This is Huang, and that’s a catfish in his right hand. I was walking by the waterway that runs past Circle lake and headed toward the Columbus Bridge, when I decided to check in on the spiders that live under the bridge (at least when I canoed under it with Austen in August). Huang greeted me as I approached and I was curious to see someone else under a bridge in Forest Park (I thought I was the only one).

“Hello.” I said in response to his salutation. “Do you live under that bridge (there are people living in Forest Park and sometimes I encounter them or come across their camps)?”

“No.” he replied. “I fishing.”

“You don’t mind if I watch, do you?” I asked. I usually do ask before I take people’s photos.

Huang said it was ok, so I sat under the bridge with him and asked him about himself. It turns out he’s from Vietnam and has been in this country 17 years, lives on Washington Avenue, fishes often and doesn’t like spiders.

“Here?” he asked in alarm when I told him I’d headed to the bridge to check on the spiders.

“Most of them were on the other side.” I replied, waving my hand in the direction behind him. He glanced quickly behind him as if he expected to find something looking over his shoulder, and shivered.

“They were about this big.” I went on, forming a circle about the size of a quarter with my thumb and forefinger, “Not including the legs.”

I don’t think he found that reassuring.

He was still working the hook out of the fish’s mouth when I said so long and walked up the bank to the street above.

It was shortly after that I found the cones. Photos.