Fish Nets: The Second Guppy Anthology

by Ramona DeFelice Long

  It’s been two years, six months, 22 days and 12 hours—give or take—since my husband died. I remember this as I look at the last photo of him. He was laughing, holding the fishnet with a monster steelhead trout showing through the netting. He was so proud of his stinking fish. So happy. Such a flaming asshole.

  I do have to admit he was in his element and looked the part. Four hundred dollar pole, hip waders, fly fishing vest with lots of pockets, and polarized sunglasses so he could see the fish coming at the fly.

  I remember that day. Sitting on my riverside log, out of the corner of my eye I saw that he had hooked one. The tip of his pole jerked. He started reeling it in, slowly, expertly. Let out the line, let the fish really latch on. Let him fight his way to his death. As my husband brought the fish near, he scooped it into the fishnet. The steelhead flopped and writhed and struggled. My husband grabbed the fish by the gills and, showing no mercy, yanked the fly out of its mouth. I could see the thing in the net gasping for water, its mouth and gills opening and finding none.

  My husband came out of the river onto the bank, his hip waders squishing all the way, grinning from ear to ear. “Take my pic, hon.”

  I turned my back on him and went to the catch-all stump that served as a riverside table, found the camera. “Smile,” I said as I turned back to him. Dutifully I snapped the digital photo so everyone could see in twelve megapixels his slimy prize. Not to mention his slimy self.

  “Clean this thing for me, will ya?” It wasn’t a request. He took the fish out of the net. “And make sure you do a proper job of scaling and gutting this time. Last time I nearly gagged on some scales you missed.” He basically threw the damn thing at me, all eight pounds or so, and waded back into the river with his fly fishing gear.

  All I could think of while cleaning that fish was how much I’d rather be gutting him. But I did clean that steelhead with great care. I knew what could happen if I didn’t pay attention.

  It was March in the Northwest and it was our semiannual camping, fishing, getting out into nature trip. My husband’s family had been coming to this twenty-five acre piece of land on the Rogue River near Galice, Oregon for generations. They own it. No one dared trespass, not with all the signs posted. It’s in the National Forest but had been grandfathered in. There is a small cabin on the property. His family calls it a lodge but if you ask me it’s more like a shack or a hovel. At least it has rudimentary amenities like an indoor toilet and a kitchen sink.

  The focal point of the cabin was his fly tying desk, complete with barbs and brightly colored feathers and hair, beads and eyes. He had a clone of the desk at home.

  He was an avid fly fisher. Some would say he was almost rabid in his pursuit of the wily fish. He had made a study of fishing beginning in his childhood—his grandfather had taught him all the tricks.

  The trip was never scheduled; rather, we had to go when the weather was warm and dry after a couple days of rain, and when the fish were noted on the Web as coming in from the sea. He’d watch the weather like a hawk. When conditions were right he would be champing at the bit. I had to be completely ready to go on his order. It was a lot of work, but after twelve years of marriage I was used to it. I would watch all indicators as well, and start getting ready, occasionally up to a week earlier. Then we would drive two hours to the cabin.

  * * * *

  During the spring steelhead run the banks of the Rogue were lined with fishermen vying for a few square feet of space in the river. Every year there were accidents with lures due to poor casting, falls due to slippery rocks and fast running water, and usually a couple of drownings due mostly to stupidity. Of course, stupidity reigned supreme as far as I was concerned. Anybody who spent the time, money and discomfort to catch a fish was a blatant idiot, my husband not excluded.

  These fishermen spent tons of money; the license alone is $45 for a year. Not to mention all the gear: poles, reels, creels, nets, waders, vests, tackle boxes with every known lure, you name it. There are all these rules, too. In Oregon fishermen cannot keep native fish, just hatchery fish which have had the top fin cut off. If you’re caught with a native fish there’s a hefty fine and you can lose your privileges for many years. Native Americans are the only ones who can catch the indigenous steelhead, but only in certain areas.

  Steelhead salmon are prized for their fighting spirit. They’re a crafty lot. And picky. Some call them trout but they are, in fact, a species of salmon native to the Pacific Northwest. The term steelhead is used to distinguish between rainbows that stay in fresh water permanently and those that venture out to the ocean. Both rainbow and steelhead trout will return to the place where they hatched in order to spawn. Unlike salmon, steelhead and rainbow trout can spawn numerous times before dying. Lucky for them.

  And so we were set up there on the banks of the Rogue. We brought with us a ten by ten foot canopy which was pretty much useless when it decided to rain. We parked ourselves there almost all day, even when the weather was cold and wet and gray, like any spring in Oregon. The only things that made it bearable for me were the plentiful bald eagles, osprey, deer, and colorful spring wildflowers. The Oregon trillium were in abundance that week. One year we saw a bear in the fall with her cubs. I remember being sorely tempted to cover my husband with lard and let the bears have at him.

  After catching his limit we would pack up our gear and take the fish back to the cabin. Then came the second part of the ritual—the hunting and picking of the mushrooms! As obsessed as he was with fishing, he was even more obsessed with mycology. He meticulously recorded in a mushroom journal as well as on camera, his finds and their precise locations. Then he would take his discoveries, and sometimes the mushrooms themselves, to what I refer to as his mushroom support group. I occasionally went with him. It was just about the only time we went out together.

  Anyway, he had to have his fresh mushrooms for dinner. He would make me go scrabbling with him through the forest, up muddy slopes, hanging onto spindly saplings to keep my footing. We knew where the Chanterelles thrived on the property, but it was slow going sometimes. That afternoon was particularly messy. The dense forest hadn’t allowed the sun to dry up the mud and I slid down a leaf strewn slope. This was extremely unfortunate because I had the Nikon. The lens got muddy and I was blamed for not putting the lens cover on. He complained bitterly for the twenty minutes it took him to clean the lens to his own exacting specifications. It didn’t matter that I had seriously scraped my shins and had blood oozing through the knees of my jeans. I thought he was going to hit me right there but I guess he didn’t want to hurt his camera.

  We found the scattering of mushrooms amid some Douglas firs. Chanterelles favor Doug firs. It took him an hour to pick a little over a dozen. I held the remote flash for each of them, from four separate angles, illuminating the stem, the caps and their profiles and then finally the gills. He marked every single one of them down in his journal, along with the photo number. He also recorded the GPS coordinates. He checked his mushroom field guide each time. It didn’t matter that each looked the same as the previous one, the one next to it and the one right next to that. He had to make sure they were correct and, for instance, didn’t show any webbing on the undersides which is often a sign that the mushroom is poisonous. When he was satisfied he took his pocket knife and carefully harvested the mushrooms at the base of the stems, leaving part in the soil, and then gently placed them in a paper bag. The rule of thumb for any mycologist, amateur or expert, is if you are not 100% sure of what you’re seeing, throw it away.

  When we finished picking we trudged our way back to the chilly cabin. While he lit a fire in the wood stove I got out of my bloodied jeans and cleaned myself up in the bathroom. I put on a fresh pair of pants and then started cooking. It was family tradition—and I use the word family loosely—that I would prepare the evening meal. It was always the same. Steelhead filets with whatever mushrooms he had found.

  “Make sure you follow that chef’s recipe from that restau
rant we went to in Portland. What the heck was it called?” He spoke to himself but I knew I needed to answer. It was part of his game.

  “The restaurant is called Ned Ludd’s and I have the recipe right here. It’s really quite simple. Rub the fish with some curry salt, sear over high heat in a little olive oil. Then in a separate sauté pan, gently cook the mushrooms in butter, take off the heat and add heavy cream. Serve over fish with a side of rice pilaf.” I was reading from the recipe I had brought with me. “Even I should be able to make this.”

  My husband scowled at me and sat down at his fly tying desk while I began my attempt to make a perfect meal over some rather imperfect kitchen appliances. The stove was antediluvian but at least it was propane powered. He came over when he heard me open his precious bag of mushrooms. He had to watch me slice them, and make sure one more time that they were edible.

  “Too bad you’re allergic to mushrooms. These are fresh, earthy and spectacular.” He made sure they were sautéing correctly before he started back to his desk. He had decided that his nymphs had to have more flashy colors. The fish seemed to be fashionistas.

  In truth my allergy to mushrooms was aversion. I hated anything that he loved, including his precious fish. Terrified of his retaliatory nature, it would take every ounce of intestinal fortitude for me to choke the fish down.

  I put the sautéed mushrooms aside after a few minutes. “I’m starting the fish now, would you please get the wine?” Unhappy with this interruption, he nevertheless scraped his chair back and stomped out to fetch the bottle he had left cooling in the river. For him the timing of wine and fish had to be perfect. Not chilled enough or overdone would ruin the meal.

  While he was retrieving the wine, I removed the Cortinarius mushroom paste from the small baggie that I had concealed in my pocket while changing earlier. I stirred it into the sauce, along with the heavy cream and tossed the baggie into the trash. I started humming a little ditty. I was so happy that I was finally going to do something about his abuse. When I heard his heavy boots on the cabin steps I plastered a neutral look on my face, but the song continued in my head.

  * * * *

  Really, it was his fault for starting me down the path to his demise. Last fall I had asked what kind of mushrooms we had growing in our front yard. He brought out his books, studied them, and finally stated that they were Cortinarius. “This genus is not well documented. It’s notoriously difficult to differentiate these species. But I am certain. They’re terribly poisonous, nearly always fatal.” He then had me go to Home Depot for a lawn fungicide to kill them. He worried that neighborhood kids or dogs might get sick and die from eating them. But it had rained and he had to wait a few days for the lawn to dry out before he applied it. This gave my lover and I plenty of time to perfect our plan, starting with a spore print for propagation.

  As it turned out my lover, botany professor at the University of Oregon, possessed a number of dried Cortinarius. “Did you know, my darling, that some Cortinarius Orellanus specimens have retained toxicity for over sixty years?”

  I smiled when I heard that tidbit of information. “Where did you get them? Are they legal?”

  “If I tell you where I got them I’ll have to kill you!” Laughter. “And no, it’s nowhere near legal. We botanists like to keep close tabs on poisonous mushrooms. We wouldn’t want anyone to die.”

  My lover and I needed to make sure that if somehow I was accused of murdering my husband there would be Cortinarius growing nearby, which he could have picked by mistake. Planting the spores was really just a precaution: Reasonable Doubt. We knew the general timing of the fish runs. We knew where on the property the spores would flourish and how much beforehand to plant them. It was easy to make a few tablespoons of mushroom paste in the botany lab late one night.

  * * * *

  My husband set the wet bottle down on the table. “This is a $55 bottle of wine here so you need to enjoy it. Clos Electrique from Dundee. Good Oregon wine. Cameron Vineyards, neutral oak, nice mineral tones, buttery, a little pear and apple. I’ll open it this time. Last time you mangled the cork and it ended up in the bottle.”

  I just smiled at him and slid the perfectly cooked fish onto plates. His got the mushrooms; mine just some extra butter from a clean knife.

  He gobbled up his dinner, belched loudly, and told me that I’d done okay. A rare compliment. I told him it was the great recipe. He humphed at me and went back to his desk. I cleared the table and scraped the remnants of dinner into the trash. We always deposited the trash in the dumpster at Park Headquarters on the way home. I washed the dishes and pots, and retired for the evening.

  I lay in bed that night speculating as to when the symptoms would appear. Would it be three days or twenty? Would he feel terrible at first and then begin to recover? Would the end be excruciatingly painful? One could always hope.

  I had a sudden, terrifying thought as I drifted off. Did he write in his journal that he had found the Cortinarius on our front lawn? What if my lover and I were caught? I had to have a look at that journal. I had to know.

  The next morning we set up on the riverbank and my husband went back to fishing. He would catch his limit, put the fish on ice in the cooler and we would head home.

  I eventually excused myself and went back to the cabin. I found his journal and opened it with unsteady hands, dreading what I might find. There it was. Cortinarius speciossissimus. He had even made a note of its common name, Deadly Lawn Galerina. God! What had I done? My actions couldn’t be undone. His death was highly likely if not inevitable. Would they even suspect foul play? Could I do something to prevent my getting caught? I had to think.

  I went back to the river, sat on the log, and watched my husband fish. Think! After strenuous mind-numbing thought, a perfect solution came to me.

  * * * *

  About a week and a half after that fateful night I had a sudden, severe case of the stomach flu. Nausea, diarrhea, splitting headache, aching in my back and joints. Of course my husband told me it was nothing, that I really wasn’t very sick at all. Even when he saw the contents of my stomach in the toilet he wasn’t convinced. Typical. No sympathy. No kindness. He called me a hypochondriac. I was ill for a good week.

  Around day fifteen he began feeling the effects. That’s the beauty of the Cortinarius. It takes an exquisitely long time for the poison to manifest itself in the human body. He thought he had caught my little bug. We went to the doctor, who sent him home with an antibiotic and orders to rest and drink plenty of fluids. This he did and he started to feel better after a few days. He hypothesized that he was in such robust health that, unlike me, he could fight it off more quickly. He went on about his business.

  The following week the Mushroom Club had a scheduled field trip to our property on the invitation of my husband. Seven members went: three other men, two women and one teenage girl with a bad case of acne. I came along and helped out as needed. They found lots of different kinds of mushrooms: Golden Chanterelles, Morels, King Boletes and a handful of American Matsutakes. The pimply girl was near the Chanterelles when she noticed the patch of Cortinarius.

  “Ooh! What are these?” she asked no one in particular.

  “Don’t touch it!” the group leader barked. “It could be poisonous!” The others were too intent on the Matsutakes to pay any attention to the ugly urchin.

  The Tuesday after the mushroom hunt, nausea, headache and diarrhea attacked my husband with a vengeance. He thought it was the flu coming back. He began to have an almost insatiable thirst. I was shocked at how much he drank. I was amazed by his output, so to speak. He was in the bathroom more than he was out of it, it seemed. Then he stopped urinating altogether. He became very fatigued and was in bed for another week before he admitted that maybe he should go to the emergency room. They immediately admitted him to the ICU.

  What happened next was a rapid deterioration of his bodily functions. His kidneys were so far gone that it was too late for dialysis or even a kidney tran
splant. It never occurred to my husband or anyone else that his illness had anything to do with mushrooms. Such an arrogant bastard.

  One night the doctor told me that the end was near; death would be within the hour. There was nothing they could do for him. I went to his bedside, took his hand in mine, gently spoke his name. His eyes fluttered open and he focused on mine. I suppose he thought I had come to tell him that he was everything to me, that I would miss him and love him always. Tears glistened in his eyes.

  “Honey. I have some things to tell you.” My voice was calm and even. “I don’t regret what I have done. I couldn’t take your abuse anymore. I was sick of your incessant criticism. I was terrified of retaliation if I crossed you. I could take the occasional physical beating, but the constant psychological beating I took from you was too much.” I looked at him and discovered fear in his eyes. For once, he was listening to me.

  “My lover and I talked for a long time about how to get rid of you. Then, when I found the Cortinarius.…”

  His eyes widened. “Yes, sweetheart, we poisoned you. I put Cortinarius in that lovely mushroom sauce. The one you complimented me on. We knew that there was a latency, but we also knew the general time frame for the symptoms to show. It was really quite simple for me to fake a case of the flu. Headache, nausea. I gave myself ipecac to induce vomiting and drank bottles of Milk of Magnesia so you would see that I was sick. I waited a week and a half after our trip to the Rogue. Then I got my ‘flu.’ The timing worked well.”

  He was terrified now. I let this realization sink in for a minute and then I added the perfect last jibe.

  “I thought you’d like to know the identity of my lover.” I told him the name. I stared at him as he lay helpless among the restrictive tubes and machines. His jaundiced face turned ashen. He clutched at the ventilator tube, all the while gasping for air like one of his fish caught in a net. Alarms went off. The nurse and a doctor came running in. They shooed me out of the way. I went down to the cafeteria for coffee.