members of
the Communist conspiracy reached the "Panhandle, " the
emigre Oklahoma Communist sector of San Francisco, thou-
sands of other Communists were waiting for them. These
were Communists who couldn't walk very far. They barely
had enough strength to make it downtown.
Thousands of Communists, protected by the police, marched
down to Union Square, located in the very heart of San Fran-
cisco. The Communist City Hall riots in 1960 had presented
evidence of it, the police let hundreds of Communists escape,
but the trout fishing in America peace parade was the final
indictment: police protection.
Thousands of Communists marched right into the heart of
San Francisco, and Communist speakers incited them for
hours and the young people wanted to blow up Colt Tower, but
the Communist clergy told them to put away their plastic
bombs.
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should
do to you, do ye even so to them . . . There will be no need
for explosives, " they said.
America needs no other proof. The Red shadow of the
Gandhian nonviolence Trojan horse has fallen across Ameri-
ca, and San Francisco is its stable.
Obsolete is the mad rapist's legendary piece of candy. At
this very moment, Communist agents are handing out Witness
for trout fishing in America peace tracts to innocent children
riding the cable cars.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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Fish And Shadow
The salmon-trout drifts in the stream,
The soul of the salmon-trout floats over the stream
Like a little wafer of light.
The salmon moves in the sun-shot, bright shallow sea. . . .
As light as the shadow of the fish
that falls through the water,
She came into the large room by the stair,
Yawning a little she came with the sleep still upon her.
'I am just from bed. The sleep is still in my eyes.
'Come. I have had a long dream.'
And I: That wood?
'And two springs have passed us.'
'Not so far, no, not so far now,
There is a place but no one else knows it
A field in a valley . . .
Qu'ieu sui avinen,
Ieu lo sai,'
She must speak of the time
Of Arnaut de Mareuil, I thought, 'qu'ieu sui avinen.’
Light as the shadow of the fish
That falls through the pale green water.
poem by Ezra Pound
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Gone Fishin
When good ole spring comes rollin’ round
And the trout are in the brook,
A longing comes over me with a bound
To cast my feathered hook.
Then I get all my tackle out
My rods and reels and roundabouts
To go fishing for those trout
That I’ve read so much about.
There’s monsters here the circulars say
But every cursed day
That I go fishing out that way
Those monsters all go in to stay.
I never saw the sun once
During all my stay
But I’ll go home and tell everyone
‘Bout the big ones that got away.
poem by George Hunter
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The Lake Josephus Days
We left Little Redfish for Lake Josephus, traveling along the good names — from Stanley to Capehorn to Seafoam to the Rapid River, up Float Creek, past the Greyhound Mine and then to Lake Josephus, and a few days after that up the trail to Hell-diver Lake with the baby on my shoulders and a good limit of trout waiting in Hell-diver.
Knowing the trout would wait there like airplane tickets for us to come, we stopped at Mushroom Springs and had a drink of cold shadowy water and some photographs taken of the baby and me sitting together on a log.
I hope someday we'll have enough money to get those pictures developed. Sometimes I get curious about them, wondering if they will turn out all right. They are in suspension now like seeds in a package. I'll be older when they are developed and easier to please. Look there's the baby! Look there's Mushroom Springs! Look there's me!
I caught the limit of trout within an hour of reaching Hell-diver, and my woman, in all the excitement of good fishing, let the baby fall asleep directly in the sun and when the baby woke up, she puked and I carried her back down the trail.
My woman trailed silently behind, carrying the rods and the fish. The baby puked a couple more times, thimblefuls of gentle lavender vomit, but still it got on my clothes, and her face was hot and flushed.
We stopped at Mushroom Springs. I gave her a small drink of water, not too much, and rinsed the vomit taste out of her mouth. Then I wiped the puke off my clothes and for some strange reason suddenly it was a perfect time, there at Mushroom Springs, to wonder whatever happened to the Zoot suit.
Along with World War II and the Andrews Sisters, the Zoot suit had been very popular in the early 40s. I guess they were all just passing fads.
A sick baby on the trail down from Hell-diver, July 1961, is probably a more important question. It cannot be left to go on forever, a sick baby to take her place in the galaxy, among the comets, bound to pass close to the earth every 173 years.
She stopped puking after Mushroom Springs, and I carried her back down along the path in and out of the shadows and across other nameless springs, and by the time we got down to Lake Josephus, she was all right.
She was soon running around with a big cutthroat trout in her hands, carrying it like a harp on her way to a concert — ten minutes late with no bus in sight and no taxi either.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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The Catch
You take me to the restaurant where one
plays God over a fish tank. The fat trout
pace their green cage, waiting to be taken
out of an element. Who knows what they know?
There are thirteen in a tank meant
for goldfish. I don¹t care which one I eat.
But the waiter expects a performance,
con brio. This is a ritual
solemn as wine-tasting or the Last Judgement.
Eating is never so simple as hunger.
Between the appetite and its satisfaction
falls the net, groping blindly in dark water.
The fish startle and thrash. You make your catch,
flourishing a bit for the waiter
so as not to be thought a peasant. You force
air into the trout's gills as if he were Adam,
and send him squirming toward the kitchen
to be born. Then it's my turn. I surprise
myself with my dexterity, almost
enjoying the game. A liter of wine
later, the fish return, foppishly dressed
in mushrooms and pimentos, their eyes
dreamily hazed. Darling, I am drunk. I watch you pluck
the trout's ribs out of your perfect teeth.
poem by Erica Jong
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Fish
The cop holds me up like a fish;
he feels the huge bones
surrounding my eyes,
and he runs a thumb under them,
lifting my eyelids
as if they were
envelopes filled with the night.
Now he turns
my head back and forth, gently,
until I'm so tame and still
I could be a tiny, plastic
skull left on the
dashboard of a junked car.
By now he's so sure of me
he chews gum,
and drops his flashlight to his side;
he could be cleaning a trout
while the pines rise into the darkness,
though tonight trout
are freezing into bits of stars
under the ice. When he lets me go
I feel numb. I feel like
a fish burned by his touch, and turn
and slip into the cold
night rippling with neons,
and the razor blades
of the poor,
and the torn mouths on posters.
Once, I thought even through this
I could go quietly as a star turning over and over
in the deep truce of its light.
Now, I must
go on repeating the last, filthy
words on the lips
of this shunken head
shining out of its death in the moon—
until trout surface
with their petrified, round eyes,
and the stars begin moving.
poem by Larry Levis
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Part 8 of Trout Fishing in America
A RETURN TO THE COVER OF
THIS BOOK
Dear Trout Fishing in America:
I met your friend Fritz in Washington Square. He told me
to tell you that his case went to a jury and that he was acquit-
ted by the jury.
He said that it was important for me to say that his case
went to a jury and that he was acquitted by the jury,
said it again.
He looked in good shape. He was sitting in the sun. There's
an old San Francisco saying that goes: "It's better to rest in
Washington Square than in the California Adult Authority. "
How are things in New York?
Yours,
"An Ardent Admirer"
Dear Ardent Admirer:
It's good to hear that Fritz isn't in jail. He was very wor-
ried about it. The last time I was in San Francisco, he told
me he thought the odds were 10-1 in favor of him going away.
I told him to get a good lawyer. It appears that he followed
my advice and also was very lucky. That's always a good
combination.
You asked about New York and New York is very hot.
I'm visiting some friends, a young burglar and his wife.
He's unemployed and his wife is working as a cocktail wait-
ress. He's been looking for work but I fear the worst.
It was so hot last night that I slept with a wet sheet wrapped
around myself, trying to keep cool. I felt like a mental patient.
I woke up in the middle of the night and the room was filled
with steam rising off the sheet, and there was jungle stuff,
abandoned equipment and tropical flowers, on the floor and
on the furniture.
I took the sheet into the bathroom and plopped it into the
tub and turned the cold water on it. Their dog came in and
started barking at me.
The dog barked so loud that the bathroom was soon filled
with dead people. One of them wanted to use my wet sheet
for a shroud. I said no, and we got into a big argument over
it and woke up the Puerto Ricans in the next apartment, and
they began pounding on the walls.
The dead people all left in a huff. "We know when we're
not wanted, " one of them said.
"You're damn tootin'," I said.
I've had enough.
I' m going to get out of New York. Tomorrow I'm leaving for
Alaska. I'm going to find an ice-cold creek near the Arctic
where that strange beautiful moss grows and spend a week
with the grayling. My address will be, Trout Fishing in Ameri-
ca, c/o General Delivery, Fairbanks, Alaska.
Your friend,
Trout Fishing in America
THE LAKE JOSEPHUS DAYS
We left Little Redfish for Lake Josephus, traveling along the
good names--from Stanley to Capehorn to Seafoam to the
Rapid River, up Float Creek, past the Greyhound Mine and
then to Lake Josephus, and a few days after that up the trail
to Hell-diver Lake with the baby on my shoulders and a good
limit of trout waiting in Hell-diver.
Knowing the trout would wait there like airplane tickets
for us to come, we stopped at Mushroom Springs and had a
drink of cold shadowy water and some photographs taken of
the baby and me sitting together on a log.
I hope someday we'll have enough money to get those pic-
tures developed. Sometimes I get curious about them, won-
dering if they will turn out all right. They are in suspension
now like seeds in a package. I'll be older when they are de-
veloped and easier to please. Look there's the baby ! Look
there's Mushroom Springs ! Look there's me !
I caught the limit of trout within an hour of reaching Hell-
diver, and my woman, in all the excitement of good fishing,
let the baby fall asleep directly in the sun and when the baby
woke up, she puked and I carried her back down the trail.
My woman trailed silently behind, carrying the rods and
the fish. The baby puked a couple more times, thimblefuls
of gentle lavender vomit, but still it got on my clothes, and
her face was hot and flushed.
We stopped at Mushroom Springs. I gave her a small
drink of water, not too much, and rinsed the vomit taste out
of her mouth. Then I wiped the puke off my clothes and for
some strange reason suddenly it was a perfect time, there
at Mushroom Springs, to wonder whatever happened to the
Zoot suit.
Along with World War II and the Andrews Sisters, the
Zoot suit had been very popular in the early 40s. I guess
they were all just passing fads.
A sick baby on the trail down from Hell-diver, July 1961,
is probably a more important question. It cannot be left to
go on forever, a sick baby to take her place in the galaxy,
among the comets, bound to pass close to the earth every
173 years.
She stopped puking after Mushroom Springs, and I carried
her back down along the path in and out of the shadows and
across other nameless springs, and by the time we got down
to Lake Josephus, she was all right.
She was soon running around with a big cutthroat trout in
her hands, carrying it like a harp on her way to a concert--
ten minutes late with no bus in sight and no taxi either
poem by Richard Brautigan
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The Dao Of Fishing
Does a trout know it lives in water?
A lake her own watery universe,
where survival depends on speed
and an ability to find sustenance
The trout prays to her fish god;
“Lord god I hunger…feed me”
As if magic,
a fat worm drifts down from above
Instinctively the eager trout greedily
gulps down the wiggler
She then feels something sharp
in her gullet, then something
pulling her upward
She struggles;
Twisting and writhing
She’s pulled to waters surface
where she desperately jumps
It’s no use; the pull is too strong
Giving up she relaxes,
as a green web scoops down
and roughly encircles her
She gasps for breath in this dry
hostile alien environment
She hears a strange sound;
“Dad, ain’t she a beauty”
A beefy hand grasps the trout
Something cold is thrust down her throat
She feels the sharp hook dislodge and pull free
She makes a weak attempt to wiggle free,
just as another beefy hand holding something
wooden strikes downward…
She’s losing consciousness, but fights the
looming blackness long enough to think;
“God why hast thou forsaken me”
Then silence…
ROTMS
poem by Ray Lucero
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Otter Creek
Past meadows, beyond trees, down muddy banks flows otter creek.
King fisher in branches, perched, poised.
Skydiver, bullet from above, silent splash, into otter creek.
Muscles plucked from their beds, shells discarded, gathered for fun, pass up not one.
Trout fry swim swiftly, cray fish beneath rocks avoid seeking hands, pincers poised, threatening stance.
Kids crossing fallen logs, catching frogs, skipping rocks, swimming in otter creek.
Mud wars rage, picnic blanket laid on the green glade near otter creek.
We follow paw prints, beneath willow tree roots, den site dug deep into muddy banks of otter creek.
Within the town of Franklinville, hot summers day, sister, niece, and I, our dad's.
Never saw the otters of the creek, only paw prints, left proof of an existence.
In memories I venture, hoping, just a glimpse.
To sit once again, past meadows, beyond trees, down muddy banks, there it flows, otter creek.
poem by Gary Kedron
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It Was My Uncle Soul Sifting
it was my uncle soul
sifting in a leaned back
all the way chair down
by the old family lake
taking trout we spent
all day chasing through
reeds and lilies, dodging
loons and other birds
trying to outmaneuver
them in their own home
it was my uncle soul
sifting, lifting trout
entrails, rinsing off
blood and fish and dirt
in the cold lake water
telling me it used to
be a game of his, how
many fish he could trick
before the sun set.
it was my uncle soul
sifting, telling me his
favorite night was years
ago and how he had
only caught one lone
rainbow and was
sitting there, gutting
the heart out listening
to the radio the night
Roy Eldridge died.
it was my uncle soul
sifting, saying he forgot
how many fish he caught
just sat there listening
to old dead Roy play
while the fish cooked
over his burnt coal fire
it was the only way he
knew how to say
goodbye he said, and
tonight it’s me out
there soul sifting, lifting
bits of crumbled dirt and
dust, feeling a part of me
is out there still, the
big blue welling up
inside you, the hole
gone and filled up
with sky.
poem by Ben Paynter
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Dave Lilly
There's a brook on the side of Greylock that used to be full of trout,
But there's nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished out.
I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years ago,
And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen or so.
There was a man, Dave Lilly, who lived on the North Adams road,
And he spent all his time fishing, while his neighbors reaped and sowed.
He was the luckiest fisherman in the Berkshire hills, I think.
And when he didn't go fishing he'd sit in the tavern and drink.
Well, Dave is dead and buried and nobody cares very much;
They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers and such.
But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you could wish;
He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, but he certainly could fish.
The other night I was walking up the hill from Williamstown
And I came to the brook I mentioned,
and I stopped on the bridge and sat down.
I looked at the blackened water with its little flecks of white
And I heard it ripple and whisper in the still of the Summer night.
And after I'd been there a minute it seemed to me I could feel
The presence of someone near me, and I heard the hum of a reel.
And the water was churned and broken, and something was brought to land
By a twist and flirt of a shadowy rod in a deft and shadowy hand.
I scrambled down to the brookside and hunted all about;
There wasn't a sign of a fisherman; there wasn't a sign of a trout.
But I heard somebody chuckle behind the hollow oak
And I got a whiff of tobacco like Lilly used to smoke.
It's fifteen years, they tell me, since anyone fished that brook;
And there's nothing in it but minnows that nibble the bait off your hook.
But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set
I know that it's full of ghostly trout for Lilly's ghost to get.
I guess I'll go to the tavern and get a bottle of rye
And leave it down by the hollow oak, where Lilly's ghost went by.
I meant to go up on the hillside and try to find his grave
And put some flowers on it -- but this will be better for Dave.
poem by Joyce Kilmer
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by the creek, campfire,
black coffee and fresh caught trout,
sizzle in the pan!
haiku by Eric Cockrell
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A street thug and a paid killer are professionals - beasts of prey, if you will, who have dissociated themselves from the rest of humanity and can now see human beings in the same way that trout fishermen see trout.
quote by Willard Gaylin
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Part 2 of Trout Fishing in America
ANOTHER METHOD
OF MAKING WALNUT CATSUP
And this is a very small cookbook for Trout Fishing in America
as if Trout Fishing in America were a rich gourmet and
Trout Fishing in America had Maria Callas for a girlfriend
and they ate together on a marble table with beautiful candles.
Compote of Apples
Take a dozen of golden pippins, pare them
nicely and take the core out with a small
penknife; put them into some water, and
let them be well scalded; then take a little
of the water with some sugar, and a few
apples which may be sliced into it, and
let the whole boil till it comes to a syrup;
then pour it over your pippins, and garnish
them with dried cherries and lemon-peel
cut fine. You must take care that your
pippins are not split.
And Maria Callas sang to Trout Fishing in America as
they ate their apples together.
A Standing Crust for Great Pies
Take a peck of flour and six pounds of butter
boiled in a gallon of water: skim it off into
the flour, and as little of the liquor as you
can. Work it up well into a paste, and then
pull it into pieces till it is cold. Then make
it up into what form you please.
And Trout Fishing in America smiled at Maria Callas as
they ate their pie crust together.
A Spoonful Pudding
Take a spoonful of flour, a spoonful of
cream or milk, an egg, a little nutmeg,
ginger, and salt. Mix all together, and
boil it in a little wooden dish half an hour.
If you think proper you may add a few
currants .
And Trout Fishing in America said, "The moon's coming
out." And Maria Callas said, "Yes, it is."
Another Method of Making Walnut Catsup
Take green walnuts before the shell is
formed, and grind them in a crab-mill,
or pound them in a marble mortar.
Squeeze out the juice through a coarse
cloth, and put to every gallon of juice
a pound of anchovies, and the same
quantity of bay-salt, four ounces of
Jamaica pepper, two of long and two of
black pepper; of mace, cloves, and
ginger, each an ounce, and a stick of
horseradish. Boil all together till
reduced to half the quantity, and then
put it into a pot. When it is cold, bottle
it close, and in three months it will be
fit for use.
And Trout Fishing in America and Maria Callas poured
walnut catsup on their hamburgers.
PROLOGUE TO GRIDER CREEK
Mooresville, Indiana, is the town that John Dillinger came
from, and the town has a John Dillinger Museum. You can
go in and look around.
Some towns are known as the peach capital of America or
the cherry capital or the oyster capital, and there's always
a festival and the photograph of a pretty girl in a bathing suit.
Mooresville, Indiana, is the John Dillinger capital of America.
Recently a man moved there with his wife, and he discovered
hundreds of rats in his basement. They were huge, slowmoving
child-eyed rats.
When his wife had to visit some of her relatives for a few
days, the man went out and bought a .38 revolver and a lot
of ammunition. Then he went down to the basement where
the rats were, and he started shooting them. It didn't bother
the rats at all. They acted as if it were a movie and started
eating their dead companions for popcorn.
The man walked over to a rat that was busy eating a friend
and placed the pistol against the rat's head. The rat did not
move and continued eating away. When the hammer clicked
back, the rat paused between bites and looked out of the corner
of its eye. First at the pistol and then at the man. It was a kind
of friendly look as if to say, "When my mother was young she
sang like Deanna Durbin. "
The man pulled the trigger.
He had no sense of humor.
There's always a single feature, a double feature and an
eternal feature playing at the Great Theater in Mooresville,
Indiana: the John Dillinger capital of America.
poem by Richard Brautigan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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At Hout Bay the fishing trawler sails out
At Hout Bay the fishing trawler sails out
while the rain pours down
like water out of God’s hosepipe
with engines roaring in the ears
and clouds of smoke hang over the boats
with every fisherman for a moment being caught
in a own world while fog whirl about the boats
that rocks up and down to the harbour mouth.
The waves crash, the sea foams and bubbles
and “my girlfriend has a good lover, ”
is sung by one while the trawler sets its course
on the look out for barracouta, cod and sea trout.
“Look at the shining bodies, tons of trout, they are running free, ”
a fisherman shouts against the wind that pulls and pulls on the boat.
“Salmon man, salmon” roars the tiller man back and walls of water
roll past and the boat turns to get fishing gear ready.
“My girlfriend has a good lover and he’s a gelded goat, ”
the tune goes on and something clatters down
drawing the attention of the fishermen and the water shines
and when the boat is full they tell jokes that they guffaw at.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Part 5 of Trout Fishing in America
WORSEWICK
Worsewick Hot Springs was nothing fancy. Somebody put some
boards across the creek. That was it.
The boards dammed up the creek enough to form a huge
bathtub there, and the creek flowed over the top of the boards,
invited like a postcard to the ocean a thousand miles away.
As I said Worsewick was nothing fancy, not like the
places where the swells go. There were no buildings around.
We saw an old shoe lying by the tub.
The hot springs came down off a hill and where they flowed
there was a bright orange scum through the sagebrush. The
hot springs flowed into the creek right there at the tub and
that' s where it was nice.
We parked our car on the dirt road and went down and took
off our clothes, then we took off the baby's clothes, and the
deerflies had at us until we got into the water, and then they
stopped.
There was a green slime growing around the edges of the
tub and there were dozens of dead fish floating in our bath.
Their bodies had been turned white by death, like frost on
iron doors. Their eyes were large and stiff.
The fish had made the mistake of going down the creek too
far and ending up in hot water, singing, "When you lose your
money, learn to lose."
We played and relaxed in the water. The green slime and
the dead fish played and relaxed with us and flowed out over
us and entwined themselves about us.
Splashing around in that hot water with my woman, I began
to get ideas, as they say. After a while I placed my body in
such a position in the water that the baby could not see my
hard-on.
I did this by going deeper and deeper in the water, like a
dinosaur, and letting the green slime and dead fish cover me
over.
My woman took the baby out of the water and gave her a
bottle and put her back in the car. The baby was tired. It was
really time for her to take a nap.
My woman took a blanket out of the car and covered up the
windows that faced the hot springs. She put the blanket ontop
of the car and then lay rocks on the blanket to hold it in place.
I remember her standing there by the car.
Then she came back to the water, and the deerflies were
at her, and then it was my turn. After a while she said, "I
don't have my diaphragm with me and besides it wouldn't
work in the water, anyway. I think it's a good idea if you
don't come inside me. What do you think?"
I thought this over and said all right. I didn't want any
more kids for a long time. The green slime and dead fish
were all about our bodies.
I remember a dead fish floated under her neck. I waited
for it to come up on the other side, and it came up on the
other side.
Worsewick was nothing fancy.
Then I came, and just cleared her in a split secondlike
an airplane in the movies, pulling out of a nosedive and sail-
ing over the roof of a school.
My sperm came out into the water, unaccustomed to the
light, and instantly it became a misty, stringy kind of thing
and swirled out like a falling star, and I saw a dead fishcome
forward and float into my sperm, bending it in the middle.
His eyes were stiff like iron.
poem by Richard Brautigan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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