by Steven Swaks
I didn’t know what was happening. Alaska was supposed to be a distant dream, an unreachable fantasy blamed on a spouse after decades of marriage. It was one among so many other visions not supposed to be fulfilled. It was meant to be one of those talks on the couch by the fireplace at the dusk of a busy life. Lydia was the easy culprit of a collection of what ifs that never happened: the unrealistic and utopian dreams I might have had, to own a Lamborghini, climb Mt Everest, or learn to fly a chopper. At some point, reality knocked on the door and reminded me that the price tag was too high, or I was too lazy to indeed climb the mountain. Either way, I could always point the finger at somebody else. Ah, if only you did not hinder me, I could have done so much! Alaska could potentially become the exception. This one was coming to life, and I did not know what to do with it, the reality of a tremendous change and a job beyond anything I knew. The prospect was terrifying. The vision was not supposed to be. Lydia was cornered and Alaska was a final option, the open door to the why not and let’s go for it. I dragged my feet behind with the hope of a flying future and the promise of a new experience. That evening in the little hotel room was a game changer, a roll of dice in a steady life, but there was no reason to panic, it was only a site visit after all.
Up North and to the Left
December
I was sitting in the living room simmering in post-Christmas blues, facing a home decorating television show with a blank stare. I did not know anything about remodeling my bathroom for less than five hundred bucks, but the protagonists sounded very excited to repaint their walls and replace the window treatments for a dime on the dollar. The young couple hugged and jumped when the final result was revealed. I was on a different time zone, a difference planet maybe. Lydia and I were willing participants in the ongoing play of our lives, we were in the spotlight ready to make the next move, but this was not my act.
Lydia was sitting at the dining room table to make a phone call. What might have seemed to be a mundane task, a two-minute conversation, was a rehearsal before the first site visit and the final decision to move to Alaska. She picked up the receiver and dialed.
“Bethel Medical Center, human resources, this is Cynthia.”
“Hi, this is Dr. Swaks; I would like to talk to Deborah Paul please.”
“I saw her a minute ago. Hold on please.”
Lydia’s heart was pounding, her mouth was dry. It was only a site visit, nothing more. She had a say about this, she was an adult in control, there was no need for any nervousness, but she could not help it. She wiped her sweaty palm on her lap.
“Deborah speaking.”
“Hi Deborah, this is Dr. Swaks, we spoke at the conference in D.C. How’re you?”
“Gooooood. I am sooooo glad to hear from you! How was your trip back to California?”
“Good, good, thank you.”
“So? Have you been thinking about our little hospital?” Deborah said joyfully.
“Yes, I have, and… I would like to schedule a site visit, perhaps a few weeks from now.”
“Of course, why don’t you come for the K… why don’t you come the weekend of… let’s see… January 22nd? You could arrive here on Friday evening… the… 21st?”
“I think that would work. I’ll send you an email to confirm the flight. Do you know if somebody might be able to pick us up at the airport?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there. If you can catch the evening flight, it’s Alaska 45; it should arrive around 8:00 pm.”
“Oh… you know all the flights by heart?” Lydia said surprised.
“Alaska Airlines has only three flights to Bethel every day, 41 in the morning, 43 early afternoon, and 45 in the evening, it’s easy to remember.”
“I see. Do you know which terminal to go to? I can let you know once I find out.”
Deborah chuckled, “Don’t worry, there’s only one terminal and one gate for the jet.”
“Good, thank you so much for your help… we will see you then.”
“We are looking forward to have you here. Bye.” Deborah hung up.
“That’s it, we just need to pack up and go,” Lydia said looking at me. “You know, it’s funny, I’m a little bit anxious, but it’s not really hitting me. We might actually move there.” She smiled nervously.
“Don’t worry, it’s going to hit you soon enough! I’m not against it, but it would be a tremendous change. We live in L.A., we might go to the middle of nowhere, and I won’t even talk about the cold. It’s the arctic up there! It has to be in the twenties or even lower right now, without the wind!”
“Well, we’re gonna go in the middle of January, it can’t be much worse than that for the cold. We can always say no. It’s only a visit. I am still going to look for something else. This is only a backup.”
“Well, I hope so,” I sighed.
A few weeks later, we walked out of the condo. I turned the front door key a quarter of a turn to the right in a last familiar move before throwing ourselves into the arms of fate. I sat in my father-in-law’s older minivan front seat with Lydia behind me. My father-in-law, Harvey, was driving, excited to go on another drive to LAX, the Los Angeles International Airport. If it was not somebody visiting, we had to drop him off for yet another trip to China, cradle of my in-law’s ancestry. Either way, the trip to the airport was a family ritual repeated on a regular basis.
Finally there was some action; something different to spice up his otherwise monotonous retired life spent in front of endless Chinese soap operas.
“You have to visit the hospital and talk to people to see if they like working there… but don’t sign any contracts, think about it first. Watch what you eat… don’t eat anything weird… and wash your hands often… call me when you get there, what time do you arrive again?” Harvey kept talking, excited about the temporary change of pace.
“Should be around 8:00 tonight.” Lydia answered, barely listening.
“There’s an hour difference right?”
“Yes, they are one hour behind,” she said dully.
I was absent in the midst of an endless myriad of advice and directives. I nodded occasionally to show some kind of interaction. The crisp blue sky was mesmerizing. The palm trees zoomed by the edge of the freeway. I was somewhere else, in a place of certainty, a place where I knew what was happening, where there was no change, no radical move to nowhere. The scene was surreal, somebody was about to snap their fingers and wake me up. Ha, Ha! That was a good joke my friend!
This morning was strangely cold with temperatures down to the mid-fifties. The minivan’s heater was broken; I zipped up my thick jacket to stay warm. The drive to the airport quieted down. I kept staring outside, watching the ongoing flow of airliners on approach to LAX. One by one, the planes landed and exited the runway for the next one to come only a few miles behind. Sometimes, two landed at the same time on parallel strips. It was a never ending process in one of the busiest airports in the world. Freeways brought their load of passengers and gushed thousands of cars every hour to feed the human beehives. We were two travelers among the crowd. Harvey parked the car along the white curb of Terminal 3, one of nine the size of cathedrals. Immediately, LAPD opened a watchful eye, the internal clock was on. How long did we have? Two minutes? Three perhaps? After that, the enforcer barked and brought us back to reason. We hugged Harvey for a quick good bye and walked into the terminal.
It did not take long to go through the airport rituals with only carry-on bags and short security lines. We walked through the long airport corridor surrounded by stores, magazines spilling out of racks, candies and snacks, bitter coffee smell, and drowsy passengers. We entered a large circular hallway split with numbered gates and hundreds of weary travelers. It was too early to be up, too early to be there, too odd to venture so far. We sat and waited at our gate in silence, hardly skimming through dated magazines we had found in the kitchen to pass the time. Our first destination, Seattle, was cycling in large blue letters on an information screen, alterna
ting with the local weather and time. It was 7:05 am, much too early; the weather did not matter, we did not plan to stay there anyway. Anchorage would be next on the list for a late morning flight, and Bethel in the evening. After a moment waiting on an airport bench, an Alaska Airlines attendant called our flight before boarding in the same ceremonious silence like cattle on the way to the slaughterhouse. We entered the plane, smiled at the welcoming crew member, and walked down the narrow aisle for this first contact with Alaska. We sat in our assigned seats. I did not know what to think. Was I supposed to be happy? Excited? What about Lydia? She was not talkative, neither was I. There would always be time for chatter later on. For now, silence was appreciated. Quietness did not bother me. It did not bring unnecessary questions or demands, doubts or lost focus; it did not create trouble nor ask for anything. Silence was indeed golden. The 737-800 pushed back. I did not know what to expect.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mary your flight attendant in the front of the cabin, along with Betty in the middle, and Daniel hiding in the back. Please give a moment of your attention for the cabin safety briefing.” Lydia and I looked up. A wild guess threw her in her early fifties; her blond hair still maintained an ancient charm dressed with a beautiful smile and a true pleasure to be there. “… The bag may not appear to inflate but oxygen will be flowing. If you’re travelling with a child or next to someone who is acting like a child, be sure to put your own mask on first, then assist that person and continue to use your own mask until being advised it is no longer necessary. That brings us to the seat belts. If you appear to be uncomfortable it might be because you’re sitting on it, you need to put it on top of your lap. To fasten the belt, place the flat end into the buckle… to open, lift the top portion and pull the belt free. There are no push buttons on this seat belt like the one in your Mercedes in your garage at home… we are holding the safety information card, this is a very important piece of paper, you’ll find your very own personal copy located in the seat pocket in front of you, and we would like you to take a moment to look it over because we stayed up all night coloring those pictures while baking those cookies for your flight this morning… your seat cushion can be used for flotation, would this be necessary, remove the cushion, if you find some loose change or any jewelry, that belongs to the flight attendants, pass that over on your way out…”
Lydia and I looked at each other and laughed along with most of the passengers. The rest of the two and a half hour flight was serene, hardly punctuated by small talk and onboard magazines. Once in a while, I peeked out the window; there was nothing to look at but an endless sea of white clouds well below us.
The captain reduced power and came on the PA system: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. As you can see we’ve started our descent towards Seattle Tacoma International Airport. We should arrive at the gate on time; however the weather did not decide to cooperate this morning with some low clouds, rain showers, and wind gusts up to 25 miles per hour. The outside temperature is 42°F. I hope you are enjoying this flight, and I look forward to seeing you at the gate. Thanks again for flying with us today.”
Lydia cringed. “Well, at least we won’t have to get out of the terminal.”
“Rain in Seattle, that’s a surp-” The plane violently jerked.
“Oh, oh.” A little three year old girl with blond curly hair called from the row behind us.
“I did not see that one coming.” I said.
“Is it going to be ok?” Lydia looked at me with an apprehensive look.
“Ah, that’s nothing! The other day I was trying to get into Juneau. It took the pilot three attempts to land the darn thing; weather was so bad he couldn’t even see the airport,” the passenger sitting next to us claimed with a deep and cavernous voice. He chuckled. “Some uptight lower forty eight woman was stressing out, everybody else was relaxed, we were all locals you know,” he pointed at his thick chest and laughed again. “She was all over the place; she was screaming “what is wrong with you people?” Ah, we’re used to it, this is nothing!
Lydia looked at me, “that makes me feel much better…”
The 737 continued its descent with some occasional jolts. Once in a while, we peeked outside in hopes to find something interesting, a first sight of a city we had never seen, or a countryside we had only imagined; but there was nothing other than a patchwork of gray and white clouds on a rainy winter day.
The Boeing finally emerged from the clouds and unraveled rows of individual homes on tree covered rolling hills, an industrial park, and the airport with an extended procession of hangars and maintenance facilities. An extended taxi following a smooth landing did not reveal much other than a large international airport scene, endless expanses of concrete, plethora of jetways, and small support equipment bustling around airliners.
We deplaned and found our next gate. We sat on a bench and waited. I picked up my Times magazine and opened an article on the decline of goods consumption in Europe, but I could not focus, my thoughts were wondering: Alaska? Leave L.A? Could I teach over there? What about Lydia? How would she do? She was sitting next to me. I glanced at her. She was looking at the ongoing rain in a melancholic gaze.
“What are we doing?” She said in a bland voice.
“We are going to Alaska to check out a site.”
“Are we insane? We barely made it to Seattle and the weather is already that bad. We shouldn’t have rushed like that. This is stupid.”
“It’s not that we really have a choice. It’s that, or the clinic you don’t like at home. Lydia, remember, it’s only a visit, if we don’t like it we can always say no, that’s it.”
“You’re right, let’s check it out and see what happens. Worse comes to worse we can make it a weekend getaway.” She patted me on the lap and smiled.
The next three and a half hour flight to Anchorage was suspended in time. It lasted a day, a week. I read my magazine and peered around me. I was a prisoner in my own body, unable to express my fears and doubts. What were we doing? Reason was there to reassure me, it’s only a visit, but the knot in my stomach was screaming otherwise, you’re going to your doom pal, what were you thinking? You’re an idiot! You? Flying in Alaska? You’ve never even flown in rain! Go home! Get back on the next plane home and tell Lydia to deal with it!
Another descent, another announcement, “Ladies and gentlemen…” It did not matter anymore, so what, we are in Anchorage and thank you for travelling with us, we know the routine. “…Fog… snow showers… 19°F…” the pilot announced on the overhead. This was becoming laughable. Another landing. Lydia and I were glued to the window driven by a morbid curiosity. A thick layer of snow covered everything, the cars, the buildings, the trees. Everything was white. Even if the temperature in the plane did not change, or at least I thought it did not change, I could feel the penetrating cold. The fog was one more actor in the play, one more character in this twisted farce. I had seen it before. We did have morning fog in Los Angeles, but it was most often burnt off by ten or eleven. This one was different, it felt wicked. It was waiting for us in a frozen stare.
We exited the plane and walked to our final gate in silence. We sat on another airport bench with an Alaska Airlines logo embedded in the black leather. I looked around us. Some other passengers bound to Bethel were already gathering in the surrounding seats. They all wore thick clothing. Bethel was not as bad as Anchorage; it could not be. I had seen the web site and the temperatures, but it could not be as bad as this place. How far was it from here? Three, four hundred miles west? West was good, West meant better, warmer; there were stressed out East Coasters and the more relaxed West Coasters, even further west Hawaii was simply off the hippie charts. Europe was the same, there were old Eastern Europe’s prison camps, and the Western European terrace of a French café with customers sipping an espresso during their lunch break. Bethel was better, I was convinced.
The nearby passengers came from all walks of life, but most highlighted their e
xistence in the bush, or my version of it. There was no sense of style; no L.A. look and latest trend. Nobody seemed to care, warm was king, and fashion was left bleeding on the curb. Thick everything ruled the boarding area, including some enormous and funny looking white plastic boots. Some passengers looked like workers with impressive statures; others belonged to a different cast, one of them sitting by himself with fine, maybe even delicate glasses, a physician perhaps? A few Native Americans sat here and there. An older lady was wearing a strange and colorful dress over her pants. What was that all about?
“Lydia?”
“Yeah?”
“Are the natives called Indians in Alaska?” I whispered.
“I have no idea.” She shrugged.
“Well, it all depends where they are!” A middle aged native man said behind us. I looked back stunned by an invisible blow, and flushed in embarrassment. “Most of the natives inland are Indians. On the coast, we’re Eskimos. In Bethel, we’re Yupik Eskimos.”
“I’m sorry, I did not want to judge, I was just wondering,” I said still flushed.