Red Earth Review #4 July 2016

“For chrissake,” Helen said. “What is it you want, Mart?”

Marty looked into the mirror above the bar, where Miller's face was and Helen's face and the back of Otto's head and his own face. Otto thought that Marty's face was a face in the newspaper. He watched Marty slide down to where no notes are taken.

“A trailer,” Marty said quietly. “I'm thinking about having a trailer, one of those things you pull behind an automobile, and sleep in at night.”

“You mean,” Helen said, “you just want to take a trip somewhere.

But that's a great idea. Take our minds away.”

“I always wanted to do it,” Marty said. “I wanted to live in a trailer, park it anywhere and fish every day. This guy I know named Frank does it. With only one leg.”

“One leg?” she said. “How does someone with one leg do anything like that?” “”He's a lawyer from Seattle.”

“You never told me about any lawyer from Seattle.”

“I met him,” Marty said, “at lunch counter downtown. He's a fly fisherman too. So we started to talk. He has this circulation thing in his legs. Congenital or something, he said. He couldn't stand up in court anymore. So then his wife divorced him. He bought a trailer. He goes around in the trailer. He's disabled, officially, so he has money. Then an infection got into his right foot. The doctors couldn't stop it. It went up his leg, so they took the leg off. Frank said, how much more before they take everything off? So now he lives in his trailer. He takes his trailer all around everywhere. He does what he wants to do.”

“Oh, Marty,” Helen said. “That's awful.”

“It's not awful,” Marty said. “He has an artificial leg, one of those articulated things, with a metal foot. He does everything. Goes where he wants. Stays where he wants. What he wants to do, he does it. With one good leg and a metal foot.”

“Is it, you just want to rent a trailer, then? You just want to knock around for awhile?”

“No,” he said. “I want to have a trailer and live in the trailer. I want to go everywhere. I want to live in the trailer and fish every day.”

“Well, we can do that,” she declared. “Why can't we rent our own trailer, hook it to the back of the car and go around, just like you said?

You fish all you want for as long as you want. I can take care of myself.

I'll take pictures, read books, whatever.”

“Just be in that trailer,” Marty said. “Go around. Fish every day, until every day is just one day, day after day.”

“Retirement,” Miller said. “Hell, Mart, you've earned it. Everybody dreams about retirement.”

“No retirement,” Marty said. “Just every day like every other day.

That's what I'm thinking. Wake up. Eat breakfast. Put on the waders. Go to the river. Fish all morning. Take a break around noon to eat the ham and cheese sandwich I've packed and to smoke a cigar and watch the 20