Free Lines on the Water by David Adams Richards Page B

story.
    Later he went down and crossed the river, and began to fish through. I had a good vantage point where I could see how his fly moved over every inch of water. He threw it exactly where he wanted. Suddenly in that dark rip, three-quarters of the way through the pool, he hooked a fish.
    “I figured it was there,” he said.
    For the next month or so I travelled miles of water, and seemed to get worse every time I went out. Nothing worked to my advantage, because I couldn’t use my left hand effectivelyenough to strip line, and when I cast the line itself would bunch up at the first eye of the rod. My left hand was my great deterrent. I decided it might be better if I cut it off. I seriously thought about it on more than one occasion those first few summers. I had a good knife, and though I never actually did cut my hand off, my left hand got in the way so much I had on more than one occasion given myself some serious injuries. For instance, I couldn’t open a door with my left hand, or button a shirt button, or pick up a cup of coffee. So it was certainly not earning its keep. About the only thing it was good for was getting my line tangled up in it.
    Once as a boy I had cut my left hand to the bone, trying to build a camp. I went to the first house I came to, looking for first aid. A nice lady opened the door, looked at me, shrieked, slammed the door and locked it.
    “It’s only a little blood—scaredy cat,” I managed. I went about the windows of the house, holding my hand out, touching the panes of glass, and smearing all her windows with blood in an effort to show her how harmless I was. Sometimes I would reach a certain window before she came into that room, always with a slight acrimonious smile on my face.
    Finally I had to make my way home alone.
    At any rate, I left the hand exactly where it was for the time being, dangling down somewhere, and got on without it. Itried to strip line leaving it in the water, but that was as ineffective as anything else. Once doing this I picked up the line, the fly came catapulting back and hit me in the eye. So I walked about with a black eye for three days.
    “How did you get the black eye?”
    “Fishing.”
    “Sure. Fishing. How in God’s name can you get a black eye fishing?”
    “You have to work at it, but it can be done,” I maintained.
    But then, that was my arm. I could write a book about my feet. Often at night, back home, far from the river, I would have to soak my left foot in a tub to get it moving again for the next day. I would bend over and slap at my toes to see if they still worked. I would pry them apart, try to wiggle them. I have the problem of instant arthritis, and sometimes coming out of a pool I would sit on the bank for an hour because my left foot was so sore. Once or twice I would go crawling about on the beach as if I had been shot at by a sniper and was trying to find cover.
    So that play-acting with Mr. Simms about my left foot aching came back to haunt me.
    Everyone has their problems and this was, and is, mine. I am making no more of it than a man of conscience or integrity should. But I will never lessen the effect upon me over theyears. I will never say that it didn’t affect me to be polite to those who have no knowledge of its effect. I will only say I was born with it, and can do nothing about it. Nor would I change it now, even if I could. It is not bragging when I say that for me to have two good arms seems entirely like cheating.
    As I grew older I became more and more determined to do whatever I wanted to do and now look upon it as an obligatory challenge. And an obligatory challenge means exactly what it implies: You suffer the aches and pains and ridicule along the way.
    If I have no balance, which is dangerous when you are crossing a swift river in waders, I would forgo the waders. I would cross the river anyway. People who know me have seen me do this time and again, without any comment about it. Besides, I rationalized