Bitter Fish

By Benjamin Thomas

Bitter Fish is a colorful, cynical, and very real tale of one man's search for meaning. Thomas's characters are open and outspoken with their (sometimes extreme) opinions, which gives the reader plenty of room to let the ideas in and bounce around.

The main character is an outdoors enthusiast and computer programmer recovering from a painful divorce, who goes to Africa and encounters a witch doctor that changes his life. When modern medicine can't cure him, he finds answers in the lifestyle of a new-found friend surviving alone in the wilds of the Ozark mountains.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benjamin Thomas
• Release date: Feb 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301936250

Benjamin Thomas

Benjamin Thomas is an opportunistic predator capable of taking any animal up to the size of a water buffalo with his bare hands. Generally very lethargic a trait which helps him survive months at a time without food he typically loiters in the water or basks in the sun through much of the day, usually preferring to watch television at night. He is, however, capable of moving with great speed when required, striking without warning and having the strength to rip open a bag of chips with its teeth, or crush a empty beer can against his skull.

Book preview

Bitter Fish

Benjamin Thomas

Copyright Benjamin Thomas 2013

Published at Smashwords

PREFACE

The following events happened. Times, names, details were rearranged to fit a storyline making this a work of fiction. Several characters were combined into one. Names are irrelevant.

There was a man living in a cave in Southern Missouri, I don’t know where he has gotten himself too, or if he is still alive.

Chapter 1: On the river

I finally broke the silence by saying Everything I have ever done has been an effort to attract a mate.

Erik looked up from his side of the camp fire, Everything?

Everything.

The sun was just touching the top of an Ozark mountain, shades of yellow, red and pink bursting from the Western sky. The early twilight, still hot and humid from a blistering summer day, was slowly slipping into night. Overhead bats had begun the nightly hunt for mosquitoes, but the roaring fire kept the bugs away and gave us something to center our attention on. Locals like to call this an Ozark television, the hypnotic flicker of the flames that draws one into a trance.

We were camped on a gravel bar along the Huzzah River. The loose rocks stretched away from us and around a bend. This is truly the deep wilderness, fifteen miles up from our take out point, on a remote section that almost no one ever floats. This is good and bad, good because we get to see some amazing sites that no one else ever will, bad because we have to deal with log jams, fences and other obstacles. Since no one floats this, no one clears out the trees except mother nature.

What about all the books you read? What about this? Aint no women around here, Erik asks.

I think about my reply for a while. Well you may be right, but I think I read because I want to appear educated. I do all this outdoors stuff cause I want the bragging rights. To be able to say that I floated something no one else has, to be able to say I did 120 miles in my canoe in a year; bragging rights.

He pokes at the fire as he thinks about my answer. Why do you care so much if you meet someone? You have a full life, friends, and family, what’s the rush. You want to be tied down again like you were with your X?

Again he has me stumped. I stare at the fire and wonder. Why do I care? Why would anyone care? What drives us, me, the human race to find that special someone you can’t live without. He obviously isn’t looking for anyone, he hasn’t been on a date in years. And that last girl was a friend of a girl I was trying to bag. He was the wingman and ended up with her for a few months before he got sick of her free loading off of him.

I think I am trying to replace the love I never felt from my mother It isn’t easy for me to admit this, but he is like a brother to me and I can tell him anything. We go back a long ways, went through our divorces about the same time. A nice spring day a year later I sort of saved his life after he took a bad spill on a motorcycle. The years have brought us close.

That’s ffff’d up. I suppose I don’t need to explain more to him. What little I have told him of how I was raised answers those questions. It wasn’t a bad childhood by third world standards. I had enough to eat and clothes to wear. Lots of books lying about the house so I got to read a lot. A set of encyclopedias that I thumbed through. Nowhere in those encyclopedias did it mention cutters. People who are so self loathing they will take a knife and cut themselves . My left arm is a maze of scars from my childhood. I wish I could say none of those scars were recent but I would be lying.

Is that why you are going to Africa? Just for bragging rights? That’s a long trip to hell just to be able to tell a girl that you have been there. He is right, it is a long trip to hell. I get on a plane at six AM next Saturday and am not done traveling till Monday morning at four. There are some layovers in that itinerary but it is a long trip regardless. I don’t know why I am going there, but my when my sister in law asked me to go to Burkina Faso I asked her what country it was in. Silly me, it turns out it is a country, the second poorest one in the world. She warned me about it, but I decided to go anyway, get a sneak peak of hell before I end up there permanently. This is my going away float, last chance I have to be out on a river before I leave.

We are each drinking pretty heavily since the night has settled in on us and there is nothing left to do to get camp ready. It’s a good location, a nice flat gravel bar with plenty of wood to be had, nice log to throw your ass over for the morning dump. I have spent so many nights out on the rivers that each camping spot starts to look like the last.

Morning comes fresh and clear, a strong breeze from the south, a few puffy clouds in the sky. What a day! This will work out great, we are heading north and with this strong wind behind us we will make good time. Breakfast consists of beer and snickers. I organize a lot of float trips, and tell first timers to plan on a case of beer a day. This might seem like a lot but it is amazing how fast it can disappear. Generally I bring along some dehydrated beer in the form of whiskey. You never want to run out of booze out here if you are dependent on it.

We break camp quickly and head on. Both of us have been paddling for years, and we have shared a canoe so often that it is second nature. It gives me time to ponder what he said last night. His break from his X was so easy. He never loved her, was not very attracted to her and went straight into the arms of hot girl, young enough to be his daughter - in Arkansas maybe. That might have lasted 2 months, I forget how long they were together and try not to bring it up; it’s still a sore spot.

My break took years. Years of us tearing each other apart. She did most of the tearing, I did most of the crying. I don’t know why she was so unhappy with me. I am not perfect but wow, it was bad. I found out about the affair the morning I was released from the hospital where I had spent a few days with viral meningitis. I guess she picked that day because I was still so sick there was nothing I could do. What a way to add insult to injury. We tried to hold it together but after something like that it pretty much destroys everything. So we divorced. Three weeks after she moved out she showed up with the new guy to pick up some stuff she had left. I never realized how much I loved her till that moment.

Erik looks back at me Did you hear that?

Hear what?

Thought I heard thunder

Crap, a storm on the river is never any fun, in fact it is very dangerous. I swing the canoe sideways in the water looking back to the South. Nothing. But in these Ozark canyons you can’t see much of the sky. We sit like that for a bit both of us straining our ears. This time we both hear it. The wind is still from the South, that is good. If it changes and starts coming at us from the another direction that will mean a big storm is heading North and sucking air up like a vacuum cleaner. This hot humid air at the surface is what feeds those monsters.

Erik asks What now? He doesn’t need to ask more. We both know we are in a bad situation. I look around, deep forest everywhere.

Let’s paddle like hell and hope we can find a gravel bar, I don’t want to be in these trees if it is bolting lightning.

The beer cans are down and we are off. Racing the storm is no fun, but if we are lucky we might just