The GI Zip-Off

1.           

           

            He doesn't take me out often, but when he does, we do have a good time.

            They call me GI Zip-Off Pants. I'm for when we go fly fishing. In Montana, Chile, New Zealand, Siberia. Even Patagonia, which is fitting, because I'm from Patagonia. The store, not the place. For pants who are wet most of the time, my humor is mostly dry.

            He's the sort of man who ties his own flies. He zips my fly. That's a joke, or something like one, I think. He doesn't need a magnifier for that job. Sometimes he puts me on when he stands at his fly-tying desk. He works the vise, hooks, and thread. Hands of a surgeon. I admire him.

            But the fish are reluctant this time of the year. It's August. They've wised up. They’ve been caught, released; caught, released; and caught and released one time too many. Sly, they refuse dry flies. But grasshoppers are out and about. Fish can be confused, so the man is trying rubber-legged hopper patterns, the ones he's tied.

            Tying flies might make some men curse. Not him. Not once, at least not around me. He's methodical.

            His wife comes, too, on these trips. She likes to. They have a good time. He fishes. She reads books. They've been together a long time. They don't say much. They know each other that well.

            The wife's under a tree, a black hemlock. She's turned sideways, reading, not facing him, blouse celadon, pants emerald, in the shade, sandals off. Her nickname is "Slim." She has cheekbones. She doesn't like her fingers. She thinks they are too long.

            We're waist deep in the South Fork of the Snake River in Idaho. No one else in sight. Funny.

            We're in a canyon—me, him, the wife. They call it "The Canyon." We're down below Palisades Dam. The river's flatter here. Broad. On both sides, the rock rising up is rough, exposed, going up for hundreds of feet, specked with pines on the slopes, the lower slopes and shoreline blanketed with evergreens.

            I'm cool. Tough, but soft, like him. I dry fast. We like to get around. We don't stay uncomfortable. (Elastic waist, but let's not talk about that.) 40-UPF sun protection, whatever that is, built right in for the life of me. You wouldn't think a man's pair of pants would care about UPF sun protection, but that's important to him. I do the work for him. Got to take care of the skin, but you don't want anyone to know you do.

            I'm khaki, of course. But not just any khaki. I'm retro khaki. Old school like his Dad. He was in the war. Carrier-based aviator. Never talked about it. Certain things aren't done. Keep it tight. Otherwise people will know what you are thinking. Not a good thing. Not in his line of business. Not with his responsibilities. Bottom-line stuff.

            The guy who wears me? He's a corporate Something. A big position. I'm not sure exactly what it is. Involves a lot of travel in First Class. Contracts. Drinking with other men, usually in Hamburg and Rio and Tokyo. Cleveland, too. Places heavy on the leather and walnut.

            He likes Japan the most, especially when clients take him to Soaplands. Toruku-buro. He knows a few Japanese words. That's one of them. Amuses the Japs. That he knows that word. Toruku-buro. A good long hot bath. Lathery. Full relaxation. Place where a man can stretch out, extend himself. Really.

            "Hard at home," he thinks.

            He's not home much, so I stay rolled up, ready to go in that brown leather Orvis satchel. Scarred. Everything's ready to go with him—the Sunshade shirts (with sun-protection, too), the Riverwater vest made out of mesh with a ton of pockets, one for the Aquapac for the cell. Only a few people have the number. One might call. The Watermaster waders. Wool socks. The wife, she keeps everything else in the closet organized, but not me and the rest of the gear. He takes care of us himself. He cares.

            The best thing about me? Pockets and lots of them. Two self-draining front pockets. Good for whatnot—crocodile forceps, lures, his Leatherman (he loves it), stream thermometer, line cleaning tool, even a bogagrip. For weighing the catch. There in the river. He's a man who wants to know. When he wants to know.

            A rear zip. He puts a handkerchief there, even though it always gets wet. A gentleman always carries a handkerchief. He's funny. His favorite is a little dainty one. Lacy fringe. Pink. Belonged to his Mother. He wouldn't want you to know that.

            The best of the best things about me? I've got a beer bottle-sized thigh pocket that closes with a zipper. Believe me, I've had German, Belgian, Russian beers in me. And good ol' cans of American Bud, too. Nice feeling to have a tall boy on your thigh. Like a cock that's always hard. His, not so much. These days. That thought might have crossed his mind. He doesn't tell me everything, you know, but a pair of pants doesn't need to be told some things.

            It's all good after you've been out in the river a while. Hot. Cold. Sometimes he takes that bottle out of me in mid-stream. Stands there and has his enjoyment. It's deserved. Long, smooth sips, bottled tipped back, chin up. We could be a commercial on television. That's what he's doing now.

            Long day, no strikes.

            "I'm cutthroating," he yells to the wife on the bank, pulling a finger across the line of his jaw. He's after Cutthroat Trout. If you see red under the jaw, that's a cutthroat. It's a joke he making.

            She looks over for a second. Smiles. Wearing dark glasses. Him, too. Foster Grants. His and hers. Both polarized. She's got a little gray, and it's sexy wavy, but she doesn't think so. She's reading Jane Austen. To be precise, she's re-reading Jane Austen. It's important to her. Such sentences. Mannerly.

            Down river, a bald eagle comes, takes a fish. Off he goes. Up. Flap, flap. Fish wriggling.

            "Man," he whispers. "He got his."

            "Beautiful!" he yells to her. The water makes a soothing sound rushing past him. She doesn't look up.

            "Beautiful!" he yells again. But she doesn't look up.

            He says "Beautiful" again, this time to himself.

            "Hey, beautiful!" he yells. "You missed it!"

            "What?" she says, looking up, startled. Lost in old England. "Missed what?" she yells.

            "Reality," he shouts. "Life and death. Predator and prey."

            She's looking at him, still, knees to her chest, hands folded under her chin, prayer-like, water reflecting off her glasses.            

            "Eagle grabbed a fish," he explains, yelling. "Should have seen it."

            "I did," she says. "I know."

            He sucks the bottle dry, loving the smooth roundness of its lips, and it's back in my pocket, zipped.

            "Calling it a day," he yells.

            She closes the book, looks at him, and says, lips barely moving, "Okay."

            "Okay," he replies.

            He urinates in the frigid water, his warmth going down the length of me.             We're feeling good.

(From the forthcoming book "The Secret Lives of Britches" by A. Tad Strange.)