Silver Fish - October 2004
The man walked along the highway, holding his thumb out for two hours before a faded blue pickup truck pulled onto the shoulder. The door swung open. Smells from the inside of the cabin reached his nose before he slid onto the bench-cushion - warm coffee, tobacco from a new pack of cigarettes, and wet floor mats. It was the smell of the Midwest in autumn.
As they rolled along the freeway, he looked out over the countryside. Far beyond the frost-covered stubble of the meadows, barely visible in the dark morning hours, distant lights winked on the horizon - keen signals from the farthest surveys of blue collar America: factories, warehouses, and lonely automobiles. He settled into his seat and closed his eyes. Four hours to Lincoln.
Two weeks ago, he had a name. More importantly, he had a title. He was a researcher for a drug lab in Southern California. His company failed to secure another round of funding, and they had to shut down. He shouldn't have any trouble finding another job. He decided not to.
The unexpected freedom intoxicated him. Rather than begin looking for a new job, he decided to travel. When his friends and family asked, he told them no, didn’t know when he would return.
"What's your name?" the driver asked.
He looked out the window for a few seconds before answering. They passed a cattle farm.
"Moo", he replied.
The driver rolled his eyes. They rode along in silence after that.
After Lincoln, Moo he decided he liked the name - rode in a Saturn on the brief shuttle to Interstate 29, the highway that would lead him deep into the north. Appropriately, it began to snow when he reached Fargo. He pushed further north until he crossed the Canadian border.
One week had passed since he left San Diego.
It was here that he decided to slow down. The land felt wider. Compared to the desolate, wondrous plains he had just crossed, there were not fewer people, but he felt more alone here. Where he had pushed across 2200 miles of the American West in a week, he now wanted to spend weeks, even months, exploring this northern country.
On the recommendation of a local in Winnipeg, Moo decided to spend some time at Lake of the Woods. He stayed in a small town on the Canadian side of the lake. When winter finally rushed in, it swept the town clean of tourists, weekend bicyclists and all of the other types that were transforming the raw landscape into another annex of the Starbucks and Panera hell. He rented a small cabin on the lake from Walter, an old man who liked fishing. Walter ran a small furniture company. Moo worked for him in the winter, saving his money.
He and Walter became close friends. They spent most of their evenings on the lake, cutting holes in the ice and dropping their lines into the black water. Because they didn’t fish from within a cabin, they could only spend a few hours on the ice before their extremities went numb. The local tavern provided the perfect setting for them to talk and defrost.
Moo learned that Walter had a drinking problem.
The locals in the tavern knew Walter for this. They were grateful when Moo was with Walter in the tavern and he drank too much. Moo could lead him outside into the cool winter air and calm him down. He wasn’t a mean drunk. Just noisy. And sad. Most people couldn’t handle it when he started laughing, and then crying, in the middle of the bar. Nobody knew what haunted him. Whatever it was, it seemed to demand that he conjure it here, in the dark, far north, with whiskey from the bottle and fire from the hearth.
The last day he saw Walter was when they decided to go fishing on one of the newly thawed rivers. The March wind blew strong and warm from the south, carrying with it the sounds of popping ice and gurgling streams. Moo watched as Walter readied his fly rod in the icy currents of the small creek that fed into the lake. As he cast, the thin line caught in a ray of sun, streaming silver overhead and into the rapid waters. On his first cast, a hungry walleye grasped the bait and Walter quickly reeled it in. Walter looked back at Moo and laughed with a crazy, excited look in his eyes. Clearly this morning’s dose of whiskey had kicked in. Moo decided at this point that he had stayed with Walter long enough. He loved the old man, and he didn’t want be around when old age and too much alcohol began to ruin him. Moo preferred to freeze the memory of people and places as they were when he knew them.
When Moo dropped Walter off at his house, he knew that Moo was leaving. He didn’t say so, but Walter’s eyes were watery, like silver pools in the cold, morning air. His voice was shaky as he said goodbye. One more person was stepping out of his life. Moo picked up gear at his cabin and hitched a ride out of town.
The months turned into years and Moo never stopped wandering. He finally purchased an old truck so he could stop walking. Sometimes he would stay and work for a while in the towns that he traveled through, helping out at small colleges and museums, but most of the time he said "No thank you" to the many job offers he received and moved further away. His was the life of the nomad, the man and his experience, nothing more. If he saw someone hitching for a ride, he always stopped to pick them up.
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