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Authors: Richard Brautigan
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Room 208, Hotel Trout Fishing in America
Half a block from Broadway and Columbus is Hotel Trout Fishing in America, a cheap hotel. It is very old and run by some Chinese. They are young and ambitious Chinese and the lobby is filled with the smell of Lysol.
The Lysol sits like another guest on the stuffed furniture, reading a copy of the Chronicle, the Sports Section. It is the only furniture I have ever seen in my life that looks like baby food.
And the Lysol sits asleep next to an old Italian pensioner who listens to the heavy ticking of the clock and dreams of eternityâs golden pasta, sweet basil and Jesus Christ.
The Chinese are always doing something to the hotel. One week they paint a lower banister and the next week they put some new wallpaper on part of the third floor.
No matter how many times you pass that part of the third floor, you cannot remember the color of the wallpaper or what the design is. All you know is that part of the wallpaper is new. It is different from the old wallpaper. But you cannot remember what that looks like either.
One day the Chinese take a bed out of a room and lean it up against the wall. It stays there for a month. You get used to seeing it and then you go by one day and it is gone You wonder where it went.
I remember the first time I went inside Hotel Trout Fishing in America. It was with a friend to meet some people.
âIâll tell you whatâs happening,â he said. âSheâs an ex-hustler who works for the telephone company. He went to medical school for a while during the Great Depression and then he went into show business. After that, he was an errand boy for an abortion mill in Los Angeles. He took a fall and did some time in San Quentin.
âI think youâll like them. Theyâre good people.
âHe met her a couple of years ago in North Beach. She was hustling for a spade pimp. Itâs kind of weird. Most women have the temperament to be a whore, but sheâs one of these rare women who just donât have itâthe whore temperament. Sheâs Negro, too.
âShe was a teenage girl living on a farm in Oklahoma. The pimp drove by one afternoon and saw her playing in the front yard He stopped his car and got out and talked to her father for a while.
âI guess he gave her father some money. He came up with something good because her father told her to go and get her things. So she went with the pimp. Simple as that.
âHe took her to San Francisco and turned her out and she hated it. He kept her in line by terrorizing her all the time. He was a real sweetheart.
âShe had some brains, so he got her a job with the telephone company during the day, and he had her hustling at night.
âWhen Art took her away from him, he got pretty mad. A good thing and all that. He used to break into Artâs hotel room in the middle of the night and put a switchblade to Artâs throat and rant and rave. Art kept putting bigger and bigger locks on the door, but the pimp just kept breaking inâa huge fellow.
âSo Art went out and got a .32 pistol, and the next time the pimp broke in, Art pulled the gun out from underneath the covers and jammed it into the pimpâs mouth and said, âYouâll be out of luck the next time you come through that door, Jack.â This broke the pimp up. He never went back. The pimp certainly lost a good thing.
âHe ran up a couple thousand dollars worth of bills in her name, charge accounts and the like. Theyâre still paying them off.
âThe pistolâs right there beside the bed, just in case the pimp has an attack of amnesia and wants to have his shoes shined in a funeral parlor.
âWhen we go up there, heâll drink the wine. She wonât. Sheâll have a little bottle of brandy. She wonât offer us any of it. She drinks about four of them a day. Never buys a fifth. She always keeps going out and getting
Room 208, Hotel Trout Fishing in America
Half a block from Broadway and Columbus is Hotel Trout Fishing in America, a cheap hotel. It is very old and run by some Chinese. They are young and ambitious Chinese and the lobby is filled with the smell of Lysol.
The Lysol sits like another guest on the stuffed furniture, reading a copy of the Chronicle, the Sports Section. It is the only furniture I have ever seen in my life that looks like baby food.
And the Lysol sits asleep next to an old Italian pensioner who listens to the heavy ticking of the clock and dreams of eternityâs golden pasta, sweet basil and Jesus Christ.
The Chinese are always doing something to the hotel. One week they paint a lower banister and the next week they put some new wallpaper on part of the third floor.
No matter how many times you pass that part of the third floor, you cannot remember the color of the wallpaper or what the design is. All you know is that part of the wallpaper is new. It is different from the old wallpaper. But you cannot remember what that looks like either.
One day the Chinese take a bed out of a room and lean it up against the wall. It stays there for a month. You get used to seeing it and then you go by one day and it is gone You wonder where it went.
I remember the first time I went inside Hotel Trout Fishing in America. It was with a friend to meet some people.
âIâll tell you whatâs happening,â he said. âSheâs an ex-hustler who works for the telephone company. He went to medical school for a while during the Great Depression and then he went into show business. After that, he was an errand boy for an abortion mill in Los Angeles. He took a fall and did some time in San Quentin.
âI think youâll like them. Theyâre good people.
âHe met her a couple of years ago in North Beach. She was hustling for a spade pimp. Itâs kind of weird. Most women have the temperament to be a whore, but sheâs one of these rare women who just donât have itâthe whore temperament. Sheâs Negro, too.
âShe was a teenage girl living on a farm in Oklahoma. The pimp drove by one afternoon and saw her playing in the front yard He stopped his car and got out and talked to her father for a while.
âI guess he gave her father some money. He came up with something good because her father told her to go and get her things. So she went with the pimp. Simple as that.
âHe took her to San Francisco and turned her out and she hated it. He kept her in line by terrorizing her all the time. He was a real sweetheart.
âShe had some brains, so he got her a job with the telephone company during the day, and he had her hustling at night.
âWhen Art took her away from him, he got pretty mad. A good thing and all that. He used to break into Artâs hotel room in the middle of the night and put a switchblade to Artâs throat and rant and rave. Art kept putting bigger and bigger locks on the door, but the pimp just kept breaking inâa huge fellow.
âSo Art went out and got a .32 pistol, and the next time the pimp broke in, Art pulled the gun out from underneath the covers and jammed it into the pimpâs mouth and said, âYouâll be out of luck the next time you come through that door, Jack.â This broke the pimp up. He never went back. The pimp certainly lost a good thing.
âHe ran up a couple thousand dollars worth of bills in her name, charge accounts and the like. Theyâre still paying them off.
âThe pistolâs right there beside the bed, just in case the pimp has an attack of amnesia and wants to have his shoes shined in a funeral parlor.
âWhen we go up there, heâll drink the wine. She wonât. Sheâll have a little bottle of brandy. She wonât offer us any of it. She drinks about four of them a day. Never buys a fifth. She always keeps going out and getting
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