The Great Offshore Grounds

by Vanessa Veselka

  Arriving at a plywood outbuilding that had been turned into an AA clubhouse, Essex could already taste the weak coffee and fake creamer. It had been years since he’d been there, but it was the same. Brown carpet and baseboard heating, the same fold-out tables with Styrofoam cups and cubes of sugar on top, the same dry-erase boards with anniversaries and announcements.

  The 5:00 p.m. meeting was going. The chair was a kempt and beefy man in a white dress shirt that was rolled neatly up his forearms, exposing an old India ink tattoo under a carpet of blond hair. Essex could smell his aftershave from the door. The guy was just the type he’d hated as a teenager. He didn’t feel that way now. People should have a home. There should be someplace for everyone to go.

  In the back of the room behind a small bar with a couple of stools, an old man was washing coffeepots in the sink. On the counter sat a half-eaten birthday cake.

  “I’m looking for Sandy K,” said Essex. “Is she still around?”

  “Sandy K? Oh sure.”

  “Do you know where she lives?”

  “Are you a bill collector?”

  “I’m her son.”

  “I hate bill collectors. Talked to one last week. He’s like, ‘Aren’t you folks supposed to make amends and pay everyone back?’ So I told him Steps are in an order for a reason, fucker. First I got to get over my resentment and you ain’t helping.” He clapped Essex on the shoulder. “Wreckage of the present. Those assholes never have any sense of humor. Set yourself on fire in a motel and marry the same woman three times, then you’ll have a sense of humor. People ask me how I can laugh at things like that. I tell them, I don’t laugh because it’s funny. I laugh because it’s true.”

  Essex liked the old man immediately.

  “Cake?” said the old man. “We’re just going to throw it out.”

  Essex said no but the man cut him a slice and stuck a plastic spork in it.

  “I know Sandy lives close by. Linda will know where. She’s chairing the next meeting if you can hang out.”

  While Essex waited he ate the whole cake.

  * * *

  —

  Sandy’s new apartment was in a concrete honeycomb complex, plastic tricycles on the landings, a banner of a pot leaf or an eagle carrying a flag here and there, built on a slope with gray boat paint covering rotting stairs ready to slide into the nearest gulley with enough rain or a minor earthquake—like every place they’d ever lived.

  He knocked on Sandy’s door and she opened it.

  “It’s Christian,” he said to save them both.

  “Oh! My big baby.” She opened the door and tapped her cheek. “Give me some. Come inside. Tell me everything.”

  He remembered her hair as dark, but it was light brown now. The muscle tone in her freckled shoulders was still there but her waist was wider and her legs skinnier. He recognized the chairs around the kitchen table. The walls were hung with platitudes, crosses, and dream catchers in no particular hierarchy. A sliding glass door opened onto a concrete balcony that overlooked a tennis court with a dipping net and piles of wet leaves.

  She offered him a seat on the couch next to a bookshelf of ceramic dolphins.

  “I collect them. My sponsees give them to me.”

  Reaching over, she pulled a pillow out from under him that had the Serenity Prayer in needlepoint on it. “One of my girls made it. She just did her fifth Step. Poor thing was trembling like a leaf. No need to be nervous, I told her. It’s not like I’m going to hear anything new.”

  That, he could believe. By the time he was nine he’d heard all about abortions and car crashes and what dead people looked like. He could also make daiquiris and pronounce the word cunnilingus.

  “I joined the marines,” he said.

  “At your age?”

  “They took me.”

  “Are you thirsty?” she asked. “I have pop.”

  “I leave tomorrow. I thought you should know.”

  “You have your own higher power watching over you, baby.” She walked to the fridge.

  He felt sick but thought it might be all the frosting he’d eaten.

  She came back with two sodas and handed him one.

  There was a knock at the door and two girls came in. One was college age. The other had skin weathered from exposure or over-tanning and he had no idea how old she was.

  “Hey Mom,” she said.

  Sandy tapped her cheek and she kissed it.

  “Give me some sugar,” Sandy said to the younger girl. “These are my newest babies. This is my son, Christian. He’s going to be a marine.”

  Essex stood up to make room on the couch, but when he started to sit Sandy motioned for him not to. “Honey, it’s almost seven and I lead a women’s Step study on Wednesday nights so I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  His face got hot as he took it in. His feet were heavy and his head got light. It was the same feeling he used to have as a boy when he thought something would turn out one way and it turned out another.

  She showed him out and kissed him noisily on the cheek.

  “You’ll let me know where they send you, won’t you, baby? Another chick out of the nest,” she said, not to him but to the women in the room, and closed the door.

  * * *

  —

  He slept at Jared’s. They played video games and ate half a pan of leftover lasagna Jared’s mom had made. The next morning, they reported to the recruiting station where they were taken for a final round of medical evaluations and then from there to a hotel for the night. Neither he nor Jared had ever stayed in a hotel before, which wasn’t something they realized until they were handed a room key. In the elevator up to their floor, Essex kept reminding himself he’d made a momentous decision, but also kept forgetting.

  At dawn the new recruits were put on a bus to the airport. There were five of them, all under twenty, Essex guessed. He probably had five years on the sergeant. One of the recruits realized he’d set his camera on the ground when he threw his bag beneath the bus and left it. He turned to go back down the aisle but the sergeant blocked him.

  “First lesson. Keep your shit together.”

  The recruit thought he was joking but the sergeant didn’t move and eventually the recruit went back to his seat and the bus got back on the road.

  “How bad do you think boot camp is going to be?” Jared asked.

  “Probably awful.”

  He looked around at the other recruits. Even here, he was bigger than everyone else.

  “I think I’m going to be carrying things,” he said.

  “Maybe we’ll be snipers.”

  “I fucking hope not. The only person I’d feel okay about shooting is you.”

  Essex had never been on a plane before. He slowed everyone down in the security line because he wasn’t sure for a minute if the TSA agent was joking when he asked him to take his shoes off.

  They found their row. Jared had the window seat but Essex made him trade since Jared had flown before. Jammed in against the molded plastic, Essex tried to stretch his legs but it turned out flying wasn’t made for people who were tall and square.

  Across the aisle were two more recruits, Aggies from Texas, brothers, from their conversation. He pieced together that they had gotten drunk on a road trip, ditched their car, and signed up. One of the Aggies, the older one, finally went to sleep and conversation stopped. After a while the younger brother also dozed off, sleeping with his head on the other brother’s chest. In their minds, outside the Brazos flooded like the Nile leaving jewels in the soil. Crystals that turned into mesquite trees buzzing with life, into locusts and copperheads and lightning.

  As the plane began to taxi, then took off, Essex watched the runway drop away beneath him. Soon he could see the irrigated grasslands of central Oregon. Through the clouds he saw verdant fie
lds dotted with what looked like giant marshmallows.

  “What are those?” he asked.

  “I think they’re hay,” said Jared. “Hey, how did you find Sandy?”

  “Throw a rock in a clubhouse, hit a sponsee.”

  “Sandy K. More will be revealed…” said Jared.

  “More always is.”

  The coastal range was closer now and the hills began to roll again. The white-dot hay bales disappeared. Rivers cut through fields and mountains to the ocean.

  Thinking about Cheyenne, he felt more gone than ever. Someone told him if you rub a crystal hard enough it can change electrons on the other side of the universe. Electrons can’t share an energy state. If one electron moves in, the other has to move out. On the other hand, if time happens all at once and nothing beats the speed of light, Cheyenne was here now and he just couldn’t see her because he wasn’t far enough away. Clearly this was bullshit. He probably shouldn’t have learned his physics from hippies. But he liked the idea that wherever he was, whatever he did affected her. Because whatever she did certainly affected him.

  Essex turned to Jared, who had fallen asleep. He wished he felt close to him or to any man. It has to happen when you’re really young, though, or it never does. Even as a kid, each new neighborhood, each new school it was always the same closed ranks. Sorry boy. Should have been here in kindergarten. The only other path to brotherhood was to get nearly killed with someone else, which he and Jared had almost managed, but cars and drugs don’t really count.

  * * *

  —

  In San Diego the recruits were transferred onto a bus to the marine depot. As soon as they were driving, the lights went out and someone yelled, Get your head down! Get your fucking head down! Essex tried to see what was happening and a sergeant shouted full force into his face, Head down! Head down now! Then there was a loud bang and he ducked. Another bang. Between your knees! shouted the same sergeant. Fuck man, said Jared, what is this? I don’t know, man, I don’t know. There was a series of shot-like sounds from another part of the bus and a different sergeant barreled down the aisle. Essex lifted his head and caught a glimpse of the neighborhood going past. It looked normal. Then the sergeant was over him. Keep your fucking head down. Between your knees! Between your knees! Now! Now! Now! Essex tried to put his head back down between his knees but the bus lurched and his head hit the plastic back of the seat in front of him, jamming up his neck, and more loud noises he couldn’t identify came from several directions. Both sergeants were shouting now and it wasn’t stopping; the noise, the shouting, the lurching, the banging, it went on and on. Just when silence fell and he thought it would stop, it started again and after a while the periods of silence were worse than the noise. He lost his sense of time. He knew they were doing it. They were trying to scare them. Jared kept whispering, his words a single stream of sound—I wish they’d fucking stop it’s not funny Jesus what’s happening is something happening I wish they’d fucking stop fuck can you see outside can you see where we are I can’t see anything can you see? And Essex could see because he had been raised by Kirsten and knew exactly what was going on. It was a play—the kidnapping, the darkness, the noise and fear—classic stage-one initiation. He could see the mechanics, but it’s kind of like porn. Even if you know how it works, it works. If you’re the type. Essex could see what the sergeants were doing yet he was consumed by fear. He was the type.

  Get off the bus you fucking pussy! they yelled at the depot. Pussy? Essex laughed. What’s bad about a pussy? Oh shit, apparently a lot. The guy shouted into Essex’s ear with so much force the tiny hairs on his skin tickled. Tubs! yelled the man. Tubs! Essex looked around. Recruits were throwing everything they had into red plastic tubs. Tubs! Are you deaf? Tubs! Guys were tossing in billfolds and phones, taking off rings and crosses, pulling out photos of children. Essex didn’t have anything but his driver’s license and ten bucks. Jared slid two copper bracelets off his wrists and threw them in the tubs like they were snakes.

  Essex had never seen so many men together. There must be women too but he didn’t see any. If he had he would have walked over and stood next to them, which would be as nonsensical as anything else going on. After all, it wasn’t like he could carve ten thousand years of history out of his belly. He’d know how to be, though; don’t be a dick; don’t touch anything; take it and don’t say a word—his entire concept of masculinity came down to a list of what not to do. The line moved, pushed by a noise wall of strategic emasculation. His mood sank. It wasn’t working anymore. It had on the bus, now it wasn’t. He wanted to go back and put his head down between his knees in the darkness so it would work again.

  27 Graveyard Point

  LIVY HAD BEEN FISHING in Bristol Bay for weeks and the Jani Lane wasn’t even close to breaking even. Every day boats headed south, shares split and done. Sometimes Livy heard them celebrating on shore. From the beginning, it had been a slew of failures. The sawn-off gillnetter was a floating textbook of structural weakness problems. Cracked fiberglass, swollen wood, leaking hull; every time she saw the welding on the reel’s wheel mounts, she had visions of Jeremy on his knees with a cigarette lighter and a can of hair spray.

  Most nights, Jeremy let the boat go dry in the shallows. Fuck me if I pay to dock!

  Take a deck shower. Here’s a bucket. Livy was pretty sure it was his own behavior ashore that he feared.

  Life with Michael unfurled like a bad play.

  LIVY: Hey Michael. When are you going to cash that check you found and pay me back for the beers you drank?

  MICHAEL: If I pay you back now I’ll just have to lend it to you again whereas if you give me the last of what you’re holding it’ll all work out because you won’t have to borrow any money because I’ll have it.

  LIVY: Cash the check.

  MICHAEL: I’m pretty sure it’s worth more uncashed.

  As the season ticked down, the situation became more grim. The only bright spot was the day Jeremy let Livy board the salmon tender Dinah to do the fish tickets.

  “Maybe you can find out if that deckhand you like is also a pussy muncher,” he said.

  Okay weird Santa, fuck you, thought Livy.

  LIVY: Hey Michael, what are you going to do with all your take?

  MICHAEL: I’m going to build a spaceship palace out of T1-11.

  LIVY: I’m going to buy a hundred pounds of gold and mint some coins with my face on both sides.

  * * *

  —

  When the Jani Lane finally did break even the season had less than forty-eight hours to go. Whatever they caught in that window would be all they got. Every hour they could fish, they did. When they off-loaded, the numbers would be sad but all profit.

  On the final day a huge shoal of fish passed beneath them. A gift from the Great Mother Salmon, the promise of Michael’s aunt Jennie. They filled their nets. Then the radio blared. Closing time. Jeremy yelled to reel faster and shouted, Deckload! Deckload! They’ve called it. It’s done. Get those fuckers on board. And Livy saw the undulating silvery waves come to the surface. She’d never seen so many fish in a single haul.

  Jeremy jumped down to help. I can’t fucking believe it, tears flooding his eyes and running over his cheekbones into his beard. Then Livy heard a terrible creak and lost her balance. Grabbing the rail she looked toward the sound and saw the reel, straining against the nets full of fish, begin to shiver.

  “Stop!” she yelled.

  “Reel faster!” shouted Jeremy.

  “The wheel mounts!”

  “Fuck the wheel mounts!” He motioned for Michael to continue.

  Livy waved her hands but it was too late. The mounts gave and the whole reel snapped off, plowing like a freight train down the center deck, just missing Livy and Jeremy before it took out the back of the boat and sank, dragging their nets and all the fish to the seafloor. Livy sta
red helpless as she watched her money slip away.

  They had nothing. There was nothing.

  Free of the weight of the reel, the Jani Lane bobbed happily in the water, oblivious. Jeremy turned to her. She saw madness in his eyes. A second later he bolted for the wheelhouse. The engine screamed as he turned the boat. She grabbed the rail again as she lost her footing.

  He was accelerating, driving full throttle toward the shore of Graveyard Point. The closer they got to the beach, the faster Jeremy went. Soon she could see the faces of the subsistence fishers along the beach coming into view, their expressions frozen in a moment of disbelief as the Jani Lane approached. Surely the shallows would stop him. But the Jani Lane gained momentum the closer to shore it got. Jeremy was not going to stop. Livy and Michael looked at each other and jumped into the hold.

  “Grab something!” yelled Livy.

  Michael braced himself back against the box, wrapping his arms around a tangle of torn net that had snagged when the reel went over. The Jani Lane hit ground. The impact threw Livy forward then back, knocking the wind out of her, and she saw things fly over the hold and heard them crash onto the deck. The Jani Lane plowed forward, driving well up onto the beach where it finally stopped, half buried in wet sand. Jeremy hopped over the side of the boat and walked off, trailed by angry Alutiiq set-netters.

  Livy and Michael hid in the hold until it was silent. Climbing out, they looked around. The deck was destroyed, there was nothing to save. They grabbed their seabags and went over the rail of the shipwrecked Jani Lane. Michael stared shell-shocked at the bay.

  “I was here in my dreams. We both were. The water was copper-colored and we were riding a river of silver fish. I don’t understand.”

  “There’s no way in hell I’m going home without money,” said Livy.

  28 Mantra

  ON HER NINETY-FIRST DAY as a security guard Kirsten had gone to the doctor and sat in the clinic answering questions about her appetite and sleep. Were there any new stressful situations in her life? Other than, say, all of them? Draped in a cotton square with flowers on it, sitting on an examining table covered with paper that crinkled each time she moved, she had tried to be thorough.