IV
I was famous. If
only you could have seen the difference in how I was treated after that. It was as though I was a completely different
man. Everyone loved me. It turns out the girl had been a very well
liked daughter from the dentist in town.
She had just graduated, full of promise, and hope from the small
town. Her and her friends had been out
“swimming” late at night in the river.
Really, they were out having a go at skinny dipping. The girl had just ducked her head under water
out in front of her friends when something hard carried along quickly in the
current struck her head knocking her out.
Her friends had been unable to find her as she was carried away
downstream. Luckily she had resurfaced a
little before I found her.
I somehow managed to get her breathing before the
paramedics showed up, but still I was glad to be rid of her. It was a very stressful situation for
me. I had rarely felt my heart beat like
that. It was strained, and it really did
hurt. The paramedics shook my hand and
took down my name before leaving, and as they left, I sat down on my front
porch and stared up at that big Montana sky.
It was one of those beautiful clear nights, where it
seems you can touch the heavens. That
night I could almost drink the cream from the cool Milky Way. The stars seemed to sparkle so vibrantly
against the night sky. The contrast
seemed so clear at the time. The
contrast of life. I was soon to discover
a hard truth about the contrast of life.
But I was content then.
The next few days were just a bunch of hassle. The police
came with reporters. Everyone wanted to
interview me. There were some who were a
little skeptical of my story because the girl had been naked, but for the most
part they accepted it, and thanked me.
The parents even paid me a visit with the whole family and we had a nice
little picnic near my river. They were
the only visitors I had ever had during my time in Montana.
But they weren’t the last.
That night my name aired with the story and the next day
all the papers came out with the front page entitled: “Fly Fisherman saves
girl.” I found it a little bit too much
pomp for me. Especially the part about
being a fly fisherman, I mean I was a fly fisherman, but I never really thought
I deserved such a lofty title. I just
fished for fun, not because I was good at it.
On top of that, everyone started calling me a hero, but I never thought
of myself as that. I was just in the
right place at the right time.
The biggest change, however, occurred the next time I
went into town. It seemed as though
overnight public opinion had changed of me.
I had people opening doors for me, and offering to carry my groceries,
others slapping me on the back. None of
which I really cared for. But everyone
would say hi to me, and I was asked for the first time since I had been there
how the fishing was. I just smiled and
said-optimistic.
I’ll always regret that answer.
The next few days I was able to spend in the peace and
quiet of my cabin, just fishing like usual.
And then they came. People
started coming to my house for fishing advice.
More and more people wanted to come and see the vaunted fisherman. It seemed they all thought I was the one to
ask about fishing on the Yellowstone. I
didn’t know how to answer. I was too old
to be much good at lying anymore, so in the end, after a couple of attempts to
avoid it, I told people the truth. I
told them the only thing I had ever caught on that river was the girl.
They always thought I was joking.
At first they would laugh, and then they would see that I
was serious, and some of them would shake their heads and leave. But some would persist, and think that I was
just not telling them the secrets to fishing out there. They wanted me to guide them, they wouldn’t
believe me. And then one day
They
did.
The
newspaper printed an article entitled: “Fly Fisherman still fishes after 8
years of not catching anything.” I think
it was meant to be an article on persistence, but it ended up being quite the
opposite. I became the laughingstock of
the community. Once again I was reminded
of the sad inconvenient truth that if you don’t produce anything the world rejects
you. In a few short weeks time I went
from being a nobody, to the hero, to the estranged castaway in society.
And it hurt.
I still went out to my river every day, but for some
reason I felt bitter towards it. I felt
betrayed by that very thing I had loved so much. I was sick of unrequited love, I couldn’t
handle it anymore. I even vowed one
night that the next morning I would snap my pole. And to my everlasting shame, when I woke up
the next morning,
I did.
That night I sat huddled in a corner by myself and cried
myself to sleep. I couldn’t live without
fly fishing, and that pole had become a part of me. Every time it creaked, every time the line
got caught in its old thread holes I would curse my luck, but deep down it made
me proud that I could take care of it.
That I could take care of that old pole.
And I realized I was a fisherman.
The next day, which was just a few days ago, I went back
into town and faced the ridicule from the clerk, who howled with laughter when
I told him I had broken my pole. I
bought a new one and high-tailed it out of town. I never wanted to go back. I’m done with society and its rules. I see all of them, and I see that they’re
enslaved to a system that won’t ever bring them happiness. I used to think just as they feel, that
production was the only way to be happy in this world. But the truth is happiness doesn’t come from
what you produce or what you can buy or attain in life. Those are all capitalistic lies to make
people productive.
That gentle swish of my pole, that thwack on the water of
the dry fly. The feel of that cold
rushing river against my thighs. The
touch of that cold autumn wind. The
fragrance carried as if by an angel of flowers in early summer. The vision of the sun creeping gently over the
purple peaks covered by a silent mist like a swan protecting her young. That is my love. And I’ve never been happier than I am when
I’m-
Fly fishin’.
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