Beyond the bathroom was the garage. An old fire truck sat back there waiting patiently for the next house fire it would attend. It was not good for much. If the tired truck started at all, that was a good thing. It was handy for at least attempting to make sure the houses next to the one on fire were watered down.
A lot of people had woodstoves for burning driftwood scavenged from the beach. Some had small oil-burning stoves. Because it got so cold, the stoves were always in use and often burned really hot. House fires were an unfortunate consequence of living in the bush. Someday the whole town would probably go up in smoke.
The floor in the kitchen, which doubled as a main office, had off-white tile that ended abruptly and turned into plywood worn with visible footpaths. There was that same sense of incompletion as the half-painted houses. Someone had started the job with good intentions, only to run out of floor tiles. Ten years later, the floor still needed another couple boxes of tile, which it would probably never get.
There was an old metal desk used by Stanley Beans, emergency jail guard and real-life, Native version of Barney Fife, except that Chief Snow did not even give him one bullet.
No one had been jailed since the last rash of bootleg whiskey made the rounds a week ago. Sometimes the locals made decent homebrew, and once Snow had even busted an ambitious sort who had made a small still. By and large the homebrew was nasty stuff—a rancid concoction of orange juice, yeast, and sugar. Sometimes folks could not wait until the yeast was done doing its thing and would dip into the stew with bottles or cups. Several such unfortunates ended up in the clinic vomiting because they lacked patience for the necessary aging of a day or so.
At least it was better than drinking Lysol or Listerine, Snow thought. Alcoholics Anonymous wouldn’t stand a chance here.
Snow remembered a sexual assault case from last summer at the cannery. Jig Johnson had grabbed a store clerk, pulled her in the back storeroom, and groped her while he tried to lick her tonsils. Jig was just a little too juiced on mouthwash to understand that no means no. Because there were no police over at the cannery to slow down ole Jig, he just got in his skiff and left after the nubile clerk extricated herself from his slobbery embrace. Jig fled across the river to Togiak, somehow avoiding drowning.
The molested clerk told her boss, who told the super, who called Snow across the river to report the attempted rape. Had the young and pretty clerk from the lower forty-eight had more exposure to the drunken destitution of the bush, she probably would have just beaned Jig with a can of baked beans or something.
Women took a beating in the bush, which was the hard truth. Most who grew up there had been raped at some time in their lives—only once if they were lucky. Often it was a relative or someone close. Some women absorbed the torment; others, like the clerk and even Mattress Mary in town, complained, sued or fought back. The chief investigated a couple cases of a girlfriend or wife blowing off their guy’s head. The women typically avoided jail because they acted in self-defense.
Such violence seemed out of character for the otherwise subdued, respectful local Natives. But when the Natives drank they became different. Rape, murder, assault, and suicide were good prospects when enough alcohol was in town. The alcohol seemed to be the catalyst for violence and was almost always involved. It was a curse and had ruined or damaged many lives.
When Chief Snow had received the call about the assault, he knew where Jig would be headed, which was across the river and back to his home in town. The chief went to a lookout spot with a good view of the river. He used the field glasses and watched Jig’s perilous escape from the cannery. The tide was out, and Jig pulled his skiff right up into a god-awful patch of slimy stinky mud. Jig had already stumbled to the bow, falling hard once, and tossed the anchor onto the beach. Jig sobered suddenly when he saw Snow approach. His alcohol-soaked brain decided to make a run for it. He started the kicker and began to back away from the beach.
Snow waded into the muck in a futile attempt to stop Jig’s retreat, but the anchor did its job; it dug in as Jig backed away. When the line went taut, it was a pure miracle Jig did not sail over the kicker. He was so drunk that he did not seem to understand why he could not get away. He traced crescent-moon patterns back and forth at full throttle. He was too pickled to figure out he just needed to make some slack off the anchor line. Jig killed the motor as the prop dug in the mud. Snow, smirking and shaking his head, called to Jig.
“Hey, Jig! Come in here before you kill yerself!”
Jig looked at Snow like he’d seen him for the first time. He moved forward and tripped, falling facedown in the skiff. That’s gonna hurt tomorrow, thought Snow, who had waded forward in the slime to the anchor line. He pulled the fourteen-foot red Lund into shore. Jig’s face appeared above the bow.
“Jeez, Jig, let me give you a hand. You are cooked!” said Snow, using the Togiak word for highly intoxicated.
Jig smiled and began to swing over the edge of the boat. What followed was a failed experiment. A man whose feet were sunken in mud tried to prevent a plastered man from tumbling ass over teakettle off the bow. A resounding Splat! resonated on the calm, gray water. Snow interfered with Jig’s swan dive, messing up an otherwise perfect ten, as onlookers on the beach laughed and applauded. Live entertainment! Snow landed on top of Jig and desperately tried to prevent the ruination of his clothing.
Trying to extract himself, Snow lost his right boot, which was sucked off by the tidal mud. He used Jig for balance as he attempted to reinsert his foot into his shoe. In slow motion, they danced the mud dance, with a slow pirouette followed by a graceful full facial into the poop.
Snow spit and muttered a few choice epithets. They were both black from head to toe and slimed with the smell of rotten fish. Snow abandoned Jig and let him flail and blubber while he wiggled his shoe loose from the fierce mud. He was going to put it on but said “Fuck it” and pulled off his other boot. He tied the laces together and hung them around his neck. Jig had moved about a foot forward during this time.
Jail will feel good after this, Jig, the chief thought.
Gathering onlookers giggled behind their hands at the show, trying not to disrespect the man charged with protecting them. Snow pretended not to notice. Any outrage from him would only make the story better and live longer.
Snow helped Jig up and they slithered the final twenty feet, until safely on the wet, hard black sand. What a muddy sight they made walking arm and arm past the seawall to the chief’s truck.
“Where are we going?” Jig slurred.
“To get cleaned up,” Snow said. “Get in the bed, and if ya try jumping out, I’ll shoot you.” Jig’s eyebrows went up at that.
At the station they stripped down and hosed off in icy water from the hose in the garage. Snow gave Jig a towel.
“You been drinking Lysol, Jig? I smell like a damn dentist office.”
Jig admitted sheepishly that he had indeed been drinking alcohol. Before Snow got around to eliciting a confession from Jig for groping the clerk, Jig stood boldly and said, “She wanted me bad, Chief.”
Snow had an enlightening Q and A with Jig about the relative merits of Lysol as compared to, say, Scope or some other over-the-counter medicines or cleaning supplies people would drink for the alcohol in them. Jig even shared the various methods of consumption.
“Well, some folks says you should strain it through bread, or even a sock. I just drink it straight from the bottle or can. No point in fooking around.”
Snow belched a pathetic laugh, but Jig’s crime was not funny—violence and attempted rape. He led Jig into the jail cell and dialed the area magistrate.
Snow got a can of Eagle Claw sweetened condensed milk from the fridge and lightened his coffee to his liking. Smally came into the office holding a filthy pint jar. $
“Coffee?!”
“Sure, Smally. Let me clean your cup first.”
Snow patiently washed Smally’s old fruit jar and rinsed it before pouring it about half
full of coffee. Then he filled the jar near to the top with lukewarm water. He had learned to either give him decaf or water his coffee down; caffeine made Smally a real pest.
“Smoke?!”
Snow pulled out a couple Winston Lights and gave them to Smally, who also asked for “Light?!”
“That is all for now. Don’t come back until later,” Snow said. “Do you want me to stick around and put it out for you, too?” The joke was lost on Smally, who already on his way out the door, anxious to smoke.
Smally was maybe forty; hard to say. He was tall and not a bad-looking man. He wore a crumpled black felt hat and walked with a stiff-legged gait. He had been a normal man once but was clubbed over the head in a drunken brawl and was never the same—or so the story went. Smally was a Vietnam vet and a Native born in Togiak who now lived in a twelve-by-twelve shack behind his parents’ house. He lived for coffee and cigarettes and bummed them where he could. The chief was among his easiest marks.
Smally scared the bejeesus out of Snow on Snow’s first night in town, coming into the Round House in the middle of the night saying “Smoke?” and startling Snow out of bed. After he got his heart back into his chest, he figured out that Smally was, well, not right. He had a soft spot for Smally.
The phone rang and Snow received a complaint that Peter Nanilchik’s dogs were howling again. According to the caller, Peter was not feeding them.
Snow went out into the sun. It was a heat wave today, up in the forties. He brought his coffee with him. He had a nice new plastic cup with a lid on it. He was pretty proud of the cup, which he put into the stained and dusty cup holder in the battered, white Isuzu Trooper. The coffee stains all over the dash were evidence of failed attempts at bringing coffee with him in the past, but that was before the neat new insulated coffee mug.
As he drove toward Pete’s house, Snow pondered the awful condition of the road, full of holes but dusty as well. Surely God is punishing us for some transgressions, he thought. A four-wheeler came flying around the gentle curve and Snow drove straight through a series of bone-jarring potholes he had intended to drive around. The new coffee mug flew out of its holder and exploded off the windshield, showering coffee inside the cab.
Snow was so aggravated that he ignored the whole mess and kept driving. If I don’t acknowledge it, then it did not happen. He pulled in front of Pete’s house on the edge of town. A cloud of dust rolled over the truck as Snow got out.
“You need to get one of those new coffee cups with a lid, Chief. Then you won’t get so much on you,” Pete said with a grin.
Chief Snow politely ignored the advice.
“What’s the deal with the dogs, Pete?”
“Well, I just don’t have the time to work them, to run them like I want to.”
Snow went back to check on the dogs, which were a sorry sight. It would be a blessing for these dogs to get a new home, he thought. There were eleven of them, all dying of starvation and mangy as hell. A few folks in town kept sled dogs. It was kind of a throwback to the times when people used them to get around. But no one actually used them for transportation anymore; they were raised for fun or sled dog races like the Iditarod. People would have the dogs pull a four-wheeler instead of a sled for training. The dogs were tied up to stakes in the ground; some had small houses. Unfortunately, the dogs were sometimes neglected.
“These guys look in bad shape, Pete. What do you say I take them off your hands?”
Pete pondered for a minute, stroking his chin. “Probably for the best, Chief.”
Snow worked quickly and loaded up six of the starving, pathetic animals in his truck. He wished he could do something else with the dogs, but he knew what he had to do—shoot them one by one in the head. There was no one to take the dogs and no animal control officer. Essentially, the job of animal control fell to the chief.
He disposed of the dogs at the city dump and came back for the last five. He told Peter no more dogs unless Peter checked with him first. Then he took care of the rest.
The dogs smelled really bad and had never been cleaned. They lived on salmon scraps, which made them reek. Each dog had lived at the end of a six-foot chain. Snow guessed that they were some remnant of the past for Pete.
Snow returned to the office and hosed down the bed of his truck, ripe with vomit and feces. Afterward he drove out of town into the foothills. He needed some time after that bad duty. He got to the end of the road, which overlooked the town and had a view into a valley.
What Snow saw surprised and awed him. Off in the distance about a mile or so, he saw hundreds of caribou grazing. He wondered why no one had told him the caribou were close. Maybe they snuck in and no one knew it. It was an impressive sight. He wondered if the main herd was out of sight on the other side of the hills.
He stood there and watched the caribou cavort and graze while he smoked to clear his head. He thought about Nurse Lilly again. He had only seen her once since he met her at the hospital.
It was after Frank N Beans had sobered up and was released from jail. Frank had done very well staying sober since rampaging around the town that night. He checked in every day at the police department for a breathalyzer test, which was a condition of his release. Snow did not make Beans suffer the indignity of blowing into the breathalyzer. He could tell from a hundred feet away whether Beans had been drinking. Usually, the two had a cup of coffee and a smoke unless one of them was in a hurry to get somewhere, which was seldom the case.
Judge Sadie rewarded Beans by suspending most of his jail time. Beans had not contested the charges, which was probably smart. The DA was a fire-breather and Snow had a good case against Beans.
Judge Sadie tended to respect those who admitted their wrongs and sentenced people commensurately. She made him spend a couple days in jail to remind him of the serious nature of his wrongs and to give him a look at his future home if he did not behave. Beans opted to do his time before fishing season got underway and turned himself in to Snow, who was obligated to take him to Dillingham.
Actually, Snow did a little finagling. He had been looking to get over to Dillingham. So he pulled a couple strings and lined things up to take Beans to do his time. He did a little basic police work and got Lilly’s number as well as gossip about her. But there wasn’t much to gather. She was half Native and half other stuff, mostly Filipino and white. She lived with her cousins and grandfather, or appa, in Dillingham. She was from up north but had come here from Anchorage where she attended nursing school. She had not been in town that long and mostly worked, keeping to herself. She did not have a boyfriend that anyone knew of.
Snow called Lilly and they agreed to meet at the hospital.
When they met the second time, there was some awkward tension. Snow expected to waltz into town and immediately win her affection. He thought about her constantly, and in his imagined narrative she had been doing the same thing. He felt a connection when they met—he was sure of it.
But Lilly had other ideas. She knew men out here. They were brusque and could be coarse. She had no intention of getting involved with a ruffian, though Snow certainly seemed sensitive and kind, at least on the surface. She was going to do what women have been doing since time began: make the man twist in the wind. She wanted to take her time, and that was exactly the way it was going to be.
Snow asked her to dinner, and they went, but not before she brought him to meet her cousins and grandfather. She wanted to watch him in the company of others. Her heart fluttered for this man she barely knew. She told herself to calm down and not get her hopes up.
Lilly had also done a bit of basic research on Snow. She knew he was single and had been working in Togiak as police chief for a couple years or so. He had a good reputation. There was no apparent woman in his life, and it appeared he hadn’t dated anyone in his time in Togiak.
She wondered about that. It could mean he was discerning and didn’t want to get involved with a local woman because of his job. It could also mean he was a weirdo o
r that he was closet gay. Lilly was nothing if not realistic and practical. Her hopes had been dashed in the past. When it came to men in Alaska, “the odds are good, but the goods are odd.”
The house was a nice-looking A-frame surrounded by scrub spruce trees. There was an thirty-two-foot aluminum gill-net boat at the side of the house. The boat was up on blocks with fifty-five gallon drums on either side to balance it. There was a metal shed next to the boat. Inside, Snow saw a stout man sitting at a bench hanging gear for the upcoming fishing season. The man stared at Snow but did not get up. Snow was impressed at the apparent affluence of Lilly’s cousins. Snow thought they must be good fishermen and probably refrained from alcohol.
Lilly led Snow into the house. She walked him through the spacious kitchen and introduced him to her grandfather, who was sitting by the fire, carving a piece of ivory. He set the ivory and tool on an end table.
“Chief Snow, Appa Niki Wasillie,” Lilly said in her sparse way. She was still wearing scrubs from work. She went to change clothes and left him there alone with Grandpa Niki. As she left, she melted Snow with a smile. Lilly then smiled to herself. She knew she was putting Snow through some paces with her family. But she was determined not to give her heart to someone unworthy. She needed someone strong, a man of character.
When she first told her family about Snow’s visit, two of her cousins took umbrage.
“No gussok cops in my house,” said Cousin Tukok, with menace.
“Eee!” Cousin Pukok agreed.
The two cousins were both powerful and large. They looked fat but were in fact just big. They had the unkempt look large men share. Their long hair needed a wash. Both wore untucked, plaid flannel shirts and leather deck slippers. They could have been twins.
Bush Blues Page 6