“Someone looks worse for the wear.”
She turned. Newt stood in the doorway, arms crossed.
“You asshole!” She set down her cup, staggered across the room, and hugged him. “Where have you been?”
“Easy, easy,” he said, laughing. He smelled of diesel, sweat, and fish. His eyes appeared flat, lacking their usual spark. “Weeklong circuit on the tender. Captain Jackie rode me like a goddamn mutton-buster.”
“I don’t think I can last the day in that freezer,” she blurted.
“That’s funny, because I don’t think I can last much longer on that tender. Feeling beat as a five-pound bag of smashed assholes, I am. But we’ll grind it out ’cause we’re made of the tough stuff. How’s the Bunkhouse?”
“I’m housesitting. Looking after a dog.”
His face knotted. “I got some bad news for you. Don’t get all worked up when I say it.”
“I have some bad news for you too. I’m on my way to Trunk to tell him I’m quitting.”
“T, we passed the tug on the way back into town. She’s being towed south.”
She stopped. “What do you mean, she’s being towed south? The boat’s in the harbor.”
Newt shook his head. “Word on the street is there’s gonna be a music school on her, or some similar insult to that boat’s original purpose.”
Her voice shook as it rose. “Newt, that’s why I took this job. That’s why I’m stacking fucking boxes in Antarctica. You lined this up, then you’re not even here? And now this?”
He poured brown liquid from a flask into her coffee. “Calm down, okay? Have a drink. What is it with that tug? There’s other boats.”
She took a gulp, letting the scald of the coffee and alcohol spread through her throat. “I’m not going to calm down. This whole island’s fucked. No one does a goddamn thing they say they’re going to do. I can’t stand it.”
He took her arm. “Tara, I’ve got a plan. Trust me.”
She shook him off, pulling her bib over her head, knocking her hat to the concrete floor. “Fangoul to that freezer, and screw you, too, for leading me down this path.”
She walked out of the processor, then over to the Bunkhouse, down the hall to the payphone.
“Sorry,” Laney told her. “As I said, I would have preferred the tug to stay on the island. But it’s best for the boat, best for everyone.”
“Bullshit,” Tara said, shifting the phone to her other ear, feeling the pressure of her anger building in her chest. She shut her eyes. “You knew I wanted that boat.”
“Yeah, I did, but you didn’t have the money, okay? We’ve all got our own shit—it’s not just about you, girlfriend. I’m going through something called a divorce, which, I can tell you, is no walk in Central Park.”
Tara sidestepped her words, although they rang true. She needed to get her head out of her ass. Still. “You said these new owners were starting a music school or some horseshit?”
“And what were you going to do? Transport armed troops again?” Laney shot back.
“At least get the engine running. And by the way, your friends who are buying the boat suck. I’m taking care of the dog they left behind.”
“I need to go, Tara.”
She slammed the phone down, kicking at the baseboard. Spoiled San Francisco brat, that’s what she was. High-heeled bitch with her white wine and red shawl and chopsticked hair.
Back at the processor she put on her bibs and hairnet and gloves and elbowed her way between the flaps into the brig. She glanced up at Trunk, who was standing in just shirtsleeves, looking back at her.
“What?” she asked, grabbing at the first form and scanning the shelves for boxes to pull. “You got a problem too?”
He shook his head innocently, his eye bouncing around. “No problem. Just that Newt said he got the glazer working and needed a hand making boxes. But hell, someone needs to cool off by the looks of it. Maybe it’s best you stay here.”
She was freezing, thought her head might split with cold if she remained another minute in the freezer. Still, she worked on stacking the pallet, finding the next box on the list.
“Tara,” Trunk said, watching her. “Hey.”
“I’ll wrap this up and come out. Okay? I got it.”
He watched as she finished the stack, arranging the end of each box flush with the other. Then she followed him through the flaps, feeling close to fainting. It has to be genetic, she thought as he switched on a conveyor belt, how he just doesn’t notice the cold. Across the room Newt flashed a thumbs-up, dragged over a rack from the freezer, and began slipping fish into the glazer. Frozen black cod dropped one after the other onto a revolving wheel.
“Okay. Deep breath. Good?” Trunk asked.
She stared back at him, willing herself steady.
“Remember back in our interview when I asked you about counting? Here’s where it comes in handy. Your job is to measure up each fish coming down the belt, finish boxes between forty-nine point five and fifty point five pounds. Scale is already tared out at one point five, which means we’ve accounted for the weight of the cardboard. Watch.”
Trunk quickly put together three boxes, trading out fish only a few times. As he worked she began a reassessment of his stupidity. People out here who wouldn’t understand a Philly parking sign somehow had a way of just doing things well.
“Got it?” he asked. “If these are seven-ups, about how many fish do you need?”
Fifty pounds. “Seven.”
“That’s right. Make a box.”
She did. Then another, slapping fish onto the scale, slinging them into the box, and tying a loose knot in the plastic bag. The fish kept coming, an endless flow of frozen gray bodies emerging from Newt’s glazer. Trunk walked back to his office.
After a few boxes she ran into a hitch. The red numbers on the scale flashed 44.2 pounds. Each fish she put in the box was either over or under. She grasped at tails. The wheel brimmed over with fish, and one clattered onto the cement. Newt hit a red button, stopping the belt. Trunk came out of his office. “The fuck’s going on?” he yelled.
“Jammed nozzle on the glazer,” Newt said, holding up a wrench. “I’m on it.”
Trunk’s lazy eye bounced around the room, landing on Tara. “Well, c’mon. We got fish coming up our ass.”
“Trick is to find your magic number,” Newt whispered from behind her. He shuffled through the fish, put together a box, wrapped the plastic, fit the cardboard flaps together. “Seven. Always shoot for a seven-pounder instead of just starting wherever. Make sense?”
He returned to the glazer and restarted the conveyor belt. As she began packing she wondered if there would ever be a time on this island when she was good at something, just one damn thing. Or at least content, with nothing on her mind. She thought of being on the end of the breakwater with Newt, beneath the blinking red channel marker. She needed to apologize for snapping at him. And to Laney.
Her hands accelerated as she sized up the ashy bodies. What else was there but to keep going? Fish after fish, box after box, and go home at the end of the day to fall asleep with the dog by the fire. Feed the sweet love his pill, and do this all over again. Hopefully a bit better the next time.
32
HER BODY, which had rebelled so fiercely, began to accommodate itself to the rhythm of the work, the endless stream of fish along the conveyor belt. Her orange-gloved hands stretching out to take that one, sure this one would work. 49.7. Perfect. Her hands sweated, grew clammy in the rubber gloves. An hour until break. A doughnut. Slap of the red button and they were going again.
It was as if she had broken through the forest into a clearing she hadn’t known existed. She could breathe easier, spend twelve, even fourteen hours a day on her feet. Just so long as she didn’t have to go back into that freezer. With the tug sold, all she had was Newt, and these fish, one after the other. Like she was buying time but getting paid for it.
Her second week at the processor she clocked e
ighty-three hours, boxing fish and scooping guts on the fresh side when the tender arrived with its filled green totes. Calluses at the base of her fingers thickened and turned a dirty orange. Muscle rose like a plate of armor over her collarbone. When a Ukrainian kid pinched her ass, she whirled around and hooked him across the face. Stunned, the boy stared back at her, bleeding from a gash beneath his eye. “You’ve gone wilder than a fifth ace,” Newt said in the break room.
Nights, she showered, put on Connor’s flannel pajamas, walked Keta along the spit’s narrow beach, and fell asleep in a nest of pillows in front of the wood stove, the dog breathing warm beneath her. Despite the long days (which were quickly growing shorter, she noticed), her mind felt numb. She kept wanting to respond to Connor’s letter, to thank him for the gift (she had kept the tag on, imagining his fingers as he examined the purple numbers), but her brain couldn’t put together the words. At the end of the day she felt exquisitely exhausted, no space to reflect.
The first week of September, Fran informed her that the San Francisco couple’s house had sold. Before Tara returned to the Bunkhouse, she gave Keta his pills, cleaned his eyes of sleep. The dog ran his pink tongue over his black gums. “I’ll come by Fran’s to take you on walks. Promise.”
As she walked down the hall of the Bunkhouse, the awful antiseptic smell burning her nostrils, she found herself crying, already missing the animal. She put on her pajamas and listened to the hum from the plant, certain that he had already forgotten about her.
33
TWO WEEKS INTO SEPTEMBER—a month after Tara had started at the processor—Trunk called her into his office.
“I got a proposition. I give you a raise to eight dollars, you take a couple days off.”
She stared across the desk, confused. Trunk waited for her response, his lazy eye appearing to bounce in his head.
“You’re gonna burn yourself out, friend. I’ve seen it happen. There’s a whole island out there. Have some fun for godsakes before your time on this green earth is through.”
When she knocked on Fritz’s front door, he opened up with a heavy sigh, wiping his lips.
“Aren’t you supposed to be slaving away in the fish dungeon? Or—let me guess—you want your old job back?”
Behind Fritz, Keta stepped into the hall. When he saw Tara he jabbed his head between her legs, letting out a high-pitched whine.
“This is why I’m here,” Tara said, kneeling to rub the dog’s cheeks. He gave her a tongue flick.
“Wow, he’s stingy with his licks,” Fritz said.
“I was thinking of heading up Crow to the lookout. Thought maybe I could take him along.”
“Take him period as far as I’m concerned,” Fritz said. He slapped the dog’s hindquarters. “If it were up to me, I’d use him for crab bait. Wouldn’t I, buster?”
Tara hugged the dog, who dropped his chin on her shoulder, panting in her ear.
“He’s just an old grump with no one left to yell at,” she said.
As they walked through town, Keta strained against the leash, sniffing fence posts, his nubbin of a tail wagging. At the trail she let him off, and he bounded along the planks, veered into the muskeg, paws sinking into the green carpet. Loping between the trees, he really did look like a wolf, she thought, save for his floppy white ears.
The earth was soft under her boots, which had turned glassy with moisture. Streamside, she cupped a hand and drank. Keta clambered down and lowered himself into a pool, before clawing back up, shaking, spraying water, and sitting down beside her, chest heaving. His pink nose tested the air.
They continued climbing, following the wooden steps crisscrossing the side of the mountain. She thought about the herring opening, that feeling of being ready for the next step. And here she was six months later, heading into the winter with a job at the processor, and no plans to return to Philly.
Up ahead of her the dog stopped. She walked to where he stood, pausing when he gave a low, guttural woof. She caught a brief scent of something musky, rotten. The woods had grown quiet. The black and white hairs over Keta’s shoulders quivered. She heard a branch snap. At first Tara thought it was a large man with a backpack, about fifty feet up the trail. Then she saw a flash of teeth. Keta’s lips rose, a low rumble coming from his throat.
“Holy fucking shit,” Tara whispered. A heat spread over her cheeks, followed by an awful hollowness in her body, the recognition that she was at the mercy of a creature who knew no reason.
She took a step back. The bear rose on its hind legs and sniffed the air. Wind ruffled its golden chest fur. Keta growled louder. Tara tried to take another step back, but her legs wouldn’t move from where she was standing. Time stopped. Then Keta let out a true bark, squaring his body in front of Tara. The bear snorted in response, snapped its jaws, and fell, its forelegs grabbing the air before they hit ground. Then it charged, its body elongating as it narrowed the distance. Keta threw out his front paws, lowering his chest and barking furiously as the bear came toward them. Tara gritted her teeth and stiffened.
The bear skidded to a stop less than ten feet away. The animal seemed to absorb the light of the woods, its small eyes peering at them. An oily, rancid scent washed over her. Ears flat against his skull, trembling, Keta continued his slow growl, his head almost on the ground, haunches high in the air. Thirty seconds? A minute passed? Finally the bear let out a huff and moved off through a break in the bushes.
Tara held still, waiting until the crunch of breaking branches eased into silence. The dog turned, jaws open. He gave her a quick look, then stared in the direction the bear had gone. When she touched his head he still didn’t move. Through his fur she could feel the rush of his heart.
“You . . .” was all she could say. Words held no meaning.
They started down the mountain. Tara took the steps one at a time, the dog staying just ahead of her. Then she was running, palming tree trunks to stay upright.
At the Muskeg she tied Keta outside, slipped into a booth, and watched the line of people at the register. She felt a weight in the seat beside her, and squeezed her hands into fists. There was the smell of cooked greens, and grease. Betteryear.
“Tara?” he said. “Are you okay?”
“I was just charged by a bear.”
“This is not a good word to say aloud.”
“Bear, bear, bear,” she said angrily, her voice rising. She held her face in her hands. The stopper at the base of her throat, just above her breastbone, cinched as she started to cry.
“Come,” he said after a moment. “Let me walk you home.”
The three of them went along the water. Keta stayed by her side, close enough to brush against her leg.
“This is a trauma,” Betteryear said. “Perhaps I could help teach you some things to make you feel safer in the woods, and avoid this happening again. Have coffee with me tomorrow morning.”
She couldn’t think, and just petted the dog, holding him close to her thigh. “Okay.”
Dogs weren’t allowed at the Bunkhouse, but she didn’t care. Keta settled on the laminate floor in a pile of her clothes, crossing his legs and resting his head to one side. She dragged the mattress and the wool cover to the ground and pulled the dog to her, burying her face in his fur. When she whispered thank you, he breathed a long sigh. It was probably just a reflex, she thought. But he might have meant “Yes. Always.”
34
THE NEXT MORNING the temperature dropped. It rained lightly. On the way to the coffee shop, at a ramshackle house by the police station, a couple tables were set up beneath a tent. Among the clothes and board games and saucepans she found a dog-eared book on diesel boat engines. When a man with a great waterfall of a white beard came by, she pointed at a rusty rifle hiding among the dish racks and pots. “That thing work?” she asked.
He lifted the gun. “Barrel’s crooked as a duck’s ass. Good for bear, though. Winchester Seventy, thirty-aught-six.”
She considered telling him she had been cha
rged the day before. “What about a license to shoot?” she asked.
He laughed. “You’re not in the lower forty-eight no more, sweetheart. You can walk down Main Street with this baby strapped to your back. Hundred bucks and she’s yours.”
She glared at him. “I’ve been here a year.”
He held up the oil-stained engine instruction booklet. “Alaska girl, I’ll even throw this in. Seventy-five bucks and you got a deal.”
At the Muskeg she leaned the rifle against the wall by the children’s blocks. As she waited for Betteryear, she thumbed through the diesel-splotched manual, tapping her foot to fiddle music, reading about the importance of building air for a direct-reversible to allow for as many starts and stops as possible. No spark plugs. With the tip of her finger she traced the arrows showing the path of air, how it traveled from the tanks into the steel, then copper pipes to create compression in the cylinders. Which started combustion, which turned the crankshaft, which turned the propeller to make the boat go.
Basic, yet unimaginable. She ran an oily palm through her hair, then began to fool with the rifle. Soon she had figured out the spring-loaded release for the bolt, how to empty the magazine, pull the trigger, and reset it. She was sipping from her coffee mug, pleased with this small victory when Betteryear settled in a chair across from her.
“Ah, Tara,” he said, nodding at the rifle. “What have you done?”
“I know. It’s bent. I just got it at a garage sale.”
He looked back at her with something in his face, disappointment perhaps. For a moment his expression reminded her of Connor. Not quite condescending, but close.
“Before hunting you should learn to gather.”
“Gather?”
He stared her down. In the city this meant fight. Not so on the island. “Yes. Plants. Mushrooms. Berries. I’ve got baskets in my truck. We could go right now, if you like. It won’t be dark for another few hours.”
The Alaskan Laundry Page 11