Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan Read Free Book Online

couple of cases of sweet wine and send him to Nelson Algren.
    Nelson Algren is always writing about Railroad Shorty, a hero of the Neon Wilderness (the reason for “The Face on the Barroom Floor”) and the destroyer of Dove Linkhorn in A Walk on the Wild Side .
    We thought that Nelson Algren would make the perfect custodian for Trout Fishing in America Shorty. Maybe a museum might be started. Trout Fishing in America Shorty could be the first piece in an important collection.
    We would nail him up in a packing crate with a big label on it.
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Contents:
Trout Fishing in America Shorty
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Occupation:
Wino
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Address:
C/O Nelson Algren
Chicago
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    And there would be stickers all over the crate, saying: “GLASS/HANDLE WITH CARE/SPECIAL HANDLING/GLASS/DON’T SPILL/THIS SIDE UP/HANDLE THIS WINO LIKE HE WAS AN ANGEL”
    And Trout Fishing in America Shorty, grumbling, puking and cursing in his crate would travel across America, from San Francisco to Chicago.
    And Trout Fishing in America Shorty, wondering what it was all about, would travel on, shouting, “Where in the hell am I? I can’t see to open this bottle! Who turned out the lights? Fuck this motel! I have to take a piss! Where’s my key?”
    It was a good idea.
    A few days after we made our plans for Trout Fishing in America Shorty, a heavy rain was pouring down upon San Francisco. The rain turned the streets inward, like drowned lungs, upon themselves and I was hurrying to work, meeting swollen gutters at the intersections.
    I saw Trout Fishing in America Shorty passed out in the front window of a Filipino laundromat. He was sitting in his wheelchair with closed eyes staring out the window.
    There was a tranquil expression on his face. He almost looked human. He had probably fallen asleep while he was having his brains washed in one of the machines.
    Weeks passed and we never got around to shipping Trout Fishing in America Shorty away to Nelson Algren. We kept putting it off. One thing and another. Then we lost our golden opportunity because Trout Fishing in America Shorty disappeared a little while after that.
    They probably swept him up one morning and put him in jail to punish him, the evil fart, or they put him in a nuthouse to dry him out a little.
    Maybe Trout Fishing in America Shorty just pedaled down to San Jose in his wheelchair, rattling along the freeway at a quarter of a mile an hour.
    I don’t know what happened to him. But if he comes back to San Francisco someday and dies, I have an idea.
    Trout Fishing in America Shorty should be buried right beside the Benjamin Franklin statue in Washington Square. We should anchor his wheelchair to a huge gray stone and write upon the stone:
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Trout Fishing in America Shorty
20¢ Wash
10¢ Dry
Forever
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The Mayor of the Twentieth Century
    London. On December 1, 1887; July 7, August 8, September 30, one day in the month of October and on the 9th of November, 1888; on the 1st of June, the 17th of July and the 10th of September 1889 . . .
    The disguise was perfect.
    Nobody ever saw him, except, of course, the victims. They saw him.
    Who would have expected?
    He wore a costume of trout fishing in America. He wore mountains on his elbows and bluejays on the collar of his shirt. Deep water flowed through the lilies that were entwined about his shoelaces. A bullfrog kept croaking in his watch pocket and the air was filled with the sweet smell of ripe blackberry bushes.
    He wore trout fishing in America as a costume to hide his own appearance from the world while he performed his deeds of murder in the night.
    Who would have expected?
    Nobody!
    Scotland Yard?
    (Pouf!)
    They were always a hundred miles away, wearing halibutstalker hats, looking under the dust.
    Nobody ever found out.
    O, now he’s the Mayor of the Twentieth Century! A razor, a knife and a ukelele are his favorite instruments.
    Of course, it would have to be a ukelele. Nobody else would have