by Pam McGaffin
The way Dad talked about it, Alaska may as well have been off the edge of the earth. “They don’t call it the Last Frontier for nothing,” he was fond of saying. There was always work to be done and money to be made, and nobody caring how you made it. “A man can start over there.”
I never asked him to explain what he meant by that, whether he might have been talking about himself. It never mattered to me what he did when he was away, so long as he came back. Now that he’s gone, I want to find out all I can.
My head jerks up as an Army-green book bag thunks down on the table. David pulls out the chair across from me, making his own breeze. It smells of spearmint, fresh like the blue of his eyes.
Get a hold of yourself, Ida. You’re not here to ogle David.
“So, whaddya want to know?” he asks.
“Everything.”
“Hmm, okay.” He shifts in his chair like he could just as easily bolt as settle in. I shouldn’t have said that. He can’t tell me what happened, or even what it was like on the Lady Rose. He only saw Dad a few times in that bar.
“Tell me about the Foggy Dog.”
He snickers and the muscles in his neck and shoulders soften. “The Salty Dog is an interesting place. It’s as much a museum as a bar. I swear, every square inch is covered with fishing stuff. There’s even a hammerhead shark hanging from the ceiling. Man, that’s one ugly fish.”
“I can see Dad in a place like that. He loved anything having to do with the sea … and probably that ugly fish, too.”
“Actually, he liked to sit under the moose head.”
“Moose head?”
“Yeah, a moose head with Christmas lights strung through its antlers. I think it was the only thing in The Salty Dog not fishing related. Your dad always claimed the table underneath it. Funny guy, Steve. I loved his stories.” He flashes me that lopsided grin.
“Fishing stories?”
“Yeah, a few of those. Along with some history, maybe a tale or two about Raven. He liked the Native Alaskan myths. He’d read from this book he carried around.”
Book? I don’t remember any book. I’m stung by the thought of Dad sharing a book with David and not with me, but I let it pass. “He loved the creation myths,” I say, “even though Raven was a bit of a scoundrel.” A bit of a scoundrel, the exact phrase Dad used. It sounds fake when I say it, like I’m trying to sound smarter than I am.
“I think he liked Raven because he was a scoundrel,” David says. “His scoundrel-ness made the stories funnier.”
“And Dad loved to entertain people.”
“Yeah, he was a joker. I think I only saw him get real serious that one time.”
My ears perk up. “Oh?”
“Yeah, kind of took me by surprise because fishermen are always swearing and saying rude things.”
“My dad said something rude?”
David shakes his head. “No, one of the guys from another boat did. He was talking about a knife fight he saw, no big deal there, but he called the men”—David lowers his voice —“f-ing ‘drunken Indians,’ and your dad just laid into him.”
“What’d he say?”
“Um, I don’t remember everything, but he basically talked about the bad things the white men did to the Natives in Alaska, like bringing disease and taking their kids away to live in boarding schools.” David’s Adam’s apple goes up and down as he swallows. “I guess it was really horrible for those kids. First, their parents die of TB or whatever—”
“TB, like tuberculosis?” I flash back on the women in Poe’s life.
“Yeah, then they’re stuck in these schools that force them to become Christians. Imagine being taken away from everything you know … forever.”
“Did Dad turn that guy around?”
“Who knows? I’ve never forgotten it, I can tell you that. I think the reason he got so mad was because he had friends up there. Natives. There was this one Aleut lady he talked about a lot. She … uh, worked on Creek Street.” He pauses, like that’s significant. “Do you know about Creek Street?”
I shake my head.
“Well it’s pretty famous for … a certain activity. The joke is that it’s the only place where both salmon and men come to spawn.”
It takes me a while, but when I finally get it, heat creeps up my cheeks. David’s too wrapped up in his story to notice.
“Anyway, this lady had a nickname that her own people used against her. It was really rude, but she started using it herself to show she wasn’t …”
“Ashamed?”
“Exactly.”
“So what was it?”
He gives me that lopsided grin of his. “Two-Bit.”
His next words are lost to the deafening jangle of the school bell. He waits for it to stop. “It means almost worthless. But, as your dad said, she was anything but. I think she was retired from”—he searches for the word—“her work by the time your dad got to know her. Now she’s an interesting story.”
“Can we meet for lunch again tomorrow?” I imagine I must look like a dog begging for treats. “Please?”
Hours pass in that moment before he opens his mouth. “Sure,” he says.
I wait until David has left before I do a little dance. Mrs. McDaniel, the librarian, sees me and just shakes her head like I’m beyond hope. And maybe I am.
I go to class. Physically, I’m in the seat, but my head is lost in space, like that goofy TV show. I don’t remember the bus trip home or the walk to my house. Nana’s burnt goods never tasted so delicious. I compliment her baking, getting a flabbergasted, “Why thank you!”
That evening, I set the dining room table without Mom having to ask me, and I offer to wash dishes. As I scrub, rinse, and hand off to her to dry, I whistle a made-up tune.
“What’s gotten into you, anyway?” Mom holds her free hand up to my forehead.
“Nothing.”
After retreating to my room, I spend about twenty minutes doing math and twice that long figuring out what I’m going to wear tomorrow. I finally settle on one of the skirts we bought in August and a fresh white blouse.
After washing my hair I go to bed early, but it’s hard to sleep. I spend half the night wondering whether or not David likes me, and the other half trying to think up questions to ask him, starting with how my dad became friends with an ex-prostitute.
DAVID doesn’t show. Either he forgot, or he really doesn’t want to talk to me. Even if he just forgot, it’s crushing. I do the math. Minus the short night’s sleep I got, I’ve just spent about eighteen hours thinking about him while he’s spent zero thinking about me.
I wish I could go home, sneak up to my room, and take a nap, but that’s out of the question. As I’m mustering up the will to go class, I hear my name.
Could it be? Better late than never. I turn around, but it’s just Sam. When did he slip in? He walks over to my table carrying a heavily doodled Pee-Chee. For a moment he just stands there as if trying to remember why he came over. Finally, he says, “I have something of yours.”
I think that I may have left a pencil behind or something, but he opens his Pee-Chee and pulls out a small, slightly soiled envelope.
“Sorry. I had this a long time,” he says.
I feel his eyes on me as I open the seal and pull out the photo of me and my dad that I lost. “Oh, wow, where did you find it?”
“The bluff,” he says, exaggerating the “F” sound. “I found it that day I saw you in the woods and kept forgetting to bring it. Then you told me about your dad, and I put it in my school stuff so I’d have it next time I saw you.”
“Thanks, Sam.” I finger the photo in my hand, running my thumb over the rough edge where I tore it. “I was sure I’d lost this.” The sensations of that strange afternoon come back to me—the bracing wind, the smell of sap, the fight, and the pinecones I threw in my feeble attempt to stop it. “So you did see me. I thought you were getting beat up.”
Sam winces. “None of them can fight worth a damn, but they
keep betting me.” The muscles in his forearm tense as he clutches his Pee-Chee to his chest.
“Who are they? Do they go to this school?”
“No, they’re older.”
“What was that name they called you?” I ask him.
“Which one? Chink or Charlie? Both are wrong. I’m not Chinese or Vietnamese.” He looks up at me and I stare into his eyes. They’re dark, almost black, and restless, like he’s watching for predators.
“You’re Filipino, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” He drops his Pee-Chee to his side. His other hand braces against the edge of the table. “Those guys were too stupid to know we’re on your side.”
“Oh, right, your dad’s in Vietnam on a boat.”
Sam smirks. “He would not like you calling the USS Constellation a boat.”
“I know more about fishing boats.” I feel my cheeks flush. In my rush to tell Sam about my dad, I realize I never asked him about his. “So how do you deal with it? The worry. The not knowing …”
“I read the newspapers and magazines about the war. Every day.”
“You must know everything there is to know,” I say.
He shakes his head. “No one knows everything.”
“But you know more than … a lot of people.” I almost said “me.” The only things I read in the newspaper are the horoscope and the funnies. “I should read more … of the newspaper. I read a lot of books—”
“Come here after lunch,” he says. “Mrs. McDaniel brings me her Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Time magazines after she’s done. I’ll share them with you.”
I’m not sure I want to commit to coming to the library to read the news. It sounds boring, but Sam’s smile is hard to resist, and I kind of like talking to him. “Sure … I mean, if I don’t have to research any more interesting poets.”
CHAPTER 10
Aloof
A ship that sails higher into the wind so that it draws apart from the rest of the fleet
I somehow manage to get through my first quarter of high school with two A’s, three B’s, and a C. I explain to Mom about the gymnastics unit in PE, but she doesn’t seem to care about that. “Not bad,” she says, “considering.”
Normally I’d be pleased, too. My favorite time of the year is fast approaching, but I can’t seem to get into the spirit without Dad, who went crazy over Christmas.
And now Nana’s gone, too.
Her afghan brightens our living room like a sunburst, commanding cheer, but it just makes me miss her more. She finally had to get back to Montana and her “other life,” as she put it.
I wrap myself up in that blanket, smelling her talcum, as I watch Mom go about her busy work of picking up and straightening. The house is shockingly still. I think Mom notices, too. She’s quick to snap at me over the least little thing, like leaving the lights on. I know we’re trying to save on our electric bill, but it’s like she’s trying to obliterate all joy and memories of Dad, which I can see if he walked out on us, but still.
Christmas was his time to shine, literally. Not only was he the designated Santa impersonator, he also had an out-of-control light fixation. It’d take him several days to decorate our house, the shrubbery, and all his homemade plywood figures. It started with a sleigh and reindeer set; then, every year, he added something new—an elf, an angel, a penguin with a bowtie, whatever inspired him. This year, our house looks forlorn, not a scrap of Christmas to be found inside or out.
Once school lets out for holiday break, it’s too much sadness to bear, so I spend most of my time over at Dena’s now that we can see each other again. At my cousin’s house, there’s a tree, a nativity scene, and felt stockings with each person’s name in glitter. There’s also a color TV. We watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The color is off—Rudolph’s nose is more orange than red—but it still beats black and white.
When we’re not watching TV, we’re in the dining room listening to Dena’s records while playing an epic game of Monopoly with Dougie. Danielle had a tantrum after landing on Dena’s hotel-fortified Marvin Gardens. Dougie, who is leading, sprays the board with droplets of spit as he demands his $75 rent for my boot landing on one of his three railroads. I mortgaged St. Charles Place to buy the fourth railroad, The Reading, just to prevent him from getting a monopoly, and now he’s out to get me.
The day Dougie finally wins is the day I come home to find an artificial tree standing in our living room. It’s a bristly silver thing that comes up to my shoulder. Mom bought it at Tradewell.
“At least it will be easy to get the star on top,” she says. “And we never have to water it.”
This “tree,” which doesn’t smell and appears like it’s made out of tin, is worse than no tree at all, but I don’t say so. I don’t want to hurt Mom’s feelings when she made an effort, however pathetic. Still, it’s all I can do to act upbeat as I help her decorate it. We only hang the smaller ornaments because the big ones would topple it. The whole process takes about ten minutes.
“There, you see?” she says, standing back to take in the room. “Much better.”
I don’t know if she means the room or the tree, but neither is true. If Dad were here, he’d snicker at it. If Dad were here, we’d have a six-foot noble fir that actually looked and smelled like Christmas.
Mom’s only doing these Christmassy things to check them off her to-do list. We spend a quiet Christmas Eve, just the two of us, eating roasted game hen because a turkey would be too much food. Then we plug in the lights on the silver Christmas tree and open the few gifts scattered underneath. I got Mom a coffee table book I bought at Woolworths on famous rose gardens of the world. She likes roses, and she likes books, so I thought it would be perfect. She makes a show of appreciation but doesn’t even crack it open before setting it aside.
The rest of the gifts are for me. From Nana, I get a hat, scarf, and mittens she knitted in my favorite color, spring green, with the exception of one pink thumb. From Mom, I get the usual socks, slippers, and underwear, but then she surprises me with a record. When I tear the paper and see the half-shadowed faces of John, George, Paul, and Ringo, I scream just like one of those crazy girls on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Mom beams. “I’m not a total square.”
“Wow, we needed a new one. Dena’s record is all scratched.”
I’ve listened to Meet the Beatles! so many times at her house that I know all the songs and the exact order they come in, but I still can’t wait to play my record, which I oh-so-carefully take out of its crisp paper sleeve. Touching only the outer rim with my palms like Mom taught me, I place it on our stereo turntable and wait for the needle to drop on “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Mom bobs her head to the beat while reading the back of the record cover.
“It says here that the Beatles’ first visit in Dublin caused a mob free-for-all and unnumbered broken limbs. Can you imagine? At London Airport, fans repeatedly kissed the gloved hand of a reporter after it touched a Beatle.”
“Which one?” I ask.
“Doesn’t say.”
“Must have been Paul. He’s the cutest.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think George is pretty handsome.” Mom studies the photo on the back of the cover. “And I just want to hug Ringo!”
“Honestly, Mom.”
She giggles. We listen to the entire record twice through, and side one a third time, before she tells me it’s time to go to bed. “Big day tomorrow,” she says, then adds under her breath, “God, I’m not looking forward to it.”
WE get up early Christmas morning to go to mass. Mom clomps around the house in her heels, muttering “okay” as she completes one task and moves on to the next. Finally the presents are all wrapped and sitting next to the door in a shopping bag. The food we’re bringing to my grandparents’ house is tinned or cellophaned in another bag. Mom checks her hemline in the closet door mirror to make sure her slip isn’t showing. I guess she doesn’t care that her fancy fur-collared coat smells of mothballs.
After mass, we head straight over to the big family gathering that Mom’s dreading. My grandparents live about a mile away. Red and white Christmas lights outline the main roof of their white house. The lights are Grandpa’s homage to the Croatian flag, which has a red-and-white checkerboard pattern in the middle, but most people would just think candy cane. Mom parks the car, pulls the emergency brake, and stares at the house.
“Okay, let’s get this over with.” She used to act enthusiastic for my benefit, but now that I’m older and well aware of her feelings, she probably figures there’s no point. I guess I prefer her honesty, though it makes me nervous.
Uncle Pat answers the door and we exchange hugs and greetings with Dad’s side of the family. The men sit on the sofa cracking and eating walnuts and talking politics, while the aunts in their Christmas aprons help Grandma in the kitchen.
“Oh, good, good, you came,” Grandma says as if our arrival were in doubt. She hugs Mom before turning to me. Taking my chin in her damp, onion-smelling hands, she plants a kiss on each cheek and then steps back to take me in, head to toe. “You’ve lost weight,” she says. She turns to Mom. “Are you feeding her?”
Mom frowns, letting the question hang there unanswered. If Dad were with us, he’d give Mom a private roll of the eyes and she’d shrug off “Grandma Graceless,” but he’s not here to be the buffer, and I don’t know how.
We’re relieved of our coats and dishes of food. Mom’s hand gently presses my back as we move toward meal-prep central. She asks if she can do anything to help and is told there are too many cooks in the kitchen as it is. “Just relax. We’ve got it covered,” Aunt Janet tells her. I know Mom would rather be put to work. It would help her nerves to be doing something, anything, but she’s stuck wandering back to the living room with Grandpa and the uncles. I hear Uncle Pat joke, “So they banished you, too, huh?” as I leave to join my cousins.