The Fisherman

by John Langan

As my pa used to say, If you have to concoct a lie, be sure to mix in as much of the truth as you can.

had fallen into Dutchman’s Creek, but I had a few years on Dan. All I could say was, the last I’d seen of him, he was walking upstream.

infection long enough for me to be discharged, finally, from the hospital. While I was recuperating at home, my manager stopped over to visit me; though his purpose had more to do with business than solicitude.

Like that, I was without my job, without my closest friend, and without the activity that had organized the most recent part of my life, and that I had anticipated structuring my retirement around. Gone fishin’, right?

Any effort I made to approach the water for purposes of fishing sent me straight to the truck, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

There was no particular emotion associated with it, no upwelling of panic, or terror; my body simply refused to entertain, much less obey, my brain’s commands.

The vast eye of the Fisherman’s catch opened, and black water spilled from the great crack of its pupil in a flood.

Most of what I heard was earnest, if unexciting, but every now and again, a singer would lean into the mic, draw her fingers down the strings of her guitar, open her mouth, and I would lean forward in my chair, attentive. I hadn’t anticipated my retirement consisting of this much empty time to fill; though I chalked that up to my having entered it at least a decade ahead of schedule, and in pretty good health, too.

but the only site that looked as if it might be of use crashed each time I consulted it.

Within a day or two of their arrival, I saw the younger girl, Sadie, striking out across her backyard, a fishing rod in one hand, a tacklebox

For the next hour and change, she alternated detailed questions as to what varieties of fish I’d hooked in the local waters with accounts of her exploits with the rod and reel in their previous home, in Missouri. Rhona let her daughter ramble on until we’d cleared about half the cookies from

Like that, I was back fishing. For the next couple of years, whenever Sadie and Oliver went out in search of fish, they took me with them.

The snort she gave showed her opinion of that likelihood. Around us, the twentieth century emptied into the twenty-first, one millennium flowing into another.

What the meteorologists would designate a hundred-year flood occurred three years after my return to fishing.

crossed the room, and there was the cooking spray, ranked among them. I had no idea what it was doing there.

half-second, less, before I heard him speak, I registered the presence filling the archway that led to the back door. When he said, “Abe,” I knew it was Dan.

floor of my brain, I suppose I must have been anticipating this, dreading it, yet the shock of seeing Dan standing at the entrance to my kitchen like this fell over like a wall of freezing water. Clutching the cooking spray to my chest as if it were some kind of relic, I said, “Dan?”

“But that’s all in the past, isn’t it? I am what I’ve become, and you—you’ve gone back to fishing, haven’t you? With that family next door, that cute little girl. Not much chance of her trying to sacrifice you to an undying wizard, is there?”

“I’ve been close to you before,” Dan said, “you have no idea. But you’re right: this is different. The storm that’s just passed has widened the crack that leads to this place. With the situation this fluid—sorry—I couldn’t resist paying you a visit.”

A narrow cone of pressurized oil hissed across the room at him. On its way, it touched the tops of the candles on the table and blossomed into a tongue of fire.

What I saw out there in the water set me to wrestling with this story, with the strange, knotted length of it. I’m not sure what else is left for me to do with it, except tell you what I saw in the water.

People—rows and rows of people floated there, most of them submerged to their shoulders, a few to their chins, fewer still to their eyes. I couldn’t guess their number, because they extended into the deeper dark. Their skin was damp, white, their hair lank, their eyes gleaming gold. It didn’t take me long to pick out Marie in the midst of them, not as close as I would have supposed. Her face was blank, as were those of the children to either side of her.

They had, I fancied, my mother’s nose.

Evers’ The Catskills: From Wilderness to Woodstock (1972) is a treasure-trove of information about the Catskill region.