Men poems
/ page 115 of 131 /
September 22
© David Lehman
It's the day of the ram
and the head of the year
Rosh Ha'Shanah at
services I sat next to
December 25
© David Lehman
Christmas defeated Chanukah
once again last night
by a margin of three billion dollars
or so, but every time I hear
Book Sixth [Cambridge and the Alps]
© William Wordsworth
A passing word erewhile did lightly touch
On wanderings of my own, that now embraced
With livelier hope a region wider far.
The Third Satire Of Dr. John Donne
© Thomas Parnell
Compassion checks my spleen, yet Scorn denies
The tears a passage thro' my swelling eyes;
To laugh or weep at sins, might idly show,
Unheedful passion, or unfruitful woe.
Satyr! arise, and try thy sharper ways,
If ever Satyr cur'd an old disease.
For Meng Hao-Jan
© Li Po
I love Master Meng.
Free as a flowing breeze,
He is famous
Throughout the world.
Mendicants
© Madison Julius Cawein
Bleak, in dark rags of clouds, the day begins,
That passed so splendidly but yesterday,
Inferno Canto02
© Dante Alighieri
Lo giorno se n'andava, e l'aere bruno
toglieva li animai che sono in terra
da le fatiche loro; e io sol uno
Inferno Canto 01
© Dante Alighieri
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ch? la diritta via era smarrita .
Inferno Canto03
© Dante Alighieri
Per me si va ne la citt? dolente,
per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,
per me si va tra la perduta gente .
Part 9 of Trout Fishing in America
© Richard Brautigan
SANDBOX MINUS JOHN DILLINGER EQUALS WHAT?Often I return to the cover of Trout Fishing in America. Itook the baby and went down there this morning. They werewatering the cover with big revolving sprinklers. I saw somebread lying on the grass. It had been put there to feed thepigeons. The old Italians are always doing things like that. Thebread had been turned to paste by the water and was squashedflat against the grass. Those dopey pigeons were waiting untilthe water and grass had chewed up the bread for them, sothey wouldn't have to do it themselves. I let the baby play in the sandbox and I sat down on a benchand looked around. There was a beatnik sitting at the otherend -of the bench. He had his sleeping bag beside him and hewas eating apple turnovers. He had a huge sack of apple turn-overs and he was gobbling them down like a turkey. It wasprobably a more valid protest than picketing missile bases. The baby played in the sandbox. She had on a red dressand the Catholic church was towering up behind her red dress.There was a brick john between her dress and the church. Itwas there by no accident. Ladies to the left and gents to theright. A red dress, I thought. Wasn't the woman who set JohnDillinger up for the FBI wearing a red dress? They calledher "The Woman in Red. " It seemed to me that was right. It was a red dress, but sofar, John Dillinger was nowhere in sight. my daughterplayed alone in the sandbox. Sandbox minus John Dillinger equals what? The beatnik went and got a drink of water from the fountainthat was crucified on the wall of the brick john, more towardthe gents than the ladies. He had to wash all those apple turn-overs down his throat. There were three sprinklers going in the park. There wasone in front of the Benjamin Franklin statue and one to theside of him and one just behind him. They were all turning incircles. I saw Benjamin Franklin standing there patientlythrough the water. The sprinkler to the side of Benjamin Franklin hit the left-hand tree. It sprayed hard against the trunk and knocked someleaves down from the tree, and then it hit the center tree,sprayed hard against the trunk and more leaves fell. Then itsprayed against Benjamin Franklin, the water shot out to thesides of the stone and a mist drifted down off the water. Ben-jamin Franklin got his feet wet. The sun was shining down hard on me. The sun was brightand hot. After a while the sun made me think of my own dis-comfort. The only shade fell on the beatnik. The shade came down off the Lillie Hitchcock Colt statueof some metal fireman saving a metal broad from a mentalfire. The beatnik now lay on the bench and the shade was twofeet longer than he was. A friend of mine has written a poem about that statue. God-damn, I wish he would write another poem about that statue,SO it would give me some shade two feet longer than my body. I was right about "The Woman in Red, " because ten min-utes later they blasted John Dillinger down in the sandbox.The sound of the machine-gun fire startled the pigeons andthey hurried on into the church. My daughter was seen leaving in a huge black car shortlyafter that. She couldn't talk yet, but that didn't make any dif-ference. The red dress did it all. John Dillinger's body lay half in and half out of the sand-box, more toward the ladies than the gents. He was leakingblood like those capsules we used to use with oleomargarine,in those good old days when oleo was white like lard. The huge black car pulled out and went up the street, bat-light shining off the top. It stopped in front of the ice-creamparlor at Filbert and Stockton. An agent got out and went in and bought two hundreddouble-decker ice-cream cones. He needed a wheelbarrowto get them back to the car.
THE LAST TIME I SAW TROUT FISHING IN AMERICAThe last time we met was in July on the Big Wood River, tenmiles away from Ketchum. It was just after Hemingway hadkilled himself there, but I didn't know about his death at thetime. I didn't know about it until I got back to San Franciscoweeks after the thing had happened and picked up a copy ofLife magazine. There was a photograph of Hemingway on thecover. "I wonder what Hemingway's up to, " I said to myself. Ilooked inside the magazine and turned the pages to his death.Trout Fishing in America forgot to tell me about it. I'm cer-tain he knew. It must have slipped his mind. The woman who travels with me had menstrual cramps.She wanted to rest for a while, so I took the baby and my spin-ning rod and went down to the Big Wood River. That's whereI met Trout Fishing in America. I was casting a Super-Duper out into the river and lettingit swing down with the current and then ride on the water upclose to the shore. It fluttered there slowly and Trout Fish-ing in America watched the baby while we talked. I remember that he gave her some colored rocks to playwith. She liked him and climbed up onto his lap and she start-ed putting the rocks in his shirt pocket. We talked about Great Falls, Montana. I told Trout Fish-ing in America about a winter I spent as a child in GreatFalls."It was during the war and I saw a Deanna Durbin movie seventimes, "I said. The baby put a blue rock in Trout Fishing in America'sshirt pocket and he said, "I've been to Great Falls manytimes. I remember Indians and fur traders. I rememberLewis and Clark, but I don't remember ever seeing a DeannaDurbin movie in Great Falls." "I know what you mean, " I said. "The other people inGreat Falls did not share my enthusiasm for Deanna Durbin,The theater was always empty. There was a darkness to thattheater different from any theater I've been in since. Maybeit was the snow outside and Deanna Durbin inside. I don'tknow what it was." "What was the name of the movie?" Trout Fishing in Am-erica said. "I don't know, " I said. "She sang a lot. Maybe she was achorus girl who wanted to go to college or she was a richgirl or they needed money for something or she did somethingWhatever it was about, she sang! and sang! but I can't re-member a God-damn word of it. "One afternoon after I had seen the Deanna Durbin movieagain, I went down to the Missouri River. Part of the Mis-souri was frozen over. There was a railroad bridge there.I was very relieved to see that the Missouri River had notchanged and begun to look like Deanna Durbin. "I'd had a childhood fancy that I would walk down to theMissouri River and it would look just like a Deanna Durbinmovie--a chorus girl who wanted to go to college or she wasa rich girl or they needed money for something or she dids something. "To this day I don't know why I saw that movie seventimes. It was just as deadly as The Cabinet of Doctor Cali-gari. I wonder if the Missouri River is still there?" I said. "It is, " Trout Fishing in America said smiling. "But itdoesn't look like Deanna Durbin. " The baby by this time had put a dozen or so of the coloredrocks in Trout Fishing in America's shirt pocket. He lookedat me and smiled and waited for me to go on about GreatFalls, but just then I had a fair strike on my Super-Duper. Ijerked the rod back and missed the fish. Trout Fishing in America said, "I know that fish who juststruck. You'll never catch him. " "Oh, " I said. "Forgive me, " Trout Fishing in America said. "Go onahead and try for him. He'll hit a couple of times more, butyou won't catch him. He's not a particularly smart fish. Justlucky. Sometimes that's all you need. " "Yeah, " I said. "You're right there. " I cast out again and continued talking about Great Falls. Then in correct order I recited the twelve least importantthings ever said about Great Falls, Montana. For the twelfthand least important thing of all, I said, "Yeah, the telephonewould ring in the morning. I'd get out of bed. I didn't have toanswer the telephone. That had all been taken care of, yearsin advance. "It would still be dark outside and the yellow wallpaper inthe hotel room would be running back off the light bulb. I'dput my clothes on and go down to the restaurant where mystepfather cooked all night. "I'd have breakfast, hot cakes, eggs and whatnot. Thenhe'd make my lunch for me and it would always be the samething: a piece of pie and a stone-cold pork sandwich. After-wards I'd walk to school. I mean the three of us, the HolyTrinity: me, a piece of pie, and a stone-cold pork sandwich.This went on for months. "Fortunately it stopped one day without my having to doanything serious like grow up. We packed our stuff and lefttown on a bus. That was Great Falls, Montana. You say theMissouri River is still there?" "Yes, but it doesn't look like Deanna Durbin, " Trout Fish-ing in America said. "I remember the day Lewis discoveredthe falls. They left their camp at sunrise and a few hourslater they came upon a beautiful plain and on the plain weremore buffalo than they had ever seen before in one place. "They kept on going until they heard the faraway sound ofa waterfall and saw a distant column of spray rising and dis-appearing. They followed the sound as it got louder and loud-er. After a while the sound was tremendous and they were atthe great falls of the Missouri River. It was about noon whenthey got there. "A nice thing happened that afternoon, they went fishingbelow the falls and caught half a dozen trout, good ones, too,from sixteen to twenty-three inches long. "That was June 13, 1805. "No, I don't think Lewis would have understood it if theMissouri River had suddenly begun to look like a Deanna Dur-bin movie, like a chorus girl who wanted to go to college, "Trout Fishing in America said.
IN THE CALIFORNIA BUSHI've come home from Trout Fishing in America, the highwaybent its long smooth anchor about my neck and then stopped.Now I live in this place. It took my whole life to get here, toget to this strange cabin above Mill Valley. We're staying with Pard and his girlfriend. They haverented a cabin for three months, June 15th to September 15th,for a hundred dollars. We are a funny bunch, all living heretogether. Pard was born of Okie parents in British Nigeria and cameto America when he was two years old and was raised as aranch kid in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. He was a machinegunner in the Second World War, againstthe Germans. He fought in France and Germany. SergeantPard. Then he came back from the war and went to somehick college in Idaho. After he graduated from college, he went to Paris and be-came an Existentialist, He had a photograph taken of Exis-tentialism and himself sitting at a sidewalk cafe. Pard wasWearing a beard and he looked as if he had a huge soul, withbarely enough room in his body to contain it. When Pard came back to America from Paris, he workedas a tugboat man on San Francisco Bay and as a railroadman in the roundhouse at Filer, Idaho. Of course, during this time he got married and had a kid.The wife and kid are gone now, blown away like apples by thefickle wind of the Twentieth Century. I guess the fickle windof alltime. The family that fell in the autumn. After he split up with his wife, he went to Arizona and wasa reporter and editor of newspapers. He honky-tonked inNaco, a Mexican border town, drank illescal Mescal Triunfo, playedcards and shot the roof of his house full of bullet holes. Pard tells a story about waking one morning in Naco, allhungover, with the whips and jingles. A friend of his was sit-ting at the table with a bottle of whisky beside him. Pard reached over and picked up a gun off a chair andtook aim at the whisky bottle and fired. His friend was thensitting there, covered with flecks of glass, blood and whisky."What the fuck you do that for?" he said. Now in his late thirties Pard works at a print shop for$1. 35 an hour. It is an avant-garde print shop. They printpoetry and experimental prose. They pay him $1. 35 an hourfor operating a linotype machine. A $1. 35 linotype operatoris hard to find, outside of Hong Kong or Albania. Sometimes when he goes down there, they don't even haveenough lead for him. They buy their lead like soap, a bar ortwo at a time. Pard's girlfriend is a Jew. Twenty-four years old, gettingover a bad case of hepatitis, she kids Pard about a nude pho-tograph of her that has the possibility of appearing in Playboymagazine. "There's nothing to worry about, " she says. "If they usethat photograph, it only means that 12, 000, 000 men will lookat my boobs. " This is all very funny to her. Her parents have money. Asshe sits in the other room in the California bush, she's onher father's payroll in New York. What we eat is funny and what we drink is even more hilar-ious: turkeys, Gallo port, hot dogs, watermelons, Popeyes,salmon croquettes, frappes, Christian Brothers port, orangerye bread, canteloupes, Popeyes, salads, cheese--booze,grub and Popeyes. Popeyes? We read books like The Thief's Journal, Set This Houseon Fire The Naked Lunch, Krafft-Ebing. We read Krafft-Ebing aloud all the time as if he were Kraft dinner. "The mayor of a small town in Eastern Portugal was seenone morning pushing a wheelbarrow full of sex organs intothe city hall. He was of tainted family. He had a woman'sshoe in his back pocket. It had been there all night. " Thingslike this make us laugh. The woman who owns this cabin will come back in the aut-umn. She's spending the summer in Europe. When she comesback, she will spend only one day a week out here: Saturday. She will never spend the night because she's afraid to. There is something here that makes her afraid. Pard and his girlfriend sleep in the cabin and the baby sleeps in the basement, and we sleep outside under the apple tree, waking at dawn to stare out across San Francisco Bay and then we go back to sleep again and wake once more, this time for a very strange thing to happen, and then we go back to sleep again after it has happened, and wake at sunrise to stare out across the bay. Afterwards we go back to sleep again and the sun rises steadily hour after hour, staying in the branches of a eucalyp- tus tree just a ways down the hill, keeping us cool and asleep and in the shade. At last the sun pours over the top of the tree and then we have to get up, the hot sun upon us. We go into the house and begin that two-hour yak-yak acti- vity we call breakfast. We sit around and bring ourselves slowly back to consciousness, treating ourselves like fine pieces of china, and after we finish the last cup of the last cup of the last cup of coffee, it's time to think about lunch or go to the Goodwill in Fairfax. So here we are, living in the California bush above Mill Valley. We could look right down on the main street of Mill Valley if it were not for the eucalyptus tree. We have to park the car a hundred yards away and come here along a tunnel- like path. If all the Germans Pard killed during the war with his machine-gun were to come and stand in their uniforms around this place, it would make us pretty nervous. There's the warm sweet smell of blackberry bushes along the path and in the late afternoon, quail gather around a dead unrequited tree that has fallen bridelike across the path. Some- times I go down there and jump the quail. I just go down there to get them up off their butts. They're such beautiful birds. They set their wings and sail on down the hill. O he was the one who was born to be king! That one, turn- ing down through the Scotch broom and going over an upside- down car abandoned in the yellow grass. That one, his gray wings . One morning last week, part way through the dawn, I awokeunder the apple tree, to hear a dog barking and the rapidsound of hoofs coming toward me. The millennium? An in-vasion of Russians all wearing deer feet? I opened my eyes and saw a deer running straight at me.It was a buck with large horns. There was a police dog chas-ing after it. Arfwowfuck ! Noisepoundpoundpoundpoundpoundpound IPOUND ! POUND ! The deer didn't swerve away. He just kept running straightat me, long after he had seen me, a second or two had passed. Arfwowfuckl Noisepoundpoundpoundpoundpoundpound!POUND I POUND ! I could have reached out and touched him when he went by. He ran around the house, circling the john, with the doghot after him. They vanished over the hillside, leavingstreamers of toilet paper behind them, flowing out and en-tangled through the bushes and vines. Then along came the doe. She started up the same way,but not moving as fast. Maybe she had strawberries in herhead. "Whoa!" I shouted. "Enough is enough! I'm not sellingnewspapers!" The doe stopped in her tracks, twenty-five feet away andturned and went down around the eucalyptus tree. Well, that's how it's gone now for days and days. I wakeup just before they come. I wake up for them in the samemanner as I do for the dawn and the sunrise. Suddenly know-ing they're on their way.
THE LAST MENTION OF TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA SHORTYSaturday was the first day of autumn and there was a festivalbeing held at the church of Saint Francis. It was a hot dayand the Ferris wheel was turning in the air like a thermo-meter bent in a circle and given the grace of music. But all this goes back to another time, to when my daught-er was conceived. We'd just moved into a new apartment andthe lights hadn't been turned on yet. We were surrounded byunpacked boxes of stuff and there was a candle burning likemilk on a saucer. So we got one in and we're sure it was theright one. A friend was sleeping in another room. In retrospect Ihope we didn't wake him up, though he has been awakened andgone to sleep hundreds of times since then. During the pregnancy I stared innocently at that growinghuman center and had no idea the child therein containedwould ever meet Trout Fishing in America Shorty. Saturday afternoon we went down to Washington Square.We put the baby down on the grass and she took off runningtoward Trout Fishing in America Shorty who was sitting un-der the trees by the Benjamin Franklin statue. He was on the ground leaning up against the right-handtree. There were some garlic sausages and some bread sit-ting in his wheelchair as if it were a display counter in astrange grocery store. The baby ran down there and tried to make off with one ofhis sausages. Trout Fishing in America Shorty was instantly alerted,then he saw it was a baby and relaxed. He tried to coax herto come over and sit on his legless lap. She hid behind hiswheelchair, staring past the metal at him, one of her handsholding onto a wheel. "Come here, kid, " he said. "Come over and see old TroutFishing in America Shorty. " Just then the Benjamin Franklin statue turned green likea traffic light, and the baby noticed the sandbox at the otherend of the park. The sandbox suddenly looked better to her than Trout Fish-ing in America Shorty. She didn't care about his sausagesany more either. She decided to take advantage of the green light, and shecrossed over to the sandbox. Trout Fishing in America Shorty stared after her as ifthe space between them were a river growing larger andlarger.
Part 5 of Trout Fishing in America
© Richard Brautigan
WORSEWICKWorsewick Hot Springs was nothing fancy. Somebody put someboards across the creek. That was it. The boards dammed up the creek enough to form a hugebathtub 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 theplaces 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 flowedthere was a bright orange scum through the sagebrush. Thehot springs flowed into the creek right there at the tub andthat' s where it was nice. We parked our car on the dirt road and went down and tookoff our clothes, then we took off the baby's clothes, and thedeerflies had at us until we got into the water, and then theystopped. There was a green slime growing around the edges of thetub and there were dozens of dead fish floating in our bath.Their bodies had been turned white by death, like frost oniron doors. Their eyes were large and stiff. The fish had made the mistake of going down the creek toofar 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 andthe dead fish played and relaxed with us and flowed out overus 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 adinosaur, and letting the green slime and dead fish cover meover. My woman took the baby out of the water and gave her abottle and put her back in the car. The baby was tired. It wasreally time for her to take a nap. My woman took a blanket out of the car and covered up thewindows that faced the hot springs. She put the blanket ontopof 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 wereat her, and then it was my turn. After a while she said, "Idon't have my diaphragm with me and besides it wouldn'twork in the water, anyway. I think it's a good idea if youdon't come inside me. What do you think?" I thought this over and said all right. I didn't want anymore kids for a long time. The green slime and dead fishwere all about our bodies. I remember a dead fish floated under her neck. I waitedfor it to come up on the other side, and it came up on theother side. Worsewick was nothing fancy. Then I came, and just cleared her in a split secondlikean 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 thelight, and instantly it became a misty, stringy kind of thingand swirled out like a falling star, and I saw a dead fishcomeforward and float into my sperm, bending it in the middle.His eyes were stiff like iron.
THE SHIPPING OF TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA SHORTY TO NELSON ALGRENTrout Fishing in America Shorty appeared suddenly lastautumn in San Francisco, staggering around in a magnificentchrome-plated steel wheelchair. He was a legless, screaming middle-aged wine. He descended upon North Beach like a chapter from theOld Testament. He was the reason birds migrate in theautumn. They have to. He was the cold turning of the earth;the bad wind that blows off sugar. He would stop children on the street and say to them, "Iain't got no legs. The trout chopped my legs off in FortLauderdale. You kids got legs. The trout didn't chop yourlegs off. Wheel me into that store over there." The kids, frightened and embarrassed, would wheel TroutFishing in America Shorty into the store. It would always bea store that sold sweet wine, and he would buy a bottle ofwine and then he'd have the kids wheel him back out onto thestreet, and he would open the wine and start drinking thereon the street just like he was Winston Churchill. After a while the children would run and hide when theysaw Trout Fishing in America Shorty coming. "I pushed him last week, " "I pushed him yesterday, " "Quick, let's hide behind these garbage cans." And they would hide behind the garbage cans while TroutFishing in America Shorty staggered by in his wheelchair.The kids would hold their breath until he was gone. Trout Fishing in America Shorty used to go down toL'Italia, the Italian newspaper in North Beach at Stocktonand Green Streets. Old Italians gather in front of the news-paper in the afternoon and just stand there, leaning upagainst the building, talking and dying in the sun. Trout Fishing in America Shorty used to wheel into themiddle of them as if they were a bunch of pigeons, bottle ofwine in hand, and begin shouting obscenities in fake Italian.Tra-la-la-la-la-la-Spa-ghet-tiii ! I remember Trout Fishing in America Shorty passed outin Washington Square, right in front of the Benjamin Frank-lin statue. He had fallen face first out of his wheelchair andjust lay there without moving. Snoring loudly. Above him were the metal works of Benjamin Franklinlike a clock, hat in hand. Trout Fishing in America Shorty lay there below, hisface spread out like a fan in the grass. A friend and I got to talking about Trout Fishing in America Shorty one afternoon. We decided the best thing to do witl:him was to pack him in a big shipping crate with a couple ofcases of sweet wine and send him to Nelson Algren. Nelson Algren is always writing about Railroad Shorty, ahero of the Neon Wilderness (the reason for "The Face onthe Barroom Floor") and the destroyer of Dove Linkhorn inA Walk on the Wild Side. We thought that Nelson Algren would make the perfectcustodian for Trout Fishing in America Shorty. Maybe amuseum might be started. Trout Fishing in America Shortycould be the first piece in an important collection. We would nail him up in a packing crate with a big labelon it. Contents: Trout Fishing in America Shorty Occupation: WineAddress:C/O Nelson AlgrenChicago And there would be stickers all over the crate, saying:"GLASS/HANDLE WITH CARE/SPECIAL HANDLING/GLASS/DON'T SPILL/THIS SIDE UP/HANDLE THIS WINO LIKE HEWAS AN ANGEL" And Trout Fishing in America Shorty, grumbling, pukingand cursing in his crate would travel across America, fromSan Francisco to Chicago. And Trout Fishing in America Shorty, wondering what itwas all about, would travel on, shouting, "Where in the hellam I? I can't see to open this bottle ! Who turned out thelights? Fuck this motel! I have to take a piss ! Where's mykey ?" It was a good idea. A few days after we made our plans for Trout Fishing inAmerica Shorty, a heavy rain was pouring down upon SanFrancisco. The rain turned the streets inward, likedrowned lungs, upon themselves and I was hurrying to work,meeting swollen gutters at the intersections. I saw Trout Fishing in America Shorty passed out in thefront window of a Filipino laundromat. He was sitting inhis wheelchair with closed eyes staring out the window. There was a tranquil expression on his face. He almostlooked human. He had probably fallen asleep while he washaving his brains washed in one of the machines. Weeks passed and we never got around to shipping TroutFishing in America Shorty away to Nelson Algren. We keptputting it off. One thing and another. Then we lost our gold-en opportunity because Trout Fishing in America Shorty dis-appeared a little while after that. They probably swept him up one morning and put him injail to punish him, the evilfart, or they put him in a nut-house to dry him out a little. Maybe Trout Fishing in America Shorty just pedaled downto San Jose in his wheelchair, rattling along the freeway ata quarter of a mile an hour. I don't know what happened to him. But if he comes backto San Francisco someday and dies, I have an idea. Trout Fishing in America Shorty should be buried rightbeside the Benjamin Franklin statue in Washington Square.We should anchor his wheelchair to a huge gray stone andwrite upon the stone: Trout Fishing in America Shorty 20 cent Wash 10 cent Dry Forever
THE MAYOR OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURYLondon. On December 1, 1887; July 7, August 8, September30, one day in the month of October and on the 9th of Novem-ber, 1888; on the Ist of June, the 17th of July and the IOthof September 1889 The disguise was perfect. Nobody ever saw him, except, of course, the victims.They saw him. Who would have expected? He wore a costume of trout fishing in America. He woremountains on his elbows and bluejays on the collar of hisshirt. Deep water flowed through the lilies that were entwinedabout his shoelaces. A bullfrog kept croaking in his watchpocket and the air was filled with the sweet smell of ripeblackberry bushes. He wore trout fishing in America as a costume to hidehis own appearance from the world while he performed hisdeeds of murder in the night.Who would have expected? Nobody ! Scotland Yard? (Pouf !) They were always a hundred miles away, wearing halibut-stalker hats, looking under the dust. Nobody ever found out. 0, now he's the Mayor of the Twentieth Century ! A razor,a knife and a ukelele are his favorite instruments. Of course, it would have to be a ukelele. Nobody elsewould have thought of it, pulled like a plow through the intest-ines.ON PARADISE"Speaking of evacuations, your missive, while complete inother regards, skirted the subject, though you did deal brief-ly with rural micturition procedure. I consider this a grossoversight on your part, as I'm certain you're well aware ofmy unending fascination with camp-out crapping. Pleaserush details in your next effort. Slit-trench, pith helmet,slingshot, biffy and if so number of holes and proximity ofkeester to vermin and deposits of prior users." --From a Letter by a Friend Sheep. Everything smelled of sheep on Paradise Creek,but there were no sheep in sight. I fished down from theranger station where there was a huge monument to the Civi-lian Conservation Corps. It was a twelve-foot high marble statue of a young manwalking out on a cold morning to a crapper that had the das-sic half-moon cut above the door. The 1930s will never come again, but his shoes werewet with dew. They'll stay that way in marble. I went off into the marsh. There the creek was soft andspread out in the grass like a beer belly. The fishing wasdifficult. Summer ducks were jumping up into flight. Theywere big mallards with their Rainier Ale-like offspring. I believe I saw a woodcock. He had a long bill like puttinga fire hydrant into a pencil sharpener, then pasting it ontoa bird and letting the bird fly away in front of me with thisthing on its face for no other purpose than to amaze me. I worked my way slowly out of the marsh until the creekagain became a muscular thing, the strongest ParadiseCreek in the world. I was then close enough to see the sheep.There were hundreds of them. Everything smelled of sheep. The dandelions were sudden-ly more sheep than flower, each petal reflecting wool andthe sound of a bell ringing off the yellow. But the thing thatsmelled the most like sheep, was the very sun itself. Whenthe sun went behind a cloud, the smell of the sheep decreasedlike standing on some old guy's hearing aid, and when thesun came back again, the smell of the sheep was loud, likea clap of thunder inside a cup of coffee. That afternoon the sheep crossed the creek in front ofmy hook. They were so close that their shadows fell acrossmy bait. I practically caught trout up their assholes.
THE CABINET OFDOCTORCALIGARIOnce water bugs were my field. I remember that childhoodspring when I studied the winter-long mud puddles of thePacific Northwest. I had a fellowship. My books were a pair of Sears Roebuck boots, ones withgreen rubber pages. Most of my classrooms were close tothe shore. That's where the important things were happen-ing and that's where the good things were happening. Sometimes as experiments I laid boards out into the mudpuddles, so I could look into the deeper water but it was notnearly as good as the water in close to the shore. The water bugs were so small I practically had to lay myvision like a drowned orange on the mud puddle. There is aromance about fruit floating outside on the water, aboutapples and pears in rivers and lakes. For the first minuteor so, I saw nothing, and then slowly the water bugs cameinto being. I saw a black one with big teeth chasing a white one witha bag of newspapers slung over its shoulder, two white onesplaying cards near the window, a fourth white one staringback with a harmonica in its mouth. I was a scholar until the mud puddles went dry and then Ipicked cherries for two-and-a-half cents a pound in an oldorchard that was beside a long, hot dusty road. The cherry boss was a middle-aged woman who was a realOkie. Wearing a pair of goofy overalls, her name was RebelSmith, and she'd been a friend of "Pretty Boy" Floyd's downin Oklahoma. "I remember one afternoon'Pretty Boy' camedriving up in his car. I ran out onto the front porch. " Rebel Smith was always smoking cigarettes and showingpeople how to pick cherries and assigning them to trees andwriting down everything in a little book she carried in hershirt pocket. She smoked just half a cigarette and then threwthe other half on the ground. For the first few days of the picking, I was always seeingher half-smoked cigarettes lying all over the orchard, nearthe john and around the trees and down the rows. Then she hired half-a-dozen bums to pick cherries be-cause the picking was going too slowly. Rebel picked thebums up on skidrow every morning and drove them out tothe orchard in a rusty old truck. There were always half-a-dozen bums, but sometimes they had different faces. After they came to pick cherries I never saw any more ofher half-smoked cigarettes lying around. They were gonebefore they hit the ground. Looking back on it, you mightsay that Rebel Smith was anti-mud puddle, but then you miglnot say that at all.
Part 4 of Trout Fishing in America
© Richard Brautigan
THE AUTOPSY OF TROUT FISHING IN AMERICAThis is the autopsy of Trout Fishing in America as if TroutFishing in America had been Lord Byron and had died inMissolonghi, Greece, and afterward never saw the shoresof Idaho again, never saw Carrie Creek, Worsewick HotSprings, 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 thathad died suddenly of asphyxiation. The bony cranial vaultwas opened and the bones of the cranium were found veryhard without any traces of the sutures like the bones of aperson 80 years, so much so that one would have said thatthe cranium was formed by one solitary bone. . . . Themeninges were attached to the internal walls of the craniumso firmly that while sawing the bone around the interior todetach the bone from the dura the strength of two robust menwas not sufficient. . . . The cerebrum with cerebellumweighed about six medical pounds. The kidneys were verylarge but healthy and the urinary bladder was relativelysmall. " On May 2, 1824, the body of Trout Fishing in Americaleft Missolonghi by ship destined to arrive in England on theevening of June 29, 1824. Trout Fishing in America's body was preserved in a caskholding one hundred-eighty gallons of spirits: 0, a long wayfrom Idaho, a long way from Stanley Basin, Little RedfishLake, the Big Lost River and from Lake Josephus and theBig Wood River.
THE MESSAGE Last night a blue thing, the smoke itself, from our campfiredrifted down the valley, entering into the sound of the bell- mare until the blue thing and the bell could not be separated,no matter how hard you tried. There was no crowbar bigenough to do the job. Yesterday afternoon we drove down the road from WellsSummit, then we ran into the sheep. They also were beingmoved on the road. A shepherd walked in front of the car, a leafy branch inhis hand, sweeping the sheep aside. He looked like a young,Skinny Adolf Hitler, but friendly. I guess there were a thousand sheep on the road. It washot and dusty and noisy and took what seemed like a longtime . At the end of the sheep was a covered wagon being pulledby two horses. There was a third horse, the bellmare, tiedon the back of the wagon. The white canvas rippled in thewind and the wagon had no driver. The seat was empty. Finally the Adolf Hitler, but friendly, shepherd got thelast of them out of the way. He smiled and we waved and saidthank you. We were looking for a good place to camp. We drove downthe road, following the Little Smoky about five miles anddidn't see a place that we liked, so we decided to turn aroundand go back to a place we had seen just a ways up Carrie Creek. "I hope those God-damn Sheep aren't on the road, " I said. We drove back to where we had seen them on the roadand, of course they were gone, but as we drove on up theroad, we just kept fellowing sheep shit. It was ahead of usfor the next mile.I kept looking down on the meadow by the Little Smokey,hoping to see the sheep down there, but there wasn't a sheepin sight. only the shit in front of us on the road. As if it were a game invented by the spincter muscle, weknew what the score was. shaking our heads side to side,waiting.Then we went around a bend and the sheep burst like aroman candle all over the road and again a thousand sheepand the shepherd in front of us, wondering what the fuck. Thesame thing was in our minds. There was some beer in the back seat. It wasn't exactlycold, but it wasn't warm either. I tell you I was really embarrassed.I took a bottle of beer and got out of the car. I walked up to the shepherd who looked like Adolf Hitler,but friendly. "I'm sorry, " I said. "It's the sheep, " he said. (0 sweet and distant blossomsof Munich and Berlin!) "Sometimes they are a trouble but itall works out." "Would you like a bottle of beer?" I said. "I'm sorry toput you through this again. " "Thank you, " he said, shrugging his shoulders. He tookthe beer over and put it on the empty seat of the wagon.That's how it looked. After a long time, we were free of thesheep. They were like a net dragged finally away from thecar. We drove up to the place on Carrie Creek and pitched the tent and took our goods out of the car and piled them in the tent. Then we drove up the creek a ways, above the place wherethere were beaver darns and the trout stared back at us likefallen leaves. We filled the back of the car with wood for the fire and Icaught a mess of those leaves for dinner. They were smalland dark and cold. The autumn was good to us. When we got back to our camp, I saw the shepherd's wagondown the road a ways and on the meadow I heard the bellmareand the very distant sound of the sheep. It was the final circle with the Adolf Hitler, but friendly,shepherd as the diameter. He was camping down there forthe night. So in the dusk, the blue smoke from our campfirewent down and got in there with the bellmare.The sheep lulled themselves into senseless sleep, one followinganother like the banners of a lost army. I have here a veryimportant message that just arrived a few moments ago.It says "Stalingrad. "
TROUT FISHING IN AMERICATERRORISTSLong live our friend the revolver !Long live our friend the machine-gun! --Israeli terrorist chantOne April morning in the sixth grade, we became, first byaccident and then by premeditation, trout fishing in Americaterrorists. It came about this way: we were a strange bunch of kids. We were always being called in before the principal fordaring and mischievous deeds. The principal was a youngman and a genius in the way he handled us. One April morning we were standing around in the playyard, acting as if it were a huge open-air poolhall with thefirst-graders coming and going like poolballs. We were allbored with the prospect of another day's school, studyingCuba. One of us had a piece of white chalk and as a first-graderwent walking by, the one of us absentmindedly wrote "Troutfishing in America" on the back of the first-grader. The first-grader strained around, trying to read what waswritten on his back, but he couldn't see what it was, so heshrugged his shoulders and went off to play on the swings. We watched the first-grader walk away with "Trout fishingin America" written on his back. It looked good andseemed quite natural and pleasing to the eye that a first-grader should have "Trout fishing in America" written inchalk on his back. The next time I saw a first-grader, I borrowed my friend'spiece of chalk and said, "First-grader, you're wanted overhere." The first-grader came over to me and I said, "Turnaround." The first-grader turned around and I wrote "Trout fishingin America" on his back. It looked even better on the secondfirst-grader. We couldn't help but admire it. "Trout fishingin America." It certianly did add something to the first-graders. It compleated them and gave them a kind of class "It reallt looks good, doesn't it?" "Yeah." "There are a lot more first-graders over there by the monkey-bars." "Yeah. " "Lets get some more chalk.""Sure." We all got hold of chalk and later in the day, by the end oflunch period, almost all of the first-graders had "Trout fishingin America" written on their backs, girls included. Complaints began arriving at the principal's office fromthe first-grade teachers. One of the complaints was in theform of a little girl. "Miss Robins sent me, " she said to the principal. "Shetold me to have you look at this." "Look at what?" the principal said, staring at the emptychild. "At my back, " she said. The little girl turned around and the principal read aloud,"Trout fishing in America.""Who did this?" the principal said.That gang of sixth-graders," she said. "The bad ones.They've done it to all us first-graders. We all look like this."Trout fishing in America.' What does it mean? I just gotthis sweater new from my grandma. " "Huh.'Trout fishing in America, " the principal said."TellMiss Robins I'11 be down to see her in a little while," andexcused the girl and a short time later we terrorists weresummoned up from the lower world. We reluctantly stamped into the principal's office, fidgetingand pawing our feet and looking out the windows and yawningand one of us suddenly got an insane blink going and puttingour hands into our pockets and looking away and then backagain and looking up at the light fixture on the ceiling, howmuch it looked like a boiled potato, and down again and at thepicture of the principal's mother on the wall. She had been astar in the silent pictures and was tied to a railroad track. "Does 'Trout fishing in America' seem at all familiar toyou boys?" the principal said. "I wonder if perhaps you'veseen it written down anywhere today in your travels? 'Troutfishing in America.' Think hard about it for a minute." We all thought hard about it. There was a silence in the room, a silence that we allknew intimately, having been at the principal's office quite afew times in the past. "Let me see if I can help you," the principal said. "Perhapsyou saw 'Trout fishing in America' written in chalk onthe backs of the first-graders. I wonder how it got there."We couldn't help but smile nervously. "I just came back from Miss Robin's first-grade class,"the principal said. "I asked all those who had 'Trout fishingin America' written on their backs to hold up their hands,andall the children in the class held up their hands, except oneand he had spent his whole lunch period hiding in the lavatory.What do you boys make of it . . . ? This 'Trout fishing inAmerica' business?" We didn't say anything. The one of us still had his mad blink going. I am certainthat it was his guilty blink that always gave us away. Weshould have gotten rid of him at the beginning of the sixthgrade. "You're all guilty, aren't you?" he said. "Is there one ofyou who isn't guilty? If there is, speak up. Now. " We were all silent except for blink, blink, blink, blink, blink.Suddenly I could hear his God-damn eye blinking. It was very muchlike the sound of an insect laying the 1, 000, 000th egg of ourdisaster. "The whole bunch of you did it. Why? . . . Why 'Troutfishing in America' on the backs of the first-graders?" And then the principal went into his famous E=MC2 sixth-grade gimmick, the thing he always used in dealing with us. "Now wouldn't it look funny, " he said. "If I asked all yourteachers to come in here, and then I told the teachers all toturn around, and then I took a piece of chalk and wrote 'Troutfishing in America' on their backs?" We all giggled nervously and blushed faintly. "Would you like to see your teachers walking around allday with 'Trout fishing in America' written on their backs,trying to teach you about Cuba? That would look silly, wouldn't it? You wouldn't like to see that would you? That wouldn't doat all, would it?" "No," we said like a Greek chorus some of us saying itwith our voices and some of us by nodding our heads, andthen there was the blink, blink, blink. "That's what I thought, " he said. "The first-graders lookup to you and admire you like the teachers look up to me andadmire me, It just won't do to write 'Trout fishing in America'on their backs. Are we agreed, gentlemen?" We were agreed. I tell you it worked every God-damn time. Of course it had to work. "All right, " he said. "I'll consider trout fishing in Ameri-ca to have come to an end. Agreed?" "Agreed. " "Agreed ?" "Agreed. ""Blink, blink. " But it wasn't completely over, for it took a while to gettrout fishing in America off the clothes of the first-graders.A fair percentage of trout fishing in America was gone thenext day. The mothers did this by simply putting cleanclothes on their children, but there were a lot of kids whosemothers just tried to wipe it off and then sent them back toschool the next day with the same clothes on, but you couldstill see "Trout fishing in America" faintly outlined on theirbacks. But after a few more days trout fishing in Americadisappeared altogether as it was destined to from its verybeginning, and a kind of autumn fell over the first grade.
TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA WITH THE FBI Dear Trout Fishing in America, last week walking along lower market on the way to worksaw the pictures of the FBI's TEN MOST WANTED MEN inthe window of a store. the dodger under one of the pictureswas folded under at both sides and you couldn't read all of it.the picture showed a nice, clean-cut-looking guy with frecklesand curly (red?) hair WANTED FOR: RICHARD LAWRENCE MARQUETTE Aliases: Richard Lawrence Marquette, Richard Lourence Marquette Description:26, born Dec. 12, 1934, Portland, Oregon170 to 180 poundsmuscularlight brown, cut shortblueComplexion: ruddy Race: white Nationality: American Occupations: auto body w recapper, s survey rodarks: 6" hernia scar; tattoo "Mom" in wreath onight forearmull upper denture, may also have lower denture. Reportedly frequents s, and is an avid trout fisherman.(this is how the dodger looked cut off on both sides and youcouldn't make out any more, even what he was wanted for.) Your old buddy, PardDear Pard, Your letter explains why I saw two FBI agents watching atrout stream last week. They watched a path that came downthrough the trees and then circled a large black stump andled to a deep pool. Trout were rising in the pool. The FBIagents watched the path, the trees, the black stump, the pooland the trout as if they were all holes punched in a card thathad just come out of a computer. The afternoon sun keptchanging everything as it moved across the sky, and the FBIagents kept changing with the sun. It appears to be part oftheir training.Your friend, Trout Fishing in America
