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Fishing |
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I
I decided I needed a break from urbanity and tedium, so I took a trip to the hills. There was a hike I used to do when I was a kid. It was to a little lake about four miles in. I walked by myself, listening.
At the lake was a man who was fishing. He looked so romantically solitary, I didn't want to disturb him, although I wished I had a companion. I started to walk around the edge of the lake. When I was passing by, the man looked up and said hi.
"Hello," I said. "Any luck?"
"Oh, no," he said. "I'm not really fishing. There's no hook on the line."
"So what are you doing?"
"When I was young, I used to fish with my father. Since then I've come to believe it is wrong. But coming here and sitting with my old rod brings back a feeling of sanguine serenity. My father died a long time ago."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Don't be. He killed himself."
I couldn't help but allow my uneasiness and embarrassment to show on my face. The man noticed and said, "It's not like that. He gave himself to the lake. He always knew it was inevitable. He had just been waiting for the right time."
I sat down by the man and we chatted for hours. By the time it got dark, I realized I had made a new friend.
We made our way back to our cars together. We shook hands and said, "Come to dinner some time."
As often happens with new friendships, I wondered whether he'd call or I'd call and who would come to dinner first. As it turned out, neither of us called nor came. That was how our friendship panned out. Some friends you need never see.
II
Working nine to five, watching TV, eating out, going to the movies, buying clothes and music and stamps and coffee, sitting in a bar for a few hours or sleeping off a sickness for a few days-my life continued as lives tend to do. The older I've grown, the less ambitious I've become and the more these little activities have become joys. There's joy in a head cold if you treat yourself right.
I started taking walks in the park. Urban nature may be dirty, but it's still alive. Pigeons are amazing, ugly creatures. Squirrels are cuter and more fascinating than the average dog. Sometimes I'd join some kids throwing a Frisbee or kicking a soccer ball. As long as there are people and animals around, I'm happy. As long as it rains sometimes and is warm in the spring, I'm all right.
A few years after our first encounter, I ran into the fishing man in a subway station. He was filthy and seemed to have aged thirty years.
"Hello," I said.
"Can you help me out?"
"Sure. Come on."
I brought him home, had him shower and change, gave him a burrito I had left in the fridge. He started to tell me how he'd ended up on the street, but I wouldn't let him. I didn't need to know.
"I'm glad I ran into you," I said. "There's been something I've been wanting to ask you."
"Shoot."
"Did you stop fishing with hooks before or after your father died?"
"Before, I think. Why?"
"I was just wondering. I thought the lake might have had something to do with it."
"No," said the man. "I had a friend with a small yacht. I'd go out on the ocean with him sometimes. Once, we caught a bluefish. It was an average fish: not too small, not too big, perfectly ordinary. My friend flopped it on the deck and was about to kill it when it somehow managed to jump overboard. It happened suddenly. I don't know how it did it.
"I thought a lot about that fish and its brush with death and renewed freedom, and I was moved by the notion of it swimming away in the open ocean. I came to understand for the first time that fish were really alive. And I don't know if it's imagination or memory, but, in my mind, that fish said, in a breathy voice with an affronted tone, 'What's wrong with you people?' right before it jumped."
I helped the man find a job and an apartment, and all was well for five years or so. Then one day he just up and disappeared. I'm sure if it's possible, I'll meet him again. He's that kind of friend, the kind you run into sporadically over a lifetime. I have a feeling, though, that nobody ever will see him again. These days I rarely think of him, but feelings of romantic solitude and sanguine serenity inevitably come over me whenever I do.
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