by Steven Swaks
Lydia was next on the list, not that I would dare to put her at the tomato sauce level, but if I was to forget, I would unleash her wrath and continuous reminder for the days to come. I drove to the hospital and parked in front of the main entrance. I walked a flight of metal stairs, entered the main hallway, crossed a small waiting area with a few armchairs and sofas before entering the clinic where she worked. I had taken the habit to wait by the entrance door, that way I had a global view on the single corridor with the examination rooms and the nursing station without being a disturbance. Mandy, Lydia’s nurse, walked by.
“Good morning Steven, are you looking for Dr. Swaks?” She whispered.
“Hi Mandy! Yeah, I’m going to take her out for lunch.”
“I’ll let her know you are here,” Mandy said with her typical soft voice.
“Thanks,” I said with a quick nod.
Dr. Robert Foster, another physician in the clinic walked by with a caribou leg wrapped in a white bloodied cloth.
“Hi Steven.”
I stayed stoic. “Hi Doctor Foster! Nice leg!” I said perplexed.
Robert laughed, “A patient gave me that to thank me.”
“Hum, sure, why not?” I responded still largely dubious.
“Are you looking for Lydia?” He inquired.
“It’s ok, Mandy went to get her.”
“All right, see you later then.” Robert walked away with his caribou leg dangling.
Lydia came out of the third examination room on the left side of the corridor. She quickly waved and approached me.
“I have to call a specialist in Anchorage for a consultation, give me a moment.”
“Take your time.”
Lydia disappeared behind the nursing station white counter. It only took a few minutes before she emerged and strode towards me.
“How are you?” She asked.
“Good! Did you see Robert’s caribou leg?” I curiously asked.
She disregarded the event with a quick pshaw gesture. “It’s nothing! The other day Dr. James received moose antlers!” Lydia said laughing.
My eyes bulged for an instant and flew back into their respective sockets. It was neither the first strange occurrence in Bethel nor the weirdest.
We both walked out and escaped to a Subway restaurant, the only fast food chain in town. The little business was a carbon copy of any other restaurant from the franchise, aside from the higher sandwich cost. Lydia and I waited in line and did not spot any particular acquaintance, which deep down was a good thing.
“Anything interesting this morning?” I asked, but it was a useless question, patient privacy obliged.
“Aside from being swamped, no,” Lydia calmly answered. “You know, we are going to have a new doctor from Texas, or New Mexico, I don’t know, somewhere down there. Anyway, I talked to him on the phone this morning, and he told that he has to winterize his car, but he has no clue what that means. Do you know what he’s supposed to do?” Lydia asked me while looking at the menu board.
“He just has to bring his car to Jack’s Cars & Repairs, you know, by the post office. He’s just going to put an electric oil heater and an electric battery blanket, maybe he’s going to change the spark plugs, that kind of stuff. That’s why all the cars here have that power cord sticking out of the grill.” My hands wind milled in midair and highlighted my mechanically atrophied explanations. “It shouldn’t be that expensive, probably around three or four hundred bucks.”
Lydia was hardly listening. “Hum, ok,” she shrugged. “It’s weird, they don’t have any chips?” She asked pointing at the empty rack. She looked at the employee, “Hi, do you have any chips?”
The young worker was struggling out of his teens with a pimple littered face. “We ain’t got any, the stupid cargo plane went too high and blew up all the bags. Plane’s not pressurized, it’s like the pressure thing between the bags and the plane.”
“Oh… thank you.”
“Whatcha gonna have?” The young man asked.
“Do you want to share a foot long?” Lydia asked me.
“Sure, take whatever you want.”
“A Club on wheat, foot long, and toasted please,” Lydia ordered to the teen.
“Cheese?”
“Yes, Swiss, please.”
“Roman called me this morni-” I started to say but was cut off.
“Vegetables?” The young man asked.
“Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, green peppers,” Lydia pointed at each vegetable. “He called? What did he say?”
“He told me that his hands are getting better, for a while the physician thought they might have to amputate a couple of fingers, but he is doing much better now.”
“Sauce?” The kid asked.
“Honey mustard, please,” Lydia said. We continued to follow our sandwich to the cashier.
“Good, I am so glad, Dana must be relieved! By the way, did you hear anything about that young man in the plane, the ground crew? What was his name? Alex, right?”
“Yeah, Alex, he’s still in Anchorage, but they transferred him to rehab. He’s doing better, but he will have to wear a plastic brace for a while.”
“That’s terrible, at least he is young, it’s going to help him to heal.”
There was a pondering silence.
“I picked up the big box you ordered. What’s in there?” I wondered steering away from accident thoughts and related memories.
“It’s just a few bathroom items, toilet paper, shampoo, that sort of thing.”
We reached the cashier. The young employee was not much older than her coworker. She had recently left the teens and entered the twenties and the responsibilities associated with it. She was a dirty blond with very fair skin. She already had a bitter look which only highlighted a certain sadness about her own life, the high school carelessness had vanished and the reality of life was settling in.
“Any drink?” She inquired with an emotionless look.
“Yes, please, medium,” I answered and pulled out my wallet from my rear jean pocket.
“$9.25,” Again, no expression.
Lydia’s pager went off, she dug into her purse and found it among a chaos of unrelated items. “How do I stop that thing?” She muttered. She pushed one of the two buttons and dropped the pager in her bag. “That’s the hospital, there’s probably something going on at the clinic, I have to go back.”
“That’s fine, don’t worry about it,” I paid and drove her back to the clinic.
It had been so fast, in a few minutes I was again alone in the car, the heater blasting and my half sandwich resting lonely on the passenger seat. I just needed to drive to the furniture store and pick up our weekly vegetable box. It sounded awkward but it worked, a farm in Oregon had a web site where customers could place an order of fresh vegetables or even, like most of us did, paid a subscription to receive a weekly box. The local store had agreed to house the boxes for a few hours before the customers came and picked them up. With cheaper and fresher produce, this agreement was a good alternative to the local supermarket.
My brilliant day off concluded with a climactic pick up at the furniture store. The day off had been a welcomed break from the madness of bush flying, a parenthesis on an unsettled routine. Tomorrow, I would go back to Norton for a new series of flights, and I could only wonder what the day would bring. Tomorrow was only a few hours away, soon, I would find out.
Emergency Inbound
January
Each morning was a new beginning, it might seem cliché or redundant, but it was true. I often left the house the same way; I enjoyed my heated garage and mocked the neighbors scraping the ice off their windshields. I glanced at the weather and winced or hoped; it was routine until I walked through Norton’s front door. After that, it was a ride in the dark, a continuous adjustment to an ever changing situation.
It only took a few steps past the front door before my morning dove into chaos.
“We have an emergency inbound!” Jeb hol
lered from the other side of the counter.
“An emergency? What emergency? What are you talking about? All the planes are here.” I frowned.
“Our King Air from Anchorage, I think he was going to Saint Mary’s. He has an engine fire. Tower just called.”
I walked to the counter. There was no one else other than Jeb around. “When is he due?” I asked.
“Should be here any minute now,” Jeb peeked outside the window. A blue and yellow glow went by.
I walked out. Robert was there along with Max, Ron, and a few ground crew. A large airport fire truck was staging nearby, all emergency lights flashing.
“Do you see it?” I asked Robert.
“Not yet.”
“Looks like I am going to have some work today,” Max chuckled.
“That’s if he makes it,” Ron said with a dry voice.
“Jake’s flying it, I think. The guy’s good, he’s going to be fine,” Robert said.
“Jim’s going to throw a fit. We didn’t need that crap,” Max muttered.
A faint engine noise arose from the early morning darkness, our heads simultaneously swiveled towards the sound.
“Here it comes,” Ron said.
The rest of us stayed quiet.
We spotted the plane in the dark with all its lights on. The King Air turned left and lined up with runway 36. We could only see the bright landing lights piercing through the early morning darkness. The tension was palpable, the pilot was trained for single engine landings, but it was still a delicate maneuver compounded with the obscurity. Single engine landing was not a simple lack of power, it was a tremendous drag and an asymmetrical thrust throwing the plane in an aerodynamic nightmare. There were ways to fight it, but it was unnatural; it was a temporary cure for a damaged plane.
The aircraft was approaching the runway for a landing towards us. Everybody was waiting. Nobody talked. The idling fire truck waited next to us. The King Air flared above the runway and vanished on the other side of the hump shaped runway.
We waited.
Time froze.
A few small groups of pilots alerted by the staging fire trucks had formed here and there on the tarmac. There were some students from the flight school next door, a few workers, and pilots from Coastal Aviation further down the ramp.
We waited and held our breath.
The King Air finally emerged from the other side of the runway like a ghostly apparition out of a tomb. The landing lights shined on the icy runway pavement, the plane was slowing down with the left propeller feathered. There was an unspoken sense of relief, somebody had let go of the pressure and we took a long deep breath.
“No, seriously, Jim is going to throw a fit!” Max chuckled again. We all smiled.
The King Air turned left onto the taxiway in front of Norton Aviation, and came to a stop on the ramp. The fire truck went around the plane as the right engine stopped. A firefighter jumped out of the truck, inspected the engine, gave a thumbs up, and ran back to his truck before leaving. Jake exited the plane with short light brown hair bristling in the light wind.
His late twenties dictated a relaxed attitude towards the incident, “Man, that’s a good way to start a morning!”
“What the hell did you do to my plane?” Max asked with a grin on his face.
“Hey! Don’t start blaming me!” Jake threw is hands in the air. “I was cruising and I got an engine fire alarm. I shut it down and popped the fire bottle. What else did you want me to do?”
“Yeah, yeah…”
The ground crew and pilots tugged the plane into the hangar. I walked back to dispatch to talk to Jeb; after all, my day was only starting. Jeb was not there. The phone rang, I picked up.
“Norton-Aviation-this-is-Steven.”
“Hi, this is Jason Anderson from the FAA.” -Yet, another Jason-I thought. “ATC* called us about one of your planes declaring an emergency?” His voice was calm but firm.
“Um, yes sir, one of our King Airs from Anchorage had an engine fire.”
“Where’s the pilot? I want to talk to him.”
“He’s in the hangar with the mechanic, let me go get him for you.”
“Thank you.”
I walked to the hangar. Jake was with Max unlatching the engine cover. “Jake! There’s a fed on the phone who wants to talk to you!”
“That can’t be good!” Max laughed.
“Shut up! No big deal, they probably want to know why I declared an emergency.”
“That’s what you think! Enjoy!” Max kept chuckling.
“So, how bad is it?” I asked Max nodding towards the engine.
“It’s toast!” Max shrugged. “The accessories are still good but the turbine is done.” Max was peering into the engine with his flash light. “Jim’s gonna get pissed.”
“Are they going to ship a new engine?”
“Yup. That’s another two hundred grand. Jim’s really gonna go bananas on that one. Where is he by the way?”
“Don’t know, I haven’t seen him yet this morning.”
“DAMN IT!!!”
“Jim is here…” Max commented with another grin.
Jim walked in, his face was a blood red shot with demented eyes. He took a deep breath. “Tell me. Please, tell me that it’s nothing. Tell me that it’s the damn sensor and the turbine is fine.”
“Nope, turbine’s toast,” Max said relaxed.
I was standing there, holding my breath; it was much too late to escape. Nick, the new pilot, was further away and found an easy way out.
Jim was quiet for an instant. He looked at us, looked at the engine, then looked at us again. “DAMNED!!” He clenched his fists and jerked them in an overdose of frustration. Jake walked in from dispatch. “YOU!” Jim lashed. “YOU come with me upstairs!”
“Hey Jim, I did not do anything.”
“I know, damn it! I just want to know what happened.”
K300
January
Once a year, Bethel truly came to life. Out of the winter lethargy, when the great cold winds roamed the frozen tundra, the city stood up and ruled Alaska. The ancestors gathered and Bethel came back to the beginning of times. It was time for the K300.
I had seen winners of those beautiful and glamorous pre-spring races. They pompously came with a condescending look; they laughed at the 300-mile distance, and lurched into the race. Many did not last as they became target practice for the arctic cold and the fierce winds. They had entered the race like conquerors marching before a battle. They had come, they had seen, and they perished.
Bethel had barely recovered from the traditional Russian holiday Slavic following the Russian New Year. Locals had gathered and roamed from house to house, they had met their neighbors, family, and friends, and they had shared food and exchanged small presents in one more gesture of love and friendship.
The door was barely closed behind the last guest when a strange cargo came by air. It was not the latest Apple gadget, it was not even an extra pallet of sodas or an uncanny fresh load of fruits and vegetables. It was alive. It lurked and growled. It bristled and snarled at the approaching stranger. The boxes were not conventional freight, they were kennels, and Missy was not inside with a cute little pink collar. Missy was a snack. Entire dog teams came for the blunt K300, and they meant business. The ravishing monsters did not come for a walk in the doggy park in hopes to hump the poodle next door, they were there to win.
It took a few days for the K300 machine to come to life. Flight after flight, mushers came accompanied by dozens of dogs. We had our share of proud locals, but the occasional Y-K Delta dog team exception became the rule. The dogs took over the gossip and the spot light, canine fever spread like wild fire and ate up all the conversations. We feasted over the before and after banquets, the radio talked about it, TV crews came and journalists eagerly covered the events.
Willing residents housed teams and vets, mushers and coaches, the barks quickly invading the town. My next door neighbor was among those b
rave volunteers, his backyard turning into a makeshift kennel and housing two dozen canines. The monsters nested behind his house awaiting the race. They slept on straw attached to a metal cable and defended their ground with fierce territoriality.
Bethel came to a halt and held its breath while visitors poured into town to watch the show. Martha, my mother in law, was among the greedy onlookers in quest of arctic sensations.
“I am going to see the dogs!” The innocent but purposeful declaration came from downstairs.
Martha was not the kind of motherin-law most sons-in-law would like to see dangling from a rope. No, she was nice, in a sense that I could spend more than five minutes with her without wanting to immolate myself. Her childhood had given her an unreasonable devotion to animals, and even in her early sixties, her life experience had not taught her that playing with a pack of race dogs might not be the wisest idea.
“Martha!” I rushed downstairs on a rescue mission and found her in the kitchen fumbling through the refrigerator. I frowned, “what are you looking for?”
“Oh, I just want to get something to feed the dogs outside!”
“You can’t do that, they’re race dogs, they’re unpredictable, and I am pretty sure that they’re on a strict diet.”
“Hum… you’re right,” she paused. “I’m just going to pet them.”
Martha sighed and aimed for the kitchen door to the backyard. She picked up her coat, opened the door, and descended two steps into a foot deep of snow. I reluctantly followed her, I hoped she would not do anything irrational. After all, she was not used to the wild, her most recent experience with animals had primarily been with her six or seven cats, all lazier and fatter than the previous one. Their only goal in life was to sprawl in the sun, enjoy a meal, then get some rest to recover from the strenuous feeding effort. The idea of competition was absurd, especially in the cold. Such a concept was a canine perspective, it was all muscles and no brain.
We walked a few feet to the edge of our yard, but were soon stopped by a large five foot deep snow drift. We climbed atop, on the other side, twenty to thirty dogs stopped what they were doing, swung their heads, and stared at us. There was no expression in their eyes, it was not defiance or anger, it was only a cold and intense look. Martha stopped. She had seen dogs before, of course she had, but this was different. They were not particularly mean or large, they were just an assortment of mutts and pseudo-huskies, but their piercing brown eyes expressed what they had to confer, we were not to come any closer. They were not pets, they were not there to cuddle on the couch or go fetch a stick. They were there to fight and win, and the stranger was not welcomed.