She led Tooch through town along Campbell Drive and then down to the low road and on to her house. She reached her apartment before him and stood on the porch above the garage, waiting for Tooch to come up over the slight hill. When she saw him, she waved and he turned and walked up her driveway.
As soon as he was inside her apartment, she noticed him staring at the large wall in the living room. “Clock collector?” he asked, noting that more than a dozen brass round objects on the wall.
“No, those are tide meters. I collect them.”
Tooch set his pack by the door, took off his shoes, and wandered over, examining the tide meters. There were brass ones, some with elaborate maps, and some plain, a few others set on a long coffee table nearby. She stood beside him, nearly touching shoulders. “I’m in sync with semidiurnal tides,” she said. Tooch reached to touch a brass tide clock.
She leaned in next to him. He smelled like wet hemlock trees. Nice. She leaned back.
Tooch walked over to a large picture window, with blinds pulled across it. “Is this the leaky window?”
“Yeah, but it’s really not that bad.” No, it wasn’t really bad but he didn’t need to know that. Yes, it leaked a bit, but what window or roof in Wrangell didn’t? It rained a lot and all the time.
Tooch peeked through the blind. “I’ll bet you have a great view from here.”
“Oh, yes, I do …” She didn’t move to open the blinds and instead sat down in a rocking chair. She reached for one of her antique tide clocks on the coffee table. “I think this one is broken,” she said. “I bought it at a garage sale a few years ago. Never could get it to work.”
“How’s this one supposed to work?” Tooch picked up a sand glass filled with sand.
“Well, it indicates high tide when you turn it on the green side, and the blue side is low tide. By the time the sand gets to one side, the tide has completed a cycle. Chicken noodle soup. Would you like a bowl? Tuna sandwich?”
She got up and Tooch followed her to the kitchen, where they sat at a small table and ate their lunch. After they finished, Tooch asked, “Do you want me to look at your window now?”
“Sure, I guess. Let me clean off the table.” He went into the living area while she put the dishes in the sink. Oh, great, how was she going to get him to stop thinking about fixing the window? She didn’t want to open it again, ever. Her neighbors would send the cops again if she stood in front of it.
“Don’t pull—” Kirsti said, when she entered the room, but he already had the string in his hand and drew open the large blind across the window. Gray afternoon light streamed in, flooding the room. The brass clocks shone.
“What a great view,” he said.
She sighed. There it was: Her ocean. She could already feel the effects.
Tooch turned toward her. “So where is the leak?”
“Leak? Oh, right here,” she said, going over to the right side of the window. She traced her finger over the water in the rubber along the rim of the window. “Feel here,” she said taking Tooch’s hand. She leaned her head forward and her hair fell in front of her. With his hand she traced her collarbone and along the back of her neck. Tooch moved in and inhaled the scent of bull kelp on her neck and then kissed her there.
They nestled onto the long green couch below the window. The sky darkened and the clouds thinned. A full moon emerged from hiding, casting the room in shadows. The moon pulled her back and forth, back and forth, and she hardly sensed Tooch above her. She closed her eyes and lifted her legs up: the tide rose higher and higher until it finally crashed against the large boulders holding up the low road below the house. And then, when the moon pulled completely through her, when the next cycle rose completely, she sighed and lowered her legs and the tide finally went out.
She turned over on the couch and stretched. Tooch stood in front of the window naked. Low tide and pungent orange popweed scent filled the room. She smiled. The sea urchins were happy, busy sweeping with their cilia, and gumboot eggs in their gelatinous strings swayed in the waves.
The next morning, Tooch lay beside her, his head on her pillow. And like she’d imagined it, he whispered strange words to her. And, in turn, she whispered back to him: amphidromic point, harmonic constituent, and tidal node. His voice was familiar. He’d mentioned he’d been in Wrangell before. Had she seen him around? Maybe it was that thing people talk about, how some souls already know each other. Maybe this was like that. Now, the wind fluttered through her bedroom curtains. Tooch leaned up on his elbow and reached for her hair and splayed it out with his fingers on the pillow. Then he leaned in and kissed her, a long kiss rushed her down across the tide pool, over spiny green urchins, and wiggling bullheads, to the mucky dark sand at the water’s edge.
That afternoon, Tooch walked the long driveway from Kirsti’s apartment to the road and then crossed the narrow road and over the boulders. Down the beach, families with white buckets and shovels were running after squirting clams. Cars began to line the road, and people piled out to forage the tide line for corks, ropes, and old life jackets—anything they found handy.
Notebook in hand, Tooch crouched, looking at a small bullhead swimming in a tide pool. He wrote down its Tlingit name: té tayee tlóoxu. He moved a rock aside and saw a purple sea urchin: x’waash, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. As the Earth spun through the shallows, shifting around in space, across the road and up the hill in a small apartment above a garage, Kirsti stood naked in front of her large picture window.
Date: mid-late 2000s
Unedited transcript from Wrangell Myths and Texts
Recorded by Tooch Waterson
The Man Who Loved Indians
SWANTON: I’m invited to a naming ceremony tonight at Institute Beach at four mile. You know where that’s at?
TOOCH: You’re getting a name?
SWANTON: Yes, I want you to record the ceremony. Maybe I’ll get a few more stories too.
TOOCH: You’re getting a name?
SWANTON: Yes.
TOOCH: But that’s an honor reserved for … (Tooch pauses.)
SWANTON: Yeah, I’ll finally be thought of like Strauss, Rosewood, Kaminsky, and Dederick. You know the “big” list.
TOOCH: There are no women’s names on your list. What about McDonnell and Pelham?
SWANTON: The women? They intermarried with the Tlingit. That doesn’t count. They aren’t objective enough. It takes years of humble study and scholarly work among the people. They just wrote about their children and living among the Tlingit. Not real ethnological work, certainly not anthropological.
TOOCH: (Tooch raises eyebrows.) Oh, I see. A matrilineal perspective doesn’t count.
SWANTON: I … I didn’t mean it that way.
TOOCH: Well, Institute Beach is out the road by Shoemaker Bay. You’re sure you were invited to a naming ceremony?
SWANTON: The young people, Johan, and his sister, Sarah, invited me.
TOOCH: (Tooch grins slightly.) Oh, I see. Yes, a naming ceremony. I’ll get you there.
Setting: Wrangell Institute Beach
In attendance: JOHAN, SARAH, FERN, and TOVA.
Notes: It’s dark and there’s a bonfire surrounded by several large logs. Four young people are in attendance: all twentysomething, three females and one male.
(Swanton stumbles down the rock embankment, sliding and then righting himself with one arm. He stands up. Behind Swanton, Tooch walks down the embankment effortlessly and sits on a log away from the others, away from the fire. He has a headlamp on.)
TOOCH: I’ll sit here out of the way.
(Tooch takes out a notebook and paper.)
(Swanton sits next to the young man named Johan. Tova is by herself on one log and Sarah and Fern sit on another together.)
JOHAN: Wow, some entrance, Mr. Swanton.
(Swanton wipes off his pants and sits down next to Johan.)
JOHAN: (Johan reaches over and gently brushes the dirt off of Swanton’s thigh.) We were just discussing the c
eremony.
(Fern hands Johan a pipe.)
JOHAN: (Johan inhales and then hands Swanton the pipe.) Here, it’s part of the ceremony. You know, smoke a pipe first.
(Sarah covers her mouth then lets out a small chuckle.)
(The fire pops.)
SWANTON: Build trust and rapport at the entry stage. Remember the researcher-observer is also being observed and evaluated.
(Tova uses a stick to move the logs around in the fire. Sparks fly up.)
SWANTON: (Swanton clears his throat.) Well, I’m studying the mind, and I’m trying to find out if the “savage” mind has the same structure as the “civilized” mind. I’m testing my theory by studying your stories. I’m also interested in your traditions—whether or not you still participate in the culture.
FERN: (Fern is staring at the fire.) Well, I come from a family of weavers. My great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother are weavers. I paint. I don’t weave.
SWANTON: Oh, why not?
FERN: I don’t know. I don’t like weaving.
SWANTON: Aren’t you worried about carrying on traditions?
JOHAN: I weave.
SWANTON: You?
(Swanton looks Johan up and down.)
JOHAN: Yeah, there are a few of us men weavers. (Johan winks.)
(Swanton nods to Tooch to write this down, but he sees Tooch has been taking notes all along and frowns at him.)
JOHAN: Yeah, we’re all fucked up.
SARAH: Speak for yourself, brother.
SWANTON: (Swanton points to Johan.) Is he your tribal brother?
SARAH: No … no, my brother, as in we have the same mother and father.
SWANTON: Oh.
FERN: (Fern takes a puff from the pipe has passed to her.) Yeah, we’re all fucked up. Our families.
SWANTON: Naturalism is the goal of social research, which is to capture the character of human behavior in a natural setting. This can only be accomplished by first-hand contact.
TOVA: Speak for yourself. My family is insane.
SWANTON: (Swanton stares at Tova.) Have we met?
TOVA: I’ve been around. I’ve seen you around town. In Wrangell, everyone knows everyone and everyone’s business.
SWANTON: Yes, that’s it. Maybe I’ve seen you around town.
TOVA: Or, we could have met on the ferry. Everyone meets on the ferry at one time or another.
(Tova looks away, uninterested.)
SWANTON: (Swanton turns to Johan and the others.) Tell me your tribal stories, where your families migrated from.
JOHAN: Our oral traditions?
SWANTON: Yes.
FERN: What are you going to do with them?
SWANTON: Your stories?
(Tova takes out a carving knife from her backpack and starts to work on a small piece of wood. Shavings fall at her feet near the fire.)
FERN: Yeah, our stories. What are you going to do with them after you write them down?
SARAH: Make a book?
SWANTON: Well, they’ll be recorded forever and kept at the Smithsonian, and you can access them there. Your grandchildren can. So they won’t die.
JOHAN: They won’t die. We know our stories.
SWANTON: It’s a precautionary measure. So, Johan, how long have your people been here?
JOHAN: About six months.
(Swanton’s eyebrows rise.)
JOHAN: We moved back from Ketchikan. My parents lived there while my sister, Sarah, and I grew up, then they decided to move back home, so we followed them back to our ancestral homeland.
SWANTON: But, I understand your tribe is from here—this region.
JOHAN: Well, my ancestors came down the Stikine River under the ice. We had the first drag queen party on the river.
SWANTON: A what?
JOHAN: (Johan winks at Swanton then stands up near the fire.) The Haida or maybe it was the Tsimpsians. Yeah, I think it was the Tsimpsians. They were waiting for us when we came down river and killed our scouting party. You know, “fool us twice”? No way. Our warriors dressed as women and went into the woods to “pick berries,” and when the Tsimpsians came after us, we ripped off our skirts and wham!
(Johan slaps his hands together.)
(Swanton jumps.)
JOHAN: We killed them and then went on our merry way.
(Johan sits back down and sighs.)
SWANTON: (Swanton nods to Tooch.) Tooch, you get that?
FERN: Is that true or did you make that up? I heard a different version.
JOHAN: (Shrugs.) Ah, the universal question: What is truth? It’s a story. All stories are true.
FERN: Oh, well, my people came down the Alsek River from the Interior.
SARAH: Mine came down the Stikine, too.
TOVA: (Tova points up.) Mine came from up there.
JOHAN: (Johan looks up.) Up there?
TOVA: My mother’s people are aliens.
(Tova points to Elephants Nose with her carving tool.)
SARAH: Was she Finnish or something? The Finns, they came from the sky.
TOVA: Yes, Finnish and a bunch of others.
JOHAN: Aaah. I see.
TOVA: No, you don’t. Your mothers are Tlingit, matrilineal. I get a great-great-grandfather who murders a man in Yellowstone, then escapes to Wrangell and his granddaughter, Grandma Helene, starts an alien cult.
SARAH: How come you never told us this? We’ve known you for six months.
FERN: Yeah, and I’ve known you since sixth grade.
TOVA: It’s not something you tell people: Hey, my family is fucking nuts. Example: Did you know my grandmother blew up Mount Saint Helens? She and some of her friends did an Indian dance and it blew its top. She wrote my mom a letter and told her.
FERN: (Fern jumps up and dances by the fire.) Haya, haya, haya. Haya, haya, haya.
JOHAN: (Johan nods toward his sister and Fern.) Yeah, that’s what John Muir did when he built the bonfire up on Dewey.
TOVA: The pyro.
JOHAN: (Johan sighs.) I think Muir was sexy with those wild-man whiskers and woodsy look. Don’t you think?
(Swanton says nothing.)
(Fern is still dancing around the fire, chanting softly now.)
(Tova pulls on Fern’s sleeve and sits her down on the log.)
SARAH: Yeah, I’d say your family is fucked up more than mine.
TOVA: Grandma used to channel Cinderella with her hair, and the guy she ran off South with was Rocky as in Rocky and Bullwinkle. They had a fantasy realm on the other planet, where they came from, and they could access it by channeling.
JOHAN: (Johan takes another hit of grass.) No kidding? Like she put foil in her hair and stuck her finger in the light socket singing bibbity-bobbity-boo?
SARAH: Be proud of it. Cool.
TOVA: How am I gonna be proud of ancestral heritage?
SARAH: Well, you guys have great imaginations. You know, I had an uncle once. He died before I was born. But, they say he was born blue, more like blue-black. He was a good dancer. That was before the ANB hall burned down. He disappeared one day. No one ever found his body. Maybe he was one of those aliens.
JOHAN: Could be the you-know-what got him.
FERN: Them? Sure hope not.
TOVA: He’s probably in Seattle somewhere. The dead go to Seattle.
FERN: Yeah, there’s more dancing there than here.
SWANTON: (Swanton points to Tova’s shirt, which says, “I’m part white but I can’t prove it.”) What’s this, a statement?
TOVA: My life is a statement.
TOVA: (Tova pulls her shirt—stretches it in front of her.) Yeah, I’m also part alien and I can prove it. My mom says we should get alien cards. Laminate them and everything.
JOHAN: Maybe you should have your DNA tested. We did. We’re part Norwegian on Dad’s side.
SARAH: Yeah, I think DNA is a great idea.
FERN: I don’t know about that. I have a friend in Juneau who thought she was mostly Tlingit and some Filipino and found out she is
Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimpsian. Really messed her up. She wasn’t even Filipino.
JOHAN: I believe in DNA. My mother says she’s a lesbian and I like men. Might be something to it.
SARAH: Mom’s not a lesbian. She’s married to Dad.
JOHAN: She was before she met him.
(Sarah looks confused.)
JOHAN: Who do you think Aunt Bernadine is? Bernie? She keeps writing Mom. That’s her old girlfriend.
SWANTON: Others argue causal relations are to be found in the social world, but that they differ from the “mechanical” causality typical of physical phenomena.
SARAH: (Sarah, quiet at first, thinking.) Oh.
SWANTON: Are we going to do the naming ceremony?
(Everyone ignores him.)
FERN: So really, I would have understood, Tova.
TOVA: Yeah, well, my grandma thought she was an alien from another planet. Their spaceship crashed here, and the aliens who died, their spirits went into human bodies. And once they almost drank the Kool-Aid like the Hale-Bopp cult. Remember them?
SARAH: Yeah, I remember that cult. Scary.
TOVA: The space people were supposed to come and get my grandma and them and take them back in a spaceship to their planet. Later, after Grandma Helene ran off with the cult, leaving my mom and her sisters and brother, Grandma’s group thought they were going to their planet on dragons.
JOHAN: Fuck so? Dragons? Really? Your heritage is like a Raven trickster story for sure.
(Swanton gets up and stokes the fire with several more logs. He sits back down and looks at Tova.)
SWANTON: You do look a bit Tlingit. Your eyes. Who are your people?
TOVA: You mean my slanted eyes, the epicanthic fold? Some people think I’m Chinese or Japanese. Of course, I found out I might be part Chinese too. But that’s another story. Well, I am part Tlingit on my dad’s side. My mother’s people are Sámi.
The Dead Go to Seattle Page 13