Occasionally Babe joins him on fishing trips, although Babe does not immerse himself in the experience in quite the same way as he. For Babe, fishing is just another leisure activity. Babe collects hobbies the way other men collect stamps.
Babe hunts, but gives up the gun after staring into the dying eyes of a gut-shot deer.
Babe buys horses cursed from birth never to win a race, then Babe continues to bet on these horses out of loyalty, even when Babe can no longer afford the losses.
Babe raises chickens and turkeys and pigs for food on a farm in the San Fernando Valley, but Babe cannot bring himself to have the animals slaughtered, and so keeps them as pets.
Babe grows fruit and vegetables.
Babe is a carpenter.
Babe cooks.
But he is not like Babe. He does not accumulate pursuits. For him, fishing is an escape from himself.
I don’t understand, Babe says. I’ve seen you sit there for hours and finish up empty-handed.
—It’s not about catching anything. It’s about the anticipation. Or perhaps it allows me to pretend to be doing something when, in fact, I’m doing nothing at all.
Babe considers this.
—The anticipation I give you. I guess it’s like being at the track. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about being suspended in the space between.
Sometimes, he thinks, Babe speaks like a poet.
When I’m there, Babe continues, in that moment, I forget everything. I forget Myrtle. I forget Viola. I even forget myself. I become weightless.
He understands. They are not so different, after all.
Well, there you have it, he says.
—But when I win, I win money. When you win, you win a fish.
—On the other hand, he replies, I can’t really lose anything at all.
—Only time.
Yes, he says, only time.