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sharp knife, like my father taught me, and empty out the stringy mess onto a newspaper to throw into the fire. They’re for supper tonight or breakfast tomorrow, to be fried up with «des oreilles de crisse» [“Christ’s ears,” cubes of salt pork about half an inch square]. My tasks are limited, it’s true. I don’t even have responsibility for the special black tackle box positioned between my parents, nor for the truces they negotiate:
    FATHER: Ça mord’ pas bin fort. Passes-moi donc un Royal Coachman.
    MOTHER: Es-tu sûr? Moi, j’ai un Dusty Miller, pis ça mord’ pas pire.
    FATHER: Ah p’t-êt’ bin. Mais pas el Professor. El p’tit maudit d’seize pouces la s’maine passée m’en a volé deux, t’rappeles-tu? Pis là, c’ma dernière. Gard’ p’-êt’ bin, donne-moi donc el March Brown. On va essayer ça … [It’s not biting too much. Pass me a Royal Coachman. Are you sure? I have a Dusty Miller and it’s biting not too badly. Oh, okay, maybe then. But don’t pass me my beautiful Professor. That damned sixteen-inch last week stole two, remember, and that’s my last one. Actually, maybe you could just give me the March Brown. I’ll try that one …]
    Their business dealings, as my mother co-managed them, sounded much the same – «en bon frangla’.» * My mother’s supportive input, my father’s final decisions. English breaking into French as necessary technology. Bilingualism on the fly, one might say.
    My father makes these flies painstakingly by hand at his basement work bench, with slender metal vices clinging by their teeth to the edge, tiny drawers full of feathers, beads, variously sized hooks, and spools of thread mostly in black, silver, and gold. He’ll sit here on weeknights hunched over the tiny carcasses of flies, following his Anglo-American do-it-yourself tackle manuals, just as he hunches over carcasses of televisions during the day, using his Anglo-American do-it-yourself electronics manuals. He’s not to be disturbed, cardinal rule. Never mind, because we’ll hear it upstairs if something goes wrong. But it rarely does during this activity. Making flies soothes him, and his creations are masterpieces.
    His hobby stretches over decades, well into the 1970s and ’80s. With all those lovely craft supplies, you’d think it would be natural for me to hang around him, to make small suggestions to improve this or that fly, or to play with a few turquoise feathers. But I can’t watch him. It makes me ill. I can’t bear to see or smell his yellow-tipped fingers, his narrow yellow fingernails, that close up. Just like I’ll confuse his sweaty polyester shirts with the Elder’s, I’ll get the nicotined hands mixed up too. So he becomes, over the curious course of my life, the enemy within. And I become, over the curious course of his life, the same thing. The object you throw your madness at.
    My father, with whom I’ll engage in a lifelong match for horribleness. After some crisis of his own, he’ll talk not a word directly to me from 1969 to 1976 – not one, not even “hello” – unless guests are around. So in 1971 or ’72, on another fishing trip, I’ll refuse to sing and play guitar for his important business buddies, and never sing again, ever. Children’s banter at meals causes him to be virulently nauseous – the infectious power of words again, I guess. Most nights my brother and Ieat without making a sound as my mother echoes his tense comments about «el maudit commerce.» She issues her daily cautions to me right before supper. Pleas for my abiding muteness no matter the provocation, no matter the insult, his fishing for a fight – «J’t’el demande. J’t’en supplie. A’soir, pas un mot. Pas un. Pour moi.» [I’m asking you. I’m