Read Online Our Love Will Go the Way of the Salmon by Cameron Pierce - Free Book Online
Authors: Cameron Pierce
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though she said the name didn’t have a good ring to it. Above all, he wanted to start a family with her. He was thirty-eight years old and felt the approach of his final chance to prove he was a good man.
The rain started up and he went back inside. He sat at the kitchen table, pushed aside the dirty dishes and opened up one of the pocket lunar charts he kept around. He stared at the moon’s cycle for the year, signified by dots shaded some amount of black and white. He closed his eyes and imagined the sea under a full moon in July, how much it differed from a full moon in December. He finished the beer and went for another. Then another. The rain pelted the tin roof so loud there wasn’t any use turning on the television or the radio. He wouldn’t be able to hear a damn thing anyway. “The moon don’t mean shit to me,” he said, after staring at the lunar chart for an hour more. He didn’t mean it. The moon was like a cold and distant god to him.
He thought about calling up Llewellyn, but she was tending bar at the Fighting Salmon. Besides, she could not cure the loneliness that ate at him. Only two things could save him now. Fishing or beer. And what remained of sturgeon fishing had been canceled.
III. The Stranger
The olive-skinned stranger in snakeskin boots entered the Fighting Salmon a quarter past eleven. He looked like he’d been sculpted out of finer materials than flesh and bone. He hung his leather bomber jacket up to dry at the coat rack by the door and approached the bar, set his motorcycle helmet—black, half-shell—on a barstool and sat down beside it. “Do you have like uh…a seafood stew?” he said.
“Sure do,” Llewellyn said. “Got a chowder with salmon, halibut, oysters, clams, mussels, and prawns. Comes in a bread bowl.”
“I’ll have that.”
“Can I see your ID, hon?”
No way was he younger than thirty, but Llewellyn was smitten. She wanted to know his name. He handed over his driver’s license. New Mexico.
“Anisedias. I’ve never heard a name like that before. What brings you all the way here from New Mexico?”
“I’m not from New Mexico,” he said.
“But your license is—”
Anisedias was not listening. He craned his head to watch the Trail Blazers game on the television behind the bar.
“Can I getcha anything to drink?” Llewellyn said.
“Water’s fine.”
She filled a pint glass with water and set it on the bar. As she went into the kitchen to tell Larry to ladle up the seafood stew, she could hardly contain herself.
Anisedias.
The name of a god.
And even though Llewellyn didn’t believe in true love, she wanted to believe this stranger was sent here for a reason. To carry her far away from this place, rescue her from settling down with Frank, who was fun to go with and not at all a bad guy, but marrying Frank and having children with him and slowly decaying with him would prove true the one fact she could never accept: that she was no different than everybody else who had never escaped this town. Born, raised, and laid to rest within sight of where the mighty Columbia met the Pacific. Neither river people nor ocean people, but a fucked-up thing that existed in between. Never knowing which way to go, so going nowhere at all.
Llewellyn filled a cup two-thirds full with ice and Diet Coke, then stepped into the freezer. The sweat on her brow cooled, turned frosty. She breathed in deep and didn’t mind that it hurt. Larry and the other cooks kept a stash of liquor behind the beef patties. They let Llewellyn and a few of their other favorite bartenders and waitresses in on it, so long as nobody ratted them out. Llewellyn moved aside a box of beef patties and grabbed the fifth of rum. She filled her cup to the rim.
Out of the freezer, she fit a plastic lid over the cup and punctured the lid’s starfish-shaped hole with a straw. The first sip was mostly rum.
IV. What Followed Him North
Roswell was a hell of a way
The rain started up and he went back inside. He sat at the kitchen table, pushed aside the dirty dishes and opened up one of the pocket lunar charts he kept around. He stared at the moon’s cycle for the year, signified by dots shaded some amount of black and white. He closed his eyes and imagined the sea under a full moon in July, how much it differed from a full moon in December. He finished the beer and went for another. Then another. The rain pelted the tin roof so loud there wasn’t any use turning on the television or the radio. He wouldn’t be able to hear a damn thing anyway. “The moon don’t mean shit to me,” he said, after staring at the lunar chart for an hour more. He didn’t mean it. The moon was like a cold and distant god to him.
He thought about calling up Llewellyn, but she was tending bar at the Fighting Salmon. Besides, she could not cure the loneliness that ate at him. Only two things could save him now. Fishing or beer. And what remained of sturgeon fishing had been canceled.
III. The Stranger
The olive-skinned stranger in snakeskin boots entered the Fighting Salmon a quarter past eleven. He looked like he’d been sculpted out of finer materials than flesh and bone. He hung his leather bomber jacket up to dry at the coat rack by the door and approached the bar, set his motorcycle helmet—black, half-shell—on a barstool and sat down beside it. “Do you have like uh…a seafood stew?” he said.
“Sure do,” Llewellyn said. “Got a chowder with salmon, halibut, oysters, clams, mussels, and prawns. Comes in a bread bowl.”
“I’ll have that.”
“Can I see your ID, hon?”
No way was he younger than thirty, but Llewellyn was smitten. She wanted to know his name. He handed over his driver’s license. New Mexico.
“Anisedias. I’ve never heard a name like that before. What brings you all the way here from New Mexico?”
“I’m not from New Mexico,” he said.
“But your license is—”
Anisedias was not listening. He craned his head to watch the Trail Blazers game on the television behind the bar.
“Can I getcha anything to drink?” Llewellyn said.
“Water’s fine.”
She filled a pint glass with water and set it on the bar. As she went into the kitchen to tell Larry to ladle up the seafood stew, she could hardly contain herself.
Anisedias.
The name of a god.
And even though Llewellyn didn’t believe in true love, she wanted to believe this stranger was sent here for a reason. To carry her far away from this place, rescue her from settling down with Frank, who was fun to go with and not at all a bad guy, but marrying Frank and having children with him and slowly decaying with him would prove true the one fact she could never accept: that she was no different than everybody else who had never escaped this town. Born, raised, and laid to rest within sight of where the mighty Columbia met the Pacific. Neither river people nor ocean people, but a fucked-up thing that existed in between. Never knowing which way to go, so going nowhere at all.
Llewellyn filled a cup two-thirds full with ice and Diet Coke, then stepped into the freezer. The sweat on her brow cooled, turned frosty. She breathed in deep and didn’t mind that it hurt. Larry and the other cooks kept a stash of liquor behind the beef patties. They let Llewellyn and a few of their other favorite bartenders and waitresses in on it, so long as nobody ratted them out. Llewellyn moved aside a box of beef patties and grabbed the fifth of rum. She filled her cup to the rim.
Out of the freezer, she fit a plastic lid over the cup and punctured the lid’s starfish-shaped hole with a straw. The first sip was mostly rum.
IV. What Followed Him North
Roswell was a hell of a way
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