Midnight was the strange one--although living in San
Francisco, I'm not sure that he actually was.
He was different and in a town where most everyone paraded their
sexuality openly and proudly, he was surprisingly reserved--at least about that
particular topic. Otherwise, he had
motormouth--which is how he came to be called "Midnight".
We were all fly fishermen, and in most cases, relatively new to the sport and we bonded over that, no matter how different we were. We frequented the few fly fishing shops that were in town, drooling over the latest and greatest gadgetry, the new reels and the latest breakthroughs in graphite technology. Sometimes we even bought things, although more often than not, it was just a magazine with the latest 4 color glossy fish porn or $3 worth of fly tying materials. None of us actually had any money except for maybe Carter who would eventually come to be known as "Stockmarket". At best, half the group were trout bums, a fourth wished they were-- and the remaining fourth knew better.
Midnight had a few dollars. He was even gainfully employed as a graphic designer which meant he had this really cool loft, at least in our eyes, south of Market-- and reliable transportation. Cool, however, is a relative term. In those days, bodies were still being disposed of in alleys south of Market. It wasn't an everyday occurrence but it happened often enough that one didn't wander around late at night... Otherwise --all things considered,--he was almost respectable. It's just that he would show up at whatever fly shop was our new favorite haunt five minutes before closing and manage to talk for at least 45 minutes past closing. Of course, if you were the one who had just spent 8 grueling frustrating hours behind the cash register, it seemed like he was going to talk until well past midnight when all you wanted to do was go home. The shopkeepers put up with it, though, because invariably he would buy an expensive piece of equipment. He probably kept a few fly shops in business by himself.
...and so it was that he became known as "Midnight".
I liked him. Other than the occasional bout of motormouth, he was engaging and intelligent. He didn't smell bad. He didn't steal and he had gas money. Remember, we are talking about trout bums here... Four or five hours in a car on your way to whatever Blue Ribbon trout stream that was featured in last months fish porn centerfold, you really get to know a person--or you don't. These things are important. It can end up being four hours of very awkward and generally pointless small talk as you debate important things-- like tippet diameter and using polar bear fur substitutes to tie obscure patterns that no one in their right mind would actually fish.
...or you can talk about life, love and death. We did. Midnight and I usually talked about weighty subjects, waxed poetic and saved the earth at least three or four times in the course of a road trip. The one exception--the topic that was never really broached, though--was his apparently nonexistent love life. This is not to say that Midnight didn't get teased. Someone in the group, concerned about his lack of a love life or a sex life, decided that an anatomically correct sheep might be an appropriate birthday gift. I'm not sure I had any part in that but then again, my memory is blurry. Maybe deliberately so because as I recall, Midnight gleefully shared that he popped said anatomically correct sheep. I realized then that I really didn't need any further details...
Midnight and I fished together whenever we could, partly because it was some sort of personal challenge to him to to outfish me. I suppose I knew more about the sport and could lay claim to having actually guided once upon a time but being outfished or caring about being outfished was not high on my list of concerns. Regardless, our outings were different but enjoyable.
Different may not actually be the right way to describe most of our adventures... Bizarre, perhaps?
We had been fishing the Trinity River on the Special Regulations section and both of us had done exceptionally well. In fact, towards the end of the day, I had hooked a spectacular specimen--a late run steelhead. Trinity fish pale in comparison to the huge winter run steelhead that haunt the North Coast. Just the same, this was a very nice fish and it had risen to a small Pale Evening Dun, making it that much more special. I was doing everything in my power to land that fish, plowing into the river in my best re-enactment of the scene from "A River Runs Through It" where the protagonist is swept over the rapids. It was dark by the time I landed that fish--too dark for the requisite hero shot and Midnight was far downstream so it became a matter of faith. No witnesses. No photographs--only my excited retelling of the epic struggle--which as most anglers know--will often border on pure fantasy. It is a well known fact that most anglers will add at least three inches to any fish they have landed if there are no witnesses and a full six inches to the length of any fish they have lost. I'd like to think I am above that but sometimes in the adrenalin rush, inches do get added.
It didn't matter. We were both tired and it was time for a drink so we headed to the Old Lewiston Hotel. Colorful would be an understatement but back in the day, it served a stiff drink and one of the best prime ribs I have ever had. It's changed hands a few times since then. The food isn't quite the same and the patrons aren't quite as colorful but that particular day will always be remembered. We walked into the bar in the middle of another fisherman breathlessly telling a story about an enormous steelhead someone had caught that afternoon. He was hopping excitedly from foot to foot with his hands outstretched over his head and saying "The fish was this big!" He turned, and seeing Midnight and I walking into the room, pointed at me and said "...and that's the guy who caught it!"
Yes, I had an ear to ear grin but that wasn't the part that was so memorable. It was the mountain women...
They were sitting at the bar. Midnight was exhausted and a few drinks later, he was
We were all fly fishermen, and in most cases, relatively new to the sport and we bonded over that, no matter how different we were. We frequented the few fly fishing shops that were in town, drooling over the latest and greatest gadgetry, the new reels and the latest breakthroughs in graphite technology. Sometimes we even bought things, although more often than not, it was just a magazine with the latest 4 color glossy fish porn or $3 worth of fly tying materials. None of us actually had any money except for maybe Carter who would eventually come to be known as "Stockmarket". At best, half the group were trout bums, a fourth wished they were-- and the remaining fourth knew better.
Midnight had a few dollars. He was even gainfully employed as a graphic designer which meant he had this really cool loft, at least in our eyes, south of Market-- and reliable transportation. Cool, however, is a relative term. In those days, bodies were still being disposed of in alleys south of Market. It wasn't an everyday occurrence but it happened often enough that one didn't wander around late at night... Otherwise --all things considered,--he was almost respectable. It's just that he would show up at whatever fly shop was our new favorite haunt five minutes before closing and manage to talk for at least 45 minutes past closing. Of course, if you were the one who had just spent 8 grueling frustrating hours behind the cash register, it seemed like he was going to talk until well past midnight when all you wanted to do was go home. The shopkeepers put up with it, though, because invariably he would buy an expensive piece of equipment. He probably kept a few fly shops in business by himself.
...and so it was that he became known as "Midnight".
I liked him. Other than the occasional bout of motormouth, he was engaging and intelligent. He didn't smell bad. He didn't steal and he had gas money. Remember, we are talking about trout bums here... Four or five hours in a car on your way to whatever Blue Ribbon trout stream that was featured in last months fish porn centerfold, you really get to know a person--or you don't. These things are important. It can end up being four hours of very awkward and generally pointless small talk as you debate important things-- like tippet diameter and using polar bear fur substitutes to tie obscure patterns that no one in their right mind would actually fish.
...or you can talk about life, love and death. We did. Midnight and I usually talked about weighty subjects, waxed poetic and saved the earth at least three or four times in the course of a road trip. The one exception--the topic that was never really broached, though--was his apparently nonexistent love life. This is not to say that Midnight didn't get teased. Someone in the group, concerned about his lack of a love life or a sex life, decided that an anatomically correct sheep might be an appropriate birthday gift. I'm not sure I had any part in that but then again, my memory is blurry. Maybe deliberately so because as I recall, Midnight gleefully shared that he popped said anatomically correct sheep. I realized then that I really didn't need any further details...
Midnight and I fished together whenever we could, partly because it was some sort of personal challenge to him to to outfish me. I suppose I knew more about the sport and could lay claim to having actually guided once upon a time but being outfished or caring about being outfished was not high on my list of concerns. Regardless, our outings were different but enjoyable.
Different may not actually be the right way to describe most of our adventures... Bizarre, perhaps?
We had been fishing the Trinity River on the Special Regulations section and both of us had done exceptionally well. In fact, towards the end of the day, I had hooked a spectacular specimen--a late run steelhead. Trinity fish pale in comparison to the huge winter run steelhead that haunt the North Coast. Just the same, this was a very nice fish and it had risen to a small Pale Evening Dun, making it that much more special. I was doing everything in my power to land that fish, plowing into the river in my best re-enactment of the scene from "A River Runs Through It" where the protagonist is swept over the rapids. It was dark by the time I landed that fish--too dark for the requisite hero shot and Midnight was far downstream so it became a matter of faith. No witnesses. No photographs--only my excited retelling of the epic struggle--which as most anglers know--will often border on pure fantasy. It is a well known fact that most anglers will add at least three inches to any fish they have landed if there are no witnesses and a full six inches to the length of any fish they have lost. I'd like to think I am above that but sometimes in the adrenalin rush, inches do get added.
It didn't matter. We were both tired and it was time for a drink so we headed to the Old Lewiston Hotel. Colorful would be an understatement but back in the day, it served a stiff drink and one of the best prime ribs I have ever had. It's changed hands a few times since then. The food isn't quite the same and the patrons aren't quite as colorful but that particular day will always be remembered. We walked into the bar in the middle of another fisherman breathlessly telling a story about an enormous steelhead someone had caught that afternoon. He was hopping excitedly from foot to foot with his hands outstretched over his head and saying "The fish was this big!" He turned, and seeing Midnight and I walking into the room, pointed at me and said "...and that's the guy who caught it!"
Yes, I had an ear to ear grin but that wasn't the part that was so memorable. It was the mountain women...
They were sitting at the bar. Midnight was exhausted and a few drinks later, he was
close to passed out--not that he wanted anything to do with
them to begin with. I understood completely.
The kindest thing that I can say about these two women is that they were
not especially attractive nor would you ever describe them as fit and athletic.
Some men will, if stranded on a desert island, begin to view a coconut as
worthy of their attention and even sexually appealing. I was not and have never been that sort of
man. I have some standards. It was however, our usual watering hole and
there is no point in being rude so there was a certain amount of polite if
strained small talk. I guess I just
wasn't disinterested enough and Midnight not intoxicated enough to dissuade
them from deciding that they were going to take us back to their camp. I only vaguely remember that part of the
conversation--something about them needing our genetic material. It
was also at that point that Midnight more or less woke up and in all
probability, saved us from what may have been a threat to public health or at
the very least a very awkward situation.
It seems the mountain women had brought their small dog, a chihuahua in the bar with them. It was running around underneath the bar stools when Midnight spotted it and in his alcoholic haze he began shouting "It's a rat. It's a rat!" "No, Midnight, it's a chihuahua". "Oh..." and then he calmed down except that he was staring intently at the dog. You know there is no way this can turn out well and sure enough, Midnight lunged at the dog. "It's eyes! Look at the way they are bulging. They're coming out! I need to fix them" which normally would have been hysterically funny to me except that he was dead serious. This was a godsend. I turned to the two exceptionally unattractive mountain women and with as straight a face as was humanly possible, said "I'd love to go back to your camp and fuck all night but I think I really need to get him home." One of the women did make a feeble attempt to block the door but we managed to make good our escape.
Midnight and I continued to fish together until I finally moved out of San Francisco a few years later. He detested my taste in women as a rule and I didn't pry into his love life so it worked. It was on one of our last fishing trips together, however, that I realized how little I actually knew about Midnight. We were on our way to Hat Creek which can only be described as an oasis in the middle of a volcanic wasteland. The surrounding countryside is sun baked and rocky with the exception of the lush meadows and fields that depend on water stolen from the creek. The creek can only be diverted so many times before it runs dry in places only to be renewed by the springs that dot it's length.
I digress... We were on a back road, a narrow twisting two lane black top and the windows were down because of the heat. One of the greatest things about sharing a ride with Midnight was that the phrase "speed limit" was not actually in his vocabulary but this time it wasn't working out so well. I was white knuckling it, finger nails digging into the upholstery as we flew through the turns. Suddenly, Midnight began screaming and slapping at his crotch. This was not good. He was wearing a pair of shorts that made him look way too much like a male prostitute--although men routinely dressed badly in those days; and all I could think of was this is not how I want to die--not with a man of dubious sexual interests who has (or had) an anatomically correct sheep and is now slapping at his crotch at 90 miles an hour.
I guess I am not as open minded as I thought. It seems a yellow jacket had blown in the open window, managed to work it's way up his shorts and stung him on the most sensitive part of his inner thigh.
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