A few weeks back now, as I drove onto the on-ramp headed North and to the river, I came upon a cleanly-dressed, middle-aged man on the side of the road.  I don’t as a rule pick up hitchhikers, but without blinking an eye, or checking to see where my wallet was, or if the S&W was in the center console, I stopped.  Something familiar about him, can’t remember what, but a warm and secure feeling permeated the morning air.

A brief introduction told this man’s story; his name is Steve, and while traveling to Oklahoma from Alaska between contracts working the oil fields, he stopped along the freeway to help a person with a flat tire – and was jumped by a couple of crooks who stole his car, his personal belongings – took about everything he had but left him with scars.  Scars and a bump on his head, and a lingering headache made worse by the situation he was enduring.  You’d think that an ordeal like that, waking up in a hospital with a sore head and jaw, would be enough to make you keep a good size bottle of aspirin in your pocket.  But, as we drove down the road, he had bigger things on his mind, and with empty pockets.  He had left Alaska a week earlier to drive to Oklahoma, to bury his father.

He began telling stories of fly fishing and hunting in Alaska, with the kinds of details about flies, rivers, and fish that made him credible.  And with a few grins listening to stories that fly fisherman tell about places they visit, and experiences they have, I listened intently, the time passed, and the lyrics of a Grateful Dead song came to mind, and I started to hum “Wharf Rat.”

Old man down, way down down, down by the docks of the city.
Blind and dirty, asked me for a dime, a dime for a cup of coffee.
I got no dime but I got some time to hear his story.

Steve was taken to St. Anthony’s for treatment, and after getting well enough, or at least well enough that the hospital wouldn’t cover his stay anymore, started walking towards Oklahoma.  I-90 was his safest bet, he thought, traveling East first, rather than heading South, although that’s the path he wanted to take.  Fish a little through the West.  Of course, he could find great fishing as he headed East through Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.  He could make a little money working in the orchards along the way, at least more than he had in his pocket.  But his fly rod was stolen too, probably thrown into the woods by his attackers without a second thought.  My pockets were empty, and I sheepishly told him all I could give was a short ride down the road.  I was headed to the river, and coins or paper aren’t needed there; only a few wisps of thread, some line, and believing that the fish are there.  It’s hard to figure out what to give or share with someone who has little, but for a bag thrown in the back of the truck.  Maybe our goodwill further burdens those who appear to need it.

What I struggled to understand, as he told the story further, was how he was going to get further down the road without help from others.  He acknowledged that truck drivers wouldn’t risk it; insurance reasons he imagined.  He was going to have to rely on the goodwill of others along the road – the same road where his life changed as his life was changing ever more – the loss of his father was weighing on this man very heavily.

As I approached my exit from the freeway and down the off-ramp towards the river, then reluctantly let him out of the truck knowing that he was going to find quite a struggle ahead of him to get home, I realized that I cannot make this man’s journey for him, only listen and wonder.  I cannot replace what he lost.   He was not blind and dirty; his eyes were wide open and he still trusted people enough to put up a thumb on the side of the freeway.  A clean mind perhaps untarnished by the events that brought us to meet on a path of concrete.  I would have rather met him on a river, but as he waved goodbye, I gave him a card, and asked him to come fishing with me, if he would, on his way back to Alaska.  I selfishly wanted to hear the rest of the story.

The wooden staff that was used to beat this man was strong and thick enough to knock him down, but not so heavy and capable of destruction that it kept him down.  Steve spoke of fishing with his father, of the rods and gear back home that he was going to retrieve, and take back to Alaska with him to fish with, to continue living the life he left that was only on pause, but would never move forward the same.  To paraphrase a quote I read a while back, “…we never enter the same river twice.”  For as the water swirling around us not only has a path to take, but we as fly fishermen have paths that we take too.  We use staffs of graphite and carbon, lightweight and flexible in their form, and sensitive to the weight of deception – fooling the fish that are on journeys of their own.

When I told this story the day it happened, I spoke of being frightened, of trembling when I was alone in my truck, after departing ways.  I reflect now on why I stopped, what caused that split-second decision in my brain that quickly swept past reason and fear and the deep unknown, and how like a fish that is; that no matter what the water is doing, fish are deciding in those same split seconds what to eat, where to hide, how to survive.  Sometimes it’s the right decision, sometimes they are fooled.

I wonder if Steve’s story was all a lie, that I was fooled.  Maybe he was blind and dirty, used to hiding in the dark, scavenging to survive.  Maybe it was me, wandering around, just thinking about hanging out in the river, present in society but preferring to be hiding out on the water.  The Wharf Rat has other names, but curiously is the second most successful mammal living today behind humans- present on every continent but for Antarctica.

I’ll get a new start, live the life I should.
I’ll get up and fly away, I’ll get up and fly away, fly away.