NEEDLING

BOX OF BOOKS

A couple weeks back, Joan sent me a box filed to the rim with books, one sweatshirt, one postcard, and three photographs. Me saying this, writing it down, means absolutely nothing. Could be a large box, a medium box, or a small box. Could be pocket sized paperbacks stacked in a large supermarket-type box, the kind they deliver hundreds of morning cereal in, the kind you can usually grab next to the dumpsters, or it could be a shoe box for baby shoes crammed with one or two large-print hardbacks. Clarification : there’s approximately fifteen books of varying size paperbacks, mostly the kind too large to fit into your blue-jeans but small enough to carry around comfortably, one bright red sweatshirt I’ve worn almost daily since I received the package, and three color photographs taken in Hawaii, the kind you take while on a vacation.

TROUT FISHING

I’m currently reading “The Sun Also Rises,” a personal favorite, a book Joan knows I like a lot. It made me laugh to see that book, because sometime Joan takes herself for Brett, one of the principal characters in the book, and we’ve laughed about this in the past.

It’s been a few years since I’ve read this book. This is minimum the fourth time I’ve read it, and I’d forgotten the trout fishing scene. I’ve never gone trout fishing. The last time I went fishing I still lived in West Texas, I was around 13 years old and caught absolutely nothing. We lived in a motel back then, the one my parents owned, and a friend of a friend of one of the maids had taken me fishing. Or maybe it was the maid’s boyfriend, or her uncle. It was the same maid who gave us white squash from her garden when she had any, and who did all our sowing whenever we needed something patched up. At the time, I hated the hole in front of my boxers, the one to simplify the pissing procedures, so every time my mother bought me new boxers, she had them sowed up before giving them to me. I spent most of that day swimming. I didn’t have any patience to stare at the line all that time.

I haven’t gone fishing since then, but reading that scene made me want to go fishing somewhere. Trout are a recurring theme in my life these days, so I should seriously think about going trout fishing.

First of all there was that time I was in Amsterdam last year and I was completely stoned. I went to the market and bought some fish. I went back up to my friend’s place, who had lent me her apartment while she was away for a few days, and cleaned the two fish. I had no clue that I had just purchased trout. The name was in Dutch and I wasn’t interested in what kind of fish I was buying. I remember them looking shiny and pink. That’s what I liked about them. I placed the two fish in the oven after cleaning them, letting them cook simply. No spices, no oil, no butter. Nothing. Just plain fish with the heads, the scales, the bones… everything that comes with natural healthy fish, other than the guts of course. I let them cook while I had a couple of beers – beers are real cheap in Amsterdam – and I smoked another joint on my friend’s balcony, not that I needed to smoke another joint, but what’s one to do when one is waiting for lunch to cook and it’s a beautiful day outside and you’re in Amsterdam? It takes less than ten minutes for them to cook if the oven is hot. That was so good. The best damn fish I’d eaten in a long time. It helps that I love fish, almost any kind of fish.

Second of all, I read “Trout fishing in America” by Richard Brautigan a few months ago after coming back from Portland, Maine, and that book made me want to go trout fishing too.

And there’s been a few other incidents involving trout. Mostly the eating of trout at diner with or without friends.

There was this one time. I was alone at home and I had gone to the Salon du Vin just a few days before and had bought two bottles of excellent sweet white wine including one bottle of Coteau de Layon, a small wine from the Angers region, south of the Loire river. I knew about this wine because I’d picked grapes in that region a few years ago, and I had kept wonderful memories of this wine so I bought a bottle. Expensive… but hell, every once in a while. I was keeping it for a special occasion. Then, that fateful day, I had gone to the market and bought some nice trout, and upon coming home, preparing the fish, cooking it, and cleaning the meat off the bones, I realized I didn’t have anything to drink with it. I uncorked the Coteau de Layon, even though it’s an aperitif or a desert wine, I went on a limb trusting my instincts, and poured myself a glass. Man oh man… that was one fine meal.

I should go trout fishing.