Buffer Zone
A fisherman walks the path at dawn. His waders crush the frosty leaves, a sound more satisfying to him than coffee perking. He stops at the single sad flute note of a varied thrush. He peers into the forest. Matt feels the rush of air. The orange bird with the black bandit mask passes in a quick flash of color and a heartbeat. Speed is its camouflage.
He continues to hike over the slippery carpet of composting leaves. His felt soles slow his descent to the river. He kicks through the clumps of red and yellow, parting the pools of fog hanging in the low spots. The familiar odor of salmon at the end of its life cycle stirs memories of his mother’s Norwegian cooking. Her canned salmon, pickled herring and lutefisk had that same musky vinegar sour milk scent.
This healthy riparian habitat supports an ancient life cycle. Like the salmon, Matt always returns.
He can’t remember why he was so ticked off with David, when they first got out of the van. He just knows he had to cool off by taking a different path. His best friend, David has a knack for getting on his nerves. Matt is proud of his family’s historic benevolence toward the tribes, but David always knows how to bring him down a peg.
Friendship can be tricky. What initially draws you to someone with common interests can be the same thing that causes conflict once you get to know him better. Case in point: a friend who is as obsessive about fishing as you are can obsess about other things you never thought were important.
But in the end, to preserve your friendship, honesty is crucial.
When Matt arrives at the river bank, David is already fishing twenty yards upstream. He stops casting to watch a caddis fly land on his boot. Matt appears from the trees, and David waves. The caddis fly quickly rises, landing on a moss covered boulder.
On the other side of the river, three fishermen cast in front of a steep dirt bank with a slight overhang. A few rocks break loose, roll down and hit one of them on the leg. He moves over a few feet and keeps fishing. On his next cast, the whole bank breaks loose. The tumbling rocks, saplings, and dirt create a wave. Dozens of startled fish jump out of the water. The fishermen dash into the river. Two of them lose their balance and drift downstream to the gravel bar before they regain their footing and get back to shore. A foot pops up, swaying like the fin of a spawned out salmon.
David waves his arms to some men downstream in a drift boat. The sudden turbulence from the slide makes their boat rock. As they look upstream they see David point to the limp body floating toward them. The body stops, caught in an eddy, where it rotates in place. They row upstream to him.
They reach over, grab him by the back of his waders and pull him to the side of the boat. They hold on to him and row ashore. They drag him up the bank and he still has his fingers wrapped around his fishing rod, which they quickly fling aside. One of them tries to revive him. David and Matt make their way downstream to see if they can help. David approaches the rescuers and starts talking about the new CPR techniques. Matt pushes him back toward the path.
“Come on. They don’t need us.”
They hike back to the van.
“You wanna go fish on the other side?” David asks.
“Nah. I don’t think I could concentrate..”
Matt starts the van and steadies his shaky hands on the steering wheel.
“We should’ve stayed and helped those guys do CPR,” David says.
“They looked like they knew what they were doing,” Matt says. “He’ll be fine.”
Again, David says, “We should’ve stayed.”
“And then what?” Matt says. “Push them out of the way, so you could show off how good an Indian is at CPR? They were doin’ it already, dude!”
“I’m just sayin’ we took the class. We could’ve done it better.”
Matt asks, “Who’s to say they didn’t take the class?”
“What does being an Indian have to do with it?”
Matt feels uncomfortable, and doesn’t answer the question. He realizes he has stepped over a boundary he wishes he hadn’t crossed.
“He had a fish on,” Matt says. “He didn’t want to let go of his rod and lose his fish!”
“I’ve seen that guy before,” David says, “the one they pulled out.”
“So have I.”
“I think I would’ve done the same thing he did. I would’ve hung on to my rod,” David says, “and that big eddy would’ve sucked me down and spit me out, then sucked me down again.”
“Jeez, David.”
“I don’t think it would be a bad way to die,” David says, “fightin’ that final fish.”
“So then, you die for that final fish and find out it’s only a two pound sucker?”
“I’d throw it back, and I’d forever haunt the banks as a dead zombie fisherman.”
“You would!” Matt says.
They pull up behind a Jeep at the stop sign, with a Pro-Choice bumper sticker.
As the Jeep pulls away from them, David asks, “Do you think that guy chose not to let go of his fishing rod and swim to shore?”
“Of course,” Matt says. “Sure. He was too greedy.”
“I don’t think he had any choice,” David says. “Something made him hang on and he couldn’t pry his fingers loose.”
“You mean like predestination?”
“Yeah.”
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“I don’t believe in that shit,” Matt says. “People choose their own destiny.”
“Yeah? Well, we all die,” David says, “Do we choose to die?”
Matt shakes his head. They drive for a while, and then David breaks the silence.
“Look at that mossy shed with the fern on top. It looks like an old-time lady’s hat.”
Matt looks at the shelter someone built to store hay, to protect it from the rain. It’s hard to tell the age of a structure in this damp northwest climate, where mosses and blackberry vines can take root and cover an abandoned tractor within weeks.
“You notice the strangest things,” Matt says.
“Mother Nature reclaims everything,” David says. “Before long, that little shed will be a mound of wildflowers.”
“I guess that’s what I like about you,” Matt says. “You make me think about oddball shit like sheds with hats. The big problems.”
He turns onto the main highway.
“O.K. here’s a big problem,” David says. “Why do you think that bank collapsed?”
“Some loggers cut the trees right to the bank, and left the skinniest ones in a single row.”
“They had to leave a buffer of trees along the river to be legal.”
“The first windstorm comes along and always blows the buffer zone into the river,” Matt says.
“Thousands of fish fry get buried in silt,” David says, “just because some logger wants to feed his family by cutting more trees, right up to the riverbank.”
“I can’t imagine why he’d want to feed his family.”
“I’ll take a nice bright salmon over money for lumber. You can’t eat money.”
“You’re working at a sawmill,” Matt says. “What makes you better than the loggers?”
They turn on Maple Street.
“Mother Nature always has the final say,” David says. “Maybe I’ll quit the mill.”
Two ravens hop to the side of the road, stop eating something, and scold them, as Matt drives up to David’s apartment.
Out here, on the border between commerce and nature, the words, “buffer zone” denote an area where development is prohibited. Where nature is protected. Matt decides to venture back into an uncomfortable space, a buffer zone that has separated him from David since they left the river.
He pulls to a stop and says, “O.K. David. I know you’ll be fretting about this for the rest of the day, unless I say something.”
“What?”
Matt takes a breath and says, “You wanna know how being an Indian can get you in trouble?”
David is confused, but ready for an explanation.
“When you start giving strangers advice, like you always do,” Matt says, “you gotta be ready for them to make snap judgements about you.”
David says, “So I’m less capable, because I’m an Indian?”
Matt shakes his head and says, “No, for chrissakes!”
“I guess our friendship has been a lie, ever since we were kids,” David says.
“It’s not a lie. I’m just worried about you,” Matt says. “I been sticking up for you all these years, because I’m your friend. What’ll you do if I’m not around?”
“I can handle myself.”
“I’m a white guy who’s bigger than them, so I can be an arrogant prick and get away with it.” Matt says. “You’re a five foot six Native American. When you start giving advice, you could be a college professor, but people will only think you’re an arrogant bastard.”
“Because of my race?”
“You’re gonna get yourself in trouble,” Matt says. “We’re not in high school anymore.”
David opens the door, grabs his gear, and gets out.
“You’re right about one thing,” he says. “You are an arrogant prick.”
He slams the door. Matt remembers the rush of air he felt as the varied thrush flew by that morning. As David walks away, Matt yells out the words that are as close as he can get to an apology.
“O.K. See you next weekend!”
©2020 Barbara B. Johnson
*This story was Published in the 2020 issue of Tidepools, a magazine published annually by Peninsula College, Port Angeles, Washington. This lightly edited version has become part of a novel I’m writing.
