Office Trout
I never thought I’d work an office job. One with a dress code, spaghetti-splattered microwave, reoccurring conversations about lumbar support, and industrial lighting. A job where the supervisor emails their department about returning the comfy chairs to the conference room and be sure to sign up for the exercise challenge before Friday.
And I never thought I’d start a job on the cusp of a Montana summer. Who willingly takes a 9-5 when the days are at their longest?
But an MFA in poetry does little to boost employment, especially in a post-pandemic world, and the one that was offered to me wasn’t awful. Good work, good people, and the saving grace: a trout stream running out back.
The native Westslope cutthroat competed with rainbows, browns, and brookies in the little freestone creek to see who could grow to 10 inches first. A short 3wt paired with a small box of purple haze and caddis were my preferred cocktail for the half-mile of water I could fish in an hour. When I suddenly remembered responsibility, I’d sprint back to the building and answer a few emails while a puddle pooled on the plastic chair-mat beneath me.
I started my relationship with the creek at the climax of its year in June. Golden stones, green drakes, and large caddis crowded the creek’s current, and the decent from the high water of runoff gave the trout confidence to slam every brushy fly that floated by. Cutthroat were the common catch. Thick with muscle and bellies swollen from the feast.
Their presence behind every boulder spoiled me. Every bubble line sprouted trout noses. Every pool could be probed and I’d be rewarded. I bow-and-arrow casted my way up the creek, grateful for the escape against my new-tether of work.
June slipped into July and the hum of grasshoppers fell from the banks. Tippets shortened and the foam hoppers sailed where a dainty parachute pattern might sink. The hits became fewer, but more aggressive, as the proverbial T-bone steak offered was accepted. The cutthroats were becoming scarce. Big-bellies browns and sleek rainbows replacing the native’s haunts. I dispatched the invasives quickly, trying to make a little more room for the cutthroats to enter.
But by August, the walks between fishable water made my boots dry, and the size of the flies shrunk as the water narrowed and cleared. I began taking my lunch earlier so as to not stress the fish, and the number of outings diminished to only one a week.
During a Tuesday lunch hour in that doldrum month, the first two pools didn’t produce a rise. The next saw me miss an eight-inch rainbow that materialized at the end of my float. Pushing up the cobble, I peered around the bend at a long run for any sign of encouragement. And there, as if summoned, a trout hovered on the edge of the rough water taking tumbling mayflies. A vision from the months past. A scene to erase any memory of emails waiting back at my desk.
I dropped to my knees, the cold riffle soaking my pants and lapping dangerously close to the underwear I would have to sit in the rest of the workday. Though confident in my cast, a sudden breeze blew the purple haze two feet into the shallows away from where a decerning fish would eat. The trout, drunk on the plenty floating his way, rocketed out of his feeding lane and set the hook himself.
After three jumps, spectacular out of pure proximity, the 11-inch brown laid across my palm. I bent his head back and the eyes grayed. Killing a non-native is a drop in the bucket for this drainage, but firm, feathered flesh fried in butter is a pleasant hors d’oeuvre before a weekday meal of grilled cheese and tomato soup.
I kept a pocket knife on my hip to clean fish creek side. The offal a gift to the crayfish. Yet when I reached for the folding blade, I found a bare belt. Had I dropped it? Was it back in the car?
Abandoning the rest of my break, I rushed with the trout hanging from a hooked finger back to the office. I envisioned the chief of marketing peering out his window at me: the new hire jogging across the lawn with a fish in hand.
The knife had disappeared. It wasn’t thrown in my clothes, the car, or my desk. My soaked socks squished down the halls and stairways as the trout’s scales stiffened in the dry air.
I laid the trout in the kitchenette sink and scarfed down the PB&J I packed for lunch. With my mouth glued by peanut butter and raspberry jelly, I found a battered serrated steak knife among the unmatched cutlery.
There next to the watercooler, beneath the coffee-stained enamel mugs, I sawed the trout open from vent to gills and scooped the stomach and intestines into the garbage with my thumb. I nearly cut myself while stealing glances at the door hoping no one would wander in for a Payday from the vending machine and see me hunched over the carcass of a fish.
I piled the paper towels to cover the mess in the trash and scalded my fingers with hot water from the faucet while cleaning the blade. The still-scaled sides filled the Tupperware recently emptied of my sandwich and I set it quickly back in the fridge. Fearing a coworker would find a streak of blood or splash of slime on a counter, I wiped every surface twice and cleaned the three plates stacked on the side for good karma.
Then the sound of typing and talk drifted to my ears. The work of the day proceeded as scheduled, and the gore that had unfolded just beyond the spreadsheets was complete. The air conditioning chilled my wet legs. I still had ten minutes until I had to be back at my desk. I wondered if I could catch one more fish if I was quick?
