Trout Fishing in America (23 page)

“i
DEATH
—ha, don't make me laugh. This place is nothing but a claptrap. You wouldn't know i
DEATH
if it walked up and bit you.

“I know more about i
DEATH
than all of you guys, especially Charley here who thinks he's something extra. I know more about i
DEATH
in my little finger than all you guys know put together.

“You haven't the slightest idea what's going on here. I know. I know. I know. To hell with your i
DEATH
. I've forgotten more i
DEATH
than you guys will ever know. I'm going down to the Forgotten Works to live. You guys can have this damn rat hole.”

in
BOIL
got up and threw his fried chicken on the floor and stomped out of the place, travelling very unevenly. There was stunned silence at the table and no one could say anything for a long time.

Then Fred said, “Don't feel bad about it, Charley. He'll be sober tomorrow and everything will be different. He's just drunk again and as soon as he sobers up, he'll be better.”

“No, I think he's gone for good,” Charley said. “I hope it all works out for the best.”

Charley looked very sad and we were all sad, too, because in
BOIL
was Charley's brother. We all sat there looking at our food.

T
HE YEARS PASSED
with in
BOIL
living down by the Forgotten Works and gathering slowly a gang of men who were just like him, believed in the things he did, and acted his way and went digging in the Forgotten Works and drank whiskey brewed from the things they found.

Sometimes they would sober up one of the gang and send him into town to sell forgotten things that were particularly beautiful or curious or books which we used for fuel then because there were millions of them lying around in the Forgotten Works.

They would get bread and food and whatnot for the forgotten things and so lived without having to do anything besides dig and drink.

Margaret grew up to be a very pretty young woman and we went steady together. Margaret came over to my shack one day.

I could tell it was her even before she was there because I heard her step on that board she always steps on, and it pleased me and made my stomach tingle like a bell set ajar.

She knocked on the door.

“Come in, Margaret,” I said.

She came in and kissed me. “What are you doing today?” she said.

“I have to go down to i
DEATH
and work on my statue.”

“Are you still working on that bell?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “It's coming along rather slowly. It's taking too long. I'll be glad when it's done. I'm tired of the thing.”

“What are you going to do afterwards?” she said.

“I don't know. Is there anything you want to do, honey?”

“Yes,” she said. “I want to go down to the Forgotten Works and poke around.”

“Again?” I said. “You certainly like to spend a lot of time down there.”

“It's a curious place,” she said.

“You're about the only woman who likes that place. in
BOIL
and that gang of his put the other women off.”

“I like it down there. in
BOIL
is harmless. All he wants to do is stay drunk.”

“All right,” I said. “It's nothing, honey. Meet me down at i
DEATH
later on. I'll be with you as soon as I put in a few more hours on that bell.”

“Are you going down now?” she said.

“No, I have a few things I want to do here first.”

“Can I help?” she said.

“No, they're just a few things I have to do alone.”

“OK, then. I'll see you.”

“Give me a kiss first,” I said.

She came over and I held her in my arms very close and kissed Margaret upon the mouth, and then she went off laughing.

A
FTER WHILE
I went down to i
DEATH
and worked on that bell. It was not coming at all and finally I was just sitting there on a chair, staring at it.

My chisel was hanging limply in my hand, and then I put it down on the table and absentmindedly covered it up with a rag.

Fred came in and saw me sitting there staring at the bell. He left without saying anything. It hardly even looked like a bell.

Finally Margaret came and rescued me. She was wearing a blue dress and had a ribbon in her hair and carried a basket to put things in that she found at the Forgotten Works.

“How's it coming?” she said.

“It's finished,” I said.

“It doesn't look finished,” she said.

“It's finished,” I said.

W
E SAW
Charley as we were leaving i
DEATH
. He was sitting on his favorite couch by the river, feeding little pieces of bread to some trout that had gathered there.

“Where you kids going?” he said.

“Oh, just out for a walk,” Margaret said, before I could say anything.

“Well, have a good walk,” he said. “Lovely day, isn't it? Great big beautiful blue sun shining away.”

“It sure is,” I said.

Pauline came into the room and walked over and joined us. “Hello, there,” she said.

“Hi.”

“What do you want for dinner, Charley?” she said.

“Roast beef,” Charley said, joking.

“Well, that's what you'll have then.”

“What a nice surprise,” Charley said. “Is it my birthday?”

“No. How are you people?”

“We're fine,” I said.

“We're going for a walk,” Margaret said.

“That sounds like fun. See you later.”

N
OBODY KNOWS
how old the Forgotten Works are, reaching as they do into distances that we cannot travel nor want to.

Nobody has been very far into the Forgotten Works, except that guy Charley said who wrote a book about them, and I wonder what his trouble was, to spend weeks in there.

The Forgotten Works just go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. You get the picture. It's a big place, much bigger than we are.

Margaret and I went down there, holding hands for we were going steady, through the sun of a blue day and white luminous clouds drifting overhead.

We crossed over many rivers and walked by many things, and then we could see the sun reflecting off the roofs at in
BOIL
's bunch of leaky shacks which were at the entrance to the Forgotten Works.

There is a gate right there. Beside the gate is the statue of a forgotten thing. There is a sign above the gate that says:

 

THIS IS THE ENTRANCE TO THE FORGOTTEN WORKS
BE CAREFUL
YOU MIGHT GET LOST

 

In
BOIL
came out to greet us. His clothes were all wrinkled and dirty and so was he. He looked like a mess and he was drunk.

“Hello,” he said. “Down here again, huh?” he said, more to Margaret than to me, though he looked at me when he said it. That's the kind of person in
BOIL
is.

“Just visiting,” I said.

He laughed at that. A couple of other guys came out of shacks and stared at us. They all looked like in
BOIL
. They had made the same mess out of themselves by being evil and drinking that whiskey made from forgotten things.

One of them, a yellow-haired one, sat down on a pile of disgusting objects and just stared at us like he was an animal.

“Good afternoon, in
BOIL
,” Margaret said.

“Same to you, pretty.”

Some of in
BOIL
's trash laughed at that and I looked at them hard and they shut up. One of them wiped his hand across his mouth and went inside his shack.

“Just being social,” in
BOIL
said. “Don't take no offense.”

“We're just down here to look at the Forgotten Works,” I said.

“Well, she's all yours,” in
BOIL
said, pointing at the Forgotten Works that gradually towered above us until the big piles of forgotten things were mountains that went on for at least a million miles.

YOU MIGHT GET LOST

and we walked through the gate into the Forgotten Works. Margaret started poking around for things that she might like.

There were no plants growing and no animals living in the Forgotten Works. There was not even so much as a blade of grass in there, and the birds refused to fly over the place.

I sat down on something that looked like a wheel and watched Margaret take a forgotten sticklike thing and poke around a small pile of stuffed things.

I saw something lying at my feet. It was a piece of ice frozen into the shape of a thumb, but the thumb had a hump on it.

It was a hunchback thumb and very cold but started to melt in my hand.

The fingernail melted away and then I dropped the thing and it lay at my feet, not melting any more, though the air was not cold and the sun was hot and blue in the sky.

“Have you found anything you like?” I said.

In
BOIL
came in and joined us. It did not overly please me to see him. He had a bottle of whiskey with him. His nose was red.

“Find anything you like?” in
BOIL
said.

“Not yet,” Margaret said.

I gave in
BOIL
a dirty look but it rolled off him like water off a duck's back.

“I found some real good interesting things today,” in
BOIL
said. “Just before I went to have lunch.”

Lunch!

“They're about a quarter-of-a-mile in. I can show you the place,” in
BOIL
said.

Before I could say no, Margaret said yes, and I was not happy about it, but she had already committed herself and I did not want to make a scene with her in front of in
BOIL
, so he would have something to tell his gang and they would all laugh.

That wouldn't make me feel good at all.

So we followed that drunken bum in what he said was only a quarter-of-a-mile, but it seemed like a mile to me, weaving in and out, climbing higher and higher into the Piles.

“Nice day, isn't it?” in
BOIL
said, stopping to catch his breath by a large pile of what looked like cans, maybe.

“Yes, it is,” Margaret said, smiling at in
BOIL
and pointing out a cloud that she particularly liked.

That really disgusted me: a decent woman smiling at in
BOIL
. I could not help but wonder, what next?

Finally we arrived at that pile of stuff in
BOIL
, thought was so great and had taken us so far into the Forgotten Works to see.

“Why, they're beautiful,” Margaret said, smiling and went over and began putting them into her basket, the basket she had brought for such things.

I looked at them but they didn't show me anything. They were kind of ugly, if you want the truth, in
BOIL
leaned up against a forgotten thing that was just his size.

M
ARGARET AND
I had a very long and quiet walk back to i
DEATH
. I did not volunteer to carry her basket for her.

It was heavy and she was hot and sweaty and we had to stop many times for her to rest.

We were sitting on a bridge. The bridge was made from stones gathered at a distance and placed in their proper order.

“What's wrong?” she said. “What have I done?”

“Nothing's wrong. You've done nothing.”

“Then why are you mad at me?”

“I'm not mad at you.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I'm not.”

T
HE NEXT MONTH
it happened and no one knew what was coming. How could we imagine such a thing was going on in in
BOIL
's mind?

It had taken years to get over the tigers and the terrible things they had done to us. Why would anyone want to do something else? I don't know.

During the weeks before it happened everything went on as normal at i
DEATH
. I started working on another statue and Margaret kept going down to the Forgotten Works.

The statue did not go well and pretty soon I was only going down to i
DEATH
and staring at the statue. It just wasn't coming along which was nothing new for me. I had never had much luck at statues. I was thinking about getting a job down at the Watermelon Works.

Sometimes Margaret went down to the Forgotten Works by herself. It worried me. She was so pretty and in
BOIL
and that gang of his were so ugly. They might get ideas.

Why did she want to go down there all the time?

T
OWARD THE END
of the month strange rumors began coming up from the Forgotten Works, rumors of violent denouncements of i
DEATH
by in
BOIL
.

There were rumors about him ranting and raving that i
DEATH
was all wrong the way we did it, and he knew how it should be done and then he said we handled the trout hatchery all wrong. It was a disgrace.

Imagine in
BOIL
saying anything about us, and there was a rumor about us being sissies and then something about the tigers that no one could understand.

Something about the tigers being a good deal.

I went down to the Forgotten Works with Margaret one afternoon. I didn't want to go down there, but I didn't want her to go down there alone either.

She wanted to get more things for her forgotten collection. She already had more things than were necessary.

She had filled her shack up and her room at i
DEATH
with these things. She even wanted to store some of them in my shack. I said NO.