The Trout by Mike Bozart - HTML preview

After a 22-second, unknown-source-of-a-clicking-sound wait, I cautiously turned left onto East Union Street and slowly inched up the one-way, for-a-decade-or-so-decidely-desolate-with-seemingly-bleak-prospects-but-now-making-a-robust-comeback-with-trees-inset-into-curbside-bulb-outs, two-lane avenue in downtown Morganton (NC). I soon saw a vacant parking spot on the right. The small, silver, 16-year-old Honda Accord sedan was quickly parallel-parked. I waxed mock-self-congratulatory: Still have the knack from those rental-car-parking-on-lower-Nob-Hill [San Francisco] days. Well, sometimes. Maybe just got lucky. Always easy when there’s no pressure. [No vehicle was behind me when I shifted into R.]

Once out on the sidewalk, the 59º Fahrenheit (15º Celsius), breezy, autumn (October 27, 2018), Saturday-afternoon-in-the-foothills air felt quite refreshing. The sky was littered with dark clouds. In a mere two minutes and forgotten change, I was entering Brown Mountain Bottleworks at 2:37.

There were only a pair of mid-to-late-20-something Caucasian dudes at the far end of the bar. I took a seat at the near end, as I figured that my 54-year-old, non-gamer self might stifle their animated conversation about Fortnite Battle Royale.

The brown-haired, black-ball-capped, early-30-ish bartender made his way over a minute later. “What are we having today, sir?” he politely asked.

“Have any dark-as-tonight porters?” I enquired. Tonight? Another weird porter drinker.

“Not on tap right now. But, we have a nice bottled porter from Asheville [NC] – Green Man.” The Laughing Seed.

“Ok, sure; I’ll go with that.”

He plucked the beer from the display chiller and popped the cap off. “Want a glass?”

“No, that’s ok,” I replied.

“Smart choice. It stays cooler longer in a bottle,” he informed. He might be right. Yeah, that would make sense. More of the beer’s surface area is exposed to the 72-degree-Fahrenheit [22.22º Celsius] air in a glass.

Then a husky, bright-blonde-haired, mid-40-ish guy emerged from the back (perhaps from the restroom). He took a seat next to me (on my left), grabbed the wide-base, earth-brown-colored mug, raised it, and took a big swallow. Oh, so he was sitting there. Assumed that that seat was unoccupied. Whenever one assumes … That-to-that walks.

After looking straight ahead and stoically drinking our grog for a few minutes, I took a chance on conversation.

“Pretty decent beer bodega, huh?” Bodega?

“It is. I splash in here once a week. Where are you from?” Splash?

“Charlotte – the east side, or eastslide, as some say,” I answered. “It took me one hundred and one minutes to get here.” 101 minutes? Another red-haired eccentric.

“I’ve been to Charlotte many times. I used to go see a smoking-hot blues guitarist named Tom Montefusco play at The Double Door Inn in the late ‘90s.” What a small world.

“Yeah, he’s a good one, no doubt. And, he sure can infuse some sly psychedelia between those standard bars. Oh, by the way, The Double Door is no more – it’s gone; it was razed. The community college [CPCC] bought the property. I was looking at the site just the other day from a 5^th-floor window. It’s just graded red clay now. It’s been scraped clean. Soon there will be a multistory classroom building on that corner.” [Charlottetowne Avenue at East 5^th Street]

“Darn,” he sighed. “Very sad to hear that.”

“Well, that’s Charlotte’s standard operating procedure: Get rid of the old before it grows mold.”

“Is that also the official city motto?” He chuckled.

I added to his laughter. “Sure seems that way. Anyway, whereabouts do you reside?” Reside? Wonder if this guy writes.

“The wife and I live in the Catawba River Valley about five miles [8 km] from here. We have a little bit of land with a few cows. I’m originally from Michigan. I met my wife in Ohio.” That makes sense. His accent doesn’t sound very County-of-Burke-ish.

“Wow! I just recently wrote a short story [Taken Away] in which Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is the setting. Let me guess – you’re from Detroit. Am I right?” I just knew that he was a wordsmith of some sort. They all assume everyone from Michigan is from Detroit down here.

“No, the other side – the southwestern corner of the state. St. Joseph, a little town on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Both of my parents worked in South Bend, [IN] just forty-five minutes away – only thirty-six miles [58 km] south.”

“I see,” I acknowledged while trying to pull up an Upper Midwest map on my mental screen. But to no-Wisconsin-properly-placed avail.

“So, you’re a writer. I’m a teacher. My name is Jim – Jim Gallagher.” His forearms sure look Irish – almost more freckles than mine.

“I’m Mike. Some of my best friends are Gallaghers. They moved to Charlotte from Upstate New York in the late ‘70s.”

“Ah, the Adirondacks are very nice.”

“They surely are,” I concurred.

An elderly party of three – two tanned ladies and a mixed-race gentleman – then wandered in, strolled around, and decided to sit at a front-window table. They were laughing and quite talkative. Maybe they got sauced at [nearby] Catawba. [Brewing’s taproom]

“So, what kind of tales do you write?” Jim then queried. “Like, what’s your genre, man?”

“That’s a damned good question. Many times when I’m submitting my short stories to those free-ebook websites, I struggle to classify them. They’re mostly little vignettes. I just hope that they entice the reader to wonder.” About what?

“Now, don’t be coy, Mike. Are your short stories laced with gratuitous sex and violence?” He simpered.

“Not so much. Though, I wrote a novel [Gold, a summer story] five years ago that was replete with vivid, interracial sex scenes.”

“You wrote a fuck book?!” He was excited.

“Yep. An erotic, noir-esque odyssey of a treasure hunt. And when finished, guess what I realized?”

“You were going to be famous in nine months.” Nine?

I guffawed so hard that I spit out some beer. “That’s freaking hilarious, Jim! No, that delusional fantasy evaporated within three weeks.” I burped. “What I realized is that I’m not a novelist. I’m one and done in the realm of the ultra-long read.”

“Well, you never know, Mike. So, is Morganton your final destination today?”

“No, I’ve got thirty miles [48.3 km] to go up curvy-as-an-advancing-snake NC 181, which will take forty-five minutes. I’ve been charged with winterizing the family camper in Pineola. [NC] The campground closes on Halloween. I really wish that they didn’t shut down for the season so early.”

“Well, up at that elevation, [3,553 feet (1,083 meters) above sea level] they’re probably worried about freezing pipes,” Jim asserted.

“Yeah, that’s the reason. Also, when the temperature drops below fifty degrees, [Fahrenheit; 10º Celsius] those geriatric Floridians have had enough. Their joints start aching, which is the signal to leave. Then it’s a wholesale stampede out. Don’t get in their way.” I chuckled.

Jim smiled and laughed for several seconds. Then he looked towards the front of the old-brick-and-brittle-mortar, beer-for-here-or-to-go establishment. The older party of three had just exited.

“I don’t think that they liked your crack on senior Floridians,” Jim stated with a thin-and-long-as-Lake-Rhodhiss [NC] grin.

“See, that’s why I don’t get invited to parties anymore, Jim.”

He chortled. “So, what’s the next short story, Mike?” After this one?

I coughed.

“Already got one clogging the pipeline?”

“I actually do, Jim. It’s going to be about a Filipina that I saw in a Cebu City [Philippines] mall back in 2008. This particular, raven-haired, young lady had the most widely spaced eyes that I had ever seen. The working – and probably final – title is Peripheral.”

“Were you gawking at her, Mike? Fess up.”

“No, nothing like that, Jim. Was just fascinated with her look. I wanted to talk with her, but I was with a date – a vamp of a date. So, what lured you guys down here?”

“The trout,” Jim proclaimed as he commenced his egress.