Chapter 10: Irvine
Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9.

     “So for awhile I just wandered around in a daze, stopping off at various trout hotspots, looking up old friends, most of whom had up and moved. The few I did find regarded me suspiciously — as if noticing for the first time the gray rubber boots I wore in lieu of fins or a tail.”
     “And then what?”
     “And then,” I said, “I came back here, looking to establish some sort of spiritual communion with the few remaining trout metaphors I knew of — the ones who made their home in that stream you vomited into last night.”
     “I feel terrible about that,” Liz mumbled.
     I smiled and rubbed my beard. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It all ends up in the same place anyway.”
     “And this stream,” she said, motioning to the stream flowing past the cedar kitchenette, out through the living room and down the stairs, where it cascades into the basement, “how long has it been empty?”
     “The last trout packed up his wagon and moved to Irvine in the winter of ’83,” I said. “But the stream’s not really empty, if you think about it. I mean, there are still plenty of rocks and Pepsi cans to go around.”

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Chapter 11