Carp and Pabst and Poetry and Population 485
This post about my bowfishing habit reminded me of a top ten favorite Nobbern moment, from Population 485:
I was cleaning carp out behind the house one afternoon when the rawboned neighbor guy walked over. He had been fiddling on a junk car. “Nice ones,” he said, looking down at the fish. And they were, a bodacious passel of Ictiobus bubalus, as my carp-shooting buddy Mills and I like to call them when we’re all dressed up in camo on our secret log, sweating in the sun and smelling of fish slime and Off!. A little Latin to offset the caveman behavior and stink. Mills got me into bow fishing, and now it’s a problem. I sneak off to shoot carp the way some guys sneak off to shoot pool. Mills smokes them up with apple and hickory in his old concrete smoker, but first I have to clean them. The neighbor stood there silent while I sawed off heads and peeled out guts. Every now and then he took a drag on his Marlboro and a pull on his Pabst. Finally, he spoke.
“So. Yer a writer.”
“Well, yeah, I mean…”
“You do poetry?”
“Well, I’m not much of a…”
“I do some poetry.”
“I, uh…”
“Good shit.”
He walked back to his car. We never spoke again.
Want to be the first to know when Mike has a new book, or is coming to your area? Please sign up for the email list.