Maybe his dad drank because deep down, he did see himself and hated what he saw. His jealousy took many forms, making a monster of him, scattering bruises across the two people who loved him the most. As a kid, Peter tried not to take sides unless it got physical, which meant he sided with whoever was talking to him, offering little nods and head shakes so they’d keep talking.
Peter didn’t see himself as a broken man. Most days, he held himself apart from the idea of failure. True self-knowledge likes to play hard to get, but whether he wanted to or not, Peter sensed things about other people. Claudia seemed worn so thin by self-denial that she was liable to do something stupid.
At least he hoped so. It took energy for him not to grab her hand and drag her out of the trailer for some privacy. He wanted to ask questions, to learn all about her, but not while his mother was around. He didn’t want to waste the potency of that first big talk, the urgency of which led women straight to bed, in his experience. People love to be asked about themselves. He checked his rearview mirror. Yep, she was still following him. Perfect.
Well, not quite perfect. He was having trouble keeping her headlights in sight. Was she trying to pull over? They’d only had three beers each. That was almost an hour ago. She drank the first beer faster than he thought a woman could. Whatever happened tonight, it was better than sitting around a table with Randall’s happy family, trying not to stare at Roberta and wonder what if.
Claudia crept along. Was she looking at the view? It was a clear night. Aside from bright specks on the Canadian shore, the strait was black as the starry sky. He tapped the brakes, cursing. What an amateur! He hated how women drove. She might as well get out and walk. She was lucky the other cars were heading toward Neah Bay, or she’d get run off the road.
Slowing down didn’t bring her closer. She was backing off his tail for a reason. He sped up. So did she. Confirmed. She didn’t want anyone to know she was with him. Peter gripped the wheel and pressed back in his seat.
The bar slumped at the bend in the road where Highway 112 crossed Frontier Street, turned from the strait and headed uphill past a co-op, a gas station, an espresso stand in a storage unit, a high school, a church and the turnoff for the corrections center. Streetlights stained everything a rough green. During the day, you could see the bar was blue as a tarp, its corrugated roof the dead beige that used to be called flesh in a box of crayons.
Peter parked in front of the BEER CROSSING sign. The bar windows were lined with plywood and PBR ads to protect the patrons from being seen and those outside from seeing. He watched Claudia maneuver her SUV into a space hidden from the highway by a white van with a faded FOR SALE sign taped to its back window. She hopped out and hurried toward him, still dressed like she was about to go hiking. What is it with white women from Seattle? It’s like they all died and went to an outdoors store. But she was pretty enough.
“Not taking any chances, I see.”
“You can never be too careful! Thanks for taking the lead.”
“After you.”
Clallam Bay’s only bar was dark, like every other dive in this podunk pioneer town state. Its centerpiece was a pool table lit by low hanging lights that showed the green felt was ripped and rippled in a few places, the ceiling stained with water spots that found their twins on the table, a lifetime of neglect reflected there like clouds in a lake.
Claudia went straight for the bar, brushing past a clump of Indians in sweatshirts and baggy jeans. Exactly what he was wearing. They stared at her and at him and broke into big grins like, “Right on, brother.”
He jerked his shoulder real quick, as in, “Shut up about it, I’m still working here.” One of them went over to the jukebox and picked “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” smirking at his friends.
The bartender was a frosted blonde with thick eyeliner that pegged her as the type who once serviced the best loggers on the peninsula. Soft rolls of skin swelled around her bra strap and waistband.
“What can I getcha?”
“Whiskey.”
The second swallow didn’t hurt like the first. By the third, Peter wondered why he didn’t drink whiskey every day. Deep into their second drink, Claudia’s makeup had been pushed into the crinkles beneath her eyes by all the smiles, which was a good thing, he decided. He wasn’t as picky as he used to be, or maybe it was that he’d learned to find favor with more faces. How old was she? Best not to ask. Her beauty was brittle, the last blush of fall.
He was looking at her so hard he forgot to talk. Shit. She touched the burn spots on his right hand. “What happened there?”
“Scars number twelve and thirteen.”
She snorted. “Why have you numbered your scars?”
“I had to map them for my job.”
“Why?”
“So they’d recognize the body.”
“How’s that?”
“Welding is dangerous underwater.”
“You’re a welder?” She looked puzzled. More than that. Curious.
“Just because I live with my mom doesn’t mean I don’t have marketable skills.”
She laughed. “I didn’t presume . . .”
“Yeah, you did. I quit my job to take care of her. Just so you know.”
“How did you get into welding?”
“Don’t act like you give a shit.”
She looked down into her drink, whether ashamed or calculating her blood alcohol level, he didn’t know. He was tired of small talk. For all he cared, she could still consider herself on the clock five drinks into an evening. Not that they timed academics.
He half expected her to walk out and drive back to the rez, but the last thing a woman like her needed was a DUI. She opened her mouth, closed it, took a sip, then another, and tried a smile. “So . . . how’d you manage to count the scars on your backside?”
“Used a mirror.” Actually, that wasn’t true. He’d used a one night stand. What was her name? He’d forgotten it right away. Took to calling her my dirty darlin’, which she liked; she licked every scar, starting with the asterisk on his shoulder blade, where the hook had caught, pulling him overboard the morning he went fishing for halibut with a hangover bigger than he was. He was lucky he didn’t drown that day, his body trailing behind the boat like a bag of chum, pulled deeper and deeper by the baited line until he was hauled out by buddies as bloody-eyed as he. His shoulder still burned when it rained.
Claudia got up and, without asking if he wanted to play, tucked a quarter under the rail of the pool table. She plucked a cue from where it leaned on the wall and rolled it on the table; it bounced around like a dying fish. She tried a few more until she found something halfway decent. She wore her wedding band, which he took as a sign that whatever they did wouldn’t last. He never got to keep them for long.
Peter took the break, sank a stripe in the side pocket but left a clusterfuck where the triangle had been. She didn’t say anything, let him run the table until he was spread too thin to cover the pockets, and then she went to work. She played him like she did his mother, hiding her intentions right up until she had a good chance at getting what she wanted.
He set up their next drinks as she lined up her shots, the other men in the bar paying real close attention as she leaned over the table, hair brushing the felt. Peter saw a dude double check his pockets, come up empty and nudge his neighbor, bumming change to hold the next game. He stiffened his stance in their direction to show who she’d be leaving with, just as soon as he let her sink the eight ball.
Which she did—a clean shot to the corner pocket. She didn’t make a fuss about it, which was good of her. Then again, she looked like the kind of woman who expected to win.
She rested the cue on the table. “It’s time for me to go.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t think I should drive.”
“Need a lift?”
“People will talk.”
“That’s all they ever do.”
He knew it didn’t matter what he sai
d. Whatever she decided, it would be for her own reasons. He waited. He was patient, even as a kid.
“Do you know a place nearby? Could you drop me off?”
The motel was only two miles down the road, but it seemed like a long way, what with her not talking and staring out the window and sighing. Just like a woman to regret a decision as she’s making it. She made him reserve the room, waiting out in the truck, half hiding her face with her hand, which was just as well. He got a room whose floors sloped, but the sheets were alright. The harsh overhead light made the bed look like an operating table. He hit the switch, turned on the bedside lamp and hustled out to the truck to lead her up to the second floor, her foot catching once, twice on the stairs. When they got to the room, she had the nerve to ask him where he would be sleeping.
“Don’t be naïve, honey. We both know why we’re here.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t do this kind of thing.”
“I know that.” And then he was kissing her neck and taking off her godawful clothes, tossing them into a corner along with his own. At some point, she stopped pretending and stepped into his arms, which held her loosely now that he knew she was staying. She turned a slow circle, his tip bumping and gliding around her waist, leaving a small, slick trail that gleamed in the lamplight, a detail that delighted him, because it had never happened before. A first. He pushed her onto the bed.
Her legs were all angles, her fingers clutching the thin lip of mattress as he gave her the kind of head it took his entire thirties to learn. When he came up for air, breath heavy with her tang, he shoved her face sideways with his chin, whispering, “You taste nice.” She looked startled to see him. Before she could say no, or wait, or anything, he pushed inside, watching her face, watching her tits shake, watching her eyes, which had trouble focusing. They settled on staying closed as she clutched his shoulders, her mouth helpless, their minds wandering the darkness together.
The headboard knocked against the wall in an easy rhythm he found soothing, like a train clicking over rails, their cries getting louder and louder until the ringing, high and shrill, became repetitive enough to get his attention.
“’Lo?”
“Sir, we’ve been getting calls.” The clerk’s voice was clipped.
“I imagine you would. You’re listed, aren’t ya?”
“The calls are about a disturbance in your room.”
“Disturbance? Is there a force field around here or something?”
“Sir, it’s a noise disturbance, from your . . . affair.”
“Affair? All we’re doing is fucking.”
“Please show some respect.”
“If you can’t fuck out loud in a motel, where can you do it?”
He slipped the receiver below a pillow and got back to it. Someone pounded on the wall from the other room. Laughing, Peter propped himself up and gave an answer with his right fist.
“Hey!” Claudia’s eyes were open again. “Down here.”
“Oh, I know you’re there.” He dropped to his elbows, the flat of her belly hot against him. “You’re a lot nicer when you have a little whiskey in you.”
He saw her face sour, but she let it go, turning her mouth away and arching her back to bare the pale underside of her jaw. He put his thumb into the crook of it, fingers grappling the back of her neck.
Her body torqued as he fucked her, head twisting to one side and the next. She stiffened her shoulders into one axle and drove the pressure down through her hips and into that other mouth, which gaped and begged and was filled.
Chapter Eleven
THE STORY OF Thunderbird and Whale begins with lack, an unfulfilled desire. In a Quileute version, Whale patrolled the deep, devouring. Men starved and prayed. Thunderbird heard them. He winged from his mountain aerie to haul Whale from the water. Thunderbird and Whale battled, flapping land and slapping sea until the earth shook and the ocean pulled back into itself and roared forth. Thunderbird abandoned Whale’s body on land to be cut into blubbery strips by survivors.
Many believe these stories memorialized the earthquake and tsunami of January 26, 1700. The Pacific convulsed from what is now Canada to California. Massive tree die-offs attest that a salty wave strafed the coast, scouring the shore of man and vegetation alike. A big surge with no shaking swept nearly five thousand miles west to Japan, where merchants and fishermen logged the date.
Generations later, the 1855 treaty of Neah Bay created the Makah reservation out of ancestral land in exchange for federal promises to preserve the tribe’s right to fish and hunt whales forever, a hard bargain struck by chiefs like Tse-Kaw-Wootl, who said, “I want the sea. That is my country.”
The Makah tribal logo still shows Thunderbird clutching Whale. In the midst of his people’s defense of their right to whale, which was under global siege, a Makah leader told a different story. His version began with a man, hungry and cold. Ice ruled the land. He climbed to the mountains to pray for an end to starvation. Thunderbird heard his cry—but it was Whale who came ashore to warm the land and people’s bellies. In this telling, whales beach themselves.
Daylight pressed against her eyelids. A bright smear beamed between her glued lashes. Her head was beyond aching. It pulsed.
The hangover occupied her entire body, spilling off the bed and pooling onto the floor, filling the room. She tipped her face to the window. Curtains parted onto a view of cloudless blue. Her eyes were sticky. So was her mouth. She closed her eyes again; the glare tackled her lids. From beneath, she saw a different planet, a red world veined with mauve.
Birds chirped. A car started. Tires scraped over asphalt. Children shouted in Spanish. A woman shushed them. A car door slammed. She squeezed her eyes shut, scrunching her face. Pain radiated from her temples.
Claudia spread her hands on the bed, patting rough folds of cotton. She was naked and alone but for two crumpled pillows. She reached between her legs. A swamp. Her period? She swiped at her lips and came up with silky black hairs too long to belong to her. Groaning, she turned her back to the window. She was alone now, but she hadn’t been.
Peter.
She tucked both hands between her thighs. She’d had unprotected sex with the son of her best hope for a meaningful qualitative study. Everyone would find out, if he felt like making it known. And what man wouldn’t. She swung her legs off the bed and sat up. Her headache expanded like a dying star.
A stripe of dirt and flies lined the gray carpet where it tucked into the plastic baseboard. The sound of her own breath echoed in her ears. She was sore. He’d given it to her how she liked it.
The children outside screamed and laughed. A vacuum bumped around the room next to hers. Sometimes Makahs worked these jobs; even if they lived off the reservation, they’d talk. She’d have to erase the evidence. She turned her head toward the door. It was not chained. She always chained the door. That meant they’d had sex here, or at least, come back here. She fought an image of his face moving above her, careening in and out of focus.
Her clothes were doubled over a chair. That’s not how she would arrange them. He tidied up. Craning her neck, she checked the other nightstand. Her keys were stacked next to a full glass of water. Had she driven herself here? If not, she would be seen walking an exposed and dangerous stretch of highway that had no other purpose this morning but to shame her. If so, she should already be ashamed. And she was. She had violated every code of ethics she ever agreed to hold sacred, and she did it on a whim, wasting herself on a drunk.
It couldn’t be undone. She drained the glass. Water ran down both sides of her mouth. She would have to make herself presentable. Driving down Front Street was like strolling a promenade. Everyone checked you out. If there was a halfway decent chance they knew you, drivers waved or weaved their cars to show you’d been seen.
Claudia stood up to tug the paisley curtains together, wondering if Peter left them parted on purpose. They stuck right where they were, loosing a light flurry of dust as the acrylic shimmied back into
place. Okay, no. He hadn’t. She scurried to the bathroom, hiding her ass and avoiding the mirror, and checked the wastebasket. No condom, no shiny wrapper, not even a tiny, torn-off corner. Maybe he flushed them. No, that wasn’t it, and she knew that already.
She faced her reflection. Her shoulders and breasts bore rough red patches. Claudia pirouetted to check her back. On her neck, next to her spine, four bruises bloomed in a row, purple as pansies. Seeing them alarmed her.
A shower. First things first.
The motel stocked the kind of soap that splits in two when you open the wrapper, and nothing else. It would have to do. Her fingers smelled like cum and cigarettes. She didn’t dare take a whiff of her hair. She pulled the curtain and started the water, nearly falling out of the tub when a cold spray sputtered out of the showerhead. Then again, cold water was better for washing off semen, a lesson learned while camping with Andrew. Early on in her marriage, she slept under the stars, unafraid, scoffing at tents, hair full of woodsmoke, inviting dew. Early on, they zipped their sleeping bags together. Early on, they did all kinds of cheesy shit she loved, along with him. When did she stop being young? When had she become used?
She had no choice but to start again. It was that, or die alone. But not this man, a mistake. There was no future here for her, not with Peter. She knew that. She presumed he did, too. He wasn’t stupid.
This was not the life she envisioned when she married Andrew, full of admiration for his potential, and her own.
Their honeymoon passed in a happy haze as they cavorted from one meal to the next, marveling at how cheap Mexico was. At least, she marveled outwardly, pushing down disgrace that her homeland couldn’t pull it together. The peso would never strike parity with the dollar.
Still, she had fun, draped over the prow of a long boat that lay low in the water, splitting a jungle river at dusk, motoring through the hoots and hollers of howler monkeys, birds flitting by, bats swooping over them, Andrew ducking and laughing. Her smile was so big it hurt. Insects smashed into her teeth.
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