The Glacier
Issue Four
Winter 2025

The Ditch Fisherman

Most everyone else retreated indoors when it rained. Eddie himself was inside a car, though he would have preferred to shelter in a house. Not so the ditch fisherman. Eddie caught a glimpse of a yellow sou’wester as he slowed his car down to avoid careening off the road in his suburban neighborhood. It was the same man he’d seen before in a lawn chair, cooler at his side, rod and reel at the ready. He’d been all set up on the bank of the ditch like he’d claimed for himself a stake in Sportsman’s Paradise. It was the same ditch that stank of creosote oozing from the railroad ties which added structural support to the small bridge Eddie was now crossing.

Litter got snagged against the piles of branches, tangled against the posts like the work of an erratic beaver, and studded with plastic bottles, fast-food wrappers, parts of old bikes, and shopping carts. A rainbow sheen of gasoline glazed the water’s surface. It was no place to fish in the best of weather, but here was the ditch fisherman standing in the pouring rain, battling something big from the looks of it, that made his line taut and tugged the pole into a curve. Eddie could just make out the man’s wild-eyed expression through sheets of rain before conceding the road his full attention and driving past.

The sight haunted him long after the rain stopped and for many a trip spanning the ditch’s abandoned banks. Even when it wasn’t raining, he’d swear to a flash of yellow among the bamboo cane and saplings that were slowly filling in the man’s makeshift resort. Eddie always wondered what he’d caught that day and pictured him reeling in an eel or some disgusting two-headed monster bulging with tumors. And yet for an instant, he considered, the man had landed something even bigger than that, and Eddie envied him all the lost romance of the sea.

Fire-eater

It was a shimmery dress, strung together entirely from gold reflective disks each the size of a nickel. It was plastic actually, and the overlapping pieces jangled quietly when Beverly walked. She had always wanted a dress like this, had even fashioned herself a matching headpiece suitable for Zelda Fitzgerald.

This was what she wore for her first date with Edward. They had met at a street fair earlier in the week. Edward ate fire.

Fire-eating in itself did not especially impress Beverly, but this Edward sported a handle-bar mustache and that sparked her interest. Otherwise, his features appeared singed clean with the exception of two heavy, dark eyebrows.

What continued to confuse Beverly was that she didn’t even like mustaches. She positively loathed them. And this one with its oiled tips had posed a particular affront, not to mention a fire hazard. She paused amidst a small group of people watching Edward’s act. She’d been looking for the vendor who sold the vintage postcards—she’d wanted to send one of St. Louis Cathedral to Lila. But the next thing she knew the people had parted and she was standing only eight feet or so from this strange mustachioed man in denim overalls. Their eyes met and before she could decide what she thought of him, what was happening, his eyes swirled and a tongue of fire flared in her direction. When the smoke cleared, she was still looking.

Tonight they were riding in Edward’s VW van. It was white except for a coating of black smudges. Inside, the van smelled of solvents—gasoline, kerosene—Beverly wasn’t sure which, but she was growing lightheaded and dizzy even with the windows cracked. The metallic tools of Edward’s trade rattled around behind her, where the other seats used to be.

Edward cleaned up well and dressed surprisingly normal. He had on jeans, a blazer, button-down shirt, and boots. But his hands on the wheel were blistered and scarred. Beverly expected to see black marks charred deep into the creases, but Edward’s hands looked raw and ashen. She wondered if they were still capable of feeling.

She leaned close to the passenger-side door and found herself counting the numbered loading docks of an enormous brick warehouse on Tchoupitoulas Street. The city was dark but for the streetlights and large illuminated numbers marking the way. She shifted slightly but found her range of movement limited—her dress was caught in the door of the van.

Edward glanced in her direction. “Enjoying the ride?”

Not one for idle chatter, Beverly gave this question some thought.

“It’s like a dream,” she said.

“Yeah? What kind of dream?”

Beverly lowered the visor in search of a mirror. She smoothed the golden disks of her headpiece until they lay flat atop her short blond hair. “That remains to be seen.”

They were headed to the Lower Garden District. Edward’s friend had a glass blowing studio off Felicity Street. She was mildly surprised when they reached a sizeable green-space. There were no benches or walkways, or even trees or people for that matter. It was simply vacant—the site of something that once was. “Billy’s place is across the street.”

“He’s got a big front yard,” Beverly said.

“I guess that’s right,” said Edward. “Billy’s not the outdoors type. See for yourself.”
Billy’s studio was in a two-story white building, one up from the corner. The door was wedged open.

Inside, a flight of wooden stairs rose to the second floor. Edward led Beverly past the entryway into a large room down the hall. She found herself surrounded by spheres of whirled color—amber and amethyst, vermillion and gold. She observed the clear crystals and radiant coils, and how they seemed to glow against the backdrop of white walls.

“It’s fantastic,” said Beverly. She spun around the gallery admiring each object in kind. Her own dress picked up the reflections, forming a continuum of body and light.

Billy, it turned out, was out of town, and Edward had a key so that he could look after the furnaces. But why had he left the door open like that? Beverly couldn’t understand. All those fragile bulbs of glass—his friend’s life’s work had been left exposed.

There was much that hadn’t made sense to Beverly since moving to New Orleans. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking care of this place?”

But Edward didn’t answer. And Beverly’s own thoughts were returning to Lila, and a home that seemed so far from here now, and the postcard she’d wanted to send her best friend of so many years.

Whatever had been clouding her judgment on the ride over was lifting. And from somewhere deep inside this hall of mirrors, she saw the dazzling dream for what it was.

Daniel Webre’s work has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Allium, South 85 Journal, The Listening Eye, New Limestone Review, Boudin, and other places.

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