Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
He read a book high on the bluff in a canvas chair as I cast a Mepps spinner across the
stream—across the years for the old magic. Sunlight on little wave faces shimmered in a steady
breeze. Reeling, tugging, waiting could simulate an injured fish, but the stream felt empty; the
world had changed. Trout don't like cloudy water. The flow was lifeless in the crisp Montana
air. Wind waves lapped the shore as gusts wafted in sudden exhalation, and in a minute I
buckled with terrible sadness.
Welling out of nowhere, sobs heaved under a burden of grief. Setting the rod aside I knelt
and wept. The partner soon stood there. “Hey. What's wrong?” I couldn't say—it wasn't the
day or the moment or the shape life had taken or its potential. But the love all around us caved
in.
He laughed. “What the fuck, man?”
With wits finally restored and eyes wiped I stood, shrugging it off and casting again. But
fishing was over and just as well; it was time to head up the road and make camp where black
bear roamed but no griz. The store clerk had recommended a special place.
Sundown was quick with hundred fifty foot conifers casting the clearing into shadow. We
ate and drank well, with fillets and a few bottles of fah fah de blah blah cabernet in the two
hundred dollar range. Why not? Did we not
deserve
the very best? Who would better celeb-
rate us than us? The evening felt unique, and fine vintage wine could raise fine rhetoric.
The partner opened on a few things that must change, like attitude. I took no offense;
we were blitzed and had a happy history of candor. He honed in to money management. We
lacked trust. We ignored the skill and intention of others. We were woefully doubtful. Doubt is
so cynical, and frankly, it's negative. And we must stop the paranoia—people were talking; no
need to mention names. Above all we must show faith in humanity rather than questioning
petty expenditures. They might seem lavish on the surface, but they actually affirmed long-
range wisdom, what we might call vision, if we could ditch the attitude.
He'd been insolvent and had gone to bankrupt on a beach shop specializing in silk dresses
in an opulent setting, back when four hundred grand was some real money. Normal floor tile
ran a buck a foot installed—or you could spend four bucks for the Cypress Mint Collection
imported from Italy, and he did. Plus a buck a square to install, but what could he do, not in-
stall? And a buck and a half on freight, but that didn't count, if you . . .
What was the attraction to partnership with a financial delusional? The guy could turn a
half-starved calf into a cash cow. That he showed symptoms of mad cow disease had seemed
curable. It wasn't. No matter how much he generated, he spent more. He kept a checkbook
ledger with a negative balance and wrote more checks, bad checks. He said, “No, I'm not.”
“You have brackets around this figure.” The balance: <$1,800>. “You're writing a check for
thirty-two hundred. That takes the balance to negative five grand.
Capiche?
”
“Yeah. So?”
“So it's a bad check.”
