This sophisticated psychological pantomime serves to condition the behavior of the spectator fish, so that when he sneaks away to the bushes, resumes his clothing, and casts his lure back into the pool they mimic his every action to a “T,” and a limit is soon lying on the bank!
Sounds a bit weird, we admit, but don’t scoff till you’ve tried it. Antoine showed me how he puffs his cheeks and “swims,” and even with his clothes on it was very convincing. Besides, if the Twinkie worked (and did it ever!), why shouldn’t these others?
Chapeau promises to share more angling secrets when we meet next week provided we print a message for him here. We don’t understand the message, but we can’t wait to hear those tips, so here goes!
Will the girl who ran from the guy who recited Izaak Walton in the tree please contact Gus on the other river he named. He has your rod and fish and wants to return them. He is totally harmless, but urges you to bring a loaded gun if frightened, as long as you come. Thank you.
Two days afterward a rash of irate letters poured into the Reporter offices accusing Dutch of senility, insanity, homosexuality, communism, and other perversions, demanding a new fishing editor and generally raising a stench. Perhaps the most eloquent of these epistles was from one Henning Hale-Orviston. Dutch quoted the least insulting part of H2O’s letter in his next column, along with an apology to the makers of Hostess products, and in conclusion admitted that he may have been hoodwinked in part but that skeptics simply must try the fabled Twinkie. The same day I received a telegram from Ma. It read,
EVER HEAR OF A FELLA NAME OF CHAPEAU STOP SOMETHING ABOUT HIM REMINDED ME AWFUL MUCH OF A SON OF MINE STOP HIGH TIME SOMEBODY PULLED RUG FROM UNDER THAT OLD FART HINES STOP NICE GOING BOY STOP LOVE MA
A Digression
(from the notebooks of Titus Gerrard)
It shall be a rule for me to make as little noise as I can when I am fishing, until Sir Francis Bacon be confuted; which I shall give any man leave to do.
—Izaak Walton
In the time of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, the Chinese—particularly the Taoists—employed a phrase intended to designate all the noteworthy objects, substances, and creatures in Creation: “The Ten Thousand Things.” Anyone who has given the works of either Tzu a modicum of thought can have no doubt that these were two wise men; it cannot be doubted that such men possessed sufficient intelligence to realize that there were a great deal more than “ten thousand things” located between heaven and earth; it cannot be doubted that both men’s mathematical prowess allowed them to perceive the possibility of counting “things” from dawn to dark for aeons and never arriving at a digit sufficiently sumptuous to include all the objects, substances, and creatures under the Sun.
But the phrase “The Ten Thousand Things” was the product of minds incapable of counting and cataloguing every particular variety of creature and substance, and this incapability sprang not from an inability to count or catalogue, but from a lack of the stupidity requisite to such numerical undertakings. One’s brief sojourn between Heaven and Earth was recognized as being so precious, and one’s goal (called “Tao,” though it was Nameless) was seen as being so worthy of all one’s thought and endeavor, that “Ten Thousand Things” were considered a sufficient number to familiarize the pilgrim with the Nature of things. “The Ten Thousand Things” is no childish synonym for “lots and lots of things”: it is a phrase that implies horizontal limits to man’s comprehension; it is a phrase that implies that these horizontal limits should be self-imposed, and that Tao must be sought through vertical, transrational leaps; it is a phrase that implies that one cannot seek while forever counting; it is a phrase that implies that Tao will finally be found in the nature and not in the number of things.
Counting and cataloguing grew rampant in the West during the Renaissance. A great man of the Renaissance was Francis Bacon. The great Francis Bacon gave immensely practical advice on how to achieve success in the political and economic arenas; the great Francis Bacon knew how to count. During his lifetime, Francis Bacon became Lord High Chancellor of England; then Francis Bacon was thrown in jail for playing the politically and economically practical game of taking bribes from defendants in cases he was to judge. Ultimately Francis Bacon engaged in stuffing dead chickens full of snow as part of an experiment concerning the preservative powers of refrigeration, only to die of the effects of standing too long in the weather. The great Francis Bacon had failed to understand the nature of a thing called A Cold Day.
Chuang Tzu could count to ten thousand. One day he strolled along the dam of the Hao River with his friend, Hui Tzu. Chuang Tzu said, “See how the minnows come out and dart about where they please! That’s what fish really enjoy!”
Hui Tzu said, “You are not a fish. How do you know what fish enjoy?”
Chuang Tzu said, “You are not I. How do you know I don’t know what fish enjoy?”
Hui Tzu said, “I am not you, so I certainly do not know what you know. On the other hand, you are not a fish, so you do not know what fish enjoy!”
Chuang Tzu said, “Let’s go back to your original question, please. You asked me how I know what fish enjoy—so you already knew I knew when you asked the question! I know it by standing here beside the Hao.”
end of digression
3
Nick the Convert
You had to suffer shipwreck through your own efforts before you were ready to seize the lifebelt he threw you.… The Master knows you and each of his pupils much better than we know ourselves. He reads in the souls of his pupils more than they care to admit.
—Eugen Herrigel, Zen and the Art of Archery
By the time Nick came I was living in a different world: same cabin, same Tamanawis, same seventy-two-inch vehicle of consciousness, but different contents in each. In the river there were salmon; in me there was a soul; in the cabin the walls were covered with weird lopsided pictures of fish and rivers and me fishing, all of them painted by peewee pals of mine in Hemingway’s kindergarten class; books were heaped everywhere; two pairs of hand-knit woolen gloves with no tips in the fingers hung on a peg by the back door—gifts from Emma for cold-weather fishing; on my bed in the loft lay a suit of white India-cotton clothes from Steve and Satyavati—used them for pajamas mostly, but donned them when visiting the candle-house-and-weed-sanctuary (ducking low in my pickup when passing those logger and fisherman friends who might not understand how white cotton “did good things to my vibrations,” or why my vibrations needed good things done to them in the first place). Outside the back door was a tiny stable Kernie and Bernie built, full of hay and feed, and staked on the bluff overlooking the river was my pet goat, Charles the Second. Charles ate the briars around the cabin. Charles also gave two quarts of milk a day.… Hemingway was three when he named her. It seems he’d had a white duck he thought a lot of, a drake, named Charles. Charles the Drake made a legend of himself one icy winter’s day when he took it into his head to glide down the Tamanawis and paddle away forever into the wastes of the Pacific—leaving Hemingway disconsolate till one of Emma’s goats bore the untwinniest set of twins anybody ever saw: one was a big, healthy, airplane-eared, black and white buck, the other a scrawny, dusty, Lamancha-eared doe that looked like a tiny humpless camel. The duckless Hemingway took one look at the camel and was utterly smitten. He began living with it from dawn to dark, feeding it, dressing it, grazing with it, napping with it. He also demanded that Ernie and Emma retract the name they’d given it; this was easily done because they’d named the twins Mandy and Candy and immediately forgot which was which. Nobody forgot which was which once the girl goat became Charles the Second. Hemingway’s adoration of Charles lasted till she was bred and became a mother, then he fell for her son, Charles the Third. That left Emma to milk and care for Charles the Second, and Emma, as anyone might guess, had more than enough to do what with minding the house, poultry, goats and garden, raising the kids and knocking the crap out of Ernie when he called her Hurky, Hunky, or Burgie. So when
she kept insisting on supplying me with fresh goat milk I offered to buy a goat and supply myself; she agreed, and Hemingway insisted that this goat be his second most favorite, Charles II.
The transformations in my cabin extended to the cellar refrigerator where there were homemade wines and juices, deer and elk jerky, home-brewed stout and steam, canned fruits and vegetables, cow and goat cheese, frequent shrimp or crab, an ominous gallon jug of potato whiskey—all of it caught or made or grown by friends who’d swapped for flies or rods, every bargain struck based on time, materials, and the number of beers drunk while bargaining. And sometimes, when the flies or rods proved true, the swappers would sneak back when I wasn’t home and leave more whatever-it-was we’d swapped for.
I guess we hermits tend to be dewy-eyed creatures. I did anyhow. Many a night I’d sit up late looking at the cabin full of swappings and pictures and gifts and candlelight, unable to get sleepy for the fullness in my heart—and the aching in it too, because most people couldn’t live the way we lived in Tamanawis Valley; and also because I had so much to share, but nobody to share it with. One nobody in particular. For that particular nobody I made another fourteen-foot hazel pole, then I built a twelve-foot four-piece split-bamboo rod with a medieval sort of look to it, but with real guides on it, a cork handle, and—to match the pole—a belly reel. Belly reels aren’t really reels: they’re simple boxes or baskets you wear on your belly, with two upright stems inside around which the line is wrapped by hand. My thought was to keep Eddy from having to dive into the drink in cold weather while still allowing the most primitive kind of pole-and-line fishing I knew of. Most belly reels are metal, but I’d a hunch she’d prefer something more archaic, and at a junk shop in Astoria I found a woven basket from Tijuana with a little donkey painted on the front. It was four inches deep and six inches by twelve inches, perfect size; I lined the inside with mink-oiled leather, fitted a maple board in the bottom, drilled two holes four inches apart, glued dowels in the holes, loaded the “reel” with twenty-pound nylon line and a monofilament leader; then Satyavati helped me weave a thick rainbow-colored waistband out of preshrunken lamb’s wool and Steve helped me fix it on. Not that fixing it on should have been difficult. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it being around Eddy’s waist.
I tested it with the cane rod when the jacks and silvers were in and found I could make long accurate casts with little weight and get a sensitive drift through glides too slow to fish with conventional gear. The first evening out I caught three jacks. The second day I caught five, then hooked a nice silver—a hen, to judge by its lunatic leaping—and though the pole responded well I lost the fish when I got to watching a VW bus across the river: there was someone in it, watching me through binoculars. It occurred to me that it was the same bus I’d seen on U.S. Grant Creek. Odd. I went home, finished an extra tip-section, then stashed all the stuff in the rafters to await its golden-haired owner, or—more likely—to turn to dust.
Because of back orders I’d upped my production to 15 rods and 300 flies a month, but I couldn’t see a way to improve on that without it turning into drudgery so I reluctantly began to turn orders away. Or, sometimes, not so reluctantly. One day not so long after the Shat Creek episode a portly gray-haired gent in a burgundy suit, pink shirt, and matching white tie-belt-and-shoes walked into my cabin like he owned it, announced that he owned a chain of stores in Arizona, said he’d heard I was H2O’s son, said he’d buy every rod I could build for the next ten years, make them his top line, sell them for three times what I was asking, and half the profits would be mine. Then he sat in my rocker like he owned it and added, like he owned me, “Whaddya say good buddy?” I said I’d sell him one rod if he wouldn’t mind waiting a year and a half for it. He laughed: like a jackhammer. He said I didn’t understand, he was prepared to advance me a few grand this very day; he said, “Careful, kid. You’re missing the opportunity of a lifetime.” I said I hoped it was the only such opportunity I’d have in my lifetime, grabbed my fishing vest and flyrod, told him I was locking up, and opened the door. He sneered then, and in the doorway turned and snarled, “Stupid-ass hippie!” I laughed in his face. But after he left I got the piece of broken mirror I trimmed my beard and hair in. I looked. My hair was not quite shoulder length, my beard a bit shaggy. I grabbed fly-tying scissors and snipped for a time, then checked again. Still couldn’t tell: many a time it had occurred to me that I was stupid, but I didn’t even know what “hippies” consisted of. I didn’t care if I was one, but figured I ought to know. I could get a razor and decide that way, but I hate shaving. I had another idea.…
Minutes later, as I lurched up the potholed driveway at Steve and Satyavati’s, a rock flew from the weed sanctuary into the side of my pickup. I gunned it to the house, then snuck down on foot to investigate (not to investigate the rock; I knew where it came from; I snuck down to investigate the hippie question). At what I rashly took to be a safe distance I slipped behind a tree, and without introduction or explanation hollered, “Hey Rama, hey Arjuna! Wait a minute and tell me—am I a hippie?”
Thok! Thwek! two stones spattered my tree. These were not the thoks and thweks of forked-stick-and-rubber band slingshots—the crazy little Kshatriyas were using wrist rockets! And they were both invisible. I yelled, “Hey, I’m not playing! Just answer and I’ll leave.”
Eeeeeekreeng! A projectile whined past my head, hit a boulder, and sent shrapnel in all directions. From the salal to the right of the driveway came a savage snort and a snarl: “You fish too much!”
That would be Arjuna. I put plenty of tree trunk between us. Across the driveway a telltale cloud of thistle-friz betrayed Rama’s position even before his eerie, disembodied cry: “Hippies got loooong hairrrr!” Sshhhssfft! he sent a rock ripping through the leaves above me. I couldn’t see him, but across the driveway I saw Arjuna rise from the salal and send a missile screaming. “Look out Rama!” I shouted. Too late! A weird thunk, then silence… then a muffled laugh from the thistles: “Right in the head!” Rama cried, popping out and streaking for better cover, a huge motorcycle helmet bobbling about his head and shoulders, the blond braid bouncing on his buttocks. Arjuna sent another shot ripping past me, then galloped after his brother, a scuba mask and three of Satyavati’s straw sun hats stacked and strapped on his warlike skull.
I considered launching a lecture in support of the thesis that helmets are not always an effective antidote to slingshots (witness Goliath), but it seemed likely that pedantics would only attract fire to my own unhelmeted skull; and my desire to resort to pedantics constituted a final proof: I was no hippie. I waited till they carried their war into the distant briars and ragwort, then slunk to my truck and cleared the hell out.
The next morning I was tying flies when another gray-haired man came in, mumbled an inaudible greeting, and set about scrutinizing every rod and fly in the entryway display. Expecting another crass business offer, I composed a bomb reply. When at last he turned to me I needed only his verbal match to explode the bomb in his face… so I nearly choked on my own bile when he smiled bashfully and said, “Nice work. Beautiful work. Good as I’ve seen in four states. Don’t mean to sound pushy, but I’d work for you for no pay if you’d show me a few fine points. Got my own desk and tools; I’m slow, but careful, and won’t talk your ear off. And once I learned what I could, I’d be on my way.”
My mood slammed into reverse. I looked him over: weather-beaten skin, rough clothes, bright green eyes, a kind smile; yet he had a last-apple-before-the-frost quality, as if he had an old dog that just died and his smile was to keep from crying. Still, it took little native intelligence to see that here was a good, guileless man who’d work quietly, and maybe well. I went to the kitchen, poured two shots of whiskey, handed him one, and said, “I’m Gus. You got yourself a deal. When do you want to start?”
He said, “Thanks, Gus. I’m Nick.” He clinked my glass, drained his, said “I don’t even drink… hope I did that right. How ’bout tomorrow?”
I said tomorrow was fine. When we shook hands at the door I noticed a scar on his palm, and for no reason found myself thinking “It’s this scar. It’s the scar that makes him sad.”
The next morning Nick showed with his equipment and we set to work side by side. He proved, as promised, to be slow but meticulous; his first fly, a #12 Renegade, was good enough to sell. But when he handed it to me I handed it back, saying “Give it away for luck.”
Nick nodded, sad and smiling. He said, “There’s an old Norwegian fisherman’s prayer. Put ‘fly’ in place of ‘fish’ and it would go,
The first fly I make
In the Name of Christ,
King of the Elements,
The poor man shall have for his need;
And the King of Fishers,
He will afterward give me His blessing,
and still for me the crests of the waves.
Something in the words, or in the way he said them, so moved me that I turned away. I finally glanced back at Nick—and was stunned to see his head bowed and tears dripping onto his hands. I pretended not to notice, but it scared me a little: made me think he might be a trifle crazy. But nothing of the kind happened again.
I grew fond of Nick. In the weeks to come all I needed to show him were some tricks with knots, clamps, and special tools to speed production, or materials and steps for fly patterns he didn’t know. As a rod builder he was as accomplished as me from the start—just slower—so I figured, after a week or so, that each day would be his last. But he kept on coming, 7 A.M. to 1 P.M., six days a week, remaining grateful and enthusiastic about the few meagre pointers I could give. By mid-October we had my back orders filled and I’d laid by a good stock for the future. By late October he could wind guides and tie more perfectly and nearly as fast as I could. If he wanted to. But still he had an odd habit of stopping while he worked—often just after placing a naked hook in the vise—and lapsing into inertia or revery or something; I thought maybe it was some kind of health problem since he didn’t seem to eat much. He wasn’t much for talking, either, but didn’t seem to mind me rambling on or asking him things; I managed to learn that he and his wife were renting a shabby cabin north of Fog, that she was a nurse and a Norwegian, that they had two grown children, that she would finish her present job in November, and that they hoped then to open a small tackle shop on the west coast of Vancouver Island—which was why he’d come to learn.
The River Why Page 28