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Part 5 of Trout Fishing in America

 
 
WORSEWICK
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Worsewick Hot Springs was nothing fancy. Somebody put some
 
boards across the creek. That was it.
 
 The boards dammed up the creek enough to form a huge
 
bathtub there, and the creek flowed over the top of the boards,
 
invited like a postcard to the ocean a thousand miles away.
 
As I said Worsewick was nothing fancy, not like the
 
places where the swells go. There were no buildings around.
 
We saw an old shoe lying by the tub.
 
 The hot springs came down off a hill and where they flowed
 
there was a bright orange scum through the sagebrush. The
 
hot springs flowed into the creek right there at the tub and
 
that’ s where it was nice.
 
 We parked our car on the dirt road and went down and took
 
off our clothes, then we took off the baby’s clothes, and the
 
deerflies had at us until we got into the water, and then they
 
stopped.
 
 There was a green slime growing around the edges of the
 
tub and there were dozens of dead fish floating in our bath.
 
Their bodies had been turned white by death, like frost on
 
iron doors. Their eyes were large and stiff.
 
 The fish had made the mistake of going down the creek too
 
far and ending up in hot water, singing, “When you lose your
 
money, learn to lose.”
 
 We played and relaxed in the water. The green slime and
 
the dead fish played and relaxed with us and flowed out over
 
us and entwined themselves about us.
 
 Splashing around in that hot water with my woman, I began
 
to get ideas, as they say. After a while I placed my body in
 
such a position in the water that the baby could not see my
 
hard-on.
 
 I did this by going deeper and deeper in the water, like a
 
dinosaur, and letting the green slime and dead fish cover me
 
over.
 
 My woman took the baby out of the water and gave her a
 
bottle and put her back in the car. The baby was tired. It was
 
really time for her to take a nap.
 
 My woman took a blanket out of the car and covered up the
 
windows that faced the hot springs. She put the blanket ontop
 
of the car and then lay rocks on the blanket to hold it in place.
 
I remember her standing there by the car.
 
Then she came back to the water, and the deerflies were
 
at her, and then it was my turn. After a while she said, “I
 
don’t have my diaphragm with me and besides it wouldn’t
 
work in the water, anyway. I think it’s a good idea if you
 
don’t come inside me. What do you think?”
 
 I thought this over and said all right. I didn’t want any
 
more kids for a long time. The green slime and dead fish
 
were all about our bodies.
 
 I remember a dead fish floated under her neck. I waited
 
for it to come up on the other side, and it came up on the
 
other side.
 
 Worsewick was nothing fancy.
 
Then I came, and just cleared her in a split secondlike
 
an airplane in the movies, pulling out of a nosedive and sail–
 
ing over the roof of a school.
 
 My sperm came out into the water, unaccustomed to the
 
light, and instantly it became a misty, stringy kind of thing
 
and swirled out like a falling star, and I saw a dead fishcome
 
forward and float into my sperm, bending it in the middle.
 
His eyes were stiff like iron.
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