The paths along the river that have been made by anglers’ feet are well worn and wide. Many who come to fish the Deschutes are driven by a deep, almost desperate need. So much of the world is bullshit. This river is not. Among the many natural glories of the Northwest that have been lost, this valley—still mostly undeveloped, except for the train tracks—and its beautiful, tough fish have survived.
Joe was the nakedest angler I’ve ever known. He came to the river from a world of bullshit, interior and otherwise, and found here a place and a sport to which his own particular sensors were perfectly attuned. Everything was okay when he was on the river . . . except that then everything had to stay that way continuously, or else horrible feelings of withdrawal would creep in. For me the starkest sadness about Joe’s death was that the river and the steelhead weren’t enough.
At the end of my float trip with Joe, just before we reached the river’s mouth, he stopped at a nondescript, wide, shallow stretch with a turquoise-flowing groove. He said he called this spot Mariano, after Mariano Rivera, the Yankees’ great relief pitcher, because of all the trips it had saved. I stood and cast to the groove just as told to, and a sudden river quake bent the spey rod double. The 10-pound steelhead I landed after a long fight writhed like a constrictor when I tried to hold it for a photograph.
The next evening, not long before I left for the airport, Joe and I floated the river above Maupin a last time. Now he wasn’t my guide; he had me go first and fish a hundred yards or so ahead of him. Dusk deepened, and suddenly I was casting well again. I looked back at Joe, and he raised his fist in the air approvingly. At the end of his silhouetted arm, the glow of a cigarette could be seen. I rolled out one cast after the next. It’s hard to teach a longtime angler anything, but Joe had taught me. He knocked the rust off my fishing life and gave me a skill that brought back the delight of learning, like the day I first learned to ride a bicycle. I remembered that morning when we were floating downstream among the crane flies in the sunlight. Just to know it’s possible to be that happy is worth something, even if the feeling doesn’t last. Hanging out with Joe uncovered long-overgrown paths back to childhood. Peace to his soul.
JEREMY MARKOVICH
Elegy of a Race Car Driver
FROM SBNATION.COM
SOMETIME AFTER 10:30 on a Thursday morning in May, after he’d had his cup of coffee, Dick Trickle snuck out of the house. His wife didn’t see him go. He eased his 20-year-old Ford pickup out on the road and headed toward Boger City, North Carolina, 10 minutes away. He drove down Highway 150, a two-lane road that cuts through farm fields and stands of trees and humble country homes that dot the Piedmont west of Charlotte, just outside the reach of its suburban sprawl. Trickle pulled into a graveyard across the street from a Citgo station. He drove around to the back. It was sunny. The wind blew gently from the west. Just after noon, he dialed 911. The dispatcher asked for his address.
“Uh, the Forest Lawn, uh, Cemetery on 150,” he said, his voice calm. The dispatcher asked for his name. He didn’t give it.
“On the back side of it, on the back by a ’93 pickup, there’s gonna be a dead body,” he said.
“Okay,” the woman said, deadpan.
“Suicide,” he said. “Suicide.”
“Are you there?”
“I’m the one.”
“Okay, listen to me, sir, listen to me.”
“Yes, it’ll be 150, Forest Lawn Cemetery, in the back by a Ford pickup.”
“Okay, sir, sir, let me get some help to you.”
Click.
The funeral was four days later. It was small. There weren’t many people. Maybe 50, mostly family. A few were old crew members from Wisconsin and Kansas City. Kenny Wallace, a driver who made Dick Trickle his mentor, was there. So was Kenny’s older brother Rusty, the former Winston Cup champ who used to call Dick every Monday. Mike Miller and Mark Martin, both drivers, came. Nobody else from NASCAR did. Dick wanted it that way.
There was no eulogy. The pastor only said a few words. But he didn’t go on long. Soon, everybody had left the church and headed down the road to Dick and Darlene’s place in Iron Station. Kenny hugged Dick’s son Chad.
“I’m so sorry,” Kenny said.
“Aw, come on, man,” Chad told him. “Seventy-one years. That’s pretty good.” Kenny thought Chad sounded a lot like his father.
The suicide. That didn’t seem like Dick at all. People who knew Dick had heard something was wrong. A lot of them weren’t sure what it was. Kenny asked Darlene if she’d seen this coming. No. She had no idea anything was wrong until a Lincoln County sheriff’s deputy pulled into her driveway on Thursday afternoon.