The Alaskan Laundry

by Brendan Jones

  After five days of travel, under a dome of cloudless blue sky, they idled past the narrow spit protecting the womb of Dutch Harbor from the Bering Sea. In the distance she saw the steam-obscured rectangles of a processor in Unalaska, and, farther on, teardrop shapes of the steeples on the Russian church, similar to the one in Port Anna.

  King Bruce angled them into the harbor. The sun, at her back in the south, reflected hard off the flat water. The Northwestern, Aleutian Sable, Cape Caution, the fleet of crab boats tied up in the harbor made the seiners back in Port Anna look like small dogs.

  “We’re headed to the Elbow Room,” Hale said to her, pulling his hat brim over his eyebrows. “Second-most-dangerous bar in the world, right behind some goddamn place in Rhodesia. Ten bucks Jethro’s gonna mail a pile of love letters off to his hippie chick back in San Francisco, ain’t that right, Romeo?”

  “Santa Cruz, asshole.”

  They piled into a pickup, rented by King Bruce for the season, and parked in town. Tara decided to wander.

  “Okay, lone wolf,” Hale said. “Meet us back at the rig in an hour.”

  There was the tang of pre-battle excitement in town—she could taste it, that hysterical current running through the men before the opening. Scrums of deckhands outside the Elbow Room, a bar the size of a doublewide trailer, stared out from under their soiled caps as she passed. One catcalled. It was warm, almost sixty, but she pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt.

  Alaska was not a place for a lone wolf—she knew this by now. Once you got kicked out of the pack, like Betteryear, or Irish, or even Keta, it was almost impossible to get back in. You grew a particular type of bitterness—she could see it in Keta, how he disliked Fritz. Or just complained how things used to be, like Irish.

  Quiet, detached, maybe a little scared—in her view, this was how the boys on the Reiver regarded her. They were feral. She needed to become louder, cruder, more aggressive.

  She crossed the bridge back toward the harbor. A greenish- purple front of clouds, underside reflecting the gray of the ocean, moved toward town. She had never been in a place with no trees—there were just these wind-scraped, bald mountains, snow blanketing the peaks.

  On the boat she spooned cans of beef stew into a pot and spread frozen tater tots on a cookie sheet, salting them and sliding the tray into the oven.

  “Soon enough we’re gonna run outta the ready-made stuff,” King Bruce said as he passed through the galley, popping a tot in his mouth and wiping ketchup from his whiskers. “Hope you know a bit more than how to open a can.”

  “Your boys prefer the canned stuff,” she said.

  “My boys?” He shook his head, took another handful of tater tots. “This is your crew, sweetheart. We’re gonna be keeping each other alive out there on the big waters. Where are those boys, anyways?”

  “At the Elbow Room. I walked back.”

  He looked at her for a moment, as if considering something, then went up the stairs. “Call me when that stew’s warm,” he shouted behind him.

  The following morning, the stars still out, she heard Hale in the galley and smelled bacon. She pulled on fleece pants and found him by the stove, spooning grease over egg yolks.

  “Wakey-wakey, Snow White. Hope you like swine.”

  “Jesus, dude. The sun’s not even up, and you’re already busting balls.”

  “Whose balls would those be?” he asked innocently. “Here.”

  With a spatula he worked a couple eggs loose, and passed a steaming plate to her. The other deckhands came out, poured coffee, and helped themselves to food. “Grab your plate,” Jethro said to her. “I’ll give you a crash course in crabbing.”

  She poured more coffee and followed him out on deck. It was just after eight, and the sky was lightening to a raw white. Jethro gripped a steel bar on a pot, a square cage webbed in nylon netting, taller than Tara. “Seven-bys,” he said. “Each cage weighs about seven hundred and fifty pounds.”

  Inside the trap yellow line connected a set of three pot buoys: one pink rubber, the other green rubber, and the third made of Styrofoam, sprayed-painted emergency orange.

  “That’s our sea lion buoy, in case the little bastards puncture the other two. So how it works is our pot goes here”—he patted a pockmarked sheet of steel—“called the lift, rack, or the pot launcher. We swing the pot up into the lift, bait it with herring or codfish or whatever, and shut the door. One of us, usually Hale, hits the hydros, and splash, down she goes. Five hundred feet or so to the bottom. Throw out a shot of coiled line over the side, which connects the bridle on the pot to these two buoys, which float on the surface. Unless . . .” He looked at her, waiting.

  “Unless a sea lion eats them, in which case just the sea lion buoy will remain,” she finished.

  “I could tell you were smart,” he said.

  It reminded her of being at the processor, having to learn how to make boxes with Trunk. Except this time people expected her to fuck up.

  “So the pots soak for how long?” she asked.

  “Day or two, then we swing back around, find the buoy, toss a grappling hook to catch the line, strung between the pink and yellow buoys, and bring her on up. This is where it gets tough, especially when it’s blowing. You’ve got pots swinging around and we’re all trying to rack ’em and get ’em in the lift. So that’s done, then we tilt up the cage and open the trap and out come the crabs onto the table, and then we start sorting, which will be one of your jobs. We keep only legals, which means males over the size limit. Females go back down. Keepers get thrown into a lined chute leading to the live hold, filled with salt water. Goal is pretty simple—plug the hold. Got it?”

  They returned to the galley. The tour made her feel better about things. Hale was at the table, bent over his pad. He looked up when she came in.

  “Cap wants to see you.”

  “Me?” Jethro said.

  “No. Our Italian American friend over there.”

  She went up the narrow stairwell leading to the bridge, her first time topside. King Bruce slouched in the mounted shock-suspension chair, socked feet up on the binnacle board. His face was lit up by the screens of his radar and fathometer and computer. A cage hung in the corner of the room, swinging gently, a blue parakeet cowering on the perch. When Tara held her hand out, the bird thrust its beak.

  “Minnow don’t take to girls,” King Bruce said. And she saw, with a sinking feeling, that his glass eye was out, sitting on a plate beside a coffee cup. Flesh in the socket appeared pink and moist. With a pang of sorrow she thought of Newt.

  “‘Caught betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea.’ Ever hear that saying?” King Bruce inquired.

  She focused on the coffee cup, imprinted with a woman naked save for a slip of kilt covering her hips, blowing on a bagpipe. If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap.

  “I’ve heard people say it before.”

  “Know what it means?”

  She thought. “Like you’ve got a choice between two bad things.”

  He sipped his coffee, then folded his puffed hands. “Devil means where the water touches your boat. ‘Caught betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea.’ That means you’re sunk. Drowned. You ever drowned?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, I came near one time. Result of bad luck on the water—that’s why I got Minnow here, my bird—we’re old pals, we keep each other safe. Now, I’m not talking about an open-hatch-cover bad luck, leaving on a Friday, bananas on a boat, any of that stupid shit those little mom-and-pop troller operations get their panties in a twist about down in Port Anna. I’m talking about two people not getting along on a hundred-and-six-foot crab boat.”

  Her breath grew tight. “Listen, dude. I’m here to work, to make money, and go home. That’s all.”

  The bird hopped to a higher perch, its small head jerking back and forth between them. King Bruce spoke slowly.

  “Me, I know how to crab, been doing it since the age of seventeen, was just about born f
or it. I don’t give two shits who I’m working with, swinging dick or not, don’t affect me none. Ain’t had much else in my life save for a cheatin’ whore of a wife, and that quiet boy of mine who ever’time he seems about to get his wang out of his pants his Injun mother slaps the little thing right back. Rest of ’em are full of piss and vinegar, like me back in the day.”

  He seemed to catch himself. His glass eye made a faint sucking sound as he nestled it back into the socket. “What I’m trying to tell you, Tara”—she winced as he leaned on her name—“is that, as captain of this boat, I can’t let things get out of hand, see? It would be a risk to our season, and all our deck shares. So I need you to cooperate, and be part of the team. If they give you a little shit, you take it. That’s how it goes when you’re green.”

  “I’m not gonna be some whipping post,” she said.

  “That’s not what I’m asking. Now, just . . . don’t be so keyed up. That’s all. Go on. Back to work.”

  She took the stairs by twos, pulled on her jacket, and went into the sun, wanting to walk and consider the situation. Instead Hale shoved a plastic drill into her hands. “Take one of these bait jars, and make ten holes in it.” He pushed a couple crates of the plastic containers in her direction. “There’s the rest of ’em.”

  “Fuckin’ prick,” she muttered.

  “If you were a guy I’d deck you,” he said matter-of-factly.

  She splayed her hand in front of his face, showing her bruised knuckles. Her heart thudded. “This didn’t come from knitting, asshole. So go ahead, start a fight with me.”

  He shook his head. “You’re a crazy bitch is what you are.”

  As the sun rose, she thought about dropping the drill in the ocean, finding the airport, and catching the next flight to Anchorage. The plane ticket would take her to under twenty-four thousand. Plus her ticket back to Philly. Still, it would get her away from this floating circus.

  Hale jockeyed the pots, the crane wheezing as Jethro cleared space around the lift. “Coon-Ass, quit jerkin’ your Cajun meat and gimme a hand shuffling,” Hale shouted. Coon-Ass hopped from one steel support to the next, the spring-loaded safety snapping as he hooked into the eye of the bridle.

  “Mud, don’t fucking push that thing,” Hale said as Rudy threw his weight behind a pot. “Lemme get it with the crane—you’re gonna crack your back.”

  The rubber of her jacket grew soft and pliant in the sunlight. King Bruce looked down from the bridge of the wheelhouse, the deck like a stage beneath him. Hale circled back around to check on her. He held up a bait jar, sunlight bright through the holes.

  “What about knots?”

  “What about them?”

  “Can you tie them, smartass?”

  “Yes.”

  “Carrick-bend?”

  She panicked. “I can tie a bowline, trucker’s hitch, clove hitch, double half-hitch, anchor bend—”

  “Old fart troller knots. What about splicing line? Back splice? Eye splice? Cunt splice?” He emphasized the word “cunt.”

  “What?”

  “Did I stutter?” He smiled, then took up two ends of line and placed one over the other, the empty space between making an oval. “C-U-N-T. Spells cunt. See that? A cunt splice. Personal favorite.”

  He stood there, a cockeyed grin on his face. The tips of her fingers itched. Unlike with Jackie, she was confused as to whether she should hit this kid, how it would come off to the rest of the boat. Her confidence gone, she suddenly felt that her weather-bleached rain­gear and scarred brown boots were just parts of a fishing costume. Here at the far end of the Aleutian chain, this asshole was shaping her into a punch line.

  Coon-Ass yelled down from atop a stack of pots. “What the fuck, Hale! You gonna get this deck cleared or what?”

  Hale shook one end of the line at her. “Maybe you were hot shit down in the rainforest. But you’re in Dutch now, where the big boys play. I’d say you got some work ahead of you, greenhorn.”

  81

  A FEW DAYS BEFORE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO head out to the Bering Sea, Hale lowered the boat’s skiff with the crane and proposed taking a ride over the water into town instead of going over the bridge. The boys piled in, and Tara was left doing dishes in the galley, scrubbing the bottom of the casserole pan where a roast had burned.

  “Fuck this,” she said, flinging the sponge into the sink. If she was supposed to be part of the pack, then she should be in that boat. She slipped on her rain pants and coat, went out into the squall, and climbed over the rail into the skiff. Hale had already started the outboard. He took a last swig from a whiskey bottle, tossed it over the side, and looked at her. “Where the hell you think you’re going?”

  “The hell does it look like? Town.”

  “You done with the dishes? Because Skip said—”

  Before she could stop herself she torqued her body, landing a right on his jaw. His hands clamped down on her ribs and they both went overboard. The cold was instant—she saw only specks of bubbles in the darkness. Her head went light as she felt her neck choked by someone yanking her by the hood back over into the skiff. Then there were hands clawing at her coat, and she was laid out over a bench, coughing, trying to find her breath.

  “You okay?” Jethro said. She gasped. A cold she had never experienced seeped into her bones. Her hands and feet had vanished.

  “Fucking menstrual cunt!” Hale shouted, ripping off his rain pants and rubbing his jaw. Bright white mast lights came on. “The shit’s going on down there?” King Bruce yelled over the deck speakers. Tara sat up, looking around, trying to get her bearings. She saw Coon light a cigarette, shake his head, and snicker. “I guess someone had enough.”

  Back in her bunk she changed into dry fleece. King Bruce called her topside, his good eye bleary and red with sleep. Hale watched as she came up the stairs.

  “I got Bering Sea storms, blown engines, uncharted reefs, blown hydros, ADF and G up my ass—all manner of bullshit to deal with, and now I got my crew in-fighting?”

  Hale worked his lower lip between his teeth, his boxy chin shifting. “You gotta leash this bitch, man.”

  Tara stared at the sonar, the computer screen, the blinking satellite phones. Anywhere but at King Bruce.

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, deck boss. I seen how you ride her. And you”—he turned to Tara—“didn’t I just have you up here? And now you’re out throwing punches? On a skiff, for fucksakes?”

  She decided to gamble. “He was being a dick. So I hit him. Now he’s gonna cry about it?”

  King Bruce looked back at Hale. She had overshot. Wildly.

  “Look at that, Cap. She’s not safe, doesn’t know her own ass end. She’s gonna get herself—or worse, one of us—killed. She’s a fucking liability.”

  “Go on, the two of you,” Bruce said after a moment. “Get the fuck out of my sight. I’m too old for this candy-ass shit.”

  In the galley she grabbed a fistful of candy bars and pushed past the others, past rows of dual-wheeled trucks in the parking lot, their flatbeds stacked with crab pots. She chewed a 3 Musketeers in a fury as she crossed the bridge, finding the Elbow Room on the other side. The bar smelled of beer and grime. The walls were hung with a harpoon, green-glass Japanese buoys, a life ring, scraps of net, and bullet-shaped Styrofoam corks. Xtratufed men in cable-knit wool sweaters with blackened singe holes, buck knives in leather scabbards attached to their belts, looked up from the red Formica tables as she crossed the floor, her boots sticky on the worn linoleum.

  She ordered a can of Rainier, looked for paper to write Connor. Any sort of outlet for this rage. How would he do here? It was funny to think about. Initially she had thought he’d be swallowed whole by Alaska, not a match for the state’s hard-bitten, zany ways. Now she thought differently. He was strong without having to throw punches and cause a ruckus. He was also intelligent enough to avoid being caught in a situation like this.

  “Bar’s dangerous enough without a pretty girl to rile th
e waters.”

  She turned to see an old-timer with a map of wrinkles over his forehead. All she wanted to do was have a drink. Just one goddamn minute of peace.

  “I can see you don’t wanna be bothered. But it’s either me or those boys over there getting ready to buy you a redheaded slut. I figured I’d save ya the trouble. Tuffy,” he said, putting out a hand. “What’s got you in Dutch?”

  “Tara. I’m working on the Alaskan Reiver.”

  “Ah, the one-eyed Jack,” he said, finishing his drink, ice knocking against his teeth as he tipped the glass. “With the mixed-up flame tattoos on his head. Folks say he thinks like a crab ’cause he’s actually been in the cage. Can I buy you a pickled egg? Or another a those beers?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  As they drank she relaxed, warming up to the man’s stories of the Japanese occupying Attu and Kiska Islands. “Folks down south don’t know the nippers actually invaded us,” he said, wiping egg from his gray beard. A few more crews arrived, each set of eyes landing on her before taking in the rest of the room. He noticed. “Bet the boys on the Reiver don’t mind having a good-looking girl like you on board neither.”

  “There’s one guy who would just as soon have me off,” she said. “He might be the devil himself.”

  “Aqetak,” the man said. “Old Inuit chant to drive out evil spirits. Say it five times before you sleep. Might make him leave you in peace.”

  She stood to zip her jacket. “I gotta go.”

  “Sure you don’t need a ride? Happy to do it. Also score me major points with the youngsters if I was seen leaving the bar with a pretty woman like yourself.”

  She smiled. “Next time, Tuffy.”

  “Kaya, Tara,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s the only other Inuit word I know. And it should be the second part of the Alaska state motto.”

  “What’s the motto?”

  “North to the future.”

  “And what does kaya mean?”

  He thought for a moment. “It’s Inuit for ‘whatever you do, don’t look back.’”