Randy Kadish's Blog - Posts Tagged "recovery"

The city workers never stopped me from going onto the old, broken-down pier, though one had said, “There aren’t much fish here since we dredged last year.”

I often sought comfort in those words. They told me not to blame myself for catching only one striped bass after so many months of trying.

So with little expectations, I again walked towards the end of the seagull-inhabited pier. One by one the beautiful birds spread their long, gray wings and soared away. I was sorry I had frightened them from their home.

I continued on.

On the other side of the wide, fast-moving river, the fluttering American flag told me the wind blew from the north, but not strongly. Since strong winds were the only thing I didn’t like about fishing, I was thankful, and wondered if I should go with a floating or sinking line.

I checked the sky. The cloud cover was breaking up; so I chose a sinking line, knowing it probably wouldn’t matter. I set up my nine-weight rod, looked through my fly box and wondered, What should I try? A Clouser? A Deceiver?

I tied on a White Deceiver, then watched in awe as the seagulls gracefully glided down on the other end of the pier. Glad they had returned, I thought, If only I could get my fly to land as gently.

I cast up river, about seventy feet. Not bad. I stripped slowly, pausing every four or five seconds.

Suddenly, as if a light switch was turned on, the sun illuminated the gold and raspberry-red leaves of trees on the far bank. Yes, I remembered, autumn is always the prettiest time to fish. But soon those trees will look like eerie, mushroom-shaped spider webs. Soon it will be winter and too cold to fish. So why on this mild day, am I the only one here? Is it because, unlike most anglers, I’m not so obsessed with catching fish? If so, is there something wrong with me?

A small motor boat approached. A middle-aged couple was aboard. They held hands. I waved. They smiled and waved back.

“Any luck?” the man yelled out.

I shook my head no, and thought of how I never felt alone on the pier.

I again cast. My tight loop cut through the breeze. My Deceiver turned over and fluttered to the water. I was proud.

Eighty feet, I thought. Yes, maybe basking in the satisfaction of making a good cast is what brought me to the pier. But is there something more?

I lowered my rod, pulled all the slack out of my line and tried to repeat my beautiful cast. My back loop was tight. When it almost unrolled I slowly began my forward cast. Perfect. I accelerated into my power snap. But I hauled late. My front loop opened into a wide circle. My line and fly died short, and piled on the water. Disappointed, I quickly pulled the slack out of my line. I resumed my regular retrieve. Maybe bad casts really aren’t so bad. Maybe a fish will still strike. Besides, my next cast will be better, I hope. Yes, to make better: how good it always feels, and how easy to do when fishing. If only fixing my business had been so easy, but by the time I realized that the market had changed it was too late. And wasn’t it also too late by the time mother realized that her cough might be a sign of something really serious? By then the latest medical breakthroughs couldn’t stop her cancer from eating away at her, from leaving her a living, breathing skeleton, and leaving me feeling helpless, and furious at a God who seemed so brutal, so cruel. Why did he cause so much pain? So much suffering!?

I couldn’t answer the answer question - not now, not then; so after mother passed away grief weighed me down like lead. I couldn’t find the energy to fish. Then the grief got even worse and seemed to turn into a dull knife slowly cutting and twisting through me. Afraid I was losing my mind, and that the walls of my apartment were closing in on me like a vise, I told myself I had to go outside. But where? A voice told me to take my fly rod and reel. Should I listen? I took my fly rod out of its case. It seemed to shine like gold. I held the rod handle. The cork felt like silk, in some way comforting. I put on my fly-fishing vest and looked in the mirror. Yes I was once an angler, once loved being in the outdoors, especially in a gurgling river or a gently crashing surf.

I took my fly rod and reel and walked to the old pier. Again I became an angler. Surprisingly, my grief numbed, maybe even lifted; so the next day I went again, and then for the next few years fishing was all I really cared about.

Finally, slowly, my other interests - football, music, history - returned, but none rivaled fishing on the pier, even if I had on the wrong fly.

I wondered if I should change flies, then decided that with all I was going through, and with nature’s beauty seeming to embrace me in a way that - yes - my mother never did, the fly I fished shouldn’t matter. I’ll stay with the White Deceiver, I decided. I caught my breath, then reminded myself to break my wrist and drift my fly rod downward at the end of my back cast.

It worked! My fly shot almost ninety feet, then gently touched down on the surface. I smiled. Above the middle of the river a flock of seagulls circled. Their sharp chirps somehow sounded amplified by the peaceful vision of the orange sun setting and beaming down hundreds and hundreds of diamonds bobbing and reflecting off the gently flowing river.

The seagulls didn’t dive. Bait fish probably weren’t around; so neither were the striped bass.

I wasn’t discouraged. So for the next few hours, as the sky ripened into dusk pink, I cast again and again and retrieved faster and faster, afraid that the sun would soon sink behind the trees and roll up its flickering path that crossed the grayish water and seemed to stop at my pier.

Slow down, I told myself. Don’t worry about the sun going down. It will be here tomorrow, and so will I. And don’t worry about winter. Before long it will retreat and the bare trees will again bloom with life, and then maybe the stripers will return to the pier, but if they don’t, will it really matter?

No, because out here nothing is broken, except fixable casts.
The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgiveness and Spiritual Recovery

Downriver, the Hudson flowed into the New York harbor. To me, it suddenly seemed amazing that a shallow, tree-lined stream in upstate New York could turn into a wide, deep, building-lined river. I wondered, Was the Hudson, therefore, a reflection of the flow of humanity? After all, our knowledge supposedly deepened as generations flowed on. But the Hudson eventually flowed into the ocean and lost its shape and identity. Perhaps if it knew where it was flowing to it would stop and wait, forever. But, like me, there are things a river can’t cure, though in a few hours, when the tide changes, the river will turn around and go back, at least for a few hours. Is that a metaphor for the river flowing back into its character defects, the way I have? In many ways I’m like the river. I’m also flowing toward losing my identity, toward the final unknown. But before I reach it, will I somehow pull a Houdini and escape the dead-end in front of me? If only I could turn around and become a doctor, a lawyer, a forgiving son instead of an angry one. But like the banks of the Hudson, my past is shaped in stone. ...
The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgivness and Spiritual Recovery

The old angler's laugh sounded like a howl. It chilled me like a wind. I remembered there were coyotes in Westchester.

“I have no favorite river,” he insisted. “Why discriminate? Like people, rivers have their own characteristics, but what kind of angler are you who doesn’t know that when you come right down to it, all rivers are a chain of riffles, runs, and pools?”

I wondered, are people really like rivers? Are we all just a chain of regrets, hopes and fears? I said, “Maybe you can tell me something I should know: How are rivers born?”

“Will knowing help you catch more fish?” He laughed again.

I thought, maybe he’s right. After all, will knowing change this moment and help me put my thoughts and feelings aside? Will it help me assume the shape of this river? Help me become as tall and as wide as I can see and hear? Help me meander through this hilly countryside for the next thousand years?

No, because soon I will grow old and weak and unable to stand here and cast a fly rod, unable to lose myself and, in a sense, become only what I see and hear, the way so many other anglers—Jim, Gil, Pat, Garcia—also have, the way so many anglers one day will. So in this moment am I every one of those anglers? Am I therefore no one? Am I just a tiny, tiny link in the chain of infinity?

But today I didn’t have to ride the rails and join the Croton Fishing Club. I must, therefore, be more than just a neutral, passing moment. But what? A chain of choices? A self? So when night—a real link of infinity—comes, and I ride the train home, maybe I won’t choose to hear or to see my regrets and my fears. Maybe I’ll instead hear and see my dreams and memories of catching trout and of becoming a father. I just wish trout could choose between dreams instead of deep pools, or shallow riffles, or long runs.

But trout, unlike me, aren’t city anglers. ...
The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgivness and Spiritual Recovery

... Quickly I changed, set up my fly rod, and marched down the narrow boardwalk and up a short flight of steps. I stood at the top of the high dune.

A fiery corridor of reflected sunlight blazed at right angles to the advancing, gently breaking waves. The long beach was spotted with only a few clumps of people. Instantly, nature painted over the images in my mind of a fast-moving, automobile-choked, concrete and brick city. I became as calm as the beach. The five years I had been away seemed to have collapsed into five days. I thought, Maybe Einstein is right about time being relative, or maybe a part of me never really left the island.

I didn’t see other anglers. The tide was high. I scanned the beach looking for a big point and found one about fifty yards to the west. Seagulls streaked above the surf. Their piercing squawks made them sound like drunken hooligans cruising for a fight. I wondered, Why can’t seagulls sing beautifully, like other birds? At least they can circle and dive, and show anglers where bait fish, and possibly stripers, are.

This time, however, they didn’t circle and dive.

Though I didn’t have their help, I wasn’t discouraged. I marched across the soft, warm sand to the harder, cool surf. I walked to the big point where years before, for perhaps the first time in my life, I had voluntarily surrendered to something much bigger than myself: the infinite beauty all around me, a beauty that made me forget all the pain and disappointment I had been through.

Again I wanted to surrender, maybe because nature was a higher power I could believe in. I put on my stripping basket and then false cast, letting out more and more fly line. Finally, I made my presentation cast and let the line go. My front loop took the shape of an arrowhead. My green Deceiver turned over and landed about eighty feet out, just beyond an incoming wave. Unlike the seagulls, the breaking waves spoke softly. They splashed around my legs and greeted me, one by one. As they slid back out, they tried to pull me with them. I fought their beckoning, stood my ground, and retrieved my line, six inches at a time.

I thought of how all the clichés about fishing—being caressed by nature’s beauty and being washed of self and time—were true; and though as a writer I always tried to avoid clichés, now, as I stood in nature’s canvas, I was sure no one, especially me, would criticize the clichés in my mind. ...
The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgivness and Spiritual Recovery

... Sure? I wondered. I was once sure I had more time with my parents. The only thing predictable about cancer, the doctors told me, was its unpredictability. Is life like cancer? I never thought I’d be where I am in the river of life: a childless, journeyman writer. No wonder I can’t stop regretting the past, no matter what the recovery books say.

I roll cast across stream, mended and retrieved my fly, then again. No take. Time for streamer technique number two: I roll cast, then, using the jerk-strip retrieve I had learned in Kelly Gallop and Bob Linesman’s book, I worked my fly downstream.

Stay in the moment, I reminded myself. Cover as much water as possible and use several different streamer techniques, one right after another. What if time could learn from streamer fishing and not repeat itself?

Would the world be even more unpredictable? Maybe Einstein would know.

Again I cast and jerk-strip retrieved. No take. Time for technique number three: I back cast—right into a branch. I’d forgotten to look behind. A spring-training error. I pulled my fly free, luckily, cast three-quarters downstream, and let the river dead-drift my fly. I moved my fly rod side to side, feeding line through the guides. When my fly was directly below me I pointed my rod tip up and waited. No take, still, so I quickly retrieved and then cast my fly closer to the far bank. I listened to the gurgling river and the singing birds.

Yes, I thought, rivers are the music halls of the universe. Maybe the Croton is playing only for me. Maybe the river doesn’t want to be alone and has a soul and feelings that it transforms into passionate music.

I waded downstream and started another fishing cycle.

Close to the bank the water was foamy. Illuminated by sunlight, some of the foam looked like floating silver dollars. Alongside them were small eddies that swirled so quickly they looked like spinning tops, or miniature black holes. If they are black holes, maybe, like black holes in the universe, they’ll stop time, at least on the Croton. After all, out here I’ve lost track of my regrets and resentments. Suddenly, I’m happy. Are rivers—their sounds, their images, their beauty—reflections of some sort of divine, eternal plan that scientists like Kepler, Newton and Einstein spent their lives trying to uncover? Were any of those men fly fishermen? ...
The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgivness and Spiritual Recovery

... I turned from the cove, looked across the lake and scanned the banks for other anglers. I didn’t see any. Surprised, I wondered if the anglers had outgrown the lake, or even fishing itself. Will I one day? How many hours have I spent fishing this lake? How many hours talking to tourists and strangers?

“Are there really fish in the lake?” The accent was English and thick as grease. It belonged to a man about my age. His shirt was light gray, and his chest was shaped like a barrel. He reminded me of the Tin Man, but a nice camera hung from his neck. I assumed he had a heart.

I answered, “Big bass.”

“In England I used to fish for carp.”

“Used to?”

“Now I’m more into traveling, but I still have my father’s fishing rods. Maybe they’re worth some money. How could I find out?”

“You can check on the Internet.”

“The Internet? Right. How’d we ever live without it?”

“That’s what they said about the wheel.”
He laughed. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” I cast, and then thought, Another future memory, I’m sure. Memories, I guess, are like stars: new ones are always forming. But memories don’t have real dimensions. Do memories, therefore, exist only in the expandable hard drives of human minds, like the first memory I have of fishing this lake?

She wore thick, granny glasses and looked like a middle-aged hippie. She told me she was from Boise. I told her I had never met anyone from Idaho. She told me Boise was a great city with a beautiful river and a great orchestra. I wondered if she was just a bit biased, but wanting to fish instead of talk, I looked away from her and watched my fishing line, but out of the corner of my eye I saw her standing there, watching me. For me, the silence between us became uncomfortable. Finally, she broke it and asked questions about New York. Soon I realized she too was lonely and sort of lost. I looked at her and suggested places in the city she might be interested in seeing.

“I used to fish with my father,” she said. “Funny, for so long I kind of forgot how those were the only times I really got to talk to him. I guess now that’s he’s gone I try to forget that he was only sober for two things: working and fishing.”

I thought of asking her if she was a twelve-stepper, but I wasn’t sure if asking was appropriate. Wondering what to say, I came up blank, until I remembered what I had read about listening and showing empathy by reflecting back a person’s words. I said, “That sounds like it must’ve been really hard on you.”

“It was. That’s why I don’t think about it, I guess. Did your father take you fishing?”

“My father only took me to do only what he wanted to do.”

“Are you from Manhattan?”

“Brooklyn, originally. I went to the same high school as Sandy Koufax.”

“Too bad you didn’t have his fastball. I’m sorry, I mean about the Dodgers moving.”

“My uncle still hasn’t gotten over it, even though we got the Mets.”

“What was growing up in Brooklyn like?”

“Great. Filled with endless street games: stickball, football, hide-and-seek. I guess back then we all thought the whole world was part of Brooklyn.”

We continued talking, mostly about the two cities we loved, and soon talking to her seemed more important than fishing.

She looked at her watch. “I should really get going. It was great talking to you. Maybe New Yorkers really are friendly.”

I laughed.

“I’m Joan, by the way.”

“I’m Randy.” We shook hands and said good-bye. As I watched her walk away I felt grateful I had met her. At first I wasn’t sure why, until I realized it was partly because I had helped someone feel welcomed in a huge, foreign city.

I snapped out of my memory and reeled in line and thought, I hope Joan, wherever she is in the world, has found the love we are all looking for. I thought back to when I was so shy I couldn’t look anyone in the eye or express my thoughts and feelings, to when I finally admitted I needed help, and then took workshops and read books, and learned how to communicate. If only I hadn’t spent so many years unable to ask for help. Yes, I was damaged, but I didn’t cause it. Today I must not regret or deny the past. My memories will keep it alive.
The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgivness and Spiritual Recovery

... I walked to the north side of the pier, tied on a popper, and cast upstream. My new strategy didn’t pay off. Were two schoolies all I had to show for my $625 fly rod?

The sun looked like the eye of a giant Cyclops peeking over New Jersey. But the sun’s face, like the face of Mr. Potato Man, was made up of many parts, including what seemed like the mouth of a fire-spewing dragon. The sun beamed down a burning path across the Hudson River. When the sun set, I knew, it would also set on my fishing year. Slowly, the Hudson darkened into gray, but instead of letting go of all its light, the river seemed to divide the light and reshape it into flickering columns. The columns, I saw, were not reflections of moonlight but reflections of the Riverside Park, man-made lights. To me, the reflections looked like the linear-shaped galaxies of a contracted, upside-down world—then the reflections looked more like giant, vibrating subatomic strings, particles supposedly holding the key to understanding the universe and the possibility of even a twelfth dimension.

I asked myself, Am I in it?

No, just in a place where a person’s disappointments, such as losing a friend, take up a single speck of space: in the three dimensions of a pier.

Five miles upstream, the lights of the George Washington Bridge formed the shape of a huge, hanging smile. The smile, surrounded by the shapeless, dark-blue sky, didn’t have a face. I wondered, Is the smile the mouth of the Cyclops? If so, it’s certainly a happy monster, maybe even a bait fisherman who won’t eat the Manhattan skyline. Are the monster’s nose, chin and ears also disguised and hidden in the beauty surrounding me and surrounding all the piers I fish? Beauty, perhaps like the idea of a God or a Higher Power, doesn’t have boundaries like rivers and harbors. Beauty can spread, even to monsters.

A voice inside me said it was time to let go of fishing for the year, and to make peace with winter. I retrieved my popper in a straight line, frequently pausing and creating rings on the water. The movement, I realized, reflected my fishing adventures. They too moved in a line of time, frequently creating fishing rings filled with anglers, including bait fishermen, I could speak to and then feel less alone. ...
The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgivness and Spiritual Recovery

... Now it was my turn to feel shot full of Novocain. I remembered the power of a good story, especially told by someone who had never written one. I remembered how my father, in his way, had also deserted me and how, even after his death, a part of me wanted him back, partly because I knew if he read my memoirs he would be proud, very proud.

I didn’t have to wonder why Thomas told me his story. He wanted me to write it and, in a sense, keep him alive in the small world of fishing. But did I, a little-known writer with a long line of mistakes in life, have power over who lived and died? If so, did I want it?

The wind, I noticed, had retreated. The leaves were still, and the Meer looked like a life-size frame on a movie screen. Then I realized it was a three-dimensional frame, seemingly a moment frozen in time. Did the Meer somehow create the frame to acknowledge Thomas and to give him a little more precious time? If so, I wished the much larger world could do the same, for him and for other cancer patients as well.

Though the water had become darker, the colors of its vibrating reflections—trees and tall buildings—had brightened, ironically. I thought, again I wish that, as the sun sets on our lives, we became beautiful, like autumn leaves. Are men and women less deserving than leaves because of our mistakes, especially our long, long string of wars? But now, as I look back, I see my cancer-stricken mother having been more beautiful just before she died.

A flock of geese dived and shattered the calm surface of the Meer. The geese and seagulls soon formed two distinct camps on the water. The camps reminded me of opposing armies on the night before they clashed. But the geese swam away. The seagulls didn’t pursue. Yes, geese and seagulls are more like anglers sharing the same lake or river than like opposing armies fighting, killing for the same land.

“Randy, I have to go. Good luck with your test.”

“Thanks, Thomas, thanks.”

I watched him drive out of the park. Will I see him again? I wondered. If I don’t, I’ll miss him. How I wish I could see my parents again. But at least I can still see my sister. Thank God she never overdosed. I wonder what’s going through Thomas’s mind, knowing he might not ever again see the Meer? What will his final journey—to where time cannot go—be like? And what will my final journey be like? Is it better if I don’t know? ...
The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgivness and Spiritual Recovery

... I walked across the room, picked up the fishing lure, and blew dust off. I thought back to the day my aunt had telephoned and asked if I wanted anything in my grandmother’s apartment.

I answered, “I’ll come and take a look.”

An hour later, I scanned my grandmother’s furniture and bric-a-brac. There was nothing I wanted. Then I saw the lure. Sol had had bigger and more expensive toys, so why, I wondered, had my grandmother kept only this one? Was it because she knew that, in Sol’s eyes, the lure had symbolized what he could only dream of becoming: a healthy boy who fished, played sports and excelled in school?

A voice inside me said, Take the lure. I looked at my aunt and pointed to the lure. “This is all I want.”

“That? You’re kidding?”

“I’m not.”

“The lure always brought back bad memories for me, but I know it was important to Sol and your grandmother. I guess someone should keep it.”

As I rode the subway home, I stared at the lure, cradled it my hand as if it were alive, and wondered who had made it and who had given it to Sol. After all, fishing was never popular in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Is there more of a story to the lure than I know? Should I put hooks on it and see if it really catches fish? No, I can’t risk losing it.

I opened the door to my apartment. Without taking off my jacket, I opened one of my photo albums and turned to a faded, black-and-white photograph of Sol, taken just before he got sick. He’s about twelve. He wears shorts and a white shirt. He looks away from the camera and smiles as if everything is right with his world. Sol, after all, is my grandparents’ first-born and only son. He is their favorite because he is such a big part of their dream of coming to America, of working hard and then seeing their male children become successful professionals: a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer.

I stared into Sol’s eyes and thought, What if Sol had lived and dreamed of becoming a famous writer, disappointing his parents the way I disappointed mine?
The next photo is of my mother, Gilda. She looks right into the camera and smiles, also as if everything is right with her world. She is, after all, pretty, very pretty, and people tell her so and flatter her. She isn’t therefore jealous of her older brother, Sol. She loves and admires him, and is not concerned when, for no apparent reason, he falls down. But then he falls again and again. Other children laugh and make fun of him. My mother often begs him to get up and show everyone he’s all right. He struggles to. The children laugh again. My mother insists they stop. They don’t, so one day she curses and chases them. She catches one and punches him. Later, Sol asks, “Why am I falling so much?”

Soon they know. Sol, the doctors say, has muscular dystrophy and will grow weaker and weaker and then die. So as the months pass, my grandmother spends more and more time taking care of Sol. Soon he is confined to a wheelchair. Often my grandmother wheels him outside. He can’t sit up straight. Children laugh, and my grandmother tells him to ignore the laughter. He cries and demands to go home. Finally he refuses to sit outside.

My grandmother tells my mother, “You have to take my place and become a mother to your younger sisters.”

My mother obeys, but feels neglected and resentful. Her resentment simmers into anger and slowly boils into rage. Soon she wishes, secretly, that Sol would die so she could go back to being a child and having parents who pay attention to her; but when Sol dies her rage doesn’t.

As the years pass, she lashes out at anyone who seemingly wrongs her, especially me, her first-born son. Is it because it is now my task, passed on from Sol, to become the family’s first big success? Is that why I can never live up to her high expectations? Though my mother loves me, she often interrupts me, tells me I’m no good. She beats me with anything she gets her hands on. My arms are often bruised so I always wear long-sleeved shirts. And not once does she apologize. ...
The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgiveness and Spiritual Recovery

... Below me a fly line shot out and unrolled. The leader swung left, as if the caster had moved his elbow too much. The fly landed gently, upstream of the line and just outside a swirling eddy. The fly drifted about two feet, then was retrieved. The angler below me wore a black suit, hip boots and a gray cap. He cast again, pointing the rod out at an angle of about 45 degrees to the water. The leader swung again, and the fly landed just outside the eddy.

I walked off the bridge and down the road. Following Clay’s directions, I turned onto a narrow road and into a rocky clearing. The clearing, I quickly saw, was the north bank of the Beaverkill. Across the river, the far bank was about six feet high and tiled with big, flat rocks. Above the bank was a big corn field.

The angler under the bridge wrote something in a small notebook. He looked familiar. Could he be—yes he was, George M. L. La Branche!

I walked to him. “Mr. La Branche?”

He glanced at me. “Yes?” he said coldly.

“I saw you cast in a tournament.”

“I cast in a lot of tournaments.” He stuffed his notebook and pencil into his pocket.

“The one in Central Park that Izzy Klein won. Do you know what happened to Izzy?”

“Happened? I never saw or heard anything about him again. I’m very busy right now.”

Busy? He was fishing. I was stupid for starting a conversation with a man with two middle initials.

I walked downstream. The river widened into the shape of a huge funnel. The funnel, I knew, was the Forks. The stem was the Willowemoc Creek. Like the upper Beaverkill, it was riffled from bank to bank and reminded me of a marching army.

Why, I wondered, did images of armies, instead of beauty, pop into my mind? Was it because I felt I was in foreign, hostile territory and about to do battle with the Beaverkill?

If so, at least I was glad the Willowemoc and Beaverkill armies didn’t collide. Both slowed, surrendered and merged into a large plain of what seemed like neutral territory. The plain, however, was wrinkled by swirling eddies that soon changed directions, as if they were lost and couldn’t find their way.

What formed the eddies?

The biggest eddy disappeared, suddenly, then popped up a few feet downstream.
Did eddies, like stars, form out of nowhere and then disappear?

Way downstream of the big eddy was a big, round island, covered with tall, uneven grass. The island looked as if it needed a haircut; then I remembered the tree trunks that blemished so many mountains.

I thought, Maybe nature was better off not having Man as a barber.

I walked to the pool’s tail. Two currents flowed in opposite directions, like the lines of immigrants strolling up and down Orchard Street. Near the end of the tail, the upstream current about-faced and merged into the downstream current, and the whole river seemed to smooth into a football-field-long pane of sliding glass. At the end of the field, in the end zone, the river sloped sharply, sped up and reformed into a riffled, roaring army, more powerful than either of the armies flowing into the Forks.

Why was it, I wondered, the Beaverkill presented so many different faces of water? Was the Beaverkill like an exposed army donning different camouflages?

But the river had no real reason to feel exposed. A mountain protected it like a fortress wall and enabled the river to quickly surround the island; but instead of storming and sacking it, the river widened and gave way to it, then marched out of my view, without saying good-bye.

How could it? Did the Beaverkill, the sky or the mountains care about me? Wasn’t I like an unloved insect trapped in the vastness of the world? Or was I just trapped in one small world? If so, how many different worlds were there on earth? As many as stars in the sky? Could people go from world to world and not get lost or trapped? After all, less than thirty yards away was my eventual way out of the world of the Beaverkill: the railroad tracks. But for better or worse, for the next two days I had no other world to go to.

I set up my Leonard and tied on a Green Drake wet fly. I decided, however, to go after Clay’s monster trout later on. I walked back upstream, pulled line off the reel, and cast over the neutral plain. The eddies grabbed the line like a thief and wouldn’t let go. I pointed the rod up and tried to mend. The eddies pulled more strongly. I pointed the rod lower and fed line through the guides. The fly sank.

No take. I retrieved and cast a few feet downstream. The eddies left the line for dead, surprisingly. To give life to my fly, I slowly pointed the rod up and down, up and down.

Again no take. Again I cast, landing the line between two eddies. The smooth water grabbed the line.

An hour later I still hadn’t induced a take. Discouraged, I walked to the pool’s tail. The sliding water glowed brighter than a sun-reflecting marble floor.

Was the Beaverkill, or at least what I saw of it, more beautiful than Penn Station?

Not sure, I waded into the tail. The rocks on the bottom were flat, as if the moving water had shaped them so people could walk on them. The water rushed gently around my legs. Instead of trying to push me back or to knock me over, it seemed to caress and welcome me.

A cloud blocked the sun. The water’s glow faded and, like a chameleon, turned into the upside-down reflections of trees and the mountain. I thought it strange that less light brought out more images. The reflected trees and mountain looked as if they were sinking into the earth. Suddenly I didn’t know if I was in the bottom of a wide valley or at the top.

Or was I in both places at once?

I wished every time something bad happened, I could look at a reflection and the world would be upside-down. And then if I could also change the river’s direction maybe I could bring my mother and all the dead soldiers back to life.
But unlike flowing water, the reflections seemed cemented in place. ...

The Fly Caster Who Tried to Make Peace with the World