A Ditch Runs Through It

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To some degree, it's also a matter of conditioning. As the wild land disappears, your standards for wildness go down. Blackberries and star thistle replace fields of wildflowers, and slough squirrels suddenly seem as exotic as otters. In this atmosphere, a drainage ditch takes on an almost rustic charm. If it's got fish in it, all the better.

It's not easy going back to work. Billy's foot comes off the gas reflexively at each flash of ditch water. There's a faint chemical tang to the air. This is spring on the ditches. All things reborn. Billy and I each have a couple of new lures we haven't tried yet, and the boundless hope of fisher-men and idiots. Far from untouched, the ditches are still in a way innocent: They are unaware of their funkiness, and unconcerned, just as a dog is of its breath.

The last ditch we cross, an arm of the East Drainage, is flat and still, though supposedly thick with crappie in spots. We pull into the parking lot beside my car and I stash my gear. We're a half-hour late getting back to the office, but we take our time crossing the parking lot. A disoriented cock pheasant skitters out from behind the azalea hedge. He blinks at us, then takes off in a low trajectory toward the uniform laundry next door. The unnatural glow of LCD monitors leaks through the closed blinds of several windows, and we step reluctantly back inside the building, the illicit smell of ditch water trailing us through the lobby doors.

Jeffrey Ewing's writing also has appeared in the literary journals Crazyhorse and Tule Review. Reprinted from Sacramento News & Review (April 26, 2007), an alternative weekly that tackles regional and national news with attitude. Subscriptions: $39/yr. (52 issues) from 1015 20th St., Sacramento, CA 95814; www.newsreview.com/sacramento.

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