Sanctum

A FB post about trout in NJ sparked me to remember this piece. It was written way back in the 1980's and is in my book Cat Came Back and Other Stories. It was also in the South African sport journal The Fishing and Hunting Journal (June 2007).

SANCTUM

It had been a lousy day, but then, many days are. I got home from work, didn’t bother to shower, just packed what groceries I’d bought into the fridge, grabbed my rod and my few flies, and was off down the river road early on that summer evening. The spot I was headed for was maybe ten miles south of the little Delaware River town I was living in. It was a nice drive, no towns and few houses from Frenchtown to Stockton - just the green hills and the Delaware pumping along next to you. The low sun cast an orange stripe across the rippled water and the warm evening wind filled your nostrils with the smell of the grasses, the trees, and the pungent odor of river mud.

                I knew of a place.

                A little creek, barely more than a brook, cascading down the slopes into the Delaware through a lovely little canyon, a secret spot.

                You couldn’t see much sign of a creek from the road. It disappeared in dense brush back from the road, then went under the road, and couldn’t be seen below the road as it made its final dive into the big river. A little trail, not much used, led up through little willows and berry bushes into a sudden silence, shade, and sanctum.

                It always felt like a discovery.

                The steep V-shaped walls blocked the sun out most of the day. Overhead I could see a patch of crimson gold sky. I was missing a beautiful sunset. Small maples grew by the banks, hanging out over the water.

                There was silence. That shrouded, muffled silence that you find in tiny little life systems like this one. There were a few birds, not many, an occasional ruffle of leaves, a squirrel, and the water. The constant tumbling and dripping and popping and clunking and slurping of that little creek running down to the Delaware from the Lokatong, not more than a mile upstream.

                You had to walk only a hundred yards before you came to the first and biggest pool; a deep oval cup of clear water, eight feet deep, with huge tumbled boulders holding the water.

                There was always a trout in there, sometimes two, but always at least one. I had taken a few out of there to bring home for dinner and was always excited to see another one had taken its place.

                It was tough fishing in there. It would probably be tough for someone who was good. I’m not that good and in those days I was less so. You had to be stealthy, cunning, and very quiet. You absolutely could not let that trout catch a glimpse of you or it was all over. You could try again on the way down. Casting was impossible with all the undergrowth, the canyon walls themselves right at your back. You didn’t backcast, but just kind of flung the fly out there, or went upstream and let it go down with the current to tumble into the big pool like so many real insects did. I usually caught that fish, and then sometimes I spooked his stubborn self and didn’t see it again, even an hour and a half later on the way down. Sometimes I killed the fish to enjoy with salsa soaked hash browns and beer, other times let it go, no doubt to get fat and ornery out there in the Delaware, if it could survive that river.

                There was really only one other good pool in the entire creek but I always found fish in tiny little scoops and pockets, stops on their route down this ladder. I’d perch on a rock above a small pool and just watch the trout darting for its food, or lurking in the shadow of a rock, sometimes just patrolling its tiny realm. I’d catch these by dapping, just patting the fly (invariably an Adams) on top of the water, letting it eddy over to the trout’s rock. I could see every movement of the fish including that twitch of the tail that told me it would strike, almost like a cat.

                Up at the top of the hill was another pool, not so deep as the lower one, but much wider across. There was a six or seven foot falls below it and when you got up on the lip you could look back down the creek and canyon and see the water jumping down through the cool, mossy stillness. I stood there awhile, catching my breath and enjoying the presence of this place.

                I saw three trout in the pool, two holding under an overhanging rock across and to my left, one under a fallen snag, across and to my right.

                I amazed myself by casting once, twice, three times without snagging on anything. The third cast caught one of the trout under the overhanging rock. It darted out from under the rock as the fly drifted past, and fought all over the pool to free itself. After five minutes I slid it out onto the burnished granite, unhooked the fly from its jaw, and decided that trout for dinner sounded good. I killed the fish and placed him off to the side. There was no sense in casting again so soon after all the ruckus so I contented myself by sitting still, listening to the few sounds, feeling the cooler but still warm evening’s air, feeling better and better every minute, tuning in to the lifeline.

                Against my expectations I caught the trout holding under the snag on my first cast. It didn’t put up quite such a fight, and soon my meal was complete – minus the hash browns and beer.

                It was getting dark as I made my way down, rock to rock, leapfrogging along the creek, exhilarated as I pushed through the brush back to my car.

                A secret unknown place where I always caught fish, and I always caught peace. It felt like a wild place, though I knew there was a farm not one hundred yards from my second pool, the highway below, and I knew the trout were not native but planters who’d made their way down from the Lokatong.

                I wheeled the car around and headed back home.

                It had been a lousy day, but the future looked bright.

On ‘The Greatest Country on Earth’ and American Exceptionalism

On ‘The Greatest Country on Earth’ and American Exceptionalism

It’s the election season (the only season you’ll ever experience on earth that lasts 2-4 years) and we will be hearing the phrase ‘the greatest country on earth’ spewing rather loudly and repetitively from the mouths of Republican and Democrat alike, and probably from the mouths of some candidates from minor and marginal parties as well. It’s supposed to be a kind of unifying, rallying call and those who call it the loudest and longest are deemed to be the ones who love the country the most.

            And that must be a good thing, right?

            Except that it’s bullshit.

            Making that statement precludes this piece from publication in any of the watered-down pussy-whipped rags called newspapers and magazines in this country. It will likely affect my job opportunities, even, if it were. It is simply unacceptable for a wide swathe of the citizenry of the US to utter critical, or even realistic, statements about the place of this country in the world if they seek many of the available jobs; including political office, of course. These dopes that run for office must tire of being endlessly coached on how to praise the country and feign patriotism.

            If they don’t tire of mouthing those platitudes, we certainly do tire of listening to them; those of us out here in the real world.

            But is loving one’s country the same as believing that it is the greatest country on the planet? Is it ever enough to simply think that one’s country is a great place to live and leave it at that - period, full stop?

            If not, why not?

            A rallying cry of a segment of the political spectrum seeks to revive the concept of ‘American Exceptionalism’. What does this mean? It has been said that it means that there is something in the American experience that is ‘exceptional’, unique, special, exalted, elevated to a level that rises above the status of other countries.

            How fucking arrogant and obnoxious can you get? Entire histories filled with pain and achievement, rich and innovative art and music, complex social relations and colourful cultures, vibrant and ancient histories, get cast upon the slagheap so that the puny peons of industry can get exalted to the skies.

            What crap!

            It is no wonder that many people around the globe are not enamoured of the US. How could it be otherwise if the only relationship possible is one of subjection, of subservience?

            Do we, as Americans, really need these concepts and images (myths?) in order to feel good about ourselves?

            I don’t think so.

            It is an odd perspective on life and one that relies explicitly on the belief that others are inferior. It’s a grand delusion that reflects a kind of underlying inferiority complex, where self-esteem can only be found by denigrating others, by putting others down.

            It is a very bad thing I think, a thing which we need to put into the dustbin of history, to grow up out of. Patriotism itself is a debatable virtue, but patriotism that depends on placing oneself on a fictitious pedestal towering above others borders on being evil. It perpetuates divisiveness as a virtue; indeed, even a virtue of the highest order.

            American exceptionalism was perhaps born in the hyperbole of Manifest Destiny – the former colonists, now united in an independent nation, were fated to drive to the ends of the continent, colonizing all that lay before them, capturing all the resources and all the land in order to make the nation that would rise above all other nations.

            The devastation of proud, virtuous, and noble nations that fell in the wake of that massive bout of bullying should be lesson enough on how to navigate the way forward.

             But it hasn’t been, and the revival of a mind-set that seeks to place stupidity above intelligence smacks of the cold fact of continual battle.

            Eyes on the prize people, eyes on the prize.

I Knew Her When

I Knew Her When

I knew her way back when

and I knew then

that she was slightly crazed

deluded,

but brilliant and interesting.

There are people who get tangled up

in a messiah complex.

They become convinced that they have more to offer

than other people.

Try to tell them otherwise

and they lash out,

or grinch up.

I knew her way back when,

and I just found out

that nothing’s changed.

Interview with Jack Dugan

Well let’s get started by asking, when did you first begin writing?

I began writing when I first saw a line of words upon a page that I had written.

I mean, when did you actually start writing?

I was writing then.

Most people think that writing means putting words into a structure.

Most people are wrong.

Who are you to say such things?

I’m nobody.

OK, we’re here to talk to you about your novel, Lint in My Navel, just published by Broken Petals Press.

Good for you. Wait, which we are you talking about? Is there someone else here?

Lint doesn’t really seem to be about much of anything. There’s no resolution, the conflict is not even clear, though it is filled with undirected conflict.

Which way do you direct your conflict? Do you think you’re in charge, or something?

All I’m saying is that it’s generally acknowledged that a good story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and develop characters. We need to know what the characters are thinking, feeling. The characters in Lint are not fully developed. They just do things and say things and then they move on.

The characters in life are not fully developed. A fully developed character is another euphemism for unbridled egotism. The writer regaling in himself, without ever admitting it. It’s a horrible arrogance of a knowledge that doesn’t exist. The people and stories in life are unresolved. That’s the point. Fiction is fiction, but fiction without truth is useless. No amount of ‘research’ can produce a true story.

Did you do no research for Lint?

I certainly did, but I didn’t know it at the time.

You feature dialogue quite strongly in your writing. The narrative is sparse.

People will talk, you know. I get tired of reading things where every piece of dialogue must be accompanied by a description of what the speaker is doing, or thinking, or feeling. Or long descriptive passages as we enter the mind of the character. Nobody enters anybody’s mind, ever, anywhere, on this planet. It’s pretension. But I guess that’s what they call ‘character development’. Or long monologues where the writer sticks his, or her, bloody little viewpoint into it, and craps all over us. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t heard anyone talk that way since I was in high school. It sucks, and it isn’t profound, it’s just self-indulgent. Most novels could be cut in half.

But isn’t that what this is, the narrative? On page 44 you write:

‘There may have been a point, a defining moment, when Duncan first crossed over from the believing side to the non-believing side. It seemed to him that there was such a time, but he couldn’t find it in his memory. He finally came to conclude that the reason for this was that it had happened at a very early age. He couldn’t remember his first pair of shoes, he couldn’t remember his first steps across a living room carpet, he couldn’t remember his first taste of blueberry pie, he couldn’t remember his first run across a leaf strewn lawn on an autumn afternoon, and he couldn’t remember the first time he saw that he was being fed a pack of lies, that the story was a shuck, that the greatest fiction was the fairytale people had concocted in order to live with themselves, the self-congratulatory and self-perpetuating advert for themselves that allowed them to avoid all confrontation with their actual place in nature.’

What did you mean by this?

Damned if I know. I was drunk. A little stoned too. I think it had something to do with hypocrisy. The hypocrisy is probably in using the third person.

Elsewhere you seem to use the literary device of….

Literary device? What is a literary device anyway? Is it like a strap-on? Something you use when you can’t get it up?

You don’t seem to set much store on formal study of literature.

A Master’s degree in creative writing is probably good for wiping your ass. Really, if you feel the need to take a creative writing course then you’re not a writer. Go wash the dishes or watch Oprah on tv.

Trouble is, is that people get too picayune. They need to forget what they were told by their masters and learn how to write again. They’ve lost all feeling. Someone once criticized me for repeating a word in the same sentence (in an off-the-cuff and vernacular blog entry by the way): ‘That all depends on what the meaning of is, is.’ I’ll get back to her now now.

Do you see any value in formal study?

Well, there is the time and opportunity to read, which one must do at some point.

What do you think the novel is about?

Which novel? The novel? Think of your life. Is it of less value than other lives? Novels have always been about supposedly ‘interesting’ or ‘important’ people, events, epochs, wars, upheavals, etc. Fuck that shit. There are stories everywhere and it’s wrong to lose them, if we tell them honestly, they turn out to be good stories. Honesty is important. It’s the real window into the world. I could care less about a writer blathering on about characters he couldn’t possibly know anything about. Of course anger is important too.

What’s the difference between poetry and prose?

Are you for real? There is no difference. It’s only so-called ‘poets’ that will make this distinction. It’s all writing. Poetry is prose and prose is poetry. Poems are nothing but snippets of prose that punch far above their weight. Anything else is pure phoniness. Any writing should serve its purpose. The fake formalism of most ‘poetry’ is enough to make any strong person puke.

Will you give any readings from Lint?

Lots of people say poetry was meant to be read. What a load of shit. If that was true then most poetry would never see the light of day. That’s what people who are afraid to stay home alone at night say. Poetry was meant to be read as if it was being spoken. No, I’ll only read for big bucks, or at least a piece of ass.

You seem to be getting a little tipsy.

Indeed. One more beer, then we’ll be OK.

Well, let’s wrap it up by asking, what’s next?

Besides a tune or two on the guitar I think we’ll call it quits for now. I have a story about childhood, but that will have to wait. Turning a life into art takes some time. Cheers to all the writers; remember, tomorrow we die.