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The first time that I saw Henri was at the Metro Station on “Spring Street” in the Soho section of Manhatta and it’s a day that I’m not about to forget.

It was a beautiful spring day and (as I always do),evidently

I got myself to the north end of Central Park with it’s famous lake: the “Harlem Meer”; it’s there that the yellow perches, as well as the young ladies, are abundant (go quickly and read the marvelous story “Harlem Meer” published in le Mouching a while back).

Undeniably, the goings on in this Metro Station were out of the ordinary. Judge for yourself.


This guy, Henri, was the key of the show. Taking the stance of a Andalusian toreador, he held his coat in his hand like a muleta and with his body well arched, stood on the edge of the platform; with feet well planted, he waited for the next train. When it finally approached, like a bull rushing out of a bullpen, Henri executed a superb “veronica” avoiding, by a hair’s breath, the roaring monster. After which he lifted his baseball cap and saluted the crowd, as Manolete or Paco Camino would have done at the Plaza de Toros in Madrid.

The crowd in the station held their collective breath and hesitated a little between: “You dumb jerk!” or, “Ole!”  The applause finally escalated and Henri, forehead covered in laurels went down on one knee to wait for the next train, in spite the voice on the loudspeaker that firmly suggested: “Please stand away from the platform edge, as trains enter and leave the station!”

As Henri executed his new pass, his overcoat regrettably snagged on the headlights in front of the train and quickly disappeared under the speeding wheels.

Poor Henri was desperate. He wanted to jump onto the tracks to retrieve his tattered coat however, in spite of his painful tears, we stopped him.

“My coat… my beautiful coat,” he cried out like a Sicilian Mourner, “everything that I have is in the pockets of that coat. My driver’s license, my money and above all the keys to my apartment. How am I going to  get into my house?

You can’t possibly know, dear readers, to what point my heart was touched by the pain of my fellow man. Helping Henri up, I proposed that he could come to my house and wait until the dark clouds of destiny dissipated.

One day I announced that the following week-end I planned to take a trip to Montauk (the extreme tip of Long Island) where is seems that schools of Albacore Tuna were making the water boil and that to have one of these devilish beasts on a fly rod is the ultimate sport.

With this announcement it was clear that Henri’s brain started to boil as well. After a few minutes of silence he asked:”My dear friend, my savior. Would I have the audacity to borrow your gear to make flies? I think that I have a formidable idea.”

“But of course” I said pulling out the messy drawer filled with my stuff for mounting flies.

Henri locked himself in his bedroom and a little while later reappeared with the following proposition.

“To the question, where is the biggest concentration of Tuna in the world? Unequivocally the answer is: “in cans”, is it not? So, what should the deadly fly look like?  A can of tuna! It’s logical.”

And, like a president of the republic unveiling a statue of himself to his constituency, Henry let me admire his latest invention.

 

#3 hook. The imitation mounted with deer hair painted by hand.

A few weeks later, Henri suddenly disappeared from my apartment taking with him, besides my wife, 3 bottles of Chateau Petrus 1948 and all my gear for mounting flies with which he would, on the rocks of Montauk, have an incredible success with his redoubtable fly and would quickly become a local celebrity.