Our Love Will Go the Way of the Salmon (20 page)

OREGON: Your hatred for this new place, this place worse than military school and the suburbs combined, is only usurped by the hate you feel for your father. The man loved you. He gave you everything. And then without warning, he took it all away.

BAKERSFIELD: Ten years later and the worst is over, but in secret, unbeknownst to everyone around you, you’re still climbing your way out of that deep, black hole you fell into when you were sixteen. You’re married now. You have a nice house and a good job and a baby. Funny thing is, you still love her.

OREGON: Ten years later and the worst isn’t over, but at least you’re back in Oregon. Your life is still in shambles, but you don’t love her anymore. She’s married to Dan Tannehill, the guy she said you’d approve of. She’s right, too. Dan was always a good guy. They have three kids together. You see them almost every week on account of it being a small town and them living just a few miles up the road from your father’s cabin, which you reclaimed from the bank with the money your mother gave you in the wake of her divorce. That was her way of saying sorry. You still smile when you remember how you laughed in her face. One of the few good memories among a lot of bad ones, the ones that keep you up at night, loading and unloading the chamber of the old suicide weapon, wondering if this is how your father felt. In the mornings, you fish alone. In the evenings, you drink whiskey and write letters to people you have known. You never mail a single letter. They make good kindling, though. Life is good in Oregon. It’s just too damn bad you ever had to leave.

And now we come to the place in the book where I pick up my fishing pole and we part ways, but if you ever get lonely, come find me by the river. I’ll be fishing for salmon or sturgeon or trout or walleye or catfish or bass or yellow perch or crappie or carp or peamouth or some new species only God has a name for. Or maybe I won’t be fishing at all. Maybe I’ll be staring into the deep, murky water, thinking about my love for you.

Salmon go away sometimes, but they always do come back. When we treat them right and with respect, they come back. Our love will come back too, you know. That’s how it has always been. Wherever the salmon go, we go too. They lead us to a love greater than ourselves. No matter how shallow the creek, no matter how high the dam, we must follow them. Now and forever, our love will go the way of the salmon. Now and forever, I love you.

Cameron Pierce is the author of eleven books, including the Wonderland Book Award-winning collection
Lost in Cat Brain Land
. His work has appeared in
The Barcelona Review
,
Gray’s Sporting Journal
,
Hobart
,
The Big Click
, and
Vol. I Brooklyn
, and has been reviewed and featured on Comedy Central and
The Guardian
. He was also the author of the column
Fishing and Beer
, where he interviewed acclaimed angler Bill Dance and John Lurie of
Fishing with John
.

Pierce is the head editor of Lazy Fascist Press and has edited three anthologies, including
The Best Bizarro Fiction of the Decade
.

He lives with his wife in Astoria, Oregon.

Special thanks to Kirsten Alene Pierce, J. David Osborne, and John Skipp. Without them, this book would not exist. For the support, good times, and insight, thanks to the bizarro family, the Portland writing community, and everyone who has ever shared a body of water or a good fishing story with me. Thank you to Matthew Revert for the beautiful cover, and to the editors who originally published some of these stories: Tobias Carroll, Molly Tanzer, Elizabeth Ellen, Pela Via and the Booked. Podcast crew, Jesse Bullington, Ryan Bradford, Jarrett Haley, and Michael J. Seidlinger. Thanks to Kate Bernheimer, Henry Hughes, Weston Ochse, Amelia Gray, Juliet Escoria, Ben Brooks, and Troy James Weaver for their generous words and feedback on this book. Additional thanks to Jeremy Robert Johnson, Carlton Mellick III, Rose O’Keefe, Jeff Burk, Mykle Hansen, Brian Allen Carr, Alan M. Clark, Michael Kazepis, Stephen Graham Jones, Patrick Wensink, Scott McClanahan, Sam Pink, Noah Cicero, Ross E. Lockhart, Cody Goodfellow, Brian Keene, Kris Saknussemm, Gabino Iglesias, David Bowles, the Pierces, the Gwins, Tristan and Hoeru, and the sturgeon under Burnside Bridge.

“Our Love Will Go the Way of the Salmon” and an excerpt from “The Incoming Tide” first published in
Vol. I Brooklyn

“Drop the World” first published in

The Big Click

“Short of Lundy” first published in
Hobart

“Help Me” first published in
Letters to Lovecraft

“The Bass Fisherman’s Wife” first published in
Black Candies

“Three Fishermen” first published in
BULL Fiction

“Easiest Kites There Are to Fly” first published in
Everyday Genius

“California Oregon” first published in
The Booked. Anthology

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